Tag: Buddhist Practice

Top of the mind cogno-linguistic layer explained in Buddhist terms

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

1. Humans are highly cogno-linguistic. We perceive reality largely by the language that we use to describe it. Most everyone believes and presumes that you have to be able to think something before you can say it. The more dominant-reality is that, above a certain base-level of perception and communication, you have to have the words, language, grammar, and comprehensive-concordance-syntax by which to say something before you can think it. Whosoever controls language – controls the mind – for better or for worse.

2. The world is ever-increasingly controlled and administered by people who genuinely believe whatever is necessary for the answer they need. Administrative agents of broadly-defined entrenched-financial-power have solved the criminal-law enigma of mens rea or guilty-mind by evolving or devolving (take your pick) into professional-schizophrenics who genuinely believe whatever they need to believe for the answer they need, and who communicate among themselves subconsciously by how they name things, and by how things are named for them. They suffer a cogno-linguistically-induced diminished-capacity that renders them largely-incapable of perceiving reality beyond labels.

3. Their core business-model or modus operandi is called a systematized-delusion:

“A “systematized delusion” is one based on a false premise, pursued by a logical process of reasoning to an insane conclusion ; there being one central delusion, around which other aberrations of the mind converge.” Taylor v. McClintock, 112 S.W. 405, 412, 87 Ark. 243. (West’s Judicial Words and Phrases (1914)).

link

__________

The top of the mind cogno-linguistic layer as described in paragraph one above, with paragraph two providing a good example, has another very important application. That application is spiritual or religious. Virtually all people have very stubborn language at the top of their mental and spiritual cognition. Examples of this are words such as God, Jesus, Buddha, science, politics; or texts such as the Bible, sutras, the Talmud, philosophy, Marxism, etc. From a Buddhist POV, the best thing you can do with this top cogno-linguistic category is leave it entirely open and never cling to any linguistic rendering of what it is. Rather than believe you know what God wants or means, just leave that top category open. Metaphorically, Tibetan Buddhist traditions call this the ‘sky mind’, our natural, unconditioned state of awareness — vast, clear, and open like the sky. No human can seriously claim they ‘hold’ the sky mind or know what God wants, but all humans can experience ‘the reigning principle of nature that inheres in both the universe and in us’, as Marcus Aurelius puts it. Buddhists also call the sky mind the Buddha Mind, the Tathagata, original enlightenment. Some philosophers today call it ‘mind at large’, the ‘thinking universe’ or the ‘conscious universe’. When we claim we know this ‘reigning principle of nature’ or ‘mind at large’ specifically and know verbally precisely what it wants, we prevent ourselves from actually experiencing it or being in respectful harmony with it. We delude ourselves. This is why the Buddha never answered questions about the top cogno-linguistic layer of our minds. Rather than follow words in a text that is purported to be the exact word of God, in Buddhism it is better to simply experience God or the conscious universe or the sky mind. If we remain open, humble and in awe before the sky mind and refrain from cogno-linguistic rigidity, we will free ourselves from a linguistic cage at the top of our minds. When we cling to specific cogno-linguistic stated ‘truths’ we block our minds from actually experiencing mind at large, which is all around us, God who is much bigger than we are, higher beings who do not communicate with words. No one needs a self, an identity, a rigid value or belief system. In fact, just having a self we ‘believe in’ leads to greed, anger, pride, ignorance and doubt. The freshest and most recent example of this is all three Abrahamic religions and many of their sects are at war with each other, led by false prophets and deluded leaders. Nirvana in Buddhism means the ‘going out’ or ‘extinction’ of delusion. Nirvana is enlightenment. When delusion ‘goes out’ or is ‘extinguished’ in our top cognitive categories, we are enlightened to the sky mind, we experience it. All good religions prepare us for enlightenment or experiencing the sky mind. A good Christian is better than a bad Buddhist. No human should claim within themself that they have full knowledge of God nor proclaim to others that they know what God wants of them. Leave the top category of your mind open so God, mind at large, or the sky mind can fill you with guidance. For normal mundane concerns, use you rational mind to determine what to do, supported by the best practical and moral parts of any religion, philosophy, science or art you know. ABN

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

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Signals are fundamental to everything that exists. There can be no physical realm without signals and certainly no life.

What is a signal? Anything that transmits any effect to anything else is a signal. In this sense, all signals “mean” something, including the smallest signal anyone can think of.

