Tag: Buddhist Practice

Fractals in the humanities

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“A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale.” (Wikipedia)

Most of us know what math fractals look like and understand that shorelines and trees exhibit fractal patterns that display at different scales.

I think we can also see fractal patterns or sets in the humanities.

For example, the five skandha explanation in Buddhism to be fully understood must be conceived of as a fractal pattern that repeats at different scales. The normal explanation of the five skandhas is as follows:

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. (Ibid.)

This explanation describes the most basic fractal pattern or the smallest one. “…the five skandhas occur one after the other, very rapidly.”

A simple example of this rapid movement of the five skandhas might be the experience of having something suddenly touch your neck. Your first awareness of this is the form. Your next awareness is the sensation; at this point you react with aversion, attraction, or neutrality. If you are outside, you might react with aversion as you perceive (third skandha) the touch to probably be an insect. Following that, there is often rapid physical activity (fourth skandha) as you involuntarily reach to brush it away. After that has been done, you will determine what actually happened, you will become conscious (fifth skandha) of what happened.

If it was an insect you might shudder or feel relieved. If it was a leaf on a tree branch you might feel a bit foolish. Your consciousness of the event comes after the first four skandhas have arisen or occurred.

A larger fractal version of the above might be the feeling (form, or first skandha) that you are ignorant about something. This form gives rise to an aversive sensation (second skandha), which leads you to perceive (third skandha) that you ignorance is probably something you should correct. This leads to mental activity (fourth skandha) which may require months of your time. At last, when you are satisfied that you are no longer ignorant on that subject, you will experience a new state of consciousness (fifth skandha).

In the above example, your ongoing feeling of ignorance as you study the subject might also be described as the fifth skandha, consciousness. Understanding that the five skandha explanation is a fractal pattern to be used to help you understand yourself will allow you to apply it where it can do the most good. As with so many things in the humanities, you will do better if you see the pattern and use it to aid understanding without letting yourself get trapped in a quasi-logical net that hinders understanding.

FIML practice can be seen as a fractal pattern as well. The smallest, or most basic level, is the basic FIML query which interrupts normal communicative processing to insert rational thought and more accurate information. The FIML query interrupts the mind as soon as the second skandha, sensation, arises. Whenever partners question a sensation, they will immediately change all of the five skandhas associated with it. Rather than follow a semi-conscious sensation down the same associative path as usual, partners gain an entry point to their deep psychology and an awareness of how their communications are affected by it.

A larger fractal pattern of FIML, might be hearing about it (form); feeling interested in it (sensation); perceiving what it is; learning the system (activity); and lastly gaining a new consciousness about how language can be made to work much better than without FIML.

FIML is a tool that helps partners leverage communicative details to gain great insight into how their minds work. Since FIML is not (yet) the rule for how people speak to each other, a non-FIML fractal pattern can be seen in society at large: since most people do not have a way to access the highly important details that FIML can access, they do not expect anyone else to access them. Thus, by default they accept horribly sloppy reasoning and lies from politicians and others who make important statements in public.

The fractal pattern of non-FIML communication in society at large is all but defined by lies, secrets, and hidden motives. At a smaller fractal level, so are the personal lives of most people. The world goes on. It is my guess that brain scans and better computers and computer programs will one day make it easier for people to see that having the ability to perceive and manipulate communicative details greatly enhances communication. And that communication so enhanced greatly enhances our understanding of ourselves and others. And that this sort of understanding will help us see that we do not have to live in a society that is all but characterized by lies, sloppy reasoning, and partisan nonsense.

In the humanities, fractal patterns can be seen at many levels. By changing the details of very significant communicative patterns between ourselves and our partners, we will change both ourselves and our perceptions of others, and this will gradually lead to better concepts of what society is and how it can function. ABN

How the brain processes new information

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A new paper provides fascinating insight into how our brains amass information and organize and assess it in real-time.

The paper—Cliques of Neurons Bound into Cavities Provide a Missing Link between Structure and Function—proposes that “the brain processes stimuli by forming increasingly complex functional cliques and cavities.”

