Tag: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

A psycholinguistic “process philosophy” combining both theory and action

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I just learned the term “process philosophy” and am happy to say that FIML is “a psycholinguistic process philosophy combing both theory and action to both understand and improve what we are.”

Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it. Even though we experience our world and ourselves as continuously changing, Western metaphysics has long been obsessed with describing reality as an assembly of static individuals whose dynamic features are either taken to be mere appearances or ontologically secondary and derivative.

Process Philosophy

Another fundamental point is FIML is super objective within an area of cognition, perception, and belief that has traditionally been inaccessible to objective assessment and measurement.

first posted APRIL 23, 2021

FIML from a Buddhist point of view: What is it and what does it do?

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FIML is fundamentally a communication technique with wide-ranging implications for many other aspects of being human.

FIML removes mistakes from communications between partners. FIML reduces or eliminates neurotic feelings. FIML encourages honesty, integrity, responsibility, and many other virtues. It greatly improves communication. It transforms beliefs in a static self, a personality, an ego, or a set autobiography to a more realistic understanding of the dynamic nature of being, speaking, listening, remembering, functioning. FIML skills are useful when dealing with people other than the FIML partner. FIML greatly reduces the need to rely on external standards (public semiotics) for self-definition and/or communication. FIML elevates consciousness in the sense that FIML practice is done consciously and improvements are made in partners’ consciousnesses. FIML works directly with partners’ experiences and thus is a deeply experiential practice that generates experiential understanding.

FIML greatly supports Buddhist practice and though FIML is not specifically a traditional Buddhist teaching, it does not contradict any core Buddhist teaching. For many people, FIML may be a very good tool to use with the Dharma. This is so because FIML allows each partner to identify kleshas (mistaken interpretations) the moment they arise and to correct them with input from their partner. FIML also helps partners experience the reality of no-self, impermanence, emptiness, and dependent origination. When these truths are experienced together with a partner, both partners are able to deeply confirm the validity of their insights as both share in this confirmation. Both partners will notice kleshas being eliminated and both will be able to confirm this to each other, through explicit statements to each other and also through observations of each other.

FIML practice also helps partners understand and experience how the First and Second Noble Truths actually operate in their lives. When one partner discovers a klesha through a FIML query, they will see very clearly how their mistaken interpretation, if not corrected, could be the source of suffering. When they correct their mistake, they will see how eliminating a klesha is liberating and how it produces a bit of “enlightenment” (Third and Fourth Noble Truths).

FIML practice encourages honesty between partners and many other virtues. FIML partners will directly experience the importance of being honest with their partner and treating them with the utmost respect and integrity. This strengthens partners’ understanding of the Buddha’s teachings on morality (sila).

FIML’s emphasis on fully understanding the roles of language and semiotics supports the Buddha’s teachings on Right Speech (for language) and wisdom (for semiotics). In the Prajna Sutras, “dharmas of the mind” (laksana) very closely correspond to the modern English word semiotics as that word is used in FIML practice. By focusing on this word and concept and experiencing with a partner how semiotics affect everything we think and do, partners will gain great insight into the kind of consciousness described in the Diamond Sutra—a consciousness without the “marks” or “characteristics” (laksana, semiotics, signs) of a self, a human being, a sentient being, or a being that takes rebirth.

FIML accomplishes most of what it does by being a technique that is called up quickly, the moment it is needed. FIML queries almost always lead to long and interesting discussions, but the basic technique must be done quickly. The moment either partner feels a klesha arising, they should stop and query their partner about what is/was in their mind. After hearing your partner’s honest answer, compare it to what you had thought. The better data from your partner should eliminate that particular klesha after a small number of its appearances. Remember, your partner’s data is better because you asked them quickly enough for them to be able to recall with great accuracy what really was in their mind during the moments you were asking them about. If you wait too long or get into long stories or theories, or become emotional, you will miss the chance to catch that klesha. When you do catch a klesha, feel good about it. That means there is one less hindrance in your mind.

