Indeterminacy of translation and FIML

I betray my poor education by admitting that I had never heard of W. V. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation” until last week. My ignorance is especially egregious as I have worked as a professional translator for many years.

Maybe I had heard about it but had forgotten. I am being self-reflective because FIML practice is deeply, fundamentally concerned with the “indeterminacy” of translating one person’s thoughts into another person’s head.

Quine’s thesis is not just about translating from one language to another, though there is that. It is much more about the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.

If I had known about Quine, I probably never would have thought of FIML because his ideas and the slews of papers written on “indeterminacy of translation” surely would have made me believe that the subject had been worked through.

As it was, I have plodded along in a delightful state of ignorance and, due to that, maybe added something practical to the subject.

In the first place, I wholeheartedly believe that speech is filled with indeterminacy, which I have generally called ambiguity or uncertainty. In the second place, I have confined my FIML-related investigations mainly to interpersonal speech between partners who care about each other. I see no solution to the more general problem of indeterminacy within groups, subcultures, or linguistic communities. Until brain scans get much better, large groups will be forced to resort to hierarchical “determinacy” to exist or function at all.

For individuals, though, there is much we can do. FIML practice does not remove all “indeterminacy.” Rather, it removes much more than most people are aware is possible, even remotely aware is possible. My guess is FIML communication provides a level of detail and resolution that is an order of magnitude or two better than non-FIML.

That is a huge improvement. It is life-changing on many levels and extremely satisfying.

FIML does not fix everything—and philosophical or “artistic” differences between partners are still possible—but it does fix a great deal. By clearing up interpersonal micro-indeterminacy again and again, FIML practice frees partners from the inevitable macro-problems that micro-ambiguity inevitably causes.

Moreover, this freedom, in turn, frees partners from a great deal of subconscious adhesion to the hierarchical “determinacy” of whichever culture they are part of. Rather than trapping themselves in a state of helpless acceptance of predefined hierarchical “meaning,” FIML partners have the capacity to sort through existential semiotics and make of them what they will with far less “indeterminacy,” or ambiguity, than had been possible without FIML practice.

first posted DECEMBER 7, 2014

California school superintendent is thrown out of meeting after opposing new rule forcing teachers to notify parents if a student asks to identify as a different gender

Parents reacted with cheers of ‘leave our kids alone’ as a California superintendent was thrown out of a school board hearing for aggressively opposing a policy forcing teachers to notify parents if their child is transgender

Tony Thurmond, the California State Superintendent of Schools, was booted from the Chino Valley Unified school board meeting on Thursday after going over his allotted time to vigorously attack the policy. 

Over 300 people filled the main hall at Don Lugo High School in Chino, California to weigh in at the hearing, which was marked with hostility as Thurmond clashed with the school board’s president, Sonja Shaw.  

After Thurmond condemned the new guidelines for putting transgender students ‘at risk’, Shaw fired back that the official was ‘proposing things that pervert children.’ 

The board eventually voted 4-1 to introduce the parental notification policy, a move which was met with cheers from the audience. 

link

No matter what you call it, transgender ideologies and pedagogies do not belong in K-12 classrooms. Children of these ages (and older) are too vulnerable to what are, in Buddhist terms, delusional attachments to a false sense of self which will lead to suffering. Adults can do as they please though they face similar problems with these ideologies as children do. But adults are adults and legally allowed to change their bodies if they want to, whether that’s a good idea or not. Making your body conform to a delusional mental state in most cases will only increase suffering. Neither seducing children into these ideologies nor destroying their bonds with their parents is morally right or the purpose of early education. Yes, there are bad parents but, no, making schools dens of iniquity will never fix that. ABN

How to think about the mind?

It is not linear, though a spoken sentence has conspicuous linear features and can often be profitably analyzed linearly.

It is a network where many parts connect robustly with other parts and where some parts connect only weakly. Unconnected parts can arise but usually they are rapidly incorporated into the network, even if only weakly, even if only to be rejected from it.

The mind in many ways resembles the system of language. Add semiotic codes and the resemblance grows stronger. Add random and not-so-random associations between semiotic and linguistic elements and the resemblance seems even better.

Emotions, except in their most primal form, have to be defined by language, semiotics, or associations to have impact or “meaning.”

Charles Peirce doubted the value of linear logical notation, preferring notation employing two or three dimensions. His existential graphs became the basis of model theory. (Interestingly, his work in this area was ignored until 1964, long after his death.)

