Category: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

Random notes on FIML

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Sometimes things become clearer when we have just a bit of information, or several small bits. A single detail can sometimes make us perceive the whole in ways we had not before; we may notice connections we had not noticed or recall pertinent memories that had been submerged. I hope the following short notes will be helpful in this way.

  • When we speak to someone, we speak to what we think is in their mind. FIML practice helps us know with much greater accuracy what is in the mind of the person we are speaking to.
  • FIML helps us avoid the worry of wondering if our partner is bothered by something we said (or did) because we know that if they are, they will bring it up.
  • FIML allows far more leeway in how we speak to our partner. It allows us to speak creatively and exploratorily with our partner. We can speak tentatively without the need for strongly expressed conclusions. We can share doubt, wonder, uncertainty with our partner.
  • Our minds are dynamic processes. FIML helps us access the dynamism of our minds in the moment with our partner. We can share and communicate dynamic states without clinging to static interpretations.
  • Interpretations of what others say or of what we think they are saying are all too often static interpretations based on things that happened in the past. With FIML practice, by simply asking, we avoid making harmful or mistaken interpretations. There is no need to guess at what our partner means, and every reason not to.
  • If you wonder what your partner means but don’t ask, you will still make some sort of interpretation. If you don’t ask them because you think it might feel awkward, you are still making an interpretation and limiting your understanding of yourself and your partner.
  • Neuroses (ongoing mistaken interpretations) are fed in the moment. Conversations move quickly and are dynamic. If we withhold a FIML query from our partner, we will almost certainly feed one of our ongoing mistaken interpretations of them, we will strengthen our own neurosis and miss a chance for mutual liberation from it.
  • When we speak or listen, we all tend to be self-centered, in a neutral sense of the term. I don’t mean selfish here, but simply self-centered. When we listen, we tend to listen first of all to how our partner’s speech impacts us. Did I do something wrong? Did I do something right? Will that cost me energy or money? Does that refer to me somehow? Our fundamental self-centeredness  is based on being in a body and having a mental autobiography. There is nothing wrong with that unless we use it mistakenly as an integral part of our interpretation of what our partner is saying. If you are wondering if their comments are being directed, subtly or not, at you, just ask them. If you don’t ask, you will either come to a conclusion based on insufficient information or you will continue to wonder about what they said. In either case you will be wasting both your own energy and your partner’s. It’s always “cheaper” (more energy efficient, more truth efficient) to do a FIML query than to avoid it.
  • It’s always “cheaper” (more energy efficient, more truth efficient) to do a FIML query than to avoid it.
first posted NOVEMBER 16, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It works like this:

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

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

A very small irrational thought

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A very small thought can show how irrational thinking operates.

Recently, I have been putting more salt in food I make. I have some good reasons for this and one bad one.

The bad one wrongly believes that my partner does not at the table salt food I make enough, so I have to use more to counter this.

This thought comprised about 10% of my reason for using more salt when I cooked. This thought was subliminal, meaning it almost never rose to consciousness. And when it did its appearance was fleeting and went unquestioned.

It is a selfish thought or at least not fully considerate. As soon as I examined it I realized it is a dumb thought and discarded it completely.

This thought was wrong and irrational for obvious reasons. But it still had a small effect on my conscious behavior.

I noticed it while washing dishes and watching my mind at the same time.

This thought has an element of reason in how it is constructed: i.e. “because my partner does not do this, I will do this.”

But not much else about it is reasonable. I have no idea how or when this thought formed. Did it form subconsciously or in a dream? I don’t know.

I believe it stayed in my mind as a weak but partially operative “reason” because it is selfish (and thus less likely to be examined) and because it has a reasonable construction when put in words.

