Tag: Communication Errors

Game theory and trust

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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.

US to blame for strike on Iran girls’ school that killed 175, Pentagon report finds after Trump accused Tehran

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A preliminary military investigation has determined that the United States was responsible for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed 175 people, most of them children.

Donald Trump had previously blamed the Iranian regime for bombing a school filled with young girls with an American Tomahawk missile on February 28 during the first day of Operation Epic Fury.

The ongoing investigation determined that US forces made the mistake while launching strikes on a nearby Iranian military base, which the school building was once part of.

Officers at US Central Command decided to strike the school using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, one of the premier US intelligence agencies.

The deadly operation on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, which was full of children, is considered one of the most devastating US military errors in decades.

link

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

Retroactive Revision

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Retroactive revision means changing what you said. Anyone can do it but retroactive revision is especially designed for FIML partners. Partners can use it whenever they feel a statement they have made has boxed them into a corner or is making the conversation take a turn they had wanted to avoid.

For example, you say “I like XYZ cars the best.” What you actually meant is I very much like XYZ cars. Your partner starts talking as if you really mean you like them the best. This is a very simple example, but sometimes it can be difficult to keep things on track even with a simple mix-up like this.

If you feel your partner is wasting time talking about the good points of other cars to show you that XYZ may not be the best, just say you want to retroactively revise what you first said. Say: “I want to retroactively revise what I said. I want to change my initial statement to I very much like XYZ cars. I didn’t actually mean I like them the best of all cars; I was exaggerating, I guess.” Your partner will understand that you were using words loosely and that they need not take your original statement literally. They will change their tack and your conversation will become more in keeping with what you really think and feel.

Once learned, that technique will give both partners a lot of freedom. It’s relaxing to know you can easily change what you have said to be more in line with the thinking that has evolved in your mind since you made your initial statement.

As with most FIML techniques, FIML partners should do retroactive revisions the moment they feel that their partner may have misunderstood them. If it turns out your partner did not misunderstand, there is still a major benefit for both partners because the mistaken impression you had about your partner will not cause any further confusion for either of you.

Error correction in interpersonal relations

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While reading David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity, I came across the following sentence:

What is needed is a system that takes for granted that errors will occur, but corrects them once they do—a case of ‘problems are inevitable, but they are soluble’ at the lowest level of information-processing emergence. (p. 141)

This statement comes from the chapter “The Jump to Universality,” in which Deutsch argues that “error correction is essential in processes of potentially unlimited length.”

Error correction is fundamental to FIML practice. In fact, the nuts-and-bolts of FIML practice could be described as being little more than a method for correcting errors “at the lowest level of information-processing” during interpersonal communication. This level is “the lowest” because FIML deals primarily with very short segments of speech/communication. In many posts, we have called these segments “psychological morphemes” or the “smallest speech/communication error” we can reliably identify and agree upon with our partner.

If you try to tackle bigger errors—though this can be done sometimes—you frequently run into the problem of your subject becoming too vague or ill-defined to be rationally discussable.

I haven’t read enough of Deutsch’s book to be sure of what he means by “universality,” but I do think (at this point) that FIML is universal in the sense that it will clear up interpersonal communication errors between any two qualified partners. “Qualified” here means that partners care about each other, want to optimize their relationship, and have enough time to do FIML practice.

We all demand that our computers be error-free, that buildings and bridges be constructed without error, that science work with error-free data as much as possible. But when it comes to communication with the person we care about most, do we even talk about wanting a method of error correction, let alone actually using one?

You can’t correct big errors if you have no method for correcting errors that occur “at the lowest level of information-processing,” to use Deutsch’s phrase. Once you can correct errors at this level, you will find that you and your partner are much better able to tackle bigger questions/errors/complexes. This happens because having the ability to reliably do small error-correcting gives you the capacity to discuss bigger issues without getting lost in a thicket of small mistakes.

Your ability to talk to each other becomes “universal” in the sense that you can tackle any subject together and are not tethered to static ideas and assumptions about what either of you really “means.”

FIML does not tell you how to think or what to believe. In this sense, it is a universal system that allows you and your partner to explore existence in any way you choose.