The advantage of basing a model of psychology (not just human psychology) on signals is our fundamental unit of analysis is universal, including everything we can know and think about.

Our bodies do an enormous amount of signalling—both internal and external—without our being conscious of most of it. Many living and non-living systems maintain homeostasis through signalling that is non-conscious (or so we now believe). The laws of physics describe signals that explain, for example, how our solar system came to be the way it is and why it remains in homeostasis.

Signals also explain how non-conscious life-forms—viruses, bacteria, plants, your blood, etc.—have arisen and how they maintain their dynamic homeostasis vis–à–vis the ever changing environment that surrounds them and signals to them constantly.

Consciousness itself almost certainly emerges out of a network of signals. Conscious beings read signals in the environment while frequently signaling each other. Cats and birds use conscious signals extensively. Even life-forms that we believe to be non-conscious, such as worms and plants, send and receive signals constantly to each other, while also signalling internally and with their environment.

Draw the line between conscious and non-conscious signalling wherever you like. Then let’s jump to human psychology.

Humans are different from cats and other animals in that we specialize in signals. Birds are specialists of the air, fish of the water, and humans of signals.

Humans signal each other constantly with signs that can employ any of our senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and so on. Our preeminent signalling system is, of course, language. With language humans are capable of remembering complex groupings of signals. We are also capable of thinking about these signals and transmitting our understanding of them to others.

Right now, as you read, you are receiving a complex signal from me.

Consciousness is arguably our most precious quality. Human consciousness is filled with and based upon signals. For our psychological well-being—the well-being of our consciousness—the signals we send and receive to and from other human beings are of fundamental importance.

To say it another way, humans are profoundly interactive signalling systems and the quality of the signals sent between us and other human systems are of primary importance to our sense of well-being, our psychological health, our conscious sense of who we are and how we are doing.

When our consciousness is filled with or marked by clear, truthful, and ethically sound signals, we feel good. In those moments we do not suffer confusion, neurosis, or pain. When consciousness is filled with or marked by confusion, lies, and ethically unsound signals, we feel bad. In those moments, we suffer, often greatly. (Of course, there are exceptions to these statements. Injury and truth, to name two, can cause us pain and confusion. But the basic distinction made here works well enough.)

It makes sense, thus, to focus on human signalling if we want to figure out what makes us tick.

The science of human signalling is often called semiotics, which can be roughly defined as the study of signs and their meanings. Semiotics can and does also include non-human signs and signals, but for now let’s limit ourselves to human signalling. There are other sciences that describe human signalling, but semiotics, which emphasizes signs and their interpretation, will serve us well enough that we can temporarily ignore other ways of understanding human meaning—game theory, traditional psychology, anthropology, etc. Semiotics works well because semiotic analyses can be reduced to single signals; they have a distinct and clearly defined basic unit—the signal or the sign.

Why do we focus so much of our inquiry into human psychology on emotion? Emotion is inchoate, often even unfelt, until it is defined or given meaning as a signal or sign.

Emotions are real, but they are massively subject to cultural interpretation, to definitions that have arisen outside of the individual experiencing them. Culture is little more than a system of signs and symbols shared among a group of people. Human cultures have great variety because the signs and signals and the meanings of those signs and signals develop differently in different places and under different conditions. This fact alone should suffice to show that the meanings of human signs often are arbitrary.

As long as a bunch of people believe that the sun is a chariot driven by a god, that meaning of the sun will work as a cultural standard, or cultural element with varying interpretations. If most people in a community think the sun is the center of the universe, that will also work until a better idea comes along. If enough people believe that human hearts have to be sacrificed to keep the sun moving across the sky, that will also work well-enough to hold that society together. Wherever you look, you will find great cultural variety, much of it based on arbitrary decisions that have long been forgotten by the people adhering to that system of meaning,.

In this context, isn’t it clear that focusing our inquiries into human psychology on emotion is going to provide us with many tautological results?

Similar statements can be made about many other elements of our traditional understanding of human psychology, including such elements as personality, neurosis, mental health, what being normal means, what our goals and desires are, and so on. The emotions and/or “psychological states” that these areas of inquiry deal with are vague and almost entirely changeable over time and place.

What is not vague are signals. When we ask what signals are and what their quality is we can get much better answers based on much better data compared to the answers we get when we ask only how someone feels and where those feelings came from.

How do we do that? More precisely, in the context of what we call human psychology, how do we analyze our signalling?

Is it valuable to compare my assessment of my internal signalling with “data” taken from “surveys” of other people who speak my language and live in a society which is sort of maybe the “same” or similar to my own? Yes, you can get something from that data but you will also make many mistakes because it is very crude, or general, data and will never fully apply to any individual or even come close to actually describing anything of significant value to most people. Such data will contain so many mistakes, it should be handled with great caution, if it is used at all. (You most certainly can fool people with that data. But that happens because many people will believe the data is scientific and provides an accurate metric that describes who they are. And that is an example of how a cultural semiotic can and does impose “meaning” on individuals; not hugely different from believing you have to sacrifice human hearts to make the sun go round.)

You can’t really get at the important signalling people do by using general surveys because your data is is coming from a tautological loop based on surveys that are generally put together on the basis of other surveys involving stuff like common words or feelings.

For psychology, for human mental health, the most important signalling people do is interpersonal signalling with significant other people.

When we try to figure ourselves out by remembering (a dubious exercise in so many cases) what our parents did or said or made us feel, we can get some useful information, but it is not that reliable and suffers from the same sort of misinterpretation as personality studies or studies of human emotion do. You can read whatever you want into it and/or be subject to the vagaries of chance interpretations.

The only significant interpersonal signalling data we can really know with significant certainty are data noticed, remembered, and agreed upon by two (or more in some cases) people engaged in significant interpersonal communication (signalling).

A mere observer (much less a surveyor) of this communication will never be able to know or analyze the data with anything approaching the accuracy or validity of the two people involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data. Even if an observer has a video record of the exchange, they will never be able to know or analyze it with the accuracy of the individuals directly involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data.

The day may come when brain scans can provide us with real-time data of that sort, but for now all we have is FIML practice, or something very much like it.

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

A signal-based model of psychology: part two

A signal-based model of psychology: part three

A signal-based model of psychology: part four

Game theory and trust

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The game linked below explains some basics of game theory and also some basics of why FIML practice works so well.

The game can be found at this link: The Evolution of Trust.

I highly recommend playing this game. It takes about thirty minutes to finish.

For the first part of it, I was only mildly interested though the game is reasonably engaging.

When it got a point where communication mistakes are factored in, I sat up and took notice.

The game is a very simple computer model of some very simple basic choices human beings make all the time. Without giving away too much, even this simple model shows something I bet most of us can already see.

And that is: zero-sum games do not give rise to trust. Win-win games do.

What was most interesting to me is the game also shows that communication mistakes foster trust if there are not too many of them.

Accepting mistakes in communication requires trust. Mistakes happen. When two people accept that in each other and in themselves, trust grows.

This is a very important point and a foundation of FIML practice.

In fact, I would say that mistakes foster trust even more in FIML than other communication games. This happens because in FIML mistakes are isolated in such a way that they can be fully recognized and understood for what they are.

This provides a method for solving immediate problems while also building a foundation for the inevitable occurrence of future ones. Moreover, the kinds of mistakes people make become less stupid.

In many respects, the game of FIML is largely one of recognizing communication mistakes or potential mistakes as soon as they arise, within seconds of their onset.

By doing that FIML shows us how our deep psychology is actually functioning in real-life. Multiple insights into this aspect of psychology are transformational.

Buddhism and ethical signaling

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Buddhism is very much a system of ethics. Buddhist practice is founded on the Five Precepts of refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and the irresponsible use of alcohol.

In most Buddhist traditions, these precepts are taught as if they are fundamental to the workings of the universe. But how can morality be fundamental to the workings of the universe? How does it really even matter to human beings?

If we think of a human being as a signaling system, we may be able to show that ethical thoughts and behavior are of fundamental importance to the system itself.

Human signaling systems signal internally, within themselves, and externally, toward other people. Our most important signaling system is the one we share with that person who is most important to us, our mate or best friend. Let’s confine our discussion to this sort of primary signaling system.

If I lie to my partner or cheat her, I may gain something outside of our shared signaling system, but that signaling system will suffer. And when that shared system suffers, my own internal signaling system will also suffer because it will contain errors. It will no longer be in its optimal state. Similarly, if she lies to me or cheats me, our mutual signaling system will become less than optimal as will both of our individual, or internal, signaling systems.

My own signaling system cannot grow or become optimal without my partner treating me with the best ethical behavior she can muster. And the same is true for her with respect to me. And we both know this.