While the human mind may be more than just a network, much about it can be explained by thinking of it as an associative network. While many mental associations are not logical, or even rational, in a formal sense, virtually all of them make subjective sense to the mind experiencing them. My associations with snow will be different from yours, but if we cared to we could compare them and come to a better understanding of each other.

A key to grasping how our minds work is to approach the very rich subjective network of mental associations—both logical and not—through the linearity of language, especially short bursts of language spoken in real-world situations.

Grasping our minds in this way probably cannot be done in a laboratory and outcomes will rarely, if ever, repeat themselves even outside of the lab.

Most science is based on repeatability and controls, such as a laboratory setting. Yet, clearly, not all investigations—even very rational, logical ones—can be pursued in those ways.

FIML practice uses the linear “logic” of short bits of real-world conversation to access the large associative network of the mind as it is actually functioning in a real-world situation.

In this sense, FIML practice does something that cannot be done in any other way. No theory can embrace everything you say and no theory can capture the complex interplay of feeling, speech, meaning, biology, and circumstances that actually comprise the most significant moments of our lives.

FIML, thus, is a sort of science of the moment, a shared science that allows two people to analyze their minds as they actually are functioning in the real world.

first posted FEBRUARY 20, 2014

Genes, behavior, intelligence and how they are linked

This subject can no longer be avoided by anyone interested in anything.

Here is the best brief overview of this subject I have ever seen: 10 Replicants in Search of Fame.

The author, James Thomson, has very capably summarized a longer paper: Top 10 Replicated Findings From Behavioral Genetics.

Both papers are worth reading, but Thomson’s is the better place to start for most people. Here is a sample:

Rather than asking whether a monolithic factor like parental control is primarily responsible for non-shared (unique) effects, it might be necessary to consider many seemingly inconsequential experiences that are tipping points in children’s lives. The gloomy prospect is that these could be idiosyncratic stochastic experiences. However, the basic finding that most environmental effects are not shared by children growing up in the same family remains one of the most far-reaching findings from behavioral genetics. It is important to reiterate that the message is not that family experiences are unimportant, but rather that the salient experiences that affect children’s development are specific to each child in the family, not general to all children in the family.

Here is another:

More than 100 twin studies have addressed the key question of co-morbidity in psychopathology (having more than one diagnosed disorder), and this body of research also consistently shows substantial genetic overlap between common disorders in children and in adults. For example, a review of 23 twin studies and 12 family studies confirmed that anxiety and depression are correlated entirely for genetic reasons. In other words, the same genes affect both disorders, meaning that from a genetic perspective they are the same disorder.

first posted MARCH 7, 2017

To add a Buddhist point of view to this, we must bring in karma, rebirth, and our earthly lineages. All three are deep and ultimate factors in determining our conditions and how we deal with them. Years ago a Chinese friend’s father invited me to watch him burn incense at his family altar in their home in Taipei. As I saw it, his was an act of ancestor reverence more than worship, though either term is fine. The act recalls a deep and ultimate side of Chinese culture that reaches above and below Western psychology and genetic research. Thich Nhat Hanh spoke and wrote about our ancestral lineages and their importance in how our karma and conditions resolve and are understood. These factors are deep in that they ground our psychologies and affect how we comprehend life; and they are ultimate in that they also hinge on the highest and most transcendent aspects of all conscious life.

I respect Western psychology and also find much of it cramped and vulgar due to its intense focus on the single life (no rebirth or lineage) and a select number of factors that can be abstracted from that or from dubious data based on aggregates of many single lives similarly conceived. Due to this sciencey focus most Westerners are trapped in a middle or mundane layer of spiritual understanding, self-isolated between the deep and the ultimate. The usual Western way out of this entrapment is through stories, which are raised to heights they do not deserve and which reduce Westerners to childlike listeners confined to stock responses. The Western cartography of the pathological mind is very good though and greatly enriches Eastern thought. A healthy personality is as much a part of spiritual growth as is lineage and karma. ABN

Scientists Claim That Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves To Another Universe At Death

A book titled “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe“ has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible.

Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and scientific director of Advanced Cell Technology Company. Before he has been known for his extensive research which dealt with stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species.

But not so long ago, the scientist became involved with physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. This explosive mixture has given birth to the new theory of biocentrism, which the professor has been preaching ever since.  Biocentrism teaches that life and consciousness are fundamental to the universe.  It is consciousness that creates the material universe, not the other way around.

Lanza points to the structure of the universe itself, and that the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be fine-tuned for life, implying intelligence existed prior to matter.  

