Category: Buddhism

Concepts don’t exist — as objective, phenomenological, cognitive, or neural structures

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

The case for removing concepts from cognitive science and AI research

It can be difficult to convince someone that concepts don’t exist. Everyday experience appears to provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Concepts are not only intuitively perceived to be active in daily life, they are also a widespread feature of theories across AI and cognitive science, where they are assumed to be necessary for symbolic and logical thought¹. Most who read the title of this post would be tempted to brush off the argument as patently, demonstrably absurd. It’s akin to trying to convince a European 500 years ago that God doesn’t exist, when everything around them appears to be evidence of, and indeed presupposes God’s existence. Any contrary argument is likely to be taken as the result of sophistry or word-wrangling, or because some critical piece has been neglected.

Despite their seeming obviousness, it is worth noting that there is still no complete and unambiguous explanation for what concepts are, or how they work on thoughts —and indeed how to program them into AI. The human ability to learn and create concepts is multifaceted and complex. AI theories and implementations generally only touch on one or two of its features, while neglecting large numbers of counter-cases. This has lead some researchers, notably Lawrence Barsalou, to suspect that the way we think of concepts is flawed. Perhaps the whole notion of concepts — as a native mechanism for grouping experiences — is untenable.

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This article is well-worth reading. Below, I have made a few notes based on my reading of it. To my eye, it demonstrates the existence of consciousness as a thing, the existence of a very real subjective world, the high probability that this subjective world is not entirely confined in your head, that consciousness is a primary of existence and not confined to our brains, and also, importantly for this website, why FIML works so well.

(The sections in quotes are from the article.)

Firstly, concepts: they exist within consciousness and are used to reason, analyze, communicate, organize, and so on. They are probably a features of consciousness itself, depending on how you define them. They need not be stable.

Secondly, FIML:

To begin with, there is no scientific experiment or empirical observation that can be used to prove that any given concept “exists”, and by extension that concepts exist at all.

No. FIML practice provides unlimited empirical observations that concepts exist. FIML is a scientific experiment and can easily be repeated as many times as you like.

To objectively prove that any given interpretation matches reality, you would somehow have to compare your subjective mental concepts against an objective view of the real situation. But the latter isn’t possible.

Yes, it is possible. FIML is precisely that—a means ‘to compare your subjective mental concepts against an objective view of the real situation’.

FIML accomplishes this by allowing two subjective consciousnesses to objectively compare their mutually ‘subjective mental concepts’ against each other. To claim that ‘an objective view of the real situation’ can only be achieved by some other means is absurd. The very best means to objectively compare subjective states is to have two honest informants compare them based on a shared micro unit of communication in the real-world in real-time. This is what FIML does.

The discreteness of concepts is a built-in requirement of language itself, one that does not necessarily reflect what an individual mind is doing.

Continue reading “Concepts don’t exist — as objective, phenomenological, cognitive, or neural structures” →

Elon Musk says he will pay Wikipedia $1 BILLION to change its name to ‘D***pedia’ – after accusing website of ‘losing its objectivity’ to the ‘biases of higher ranking editors’

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Elon Musk has offered $1billion to the owners of Wikipedia if they change its name to ‘D***ipedia’.

The billionaire – who has accused the website of showing its ‘non-trivial left-wing bias’ in the past – was responding to Wikipedia’s donation appeal for the year.

‘I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to D–kipedia,’ Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.

He then jokingly asked to add that to his Wikipedia page, which he said includes the cow and poop emojis after he criticized the Wikipedia Foundation.

‘Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia,’ he said. ‘You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone!