We would be good to each other anyway, but it is helpful to see that our being good to each other has a very practical foundation—it assures us optimal performance of our mutual and internal signaling systems.

FIML practice is designed to provide partners with a clear and reasonably objective means to communicate honestly with each other. FIML practice will gradually optimize communication between partners by making it much clearer and more honest. In doing this, it will also optimize the operations of their mutual and individual signaling systems.

To my knowledge, there is nothing like FIML in any Buddhist tradition. But if I try to read FIML into the tradition, I may be able to find something similar in the way monks traveled together in pairs for much of the year. I don’t know what instructions the Buddha may have given them or how they spoke to each other, but it may be that they did a practice with each other similar to FIML practice.

In any case, if we view human being as a signaling system, we may be able to claim that clear signaling—that is, ethical signaling—is fundamental to the optimization of that system.

Meaning and identity

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  • Meaning can be defined as two or more signaling systems connecting. Connecting means “sending and receiving, receiving and sending.”
  • To visualize this, think of Newton’s every action produces an opposite and equal reaction; thus sending (action) produces receiving (reaction), which in turn sends a message back. For example, a photon hits a hydrogen atom; the photon “sends” while the atom “receives”; by receiving, it also sends a message back and out; it affects the photon and more.
  • Space is the foundation of the plethora of signaling systems. Time is the foundation of their activity and extent.
  • Meaning is the most basic word in language.
  • When you look at it “psychologically,” it’s not what the sign is but what the meaning is. Thus, meaning is a deep basis of semiotics.
  • In this context, it makes sense to say that time and space are the sine qua non of signaling systems. This “defines” time and space in terms of signaling systems.
  • Identity depends on meaning as defined above.
  • Our identities are (somewhat) complex nexuses of meaning/signaling that “embody” our comprehension of the semiotics of our cultures and experiences. They lie at the center of how we understand ourselves. Identity signaling occurs internally as well as externally.
  • In non-FIML social intercourse it is normal for people to assert/display the props/symbols of their identities, as they understand them.
  • People who do FIML also need identities, but they do not need the social props that help non-FIML people define each other.
  • You really do not want to be defined by props and symbols. It’s a static role that leads away from authentic being.
  • People do not truly belong to a culture. Rather they maintain the illusion that they belong to a culture. This is clear when we think and analyze identity in terms semiotics, which here means “the science of communicable meaning.”
  • Having a weak or confused identity can be a very good thing as this may prompt you to learn how identities are made and maintained.
  • No Buddhist should want an identity defined by props and symbols.
  • Buddhism is about authentic being, the “thusness” of being, the experiential existential being that you really are, the one that occurs before there are definitions, props, and symbols.
  • This being can be hard to see because humans are semiotic entities; that is, we are entities that seek, create, and communicate meaning. This causes us to look within semiotics for the definition of our authentic being, a place where it can never be found. You have to look outside of semiotics.
  • But you can’t look outside semiotics unless you know how to look inside. You have to fully understand how the “language” of your semiotics works to be able to step outside of it.
  • Your semiotics is your unique take on the semiotics of your culture(s) and experiences.
  • You cannot fully explore your semiotics, your identity, your nexus of individual meaning alone because there is no way you can check your work. You cannot see yourself.
  • Each of us is a social, interactive, communicative being. You can only fully explore your unique semiotics/identity with a partner who wants to do the same.
  • Two people working together are able to stop the flow of conversation to analyze the semiotics of how they are hearing and speaking. One person working alone is only guessing.
  • Find a partner and do FIML. You will learn a lot from it.
  • Do not expect FIML to give you new symbols or props or tell you how to be. FIML is only a procedure. It is empty, almost devoid of its own content. It is a process that will help you see and recreate your identity.
  • Do not expect your FIML teacher to be an example for you. Do not expect your teacher to be impressive or to project signs and symbols at you. Do not expect to follow your teacher.
  • Just learn how to do FIML from them.

Buddhist meditation (the four jhana states)

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And what is Right Concentration?