He also claims that space and time are not objects or things, but rather tools of our animal understanding.  Lanza says that we carry space and time around with us “like turtles with shells.” meaning that when the shell comes off (space and time), we still exist.

The theory implies that death of consciousness simply does not exist.   It only exists as a thought because people identify themselves with their body. They believe that the body is going to perish, sooner or later, thinking their consciousness will disappear too.  If the body generates consciousness, then consciousness dies when the body dies.

link

These ideas are consonant—even consilient—with Mind Only Buddhism. This may be of interest: How to understand why Buddhist rebirth does not require a self or soul. ABN

UPDATE: By Robert Lanza: The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality. I have not read this book but probably will, and may have something to say about it. ABN

A simple and basic way to use FIML

Consider one of your fears, hang-ups, neuroses, emotional problems. Notice how it is affecting your relationship with your partner and yourself.

If you are honest and observant, it should be obvious that your assessment of the above is ambiguous at best, possibly entirely wrong. Maybe some of it is true, who knows?

Since you and your partner have already agreed to do FIML, keep your hang-up or emotional problem in the back of your mind. During any ordinary interaction with your partner, assuming there is enough time, initiate a FIML query the moment you notice your hang-up is acting up because of something your partner said or did.

Maybe your agreed signal is simply to say, ‘FIML’. Your partner will then divulge the contents of their working memory. In Buddhist thinking, these are the subtle and very subtle states of mind present in that moment. Keep in mind your own subtle and very subtle states of mind as they just arose in approximately that same moment.

Compare your partner’s answer with what was in your mind. This should be very revealing to you.

When your hang-up began acting up, in Buddhist terms a form (or percept) arose in your mind. It produced a sensation which you perceived as the onset of your hang-up. By initiating FIML at about this point, you have interrupted the normal course of your hang-up. Your activity (both mental and physical) veered away from reconsolidating your hang-up to questioning it.*

After you have done this a few times with the same hang-up, it will change. Eventually it will be extinguished because your mind will have been shown there are better ways to think. In psychological terms, you will have stopped reconsolidating your hang-up and gained perfect insight into it. In Buddhist terms, you will have become enlightened to the emptiness of your delusion and that karma will have ended. ABN

*The italicized words in this paragraph are four of the five skandhas.

Hard to believe this links to a real photo

copy-paste: https://twitter.com/Steveadams76/status/1673658748471001092

Either Twitter or WP is not allowing this Tweet to link or embed. It is purportedly a photo of Hunter with his niece. From a Buddhist point of view, this should be contemplated as either: 1) the uncleanness of our cultural & political reality or 2) a possible deep fake, though I doubt it’s fake. Either way, important levels of this delusive human realm and its excesses are revealed by it. ABN

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

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

first posted JUNE 1, 2023

Tibetan leader calls for ‘true autonomy’ within China

Tibetans seek ‘Middle Way Approach’ formulated by spiritual leader Dalai Lama for the end of the Sino-Tibetan conflict

People in Tibet would accept Chinese rule if Beijing grants true autonomy to the region, said the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile.

“If those kinds of autonomies are granted to the Tibetans, they will be happy to live under the framework of the People’s Republic of China’s constitution,” said Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), during an address at National Press Club of Australia in Canberra, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on June 21.

He referred to the status of Scotland and South Tyrol within the context of British and Italian rule.

“It is not a matter of who rules; it is the quality of the rule,” he said while speaking on “resolving Sino-Tibet conflict and securing peace in the region.”

Tsering reiterated the CTA’s commitment to resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict through the “Middle Way Approach” formulated by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The strategy promotes true autonomy for Tibetans under Chinese rule, as written in China’s constitution.

But he highlighted the historically independent status of Tibet and said that unless that status is recognized, China would have no reason to negotiate with the CTA.

Penpa Tsering’s address also touched on the Chinese government’s attempts to control the reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama, surveil Buddhist monasteries and restrict the movement of Tibetans.

link

‘My daughter was murdered by a gender ideology’: LA mom slams CPS after it took away her daughter and let her transition into a man – before she killed herself three years later aged just 19

‘My daughter was murdered by a gender ideology,’ she said at the hearing. ‘CPS took my daughter when she was 16 years old. It was helped by her public school counselor and LGBTQ group and another trans-identified girl. 

‘My daughter was taken from her loving home because the state of California claims I was abusive for not affirming her trans identity. I lost my daughter over a name and pronouns.’ 

She went on to say that her daughter had ‘mental health issues’ and was ‘not a boy trapped in a girl’s body.’ 

