Tag: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

Complex mind, simple thoughts

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I strongly believe a major cause of neuroticism, emotional agony, and mental illness is our minds are more complex than much of our thinking and most of our communication.

This causes us to be like prisoners trapped in small space when we are capable of much greater freedom.

A new study illustrates why this happens.

The study show how auditory hallucinations can be induced in people who are not otherwise prone to hearing them.

Pairing a stimulus in one modality (vision) with a stimulus in another (sound) can lead to task-induced hallucinations in healthy individuals. After many trials, people eventually report perceiving a nonexistent stimulus contingent on the presence of the previously paired stimulus. (Pavlovian conditioning–induced hallucinations result from overweighting of perceptual priors)

Since this effect can be induced fairly simply it shows that:

These data demonstrate the profound and sometimes pathological impact of top-down cognitive processes on perception… (from the study itself: Pavlovian conditioning–induced hallucinations result from overweighting of perceptual priors)

Note that these hallucinations “result from overweighing perceptual priors.”

A “perceptual prior” is, in these cases, a mistaken assumption about reality.

If our auditory and visual “realities” are susceptible to mistakes like these, how much more is our psychology?

Due to our generally very simple ways of interacting with other people, we are essentially forced to hallucinate who they are and at the same time who we are.

That is, our complex minds are essentially forced to see ourselves and others in simple, hallucinatory terms that cannot possibly be true.

I believe this is the cause of great mental and emotional distress for all people everywhere.

I also believe that this problem can be largely overcome by practicing FIML

FIML allows us to remove our psychological hallucinations about our FIML partner as they remove theirs about us.

FIML works because it allows partners to escape the simplicities and many hallucinatory traps of ordinary communication.

As far as I know, there is no other method for doing this. FIML is practical psychotherapy that will optimize your mind and psychology by providing the data you need to overcome hallucinating most of your life.

In this respect, FIML is a preeminent Buddhist mindfulness practice done by two (or more) people working together.

I hope the day comes when Buddhist Sanghas will practice FIML among themselves and teach it to lay followers when they have mastered the technique.

FIML is deeply human and not something AI will be able to do. It is very well-suited to this Human Realm because it shows us how delusions are formed, where they lie within us and how to extinguish them.

Game theory and interpersonal relations

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Game theory uses models to understand how people interact under predetermined conditions or rules.

The end result of any particular model is called its “equilibrium.” Equilibrium implies no one will change their input if external conditions remain the same.

One way to make a game theory model is to reason backwards from the equilibrium you want. To keep it simple, there are two players.

Let’s say we want an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life. Here is a hypothesis: an equilibrium like that should also result in psychological optimization, psychological well-being for both players.

To achieve that equilibrium, my game model will be based on the following rules:

  1. communication will be as honest as possible
  2. communication will be as clear as possible
  3. all acts of communication (within reason) will be subject to clarification, revision, correction, and explication to the point (within reason) that there is no misunderstanding and whatever ambiguity remains is reduced to its lowest practical level

To do this, players will:

  1. focus on the smallest practical units of communication because error and ambiguity (which often leads to error) frequently begin at this level; this level includes: words, phrases, gestures, tone of voice, expressions, gasps, laughter, grunts, and so on; anything that communicates; all pertinent semiotics
  2. correcting error at the above level, which we will call the micro-level, ensures that small mistakes do not lead to large mistakes; it also teaches players how to correct errors at meso and macro levels of communication
  3. since human minds are limited in what they know and can communicate, and if players are diligent in following the above rules, players will steadily become more familiar with each other; how they speak, hear, think, what their references are, their values, beliefs, and so on
  4. if they continue to maintain these practices, they will build on their mutual familiarity, eventually achieving an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life

I have played this game with my partner for over ten years and can attest that it has worked even better than we had hoped.

Not only have we achieved an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life, but also what we hypothesized has come to pass: this equilibrium has also resulted in what feels to us to be psychological optimization and psychological well-being for both of us.

The rules to our game can be found here: FIML.

Note that initially FIML will upset your normal interpersonal equilibrium, whatever that may be. It cannot be otherwise. Note also that the rules of FIML will help you find or create a much better equilibrium.

If FIML is undertaken in a spirit of exploration, creativity, and fun, it will tend to self-generate or self-catalyze many new insights into your psychologies and how you interact with each other.