Some basic benefits of FIML practice

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  • FIML clears up communication problems in the moment (at the time they occur and just afterward) while establishing a valuable precedent for clearing up future problems, which are inevitable.
  • FIML helps partners see their own neuroses (mistaken interpretations) and understand how those neuroses operate in their lives during a real moment of their lives. Each basic FIML discussion is based on a real problem identified by one or both partners.
  • Being able to efficiently and effectively fix real problems as they occur gives partners a sense of confidence and joy.
  • If only one partner had a problem with something, both partners still benefit because the second partner will come to understand how the first hears or speaks and why. Partners will increase their understandings of each other as well as of language, semiotics, communication, emotion, psychology, etc.
  • Each FIML discussion can be extended into other fields (history, science, art, Buddhism, etc.) as much as partners want. This helps both partners increase their awareness of how the large “net” of cultural semiotics is put together and where they stand in relation to it.
  • Each FIML discussion forms a basis, or can serve as an example, for the next discussion. After a single neurosis has been identified a few times, partners will learn to recognize it immediately and deal with it very quickly.
  • Fixing one neurosis increases confidence and skill, making it easier to fix the next or to deepen discussions to include other kinds of psychological material.
  • Once partners are reasonably skilled at FIML, they will find they are able to deal with a much broader range of subjects because they have communication techniques that allow them to quickly overcome misunderstandings.
  • Once the skills are developed, FIML discussions are a lot of fun. In many ways, there is nothing more interesting.
  • FIML practice greatly supports Buddhist practice and should serve to help Buddhists gain immediate and very personal experiential comprehension of the Dharma.
  • Buddhist terms like delusion, suffering, liberation, wisdom, karma, compassion and more will take on new meaning as they become less an abstract code for behavior and more a personally understood aspect of our own behavior.
  • FIML helps us see for ourselves in real time how our own particular delusions create suffering, and how we can attain liberation from those delusions.
  • FIML works with very small instances of delusion so it is neither painful nor embarrassing. Indeed, it is a great pleasure to eliminate delusion.

Signals and subliminal signal associations

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Signals sent between people are almost never simple, single entities devoid of ambiguity.

Indeed, even very clear communicative signals, especially in interpersonal communication, are often fraught with subliminal associations. These “extra” associations are a primary cause of interpersonal error and ambiguity, and deriving from that, of individual, personal discomfort or neurosis.

We have mentioned this general problem many times and claimed that FIML practice is probably the only way to successfully remove the bulk of dangerous ambiguity and misunderstanding that inevitably accrues in almost all interpersonal relationships.

A study on visual perception from the University of Arizona—Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t—reasonably confirms these statements for visual perception. I would argue that many other brain functions work in similar ways, including listening, speaking, and our overall perceptions of human behavior and what it “means.”

The study found that participants subconsciously perceive “meaning” in visual images flashed quickly before them. It took about 400 milliseconds for this perception of “meaning” to show on an fMRI machine.

I have put the word “meaning” in quotes because this word could also be understood as “contextualize,” “associate with,” “frame,” or even “anticipate.” When we listen to someone with any care, our minds are always roving slightly as we adjust, readjust, and anticipate what the speaker means, meant, and is meaning. Listening is a dynamic process that draws heavily—even completely—on semiotic associations that hover and come into view as our sense of what the speaker is saying unfolds.

The UA study provides pretty good evidence that we do something similar visually and that it happens quickly.

Mary Peterson, an adviser on the study, said of it

This is a window into what the brain is doing all the time. It’s always sifting through a variety of possibilities and finding the best interpretation for what’s out there. And the best interpretation may vary with the situation.

Pay close attention to that word best.

Firstly, I completely agree with Peterson’s statement. And secondly, I see a massive problem in interpersonal communication lurking just beneath that word “best.”

Whose best? During interpersonal communication, if the listener does not have the habit of directly asking the speaker what is meant, then the listener’s brain will decide the issue on its own based on its own autocthonous “best” sense of what the speaker “means.”

How often can anyone be right under those conditions? This is why FIML practice micromanages some aspects of communication by  requiring quick interventions to be sure the deep meaning is being transmitted correctly. If partners do not do FIML, they will be forced to do all of the following—make many wrong assumptions about what is being communicated to them, rely on general rules of listening (the bane of authentic individuality), rely on statistical assumptions about how the speaker “generally” more or less “is.” That is a formula for interpersonal disaster and likely a major factor in the very high incidence mental illness in industrialized societies.

FIML demands some effort and it takes some time, but I prefer it any day of the week over the static role-playing and error-prone guessing that is the only other alternative.