To use Deutsch’s words again, “error correction is essential in processes of potentially unlimited length.” Your relationship with your partner can and should be a “processes of potentially unlimited” growth, and error correction is essential to that process.

first posted FEBRUARY 10, 2013

Poor precision in communication distorts motives

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And distorted motives warp human interactions, which in turn degrade individual psychology.

There is no way around it—the ways almost all people communicate are much cruder than their brains are capable of.

And that is the cause of most of what we now call (non-biological) “mental health” problems.

Here is an example: I want to say something very complex to my primary care doctor. I can give her the gist in a minute or two but I do not want to have that go on my medical record.

So I ask her if I can start a discussion that she will promise to keep off my record.

She says, “I’ll think about it.”

A week later I get a letter from her nurse saying she is not willing to do what I asked.

No reason why was given. Do rules prevent her from doing that? I have heard of doctors allowing patients to keep some concerns off the record, but who knows what the reality is? Do you?

If I insist, will that go on my record? Did what I asked in the first place go on my record? My doctor is trapped within or is voluntarily following some guideline that is most decidedly not in my best interests.

This same sort of thing can happen interpersonally. If I raise a topic that is psychologically important to me with even a close friend, I have to wonder will they understand? Will they allow me to expand the subject over a few weeks or months or longer? Will my initial statements change our friendship?

The basic problem is how do you discuss complex psychological subjects with others?

One of my friends works in alternative health care. She knows what I want to bring up with my doctor and admits that even in her professional setting where patients have an hour to open up, there is not enough time.

Back to my primary care doctor. I saw her again a year later and she asked if I remembered her. I said, “Of course I remember you.” She said no more and neither of us raised the off-the-record topic. An intern was with her.

I wonder what she thinks of me. Did she interpret my slightly nervous behavior when I first asked as a “sign” of something? Does she think I am volatile or bipolar or just nuts? (I am not.)

I am 100% sure that she cannot possibly know what I wanted to bring up with her. In this case, I have all of the information and I want to give it to her but she cannot or will not allow that unless my initial fumblings toward a complex subject are made public.

Even a  close friend could find themselves in a similar position. And I wonder if I have done that myself to someone. Most people most of the time are not able to scale those walls that divide us.

On either side of the wall is a complex person capable of complex understanding, but one or both persons cannot scale the wall. My doctor is smart enough to have become an MD and yet I cannot tell her about a complex medical condition that is of great importance to me.

I know that I do not want to open the subject and risk a shallow public label (a common hindrance to many potential communications). I honestly do not know what my doctor is thinking. Maybe I will try again the next time I see her.

One year later: I didn’t try again. After much thought, I decided to switch doctors. And I will not bring this subject up with my new doctor. It’s a sad reality that trying at all ruined (in my mind) my relationship with my first doctor and convinced me that the topic is not one I can discuss with any medical professional in a professional setting and maybe in any setting.

__________

UPDATE: I first posted the above a few years ago. The world has changed. What I wanted to discuss with my doctor is the attacks I have suffered at the hands of Jewish Supremists. ABN.

Our brains take time to update unless we are shown the update

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Our perception is continuously biased toward the past to help stabilize the chaotic world we live in.

Watch the video below (1 min, 32 sec) to see this illusion in real-time:

This video illustrates how our brains ignore change or incorporate it into our perceptions somewhat slowly through a “continuity field,” as described below:

Our brains are constantly uploading rich, visual stimuli. But instead of seeing the latest image in real time, we actually see earlier versions because our brain’s refresh time is about 15 seconds, according to new UC Berkeley research.

The findings, appearing in the journal Science Advances, add to a growing body of research about the mechanism behind the “continuity field,” a function of perception in which our brain merges what we see on a constant basis to give us a sense of visual stability.

“If our brains were always updating in real time, the world would be a jittery place with constant fluctuations in shadow, light and movement, and we’d feel like we were hallucinating all the time,” said study senior author David Whitney, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, neuroscience and vision science.

link

The study—Illusion of visual stability through active perceptual serial dependence—focuses on the illusion of visual stability:

Despite a noisy and ever-changing visual world, our perceptual experience seems stable over time. How does our visual system achieve this apparent stability? Here, we introduce a previously unknown visual illusion that shows direct evidence for a mechanism continuously smoothing our percepts over time.

As a result, a continuously seen physically changing object can be misperceived as unchanging.

In the video above, you can notice two things: 1) the slowness and blurriness of our perceptual change as we watch the video, and 2) that we can and do accept that change the moment it is shown to us in comparative stills.

If vision behaves this way, it is fair to assume our psychologies or, more precisely, our psychological memories do something similar on both points.

I was intrigued to see that the authors of the study calculated a time-span of 15 seconds:

We find that online object appearance is captured by past visual experience up to 15 seconds ago. 

This is roughly the ‘speed’ or duration of our working memories.

FIML works most of all with the working memory because when we correct a mistake in our working memory or upgrade the data in our working memory while it is still present, we are able to make large changes in our psychologies almost effortlessly.

FIML leverages the working memory to make large changes in our whole brain memories.

It works well because changing your working memory to fit the obvious reality staring you in the face is easy.

In contrast changing whole brain memories and psychologies through rumination and recollection typically only entrenches them further and deeper.

While it is easy to see how this happens visually as in the video above, it may be difficult to see how to do this with our complex psychologies as they are functioning in real-time.

FIML completely solves this problem and yet it may be hard to see how and why.

It works like this:

The how is done by pausing real-life in real-time so you can compare your own mind’s percept with your partner’s percept of the same thing and make corrections as warranted.

The why is psychologically analogous to correcting the illusions produced by our brains “continuously smoothing our percepts over time.” This “continuously smoothing over time” prevents wholesome, realistic change. It lies at the heart of many psychological problems.

Communication at arm’s length

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Most communication is done at arm’s length.

By this I mean our deepest levels of meaning, emotion, and intention are either implied or more often concealed from the person(s) we are speaking with.

In professional and formal settings (school, clubs, church, etc.) this is pretty much how it has to be since there is not enough time to delve more deeply and no good reason to do so in most cases.

Problems arise, however, when the arm’s length habits of formal settings are imported into intimate private settings such as close friendships, marriages, families.

Arm’s length communication is effective in formal settings, but its use of reduced messaging techniques in private settings invariably enters gray areas followed by conscious lying.

I think people do this in their private communications mainly because they don’t know how to communicate in any other way. Humans are basically somewhat smart apes who have a fairly complex (for us) communication/language system grafted onto the instincts of a wild animal.

When the inevitable ambiguities and lies of arm’s length communications build up within the intimate communications of couples or close friends, the result will be explosive emotions or alienation and apathy.

The simple arm’s length system is a primitive, basic system for communicating obvious things. To be honest, if you enjoy your communications at work or the clubhouse more than at home, you are basically showing how primitive you are.

In formal settings communication is entirely based on predetermined mutual agreement concerning values, beliefs, etc.

Private settings require much more nuance and thus a much more nuanced communication technique.

FIML is designed for private, intimate communication. It allows partners to open their minds to much richer and much healthier interactions.

You cannot achieve optimum psychological health if you engage only in arm’s length communication. You can only do so by using a technique like FIML that allows you and your partner to consciously share the profound world of interpersonal subjectivity.

FIML takes some time and practice but it is no harder than learning how to ski or cook  or play a musical instrument moderately well.