The ultimate FIML equilibrium is a dynamic one that keeps both partners open to the dynamic reality of life. With little or no “content” of its own, FIML rules allow partners to adapt to or create any “reality” they want.

Once understood, FIML is pretty much only difficult in the very beginning because in the beginning it will upset your normal interpersonal equilibrium. By doing FIML, you are choosing to change your normal equilibrium to a more efficient one.

Metacognitive clutter

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Metacognitive clutter is stuff that makes higher mental states not work well.

An individual example might be holding a mistaken view of your role in some organization or activity. Your mistaken view causes much of what you are doing to be wrong and to detrimentally entangle other parts of your life.

A national or social example of metacognitive clutter might be the many dumb subjects and shallow statements required of American politicians. See the following for a more detailed analysis: Semiotics in politics and the totalitarianism of PC.

Another area where metacognitive clutter causes a lot of problems is interpersonal relations. If you cannot speak to your SO and/or closest friends from a metacognitive point of view, you sort of don’t really have an SO or close friends.

In this context, metacognition means being able to talk about how you understand each other and why you think, feel, and behave as you do.

Good interpersonal metacognitive communication produces better relationships, happier people, and healthier individual psychologies.

This happens because good communication removes metacognitive clutter, greatly reducing interpersonal mistakes and cognitive entanglements.

I, for one, do not believe you can do really good metacognitive communication without a prior agreement to do that and a technique that reliably works on small details. See this for information on such a technique: How to do FIML.

General discussions on beliefs, biographies, emotions, philosophies, religion, science, and so forth are helpful, even essential, for good metacognitive communication but they cannot by themselves remove the idiosyncratic clutter that has built up in the mind over many years.

Meso and macro level techniques cannot remove micro clutter, especially idiosyncratic micro clutter which we all have a lot of.

Gödel’s logic and Buddhism

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Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems demonstrate that any sufficiently powerful formal system contains truths that cannot be proven from within the system, implying that complete understanding requires a perspective outside the system.

In philosophical and theological interpretations, this limitation is often mapped to the distinction between immanent knowledge (within the system) and transcendent awareness (outside the system).

1. The Structural Limitation

  • Internal Incompleteness: Gödel proved that a system cannot prove its own consistency or grasp all its own truths; there are always statements that are true but unprovable within the system’s axioms.
  • The “Outside” Perspective: To comprehend the complete picture or verify the system’s consistency, one must step outside the logical framework, accessing a higher order of intelligibility or a “super axiom.”

2. Application to Buddhist Epistemology

  • Samsara vs. Nibbāna: In this analogy, the “system” represents Samsara (the cycle of existence and conventional logic), while the “outside” represents Nibbāna (the unconditioned state).
  • Transcendent Awareness: A being within the system (a sentient being) cannot cognize the ultimate truth of the system from within. Only by transcending the system—achieving Arahanthood or Buddhahood—can one “see things as they are” from the outside.
  • Greater vs. Lesser: Consequently, the “lesser” cognition (bound by internal logical limits and dualistic perception) cannot fully comprehend the “greater” transcendent awareness (which encompasses the total system from a non-dual, external vantage point).

3. Philosophical Implications

  • Limits of Human Reason: This aligns with the view that human reason and formal logic are inherently limited and cannot grasp ultimate reality without intuitive or transcendent insight.
  • God and the Super Axiom: Similarly, in theological interpretations, Gödel’s work suggests the existence of a higher intelligence (God) or “super axiom” that exists outside the created system, sustaining it from a position of complete knowledge that finite beings cannot access internally.

Thus, Gödel’s logic provides a formal mathematical basis for the idea that ultimate truth is inaccessible to the system itself, requiring a transcendent standpoint for full comprehension.

link

__________

I would add that FIML practice allows us to step outside of the psycholinguistic system we use to communicate with our partner, and others. There is some chance FIML partners could become lost in a folie à deux, or shared psychosis, but odds of this are very low, imo, especially if partners frequently refer to philosophies, thoughts, ideas, and evidence outside of their world as a couple. FIML provides a kind of parallax for both partners psycholinguistic systems as well as the two systems working together as one. FIML cannot completely solve the inherent ambiguousness of interpersonal communication but it can improve our understanding (or resolution1) of our communications by at least one order of magnitude, or more. ABN

  1. the process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object ↩︎

FIML and cerebral efficiency

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This article argues that the human brain saves energy by predicting or imagining “reality” more than actually perceiving it: Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds? The article argues that this way of using our brains allows us to work more efficiently with complex data or in complex situations.

