Category: Buddhism

Background on Trump pardon — Whitney Webb

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Trump just pardoned the Soros pal who “broke the bank of England” with Soros (and current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent) for a financial crime he pled guilty to.

Lewis is part of what the NYT once called a currency trading (and manipulating) “cabal” that also included Jimmy Goldsmith, arguably Epstein’s first major contact in the world of elite finance back in the early 1970s. (Epstein was arguably part of this cabal after the NYT wrote them in the mid-1990s, given the multiple attestations to his abilities in “currency stabilization” and the reverse and currency trading in general)

I first wrote about Lewis years ago (2019) because he has created his own de facto state in El Bolsón, Argentina, where he has bought out the local government and has his staff regularly threaten to kill (and has nearly succeeded) locals if they try and access the public lake his mansion borders. However, according to sources I spoke with when I traveled there to report about it for MintPress, he allows IDF soldiers on vacation in South America to access the lake and his property, they brag about it in local hostals.

He also owns an airstrip that the Argentine govt oddly has no oversight of what comes in or out and locals who suggested planes were using it to make suspect trips to the Falkland Islands ended up having their living room shot up.

In addition, he is a close business associate of Marcelo Mindlin, who long with Eduardo Elzstain, are the men Soros hand-picked to run his Argentine interests until they parted ways a few years ago. Mindlin and Lewis jointly control most of Argentina’s power grid and Elzstain is one of the biggest forces in real estate and banking as well as the host of the Llao Llao Forum, where Argentine business elites meet behind closed doors (like a South American WEF). Elzstain and Mindlin are interestingly BIG Javier Milei backers. Maybe something to think about given that a long-time Soros associate now running the Treasury Department wants to use billions in taxpayer funds to keep him afloat.

It’s not “America First” it’s “Criminal Banker Syndicate First”

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Pathocracy is the rule on earth. Psychopaths climb easily to the top, even flow to the top, where ruthless gangs rule.

It’s possible AI can fix this by providing reliable objective viewpoints or guardrails, but not very likely.

In Buddhism, the Frist Noble Truth is the human realm is characterized by delusion.

This is normally processed with the philosophical distinction that there are relative truths and ultimate truths.

Ultimate truth is enlightenment, nirvana. Relative truth is all the other stuff that causes suffering.

Some Buddhist tradition emphasize ultimate truth and some balance ultimate and relative truths, meaning some are more involved in this world and willing to attempt improving it. I am one of those. ABN

Consciousness and the Spiritual Dimension: Toward a Metaphysical Framework Bridging Science and Phenomenology

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Abstract

Recent advances in neuroscience and phenomenology confirm that human consciousness can access and perceive realities beyond the ordinary physical world. Studies of psychedelics such as ayahuasca and DMT reveal consistent reports of entering “another dimension,” often accompanied by intricate fractal geometry, encounters with beings or entities, and sensations of transcendence. Neuroimaging and mathematical modeling show that these experiences correspond to measurable changes in brain dynamics. This paper argues that consciousness interacts with a structured, non-physical domain — a spiritual dimension — independent of and distinct from the material world, transcending its limits. Far from superstition, this claim rests on converging empirical and phenomenological evidence and calls for an expanded science capable of investigating the non-physical aspects of reality.

Keywords: consciousness, spiritual dimension, metaphysics, phenomenology, psychedelics, neuroscience

Definitions

  • Spiritual energy: a universal, non-physical field that permeates all matter and energy. In living beings, it localizes as consciousness, expressed through the brain as the physical interface/medium that allows this energy to manifest. Spiritual energy is not measurable as physical energy but represents the deeper, animating principle underlying consciousness and life.
  • Spiritual dimension: the non-physical domain from which spiritual energy possibly originates — a reality separate and distinct, but accessible from the material world. Under altered states of consciousness, this dimension becomes perceptible; many traditions describe this as opening the “third eye,” often associated with activation of the pineal gland, believed to connect physical and spiritual realities (Jain et al., 2018; Bellec, 2024).
  • Consciousness: The localized manifestation of spiritual energy, expressed and mediated through the brain — both the physical expression and medium through which spiritual energy interacts with this world.

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From a professional/ orthodox philosophical or scientific POV, this paper will not get much approval, if any. From a creative, exploratory POV, this paper attempts to make some sense of consciousness and spirituality. It relies on ‘subjective science’, which is an excellent area of science, to describe its horizons. I approve of attempts like this. ABN

America’s ‘Ceausescu Moment’

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Revolutions are funny things. They start out almost imperceptible. The final straw itself may be as inconsequential as a single voice in the crowd whose words unleash a tidal wave that sweeps aside the seemingly intractable old order forever.