Another way of saying all of the above is this: when we communicate we often send and receive ambiguous messages. Our minds handle ambiguity (often subconsciously) by choosing what they perceive as the “best” interpretation. But this “best” interpretation happens very quickly and is frequently wrong. Nonetheless, this “best” interpretation if accepted, which it often is, will get fed back immediately into the communicative exchange, quickly (or gradually) distorting everything that is happening.

Unemotional visual perceptions, such as those used in the linked study, will not be problematical for the participants. But analogous psychological brain functions will be and are problematical in all of their interpersonal relationships. There is simply no way around the fact that we rapidly perceive and misperceive “best” interpretations, especially since we are accepting them based on subconscious processes.

An example of a mistake in meso understanding

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My partner and I discovered a significant meso mistake this morning.

(See: Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding for more on this.)

The mistake was not “psychological” so much as it was simply a mistake—significant over time but having little or no emotional valence of its own.

The mistake concerned how we understand our evening walks. I had mistakenly thought that my partner preferred a brisk pace with few if any pauses. Consequently, I had for a number of years been walking faster and pausing less often to look around than I would have liked.

For me, that mistake in my thinking took a bit of fun out of our walks.

Recently, the weather has been very hot where we live and I found myself insisting on walking slower and stopping more because I was becoming uncomfortable. After several days of feeling apologetic about this and actually speaking about it apologetically, my partner insisted back that it did not bother her at all to walk more slowly and to pause more often.

In fact, she said that it never had bothered her to go at a slower pace in warm weather and that she always had enjoyed stopping to look at things as we rambled along.

This was news to me, so we talked about it for a while. I came to understand that I had formed a wrong idea, a wrong meso-thought/belief, about my partner.

It had slipped into my mind over the years. I am sure it started somewhere as a micro-mistake that I did not catch (maybe due to pride) and had then persisted for a long time.

This is an example of a kind of mistake that FIML practice may not discover. Fortunately, this mistake had little or no psychological valence. I was delighted to find that I had been wrong and am looking froward to our walks more than ever.

At the same time, I am aware that my partner and I probably have at least four or five other meso mistakes of roughly the same amplitude as our walking mistake. They may be similarly “benign” but some of them may also have significant psychological valence.

Though both of us are experienced FIML practitioners and though we do FIML queries regularly, we can’t be sure what our other meso-mistakes are, assuming there are some. All we can do is continue to look closely at our impressions and beliefs about one another and do our best to confirm them or correct them as needed.

Once discovered, the walking mistake—and any other meso mistake no matter how emotional—will be analyzable and amenable to elimination through FIML practice. It just has to be seen for what it is first.

Simpler grammar, larger vocabulary: a linguistic paradox explained

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“Languages have an intriguing paradox. Languages with lots of speakers, such as English and Mandarin, have large vocabularies with relatively simple grammar. Yet the opposite is also true: Languages with fewer speakers have fewer words but complex grammars.” (source)

“If you don’t get enough exposure to more complex patterns, those patterns are likely to disappear, whereas the simpler patterns that are easy to pick up are likely to survive,” he said. “As the population size of a language community increases, the number of hard-to-learn conventions decreased, whereas the number of easy-to-learn conventions increased.” (Ibid.)

Study can be found here.

This study provides an intriguing insight with many applications. FIML partners create small societies marked by psychologically complex communication, which optimizes psychological well-being. Consider how much our brains enjoy complexity in many areas, science being one of them, and then consider the dearth of shared psychological complexity in most interpersonal communications. FIML practice is designed to do something about that dearth. ABN

Error correction in interpersonal relations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Something approaching 100% of the population has gone completely insane’ — Eric Weinstein

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From my (FIML) POV, people are primed to accept absurd (macro) cultural states because we have all been raised in absurd meso and micro states of interpersonal communication. And we all live in those states all the time (except a few of us). For different reasons, I talk like Eric all the time because I can see the root cause when few others can. If you do not do FIML and cannot even see the reason for doing it, at best you will be like Eric — sort of in kindergarten just starting out fathoming how weird (‘insane’) human cultures and psychologies really are. ABN

Catching small mistakes leads to big payoffs

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A good way to think about FIML practice is to think of yourself as looking for the smallest communication errors you can find. These tiny errors might be called morphemes of error. A morpheme is the smallest semantic unit (meaningful unit) of a language. Thinking in terms of very small mistakes can help partners because these tiny morphemes of error are where larger errors originate. If we are able to observe a tiny error the moment it happens and fully discuss it with our partner, we will prevent a larger error from coming into being. If we fail to catch the small error as it arises, it will be much harder to correct the larger error later on because by then we will never remember when and where it started.