I think this general premise is pretty well known and agreed on, but the linked article puts it in a new way. The following sentence caught my eye: This… underlines the surprising extent to which the structure of our expectations (both conscious and non-conscious) may quite literally be determining much of what we see, hear and feel.

The article uses visual perception as an example, but the idea applies just as well, and maybe more so, to what we hear in the speech of others. FIML practice works by inserting a new mental skill between the first arising of a (stored) interpretation and its full-blown acceptance as “reality”.

Psychological optimization

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Why settle for not being crazy when you could be going for psychological optimization?

A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a diagnosis of a behavioral or mental pattern that can cause suffering or a poor ability to function in ordinary life.

Why settle for being able to “function in ordinary life” when you could have an extraordinary life?

Why take pills to get by when you could be optimizing your brain?

Humans go for optimization whenever we can. We optimize technology, our diets, our medical treatments, our educations, even our friendships.

Optimization: an act, process, or methodology of making something (as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.

Hell yeah. That’s what you want for your mind, your life. Why settle for less?

OK, that does read like a sales spiel, but I will deliver.

All you have to do is put time and thought into the process of optimizing your psychology. An optimized psychology is an optimized brain and life.

First, you have to learn how to do FIML.

This requires about as much time and effort as learning to play a musical instrument at a beginner’s level. About as much time as it takes to learn to drive a car. Or to learn to play pool well enough to enjoy it.

FIML takes less time to learn than a semester at school, whatever grade. Less time than most job-training courses. Less time than becoming a decent amateur cook. Less time than buying a house or redoing your kitchen.

The hardest part about FIML is learning the technique through reading. Start here: How to do FIML.

The second hardest part is having a friend or mate who is willing and able to do it with you. Sadly, this is a deal-breaker for too many people.

I hate saying this, but it is fairly normal for people world-wide not to have a friend who is close enough to do FIML with. This is the result of so many non-optimized psychologies in this world!

Many people have five or more “good friends” and a loving spouse, but not even one of them willing or able to do FIML.

Their excuses will be they can’t understand it, don’t want to bother, don’t want to be that honest, don’t want that kind of relationship, don’t have the time, already are doing it (no, you are not), etc.

The result is they and you will continue to languish in less than optimal mental states. Moods, alcohol, pills, arguments over nothing, ridiculous misunderstandings, ominous silences, severance of ties, and worse will rule your world(s).

For most, the best relief they will find are self-help books based on generalities, career books about “getting ahead” as defined by more generalities, nonsense about “loving yourself,” low levels of religious belief and practice, exercise programs, etc.

You didn’t learn to drive a car that way. Driving a car requires interaction, observation, the help of another person.

Your psychology needs similar kinds of input.

Once you have learned to do FIML with a trustworthy partner, the practice will tend to self-generate because the insights gained will be real and have real and deeply felt benefits for both partners.

Besides the “how to” and FAQ links at the top of this page, most posts on this site describe some aspect of FIML practice.

For psychologists, I honestly do not see how you can claim to be able to treat other people if you have not done at least a few years of FIML practice. Human interactions without any technique for consistent meta-control and understanding (which FIML provides) are 100% guaranteed to be riddled with misunderstanding and wrong views.

Interoception, proprioception, and perception of dynamic mental states

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Interoception means our “perception or sense of internal body states,” including the states of our cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, and thermoregulatory systems among others.

Proprioception means “one’s own” or “ones’ individual” (Latin proprius) “perception.” We normally use this word to refer to our physical position in the world—whether we are standing or sitting, how we are moving, and how much energy we are using.

Both interoception and proprioception generally refer to physical states of the body though, of course, how we interpret those states may involve much more than immediate physical considerations.

Erroneous interoception or the misinterpretation of internal states is is generally thought to be an important contributing factor to many psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, panic disorder, and more.

Consider some other levels of interoception—our states of mind; our mental impressions of other people and of ourselves; our senses of our own psychologies.

