Category: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

Status and (mis)information

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A default cultural norm is that people with high status know more than people with low status.

The highest status person in the world on secure information, however, the director of the CIA, did not know that Gmail is not a secure conduit for potentially compromising information.

This “small” detail, which has led to his resignation, is very telling about what high status people actually do know and how we should think of them. Basically, they don’t necessarily know even the basics.

This shows that our default cultural norm about people with high status knowing more than people with low status is not trustworthy.

Default cultural norms are “public semiotics” that can cause you problems if you question them.

Once something like the Gmail news is out, if it gets out, we can talk about it, but if you had said a week ago that just because someone is the head of the CIA doesn’t mean he or she understands basic email security, you would have sounded like a nut (a signal that you are violating a cultural norm).

High status individuals, groups, committees, commissions, etc. are not necessarily right, not at all.

How can it be that no one ever told the director of the CIA that Gmail is not a safe way to send private information? For his entire illustrious career in the military no one told him? And he never learned that on his own?

That is an amazing fact and shows why hierarchical government, determined through the status of individuals, is not working well, and never will. The time has come to start using network science and data drawn from many millions of individuals to control more of our society. Eventually, we will do best to figure out systems that do not rely on high status individuals—not their reputations, “wisdom,” nice personalities, cute families, good looks, or anything else about them.

The tools for doing that are growing by the day.

(For FIML practitioners, the detail discussed above reveals how error-prone all communication is. On this site, we often call cultural norms “public semiotics.” Just as FIML partners will uncover and remove mistaken “private semiotics” from their thought streams, so also will their enhanced lateral communication (between the two of them) give them the means to remove illusions concerning public semiotics. Mistaken semiotics, either private or public, constitute a good deal of what the Buddha meant by delusion and why he said virtually everyone is deluded.)

Edit: This gmail story broke over one year ago, before the public knew about the NSA saving all personal electronic data of private citizens. This makes me wonder if Petraeus knew what the NSA was doing. If he did not, this shows that we do indeed have levels of government that are kept secret even from top officials. If he did know that the NSA had access to his gmail account and was saving his private correspondence, well, this seems unlikely to me.

The quintessence of interpersonal cooperation

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FIML is the quintessence of interpersonal social behavior. FIML is the quintessence of interpersonal cooperation. As such, it transforms what we call “personality” by altering the basis of experience.

If social behavior is understood quantitatively, then “more social” means more social contacts.

If social behavior is understood qualitatively, then “more social” becomes “better social”; i.e. more honest, true, profound, fulfilling.

It is not possible to have high-quality interpersonal interactions without a precise way to manage and correct errors in communication as they occur. Personality is based on interpersonal experiences. Change the experiences and you change the personality.

Our techno-future and the importance of the humanities

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As AI and robots continue to develop, humans will have less to do.

Many of the human things that seem so important to us today will no longer be important. For example, how will humans be able to maintain their conceit at having status within some cult/culture when a robot will be able to do whatever they are doing better?

Just yesterday Microsoft announced what appears to be a major breakthrough in the technology for translating speech. A computer can now use a simulation of your voice to translate one language into another. The demonstration is English being translated into Chinese. (See this: Microsoft Research shows a promising new breakthrough in speech translation technology. If you want to hear the demonstration, go to the end of the video.)

As a translator, I can appreciate what this technology does. It’s close to the last nail in the coffin of my profession. By the way, this does not bother me at all. Machine translations, as they are called, are already pretty darn good for most written translations. Now Microsoft is giving us pretty darn good real-time interpretations of spoken language. It won’t be long before machines will be able to do all forms of translation faster and better than humans.

The day before yesterday I read an article—UBS fires trader, replaces him with computer algorithm. The replaced trader used to make $2 million per year. The algorithm cost UBS $100,000 to create. The writing is on the wall for other kinds of traders.

Even a great deal of science and technological development—if not all of it—will be done better by machines than humans. Machines can design experiements and conduct them with little or no human input, and one hopes, zero human cheating.

The writing is on the wall for all of us. Most everyone sees it to some degree, but, seriously folks, the writing is getting very big—it’s all over for bio-human conceits. We will almost have no purpose any more, except to be.

In past centuries, we “conquered” nature and stopped needing to fear it or be in awe of it. We surrounded ourselves with technologies that protected us and made us comfortable. But those technologies have grown so much, we will soon be in as much awe of them as we once were of nature. They will dwarf us as much or more than nature did our ancestors a million years ago.

Cars will drive themselves, machines will translate, good science will be conducted by robots, banks will be run by machines, and eventually our brains will be emulated on computers.