[i] Here, the monk, detached from sense-desires, detached from unwholesome states, enters and remains in the first jhana (level of concentration, Sanskrit: dhyāna), in which there is applied and sustained thinking, together with joy and pleasure born of detachment;
[ii] And through the subsiding of applied and sustained thinking, with the gaining of inner stillness and oneness of mind, he enters and remains in the second jhana, which is without applied and sustained thinking, and in which there are joy and pleasure born of concentration;
[iii] And through the fading of joy, he remains equanimous, mindful and aware, and he experiences in his body the pleasure of which the Noble Ones say: “equanimous, mindful and dwelling in pleasure”, and thus he enters and remains in the third jhana;
[iv] And through the giving up of pleasure and pain, and through the previous disappearance of happiness and sadness, he enters and remains in the fourth jhana, which is without pleasure and pain, and in which there is pure equanimity and mindfulness.

This is called Right Concentration.

scroll down linked page for this entry

This is a description of the first four states of Buddhist meditation or ‘concentration’, as it is sometimes translated. This is the eighth element of the Noble Eightfold Path. What is meant in this description is very clear. It is pure religious practice, the essence of prayer and contemplation. It is that which leads to the ‘presence of God’ in Christian mysticism. It is communion with the Divine, the experience of transcendent Cosmic Consciousness that underlies and oversees our small consciousnesses. The Buddha taught a path of ethical purity, diligent mindfulness and non-attachment to anything that detracts from a clear mind, an unencumbered mind. In this sense, Buddhism is a pristine spiritual elixir with no added vocabularies, stories, beliefs or ornamentation. The ‘going out’ or ‘cessation’ of all hindrances to achieving jhana and samadhi states is nirvana. In this sense, Buddhism is a universal religion that focuses directly on the goal of all ethical religious practice—direct knowledge and communion with ______; use your own word(s) for that. ABN

Next-level metacognitive control

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Experienced FIML practitioners enjoy levels of metacognitive control ordinary humans cannot even dream of.

This control comes after years of diligent FIML practice. It happens because the skills acquired through FIML combined with its metacognitive results allow practitioners to practice FIML on themselves.

FIML practice gradually removes virtually all communication error between partners. This error-removal process is ongoing because all living systems must continually remove waste and error to function optimally.

Successful FIML results in two major achievements:

  • very clear, optimally functioning cognition and metacognition
  • the skill-set needed to attain the above

When these achievements have been realized, FIML practitioners will find they are able to rather easily apply them to their own introspection, their own subjective states while alone.

Ordinary people cannot do this because they have not experienced the metacognitive states brought about by FIML nor have they acquired the skills to quickly remove error from their thoughts.

The FIML skills of quickly removing error from our thoughts cannot be acquired overnight. It must be built upon diligent practice and experience. You cannot imagine it into being.

Once these skills and experiences have become established in the mind as reliable functions, they can be applied to mental states while alone.

Metacognition improves memory retrieval

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In this post I am going to argue that strong metacognitive awareness of one’s own intentionality in real-time translates into better and more accurate memory retrieval.

More specifically, I mean that the strong metacognitive awareness of one’s own intentionality that results from FIML practice is a skill that transfers to memory retrieval.

FIML partners spend a good deal of time asking and answering questions about each others’ intentionality in real-time.

The metacognitive skills that develop out of that practice streamline communication between partners, while also streamlining communication within the brains of each partner.

Each partner benefits psychologically as a standalone individual from the practice of FIML because FIML skills can also be applied to individual, subjective brain functions.

One of the psychological benefits of FIML practice is greatly enhanced awareness of the difference between truth and lies during interpersonal communication with the FIML partner.

This awareness beneficially affects memory retrieval.

It does so by increasing the individual’s capacity to better know when memories are reliable and when they are dubious if not outright false.

Advanced FIML practitioners will have less need for egotistical interpretations of their pasts (or anything else), and thus have minds and memories that are more streamlined and efficient.

This happens because FIML practice gradually shifts brain organization away from the heuristics of a static ego to operations that can be described as “metacognitive.”

Metacognitive operations of this caliber are a great improvement on static beliefs in a self or an egocentric narrative.

Additionally, since psychology is based on memory, fine metacognitive awareness of memory retrieval will also improve psychological functioning in other areas.

For example, emotions based on memory (all of them really) will be less likely to negatively influence intentionality if fine metacognitive awareness of memory retrieval is functioning in the individual.

The same can be said of psychological schemas, framing, values, beliefs, instinct and its interpretations, and so on. All aspects of human psychology can enjoy improvements (more truthful, less stupid) through the metacognitive skills that result from FIML practice.

Conscious of what?

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A primary question about consciousness is “conscious of what?”

What if your consciousness is based on an error?

