This post is concerned with the micro, meso, and macro levels of existential semiotics and communicative thought, and how those levels affect human understanding.
Micro levels are very small units of thought or communication. These can be words, phrases, gestures, etc. and the “psychological morphemes” that accompany them. A psychological morpheme is the smallest unit of an emotional or psychological response.
Meso levels lie between macro and micro levels. Longer discourse, a sense that people have personalities or egos, and the basic ideas of any culture appear at this level.
Macro levels are the larger abstract levels that sort of stand above the other two levels. Macro levels might include religious or scientific beliefs, political ideologies, long-term personal goals or strategies.
Most people most of the time socialize on the meso level, often with support from shared macro level beliefs or aims. For most people, the broad outlines of most emotions are defined and conditioned at the meso level. This is the level where the nuts and bolts of convention are found. This is the level that tosses the beach balls of conversation back and forth across the dinner table and that defines those balls. The meso level defines our subculture and how well or badly we conform to it. The meso level is necessary for much of social life and sort of fun, though it is by definition not very detailed or profound. It is something most people can agree on and work with fairly easily for an hour or two at a time.
Many people define themselves mainly on the meso level and judge others by their understanding of this level. Many subcultures become stifling or cloying because meso definitions are crude and tend to leave out the rich subjectivity of individuals. Macro definitions are not all that different from meso ones except that they tend to define group feelings more than meso definitions. Groups band together based on macro level assumptions about ideologies, science, religion, art, style, location, ethnicity, etc.
Since most people are unable to fully access micro levels of communication the rich subjectivity of the individual mind is rarely, if ever, communicated at all and almost never communicated well.
In other fields, micro levels are all important. For example, the invention of the microscope completely changed the way humans see and understand their world. All that was added by the microscope was greater resolution and detail in the visual sphere. From that arose germ theory, material sciences, modern biology, modern medicine, and much more.
Micro levels of communication are basic to how we understand ourselves and others. Poor micro communication skills consign us to communication that occurs only at meso or macro levels. This is a problem because meso and macro levels do not have sufficient detail and also because meso and macro levels become the only tools we have to decide what is going on. When we are forced to account for micro details with the crude tools of meso thought, we will make many mistakes. Eventually we become like the long-term cigarette-smoker whose (micro) alveoli have collapsed, destroying full use of the lungs.
Without the details of the microscope, people for millennia happily drank germ infested water. Without a way to resolve micro levels of communication, people today, as in the past, happily ingest multitudes of micro error—errors that make them ill.
Micro communication errors make us sick because we make many serious mistakes on this level and also because our minds are fully capable of comprehending the sort of detail we can find at the micro level. We speak and listen on many interpersonal levels like crude beasts when we are capable of very delicate and refined understanding.
FIML or a technique similar to it provides a method for grasping micro details. Doing FIML for a long time is like spending a long time using a microscope or telescope. You will start to see everything differently. Detailed micro analyses of interpersonal communication changes our understanding of micro communication and also both the meso and macro levels of existential semiotics and communicative thought. Microscopes allowed us to see germs in water and also to understand that some of those germs can kill us.
From a FIML point of view, a great deal of human psychology can only be understood by analyzing micro-level interactions in real-time.
This is so because only a FIML-type of analysis can access the actual micro-data that go into the formations of actual interpretations. In contrast, meso and macro level analyses arrive “fully loaded” with the biases endemic to those levels of communication and understanding.
Like the psychological concept personality, the concept of psychological projection has general descriptive value in some situations.
These concepts become counterproductive and limiting, however, when they are accepted off-the-shelf as important insights into specific situations or the behaviors of particular people.
I am very confident that micro data generally will not support most ready-made meso and macro analyses of human psychology or behavior.
The findings demonstrate that the amygdala can be influenced by even high-level facial information before that information is consciously perceived, suggesting that the amygdala’s processing of social cues in the absence of awareness may be more extensive than previously described.
Note that all important phrase “…before that information is consciously perceived.”
The five skandhas are form, sensation, perception, activity, consciousness. A form can arise in the mind or outside of the mind. This form gives rise to a sensation, which gives rise to perception, followed by activity (mental or physical), and lastly consciousness. In the Buddha’s explanation, the five skandhas occur one after the other, very rapidly. They are not a continuous stream but rather a series of discrete or discernible moments. A form arises or appears, then there is a sensation, then perception, then activity, then consciousness.
Advanced training in meditation and mindfulness is probably necessary for most people to be able to observe the five skandhas individually, as they are actually “firing,” but it can be done. A good deal of Buddhist practice is based on being able to do that.
Though all brain imaging studies must be taken as provisional since the technology is not completely reliable, they still are providing us with some very interesting information worth considering.
The amygdala study cited above seems to confirm that people form significant emotional reactions to faces without being conscious of their reactions at all. In Buddhist terms, their reactions are (or take place at) the second skandha—sensation.
The skandha of sensation is defined as a reaction to a form that is either positive, negative, or neutral. That is, in varying degrees, we are either attracted to, repulsed by, or neutral toward the form. In the amygdala study the form is the face that is flashed very briefly on a screen. The face appears so briefly, for just a few milliseconds, that it is not possible to actually “see” or be aware of having “seen” it.