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Mind-control works because everything is or can be made to be ambiguous. And thus everything can be subverted, altered, even completely made up if there is a concerted effort at the top and money to fuel the lie. This is why even academia is filled with so much garbage, you need a super-duper-degree to separate out the lies. The key problem in our world today is mind-control and the vulgar responses it always elicits. The entire Ukraine War and now the looming war(s) in and around Israel are based on lies and the vulgar reasoning and emotionality that follows from them. This situation is sooo Buddhist delusion writ large. Our world today from almost all angles proves the First Noble Truth of Buddhism so well, it’s time the Abrahamic religions concede the superiority of the Buddhist analysis. The principal flaws of the Abrahamic religions are unreasonably strict adherence to scripture and the absurd belief that clergy is capable of knowing God’s will through their human interpretations of those scriptures. The Abrahamic religions are also far too resistant to change, largely due to the scriptural thing. For the most part Buddhists do not say stuff like this out loud, but as we hurtle toward yet another Abrahamic war, I am making an exception. Another Buddhist criticism of the Abrahamic religions is they weaken our spirits and reason by subordinating solid human thinking to myths from thousands of years ago. ABN

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett: How to Understand Emotions | Huberman Lab Podcast

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UPDATE: I highly recommend this video discussion for all Buddhists and all practitioners of FIML. Barrett describes the fundamental reality of human consciousness as it grapples with emotion, sensation, bodily feedback and general states of physical being. Her insights are 100% consonant with Buddhist philosophy and FIML practice. Both FIML and Buddhism differ from what Barrett is saying only in that in addition to the emptiness, impermanence, and vagueness of human emotional states they also see human thought, belief, interpretation, perception and comprehension in the same way. In FIML practice, these deeply important uncertainties also include language, semiotics, communicative acts, and the psychologies associated with them.

At one point, Barrett says she is not saying there is nothing there or no truth to emotional states. She is just saying they typically are not clearly definable and often mistaken. Exactly right. I would add that Barret sees a very important part of the underlying problem of human psycho-spiritual existence but she only sees that one part and offers no more than a description of it.

FIML practice provides not only a more accurate description of the problem but also a method to greatly enhance our understanding of all human states of being as they occur in real-world, real-time situations. FIML differs from traditional Buddhist practice in that it offers a robust practice for two people to use together.

To emphasize a major point: Barrett has caught a very big fish but is holding it by the tail only. Buddhism is based on the whole fish as is FIML. Both Buddhism and FIML offer deeply important ways to deal with the whole fish. FIML adds a precise practice between two people that speeds up understanding. Buddhism claims there is an ‘ultimate reality’, a Buddha mind above and beyond the ‘relative reality’ of mundane uncertainty and clinging. FIML provides deep psychological understanding and correction of the mundane problem while also allowing glimpses of Buddhist ultimate reality. Barrett, Buddhism, and FIML all are addressing the same thing from different points of view. ABN

UPDATE: This video is a delightful 2+ hours discussion, not to be missed. Buddhists will enjoy how it elucidates Buddhist teachings on the Five Skandhas and how they underlie Buddhist understanding of human psychology.

It is also an excellent description of why you must do FIML. It provides a detailed and nuanced picture of why FIML practice is essential for full optimization of human psychology, language use, semiotics, and mental functioning. FIML has no content and does zero to define you or anyone. FIML shows you how to gather information and discover for yourself.

FIML is a method that allows partners to isolate significant (or not) moments during real-time, real-world communication that can be identified and agreed upon by both partners and thus become objectively analyzable (in the sense that both partners agree on what the moment was or what it entailed). That is how language can greatly help us understand how our speech, sensations, emotions, bodily states are functioning in the real-world in real-time.

The hard part about FIML is you cannot at the inception of a FIML moment sit back, like Barrett and Huberman, and just wander around pleasantly talking about theories and ideas within a well-defined (and restricted) scientific paradigm.* The first moments of a FIML query are by definition unexplained and undescribed to both partners.

Once identified and described the unique, idiosyncratic import of those moments will be discovered. And often what is discovered will be of next-to-no importance or be some sort of mutual or one-sided mistake or trivial misinterpretation. At other times, deep and deeply interesting patterns or critical associations will be discovered. At those times, you will be able to clearly see how your habitual mind is functioning in a real-world, real-time situation.

Since FIML moments are moments, they are small enough and well-described enough for partners to mutually clearly understand and admit what has happened without reservations. This is extremely refreshing, especially when experienced scores and then hundreds of times. There is no other way to get this information and mutually understand it than FIML practice.