Non-Buddhists will experience the same results from FIML practice as Buddhists, though their understanding of these results will be framed differently. We have discussed FIML from a non-Buddhist point of view in many other posts. Interested readers are encouraged to browse some of those posts for more on that angle.

Can semiotics, language, and education trap us?

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Education frees us from whatever ignorant state came before it. But it can also trap us in a different sort of ignorance.

For example, someone who feels lost and alone may join a street gang and learn many new things while forming new alliances. But that same person may well trap themselves in a criminal life-style. Once learned, the education a gang provides can prevent gang members from learning even better things.

I believe all education can be like that if we are not careful. To be clear, education in this context refers to learning anything.

Another way to say the above is once we learn or take on a new semiotic matrix or code, we may become trapped by it. Many people who fell for the semiotics of the Obama campaign retained their “belief” in him long after he had shown himself to be a disappointment. Because many of his supporters are good people, they were trapped in his attractive, but false, semiotic matrix of hope and change.

Similarly, another person may learn that his religion is wrong and take on the semiotics of “science” without realizing for many years that science has limits and that it can operate in ways that resemble fundamentalist religion.

I think we can say with few reservations that it is axiomatic that semiotics, language, and education can trap us even as they free us from whatever state came before them. They do not always trap us, but they almost always can trap us if we are not careful.

A microcosmic example of how language can trap us might be this: you say something sort of muddled, get called on it as if your statement were much more specific, and before you know it you find yourself trapped in defending a point of view you never held.

A teenager might want to learn about psychology and in doing so learn what the word personality means. Then they might decide that their personality is of some type. Then they may get trapped in molding themselves according to their understanding of that personality type. The same thing can happen with astrological signs—you read yours when you are young and retain for many years, if not a lifetime, some sense that you belong to the semiotic matrix indicated by that sign.

In good science, real skeptical science, bold science that demands explanations of facts, traps are usually discovered and overcome quickly. But science has a limited range and it cannot do very much for the emotions, subjectivity, or authentic uniqueness of each individual.

Individuals can overcome some individual or subjective traps through science and general learning, but they can never overcome them all in those ways. Our deepest and most significant subjective states can never be well understood through generalities.

And if those subjective states contain errors or traps (as they surely do), they can only be cleared up by observing those errors or traps as they function in real-world situations.

An especially alert and intelligent gang member might gain insight into what his gang membership is doing to him and how it is trapping him. But he will surely retain many of the gang’s subjective interpretations of the world around him even after he has left the gang. His comprehension of cultural semiotics—the semiotic matrix that he perceives around him—will remain deeply imbued with the gang’s interpretations long after he has left.

For example, the former gang member may retain a  sense of pride that makes him quick to anger. He may retain feelings of fear or non-belonging after leaving the gang. Psychotherapy may help in these areas, but a practice like FIML will do even more because FIML will allow the person to see how their former interpretations of the world are still actively functioning even though they may have repudiated the general semiotics of those interpretations.

Joining the gang liberated him from his former state, and then leaving the gang liberated him from the strictures of gang life. But in both cases, his new education has imposed a new semiotic code that can easily trap him in new mistakes and miseries.

The same can be said about all of us concerning almost anything we learn, which means practically anything we do. If we do not come to fully understand how our subjective states—our interpretations–actually function within the semiotic codes we have taken on, we will be trapped in the new state even as we have been liberated, partially, from the former state.

See also: Negative effects of joining a gang last long after gang membership ends.

FIML and memory distortion

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Here is a study that shows how quickly we distort our memories: Event completion: Event based inferences distort memory in a matter of seconds. The study concludes, in part, that “…results suggest that as people perceive events, they generate rapid conceptual interpretations that can have a powerful effect on how events are remembered.”

This study shows that our memories of events are dynamic and can become distorted very quickly. These findings well support FIML practice, which is based on quick interventions while we are speaking to capture sound, usable data that both partners can agree on.