I think it is fair to extrapolate from this study that we humans are forming sensations all the time without being aware of what we are doing. As the authors of the study say, the study “[suggests] that the amygdala’s processing of social cues in the absence of awareness may be more extensive than previously described.”
“…processing of social cues in the absence of awareness” is pretty good description of what the Buddha called delusion, especially if we realize that the delusions we “process” from forms arising outside of us are entwined with and not very different from delusions we process from forms arising within us.
The Buddha’s five skandha explanation, thus, provides a way to observe and analyze our minds to prevent our becoming deluded by the tug of sensations that happen in the “absence of awareness.”
These unknown flying objects were recorded by @lifeisdriving at @UVU during the Charlie Kirk assassination. Viewers can compare what are obviously birds and insects to what I believe look like as many as three different drones. Who flew the drones? Who killed Charlie Kirk?
Folks, let’s talk facts: In a standard CitiBank mobile app or online receipt, the button for disputing a charge is ALWAYS “Dispute Charge” – both words capitalized. But in the screenshot provided as part of Cabot Phillips’ alibi? It’s “Dispute charge” with a lowercase ‘c’. This is NOT standard. Multiple verified screenshots and app guides confirm the consistent capitalization. This irregularity could indicate an abnormality, such as a potential digital alteration or Photoshop edit – or perhaps an outdated app version/glitch. Either way, it’s highly unusual and not what we’d expect from an authentic, current Citi receipt.
Why does this matter? It ties directly into the timeline around Charlie Kirk’s tragic death. Witness Mitch Snow’s testimony places key figures – including Erika Kirk and Brian Harpole – at Fort Huachuca on Sept. 8, 2025, specifically at the Candlewood Suites hotel, followed by a suspicious high-level meeting on the morning of Sept. 9 where the witness places Cabot Philips in attendance.
Cabot Phillips (Erika’s ex) shared this receipt and a Publix photo as an alibi to show he was in Nashville buying balloons on Sept. 8, far from Arizona. If the alibi holds, great – but these inconsistencies cast doubt.
Investigations always work with speculation and small, but telling, facts.
That’s all this is. The lack of capitalization of one letter is a small but telling fact.
Crowd-sourcing is the new journalism of today. And it is very powerful.
You may remember that back in the 90s and early 00s, it was a common prediction that one day citizen journalism would replace mainstream mind-control fake journalism.
That prediction has slowly come to be,
and fully landed with an enormous boom during Candace Owens’ crowd-sourced investigation of Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The aftermath of Candace’s reporting over the past several months has seen mind-control operators and ‘influencers’ flip out.
For now, we can clearly see who is a real journalist and who is a mind-control fraud, a $7000 ‘influencer’, a Jewish Supremist or just a POS for whatever reason.
The time to observe carefully and investigate fully is NOW, before we lose all of our rights. ABN
Imagine a world where your thoughts no longer live silently inside your head—where machines can decode what you see, feel, or even intend to say. Mind reading technology, once the stuff of science fiction, is now edging into reality through the rapid evolution of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. From brain-computer interfaces that allow paralyzed patients to move robotic limbs, to neural decoding systems that can reconstruct images directly from brain signals, the line between imagination and reality is fading fast.
So, what is mind reading technology? It’s not mystical telepathy, but a scientific field focused on interpreting brain activity patterns using sensors, algorithms, and AI. Modern research uses techniques like fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and EEG (electroencephalography) to translate neural signals into recognizable outputs—such as speech, visual images, or emotional states. In simple terms, when we ask, how does mind reading technology work, the answer lies in reading the brain’s electrical and chemical language and turning it into digital data that computers can understand.
But as this frontier opens, it brings both hope and fear. The promise lies in helping those with paralysis, ALS, or speech impairments to communicate freely. The fear lies in losing mind privacy—the last untouched layer of human autonomy. Who owns your thoughts if machines can read them? Can mind privacy still exist in a world where neural data becomes as valuable as personal data?
As scientists push forward, mind reading technology stands at a moral crossroads—one that could redefine freedom, identity, and the very concept of what it means to have a private mind.
To save yourself from embarrassment and confusion, prepare now by doing FIML with your partner in life. It’s possible, but I doubt a mind-reading machine will be capable of providing the depth and deeply human sharing FIML provides. It seems likely to me that FIML will prove to be the last human thing that only humans can do and no machine can, ever. That said, a mind-reading machine will be an excellent non-human ‘partner’ to practice with and learn FIML. In a deep sense, FIML is an artform and partners doing it are artists probing and recreating themselves. ABN
Ascorbate synthesis was lost in the evolution of several species, turning this molecule into an essential micronutrient, vitamin C. Are there any benefits to losing ascorbate synthesis and becoming prone to ascorbate deficiency? We show that loss of ascorbate synthesis and consequent transient ascorbate deficiency protects mice infected with schistosomes, parasites which cause the major parasitic disease schistosomiasis. This is because schistosomes require ascorbate from the host to lay eggs and cause pathology. Our work shows that a vitamin deficiency can have physiological benefits by protecting animals from the pathology of a major parasitic disease. We propose that resistance against the pathology of a parasitic infection may explain why some animals lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C.
American Buddhist Net 