These levels of psychological reality are normally accessed through introspection, meditation, mindfulness, and psychotherapy. All of these methods are good, but each of them lacks ongoing, real-time input from another human being, thus missing the dynamic functioning of the human mind in real-life situations.

FIML corrects this problem by providing objective, dynamic access to real-time psychological functioning. FIML is a method or tool for optimizing human psychology by honing our perceptions of our mental states as they actually function in real-world situations.

Indeterminacy of translation and FIML

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I betray my poor education by admitting that I had never heard of W. V. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation” until last week1. My ignorance is especially egregious as I have worked as a professional translator for many years.

Maybe I had heard about it but had forgotten. I am being self-reflective because FIML practice is deeply, fundamentally concerned with the “indeterminacy” of translating one person’s thoughts into another person’s head.

Quine’s thesis is not just about translating from one language to another, though there is that. It is much more about the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.

If I had known about Quine, I probably never would have thought of FIML because his ideas and the slews of papers written on “indeterminacy of translation” surely would have made me believe that the subject had been worked through.

As it was, I have plodded along in a delightful state of ignorance and, due to that, maybe added something practical to the subject.

In the first place, I wholeheartedly believe that speech is filled with indeterminacy, which I have generally called ambiguity or uncertainty. In the second place, I have confined my FIML-related investigations mainly to interpersonal speech between partners who care about each other. I see no solution to the more general problem of indeterminacy within groups, subcultures, or linguistic communities. Until brain scans get much better, large groups will be forced to resort to hierarchical “determinacy” to exist or function at all.

For individuals, though, there is much we can do. FIML practice does not remove all “indeterminacy.” Rather, it removes much more than most people are aware is possible, even remotely aware is possible. My guess is FIML communication provides a level of detail and resolution that is an order of magnitude or two better than non-FIML.

That is a huge improvement. It is life-changing on many levels and extremely satisfying.

FIML does not fix everything—and philosophical or “artistic” differences between partners are still possible—but it does fix a great deal. By clearing up interpersonal micro-indeterminacy again and again, FIML practice frees partners from the inevitable macro-problems that micro-ambiguity inevitably causes.

Moreover, this freedom, in turn, frees partners from a great deal of subconscious adhesion to the hierarchical “determinacy” of whichever culture they are part of. Rather than trapping themselves in a state of helpless acceptance of predefined hierarchical “meaning,” FIML partners have the capacity to sort through existential semiotics and make of them what they will with far less “indeterminacy,” or ambiguity, than had been possible without FIML practice.

  1. first posted DECEMBER 7, 2014 ↩︎

UPDATE: Both indeterminacy of translation and FIML fit with Buddhism very well. The core Buddhist concepts of impermanence, emptiness, and no-self (or intrinsic self-nature) are in the same philosophical region as indeterminacy of translation and FIML. Indeterminacy provides a philosophical grounding for the emptiness, impermanence, and no-intrinsic-self nature of anything within the human realm. FIML addresses this overall area of indeterminacy/ emptiness with a technique which greatly improves resolution of what is indeterminable. As empty humans we are agglomerations of indeterminable thought and action, more or less floating in a thick Bayesian mist of probabilities which are likewise indeterminable, impermanent, and empty of intrinsic self-nature. ABN

Humans are retarded

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Humans are retarded because throughout our long history of being able to speak and listen, not a single one has discovered FIML or taught it.

How can humans be any more retarded than that? We all talk, but no one has ever figured out how to talk correctly, let alone taught us how to talk correctly.

This fact alone makes me seriously doubt all religions everywhere. What god, God, Saint, or sage would not teach humans how to talk, thus saving us from many millennia of mental illness, sadness and pointless violence.

(I love chess), but consider what a waste of time it is; how many years so many people spend studying it. Yet not one human anywhere has ever spent a tiny fraction of that much time figuring out how talking and listening actually works, or how to talk and listen as well as a grandmaster plays chess.

Becoming good at FIML is probably 1,000-10,000 times easier than becoming a chess grandmaster, or a capable engineer, or a PhD in linguistics, history or psychology.

What subject is more obvious than people suck at talking and listening?

Think about it: What constitutes what most people think is talented talking and listening?

For talking, it’s fluency, vocabulary, charm, persuasiveness, explanatory ability, etc. But never accuracy in dynamic real-time, real-world situations. Virtually all so-called talented speakers, whether public or private, are performers. They perform dazzling speech acts like acrobats, but rarely tell the truth and never know how to properly analyze even their own words.