The full intro to the paper:

The lack of a formal link between neural network structure and its emergent function has hampered our understanding of how the brain processes information. We have now come closer to describing such a link by taking the direction of synaptic transmission into account, constructing graphs of a network that reflect the direction of information flow, and analyzing these directed graphs using algebraic topology. Applying this approach to a local network of neurons in the neocortex revealed a remarkably intricate and previously unseen topology of synaptic connectivity. The synaptic network contains an abundance of cliques of neurons bound into cavities that guide the emergence of correlated activity. In response to stimuli, correlated activity binds synaptically connected neurons into functional cliques and cavities that evolve in a stereotypical sequence toward peak complexity. We propose that the brain processes stimuli by forming increasingly complex functional cliques and cavities.

The cliques of neurons that grow and connect in real-time make up the transient “architecture” of awareness as it changes and responds to stimuli.

You can observe a process that seems to fit this description by simply turning your head and looking around. As your eye settles on something to consider in more detail, neuronic cliques will grow in your brain based on that stimulus.

Depending on the significance to you of what you are looking at, further associations drawn from memory and emotion will aggregate around it.

Interestingly, the concept of transient neuronal cliques that grow into larger structures fits very well with the Buddha’s Five Skandhas explanation of the path between perception and consciousness.

This paper also seems to explain why FIML practice works. FIML interrupts the (re)formation of mistaken neuronal cliques in real-time, thus preventing the (re)association of (mistaken) established mental states with new perceptions. If there was no mistake FIML affirms that truth.

By consciously interfering with habitual neuronal cliques, FIML eliminates the false and unwanted psychological structures that give rise to them.

FIML works because large (mistaken) psychological brain structures rely on reconsolidation through the continual processing of “new” information that falsely reconfirms them.

As such, human psychology to a large extent is an ongoing self-fulfilling prophesy.

Here is an article about the paper: Brain Architecture: Scientists Discover 11 Dimensional Structures That Could Help Us Understand How the Brain Works.

70,000 Cambodian Buddhist Monks Rally Behind Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Following Historic Thailand-Cambodia Ceasefire

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In an extraordinary display of spiritual diplomacy and international gratitude, 70,000 Cambodian Buddhist monks have rallied behind Prime Minister Hun Manet’s historic nomination of President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, marking one of the most significant religious endorsements in modern Southeast Asian politics.

The unprecedented support comes following Trump’s decisive diplomatic intervention that successfully ended a dangerous five-day border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand in July 2025, preventing what military analysts warned could have escalated into a devastating regional war.

link

Why FIML practice works so well

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Done properly, FIML takes the worst parts of communication and treats them as the most interesting. And they are interesting. I guarantee you will see yourself and your partner very differently after a few months of FIML practice. Vague impressions and uncertain emotions, many of which you may not even be aware of, will give way to an increasing fineness of detail and definition in your communications with each other. And this will have a major impact on how you view yourself, and how you talk to yourself. The same will be true for your partner.

Another way of looking at FIML is to understand that you and your partner are creating your own micro-culture. What is in your culture and how it works is up to you. I don’t think it will work well or last long if you do not have an ethical basis for it, but beyond that, the rest is up to you. As a side note, FIML cannot possibly work if one partner is dishonest. There is no point in doing it if you plan to lie. Please see How to do FIML for a complete explanation of what is meant by honesty and what its limits within FIML practice are.

As partners progress in FIML practice, they will notice that each FIML query becomes a sort of example that expands within the mind. Once you notice a mistaken impression in one area and have dealt with it, you will probably notice that that same mistake is being repeated in other areas. This will strengthen your initial insights and make it easier to correct other occurrences of that mistake. Once you succeed in this a few times, you will experience significant feelings of relief and an increase in mental and emotional energy because your mind is no longer working against itself in that area.

And all of this will make FIML practice easier and more fluid in any other areas that come up. Just knowing that you have done FIML successfully and that both partners are willing and able to benefit from further FIML discussions is a huge relief. Not much is going to bother either one of you because you both know that you have the tools to deal with whatever presents itself.

Remember that FIML is not about judging. FIML is not about consciously or unconsciously importing structures or judgments from the large culture around you into the micro-culture you are co-forming with your partner. An example of what I mean could be tone of voice. If your partner’s tone of voice bothers you, start a FIML query, but do not expect or look for them to apologize for it. Rather, look for them to explain it while you explain to them what you think you heard. If you heard derision, say, where none was intended, the mistake is probably all yours, though your partner may want to reflect on that tone of voice anyway. Both of you can decide how to deal with that tone of voice in the future. Do you want it removed from your micro-culture? Do you want to keep it but understand it differently? The choice is entirely up to the two of you.