In the early days of doing FIML, I used to call the practice of looking for small errors “catching mice”. I took great delight in finding the next little mouse/error because I knew that the benefit of catching it would be quite large compared to the little thing I had caught. (Note: I was and am involved mostly in catching mistakes in my own mind. It is my partner’s responsibility to catch the mistakes made in her mind. It is usually the person who initiates a FIML query who is the one concerned that a mistake may have arisen in their own mind. And this is why it is so important to ask as much as you are asked.)

Thinking of yourself as catching small errors and discussing them with your partner may add a level of interest to your FIML practice. This approach also allows us to be very detail-oriented without feeling petty. I guarantee that after you have caught a few of these little mice and fully discussed them with your partner, you will see the benefits for yourself. Small communication errors are the basic units of FIML practice. FIML partners can work with larger units (generalities, psychologies, philosophies, etc.), but it is best to spend most of your time just catching the small errors that inevitably arise in all communications.

An interesting example of this happened this morning. The mouse I caught was not involved directly in my communication with my partner, though I told her about it right afterward and we discussed it extensively. What happened is this:

I have been trying to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, but somehow gradually always start eating more of them till I am back to where I began. Well, I started being more strict a week or so ago. Today I went into the refrigerator to get something to eat and saw some boiled potatoes in one bowl and some vegetables in another. In my head a small tug-o-war ensued. I chose the vegetables, but as I turned away from the refrigerator and put them on the counter, I noticed that I felt slightly guilty. What was interesting is I was feeling guilty for doing the right thing. But some part of my mind was telling me, almost subconsciously, that I was actually being selfish because the potatoes should be eaten, they are cheaper, and maybe my partner would want the vegetables.

I could go on about this but to keep it short, let me just say that none of it was true. I had nothing to feel guilty about. Just to be sure, I asked my partner if she wanted the vegetables and she said no, she had already eaten. So that little piece of false-guilt was a mouse. It was a mistake, an error that was occurring in my own mind, probably to satisfy that part of me that still craves carbohydrates. In catching it, I had caught the smallest unit of eating-too-many-carbohydrates that I had ever seen. This first success will likely lead to my catching this same mistake (or something similar to it) again fairly soon. (These small mistakes almost always occur more than once or twice.) After a few more successes at catching my own mind while it is making a small mistake about my diet, I may succeed in fully defeating that part of myself that reaches for carbohydrates when I know I should not.

I bet stuff like that happens frequently with people who are addicted to anything or who keep making bad or immoral choices when, for the most part, they know they should not. We can feel guilty without having good reason to do so. Some other examples of this might be soldiers who do what others are doing even though they know it is wrong; police who do the same; employees who do the same; Buddhists, psychologists, scientists, mechanics, carpenters, etc.–we are all susceptible to making moral mistakes because we will feel guilty if we don’t.

Hence the Buddha saying:

One is one’s own protector,
one is one’s own refuge.
Therefore, one should control oneself,
even as a trader controls a noble steed.

Dhammapada 25.380

first posted  

How to think about the mind?

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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

Theory of mind and FIML

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The following paragraphs are from a pretty good Wikipedia article on theory of mind.

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one’s own.

Individuals who experience a theory of mind deficit have difficulty determining the intentions of others, lack understanding of how their behavior affects others, and have a difficult time with social reciprocity.

The term, theory of mind is generally used to assess autism spectrum disorders and behavioral problems that result from brain injuries, drug abuse, and alcoholism. I have no problem with that.

Here’s an interesting response to the theory from someone with Asperger’s Syndrome: Empathy, Mindblindness, and Theory of Mind. The author of this piece, Lynne Soraya, mainly objects to the characterization that she does not have empathy for others. She wonders if the problem is one not of a lack of empathy but of understanding.

