How to evaluate something you don’t know

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A 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 I prefer providing more information.

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.

first posted OCTOBER 2, 2012

A few notes on FIML

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment
  • Historically, all languages and communication strategies developed/evolved without FIML. Thus communication all but everywhere and with all but everyone relies entirely on non-FIML strategies. As languages evolved/developed, non-FIML strategies proliferated, in many ways making it more difficult for FIML strategies to arise. People became accustomed to non-FIML communication strategies, learned to enjoy them, and wanted to perpetuate them. This is still the case today. People are so used to non-FIML strategies, they cannot imagine anything else.
  • In many ways, it is because people understand only non-FIML strategies that they communicate to their loved ones by using public semiotics rather than clear interpersonal speech. They buy things, go on trips, go out to dinner, achieve status, and so on as substitutes for real interpersonal communication. Lack of FIML is also an important reason why many people enjoy their professional or public lives more than their private ones. Many people do like to bowl, but many of those same people also join bowling leagues because their private lives are unsatisfying.
  • If you do not do FIML practice with your primary interlocutor, you will be neurotic. Sounds bold to say that, but how could it be otherwise? Without FIML, you will not have clear communication with your primary interlocutor (spouse, SO, best friend, etc.); and without clear communication you will be forced to imagine what they mean and you will make mistakes and the mistakes will compound. In a short time, you will have a mistake-riddled, self-centered understanding of your primary interlocutor rather than a clear understanding of them. And the same will be true for them. This is why so many very loving, very compatible couples have problems within a few years.
  • Do you want to have clear communication with your SO? Do they want to have it with you? If you don’t do FIML, how can you get it? I don’t think you can. Do you think you can rely on feelings? On love? On good will between you? How will you prevent misunderstandings from developing if you have no way of knowing with great clarity what you are saying to each other? What is your strategy? Do you have one?
  • Make an arbitrary list of, say, ten words. Ask your SO to free-associate on each word; just have them say what first pops into their mind when you read each of the words. Have them do the same for you. Is it not clear that your associations are not the same? Maybe a few of them are, but most will be different. Now what happens when you speak sentences to each other? Can you see that you are always going to be making assumptions about what your SO is saying based on your own self-generated associations? How can you be sure you know what is in their mind when a certain tone of voice issues forth? Can you be certain you know why they chose that word or that phrasing? Of course you cannot be sure.
  • You can only know with clarity what your SO is saying if you ask them. But if you are only accustomed to non-FIML strategies, you will find that hard to do. As mentioned, communication all but everywhere and with all but everyone relies entirely on non-FIML strategies.
  • A wonderful result of FIML practice is it removes the need to wonder whether your partner has been bothered by something you did or said. This result occurs because you will gradually become confident that your partner will say something if they feel bothered.
  • Best of all, they will say something right away before whatever it is grows into something large and unmanageable. For example, if you use a way of saying good-bye that makes them feel lonely, they will bring it up right away and you can figure out what the cause was and/or how to do things differently if need be. This is a much better way to deal with something like that than for them to wait months or years before telling you, if they ever do. Imagine how just that one bad (also wrong) feeling might grow in them over time and lead to negative thoughts and actions that could have been avoided.
  • The best way to learn FIML is to break the practice down into small skills. Try the word list described above with your partner. Or start by just pointing to things. After you have had some practice, ask how some phrases make them feel or what they associate with them. Doing that will be fun and it will help you develop the skills needed for FIML practice. Stop, ask, hold your emotions in abeyance, listen, think. It gradually will become second-nature.

Musk predicts AI will bypass binary coding by end of this year

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Binary code is the fundamental language of computers, using only two digits—0 and 1—to represent all data and instructions. Each digit is called a bit, and combinations of bits form binary code that computers can process. This system, known as base-2, aligns perfectly with the on/off states of electronic circuits in computer hardware.

  • Bits and Bytes: A single bit is either 0 or 1. Eight bits make a byte, the standard unit for storing data.
  • Representation: Binary code represents numbers, letters, symbols, and instructions. For example, the letter A is represented as 01000001 in ASCII binary.
  • How It Works: Computers use binary to store and process information. When you save a file, it’s converted into binary and stored on a hard drive or SSD. Programs are compiled into machine code—binary instructions the CPU executes.
  • Why Binary?: Digital systems use two states (on/off, high/low voltage), making binary ideal for reliable and efficient data handling.

Tools like ASCII and Unicode map characters to binary values, enabling text processing. While programmers use high-level languages, these are converted into binary for the computer to understand.

Rare footage of Ghislaine Maxwell

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

RARE FOOTAGE – You will not find these clips of Ghislaine Maxwell through a search or physically going page by page on the DOJ site. They are not visible. We were able to pull them via a scraping method.

While there are scripts available of the 2016 deposition, video clips are a rare find. The following is a thread of multiple videos we pulled. I want you to watch her body language. Disdain, sarcasm, eye rolls, inconvenienced, irritated, unbothered.

She lies repeatedly the whole way through.

We will never get the truth out of Ghislaine Maxwell.

We have about 100,000 more files to go. We are hoping to find more.

link

Boller for the win

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

_________

She was canned from the White House Religious Liberty Commission for making roughly this point. Being kicked out will only make her more popular and famous. I love the way she talks — tone, dialect, enunciation, content. USA and the West really need good women today. Femininity has a deft way of sliding under or around the lies of our times and cleanly pushing them away. ABN

Carrie Prejean Boller ousted from White House Religious Liberty Commission following antisemitism row

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Catholic right-wing activist Carrie Prejean Boller has been removed from the White House Religious Liberty Commission over what the chair called her “political agenda” during a public hearing on antisemitism this week.

The announcement of Prejean Boller’s removal by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, an evangelical Christian, on Wednesday came after Prejean Boller spurned calls to resign from her post amid mounting backlash over her remarks on Monday.

link

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick should be required to disavow Jewish Supremacy and support of it, because that’s what this looks like to me. ABN

One of the biggest stories today: The Kirk murder strongly appears to be revealing a Jewish Supremist infiltration of Christianity WITH cooperation from a group of bad actors within USA military and IC

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

__________

Infiltration of anti-Christians and fake-Christians into Evangelical circles, if fully exposed, will transform the religious devotion of as many as 40 million Americans. Owens has already uncovered enough evidence for these suspicions to be taken very seriously. ABN

__________

VIDEO CLIP:

FULL VIDEO: