Tag: brain science

Using truthful statements to lie

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A recent paper explored the effects of using truthful statements to deceive others.

The authors of the paper call this behavior paltering and define it as “the active use of truthful statements to convey a misleading impression.”

The paper, Artful Paltering: The Risks and Rewards of Using Truthful Statements to Mislead Others, says:

…we identify paltering as a distinct form of deception. Paltering differs from lying by omission (the passive omission of relevant information) and lying by commission (the active use of false statements). Our findings reveal that paltering is common in negotiations and that many negotiators prefer to palter than to lie by commission.

The paper tests the effects of paltering during business negotiations, but paltering can happen in many other contexts. Examples of paltering by public figures can be found in the news every day.

The concept of paltering is also interesting psychologically. I am going to speculate that individuals often palter to themselves concerning their own internalized autobiographies and reasons for doing many actions.

If we use our inner voices to palter to ourselves—that is use the best “truthful” description of our actions that also just happens to place those actions in their best light—then we are not living with full integrity even in the privacy of our own thoughts.

At the same time, we have to be careful about how we assess our own paltering. We might be right to use the best version of events because that really is the correct version.

The problem is there is no good standard for an individual alone to decide what is objectively right or wrong.

For example, if someone smokes pot in a state where it is illegal are they paltering by telling themselves the law is stupid so why follow  it?

FIML partners will want to avoid paltering at all times but especially in the midst of a FIML query. Properly done, FIML can help with internalized paltering because this sort of subject matter lends itself well to FIML discussions.

As with all moral questions, where we draw the line is not always easy. The more tools we have the better. Awareness of paltering and its effects on others is good tool to have.

Life lives on meaning

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Biosemiotics is the study of signs and their interpretations by living organisms.

The interpretation of a sign is generally synonymous with its “meaning” for the entity that interprets it.

From Wikipedia:

Biosemiotics (from the Greek bios meaning “life” and semeion meaning “sign”) is a growing field of semiotics and biology that studies the production and interpretation of signs and codes in the biological realm. Biosemiotics attempts to integrate the findings of biology and semiotics and proposes a paradigmatic shift in the scientific view of life, demonstrating that semiosis (sign process, including meaning and interpretation) is one of its immanent and intrinsic feature. (Source)

Here is a short video on the subject: A Biosemiotic Perspective.

The importance of meaning (sign interpretation) in human life is so great, many humans will die, or want to, if they lose an overall sense of it.

Just because we crave meaning does not mean we have to have good meaning, valid meaning, right meaning. Almost all cultures almost all of the time are filled with bogus meaning. They thrive on it.

If you find something in a culture, you will find it in individuals. Almost all human psychology almost all the time is rife with bogus meaning.

Some of that comes from culture, some is the interpretation of the individual, all of it is mixed together.

This is why memes are so powerful. They are meaning-signs that for many different reasons are interpreted as being true. A meme can be picture or a few words. An example is “Diversity is Strength.”

That meme is probably not scientifically valid. There are many studies that show it is false.

Whatever the case, “Diversity is Strength” (or one of its derivatives “stronger together”) has become a significant public meaning, whose main interpretation is rarely questioned.

There are scores of memes (cultural signs or signals) circulating within American culture at all times.

Some cultural signs and signals are “organic” in the sense that they have grassroots origins, springing from the “ground” of culture itself.

Others are formed and manipulated by powerful forces who want to influence culture or change it. “Diversity is Strength” is an example of this.

America’s elite subculture has been pushing this meme for many years. The following video contains many examples of this meme being used by public figures as well as a refutation of it: Diversity DESTROYS Social Cohesion in the West.

Most people do not analyze signs, symbols, memes, or semiotics. They do not ask for the source of a cultural sign, its uses, or even if it is true.

Once a cultural sign is established, it will tend to remain unquestioned until some other force (money, media) or meme replaces it.

The best thing for individuals to do is replace crappy, manipulative memes with your own analysis and understanding. Replace them with Right Meaning, in the Buddhist sense.

The Buddha is often described as mainly “an analyst” who gave us many ways to free ourselves from delusion.

Ingredient in magic mushrooms is shown to ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients in one dose

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

…Of 29 cancer patients who got psilocybin in a trial conducted at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, 20 rated it as “among the most meaningful” events of their life. (Source)

So sad we have had to wait all these years to do some pretty easy science on something many people were fairly certain would turn out this way.