‘Why are there so many transgender in foster care? Because this state take them from their families, tell them to run, then steals them. Parents are given one option to treat their distressed child: Affirm drugs and remove their healthy body part or else lose your child,’ she told the Judiciary Senate. 

‘The abuse claim against me was finally dropped, but it was too late. The damage was done. By then, my daughter was in horrible mental and physical pain. My daughter knelt down in front of a train. She was murdered by gender ideology.’ 

link w video

I cannot think of any way a Buddhist can countenance what was done to Yaeli by adults. Encouraging and then enforcing a delusional ‘identity’ is the opposite of everything Buddhism stands for. To do that to a child is as bad as it gets. Buddhism is largely a gentle teaching but it is very firm on the ethics of not encouraging delusion in anyone and especially in children. To my knowledge, there is no other religion that is more squarely against what happened to Yaeli than Buddhism. Enticing, encouraging a child in their delusions and then taking her from her home and mother—this is the opposite of all Buddhist teaching. There is no way Buddhists can condone this or not speak against it. This is deeply wrong. I hope more Buddhists will join me in speaking very strongly against these laws and this kind of behavior. It is the adults who are to blame for this. ABN

Buddhism and poetic consilience

Poetic justice is a small slice of poetic consilience. Buddhist practice is luminous, light and light-filled, consilient. It receives poetic and spiritual resonance in unexpected places and at unexpected moments.

Trains of thought, tributaries of the mind-stream, encounter other trains of thought from somewhere else and a magnificent blending or realization occurs. Sometimes we can barely hold it because it is so much brighter and realer than anything else; it becomes a glimpse, an inkling, a part of our deepest and most important memory.

Buddhism is a subjective science we do on ourselves. It has principles and rules we would do well to follow. Much of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way; much of it should be bent and interpreted in our own way; the Buddha even said that. That is good Buddhism.

But not all of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way. At its core Buddhism is a moral existential philosophy that is practiced as a subjective science. Karma is what we do well or badly in this respect.

Wholesome thoughts and behavior lead away from delusion toward enlightenment or purity of mind. Unwholesome thoughts and behaviors lead away from enlightenment or purity of mind toward delusion, toward clinging to a false self which will lead to suffering.

Wholesome and unwholesome can be defined in those terms. Pursuing wholesome thoughts and behaviors yields spiritual victory. Failing to pursue them or, worse, pursuing their opposite, yields spiritual defeat.

That is what Buddhism is. That is how you do it.

‘Don’t do bad. Do good always. Purify your mind. These are the teachings of all Buddhas.’

See comment below for a nuanced interpretation

If anyone sincerely and fully apologizes, I think we should accept their apologies and let it go. The burden of guilt is bigger on celebrities and even bigger on medical professionals and government officials. A full Buddhist apology includes making amends with no excuses, though an honest explanation is good. How we scale this can be objective to a point. Depending on the person’s reach and what they said or did, their corrective statements and behaviors should be commensurate. I am not going to chase it down but I remember a weak apology from Arnold, saying something like I am sorry for my words. No, Arnie, much more than that is necessary especially when we consider how many were medically harmed by your words. Not only were these people wrong and stupid, they were totalitarian slave boys doing the bidding of their masters for their own profit at the expense of others. ABN

Scientist suggests why advanced UFOs crash to Earth — ‘It’s intentional’

Recently, several whistleblowers have come forward to reveal the existence of crashed UFOs and their recovered materials. Some of them claim to have worked on reverse engineering the alien technology, while others say they have seen the bodies of the extraterrestrial occupants.

These disclosures have sparked a renewed interest in the UFO phenomenon and its implications for humanity.

One of the most prominent researchers in this field is Jacques Vallee, a French-born computer scientist and astronomer who has been studying UFOs for decades. Vallee is not only a respected scientist, but also a visionary thinker who has challenged the conventional assumptions about the nature and origin of UFOs.

Vallee does not believe that UFOs are simply the spacecraft of some race of extraterrestrial visitors. This notion is too simplistic to explain their appearance, the frequency of their manifestations through recorded history, and the structure of the information exchanged with them during contact.

He is one of the few researchers who has proposed a scientific approach to the investigation of UFOs, based on the hypothesis that they are not extraterrestrial spacecraft, but rather manifestations of a higher intelligence that operates in dimensions beyond our physical reality.

Vallee proposes that UFOs are manifestations of a yet unrecognized level of consciousness, independent of man but closely linked to the earth. He suggests that UFOs may be windows into a parallel universe, another dimension where there are other human races living.