All that will remain then is what we now call the humanities—bio-people will still (I’m pretty sure) want to be with other bio-people, share food with them, talk with them, love them. And they will need to communicate better. The machines, by obliterating the conceits of human status and culture that rule the world now, will show us our need to communicate better.

We will use brain scans to assist us, maybe even some form of technological telepathy. But we will still need deeper and better rules for understanding each other. It is my belief that FIML, or something very much like it, will be the foundation for communication in the future.

Repost: Being able to do FIML

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  • Being able to do FIML means that you have developed a skill or trait that did not exist in you before. The ability to do FIML is a functional “state of mind” that emerges from other states of mind—from consciousness, awareness, self-reflection, self-criticism, communication, language use, emotion, etc.
  • Doing FIML will change the way you communicate, especially with your FIML partner. It will change the way you view language and its uses.
  • Since FIML depends on real data agreed upon by both partners and since FIML can convincingly change how we perceive ourselves and our partners, it can give us new perspectives on psychology and/or any activity that depends on language/communication.

Continue reading…

Repost: How greed is mirrored in social groups

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In my last post, I introduced the idea of mirroring to FIML terminology. Language, semiotics, and mirroring (LSM) can be thought of as a fairly simple set of factors that can help us understand social situations.

Several studies done at UC Berkeley (Unethical Behavior More Prevalent In The Upper Classes According To New Study) have shown that upper-class individuals tend to behave less ethically than others. Of course, any good historian knows this is the history of the world–privileged classes always become locked in a self-referential world that gradually moves far from the reality of the societies that support them.

Continue reading…

Subjectivity and speech

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What is the relationship between subjectivity and speech?

Speech is a narrow band compared to subjectivity.

When we awake early in the morning and lie alone in the dark, we often experience the richness of our subjectivity. It can be scary or peaceful or angry or blissful. It can be rich with imagery or memory, sounds, music, emotions.

Then something in us moves and we get up.

Normally, our subjective world starts to close down at this point, especially if we are living with someone. At some point, we will start talking, maybe drink some coffee, while we begin the process of fully awakening the communicative mind. I want to avoid calling this communicative aspect of our minds “objective” because there is nothing particularly objective about it and there is nothing particularly non-objective about our “subjective” mind as described above.

The subjective mind that we experience before arising or in meditation is like a vast mountain range, while the communicative mind—the speaking and listening mind—is like a tiled patio with a few chairs and a table within that mountain range of subjectivity.

Neither of them is better or worse and neither of them can be avoided or removed. Still, the speaking mind does tend to ignore the mountains, our subjectivity, while the subjective mind generally finds it hard to speak at all.

In FIML practice we place great emphasis on removing mistakes while we are speaking, listening, or communicating. This is like cleaning up the patio, making sure the chairs do not have rain on them or that the table does not wobble. Once the patio has been cleaned up, it is time to bring in more communion with your partner about the mountains all around you.

When your partner looks at the mountains—their subjectivity—it’s not the same view that you will have of your subjectivity. But still you are both human and you surely care about one another, so in many respects your subjectivities are not so different. Can you find more ways to share them? Can you find more ways to refer to them as you speak and listen?

FIML practice is capable of completely removing the snowball effects of inevitable mistakes in communication. Once you can do that, start adding more subjectivity, more of the mountains and happy clouds around you.

Repost: Being misunderstood

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One of the worst things about being misunderstood is that very often the more you try to be understood, the worse the problem grows.

Most societies have strong proscriptions against too much talking, and Buddhism is no exception.

I want to discuss three people to whom I have tried to explain FIML with little or no success—a close friend, a Buddhist nun, and a close relative.

Continue reading…

Tone of voice

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How do you know what your partner’s tone of voice means during an actual real-time exchange?

You can ask them and believe their answer. This would be a normal FIML query which resolves the question perfectly in almost all cases.

If you don’t do FIML, you will probably guess. This is normal non-FIML behavior which does not resolve the question very well at all. You could easily be mistaken. Moreover, even if you are right, you can’t be sure. If the tone of voice was significant, you may start a snowball of misunderstanding.

What if you do FIML but still frequently misunderstand your partner’s tone of voice in some situations? For example, my partner sometimes expresses mild alarm or dissatisfaction in a way that often makes me think the situation is more serious than it is. This happens once or twice a month, more or less.

How do I understand this small problem? Is my partner’s tone of voice non-standard or is the way I hear it non-standard? How would we check and even if we did why should we aim to conform to a “standard” that doesn’t truly exist? There may be a rough range of “standard” English alarm tones of voice, and I bet my partner and I know roughly what that is and already do it well enough, but it doesn’t help much in this case because I am still going to misunderstand her a couple of times a month.