Obviously, psilocybin and LSD should also be tested on other people with other conditions as well as people with no conditions who just want to try it. It is well-known that psychedelics are used in small doses to enhance creativity among tech workers in Silicon Valley.

LSD therapy was quite successful in treating alcoholism when it was briefly allowed to be used for this purpose in the 1960s. ABN

Small lies matter

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A new study shows that even small lies can weaken our self control, causing us to tell bigger lies and more of them.

Lead author of the study, Neil Garrett, says of it:

“It is likely the brain’s blunted response to repeated acts of dishonesty reflects a reduced emotional response to these acts. This is in line with suggestions that our signals aversion to acts that we consider wrong or immoral. We only tested dishonesty in this experiment, but the same principle may also apply to escalations in other actions such as risk taking or violent behaviour.” [emphasis added] (How lying takes our brains down a ‘slippery slope’)

The study itself can be found here: The brain adapts to dishonesty.

Here is the abstract:

Dishonesty is an integral part of our social world, influencing domains ranging from finance and politics to personal relationships. Anecdotally, digressions from a moral code are often described as a series of small breaches that grow over time. Here we provide empirical evidence for a gradual escalation of self-serving dishonesty and reveal a neural mechanism supporting it. Behaviorally, we show that the extent to which participants engage in self-serving dishonesty increases with repetition. Using functional MRI, we show that signal reduction in the amygdala is sensitive to the history of dishonest behavior, consistent with adaptation. Critically, the extent of reduced amygdala sensitivity to dishonesty on a present decision relative to the previous one predicts the magnitude of escalation of self-serving dishonesty on the next decision. The findings uncover a biological mechanism that supports a ‘slippery slope’: what begins as small acts of dishonesty can escalate into larger transgressions. [emphasis added]

Though this is only one study based on results from only 80 people, I find it very credible.

In Buddhism we learn that even the smallest of thoughts can have enormous consequences.

An important aspect of Buddhist mindfulness is watching how our thoughts develop and how they affect us and others. FIML practice is based on sharing the fruits of real-time mindfulness with a partner.

Done correctly, FIML allows us to observe small transitions in our minds and correct them in real-time if they are wrong.

FIML does not deal all that much with lies per se because partners are expected to be beyond that and FIML won’t work if partners lie.

Nonetheless, FIML does deal with small misunderstandings that can lead to slippery slopes similar to what is described in the study.

For example, if you think your partner’s tone is dismissive and it isn’t and you don’t do a FIML query, the next time you hear that tone you will experience confirmation bias and be on your way down the slope. It’s very hard to trace that sort of thing back to its origin after a few occasions. Your misunderstanding of your partner’s tone could be construed as an unconscious lie that you are telling yourself.

This is why FIML is so important and why it is very helpful to start doing it early in your relationship when all is well and there are no misunderstandings.

FIML can be described as detailed, shared, real-time moral and existential awareness. It demands integrity and mindfulness from both partners and rewards them with greatly enhance shared integrity and mindfulness.

A major purpose of FIML is to prevent the sort of thing that happened in the study. To prevent partners from sliding down a slippery slope that sometimes cannot be regained.

Medicinal Cannabis: In Vitro Validation of Vaporizers for the Smoke-Free Inhalation of Cannabis

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Abstract

Inhalation by vaporization is a promising application mode for cannabis in medicine. An in vitro validation of 5 commercial vaporizers was performed with THC-type and CBD-type cannabis. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to determine recoveries of total THC (THCtot) and total CBD (CBDtot) in the vapor. High-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection was used for the quantitation of acidic cannabinoids in the residue and to calculate decarboxylation efficiencies. Recoveries of THCtot and CBDtot in the vapor of 4 electrically-driven vaporizers were 58.4 and 51.4%, 66.8 and 56.1%, 82.7 and 70.0% and 54.6 and 56.7% for Volcano Medic®, Plenty Vaporizer®, Arizer Solo® and DaVinci Vaporizer®, respectively. Decarboxylation efficiency was excellent for THC (≥ 97.3%) and CBD (≥ 94.6%). The gas-powered Vape-or-Smoke™ showed recoveries of THCtot and CBDtot in the vapor of 55.9 and 45.9%, respectively, and a decarboxylation efficiency of ≥ 87.7 for both cannabinoids. However, combustion of cannabis was observed with this device. Temperature-controlled, electrically-driven vaporizers efficiently decarboxylate inactive acidic cannabinoids and reliably release their corresponding neutral, active cannabinoids. Thus, they offer a promising application mode for the safe and efficient administration of medicinal cannabis. (Source)

Seeking novel perceptions

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Here is an interesting exercise. Do something small to give your brain a novel (new) perception.