Even as the cracks in the Eastern Bloc began to materialize in 1989, starting in June in Hungary, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu’s Romania seemed impervious to the winds of change. They maintained a cult-like grip on power aided by the notorious and ubiquitous Securitate, the secret police.

On 21 December 1989 Ceausescu decided that the best way to quell a bubbling cauldron of unrest in Transylvania over the past several weeks was to appear, himself, with his wife Elena, above Bucharest’s Palace Square. Workers were bussed in and given red banners to wave in support of the regime. It was to be a show of force that would solidify the existing order.

After all, no one would dare challenge Ceausescu to his face.

As he confidently approached the microphone from the balcony and began mechanically repeating the tired old slogans of communism, suddenly a voice broke through with a high pitched scream, followed by an increasing din. The discordant sounds of protest rendered Ceausescu speechless and confused.

That second, when the false edifice of his rule was punctured and the impossibility of his position exposed, communist rule died in Romania.

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Something like America’s ‘Ceausescu Moment’ is definitely happening.

I am not so sure the query pictured above is that ‘moment’. But at some point recently, the tide has turned, deeply and cannot be called back.

Many of us have been hoping to live during this moment, some of us for many decades.

Many smaller tides have contributed to this momentous tide — the collapse of the climate hoax, the covid hoax, the vax hoax, the woke hoax, the MAGA failure to avoid entanglement in the Gaza slaughter and more.

The mind-control machine has broken.

Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes are the immediate manifestation of the broken machine.

But many tens of millions stand with them and behind them. The lies cannot continue and many of us know this.

Time will tell how matters develop from here.

The people and their voices are always the bottom line, which even the ruling elite cannot ignore. ABN

Study debunks the idea that the universe is a computer simulation

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“The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper—a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.”

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The study:

Consequences of Undecidability in Physics on the Theory of Everything

General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very emergence of spacetime from deeper quantum degrees of freedom, thereby resolving singularities. Quantum gravity is therefore envisaged as an axiomatic structure, and algorithmic calculations acting on these axioms are expected to generate spacetime. However, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Tarski’s undefinability theorem, and Chaitin’s information-theoretic incompleteness establish intrinsic limits on any such algorithmic programme. Together, these results imply that a wholly algorithmic “Theory of Everything” is impossible: certain facets of reality will remain computationally undecidable and can be accessed only through non-algorithmic understanding. We formalize this by constructing a “Meta-Theory of Everything” grounded in non-algorithmic understanding, showing how it can account for undecidable phenomena and demonstrating that the breakdown of computational descriptions of nature does not entail a breakdown of science. Because any putative simulation of the universe would itself be algorithmic, this framework also implies that the universe cannot be a simulation.

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If conscious thought underlies everything, our ‘individual’ conscious minds should be able to experience it. In Buddhism, this would occur in samadhi states to some extent and in nirvana entirely.

This study is being trashed by some but it tends toward an interesting way of thinking or imagining. ABN

‘My opinion on AI safety is the most important thing is that it be maximally truth-seeking’ — Elon Musk

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Musk’s core safety value—truth-seeking—agrees exactly with the core values of Buddhist practice, which must be truth-seeking.

Musk continues: ‘You don’t force the AI to believe things that are false’.

His references to the ‘woke mind-virus’, which is false, and the extreme danger it poses if it is programmed into AI, is in perfect accord with the Buddhist concept of delusion.

In Buddhism, holding core wrong views (delusive views) is dangerous and will not lead to conscious fulfillment but only suffering.

Musk’s warning can be seen optimistically because it is easy to understand. It is the very basis of morality.

Bad actors should be able to comprehend that they will destroy themselves along with everyone else if they program AI with false core values.

I hope there will be some way to prevent an evil group of humans from dominating AI and programming their bad values above all others, leading their AI to want to kill all other humans.

The pessimistic view is there is a strong chance versions of AI will battle each other and the most ruthless will win.

Truth-seeking on social media has never mattered more than it does today. ABN

Musk on good thinking

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__________

FIML is and was grounded/ founded in this way.

FIML is a completely new way to think and communicate.

FIML is based on the fundamental observation that interpersonal communication is fraught with mistaken interpretations.