A few notes on FIML

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  • Historically, all languages and communication strategies developed/evolved without FIML. Thus communication all but everywhere and with all but everyone relies entirely on non-FIML strategies. As languages evolved/developed, non-FIML strategies proliferated, in many ways making it more difficult for FIML strategies to arise. People became accustomed to non-FIML communication strategies, learned to enjoy them, and wanted to perpetuate them. This is still the case today. People are so used to non-FIML strategies, they cannot imagine anything else.
  • In many ways, it is because people understand only non-FIML strategies that they communicate to their loved ones by using public semiotics rather than clear interpersonal speech. They buy things, go on trips, go out to dinner, achieve status, and so on as substitutes for real interpersonal communication. Lack of FIML is also an important reason why many people enjoy their professional or public lives more than their private ones. Many people do like to bowl, but many of those same people also join bowling leagues because their private lives are unsatisfying.
  • If you do not do FIML practice with your primary interlocutor, you will be neurotic. Sounds bold to say that, but how could it be otherwise? Without FIML, you will not have clear communication with your primary interlocutor (spouse, SO, best friend, etc.); and without clear communication you will be forced to imagine what they mean and you will make mistakes and the mistakes will compound. In a short time, you will have a mistake-riddled, self-centered understanding of your primary interlocutor rather than a clear understanding of them. And the same will be true for them. This is why so many very loving, very compatible couples have problems within a few years.
  • Do you want to have clear communication with your SO? Do they want to have it with you? If you don’t do FIML, how can you get it? I don’t think you can. Do you think you can rely on feelings? On love? On good will between you? How will you prevent misunderstandings from developing if you have no way of knowing with great clarity what you are saying to each other? What is your strategy? Do you have one?
  • Make an arbitrary list of, say, ten words. Ask your SO to free-associate on each word; just have them say what first pops into their mind when you read each of the words. Have them do the same for you. Is it not clear that your associations are not the same? Maybe a few of them are, but most will be different. Now what happens when you speak sentences to each other? Can you see that you are always going to be making assumptions about what your SO is saying based on your own self-generated associations? How can you be sure you know what is in their mind when a certain tone of voice issues forth? Can you be certain you know why they chose that word or that phrasing? Of course you cannot be sure.
  • You can only know with clarity what your SO is saying if you ask them. But if you are only accustomed to non-FIML strategies, you will find that hard to do. As mentioned, communication all but everywhere and with all but everyone relies entirely on non-FIML strategies.
  • A wonderful result of FIML practice is it removes the need to wonder whether your partner has been bothered by something you did or said. This result occurs because you will gradually become confident that your partner will say something if they feel bothered.
  • Best of all, they will say something right away before whatever it is grows into something large and unmanageable. For example, if you use a way of saying good-bye that makes them feel lonely, they will bring it up right away and you can figure out what the cause was and/or how to do things differently if need be. This is a much better way to deal with something like that than for them to wait months or years before telling you, if they ever do. Imagine how just that one bad (also wrong) feeling might grow in them over time and lead to negative thoughts and actions that could have been avoided.
  • The best way to learn FIML is to break the practice down into small skills. Try the word list described above with your partner. Or start by just pointing to things. After you have had some practice, ask how some phrases make them feel or what they associate with them. Doing that will be fun and it will help you develop the skills needed for FIML practice. Stop, ask, hold your emotions in abeyance, listen, think. It gradually will become second-nature.

How the Science of Memory Reconsolidation Advances the Effectiveness and Unification of Psychotherapy

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Abstract

Memory reconsolidation research by neuroscientists has demonstrated the erasure of emotional learnings.

This article reviews these historic findings and how they translate directly into therapeutic application to provide the clinical field with an empirically confirmed process of transformational change. Psychotherapists’ early use of this new, transtheoretical knowledge indicates a strong potential for significant advances in both the effectiveness of psychotherapy and the unification of its many diverse systems.

The erasure process consists of the creation of certain critical experiences required by the brain, and it neither dictates nor limits the experiential methods that therapists can use to facilitate the needed experiences. This article explains memory reconsolidation, delineates the empirically confirmed process, illustrates it in a case example of long-term depression, indicates the evidence supporting the hypothesis that this process is responsible for transformational change in any therapy sessions, describes the differing mechanisms underlying transformational change versus incremental change, and reports extensive clinical evidence that the basis and cause of most of the problems and symptoms presented by therapy clients are emotional learnings, that is, emotionally laden mental models, or schemas, in semantic memory.

link

FIML practice works most of all because it focuses directly on memory formation and reconsolidation, thus allowing beneficial changes to be made quickly in real-time. Discussions of how this is done can be found here: Memory reconsolidation as key to psychological transformation and here: Disruption of neurotic response in FIML practice.

Below is an excerpt that explains how memory reconsolidation works. FIML does precisely what is described below in real-time, real-world situations as they arise between partners, or when they are together and something else arises. ABN

The Erasure of an Emotional Learning

MR research by neuroscientists has demonstrated that an emotional learning is nullified by the following set of three experiences, which have therefore been termed the empirically confirmed process of erasure (ECPE) (Ecker 2018). Hundreds of MR research studies have used a vast range of different procedures and protocols to produce these experiences (reviewed by Ecker 2015, 2018), which means that what the brain requires for erasure of an emotional learning is not any particular external procedure, but rather the internal occurrence of these three subjective experiences, whatever may be the external procedures that create them. Therefore the ECPE does not dictate or favor the use of any particular therapeutic techniques, and psychotherapists are free to facilitate these critical experiences using any of the therapy field’s vast array of experiential methods.