He also speculates that UFOs may be projections of higher beings who can materialize and dematerialize at will.

link

The Buddhist tradition can easily accept beings from other dimensions, higher states of consciousness communicating with humans, aliens from other galaxies. ABN

The Diamond Sutra Section Seven: Nothing Has Been Attained and Nothing Has Been Said

Section Seven of the Diamond Sutra has been added. A link to the sutra can be found at the top of this page. Discussions of previous sections of the Diamond Sutra can be found here or by clicking on the Diamond Sutra tag on the right margin of this page.

__________________

In this section the Buddha follows up on his statement in the previous section “…this is why I have often said to you monks that even my teachings should be understood to be like a raft; if even the Dharma must be let go of, then how much more must everything else be let go of?”

He does this by asking Subhuti “…what do you say? Has the Tathagata really attained anuttara-samyak-sambodhi? Has the Tathagata really spoken a Dharma?”

Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi means “complete, unsurpassed enlightenment,” which is the ultimate goal of all Buddhist practice.

Subhuti answers correctly by saying, “As far as I understand what the Buddha has said, there is no definite dharma that can be called anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, and there is no definite Dharma that could be spoken about by the Tathagata.”

When spelled with a small d, dharma means “thing,” or in this case “anything that can be thought of or named.”

Subhuti’s saying “…there is no definite Dharma that could be spoken about by the Tathagata” means that the teachings of the Buddha have no definite form. They are methods for purifying the mind in an infinite variety of circumstances, not strict codes to be followed blindly. Like a raft, the teachings are used when and where they are needed and not where they are not needed.

Subhuti continues: And why is this? The Dharma of which the Tathagata speaks cannot be held onto, it cannot be spoken, it is not a law, and it is not a non-law.”

The true Dharma is the Dharma that is understood, the Dharma that alters consciousness for the better, the Dharma that ultimately brings anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

“And that is why all bodhisattvas understand the unconditioned dharmas differently.”

The “unconditioned dharmas” are the eight unchanging attributes of the Tathagata or the enlightened state. Since these attributes are qualities of the Tathagata, this line might be interpreted to mean “All bodhisattvas understand the Tathagata differently.” The truth is one, but the angles from which we perceive it are many.

Buddhist sutras generally agree that the unconditioned state of enlightenment is: 1) timeless, 2) without delusion, 3) ageless, 4) deathless, 5) pure, 6) universal, 7) motionless, 8) joyful.

first posted MARCH 12, 2016

How to understand why Buddhist rebirth does not require a self or soul

The basic reason no self or soul is reborn is neither exists independently of the mental universe that gave rise to our illusion of selfhood.

The mental universe within which we all exist is dynamic and so are we. In Buddhist terms, this dynamism is action or karma.

Buddhism does not say we do not exists. It only says that our selves are empty, that they do not ultimately exist. When we die our karma, the mental activity of this life, reconstitutes as a new being ensconced within the larger mental universe.

No one explains this better in modern terms than Bernardo Kastrup. In his essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe, he does not write about rebirth but rather about the conditions of our existence within the mental universe.

Nonetheless, his explanation of a “mental universe” shows precisely how rebirth can occur without there being any soul or pudgala or anything else that flies from the body upon death to transmigrate to another one.

I highly recommend reading the essay linked above. I have no idea if Kastrup is a Buddhist thinker. It’s even better if he is not, if his thinking arrived independently at a place consonant with original Buddhist thought.

Most Buddhists know that even Buddhists have trouble understanding how someone can be reborn without having a soul, self, or pudgala. What did the Buddha even mean by that? I know more than one university professor of Buddhist studies who explains Buddhist rebirth by saying, there is no such thing and neither is there such a thing as karma.

Those professors explain away karma and rebirth by claiming those fundamentals of Buddhist thought are nothing more than the Buddha “using the concepts of his day” to teach his moral doctrines and what amounts to his “atheistic Stoic” philosophy.

I mean no disrespect for the professors. It is hard to understand how something can be reborn and yet be empty of any perduring self or soul.

The essay linked above provides an excellent explanation of how that happens. I strongly encourage Buddhists or people who teach Buddhism or are interested in it to read Kastrup’s essay when you are in a good mood and want to learn something new and really interesting.

This essay can give you another angle on Kastrup’s thinking: Matter is nothing more than the extrinsic appearance of inner experience.

And here are some of my comments on Kastrup’s essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe.

first posted APRIL 2, 2020