If you become conscious of the error, you will most likely correct it and thus change your consciousness.

Metacognition is a word that is sometimes used in place of “consciousness.”

Metacognition implies awareness of how our consciousness is functioning.

Buddhist mindfulness can be defined as “active metacognition.” This implies awareness of what is in our consciousness, what the elements of its functioning are in the moment.

Buddhist practice assume that if while being mindful we perceive error in our consciousness, we will correct the error.

Metacognition requires “self-awareness” or “awareness of the functioning of consciousness.” It seems that most people do this better than most animals in most situations.

Metacognition or mindfulness requires training or practice. But training and practice can also be wrong, based on wrong views.

Many forms of selfhood are based on wrong views.

Right mindfulness is used to perceive these mistakes and correct them.

For example, a person can be trained to have an identity. They can practice having this identity and learn the emotions that go along with it.

With wrong training and practice an identity can become explosive, violent, crazy.

This is a major part of what is meant by delusion in Buddhism, having a wrong view about your identity.

Notice, that a person can have a very wrong identity and be fully conscious of it and the world around them without realizing their identity is wrong.

_________________

Related subjects:

Re-representing consciousness: dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think

There Is an ‘Unconscious,’ but It May Well Be Conscious

Transcendental experiences during meditation practice

A deep philosophical flaw of the West is the root cause of our downfall

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The West has failed to analyze and understand metalevels of interpersonal communication. Our philosophies employ metalevel concepts and vocabularies but have never delved into or properly understood metalevels of interpersonal communication.

This failure to properly understand metalevels of interpersonal communication has very large downstream effects. It has retarded our religious understanding and psychologies, our group formation, our understanding of other groups, and our ability to form profound interpersonal relationships.

The basis of this claim is that when interpersonal language is deeply restricted—as ours is by this massive hole in Western philosophy—all other forms of language use are negatively affected. When metalevels of interpersonal communication are limited, so is almost everything else.

I believe our philosophers never went there for the same reason no one elsewhere has either—analysis of interpersonal metacognitive language and thought goes against a primitive human instinct to not question others too closely, especially in real-time and about usage and meaning.

The few areas of Western endeavor that have not been hobbled in this way are science, technology, and to some extent economics and politics. This is because these areas by definition must deal with metalevel concepts and thus are very capable of understanding and manipulating them, but only in their own self-described contexts. They are successful because they are practically engaged with the real-world.

In contrast, Western religions, psychologies, group formations, and intergroup communication are so severely hobbled by limited metacognitive understanding, they are all but forced to use rigid definitions of what their metacognitive levels are. Thus Western psychologies are theoretical, religions are dogmatic, group formations are formal at best or ideologically tribal, indicating the need to enforce metacognitive language and concepts rather than analyze or discuss them.

Wittgenstein came close to understanding the problem but did not provide a solution or seem to see that there is one. I hope readers of this site understand that FIML is both the solution to this problem and the best way to personally experience and come to grips with how very serious it is. ABN

Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact

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The minds of social species are strikingly resonant

Collective neuroscience, as some practitioners call it, is a rapidly growing field of research. An early, consistent finding is that when people converse or share an experience, their brain waves synchronize. Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of “being on the same wavelength” as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.

Researchers are discovering synchrony in humans and other species, and they are mapping its choreography—its rhythm, timing and undulations—to better understand what benefits it may give us. They are finding evidence that interbrain synchrony prepares people for interaction and beginning to understand it as a marker of relationships. Given that synchronized experiences are often enjoyable, researchers suspect this phenomenon is beneficial: it helps us interact and may have facilitated the evolution of sociality. This new kind of brain research might also illuminate why we don’t always “click” with someone or why social isolation is so harmful to physical and mental health.

link

FIML increases and improves brain synchrony.

In the beginning of learning it, FIML may also disrupt or alter brain synchrony.

Altered synchrony is probably the reason FIML is difficult to learn and understand at first.

When FIML practice is accepted as a natural form of speech—and partners have trained themselves in it—a more accurate and powerful synchrony will emerge. ABN

from article linked above

When we interact socially, what we fundamentally do is display and receive semiotics. We share them to greater or lesser extents.

What we do not do nearly enough is investigate this sharing at the level of real-time micro and meso semiotics.

FIML does precisely this and you do not need fMRI to do it.

From a Buddhist point of view, FIML is the dynamic sharing and analysis of subtle and very subtle states of mind.