  1. 1.Reactivated, Symptom-Generating Target Learning Experienced in Awareness This is the deliberate use of salient cues or contexts that reactivate the target emotional learning or schema underlying the client’s presenting symptom or problem. For example, a woman in therapy for depression and absence of motivation was cued into reactivation of her lifelong schema that had newly come into awareness and was verbalized as, “Mom sees and knows everything I ever care about or do, and then takes over and takes away everything I ever care about or do, which feels devastating for me, and my only way to be safe from her pillaging is for me to care about nothing and do nothing.” To assure that the schema is being directly accessed at its roots in the emotional learning and memory system and is not merely a cognitive insight, it is critically important that the emotions accompanying the reactivated schema are fully felt affectively and somatically while the schema also is cognized verbally and conceptually. Note that the schema is at core a mental model, from which are generated particular emotions, which in the example above would include helplessness, hopelessness, fear, desperation, despair, aloneness, and the deep pain of feeling used, pillaged and eclipsed in this way by her own mother. How that schema was found, brought into awareness, and then disconfirmed and unlearned is described in the case vignette in the next section.
  2. 2.Experience of Mismatch/Prediction Error Destabilizes the Target Learning’s Neural Encoding While the target schema is reactivated in awareness as described above, this is an additional, concurrent experience or knowing that contradicts what the client knows and expects according to the schema. This is termed a memory mismatch or prediction error experience by memory researchers. In response to this experience of the world differing from the target learning’s expectations, the client’s brain rapidly transforms the neural encoding of the target learning from its stable, consolidated state in long-term memory into a destabilized, de-consolidated, labile state, which is susceptible to being updated and re-encoded by any relevant new learning that may occur next. This destabilization, which requires and is triggered by the mismatch/prediction error experience, begins the reconsolidation process.Footnote2 The labile, destabilized condition persists for about 5 h, widely termed the reconsolidation window, after which the neural encoding automatically reconsolidates, that is, it returns to a stable state in long-term memory. The case vignette below describes how a contradictory knowing was found for the schema of the depressed woman, creating the needed mismatch experience.
  3. 3.Experience of Counter-Learning Drives Unlearning, Nullification, Re-encoding and Replacement of Target Learning This experience consists of just a few repetitions, during the rest of the therapy session, of the same mismatch experience created in the previous step. Each mismatch is a juxtaposition experience, in the sense that the client experiences both reality according to the target learning and a contradictory perception or knowing, with both in the same single field of awareness. Two or three repetitions of that juxtaposition experience serve as counter-learning that functions as an experiential disconfirmation of the target learning. Because the counter-learning is occurring while the encoding of the target learning is labile, the counter-learning rewrites and replaces the encoding of the target schema in memory. As a result, the target learning no longer exists in memory, so it cannot be reactivated and cause a relapse. The target learning is a model of the world in semantic memory, not an episodic memory of specific events and experiences; the latter is not erased. The unlearning of the target learning’s version of reality is the profound resolution of a core emotional issue in the client’s life, as noted earlier.Footnote3 Successful erasure of the target learning is then verified by observing the markers of transformational change beginning to appear immediately: the symptom(s) driven by the target learning cease to occur; the target learning itself, which previously was felt as a potent and horrible truth of the world, no longer feels true or real and is not reactivated by situations that formerly did so, eliminating a problematic, distressed ego state; and those changes persist effortlessly and permanently. If the same counter-learning occurs without first finding, reactivating and destabilizing the target learning (steps 1 and 2 above), the counter-learning only creates its own encoding separate from that of the target learning. In that case, the two learnings compete for control of behavior and state of mind, producing at best only incremental change that is prone to relapse when the emotionally more intense target learning becomes newly retriggered by current circumstances.
ibid

An advantage of FIML as therapy for unwholesome or unwanted schema is FIML is mostly done in real-time, real-world situations so the schema is right there in front of you clear as a bell in your own mind. You can see it and see very clearly how it is distorting reality.