Blogger Christian Jarrett writes about this study saying that “memory invention was specifically triggered by observing a consequence (e.g. a ball flying off into the distance) that implied an earlier causal action had happened and had been seen (Your memory of events is distorted within seconds).” Well-put.

From a FIML point of view, we generate or maintain neurotic interpretations (mistaken interpretations) by believing we are “observing a consequence…that implied an earlier causal action had happened.”

When we misinterpret an utterance during a conversation, we tend to do so in habitual ways; we tend to respond to that utterance as if it had meant something it did not; we tend to understand the “consequence” that happens in our minds as “implying” or being based on something that our partner actually had intended when they had not had any such intention.

This study illustrates very well why FIML practitioners want to develop their skills so that both partners are able to quickly disengage from their conversation while taking a meta-position that allows them to gather and agree upon good data that they can discuss objectively and rationally.

When your partner denies that they meant what you thought they meant, this study will help you believe them.

As the Buddha said: “The mind is everything. What you think you become.”

A psychological, historical and philosophical context for understanding FIML practice — John Range

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[Below is a very thoughtful comment on an ABN post: Psychology and mental illness. In his comment the writer, John Range, provides a first-rate psychological, historical and philosophical context for understanding FIML practice. I hope readers will take the time to consider Range’s insights. The article he refers to is The Myth of Mental Illness by Paul Lutus. ABN]

Dear ABN

I applaud your efforts to reintroduce the study of the “psyche”into psychology.

FIML’s methodology rests on pure experience, the only point allowing for a scientific resolution of the deep seated and serious problems raised by Paul in his article.

FIML tacitly recognizes the genuinely empirical nature of data “immediately” given in the 1st person perspective of our “inner” or mental world of experience as well as, data “mediately” given in the 3rd person perspective of our “outer” or physical world of experience. It does this without reducing one to the other or invalidating either, in any way. Psychology has heretofore lacked such an explicitly stated methodology integrating without distortion these two disparate domains. The methodology of FILM has the added and by no means trivial advantage of being clear simple and intuitive.

Paul correctly notes and laments that psychology in failing to find a way to ground its theories based on 1st person experience in an unbiased and impartial manner has in many ways descended from its lofty status as healer and guardian of an unbiased and impartial standard of sanity to the dubious level of emotional masseurs and/or agents of state totalitarianism.

Whereas Paul fails to consider the mental world of experience as anything other than a myth derived from the ghost-in-the-machine epistemology, FIML, is rooted in an astute recognition the subject/object dichotomy does not itself inhere within the structure or function of pure experience, but is rather a set of external relations added to it.

“What I want to do in this post is point out the ways that FIML practice does not have the sorts of problems Lutus describes. FIML is not (yet) supported by large studies because not ]enough people have done it and we don’t have the money to conduct the studies. Nonetheless, FIML practice is based on real data agreed upon by both partners and in this respect is evidence-based, though the kind of evidence used in FIML practice is not the same kind that is used in large studies of many people.” [Psychology and Mental Illness]

The recognition of “immediate” 1st person experience as real data, that is to say as real empirical data runs directly counter to the (hidden in plain sight) metaphysical bias underpinning Western civilization since Descartes and Newton.

Ironically, even the connotations of the terms “subject” or “subjective” when taken in contradistinction to the terms “object” or “objective” imply our “immediate” and directly perceived 1st person experience is somehow ontologically inferior to our 3rd person experience which is merely indirectly perceived and “mediated” through the senses.

This provably false bias, is virtually ubiquitous in modern culture, as it operates at the pre-conscious conditioned level in which people believe without knowing they believe. For example, the term “objective” can denote (1) “Unbiased and Impartial” and/or (2) “the 3rd person perspective”. These two distinct meanings, of the term “objective”, are chronically (and all too often disingenuously) conflated.