Look at something from a new angle, make a new sound, pinch an unusual part of your body. The idea is to do something small but get a big result.

For example, take a glass and look through it as through a telescope. While doing this, deeply appreciate the newness of the perception. Just give it five or ten seconds.

It is your conscious perception of the newness that gets your brain to respond. Once it does, you can nurse the feeling of newness and have the effect last a long time. Can be repeated as often as you like with any sort of novel perception.

You can also just use any new perception that appears in your world and milk it for the extra stimulation it provides. See example below.

Happy Caturday!

For this exercise, sought novel perceptions should be small and wholesome.

You don’t need to take drugs or jump off a cliff to get very good results. By doing small and wholesome, you teach yourself how to energize your brain quickly and in any situation.

The key to success is to do it consciously and with the intention of stimulating your brain by opening its novel experience mode.

Seeking novel perceptions is wonderful in and of itself and also it may be a good way for people to better understand FIML practice.

FIML practice is designed to disrupt normal autonomous thought processes.

Once they have been disrupted, a new thought process will replace the old—thus providing a novel psychological perception.

Frequent use of FIML remakes individual psychology for the better while also greatly improving relations with your FIML partner.

Evidence Rebuts Chomsky’s Theory of Language Learning

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The idea that we have brains hardwired with a mental template for learning grammar—famously espoused by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—has dominated linguistics for almost half a century. Recently, though, cognitive scientists and linguists have abandoned Chomsky’s “universal grammar” theory in droves because of new research examining many different languages—and the way young children learn to understand and speak the tongues of their communities. That work fails to support Chomsky’s assertions.

The research suggests a radically different view, in which learning of a child’s first language does not rely on an innate grammar module. Instead the new research shows that young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories (people or objects, for instance) and to understand the relations among things. These capabilities, coupled with a unique hu­­­man ability to grasp what others intend to communicate, allow language to happen. The new findings indicate that if researchers truly want to understand how children, and others, learn languages, they need to look outside of Chomsky’s theory for guidance. (link)

The notion that Chomsky is wrong is not new, but the linked article still a good read.

See this for a rebuttal of the above: Don’t believe the rumours. Universal Grammar is alive and well.

__________________

The following is only tangentially related to the above articles.

The key point in FIML is that messages (language, semiotics, etc.) are often misunderstood and that these misunderstandings can have large psychological effects.

Messages can be misunderstood on many levels, but the level that is least appreciated today and thus has the greatest unacknowledged implications for human psychology is the micro-level.

The micro-level is the level of the short-term memory (time component) and the psychological morpheme (emotional component). Psychological morphemes arise as brief (short-term memory) associations are made with other semiotic and thought systems in real-time.

If errors at this level are not corrected, large effects can ensue. Errors at this level are best corrected in real-time as quickly as possible (while the contents of the short-term memory are still fresh). This is why the FIML technique is done the way it is and why it works as well as it does.

A psychological morpheme is:

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

Google and FIML

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Google has helped all of us upgrade our info about the world around us, whatever we are interested in, etc.

In the past, people had brains as complex as ours and a love of good information as great as ours, but they had to make do with less.

Somewhat resembling Google, FIML practice upgrades interpersonal information shared by (usually) two people.

Rather than guess and fill our minds with superstitions about the people we care about most, FIML allows us to “look up” the info we need when we need it.

This has a dramatic and beneficial effect on both the self and other(s). The foundations of human psychology are exposed in FIML practice.

Once you see how FIML works and what it does, you will be doing it as often as you jump on the computer to look up something you want to know.

FIML is advanced interpersonal technology that makes first-rate psychological information as readily available as a computer search. It does take some practice, but is emotionally even more valuable than Google.

Interaction between conscious and unconscious perceptions of meaning

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

A recent study examined how words perceived unconsciously, or subliminally, affect conscious perception.

The study—Unconscious semantic processing of polysemous words is not automatic—states in its abstract that:

The strong and respective influences of conscious context and response-code on semantic processing of masked polysemous words demonstrate that unconscious verbal semantic representations are not automatic.