I agree with her in more ways than one. Misapplied, theory of mind can become a high-sounding defense of conformity and the status quo. Beyond basic levels of reasonable manners and appropriateness, theory of mind can lead us to draw many false conclusions about the people we are with. If FIML has taught me one thing with great certainty it is that, while I may have some sense of what my partner is thinking or feeling, I am very often wrong in important ways and almost always sort of wrong in many subtle ways.

Look into your own mind. What do you see? Is there some solid state there? Are all of your intentions clear even to you? Why do you say what you say? What else are you thinking right now? As soon as you answer any one of these questions, the multifaceted dynamism of your mind will change again. Can you remember what was in your mind–remember with good, clear accuracy–one minute ago? I bet you can’t. How about two minutes ago? If even you cannot know what was in your own mind one minute ago and restate it clearly, how can you expect another person to really ever know what is in your mind unless you tell them while you are still able to remember yourself?

This is where real speech lives. In the moment. Speech often comes forth from us for mysterious reasons. And our partners hear our speech in their own mysterious ways. We can know these ways, but only by talking about them, only by asking. Theory of mind can help us form some general ideas, but only FIML can give us access to what our partners are truly thinking when they speak to us or listen to us.

If I say let’s go for a walk, I probably will be able to tell from your expression whether you want to go or not, and maybe even how much you want to go. But if as we leave the building you glance at a bush beside the walk, do I know why you looked there or what you are thinking? Very unlikely.

Similarly, if you speak a sentence to me, do I know the fullness of the state of your mind from which that sentence issued? No, I don’t. Hardly ever. If the sentence is at all ambiguous or even slightly emotionally charged, I may not have the slightest clue why you said it. I can guess, but the only way I can know for sure is to ask you.

Theory of mind is OK for making crude determinations about some people in some situations, but worthless for most speech or communicative acts between equal partners.

We do not know what is in other people’s minds. We are not mind readers. We can only know with certainty what they are thinking and feeling if they tell us. And that can be difficult even for them to do because even they may not know what is in their minds or why.

This is why I say that theory of mind can be sorely misapplied to become a defense of status quo conformity, status quo semiotics.

Humans are primitive beasts with poorly functioning speech capacities. If they are not attributing status quo interpretations of others to them, they will be making up their own and those will probably be neurotic (mistaken, as we have been defining that term).

Our options as people who speak and interact are not either we are autistic or we are “normal” (have good theory of mind). There is a huge other area of human speech and interaction (and this area includes both autistic and “normal” people)–no matter what you do or say, you cannot speak to another person without employing unfounded assumptions about them unless you ask and they answer honestly.

For most exchanges with strangers and acquaintances, we don’t need to know what they are thinking and feeling. We just follow the basic rules–professional or otherwise–that govern the exchange. For intimate partners and friends, however, those rules will not work. If you want real communication with your partner, you will have to do FIML or something like it. I can’t think of any other way to deeply know their feelings and intentions.

first posted December 14, 2011

FIML and macro explanations

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In FIML practice, partners learn that even very small misinterpretations that arise within a few seconds of communication can seize the mind and grow into big mistakes. Mistakes about the other person(s), mistakes about the “self,” and mistakes about how the world is. FIML practice is designed to catch these mistakes and eliminate them as soon as they appear, within seconds of their appearance if possible. FIML is designed to prevent false micro-interpretations from becoming huge mistakes that distort human experience.

In a somewhat similar fashion, FIML practice can also show us how macro-interpretations, or macro-explanations or stories, can be deeply mistaken and what to do about that.

Our macro-explanations tell us who we are, what we are doing, and why. Some of our macro-explanations were established long ago and seem to be part of the very fabric of our being and some of them are acute. That is, they arise in moments of crisis when we are suddenly thrown into turmoil by events beyond our control—financial hardship, divorce, serious misunderstanding with a friend, etc. At such times, we often flail around like a swimmer drowning in a whirlpool as we grasp for some explanation or story that will give us secure feelings and a secure sense that we understand what has happened and what to do next.