As for listening, it’s the flipside of performative talking. All people everywhere have been and are still raised to talk and listen in these ways, a sure sign of species-wide mental retardation.

The other way people are raised is to stifle speech and listening, which is an even more direct way to make them retarded

All you have to do to escape human linguistic retardation is learn FIML and do it with someone close to you, someone smart enough to understand why it is necessary. ABN

Semiotic codes

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Simply stated, semiotic codes are the conventions used to communicate meaning.

Codes can be compared to puppet masters that control the words and semiotic bundles that people use when speaking and listening. For many people, semiotic codes are largely unconscious, functioning mainly as limits to communication or as givens.

Some examples of codes might be the ready-made formulas of politics or the ordinary assumptions of any culture anywhere.

Codes work well in most cases when we do ordinary or formal things, but they inhibit thought and communication when we want to go beyond ordinary or formal interactions and behaviors.

Unconscious, unexamined, or strongly-held codes can be a disaster in interpersonal relations if one or both (or all) parties are rigid in their definitions and understanding of the codes being used. These are the sorts of conditions that lead to absurd exchanges at the dinner table and are one of the main reason most of us learn never to talk about politics or religion at most gatherings.

Gathering for dinner itself is a code. On Thanksgiving we are expected to break bread without breaking the code of silence on politics or whatever else your family can’t or won’t talk about. There is not much the individual can do to change this because the harder you try—no matter how good your intentions—the more it will seem that you are breaking the code, being aggressive, or threatening the (probably fairly weak) bonds that hold your dining unit together.

Many years ago, Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese proposed a theory about communication known as the Uncertainty Reduction Theory. This theory deals with how people initially get to know each other. It proposes:

…that, when interacting, people need information about the other party in order to reduce their uncertainty. In gaining this information people are able to predict the other’s behavior and resulting actions, all of which according to the theory is crucial in the development of any relationship. (source)

The basic idea is that we humans need to reduce uncertainty in order to understand each other well-enough to get along. If we succeed at reducing uncertainty sufficiently, it then becomes possible to continue to develop relations.

The theory works pretty well in my view, but the problem I see with it is reducing initial uncertainty is much the same as feeling out semiotic codes, discovering which ones both (or all) parties subscribe to. As mentioned, this works well-enough for ordinary and formal relations, but what happens next? For the most part, most people then become trapped in the codes they seem to share.

What happens next can even be seen as sort of comical as people over the weeks or months continue to reduce uncertainty while confining themselves even more. Very often, if you try to go a bit deeper, you will be seen as breaking the code, disrupting convention, even threatening the group.

This is the region in which intimate relationships can be destroyed. Destruction happens because the parties involved are trapped in their codes and do not have the means to stand outside them and analyze them. Obviously, this leads to either reduced or turbulent speech.

I think the Uncertainty Reduction Theory might be extended and amended to include a stage two theory of uncertainty reduction. FIML practice would constitute a very reasonable stage two as FIML is designed to remove uncertainty and ambiguity between close partners.

Notice that FIML itself is not a semiotic code. It is a tool, a method, a procedure that allows partners to communicate without using any code at all save ones they consciously choose or create for themselves.

It seems clear to me that all established interpersonal codes are ultimately limiting and that people must find a way to analyze whatever codes they hold or have been inculcated with if they want to have truthful or authentic communication with their closest partners.

Most codes are public in the sense that they are roughly known by many people. But all of us have idiosyncratic ways of understanding these public codes and all of us also have private codes, idiosyncratic codes that are known only to us.

Sometimes our understanding of our idiosyncratic codes and/or idiosyncratic interpretations of public codes is not all that clear to us. One reason is we do not have good ways to access them. Another reason is a good many idiosyncrasies are sort of born in the dark. We muddle into them privately, inside our own minds with little or no opportunity to share them with others. Indeed, as seen above, to try to share them all too often leads to disruption of the shallow “certainty” that adherence to the shared code has provided.

What a mess. We need codes to learn, grow, and communicate with strangers. But we have to go beyond them if we want to learn, grow, and communicate with the people who are most important to us.

FIML is a sort of stage two Uncertainty Reduction Practice that allows partners to observe and analyze all of their codes—both public and private—in real-time.