* I do not mean to slight or dismiss Barrett or Huberman here. They have provided a superb description of an extremely serious problem and also illustrated how science today has not solved it. Barrett mentions how serious the problem is but does not provide a solution to it. Knowing the problem is there is a good start. It’s like identifying a disease. Solving the problem as FIML does is the next step. FIML treats the disease and largely cures it. I 100% agree with Barrett when she emphasizes how serious this problem is. I see its seriousness as being even greater than she does. This problem is far worse than a few mistaken convictions in law courts or a persistent fog of interpersonal confusion. It is a constant ever-present demon in all of us and it leads to enormous suffering, sadness, violence, murder, tribalism, worse. As for science, FIML is a subjective science, possibly the realest and most important subjective science there is right now.

In Barrett’s vocabulary, basic FIML works with the very fine ‘granularity’ of emotion/ sensation/ interpretation. A next step after identifying these granular moments during FIML is to analyze/ discuss how they are related to other granularities and also less granular more abstract habits or mental states/ conditions; this is where in Barrett’s terms FIML ‘adds dimensionality’ to our worlds. What is remarkable about FIML is the dimensionality we add is based on mutually agreed objective idiosyncratic data.

Around the 1:30 mark and beyond, Barrett describes what Buddhists know as the Five Skandhas — 1) form/ percept/ stimulus, 2) sensation (bodily action), 3) perception (more detail and feedback), 4) activity (more detail, feedback and abstraction), 5) consciousness/ mental state (delusional, or within relative reality). The Five Skandhas, of course, are fractal, dynamic, fast-moving, multi-granular, and describe/ categorize bodily-mental states at all levels of delusional/ hallucinatory/ relative ‘reality’.

‘Get your butterflies flying in formation’. ABN

Scientists propose sweeping new law of nature, expanding on evolution

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…Titled the “law of increasing functional information,” it holds that evolving systems, biological and non-biological, always form from numerous interacting building blocks like atoms or cells, and that processes exist – such as cellular mutation – that generate many different configurations. Evolution occurs, it holds, when these various configurations are subject to selection for useful functions.

“We have well-documented laws that describe such everyday phenomena as forces, motions, gravity, electricity and magnetism and energy,” Hazen said. “But these laws do not, individually or collectively, describe or explain why the universe keeps getting more diverse and complex at scales of atoms, molecules, minerals and more.”

In stars, for instance, just two elements – hydrogen and helium – were the main ingredients in the first stellar generation following the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago that initiated the universe.

That first generation of stars, in the thermonuclear fusion caldrons at their cores, forged about 20 heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that were blasted into space when they exploded at the end of their life cycles. The subsequent generation of stars that formed from the remnants of the prior generation then similarly forged almost 100 more elements.

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Here is the abstract from the paper:

Physical laws—such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics—codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. We propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving universe. An important feature of the classical laws of physics is the conceptual equivalence of specific characteristics shared by an extensive, seemingly diverse body of natural phenomena. Identifying potential equivalencies among disparate phenomena—for example, falling apples and orbiting moons or hot objects and compressed springs—has been instrumental in advancing the scientific understanding of our world through the articulation of laws of nature. A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function. We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a “law of increasing functional information”: The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.

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Well, well, well, I like that highlighted sentence. That is precisely what FIML does. FIML practice affords partners numerous opportunities to examine and analyze how their communications actually function, and from that choose or learn how to improve their communicational and psychological functions, how to optimize them. FIML is an acronym that stands for Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics. Function or functionality is not just a buzz word. It describes an active dynamic process which, for sentient beings, is the stuff of experience. In this sense awareness and experience along with functionality can be understood as primary components of the universe and everything we know. Karma also describes a process of conscious functionality, each bit of which has consequence. It describes a dynamic, dramatic reality of being and becoming and is best not understood merely as a judgement of reality. ABN

General analyses of signaling systems illuminate fundamentals of psychology

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Individual psychology is a locus or node within a larger social system.

More precisely, individual psychologies are particular signaling systems within larger social signaling systems.