By including the qualifying phrases “in this respect” in the above quote and “in that” in the following sentence “It works with real data that is objective in that both partners must agree on it.” [ibid] you sagaciously, albeit tacitly, recognize and avoid this conundrum.

Nevertheless, the conflation of these two (in matter of actual fact mutually exclusive meanings) lies at the root of Paul Lutus’s suggestion that in order for psychology to be a legitimate science it must emulate Newtonian physics by simply abandoning its quest to incorporate our lebenswelt or “lived-world-of-experience” basing itself solely on “physical” data. From the perspective of non-linear consciousness studies, this is hardly a step forward. Rather epistemologically speaking it is a step back into the dark ages.

I cannot fail to note in this regard, that I said emulate Newtonian physics because as it turns out, Paul’s “suggestion” runs counter to developments in Quantum Mechanics.

For more than half a century, attempts to resolve what is known as the “measurement problem”, (“In QM you know exactly what is happening until you look”), have forced a grudging yet growing consensus and recognition from practicing theoretical quantum physicists, that even, and especially in, QM’s deep foundational mathematical structure; the 1st person perspective of the observer cannot be separated or excluded from the 3rd person perspective of the system being observed!

The empirical data of quantum physics together with its irreducibly descriptive mathematics has, taken by itself, literally forced theoretical quantum physicists to recognize the stubborn fact that within the formal structure of quantum theory, the observers “immediate” 1st person perspective cannot be discarded, disregarded or stripped from the mathematical description of experimental results. [CF Theoretical quantum physicist Henry Stapp’s oeuvre for example]

Paul’s suggestion is not new. Psychology has for over a century been trying to model itself after Newtonian physics to the point that in its early development, the study of the psyche (our “immediate” 1st person experience) was banished by behaviorists from psychology (psychology is, of course, etymologically rooted in Greek meaning “the study of the psyche”).

This flawed approach brought us the various flavors of behaviorism and (along with the difficulties so strongly pointed out by Paul) contributed to the tarnishing of the star of the various psychological disciplines which partially grounded their approach in the 1st person perspective such as Karen Horney’s psychoanalysis, Carl Jungs analytic psychology, Victor Frankl’s logotherapy, Fritz Pearl’s gestalt therapy, etc., etc.

Their tarnishing pf the 1st person perspective in psychology was also assisted, by at least two other not entirely unrelated historical factors.
(1) Data given within the 1st person perspective of our “inner” or mental world of experience remained stubbornly incommensurable with the best data given within the 3rd person perspective of our “outer” or physical world of experience. Both in theory and in practice the non-local nature of mind proved exasperatingly difficult to integrate with the local nature of the brain.
(2) In psychology’s parent discipline, “philosophy” Husserl and Brentano were having finding it equally difficult if not impossible to find their coveted philosophical “Archimedean Point”. Ultimately they failed to discover an unbiased and impartial ground for phenomenological analysis. Here too, incommensurability reared its head.

FIML deftly avoids all these pitfalls. By simply focusing on the here and now interaction of two individual mindstreams, the justification of FIML’s methodology rests securely on one self evident, empirically given fact concerning the nature of being in time: we directly perceive our mindstreams as being none other than this very coveted integration of our inner and outer worlds of experience.

FIML also is quite compatible with William James’ “Radical Empiricism” as put forth in his seminal paper “Does Consciousness Exist?”

As an aside, for my part, after meditating on these relations and in the interests of crystal clear communication, I now attempt to avoid using the word “objective” when I mean “impartial and unbiased,” even though it is grammatically correct.

Otherwise, since subjective data may be taken in this sense to be “objective” data, one must insure that adequate pains are taken in order to avoid rather convoluted and/or highly ambiguous sentences.

Best Wishes
John Range

link

FIML as art

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FIML practice can be seen as a dynamic work of art engaged in by two (or more) people. FIML practice works very well in the moment and it builds on itself by providing many moments of clarity and understanding.