Why is real-time analysis important? It is important because codes can only be richly and accurately analyzed when we see clearly how they are functioning in the moment. The “psychological morphemes” that appear only during brief moments of communication must be seen and analyzed if deep understanding is to be accomplished.

The deep importance of intentional language

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A major feature in language is the importance of asking and how you ask.

The impetus for all speech resides deeply in and around the imperative that we must want and ask for the spiritual development we are seeking. Frivolous asking and mundane desires do not count. They are outside of deep language use.

The Buddha only spoke on the Dharma when and if he was asked to do so.

The source and meaning of language and meaning itself can be glimpsed in this. Right Language is a soul-deep operation of the mind.

In this respect, FIML is a profound philosophical answer to what language is, what meaning is, what communication and communion are. FIML is this answer because it reveals and analyzes real-time, real-world speech between honest partners.

You cannot cut that close to the bone in any other way. Two people, true speech, true analysis — the source of linguistic being is revealed. The conundrums of psychology are healed.

FIML speaks to us within language, not from outside of language. With practice, FIML will move the source of your speech and meaning to your true experience. It will remove from you the need to understand yourself through extrinsic language and meaning.

In this sense, FIML is truly a philosopher’s stone. It will take you to the deepest levels you are capable of. ABN

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 either. 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

__________

For more in this topic, see also: The Five Skandhas

Linguistics and psychology meet in FIML

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FIML is a practical technique that optimizes communication between partners by removing as much micro ambiguity as possible during real-time interpersonal communication.

FIML will also greatly improve meso and macro understanding between partners, but the basic FIML technique rests on micro analyses of real-time communication. (See Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding for more on this topic.)

Real-time micro communication means communication within just a few seconds. If we are reading we can focus on a word or phrase and think about it as long as we like. If we are listening to someone speak, however, we normally cannot stop them to analyze deeply a particular word choice, a particular expression, a particular tone of voice, or anything else that happens quickly.

This missing piece in the puzzle of interpersonal communication is of great—I would argue massive—importance because huge mistakes can be and often are made in a single moment.

FIML practice corrects this problem. In other posts I have referred to psychological morphemes, which are defined as:

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.

The theory of FIML claims that psychological morphemes arise quickly and if they are not checked or analyzed can have massive influence on how people hear and think from that point on. This is why the practice of FIML focuses greatly on the initial arising or manifestation of a psychological morpheme. The morpheme may be habitual, having origins in the distant past, or it may have first arisen in the moment just before the FIML query that seeks to understand it.

The important point is that the person in whom the psychological morpheme has arisen, or has just begun to arise, realizes that it has arisen due to something that seems to have originated in the other person, their FIML partner.

This is the reason a basic FIML query is begun—because one partner notices a psychological morpheme arising within themself and wants to be sure it is correctly based on objective data shared with the partner. If the partner honestly does not support the interpretation of the inquirer, then the inquirer will know that the psychological morpheme that had arisen in their mind is a mistake. By stopping that mistake, they further stop a much larger mistaken psychological or emotional response from taking hold in their mind.

The stopping of a much larger mistaken psychological or emotional response from taking hold in the mind is the point at which FIML practice greatly influences psychological well-being. If we can see from the honest answers of a trusted partner that some of our most basic emotional responses are not justified—are mistakes—we will in most cases experience a rapid extinction of those responses.

In some cases of deep-seated mistaken interpretations, we may need to hear many times that we are mistaken, but extinction will follow just as surely even though it takes longer. FIML can’t cure everything but a great many people who are now dissatisfied or suffering with their emotional or psychological conditions will benefit from FIML practice. With the help of a trusted FIML partner it is easier to extinguish mistaken interpretations than it may seem upon fist hearing of this technique.

In addition to the above, FIML practice itself is interesting and will lead to many enjoyable discussions. Furthermore, FIML practice can also find and extinguish dangerous positive mistaken interpretations. A positive mistaken interpretation is one that feels good but that can lead to dangerous or harmful actions due to overconfidence, false assumptions, and so on.

FIML cannot remove all ambiguity between partners. That may be possible one day with advanced brain scans, but I suspect that even then ambiguity will still be part of our emotional lives. FIML can, however, remove enough ambiguity between partners that they will feel much more satisfied with themselves and with how they communicate with each other. When micro mistakes are largely removed from interpersonal communication, meso and macro emotions and behaviors will no longer be undermined by harmful or neurotic subjective states that have not been analyzed objectively.