A question that might be answered more satisfyingly is: How do I stop misunderstanding?

One thing we can do is have her make her alarm tone of voice a bunch of times while I listen and recalibrate my hearing. Maybe I can also say something about what I hear which will make her recalibrate her speaking a bit.

Doing that will work pretty well. We might stop the misunderstandings, but I am still left wondering about tone of voice. Is there any way to accurately say what it means? How should someone sound when they are alarmed?

Maybe brain scans and many speakers of English will be able to get a clearer picture, but even that picture will change in time as the language changes and those findings, should they ever come to be, won’t do anything for me and my partner right now.

When partners delve into tone of voice they will find that it is just like delving into subjectivity. Can you put an adjective to your subjective state right now? If you look at the object to your left, how should you feel about it?

There is usually no answer to how we should feel subjectively or often even what we are feeling. Tone of voice can be beautifully rich and elusive in a similar way.

Moods and moodiness

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It could well be said that all non-FIML relationships, or nearly all, are characterized by hierarchical rules/roles that are enforced by moods and violence.

Alcoholism is a type of relationship of this sort. Alcoholism can be seen as a caricature of all, or nearly all, non-FIML behavior. The enabler of the alcoholic is just as “guilty” as the alcoholic, and in a very deep sense neither of them is guilty of anything because neither of them knows of any other way to conduct a relationship.

If you find yourself feeling afraid of your partner or doing too much to accommodate them, your FIML practice needs work. Somewhere, somehow either you or both of you are letting small contretemps slip by without discussing them. This allows them to snowball and turn your relationship into one that caters to moods, moodiness, and ultimately control by moods.

If you find yourself feeling afraid of your partner, it is as much your fault—indeed, more your fault—than theirs. Why? Because you are not bringing up the small contretemps before they snowball.

Alcoholism, with its increasing cloudiness caused by booze, is “merely” a very obvious version of normal non-FIML dysisfunctionality. Much the same could be said about most/many “abusive” relationships, but more discussion is needed on that subject than can be done in a blog post.

AA recognizes in its twelve-step program that the “enabler” (the enabling partner) is as much a part of the problem as the alcohol-addict.

In like manner, in FIML, we can clearly and resolutely say that if you are enabling or feeling afraid of or accommodating your partner’s moodiness for pretty much any reason, you are just as much a part of the problem as them.

When is it OK to feel afraid of your partner? There are normal limits here that a reasonable person should be able to see. If you lie to your partner, cheat on them, do drugs behind their back, talk behind their back, etc. you ought to feel afraid of them because you are behaving badly and you know it. If you think that you have to do any of those things because that’s how the world is, you are participating in a classic non-FIML abusive or dysfunctional relationship.

FIML practice could be described as a technique for preventing the formation of relationships characterized by hierarchical rules or roles that are enforced by moods or violence.

Clear signs that you are in a dysfunctional non-FIML relationship are lying or feeling afraid of your partner. If you feel the need to lie or are being lied to and/or if you are afraid of your partner or they are afraid of you, you are in a very normal non-FIML relationship. It is as much your responsibility as theirs—no matter which role you are in—to correct the problem. FIML practice will correct it if you can get your partner to do it.

Ask your partner

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What do you want/need/expect from communication with me?

After they answer, ask them to answer again: What do you want/need/expect from communication with me when our communication is:

  • at its best
  • normal/average
  • below average
  • something you cannot put up with?

Then ask: What do you want/need/expect me to want/need/expect from you?

Then ask this question in the context of the four bullet points above.

Then ask them: How do you signal what you want/need/expect?

Then ask them: How do they think you signal what you want/need/expect?

Ask: How much or what sort/level of detail do they want in their communication with you?

What sort of detail do you want?

Try to figure out what both of your core motivations for communication are. How do those motivations help you communicate? How can you optimize your communication?

An insight into how propaganda and a good deal of culture works

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I read a Wikipedia entry yesterday on what’s known as an information cascade.

An information cascade

occurs when people observe the actions of others and then make the same choice that the others have made, independently of their own private information signals. A cascade develops, then, when people “abandon their own information in favor of inferences based on earlier people’s actions”. (From the Wijipedia link above)

The way this relates to propaganda, including the softer, gentler kind employed in the West, can be found in point four below. These four points are the “four key conditions in an information cascade model:”

1. Agents make decisions sequentially
2. Agents make decisions rationally based on the information they have
3. Agents do not have access to the private information of others
4. A limited action space exists (e.g. an adopt/reject decision). (Ibid.; emphasis added)

The “limited action space” is the key to propaganda because it constitutes a false dichotomy that requires great strength for an individual to overcome. It’s much easier to accept whatever explanation is being offered by the state than to question it and run the risk of being called a kook or traitor. (“You’re either with us or with the terrorists,” as Bush famously said to support his war efforts.) This is remarkable because in many cases the only reasonable course of action is to want more information. How do we know for sure that Sadam has WMD? Where did that “yellow cake” information come from? Etc.