It is valuable to see this because general analyses of signaling systems—even those having nothing to do with human psychology—can shed light on human signaling systems, including both individual psychology and many aspects of sociology.

When human psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can readily see that narcissism is bound to occur because narcissism is fundamentally a simplistic signal system.  (See Narcissism redefined (yet again) for more.)

When human sociology is viewed as a signaling system, we can similarly see that parasitism is bound to occur because the exploitation of one system by another is a fairly simple matter.  (See Social parasitism in ants and humans for more.)

In like manner, we can see that social hierarchies importantly have evolved because they are simple and decently efficient signal (communication) systems.

We can also see why hierarchical system often are overthrown and why they often do not arise in systems where they are not needed.  For example, no hierarchy is needed for a language system once the basics have been established.  A parasitic or authoritarian group might impose a hierarchy on a language system, but that’s a different animal.

When individual psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can see that a great deal of what we consider “disordered” or “ill” within that system is fundamentally a problem of the signal system itself and not the “personality” we have mistakenly abstracted out of that system.

Indeed, most of what we think of as personality is nothing more than an individual signal system attempting to conform to its understanding of the larger social system within which it exists.  When science is applied to “personality” erroneously conceived, we arrive at the many psychometric tautologies on personality traits we now have.  Psychometrics have limited value for describing societies, but are frequently misleading, even damaging, when applied to individuals.  In this, they resemble BMI data which originally was used as a marker for the health of whole populations, not individuals, and which can be misleading when applied to individuals.

When we view individuals as signaling systems rather than personalities, we can immediately see that these systems can and should be optimized for better communication.  Indeed, this is the real job of psychology—optimizing individual signaling systems. Not just treating “personality” disorders.

Are we living in a simulation? Physicist claims he has new evidence we’re simply characters in an advanced virtual world

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Melvin Vopson, an associate professor in physics at the University of Portsmouth, claims we may be characters in an advanced virtual world. 

He claims that the physical behaviour of information in our universe resembles the process of a computer deleting or compressing code – a clue that perhaps the machines hope we don’t notice. 

Professor Vopson has already warned of an impending ‘information catastrophe’, when we run out of energy to sustain huge amounts of digital information. 

‘My studies point to a bizarre and interesting possibility that we don’t live in an objective reality and that the entire universe might be just a super advanced virtual reality simulation,’ Professor Vopson said. 

Last year, the academic – from Romania – established a new law of physics, called the ‘second law of information dynamics’ to explain how information behaves. 

His law establishes that the ‘entropy’, or disorder, in a system of information decreases rather than increases.

This new law came as somewhat of a surprise, because it’s the opposite of the second law of thermodynamics established in the 1850s, which explains why we cannot unscramble an egg or why a glass cannot unbreak itself. 

As it turns out, the second law of infodynamics explains the behaviour of information in a way that the old law cannot.  

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Vopson’s paper: The second law of infodynamics and its implications for the simulated universe hypothesis featured

UPDATE: Information that is information about other information appears to be what we think of as consciousness, especially if that information is dynamic or able to focus and choose. Information may also be thought of as the stuff of karma, which itself can be thought of as a form of dynamic information, a coherent procession of information over time. This may even be the definition of time.

Consciousness as we know it is almost always dramatic; it almost always knows something or wants to know something or aims toward something or retreats from it. This is clearly true with regard to other people (or sentient beings) or within ourselves as our information parts interact (sort of what psychology is, or rumination). Regardless of whether human consciousness is high or low in the scheme of things, it tends to deeply crave meaning, purpose, reason, and is often satisfied with tautology over nothing, which proves or at least demonstrates this point :-)

Meaning and purpose are directional and organizational kinds of information. Since they are very common and arguably universal in everything we see, including the ‘lives’ of inanimate matter, it does seem that the whole of everything holds together around this point. In terms of information, it does not make much sense to say life itself is meaningless because what it is is a kind of meaning, a kind of procession of information. ABN

White ‘supremacy’ — Texas 1939

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Harlingen, Texas., Russell Lee photographer