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Signals are fundamental to everything that exists. There can be no physical realm without signals and certainly no life.

What is a signal? Anything that transmits any effect to anything else is a signal. In this sense, all signals “mean” something, including the smallest signal anyone can think of.

The advantage of basing a model of psychology (not just human psychology) on signals is our fundamental unit of analysis is universal, including everything we can know and think about.

Our bodies do an enormous amount of signalling—both internal and external—without our being conscious of most of it. Many living and non-living systems maintain homeostasis through signalling that is non-conscious (or so we now believe). The laws of physics describe signals that explain, for example, how our solar system came to be the way it is and why it remains in homeostasis.

Signals also explain how non-conscious life-forms—viruses, bacteria, plants, your blood, etc.—have arisen and how they maintain their dynamic homeostasis vis–à–vis the ever changing environment that surrounds them and signals to them constantly.

Consciousness itself almost certainly emerges out of a network of signals. Conscious beings read signals in the environment while frequently signaling each other. Cats and birds use conscious signals extensively. Even life-forms that we believe to be non-conscious, such as worms and plants, send and receive signals constantly to each other, while also signalling internally and with their environment.

Draw the line between conscious and non-conscious signalling wherever you like. Then let’s jump to human psychology.

Humans are different from cats and other animals in that we specialize in signals. Birds are specialists of the air, fish of the water, and humans of signals.

Humans signal each other constantly with signs that can employ any of our senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and so on. Our preeminent signalling system is, of course, language. With language humans are capable of remembering complex groupings of signals. We are also capable of thinking about these signals and transmitting our understanding of them to others.

Right now, as you read, you are receiving a complex signal from me.

Consciousness is arguably our most precious quality. Human consciousness is filled with and based upon signals. For our psychological well-being—the well-being of our consciousness—the signals we send and receive to and from other human beings are of fundamental importance.

To say it another way, humans are profoundly interactive signalling systems and the quality of the signals sent between us and other human systems are of primary importance to our sense of well-being, our psychological health, our conscious sense of who we are and how we are doing.

When our consciousness is filled with or marked by clear, truthful, and ethically sound signals, we feel good. In those moments we do not suffer confusion, neurosis, or pain. When consciousness is filled with or marked by confusion, lies, and ethically unsound signals, we feel bad. In those moments, we suffer, often greatly. (Of course, there are exceptions to these statements. Injury and truth, to name two, can cause us pain and confusion. But the basic distinction made here works well enough.)

It makes sense, thus, to focus on human signalling if we want to figure out what makes us tick.

The science of human signalling is often called semiotics, which can be roughly defined as the study of signs and their meanings. Semiotics can and does also include non-human signs and signals, but for now let’s limit ourselves to human signalling. There are other sciences that describe human signalling, but semiotics, which emphasizes signs and their interpretation, will serve us well enough that we can temporarily ignore other ways of understanding human meaning—game theory, traditional psychology, anthropology, etc. Semiotics works well because semiotic analyses can be reduced to single signals; they have a distinct and clearly defined basic unit—the signal or the sign.

Why do we focus so much of our inquiry into human psychology on emotion? Emotion is inchoate, often even unfelt, until it is defined or given meaning as a signal or sign.

Emotions are real, but they are massively subject to cultural interpretation, to definitions that have arisen outside of the individual experiencing them. Culture is little more than a system of signs and symbols shared among a group of people. Human cultures have great variety because the signs and signals and the meanings of those signs and signals develop differently in different places and under different conditions. This fact alone should suffice to show that the meanings of human signs often are arbitrary.

As long as a bunch of people believe that the sun is a chariot driven by a god, that meaning of the sun will work as a cultural standard, or cultural element with varying interpretations. If most people in a community think the sun is the center of the universe, that will also work until a better idea comes along. If enough people believe that human hearts have to be sacrificed to keep the sun moving across the sky, that will also work well-enough to hold that society together. Wherever you look, you will find great cultural variety, much of it based on arbitrary decisions that have long been forgotten by the people adhering to that system of meaning,.

In this context, isn’t it clear that focusing our inquiries into human psychology on emotion is going to provide us with many tautological results?