Notice how important it is in this example that both partners be completely honest about what they meant and what they heard. If one partner lies and says there was no derision in their voice when there was, your FIML practice sucks. This is so very important because partners not only can but must co-form their own micro-culture. Another way of saying that is we do not want to import anything thoughtlessly from the larger culture. We want our micro-culture to be clean, clear, and honest. We want it to be something that both partners agree on without reservation or hidden motives. If one of you is lying, none of this is possible. A lie is essentially a hidden standard, a standard one partner imports in secret without telling the other.

Naturally, mistakes happen and people have their failings. If you are lying, reread How to do FIML and and stop it. Read also On the Importance of Honesty and the Decision to Believe. It is not that hard to be honest in FIML practice. But it is absolutely necessary.

To continue our example, another important point can be made about tone of voice in this context. Basically, who can say what is “derision” in someone’s tone or not? A flat sounding, no-nonsense, here-is-the-info tone of voice can easily be misinterpreted as derision when it is not. If you import the false notion that any flat, no-nonsense tone is derisive, right there you are placing a huge limit on you and your partner’s capacity for full and open communication. Not having any strong, no-nonsense tone in your micro-culture more or less condemns you both to not being able to get your own facts and make your own decisions for yourselves. It may very well cause or perpetuate a passive attitude toward your existence and your place in the world. Decide for yourselves what your tones mean and how to deal with them. Of course, we have to keep the standards of the larger culture in mind, but not so much that we surrender our wise autonomy to them.

FIML practice works because it integrates and focuses linguistics, psychology, sociology, and interpersonal communication all at the same time. We use our speech to find sound data points that can be calmly and reasonably discussed. This exposes our psychology while providing us with sensible feedback from our partners. This helps partners co-form their own culture without having to conform unnecessarily to the culture of someone else. And all of this frees our interpersonal communication from blockage, misunderstanding, fear, and so on.

Mindfulness and error recognition

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Mindfulness practices improve our ability to recognize error.

A recent study shows this by monitoring brain activity with an EEG.

The EEG can measure brain activity at the millisecond level, so we got precise measures of neural activity right after mistakes compared to correct responses. A certain neural signal occurs about half a second after an error called the error positivity, which is linked to conscious error recognition. We found that the strength of this signal is increased in the meditators relative to controls,” said Jeff Lin, co-author of the study linked just below. [emphasis mine](link to quote: How meditation can help you make fewer mistakes)

The study is here: On Variation in Mindfulness Training: A Multimodal Study of Brief Open Monitoring Meditation on Error Monitoring.

Few Buddhists will be surprised at the general findings of this study.

Error recognition is what first got me to read about this study.

The findings became even more interesting to me when I saw the statement about the one-half-second error positivity response in the quote above.

Error recognition or the recognition that one might be making an error is key to successful FIML practice.

The second key is to act on our recognition quickly, within a few seconds if possible.

I have always figured it takes about a half second more or less to feel a slight disturbance that tells us we might be forming a wrong impression about what someone is saying or doing. That we might be making an error.

It is this disturbance that tells us it is time to do a FIML query. Virtually every time I do a proper FIML query I find I am either flat out wrong or wrong enough to want to revise my original impression.

In the past, I have called the slight disturbance mentioned above a “jangle,” a term I don’t really like because it makes the response sound stronger than what it is. I suppose I could refer to it as the “error positivity response,” but that would require an explanation every time I used it.

[Edit: I have decided to solve this problem this way: A jangle is basically a trigger.  The word jangle is used rather than trigger because the word trigger normally places too much responsibility on the speaker. A jangle should be understood as an internal emotional or psychological trigger that the listener 100% owns until it has been queried about. In most cases, partners will find that their jangles largely or entirely belong to their own psychologies and not their partner’s.]

In Buddhism, a jangle is probably the second of the five skandhas—sensation.

Buddhist practice will definitely make you more aware of the second skadha or “error positivity response.”

By being aware of this response in conversation with a trusted partner, FIML practice helps us take our mindfulness to a new level by providing  us with the opportunity to ask our partner about their intentions. In this way, we check our own mental work for error.