This same sort of “limited action space” relates to human culture and psychology in that all individual human beings embody thousands of results of “information cascades” determined by other members of their culture. We can call these results cultural mores, cultural beliefs or values, public semiotics, or most simply, the way things are done around here.

It takes enormous strength to question public semiotics but public semiotics unquestioned can cause enormous suffering, especially when they have major effects on interpersonal communication, which they always do.

The only way I know of to overcome this problem on an interpersonal level is to do FIML or something very much like it. The static, culturally engendered “information cascades” that lie in our heads and affect how we understand our loved ones are poison if they are not caught and observed carefully because each of them constitutes a “limited action space” that causes individuals to box each other in with profoundly mistaken interpretations.

Even a single instance can be serious. But many instances aggregated over the years almost always will lead to, if not interpersonal disaster, greatly reduced interpersonal communication and greatly reduced individual growth and happiness.

Being normal is boring?

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An interesting Swedish study (described here: Creativity ‘closely entwined with mental illness’) found not that creative people have higher incidences of mental illness, but rather that they are more likely to be related to someone with mental illness.

As a Buddhist, I am inclined to think most people are deluded, crazy if you will. From my practice of FIML, I am certain that most people suffer significant interpersonal stress due to ambiguities in language/communication that are rarely if ever dealt with in a satisfactory manner.

Repost: More thoughts on “Empathy”

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Edit: We are moving, vacationing, very busy right now, so we have less time to write new posts. Please look through our archives for more posts about FIML and Buddhism. Thanks. ABN

It seems that many individuals who self-describe as “empathetic” think of empathy as a talent they have for “reading people”, or knowing what others are thinking without having to ask. I think this is a huge mistake that can actually lead such people to have less empathy over time. To me it seems much more appropriate to think of empathy not as a talent one possesses but as a desire to understand other people. If we think of it this way then the ever-problematic “I know” becomes “I want to know.”

If empathy is conceived as an interest or desire, it is more likely to be developed and pursued. If, however, it is conceived as a static quality or talent, it will be taken for granted, misapplied, and probably warped into just another form of hubris.

Continue reading…

Repost: The human operating system

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Traditional human operating systems include a standardized language, standardized semiotics, and a “personality,” which is generally understood to be a measure of how the individual has adapted to the standardized language and semiotics of their time-period.

Standardized in this context means that the language the individual uses is some version of a recognizable dialect, while their semiotics is some version of a recognizable subculture, which may include such elements as clothing styles, beliefs, goals, expectations, education, mannerisms, and so on.

Continue reading…

How to evaluate something you don’t know

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A fascinating post by Robin Hanson—We Add Near, Average Far—describes some of the difficulty of presenting an idea like FIML to an Internet audience.

The problem is lots of detail and many bits of evidence make it difficult for people to evaluate the overall worth of a complex idea because people tend to evaluate information of that type by averaging the data rather than adding it up.

Should we just say that FIML will make you and your partner smarter and happier? Maybe we should when discussing it online, though of course, we won’t do that.

In person, we have found people quite receptive, but that is probably due to the same effect—in person we focus on one or two results of FIML practice and we only do that if people show interest.

I think Buddhism probably has a similar problem getting it’s message across through books or film. You really have to go to a temple or spend time with people who understand the Dharma to fully comprehend Buddhism as a way of thinking or living. This is why Buddhism is called a “mind-to-mind” teaching.

Up close and personal, most of us realize that we live in a very complex world and that our capacities for understanding our conditions cannot be taken for granted. But when it comes to learning how to hone or augment our skills for dealing with speech and symbolic communication, we tend to look for simple answers, or abstract ones, that do not include the kinds of detail we must pay attention to. Broad extrinsic theories that provide a general picture without essential detail—and these are everywhere in psychology, religion, sociology, the humanities—simply cannot do for you what a technique like FIML can because FIML is entirely based on the actual data of your actual life, and there is a great deal of that.

I do understand why it is hard to see this. At the same time, I wonder why it is so obvious in the physical sciences and engineering that we can’t do anything properly if we don’t make sure of our data.

Why should the humanities be different? We simply cannot communicate well or understand ourselves well without good data. FIML provides good data.