Everyone in the world has a background like this at some time in the past, and for most of us that is the recent past or present. There is no shame in surviving on the basics and often much joy. The attitude that all poverty is horrible and must be deplored or corrected is not a healthy attitude from a Buddhist point of view. Buddhism counsels that we have compassion for those who are sick, hurt or disabled and that we help them if practicable. But poverty alone is not a reason to help an able-bodied person aside from hiring or training if good will come of it. The systemic racism stuff is all bullshit. Most whites were serfs, servants or deplored underlings until very recent times. An exception to not helping the poor is if you did something to make them poor like causing brain damage or fraud. ABN

The Cluster B Society: How psychological dysfunction has been embedded in our institutions

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Good vid. The latest American version of the First Noble Truth. ABN

Buddhist morality and signaling

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The five precepts of Buddhism are no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or irresponsible use of alcohol.

These moral guidelines are for non-monastics.

I think most of us tend to think of the five precepts as being about the material world. After all, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and getting drunk are all rooted in actions of the material body. Even lying issues forth from the mouth of the body.

But what if we look at the precepts differently? What if we view them as fundamentally signals that issue forth from the mind?

If we look at them that way, then lying, which is often glossed as the least important of the five precepts, becomes the most important.

The reason is that lies send bad signals forth from the mind. And surely killing, stealing, misconduct, and getting drunk are the baddest of bad signals. Each one is a form of lying or deliberately disturbing the mind-stream and karma of self and others.

In a post I put up recently, Ethics, morality, I outlined a simple way to understand morality as that which reduces error and increases efficiency of mental signals, both internal and external (those exchanged with others).

In Buddhism, the great barrier to enlightenment is a confused, deluded mind. Anything that generates delusion or confusion, which lying surely does, is counterproductive. While anything that reduces delusion is good.

Buddhism, of course, recognizes the need for occasional lies—such as sanitizing the truth for children—but we really do not need to lie very often. We do not always have to say everything we think or tell anyone anything they want to know; we can easily and truthfully sidestep issues like that by simply saying we would rather not say.

In a very important way, clear signaling—honest signaling—is the foundation of all morality.

Is the greatest emotion taking pleasure in correcting our own mistakes?

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Surely it’s in the top few.

In the Buddhist tradition, shame is sometimes called the greatest emotion because shame makes us open to changing for the better.

But shame can also be felt and avoided or hidden or misdirected. Shame here generally means something bothers our conscience.

Correcting our own mistakes often follows shame but not always. Someone may tell us of a mistake that does not make us feel ashamed.

Taking pleasure, even delight, in correcting our own mistakes is very close in time and psychology to actually making the correction.

Whether it is the greatest or not, the emotion that accompanies self-correction is well-worth cultivating.

Consciousness is a cheap and easy way to make things work

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Is a dragonfly conscious? I bet most of us would say it is.

Is a robotic manmade dragonfly conscious? I bet most of us would say it is not, though obviously it could come into being only through conscious effort.

Is consciousness common among living things? It seems that virtually all animals and probably all or most insects are conscious. I don’t know about bacteria but maybe they are too. It could be argued that any entity that is able to make a decision, a choice between two or more options, is conscious to that extent.

Is a rock conscious? It could be in the sense that it does not behave other than like a rock. Something about it or its conditions holds a rock within the laws of physics as we know them. Rocks are predictable.

If the cosmos is conscious, then it makes perfect sense that many of the beings on earth are conscious and maybe all of them are. Maybe the earth itself is conscious.

Consciousness is a cheap and easy way to make things work. In that sense a conscious universe is a parsimonious description of the universe.

A mind-only or mental or conscious universe is a significant part of the Buddhist tradition and explains how rebirth happens and what enlightenment probably entails. This Buddhist tradition is called Mind Only or Yogachara.

There is nothing in Buddhism that prohibits us from adding to the tradition. Indeed, we are encouraged to make it our own by using our own words and understanding to pursue enlightenment. You do not need to be a Buddhist to conclude that the cosmos is conscious or able to think. And many non-Buddhists have come to that conclusion.