Therapies that work by recalling unwholesome schema in a professional settings have the advantage of: 1) relying on a professional; 2) avoiding doing this work with your spouse or best friend; and 3) aiming for wholesale erasure of the schema once and for all.

FIML practitioners could use a schema method to do this but generally FIML works by focusing on the unwholesome schema the moment it arises and whenever it arises in the real-world (conditions permitting). This method erases or extirpates the unwholesome schema by observing its maladaptive dysfunction as many times as needed.

FIML is also able to deal with more than one maladaptive schema, and in real-life there are many, without causing confusion because when unwholesome schemas are encountered in real-world, real-time, their structure and origins are generally easily seen for what they are.

Many unwanted schema can be extirpated with just a few FIML exchanges. Some are more stubborn and may require more time and multiple occurrences.

Another advantage FIML has is it prevents new schemas from arising and taking hold. Unwholesome schemas do not all come from the deep past or from childhood. Schemas also arise later in life and often are based on serious misinterpretations. FIML is very effective at stopping schemas of this sort immediately, before they can consolidate and cause harm.

I would add that unwholesome schemas exist in virtually everyone and often we are dealing not with our own schemas but those of others. FIML partners can eliminate problem schemas between themselves, but often can do no more than recognize them in others. However, understanding ourselves through FIML practice does help us understand others much better, and how deal with them more compassionately due to that understanding. ABN

Me on the outside vs me on the inside

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This image was used on a social anxiety site to illustrate what it says. My take on it is virtually everyone in the world is like this if you expand social anxiety to mean inner confusion.

Under current worldwide social norms, inner confusion reigns because there is no way for individuals to communicate with profound authenticity, no way to connect on authentic levels. The closest most people can get is shared ideals, shared vows, shared beliefs, all mere pale shadows of true authenticity.

Those who lack profound authentic interpersonal communication must needs necessarily also lack authentic self-knowledge.

You cannot know thyself all alone.

You must be able to communicate it, communicate with it, interact with it to know it. And you must be able to do this with a knowing other who is doing the same with you. This is so because our psychologies are based on interpersonal communication. There is no other way.

FIML practice can correct virtually all interpersonal communication problems between two people. FIML optimizes interpersonal communication and by so doing optimizes self-knowledge as well.

Psychology as a feature (and bug) of language

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Since almost all uses of language are ambiguous and since this ambiguity can only be resolved sometimes, it follows that whatever is not resolved is interpreted subjectively.

Since such subjective interpretations happen many times per day, it follows that individuals will tend to deal with unresolved ambiguity in idiosyncratic ways that tend toward becoming patterns in time.

This results in what we call “personality.” Extroverts seek to define the moment by asserting meaning while introverts tend to wonder about that or just accept the meaning asserted by the extrovert.

A paranoid person sees danger in unresolved ambiguity while a neurotic person worries and reacts to it.

Having experienced early trauma associated with unresolved ambiguity, borderline personalities are acutely aware that something is wrong and often mad about it.

Besides these rough categorizations, all people are molded by their habitual responses to unresolved ambiguity.

Personality is little more than a name for our groping attempts to find or manufacture assurance and consistency in a world where little is certain.

Instead of talking so much about our feelings or pasts, we would do better if we talked about how we talk and how we deal with the ambiguity inherent in virtually all significant communication.

Language itself is neutral as a thing in itself, but the way we use it is not neutral. We assume way too much and clarify far too little.

FIML from a Buddhist point of view: What is it and what does it do?

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FIML is fundamentally a communication technique with wide-ranging implications for many other aspects of being human.

FIML removes mistakes from communications between partners. FIML reduces or eliminates neurotic feelings. FIML encourages honesty, integrity, responsibility, and many other virtues. It greatly improves communication. It transforms beliefs in a static self, a personality, an ego, or a set autobiography to a more realistic understanding of the dynamic nature of being, speaking, listening, remembering, functioning. FIML skills are useful when dealing with people other than the FIML partner. FIML greatly reduces the need to rely on external standards (public semiotics) for self-definition and/or communication. FIML elevates consciousness in the sense that FIML practice is done consciously and improvements are made in partners’ consciousnesses. FIML works directly with partners’ experiences and thus is a deeply experiential practice that generates experiential understanding.