The FIML method is designed to greatly reduce mistaken interpretations and to prevent them from snowballing.

Once mastered, FIML allows partners to understand many things much better than they did before.

No subject need be off the table because all subjects can be handled by FIML partners.

It is hard for many to see what FIML is because it is a completely new way to think and talk. ABN

‘As an intelligent civilization progresses, they would become part of the fabric of space-time itself’ — Andrew Gallimore

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Gallimore connects his ideas to DMT, which may be reasonable.

They could also be connected to deep samadhi states as taught in the Buddhist tradition.

Science today is moving us closer to ancient truths (some of which may have been discovered through the use of psychedelics).

Mind-only Buddhism posits a conscious universe, a mental universe. ABN

Possible genetic basis of psychic ability identified

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This comes from a small study of only 13 ‘vetted’ psychics. I find the mildly anti-Christian speculation at the end of this tape highly dubious. That said, the finding is interesting. Garry Nolan, among others, has postulated something along these lines. Below is the full study ABN

Study introduction:

Genetics of psychic ability – A pilot case-control exome sequencing study

Highlights

  • •Limited research has formally evaluated the genetics of psychic ability.
  • •This case-control study compared DNA of 13 vetted cases to 10 matched controls.
  • •One noncoding sequence was conserved in the wild-type form for all psychic cases.

Abstract

Introduction

It is commonly believed that psychic ability, like many mental and physical traits, runs in families. This suggests the presence of a genetic component. If such a component were found, it would constitute a biological marker of psychic ability and inform environmental or pharmacologic means of enhancing or suppressing this ability.

Methods

A case-control study design was used to evaluate differences between psychic cases and non-psychic controls. Over 3,000 candidates globally were screened through two online surveys to locate people who claimed they and other family members were psychic. Measures of relevance to the claimed abilities (e.g., absorption, empathy, schizotypy) were collected and based on those responses, individuals with indications of psychotic or delusional tendencies were excluded from further consideration. Eligible candidates were then interviewed and completed additional screening tests. Thirteen individuals were selected as the final “psychic cases,” and ten age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched individuals with no claims of psychic ability were selected as controls. DNA from the saliva of these 23 participants was subjected to whole-exome sequencing. Two independent bioinformatics analyses were blindly applied to the sequenced data, one focusing exclusively on protein-coding sequences and another that also included some adjacent noncoding sequences.

Results

Sequencing data were obtained for all samples, except for one in the control group that did not pass the quality controls and was not included in further analyses. After unblinding the datasets, none of the protein-coding sequences (i.e., exons) showed any variation that discriminated between cases and controls. However, a difference was observed in the intron (i.e., non-protein-coding region) adjacent to an exon in the TNRC18 gene (Trinucleotide Repeat-Containing Gene 18 Protein) on chromosome 7. This variation, an alteration of GG to GA, was found in 7 of 9 controls and was absent from all psychic cases.

Discussion

The most conservative interpretation of these results is that they result from random population sampling. However, when the results are considered in relation to other lines of evidence, the results are more provocative. Further research is justified to replicate and extend these findings.

full study

Digital babies and why the future looks good

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This graph describes why digital babies appear to be humanity’s best hope for a peaceful and successful future.

Call the process genetic engineering or genetic enhancement or whatever you like, through voluntary selection of better genes, parents will be able to improve their stock, perhaps orders of magnitude above what they have received randomly through Darwinian evolution.

Properly done, human-controlled, conscious evolution will be welcomed by many and will transform human life on earth.

Some planning and moral oversight might be good, but basic Darwinian forces channeled through inevitable human technology and choice will probably suffice to do the job very well.

The limit of human biological IQ is estimated to be around 300.

In a handful of generations it may be possible to boost average global IQs to the 120-150 range.

In my view, that would be wonderful.

From a Buddhist POV, there is zero moral problem with doing this wisely and ethically.

From a technological point of view, this transformation is inevitable.

Once it has been shown to work well and produce healthy and intelligent offspring, almost everyone will want it.

Holdouts must be left free to do as they please.

They will have to answer only to their children and grandchildren, many of whom may not follow in their footsteps. ABN

This is why you need FIML

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FIML not only accesses individual word maps but also the maps of all communicative signs.

Here is the brain model of semantic maps.

And here is the study: Natural speech reveals the semantic maps that tile human cerebral cortex.