Similar statements can be made about many other elements of our traditional understanding of human psychology, including such elements as personality, neurosis, mental health, what being normal means, what our goals and desires are, and so on. The emotions and/or “psychological states” that these areas of inquiry deal with are vague and almost entirely changeable over time and place.

What is not vague are signals. When we ask what signals are and what their quality is we can get much better answers based on much better data compared to the answers we get when we ask only how someone feels and where those feelings came from.

How do we do that? More precisely, in the context of what we call human psychology, how do we analyze our signalling?

Is it valuable to compare my assessment of my internal signalling with “data” taken from “surveys” of other people who speak my language and live in a society which is sort of maybe the “same” or similar to my own? Yes, you can get something from that data but you will also make many mistakes because it is very crude, or general, data and will never fully apply to any individual or even come close to actually describing anything of significant value to most people. Such data will contain so many mistakes, it should be handled with great caution, if it is used at all. (You most certainly can fool people with that data. But that happens because many people will believe the data is scientific and provides an accurate metric that describes who they are. And that is an example of how a cultural semiotic can and does impose “meaning” on individuals; not hugely different from believing you have to sacrifice human hearts to make the sun go round.)

You can’t really get at the important signalling people do by using general surveys because your data is is coming from a tautological loop based on surveys that are generally put together on the basis of other surveys involving stuff like common words or feelings.

For psychology, for human mental health, the most important signalling people do is interpersonal signalling with significant other people.

When we try to figure ourselves out by remembering (a dubious exercise in so many cases) what our parents did or said or made us feel, we can get some useful information, but it is not that reliable and suffers from the same sort of misinterpretation as personality studies or studies of human emotion do. You can read whatever you want into it and/or be subject to the vagaries of chance interpretations.

The only significant interpersonal signalling data we can really know with significant certainty are data noticed, remembered, and agreed upon by two (or more in some cases) people engaged in significant interpersonal communication (signalling).

A mere observer (much less a surveyor) of this communication will never be able to know or analyze the data with anything approaching the accuracy or validity of the two people involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data. Even if an observer has a video record of the exchange, they will never be able to know or analyze it with the accuracy of the individuals directly involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data.

The day may come when brain scans can provide us with real-time data of that sort, but for now all we have is FIML practice, or something very much like it.

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

A signal-based model of psychology: part two

A signal-based model of psychology: part three

A signal-based model of psychology: part four

Personality disorders and signaling

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

In my opinion, “personality disorders” are more easily understood as signaling problems.

All types of personality disorder involve dysfunctional signaling with other people. Signals are both sent and received in ways that result in suffering.

As currently defined, personality disorders “develop early, are inflexible, and are associated with significant distress or disability.”

Thus, if there are no significant brain injuries or other biological problems, all personality disorders (PD) develop through experience.

This means that during childhood the PD sufferer has received many bad signals (and/or interpreted many signals badly) resulting in their failing to form a coherent well-functioning internal signaling system.

The way to fix this is work with the signals. And the best way to do this is FIML practice. A professional psychotherapist cannot possibly provide this level of treatment.

This brings me to a second point: is there anyone who would not benefit from improving their signaling?

Why do we view psychotherapy as treatment designed merely to make us look and feel “average”? Why don’t we instead work to optimize our psychologies every day?

The Buddha said we are all crazy. We are. We all need to work on our signaling—our personality disorders—all the time.

The distinctions between one PD and another and those who have PDs and those who don’t are vague. This is because all PD problems (absent significant biological deficits, which may include intelligence) are idiosyncratic varieties of signaling malfunctions.

If signaling is the core problem, it should follow that all acquired PD will be classifiable as some kind of signaling malfunction. And that is precisely what we see.

Narcissism is a too simple signaling system. Borderline is an unstable signaling system. Compulsive, passive aggressive, histrionic, avoidant, and so on all are variations of a poorly formed internal signaling system.

The way to study this is through interpersonal semiotics; that is interpersonal semiotic analysis of real-time, real-world communicative signs and symbols.

All people need to do this to optimize their psychologies (their internal signaling systems). Why would anyone not want to do this? Maybe not wanting to do this is the surest sign of PD there is.

The hardest part about doing FIML is finding a willing and able partner. To me, this shows how pervasive bad signaling is. Most people will do almost anything but examine their own signaling with the help of another person.