A polysemous word is a word with more than one meaning, such as bank, bark, or date.

I like this study because it works with real-time language processing and because it shows that what we consciously pay attention to greatly affects how we perceive what follows.

An article about the study says:

This series of experiments… demonstrates that unconscious cognition is not only highly complex, since it can reach the level of semantics (the meaning of words), but also shows that it seems to be extremely sensitive to conscious influences. At every moment, our conscious position influences the nature of the mental operations unconsciously unfolding within us. (Unconscious processing operates under conscious influence [emphasis added])

I would submit that when we consciously use FIML techniques when listening to our FIML partner, our listening changes greatly for the better because we have at-hand a technique to remove wrong interpretations. FIML allows us to see, as it were, the subliminal words in the study’s experiment and correct our thinking accordingly.

When we don’t use FIML, we tend to build one mistake on top of another. That is to say, listening mistakes that influence consciousness will continue to influence how we hear from that point on and that much of this influence will be unconscious.

When a sign becomes a (wrong) symbol

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Signs become symbols all the time. What you want to be careful about is wrongly making signs into symbols.

A sign is a simple element of thought or communication. Symbols are signs with extra meaning.

Here’s an example. My partner spends a lot of time at her job working outside. She works hard and sometimes it bothers me. This morning I noticed that a sign in my mind had become a symbol.

The symbol was an imaginary image of her at her job with rain falling, wind blowing, and her in a panic to finish. It was one of several images I have of her at work.

As it floated into the foreground of my mind, I simply asked her, “Tell me this image is not true.”

I described it and she said, “No, that’s not true. Sometimes it happens, but generally I enjoy what I am doing.”

My imaginary sign (her in the rain) became a symbol (her being worked too hard) that she corrected with a few words (“no that’s not true”).

Our years of FIML practice allowed me to allow the symbol to lose all meaning and the simple sign to become a sign again. My bad feeling about her going to work and the conditions of her work changed immediately.

To become symbols, signs must be invested with meaning and feeling. Sometimes signs are symbols and sometimes not.

We all turn signs into wrong symbols all the time. Observing how that happens in you with the help of a trusted partner will do more to clear your head than anything else I can think of.

In this respect, FIML is a form of analytical psychotherapy that removes wrong symbols from the brain’s semiotic networks.

Since humans are fundamentally semiotic animals who react instinctively to symbols, it is essential that we have a way to clear out wrong ones. FIML, or something similar, is an absolute must for clear thinking and rational psychology.

You cannot clean up most wrong symbols (or signs) by yourself. You absolutely must have a trusted partner to help you because signs and symbols function as tools of communication.

Since they are also the building blocks of human psychology, clearing up wrong signs and symbols also clears up human psychology.

Metacognition improves memory retrieval

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

In this post I am going to argue that strong metacognitive awareness of one’s own intentionality in real-time translates into better and more accurate memory retrieval.

More specifically, I mean that the strong metacognitive awareness of one’s own intentionality that results from FIML practice is a skill that transfers to memory retrieval.

FIML partners spend a good deal of time asking and answering questions about each others’ intentionality in real-time.

The metacognitive skills that develop out of that practice streamline communication between partners, while also streamlining communication within the brains of each partner.

Each partner benefits psychologically as a standalone individual from the practice of FIML because FIML skills can also be applied to individual, subjective brain functions.

One of the psychological benefits of FIML practice is greatly enhanced awareness of the difference between truth and lies during interpersonal communication with the FIML partner.

This awareness beneficially affects memory retrieval.

It does so by increasing the individual’s capacity to better know when memories are reliable and when they are dubious if not outright false.

Advanced FIML practitioners will have less need for egotistical interpretations of their pasts (or anything else), and thus have minds and memories that are more streamlined and efficient.

This happens because FIML practice gradually shifts brain organization away from the heuristics of a static ego to operations that can be described as “metacognitive.”

Metacognitive operations of this caliber are a great improvement on static beliefs in a self or an egocentric narrative.

Additionally, since psychology is based on memory, fine metacognitive awareness of memory retrieval will also improve psychological functioning in other areas.

For example, emotions based on memory (all of them really) will be less likely to negatively influence intentionality if fine metacognitive awareness of memory retrieval is functioning in the individual.