Sometimes we do arrive at a good understanding and a reasonable sense of what has happened and what to do next, but often we do not. In our emotional turmoil we may be strongly tempted to choose mistaken macro-explanations or stories that answer our (also mistaken) emotional needs at the expense of a more reasonable and more profound understanding of our situation.

This same basic scenario also describes how groups of people tend to react in times of crisis. Groups, cultures, nations, religions, clubs, and societies tend to react emotionally to crises and seize on mistaken macro-explanations in much the same ways as individuals. Like individuals, groups tend to favor explanations of difficult events that make members feel good about themselves and that provide a cohesive sense of how to move forward, what to do next. If we are born into or brought into an existing group, some of its macro-explanations will be quite old, even ancient. It is difficult for groups to eliminate false macro-explanations and stories without disturbing group bonds.

For example, in some parts of the world, even today, people are burned to death due to superstitions, which are fundamentally very bad macro-explanations. Once a superstition is invoked by a group, it is all but impossible for an individual to go against it lest they also be caught up in the madness.

If your community decides that someone is a witch who must be burned, you may be burned along with them if you try to defend the accused.

When Tony Blair claimed that Saddam Hussein had WMD that could strike London within forty minutes, many of us howled with dismay at his obvious lie, but many of us were caught up in a war-fever which was as superstitious as belief in witches, and far more destructive. Other “evidence” that promoted the war in Iraq were the yellow cake forgeries (which have never been seriously investigated), Iraq’s fictitious connection to 9/11,  and mobile weapons units that were falsely presented as missile launchers. If you doubted a single part of these dangerous explanations, you would not face much criticism, but if you doubted the whole story—the macro-explanation that constituted an excuse for war—you risked condemnation from many in the American community.

Once Bush’s basic macro-explanation of the world after 9/11 became an all but required belief, Americans were forced to accept a slew of further consequences that stemmed from it. New laws, new security departments, and new ways to search our private lives followed upon the basic macro-explanation that “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.”

FIML practitioners will recognize how it happens that huge consequences can and will flow from a single misinterpretation, a single failure to ask the right questions at the right time.

Some other examples of bad macro-explanations that hinge on narrow emotional “evidence” are:

  • Any explanation based on the need to be right as opposed to the desire to search for what is right (which is often very complex and not as emotionally satisfying initially).
  • Explanations that involve “value reversals” that accuse others of what we are doing or preparing to do. These are very effective rhetorical devices that confuse the emotions of listeners. Some examples are:
  1. “They are terrorists so we must shock and awe them!”
  2. “You are a kook if you want more evidence!”
  3. “Anyone who opposes our idea of what is best for us clearly must hate us!”
  • Attributing a complex problem to a single cause often indicates a false macro-explanation.
  • A simplified story about the history of a group commonly emphasizes only one side of complex events.

It is sad but true that a great deal of human history is filled with and flows from false macro-explanations, which are hardly distinguishable from superstitions.

The deep problem is humans are emotional animals. We bond with each other emotionally and are strongly motivated to work together based on emotional bonds that flow from false stories. The simpler the stories, the better. “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists!” “Whatever is best for us!” “My country right or wrong!” “Shoot first and ask questions later!” “God will sort it out!” And so on. There are so many of these, you have to marvel that humans can ever behave rationally.

Basic FIML practice, and the cognitive experience it brings, can be a great help in removing erroneous macro-explanations.

In basic FIML practice, partners learn to notice the emotional or sensory signs that a micro-misinterpretation may suddenly be arising. Not all micro-misinterpretations carry an emotional charge, but most of the serious ones do. Emotion is an important clue that a misinterpretation or a bad explanation is forming in your mind.

Similarly, erroneous macro-explanations can be analyzed and successfully replaced with more truthful ones by looking for emotional clues.

To use the first example mentioned above, if you feel a strong need to be right and/or an unwillingness to consider that you might be wrong, you may have trapped yourself in an erroneous macro-explanation and are guarding yourself from the need to reevaluate your feelings.

If you find yourself attacking people who disagree with your position by using “value reversal” arguments, you may be using strong language and simplistic arguments to dominate or drive away people who disagree with your position.

If you find that you are emotionally attached to a simple and/or deeply emotional history of your people, your religion, your nation, your gender,  and so on, you may very well be using emotion to bolster your explanation of who you are and your justification for what you are doing.