I personally believe or strongly suspect that this human realm is governed by a kind of conscious dramatic something. The drama is bigger than us but we are in it. We make some of the rules for ourselves but not all of the rules. I believe when karma is understood in terms like this it makes for a healthier and more accurate philosophical understanding of the human condition.

Consciousness may very well be a primary, more primary than time and space. It is roughly in this context that some philosophers say that experience is the fundamental data point, or stuff of life. A statement like this is very close to the Buddhist idea of thusness or the deep truth of the moment in the mind, the deep truth of the mind.

The Buddha said all things are empty including the Buddhadharma. This is much like saying consciousness itself is empty and can only be grasped through the thusness of experience, which is always dramatic in one way or another. Empty consciousness conscious of itself can be experienced. Is that the stuff we are floating in?

Hermit may be living in house made of driftwood perched precariously on side of Devil’s Slide cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway — ‘The dude should just be left alone’

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According to Casillas, a few years ago the trust asked the State Lands Commission,  to clarify who owned the site but they never responded. 

Since then, Casillas has said they have left the person alone, telling the outlet: ‘We weren’t bothering a person who wants to be a hermit. 

‘We know someone’s been there but we just don’t know who it is. The dude should just be left alone.’ 

source with video

I do not want publicize this but that has already been done. I do respect and agree with the people involved who believe: ‘The dude should just be left alone.’ ABN

Is morality a fundamental part of nature?

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Viewing nature as a signaling network shows its advantage with this question.

Instead of asking where our moral sense comes from, we ask instead what makes for a good signaling network?

The answer is “good organization.”

By “good,” I mean efficient, well-made, good use of resources, easy to maintain, rational, etc.

You are a signaling network.

A well-organized you will probably tend to be morally pretty good and wanting to get better at it, depending on your conditions.

Of course some people view “morality” as whatever is in their best interests. And that is a type of moral thinking. When it is found out, though, most other people, very reasonably, do not like it.

If we view nature as the evolution of signals and signaling networks rather than as the evolution of matter, we will see that changes in signal organization are fundamental to the evolutionary process.

In this sense, it is the most ordinary thing in the world that you, a complex signaling system that is conscious, would consciously seek good organization and/or want to adapt your organizing principles, both objective and subjective, to conditions that impact you.

Conditions that impact you are signals being perceived by the signaling network you think of as yourself.

Your adaptations, both small and large, will encompass many moral considerations and choices.

Morality can be viewed as a kind of organization. The networks that make up your being must organize their relations with the world around them and other sentient beings. We make many moral decisions when we do this. These decisions are an integral part of how we are organized.

Last night I heard a drunk swearing at his friend from the street. “You fucking bastard…” etc. Not well-organized, but still he was yelling a local version of morality and this was fundamental to his networks and behavior.

Some patients are still conscious an HOUR after their hearts stop, according to major study into near-death experiences

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People being revived after near-death experiences could still have memories and understand what’s happening around them up to an hour after their hearts stopped, a study suggests. 

The first-of-its-kind study, which followed cardiac arrest survivors, found that nearly 40 percent of people undergoing CPR had memories, dreamlike experiences, or some perception of what’s happening around them. 

Researchers have long been working to understand what happens after death. This study provides insight into the little-understood world of near-death experiences.

These processes may open access to ‘new dimensions of reality,’ the researchers wrote, and ‘opens the door to a systematic exploration of what happens when a person dies.’ 

Additionally, the findings could inspire new treatments for restarting the heart and preventing brain injuries. 

Dr Sam Parnia, senior study author and critical care physician at NYU Langone in New York City, said: ‘Although doctors have long thought that the brain suffers permanent damage about 10 minutes after the heart stops supplying it with oxygen, our work found that the brain can show signs of electrical recovery long into ongoing CPR.’

‘This is the first large study to show that these recollections and brain wave changes may be signs of universal, shared elements of so-called near-death experiences.’

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study: AWAreness during REsuscitation – II: A multi-center study of consciousness and awareness in cardiac arrest