FIML practice creates and defines a history of self-discovery that practitioners can share and enjoy. Since this history is based on good, clear data and since input into it is entirely up to the practitioners themselves, FIML liberates the mind from conformance to received ideas, semiotics, styles, symbols, behaviors, and so forth. FIML gives us the tool we need to freely create the relationships we want to have without illusions and without social and neurotic constraints.

FIML practice can be thought of as a sort of interpersonal performance art. By doing it, we create insights and understandings in each other’s minds. FIML liberates us from the conventional and/or habitual behaviors and interpretations that have dominated and clouded our thoughts.

FIML can only be done with another person. The person you choose to do it with is already special to you. Ideally, you already love them. Do FIML with love and understanding. FIML is a tool to make art within and between your minds.

Covert speech proscriptions and the psychological harm they cause

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Speech proscriptions can be overt with legal ramifications.

Or they can be sort of covert, couched in ideas like good manners, respect, make no waves, maintain friendly relations, follow group norms, etc.

I believe the covert ones happen most basically because almost all people are terrible at speaking their own subjective truths. And this leads to being terrible at hearing others’ subjective truths, even if they are well-expressed which is rare.

This problem arises from the pervasive, inherent ambiguity of language in general but especially spoken language.

Speech flies by and we are required to extract coherent meaning from bits of it. We make stories out of it and judge people, including ourselves, based on bad evidence.

Ambiguity in speech also requires us to maintain the same personas and most of the same beliefs for decades. We travel in herds of ideological banality due to it.

Staying the same, conforming to the group, is a way of displaying a profoundly diminished species of unambiguous meaning, even though we may sense that deep down the whole thing is a bad game.

I used to be bothered by this, but stopped after I figured out FIML and practiced it with my partner for a few years.

After maybe five years, our speech started to become so much clearer it didn’t even feel like the same medium anymore. After ten years, it got so good it seems we may have transcended psychology as it is normally conceived.

This happened because psychology as normally conceived is massively based on speech ambiguity and the ways people react to it. Fact is, you probably should feel a bit crazy in most interpersonal situations because speech proscriptions mixed with compounding ambiguities cannot possibly allow the psychological freedom needed to be cognitively healthy.

FIML is a dynamic fact-gatherer, a dynamic gatherer of facts between two people

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FIML is a dynamic fact gatherer, a dynamic gatherer of facts between two people.

As these facts increase into the dozens, then hundreds, partners will see in themselves and each other a very different picture of who they are, a unique mosaic of their actual psychologies as they actually function in real-time, real-world situations.

This gathering of many idiosyncratic facts, this creation of a mosaic of psychologically unique communicative facts, reshapes the mind, its self-awareness and its understanding of what mind and consciousness truly are.

FIML is a species of subjective science.

It works with objectively agreed upon micro communication data.

The advantages of working with micro-data are three:

  • 1) micro-data are easy to identify, remember and agree upon with little ambiguity or confusion
  • 2) micro-data once discovered are emotionally and psychologically easy to accept, to admit
  • 3) micro-data are objective in that both partners agree on what they are

Acquiring a mosaic of micro-data facilitates beneficial extrapolation into meso and macro levels of the mind.1

And this allows for a profound reshaping of both partners’ minds and psychologies.

This dynamic fact-gathering and enhanced understanding of the mind forestalls solipsistic error and also the error of clinging to group norms.

For Buddhists2 and others who practice mindfulness, FIML can be understood as partnered mindfulness. ABN

  1. See Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding for more. ↩︎
  2. For Buddhists, a FIML query arises in the second skandha, deepens in the third skandha and is initiated verbally in the fourth skandha, thus altering the fifth skandha or preventing its habitual recurrence. See The Five Skandhas for more. ↩︎

FOR BUDDHISTS: I hope readers of this site who are members of a Buddhist Sangha or close to one will encourage their Sangha to learn and practice FIML mindfulness.