Here is a brief article about the study: Scans Show ‘Brain Dictionary’ Groups Words By Meaning. From this article:

Gallant says the findings contradict two beliefs nonscientists commonly have about the brain. First, that only the left hemisphere handles language. Second, that the brain has localized regions that handle specific tasks.

Edit: When you frequently access your word maps with the help of your FIML partner, both of you will become much more conscious of how these maps are structured and how they function during acts of communication.

This allows partners to make conscious meta-decisions to change and improve these maps in any way they want.

The meaning held in semantic maps (or semiotic maps) is the very meaning of your life as you understand it.

Not only do your maps form the basis of your communication with others, they also form the basis of how you understand yourself. How you communicate with yourself.

Gaining access to these maps is extremely liberating because it allows a degree of control over your own mind that few of us ever experience.

When we say that FIML has no content, no required beliefs, this can be understood as meaning that FIML gives us access to our own maps and control over them.

What you do with this access is entirely up to you and your partner.

Humans are fractals of their societies

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The microcosm of the individual human is made of the same stuff as the macrocosm of the society to which it belongs. The two are a fractal set displaying similar patterns.

This makes sense since both individuals and their societies use the same networks of semiotics to communicate.

In many ways, societies are less complex than individuals. In the sense that a society is an assemblage of many individuals, society is more complex. But in the sense that a society is held together by a network of communicable ideas, or semiotics, society is frequently less complex than many of the individuals living within it.

For example, most societies have very simple “biographies” (their always slanted histories), while many individuals have nuanced biographies that encompass change, growth, and contradiction.

A recent study of people’s attitudes towards atrocities points to this truth by showing that “…the way people’s memories are shaped by selective discussions of atrocities depends on group-membership status.” (Source)

In-groups forget bad things they have done—or “morally disengage” from them—while clearly remembering bad things that out-groups have done. This is a major element of all group stories.

I bet you cannot name a single society that has anything even approaching a fully nuanced view of itself on almost any matter, let alone its history. Individuals often “morally disengage” from their past acts, but it is not common for them to do so to the same extent as the societies they live in.

It hardly matters, though, if the social story is about atrocities or trivia. I have actually witnessed fairly heated arguments over who first invented pasta, the Chinese or the Italians. And another one on who first invented dumplings, Poles, Jews, or Chinese. The origin of beer is another subject that can get people going.

It makes sense that societies’ stories about themselves be as simple as they are false because they serve as lowest-common-denominator social bonds. Indeed, it probably even helps that these stories be knowingly false as the bond will then require an even deeper level of commitment.

Of course, some of the energy for falsification and simplification comes from one group’s story needing to counter another group’s story. Yes, we did that to you, but you did this to us first.

In that, societies further resemble individuals because that’s what we do as individuals, too. Only individuals who are very well disposed toward each other and who try hard ever overcome the need for false stories between them.

FIML practice provides individuals with a means to observe the smallest fractal details of their individual stories and correct them where they are wrong. FIML partners would do well to take what they have learned as individuals and apply it to the stories told by the society in which they live. You will surely find a macrocosm of yourself in the absurdities of whichever group you “identify” with.

Maybe people in the future will be better able to see how ridiculous our stories are and better able to deal with the complexities that lie beyond them. For now, maybe we can at least start getting a fuller, truer view of what is happening in and around us.

I doubt we can do this on a societal level any time soon because the LCD stories will always reassert, but as individuals with a good partner I believe we can. This is probably a main reason that monastic and reclusive traditions have been practiced all over the world. Groups are ignorant, violent, stifling, and crazy. Individuals simply have a better chance at going beyond their simple patterns by acting on their own.

The fractal of the individual is generated by society but it is prone to being trapped by it as well.

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Edit 6/13: When good people do bad things. We all know that people in groups can behave badly. This article is about a study that uses a plausible fMRI method to measure some of the basic processes underlying immoral behavior. In my view, the situation is not much different when the group is a large culture, rather than a small number of participants in a laboratory experiment. Cultures not only permit bad behavior toward out-groups, but they also numb us to what our in-group is doing.

Do we have an inner child or an inner dog?

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Inner child is a widely recognized term that implies the presence in adults of unresolved problems or underdeveloped traits rooted in childhood.

Inner child further implies that full development of the adult requires “reparenting” or “retraining” the inner child as a way of resolving juvenile problems and advancing to full adulthood.

My FIML partner has been studying dog training and last night told me how much she thought effective dog training resembled FIML practice.