If you claim, after reading this, that everyone does that, you may be using an erroneous single-cause explanation to protect a position that deep down you know is wrong.

In basic FIML practice, partners learn that even very simple misunderstandings can be extremely complex and that they often lead to long analyses, which completely change our understanding once they have been completed.

The way to fix false macro-explanations is similar: start by looking for the emotional attachment and then analyze the factors that have produced it and that maintain it. What you will very often find at bottom is a profound need to make emotional sense of whatever the issue is.

For example, if you strongly identify with an ethnic group or a religion, you will probably be very reluctant to give up the false stories they use to explain their understanding of who they are and what they are doing.

Another kind of macro-problem occurs when we are in the midst of a difficult and complex life situation. We may lie awake at night wondering what to do, what to think, and most of all what to feel. More often than not it is the need to feel right about the situation that drives our explanations. Since none of us are all that smart, we frequently make mistakes in this area by taking on feelings before we have a good explanation.

If you find this happening, take the time to speak at length with your partner about how confused you are, how you don’t know what to think. Describe the various aspects of the problem as honestly as you can. Don’t be afraid to admit you feel like a jerk, a worm, an idiot. It is very hard to admit that we are feeling like a worm or a jerk, so look for those feelings. They can often be found at the core of erroneous macro-explanations.

With the help of your partner, you will almost surely gain a much deeper appreciation for the complexity of the problem, its multifaceted nature. Analyze it from as many angles as you can. Consider the perspectives of others and how some of the conditions that brought the problem about cannot be changed and that they may not originally have been anyone’s fault.

Eventually, you will feel better about the problem. The resolution you arrive at with your partner will contain a wholesome emotion that follows reason and sober analysis, not an unwholesome one that precedes it.

The key to eliminating both micro and macro false interpretations can often be found in the underlying emotions from which these interpretations have stemmed. Basic FIML practice makes it fairly easy to deal with mistaken micro-interpretations because basic FIML is designed to work with very small incidents. It is easier for partners to analyze small mistakes, understand their origins, and admit them openly than it is for them to deal with large mistakes.

Nonetheless, basic FIML practice also provides a reliable guide for how to prevent, correct, or eliminate erroneous macro-explanations, which may arise suddenly during times of crisis or which may be part of a traditional culture to which we belong. Needless to say, false macro-explanations are often a driving force behind false micro-interpretations.

Note: In semiotics, a macro-explanation can be understood as a “library” that is called up by a micro-interpretation, which is itself an “index.” An index is a sign that references something else, usually something much larger (a library). Of course, libraries can also influence or determine indexes.

    Notice how easy it is to change an explanation—macro or micro—if there is no emotional charge attached to it. If you have always believed a wrong explanation about how electricity works, for example, and someone tells you the right explanation, you will probably feel grateful to that person and find it easy to change your understanding. In fact, you may also experience a sense of wonder as you contemplate the new explanation. Contrast this to the emotions that may be generated by being supplied with solid facts that disprove your position on the gun debate or some other burning issue of the day.

    Macro-explanations in politics and public life often acquire cult-like features, if they do not actually originate in cults. Mass media generally treats hot issues as being little more than debates between diametrically opposed cults. I doubt there are many of us who do not enjoy hearing someone who supports our position let loose with a scathing attack against the other side. This is an example of how emotion can become a central part of an otherwise rational position. We do this in the sphere of public semiotics and we do this with our private semiotics—our idiotics. From the point of view of semiotics, there is much that is similar in the public and private realm with regard to how we engage emotion and get it mixed up with reason. Psychologically, it is probably more true most of the time that emotional suffering is best dealt with by examining semiotics and idiotics, rather than spending long hours generating and/or revising macro-explanations based on hypotheses about what may or may not have happened to you as a child.

first posted April 23, 2013

Speech behaviorism, a practical approach

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The following are some basic rules for a practical behaviorist approach to speech.

Use real speech in Real-World, Real-Time (RWRT) situations.

Keep it simple by using only two people. Make it deep by using the same two people for years. No third person is needed or wanted.

Use only good data that both speaker and listener can agree on. For RWRT speech, this means only speech that is/just was in the working memory of both partners.