FIML greatly supports Buddhist practice and though FIML is not specifically a traditional Buddhist teaching, it does not contradict any core Buddhist teaching. For many people, FIML may be a very good tool to use with the Dharma. This is so because FIML allows each partner to identify kleshas (mistaken interpretations) the moment they arise and to correct them with input from their partner. FIML also helps partners experience the reality of no-self, impermanence, emptiness, and dependent origination. When these truths are experienced together with a partner, both partners are able to deeply confirm the validity of their insights as both share in this confirmation. Both partners will notice kleshas being eliminated and both will be able to confirm this to each other, through explicit statements to each other and also through observations of each other.

FIML practice also helps partners understand and experience how the First and Second Noble Truths actually operate in their lives. When one partner discovers a klesha through a FIML query, they will see very clearly how their mistaken interpretation, if not corrected, could be the source of suffering. When they correct their mistake, they will see how eliminating a klesha is liberating and how it produces a bit of “enlightenment” (Third and Fourth Noble Truths).

FIML practice encourages honesty between partners and many other virtues. FIML partners will directly experience the importance of being honest with their partner and treating them with the utmost respect and integrity. This strengthens partners’ understanding of the Buddha’s teachings on morality (sila).

FIML’s emphasis on fully understanding the roles of language and semiotics supports the Buddha’s teachings on Right Speech (for language) and wisdom (for semiotics). In the Prajna Sutras, “dharmas of the mind” (laksana) very closely correspond to the modern English word semiotics as that word is used in FIML practice. By focusing on this word and concept and experiencing with a partner how semiotics affect everything we think and do, partners will gain great insight into the kind of consciousness described in the Diamond Sutra—a consciousness without the “marks” or “characteristics” (laksana, semiotics, signs) of a self, a human being, a sentient being, or a being that takes rebirth.

FIML accomplishes most of what it does by being a technique that is called up quickly, the moment it is needed. FIML queries almost always lead to long and interesting discussions, but the basic technique must be done quickly. The moment either partner feels a klesha arising, they should stop and query their partner about what is/was in their mind. After hearing your partner’s honest answer, compare it to what you had thought. The better data from your partner should eliminate that particular klesha after a small number of its appearances. Remember, your partner’s data is better because you asked them quickly enough for them to be able to recall with great accuracy what really was in their mind during the moments you were asking them about. If you wait too long or get into long stories or theories, or become emotional, you will miss the chance to catch that klesha. When you do catch a klesha, feel good about it. That means there is one less hindrance in your mind.

Non-Buddhists will experience the same results from FIML practice as Buddhists, though their understanding of these results will be framed differently. We have discussed FIML from a non-Buddhist point of view in many other posts. Interested readers are encouraged to browse some of those posts for more on that angle.

FIML and memory distortion

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Here is a study that shows how quickly we distort our memories: Event completion: Event based inferences distort memory in a matter of seconds. The study concludes, in part, that “…results suggest that as people perceive events, they generate rapid conceptual interpretations that can have a powerful effect on how events are remembered.”

This study shows that our memories of events are dynamic and can become distorted very quickly. These findings well support FIML practice, which is based on quick interventions while we are speaking to capture sound, usable data that both partners can agree on.

Blogger Christian Jarrett writes about this study saying that “memory invention was specifically triggered by observing a consequence (e.g. a ball flying off into the distance) that implied an earlier causal action had happened and had been seen (Your memory of events is distorted within seconds).” Well-put.

From a FIML point of view, we generate or maintain neurotic interpretations (mistaken interpretations) by believing we are “observing a consequence…that implied an earlier causal action had happened.”

When we misinterpret an utterance during a conversation, we tend to do so in habitual ways; we tend to respond to that utterance as if it had meant something it did not; we tend to understand the “consequence” that happens in our minds as “implying” or being based on something that our partner actually had intended when they had not had any such intention.

This study illustrates very well why FIML practitioners want to develop their skills so that both partners are able to quickly disengage from their conversation while taking a meta-position that allows them to gather and agree upon good data that they can discuss objectively and rationally.

When your partner denies that they meant what you thought they meant, this study will help you believe them.

As the Buddha said: “The mind is everything. What you think you become.”