FIML would work especially well within a monastic community. It would greatly enhance their mindfulness and raise their common awareness to new heights of clarity and harmoniousness.

Lay Buddhists who see each other often and already communicate well would also benefit greatly from FIML practice, both as a group and as individuals. ABN

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.

When we speak of a person’s psychology, we usually mean their emotional make-up, their habitual thought processes, their fears or talents, the sum total of their experiences, etc. In this context, a person’s semiotics can be understood to be the signs, symbols, and underlying meanings they see, feel, believe, and respond to. Semiotics, as we are using the term, might also be understood to indicate the distinctive features of a subculture.

For example, the musical semiotics of someone who likes jazz and does not like country will be different from someone who likes country and not jazz. This difference may say something about these two people’s psychologies but in many cases it is much simpler and clearer to just talk about the differences between their semiotics. Similarly, their different tastes in music may say something about the subcultures they belong to, but again it is often much more useful to isolate these differences as different semiotics.

Most people are using a traditional human operating system (THOS). A THOS is defined in the first paragraph above. It is characterized by being largely static and roughly agreed upon by many people.

Personality today is generally understood to be something that is sort of defined or indicated by the Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. But how do you measure that? Well, you use tests that explore the standardized language and semiotics that is deemed “appropriate” to the culture to which the testee belongs.

If the testee is not fitting into the standard mold (the standard semiotics), the tester will probably conclude that the testee is either not agreeable, open, conscientious, or extroverted. If the testee is seriously bothered by the standard semiotics for which he or she is being tested, they may also be marked as “neurotic” by the test-giver.

How would you do on a Big Five personality test given in North Korea by North Korean psychologists?

The problem with standardization of “personality” metrics and/or semiotics is standards only help us delineate ourselves in some ways; they cannot be expected to truly define us.

To define yourself, to know yourself, you need an independent operating system (IOS). Obviously, if your IOS gets too far from reasonable human norms (decent ethics, being rational, respecting evidence, etc.), you will lose the good things that humans have figured out over the centuries.

So how do you get an IOS but remain able to draw on all the good stuff of human history and the culture(s) you know best?

You have to change how you use and perceive language and semiotics. You have to find a way to free yourself from being a standardized semiotic between your ears.

If you read the Big Five personality traits and start measuring yourself according to them, what is the basis for your measurement? What does openness mean to you? Gay sex on a roller coaster? Being open-minded about an essay like this one? If you feel sensitive and nervous in North Korea (neurotic as defined by the Big Five) is that good or bad?

What if the society you live in makes you feel nervous and sensitive because you know it can be violent, greedy, hypocritical, and ignorant? Would you feel secure and confident (the opposite of neurotic) if you were in an office where you knew white collar crime (Libor, say) was being done daily? Would you be open to blowing the whistle and risking ostracism or even jail time?

When language, semiotics, and personality are all defined in more or less standard ways and you think you need to go along with that, you can say good-bye to what the Buddha called the thusness or suchness of your being. Buddhism is all about discovering/uncovering the “ultimate reality” of the “real nature” that inheres within us.

One problem with Buddhism, though, is it has become standardized. If you are nice, trusting, and sweet to everyone you meet, you will have your head handed to you in a matter of days in most US cities. We simply cannot expect to model behavior today according to an ancient monastic ideal that we very probably cannot even understand anymore.

The best way to get an IOS, and I believe practice Buddhism in today’s world, is do FIML because FIML practice allows you and your partner to use all the good stuff from human history to develop your own way of talking to each other and understanding each other. A FIML generated IOS frees partners’ semiotics from extrinsic definitions and this allows both of them to comprehend themselves and each other in unique ways that account for their idiosyncrasies—the suchness and thusness of both of them, taken together and independently.

If an individual pursues thusness alone, they will form many wrong ideas because it is impossible for an individual to check their own work. When FIML partners work together and remain mindful of the good things in human history, they are able to check their work and discover the suchness that underlies them.