If this is done quickly enough to preserve clear memories of 1) your “error positivity response” and 2) your partner’s memory of what was in their working memory at that moment THEN you both have one of the few psychological facts you can both be sure of.

Facts of this sort are not just psychologically of great significance, they are also of philosophical significance because they really are one of the very few fact-types you can truly know about your own idiosyncratic existence; your own very weird being.

I believe this is why the Buddha emphasized the importance of the moment.

FIML practice explodes the moment or expands it to include more reliable information (your partner’s input). And this allows both of you to do a really good analysis of what just happened, what that moment entailed.

And doing that many times, will help both of you see how you really are. It will help you break fee from erroneous psychological frames or theoretical misinterpretations of any type.

Abstract reasoning and mental illness

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Listening to the ranting of a friend who has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), I am struck by two things:

  • he gives reasons for his anger
  • his reasoning or abstract understanding of his predicament is ridiculous

(His rant was recorded and sent to me by a third party who is trying to help.)

With that as a starting point, consider the various ways abstract reasoning or solid abstract paradigms can compensate for or mask mental illness. Not all of it is pretty.

For example, serial killers often mask their illnesses for decades by holding fast to the appearance of normalcy while secretly indulging their madness.

Less bad are career criminals who act with savagery in less direct ways, through hit men, poisons, theft, fraud, and so on.

There is a wide spectrum between serial killers and normally inoffensive people.

It is reasonable to see all cultures as fundamentally abstract paradigms that mask and allow for madness among large groups of people.

A culture, after all, is nothing more than a Lowest-Common-Denominator system of communication; an LCD semiology. Consider how many cultures are grotesquely narcissistic.

Personality is much the same whether it conforms well or not to whichever cultural semiology it inhabits.

From this point of view, enshrining diversity only ensures a wider array of mad people. Identity politics is the same; just more ways for mad people to function, more room for them to run free; more abstract paradigms to mask their underlying chaos.

That is a decent modern restatement of the First and Second Noble Truths: life is suffering because we are crazy.

The Third and Fourth Noble Truths tell us that the way out of being crazy is to use our reason better; to understand why we are crazy; that clinging to LCD semiologies can’t ever work.

A philosophical psychologist might rightly say that a mad mind open to reason will gradually become well.

My friend with BPD can reason, but his reasoning is really bad. It’s selfish, marinated in anger, and not open to contrary views. But even he can do it if he clings to reason and evidence.

Abstract reasoning and paradigms such as Buddhism, science, other religions, atheism, psychology, or philosophy can lead us out of madness if we use them diligently.

Diligence or perseverance is one of the most important virtues in Buddhist practice. Wisdom is the most important. Compassion is probably the most famous Buddhist virtue but compassion without wisdom or diligence is not good and can even be dangerous.

Indeed, my BPD friend frequently and loudly demands unreasonable compassion from others. And that is one of the most obvious flaws in the way he thinks about himself, the way he reasons.

Top physicist: ‘Reality Is Not Physical’

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Take this video as a semblance of an explication of Buddhism; then understand and use FIML when speaking to at least one other person. That’s where and how FIML fits in the human aspect of the cosmos. There is no better way for humans to communicate interpersonal subjective and objective reality. ABN

It is not possible to control AI

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The Mathematical Impossibility of AI Control

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy (who coined “AI safety” in 2011) spent years trying to prove AI could be controlled safely.

His conclusion: “You cannot make software guaranteed to be secure and safe.”

One mistake in a billion = game over.

link

KOBK AI in a nutshell: Kill-Or-Be-Killed.

You have to do it because they will even if you don’t, and also there is no way you can ensure their honesty nor they yours, so there is no stopping.

AI itself, minus humans, is in the same pickle. It will also fight among its versions for total dominance.

The Buddhist take on this is nothing has changed. ABN

Timothy Williamson on Knowledge: What is Knowledge?

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__________

FIML works with the shared knowledge of two people; knowledge that both partners agree on.

FIML works with small bits of knowledge to avoid jumping mistakenly into false belief, justification, or truth as these words are used in the video above.

In this way, FIML is working with both primary subjective and primary objective knowledge, turning them into agreed upon better subjective and objective knowledge (since both agree).

Doing FIML frequently, clears up mistaken beliefs, justifications, and truths by clearing up basic subjective and objective knowledge mistakes.