The synchronies you share with your FIML partner will be deeper and richer than any others because you have worked and trained at fully understanding them. ABN

Trump’s strategic realignment with Russia, viewed from the POV of energy supplies and costs

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SUMMARY: 

(1) Upon reelection President Trump told all U.S. energy providers to “drill baby drill” and maximize energy production. Trump then deregulated the industry for maximum efficiency: Secretaries Burgum (Interior), Wright (Energy) and Zeldin (EPA).

(2) Trump then meets with Putin in Alaska Aug 15, 2025.  Three days later, Aug 18, 2025, Putin restarts Russia’s flagship Arctic project, the LNG export facility via the Northern Route to Asia.

(3) President Trump then signs contracts with Finland for the urgent start of Arctic icebreaking ship manufacturing in the USA and emphasizes the prior conversation about taking over Greenland which infuriates the Dutch and EU.

(4) President Trump then triggers the Venezuela operation, captures Nicholas Maduro and -in addition to other benefits- forms a new strategic oil development relationship with the interim Venezuela government.  Russia stays silent.

(5) President Trump then triggers Operation Epic Fury against Iran; completely changing the geopolitical landscape that surrounds energy partnerships.  Energy flows through the Gulf of Oman are impacted.

(6) President Trump then removes specific sanctions against Russia permitting Russian oil and LNG to be sold (in petrodollars) into the Asian market.  Meanwhile, the European Union is forced to increase LNG purchases from the United States.

Sure, it could all be just coincidence… or not.  One thing is certain, the FIVE-EYES opposition do not think all of this downstream benefit that flows to Russia and the USA is coincidental.  The FIVE-EYES opposition see all of this as a strategic realignment between the USA and Russia, and they are going to do everything in their power to stop it.

link

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The author of the above appears to be in favor of USA/Israel attacking Iran, which I am not, but he otherwise makes a good point. From a pragmatic POV, his insight should be taken in; he’s probably largely right. From what I can see, good relations with Russia are of paramount importance for all northern—Top of the World—nations, including Europe, Japan, Korea, as much of Central Asia as wants in, Canada and the Western-derived nations NZ and OZ. Good can usually be found in all situations and this may be a good side of what is happening in Iran, something I personally find revolting and grossly laden with pseudo-Christian nonsense along with Jewish Supremacist madness. It’s basic Buddhism to recognize the human realm is characterized by craziness and delusion. Politically, we always have to work with what we have and no one ever gets everything they want or need. ABN

Thoughts hidden by subjective phrases

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After years of clearing up my mind, I noticed that my inner voice sometimes uses short phrases to bring negative trains of thought to an end. It was a habit I was aware of but had never given any thought to.

The phrases are not pretty; e.g. “I hate them all,” “fuck them,” “who cares about assholes like that,” etc.

My guess is this kind of inner speech is not uncommon. I was using it to end various lines of thought that had wandered into painful territory.

Having a clearer mind today or at least believing I did, I decided that when phrases or words like that came up again, I would not let them shut off my thoughts as I had been doing. Rather I would let the thoughts continue, explore what was there.

What I found is a bunch of old memories and emotions that were fairly easy to clean up. They were not so much repressed as not having been visited for many years. The nasty phrases were like labels in an old, unused filing cabinet.

About half the material was out of date and easy to toss. Another one-quarter was pertinent but was stuff I had dealt with in other ways and was thus redundant.

Only about a quarter of the material lying behind those nasty phrases deserved more thought.

In some of the most interesting cases, I realized that I was letting someone off too easy by hiding their behavior inside a neutral memory. They actually had been horrible but I had been too young to understand (narcissists, for example). Analyzing that stuff over again in a more mature mind was a bit of a chore, but the results have been good, even refreshing.

The process is ongoing. It does resemble cleaning an attic or an old filing cabinet. The stuff I found behind those nasty phrases was not all the stuff from my past. It was just stuff where I was blaming someone or feeling angry about something or had been harmed by someone. The bad stuff I’ve done is elsewhere in my mind.

I am struck by several things concerning those phrases and what lay behind them. One is a lot of that material dates back to childhood and early adulthood. It was not so much unconscious as not having been visited for a long time. Though most of it does not have strong emotional valence, some of it is very revealing because it brings together memories that had been disconnected, leading me to understand dramas or aspects of experience I had not understood before even though I had lived them. I also notice that it was just a few words that closed off those “files.”