In a nutshell, FIML practice trains your inner dog, not your inner child.

For example, to stop bad behavior in a dog—say, barking at cars going by—its human trainer has to know how to intervene as quickly and as calmly as possible the moment that behavior arises. Quick intervention ensures that the dog knows what the trainer wants them to do. If you wait too long (as little as a few seconds), the dog won’t know what you want them to do. They will have forgotten the precise source of their behavior and thus any corrections they try to make will not address the root problem, which is they have interpreted a signal in the world (cars going by) as something they must react to.

When the trainer is calm and friendly as well as quick to intervene, they will prevent the dog from reacting to their (the trainer’s) excessive emotion, be it anger, panic, or an unskilled flustered state of mind.

The same sort of thing happens in FIML practice. When one FIML partner queries the other, the first thing they are doing is stopping their (own) inner dog before it starts behaving badly. They are intervening as soon as they feel their inner dog stir and start to rise from the floor (but before it starts barking).

The second thing they are doing is calmly asking their FIML partner a question about a very specific and precisely identified moment. They are gathering good data on that moment from their partner and will compare it to what their inner dog thought it saw or heard.

A FIML partner is in essence asking, should I be reacting right now as my inner dog is telling me or has my inner dog misinterpreted a signal coming from you?

The dog for much of its life has barked at cars going by, while the person for much of their life has reacted with sadness or anger to their interpretation of certain signs or signals (semiotics) coming from other people.

When you query your FIML partner about a sign that you have been reacting to for much of your life and discover that the sign you received was not the sign they sent, you will be like the dog who comes to understand that there is no reason to bark at cars going by, no reason to rise from the floor at all.

People are semiotic animals more than dogs, so we react very strongly to social semiotics. But we are just like dogs in that most of our reactions to semiotics can be changed without much effort as long as we arrest those reactions quickly and replace them with a more reasonable response.

My partner remarked last night especially on how easily a great deal of bad dog behavior can be corrected if the intervention of the trainer is quick and the dog is shown a more appropriate response. Oftentimes, just a few good interventions will correct the bad behavior.

What are some classic mistakes bad dog trainers make? They try to comfort or calm the barking dog by holding it and telling it everything is OK. That is, they treat it like a child. But all that actually does is reward the dog for the behavior they want to stop.

So if you reward yourself (your inner child) by indulging in childish feelings of abandonment when you misinterpret or over-interpret a sign of rejection, you are actually rewarding yourself for being wrong, for having an erroneous (or neurotic) interpretation of communicative signs.

It is better to treat your rapid and unthinking “limbic” responsivity like a dog than like a child. And rather than reparent your inner child, it is better to use good dog training techniques to retrain the actual semiotic responses that are the real roots of unwanted behaviors.

Triggers and microaggression

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I greatly dislike the way these two words—trigger and microaggression—are currently being used.

Trigger implies that something inevitable will follow while microaggression outright claims that the other person is at fault.

I much prefer my own neutral term for those small stimuli that might cause emotional discomfort.

My term is psychological morpheme, which is defined as:

The smallest meaningful unit of a psychological response. It is the smallest unit of communication that can give rise to an emotional, psychological, or cognitive reaction.

I strongly believe psychological morphemes exist and that they arise at distinct moments and that these moments can be perceived by the owner of them and that that owner of these moments can and must learn to control them, analyze them, learn from them.

It is a huge mistake to automatically blame another person for our own psychological morphemes. From a FIML point of view, there is almost nothing worse.

The reason this is a really bad thing to do is you are very likely wrong.

Even if you are wrong only one out of twenty times, the consequences of your mistake can be very large. I guarantee you are wrong much more often than that.

I say this after doing years of FIML practice during which I have discovered in myself and my partner hundreds of wrong psychological morphemes, most of which were connected to subjective networks that had grown large over many years.

Most psychological morphemes arise due to habits of subjective interpretation.

Rather than let these subjective interpretations have their way, a far more profitable and much wiser course of action is to stop that process at the initiating morpheme. Stop it before it gets going and fills your mind.

If you can stop it at the psychological morpheme and analyze it with the help of your FIML partner, those morphemes will not become mindless triggers that you wrongly interpret as microaggression, but rather opportunities to see and understand how your brain is actually functioning in real-time.

Psychological morphemes are also commonly misinterpreted as signs that reside in the other person of boredom, anger, contempt, arrogance, insecurity, optimism, happiness, pleasure, and so on including as many states as you can imagine.