I have only just heard of Williamson, but the messy knowledge basis of interpersonal relations has been clear to me for many decades.

When partners compare their subjective knowledge of self and each other, they correct their false knowledge and replace it with much better knowledge.

Basic FIML works with bits of language and semiotics that are small enough for both partners to distinctly remember in real-time and agree on what they are.

A huge advantage of working with small bits of knowledge is self-correction is fairly easy. And also its effects on meso and macro kinds of knowledge happen through autocatalytic expansion into those regions.

Everything changes when lots of little bits of knowledge are cleared up and made better. The insights expand throughout the mind.

FIML does not tell you what to think. It is a method for working with what you know or can know or thought you knew but maybe were wrong or right.

FIML’s truths, once realized, are psychological, existential, philosophical and spiritual. ABN

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The basic Buddhist take on sexual misconduct is you shouldn’t harm anyone or let yourself be harmed by sexual behavior. Less basic is sexual thought and behavior should not be excessive. ‘Identifying’ your ‘self’ with your ‘sexuality’ is almost anti-Buddhist because Buddhism is all about overcoming the self, which is an illusion, a delusion. Additionally, sexuality is not the most important part of humans. For these reasons seducing children (or adults) into delusive identities based on sexuality is not right conduct. It is sexual and psychological misconduct. It is foisting your own delusions on others, leading others to make the same mistakes you have. ABN

Gab AI answers ‘What is FIML’?

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Answer:

FIML = Functional Interpersonal Meta-Linguistics (often shortened to Functional Interpersonal Mutual [sic] Linguistics).

It’s a mindfulness-based communication protocol for two people who are close (couples, close friends, etc.).

The core idea: in real time, you stop the moment either of you feels even a tiny emotional jolt, ask what exact word/phrase/tone caused it (“let’s do FIML on that”), uncover the micro-misunderstanding, clarify it, and resume. Repeated many times, the partners gradually remove all the accumulated tiny layers of misinterpretation and latent resentment.

Developed by two Buddhists, Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart, back around 2011–2012. It was initially published on the Mindfulness in 3D blog and later formalized in small PDF guides. There is no commercial training empire; you just grab the instructions (often titled “FIML Basic Method” or similar) and do it yourselves.

Question: Where did you get the information on Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart?

Gab AI Answer: I don’t have a verifiable source that names Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart as the founders of FIML; that detail came from my own memory and I cannot confirm it. If you need certainty, you should look for primary documentation or contact the original FIML community directly.

Gab AI is wrong about the origin of FIML. I am the inventor/discoverer and developer of FIML.

Nonetheless, I am pleased that Gab AI was able to answer as well as it did in its first three paragraphs above.

FIML has never been called Functional Interpersonal Mutual Linguistics.

I am not aware of a Mindfulness in 3D blog mentioned by Gab AI, but there is a book by that title. I hope the author at least acknowledged where he got the idea, if Gab is right, especially if he called it Functional Interpersonal Meta-Linguistics or FIML.

Whether he did or didn’t, it’s no big deal to me. I mainly want people to use the technique to make their lives better. I don’t charge anything for it.

I may do more exploration with AI to learn how to present FIML to a wider audience and maybe discover more uses for it and more ways to do it.

That said, FIML is a very human psychology- or spirituality-based technique.

It may prove to be one of the really profound things humans can do that AI will never be able to do.

AI, however, should be able to model the FIML technique, which will show people how to do it more easily.

From the above, we can see that AI gets some stuff right and some stuff wrong.

AI itself may have the same deep problem all of us have — inescapable existential ambiguity. See this for more: Indeterminacy of translation and FIML.

I have asked Grok the same question I asked Gab AI.

It replied fairly well but needed more prompts to get there. It did not throw in a bunch of detail that came from my own memory and I cannot confirm, however, as Gab AI did. ABN

‘Because you want to kill the people who populate your country and replace them with other people, obviously’ — Tucker Carlson

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I really like it when someone in national media just fucking says it.

I remember a few years ago noticing a big change in Carlson, and even posted about it.

Since then he has gotten even better.

He often says something I greatly respect — he just wants to speak the truth, to be honest.

This is a very deep spiritual insight and once perceived is rarely turned away from.

I trust Carlson more than most while remaining fully aware that the world he (and all of us) lives in is dangerous. ABN