The power of words to command silence in the mind is enormous.

I had been dismissing all that material with just a few words whenever I didn’t feel like going there, which was every time. After not going there for many years, it was refreshing to poke around and rearrange those parts of my mind. I am quite sure I freed up some memory space and removed some snags in my thinking by dealing with that stuff. I also see new patterns within my general sense of my past, patterns with better explanatory power, both truer and more concise.

I see our minds as having a structure sort of similar to language or a forest. Trees of ideas, memories, and feelings grow and change. It’s good to remove some of them sometimes, put the space to better use. Buddhist practice is very helpful in endeavors like this. Rather than get all worked up with Freudian passions and delusions, we can simply observe, dismiss, refile, erase, upgrade, or reimagine as needed based on our capacities and understanding of what’s best.

Our bhavanga or “storehouse consciousness” contains memories, pictures, ideas, words., explanations They flow along with us, in many ways are us. When the mind is clear, a lot of that material can be rearranged for the better. There aren’t many rules for that. Just do your best.

first posted

Jewish Supremist fantasies underlie real-world actions

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

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Personally, I see all of the Abrahamic religious variations as being unwise and potentially dangerous.

All religions and extremist politics, such as communism and woke, occupy the top cognitive levels of the mind; and for that reason lend themselves to fanaticism and consensus bias.

Christian-Zionists and many evangelical sects have been infiltrated by Jewish Supremists, who even dare to change the Bible and its Christian interpretations.

Buddhism has its problems, but three features of Buddhism are very wise and largely protect the tradition: 1) Buddhism does not take any written words to be God’s words, and thus subject to fanatical misinterpretations. 2) The Buddha always said he was just a man and not a god. 3) It is considered very bad conduct for Buddhists to claim to be enlightened when they are not.

As for Buddhism being ‘Godless’, that’s not true. Buddhism holds the position of ‘having no belief’ about the nature of Ultimate Reality because to do so is to retreat from it. Humans are not smart enough to say what it is but can experience it.

Buddhism is a rich and ancient philosophy. It is the foundation of Greek skepticism, but not limited to skepticism’s intellectual paradigm. Pyrrho took what he could understand from Buddhist monks in Bactria about 100 years after the Buddha’s passing.

Buddhism: No scriptures claiming to be the Word of God. No proselytizing, only welcoming those who come on their own. Strong focus on individual responsibility, which prevents the weakness Buddhists perceive in Christians or the craziness we see in religious fanatics of all stripes.

I’m just one person. What I have written is an extemporaneous response to the videos above and how they capture a slice of the terrifying nonsense in the world today.

I know a good deal about Jewish Supremacy, so I write about it often. Gaza and the public assassination of Charlie Kirk, and now the Epstein files and war with Iran, have shown millions how our world really works, how evil has burrowed so deeply into all of our institutions. ABN

Who has the authority to interpret Scripture? A Catholic interpretation — Carrie Prejean Boller

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I used to be a Protestant and think all I needed was my Bible.

But… then I started asking the question no one wanted to answer: Who actually has the authority to interpret Scripture?

That question came from my study of the theological heresy of dispensationalism.

What I found shocked me. I learned, it isn’t ancient Christianity. It didn’t come from the Apostles. It didn’t come from the Church Fathers. It began in the 1800s with John Nelson Darby. A brand new theological system; a heresy which has created confusion among Christian’s.

It divided Israel and the Church into two separate peoples of God. It created two covenants. It pushed fulfillment into the future. It taught that prophecy still depends on a geopolitical nation-state called “Israel” which was founded by atheists in 1948.

I looked deeper and asked…what does that ultimately lead to? I was shocked to discover their belief of a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. The one the Lord predicted would be destroyed in Matthew and it was in 70AD.

“Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. He said to them in reply, ‘You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'”
Matthew 24:1-2

This all happened. Jesus predicted it and it was fulfilled.

In 70 AD the Temple was destroyed. The altar was gone. The Levitical priesthood stopped functioning. The animal sacrifices ended.

That is not a minor detail.

The Mosaic covenant was inseparable from Temple sacrifice. Without the Temple, the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant could not continue.

In its place, rabbinic Judaism emerged. No longer centered on Temple sacrifice, but on Torah study and synagogue life.

The sacrificial order did not continue. It was finished.

Continue reading “Who has the authority to interpret Scripture? A Catholic interpretation — Carrie Prejean Boller” →