As mentioned in other posts, FIML does not tell you what to think or believe. Rather, it provides a method to help you and your partner think for yourselves. FIML will change your THOS to an IOS.

If FIML partners are guided by fundamental Buddhist ideas, they will progress more quickly and be less likely to take wrong turns. Understanding the emptiness of standardized semiotics will make it easier for partners to see how cultural norms can interfere with a deep comprehension of life. Keeping basic Buddhist ethics in mind at all times will help partners avoid moral excess or thoughtlessness. Contemplation of dependent origination will give partners a ready guide to understanding the uniqueness of every communicative event. Buddhist teachings on clinging or attachment, especially when understood as clinging to wrong ideas or wrong semiotics, will greatly help partners discard mistaken beliefs and views that may have been influencing them for decades. The Buddha’s teaching on impermanence will make it easier to see through the long history of THOS and why we need new ways to speak, listen, and think today.

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.

Improve the experience and you improve everything.

An overview of the philosophy of Frank Ramsey

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…Ramsey’s idea was that a given belief is to be understood in terms of its causes and effects, the ways in which it’s formed and the role it plays in behaviour, in conjunction with other beliefs, desires and mental states. This idea, now called functionalism in the philosophy of mind, is considered by many the most promising way to make sense of mental representation.

The Ramsey Effect

A philosophy of psychology must contend with similar problems as a philosophy of mind, and vice versa.

So how to understand any given belief pertaining to any psychological matter having to do with self or other?

In addition to what is stated in the quotation above, psychological “belief” (or, better, analysis) must contend with real-world, real-time events as they happen.

Understanding must be based on real-world, real-time events. That is precisely what FIML does or allows us to do. That is what FIML is for.

FIML can be understood as a philosophical process or method of thinking that is constant, continuous, and never stops. FIML situates the mind’s understanding of itself and other in an ongoing psycho-philosophical inquiry that is stabilized by being an agreed upon method that partners can use and refer to whenever they want.

In this, FIML reflects, embraces, and participates in the conscious development or evolution of thought, mind, spirit, belief, awareness. FIML is actively in the world while also providing a psychologically stable place from which to observe the world, self, and other.

In many respects for humans, there is nothing more basic or important than consciousness. Since FIML consciously works with consciousness as it shifts and adapts to another consciousness in real-time, it is arguably the most basic and objective thing there is.

Language cannot be divorced from communication with other. Theories of language and mind must account for this. Since communication with other is an activity (that always affects each), a philosophy of mind/belief/language must be based on an active method of ongoing communication analysis.

Just as you cannot learn to swim without getting into the water, you cannot have a philosophy of mind that does not actively analyze and influence communication in real-time.

Micro, meso, and macro FIML

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Micro FIML practice is basic to all FIML practice.

(A description of micro FIML can be found here: How to do FIML.)

Basic or micro FIML provides a sturdy foundation for many other kinds of interpersonal discussions. This is so because basic FIML makes partners confident that they can say what they think without fearing that their partner will significantly misunderstand them.

Why is that? The reason is if your partner interprets what you have said in a palpable—and especially a negative—way, they will ask you about it. Once they have asked you, you can clarify what you meant, change it, expand on it, explain it, or do anything else you want with it as long as you are being honest.

Basic FIML explicates all new clouds that appear on the horizon. If your partner speaks or communicates in a way that causes a small cloud to appear on your horizon and you have time, bring it up immediately using the basic FIML technique linked above. If you don’t have time to bring it up immediately, do it later when you do have time if the cloud is still there. Even if the cloud is gone, it can still be interesting to bring it up later because you can discuss the incident and learn more about yourselves from that. Very small incidents are often the most interesting because data points are clear and strong emotions are not likely to be aroused.

No FIML partner should ever carry around a shadow of misgiving or negativity about their partner without saying something about it. This is where meso and macro levels of FIML come into play.