That is, both partners must agree on what was said and heard. If the listener heard “boo” and the speaker agrees they said “boo”, that is good data.

Partners must reach that agreement while keeping intact the contents of their working memories when the word “boo” was said/heard in RWRT. (This takes a little practice but is not that hard to do.)

Both speaker and listener can now analyze that data by discovering (through speech) what was in their working memories when they heard or spoke “boo”.

These simple rules bypass predetermined thoughts about what we believe we are saying or said, believe we are hearing or heard.

In so doing, these simple rules lead us gradually but very significantly away from surface speech (see: Time pressure encourages socially acceptable speech) to much deeper and more accurate communication between partners.

And this deepens partners’ sense of who or what they are across all domains.

That such simple rules can deeply change how we speak and hear and how we think about ourselves and others and how we understand the entire enterprise of human psychology, shows that—you might say—God exists, or the Buddha Mind exists, or profound other realms are available to human beings, that a deep sense of karma is real, that what we say matters, that not doing our best to speak the truth is what the Buddha meant by “frivolous speech” and he did so for a good reason because enlightenment itself lies thataway.

I think it’s delightfully paradoxical that simple behaviorist rules can lead us to having religious experiences.

Can we restate or add to Cogito ergo sum by saying: Recte loquendo Deum esse demonstramus? (By speaking properly we demonstrate that God exists)

Muddled intentions, specific intentions

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

One important thing FIML practice has showed me is that people very often—more often than they realize—attribute specific, clear intentionality to the speech of others when that speech actually originated out of a muddled state and was not clear or specific at all to the speaker.

I think we do this because as speakers we have better knowledge of the rich ambiguity that is our mind, while as listeners we know, for the most part, only what the speaker has said, or rather what we think we heard them say.

In many other posts we have discussed hearing words incorrectly and the consequences that can follow from that. In this post, let’s confine ourselves to a listener’s attributing a more specific intentionality to the speaker than the speaker intended.

A crude example might be a drunk at a bar mumbling to himself. Another drunk walks by with his girl on his arm. Hearing the mumbling, he asks, “Did you say that to her?” In saying that, he is attributing intentionality where there was none.

Sometimes, the drunk at the bar will explain that he was just mumbling. And sometimes he will own the intentionality being attributed to him.

In that case, he might say, “Yes, I did. What are you going to do about it?”

Misconstrued intentionality surely leads to many fights.

But those of us who don’t get drunk in bars never do anything similar, right?

Not so. We do it all the time. We frequently hear the speech of others as having more specific intent than they meant.

Whenever we listen, we do so with the network of semiotics and language that subsumes our perceptions. Thus, whatever we hear will tend to confirm or be contextualized by that part of our subjective network that is most active at the time or that seems to apply best to what we are hearing.

Our use of that network for understanding the speech of others is hurried, quick, and often wrong. Our listening makes sense to us, but is almost never in full accord with what the speaker said, especially as so much speech initiates in vague or muddled states of mind. Speech is often groping while listening often is less so.

For example, if someone expresses a political view that we have recently been thinking about and that irritates us, our listening will very likely attribute a more specific or pointed intentionality to the speaker than is justified.

If we agree with what the speaker said under the circumstances described above, much the same thing will happen though our attribution of specific intentionality will be favorable rather than unfavorable.

These examples are the polite forms of the barroom brawl versus barroom camaraderie.

Notice also, the tendency we humans have to frame these sorts of errors as dichotomies. Either you are insulting my girl or we are all best friends.

Furthermore, notice that we also have a strong tendency to own the more specific intentionality being attributed to us by the listener. In the bar, you might decline the fight, but in another location you might lock horns with someone who attributed a specific intention to your muddled or idle expression of a vague political “view.”

Next time you think you heard a specific intent in the words of a friend, ask them if that was indeed their intent. Be careful when asking because if they are not experienced FIML practitioners, they may agree to own an intention they never had or that was far more muddled than it had seemed to you (or them in the moment of speaking).

My guess is a great deal of what we say is sloppier or more muddled than even we ourselves realize. This is simply how we are and how we really use language. You can’t make speech perfect.