The same can be said of psychological schemas, framing, values, beliefs, instinct and its interpretations, and so on. All aspects of human psychology can enjoy improvements (more truthful, less stupid) through the metacognitive skills that result from FIML practice.

The seriousness of lying shows in alcoholism

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

About a year ago, I posted an essay suggesting that not lying may be the most important of the five precepts of Buddhism (guidelines for lay Buddhists).

In that essay, Buddhist morality and signaling, I said that the precepts can be understood as signals coming from the mind and that as such the morality of the signals themselves is of paramount importance.

If you don’t lie, you won’t kill, steal, do sexual misconduct or use alcohol irresponsibly because breaking any of the other five precepts will cause you to conceal what you have done or lie about it.

Yesterday, I saw a meme on alcoholism entitled part of being an alcoholic is making it seem like you are drunk less often than you really are. Here’s the meme:

It’s a long, bad, slippery slope from there on. I would hate myself if I did that.

When I mentioned this meme to my partner this morning, she said that she had read about an alcoholic who started lying to her family about her drinking.

The first time, the woman said, her lie made her feel a little distant from them. Before long, she felt so far away she couldn’t even remember where they were anymore.

This illustrates the power of the mind. If you are willing and able to accurately monitor your mind and report on it truthfully to your partner, you won’t even start down a bad road like the author of the meme or the woman who chose booze over her family.

Alcoholics are notorious liars because the condition all but forces them to lie to their most intimate companions. The booze itself causes the lying. The yeast that makes alcohol is like an off-site parasite that gets food from its “hosts” by forcing them to buy the waste products of its metabolism.

_________________

Note: I put up a fair amount of stuff on alcoholism on this site because I have witnessed the devastation of this condition up close with several friends. I also post on this subject because I know that the condition is greatly worsened by its being very hard for most people to identify during its early stages.

Alcoholism often starts in the mid to late teens, sometimes earlier or later. Normally three stages are recognized. 1) the early stage during which the future addict is just drinking a lot but may not be addicted yet; 2) the middle stage where the addict is addicted and knows it and is probably lying about it; 3) the last stage, which is the stage everyone recognizes.

In this last stage, the alcoholic typically is unhealthy, sloppy, and no longer conceals their drinking (which is less than before because their livers are damaged).

I think that if I had known more about alcoholism and how it progresses, I would have been able to help several people who were becoming alcoholic. I would also have prevented at least some of the harm they did/do to others.

I honestly feel bad about not having recognized the symptoms of early and middle stage alcoholism. I mistook it for good times and sensitive, artistic natures just going a bit too far. What I was actually witnessing was good people gradually turning into abusive drunks.

Hierarchies evolve to reduce connections (and confusion)

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Large social systems, especially those with many members who do not know each other, evolve into hierarchies because the number of connections is reduced.

When the number of connections that hold a group together is reduced, it is less costly to maintain the group and thus such groups are more likely to survive.

Military organizations, companies, religious organizations and schools are usually organized into hierarchical structures. Creative, independent modules can relieve some of the formalism of hierarchy but these modules will still fit into the hierarchical structure somewhere.

Hierarchies are (always?) organized around a purpose—money for corporations, winning for militaries, belief and organizational systems for religions, food for animals and so on.

You can even see the hierarchical principle in plant structures.

A research project on this topic as it applies to artificial intelligence demonstrates that biological networks evolve into hierarchies:

…because hierarchically wired networks have fewer connections. (Research showing why hierarchy exists will aid the development of artificial intelligence)

If we accept this principle behind the development of hierarchies, I would submit that we can also apply it to how language has developed as a hierarchy in and of itself and also as a support system for the social hierarchy within which it is used.

Language and culture are held together by a system of hierarchical categories.

These categories are what we think of as beliefs, values, codes, stories, political systems, who’s who in the group, and so on.

Hierarchical systems based on general categories of that type typically also exist between individuals within any society. Indeed, we can find the same sort of hierarchical system within the individual.

This is an efficient and very reasonable way to maintain a society and a language.

Problems arise in this system, however, when the individual does not know any other way of organizing themself or of communicating with others.

An individual who exists and communicates only within a hierarchical structure will be alienated from the great mass of idiosyncratic perceptions, responses, thoughts, and emotions that exist within them and others. I think that this causes a great deal of psychological suffering and is a major part of what the Buddha meant by delusion.

FIML is designed to fix this problem between individuals.