Meso and macro FIML come into play when you discover that even though you have been doing basic FIML perfectly and dealt with every cloud that appeared on your horizon, still there is a shadow or haze developing in your mind.

You can’t remember when it started or how it started, but you know it is there.

If you have been doing basic FIML and are reasonably skilled in it, you should be able to bring up the matter of a gathering haze in your mind and clear it with your partner. Maybe you partner is spending too much time away from you or too close to you. Maybe you are starting to feel weird about something they keep saying. No single incident of their saying whatever it is has bothered you enough to mention it, but they keep saying it and that is getting to you. Once you notice anything like that, just bring it up and discuss it at a meso level while relying on basic micro FIML practice to steer you toward a good resolution that works for both of you.

Another example of a meso discussion might be something like: you are a bit tired, your partner says something and you respond in what seems a pleasant way to you and they respond to that in a way that seems sharp or restrictive to you. Since you are tired, you don’t do basic FIML at the right moment but instead respond sharply to what you had perceived as their sharpness.

If your partner questions you on that and/or if you notice it yourself, just do a meso FIML discussion that brings in all of the factors you are aware of. Your habit of doing basic FIML will make it much easier to have conversations on meso or macro levels than if you had never done basic FIML at all.

A macro level FIML discussion might entail a growing shift in your understanding of any macro subject—science, religion, philosophy, politics, etc.

As with meso discussions, macro discussions will be much easier and more enjoyable if partners know how to do basic FIML.

Basic FIML solves most communication problems by helping partners be honest with each other in ways that are helpful and productive without being phony. Basic FIML also helps partners sail past the many minor snags that can occur in conversations, such as quibbling over word choices, minor details, tone of voice, gestures, and so on.

This happens because basic FIML will already have provided many examples of small snags and how to overcome them. It does take some practice to get to this point, but it is not much harder than learning to sew or make pizza. Requires some work and there are better and worse results, but once you get going the benefits should be clear enough to keep you going.

In my view, FIML will not work for partners only if a misinterpretation is not addressed, not honestly addressed, or not substantially addressed from the micro level on up. If you always jump in at meso and macro levels, you will almost certainly cause more problems than you will solve.

___________________

See also: Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding.

The definition of anti-FIML

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

This is how our fights almost ALWAYS end: he won’t let go of the fight until I “ADMIT” that I am “lying” and/or an a-hole, or both.

He’ll go on endlessly trying to *force* me into “admitting” to being a “liar” simply because I don’t agree with his perception/perspective of what he *thinks* MY thoughts are. He assumes the worst of me in arguments always. He always thinks I’m conniving/manipulating/intentionally trying to hurt him. He wants to force ME to deny the very reality of MY OWN thinking and ideas. Because he THINKS he can read my mind/know exactly what I’m thinking/what my intentions are, IF I disagree with him (say that my intention/thought WASN’T ___) THEN, I am a LIAR. He says that I’m either not “self-aware” or a lying jerk if I refuse to back down on what my thinking/intentions are. Only I know my thoughts but the argument + verbal attacks won’t stop until I verbally deny my actual thoughts.

My (28F) BF demands I agree with HIS perception of MY thoughts/intentions/beliefs

__________

This is a vivid description of what FIML protects against. Few people are as lost in their own mad world as the boyfriend described above yet all of us do stuff like that sometimes. ABN

Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

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.

Psychological projection is a limited concept

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Psychological projection is a well-known defense mechanism used by humans to:

defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities… by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.

The concept has some value as an analytical guideline but can also be highly misleading by pointing analyses in wrong directions.

One wrong direction is confirmation bias where an assessment of projection can lead to cherry picking and/or ignoring counter-evidence.

Another wrong direction can arise due to the false consensus effect, which “tends to lead to the perception of a consensus that does not exist.“

From a FIML point of view, psychological projection is a macro and meso level analysis which fundamentally ignores the importance of micro information. (See Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding.)

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.