Tag: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

What conversation are we in?

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In a large sense—macrocosmically—are we engaged in a Buddhist conversation? In a semiotic one? A psychological one? An anthropological one? An uncategorizable, open, Internet one?

In a small sense—microcosmically—we would do well to ask ourselves this question every time we interact with anyone. Points to consider in these cases are: how much time do we have; what factors are we considering and how are we weighing them; are we understanding each other well; why are we talking at all, and so on?

The URL of this site is americanbuddhist.net, so I suppose we are engaging in a Buddhist conversation. With American characteristics, whatever that means.

We’ve had this site for a few years, and in the early days got so many comments about how there is no such thing as “American Buddhism” that I felt the need to define it as a largely geographical term.

Most “modern Buddhists” living outside of traditional Buddhist areas would probably agree that Buddhism itself is really a conversation, an ongoing research project, a way of actively thinking, a participatory tradition that is not written in stone and never has been written in stone.

This is surely the position of American Buddhist Net and I am all but certain the Buddha himself would agree with us. Maybe he would not agree with the specifics of everything we say, but he would surely support our wish to think for ourselves and apply the Dharma to the world and lives we are now living.

So, I suppose this is largely a Buddhist-oriented, open Internet conversation that often brings up semiotics and, to a lesser degree, psychology and anthropology. The more I think about semiotics, the more I see it as a very valuable modern angle on Buddhism. More on that in a moment.

The more I think about Buddhism and semiotics, the less I seem to think about psychology. For example, I hardly use the term personality anymore because it just doesn’t say much from either a Buddhist or a semiotic point of view. In the first place, from a Buddhist point of view, anything we might call personality is always changing; it’s impermanent, empty, transformable. True, Buddhism does recognize “persistent traits,” but this term is not used often and it is rarely, if ever, used to define someone in the way our current sense of personality defines people.

FIML practice will show partners fairly quickly how much of their thinking about each other is based on unsupportable notions concerning personalities and what they are and how they function.

From a semiotic point of view, especially one informed by Buddhism, we can see much the same thing—as soon as you try to say what someone’s personality is, you will generate a new sign that needs further analysis, and so on ad infinitum. The fact that we will be faced with an “infinite interpretation,” an “infinite continuum,” where we will never be able to find an “absolute individual” very much recalls Buddhist thinking on emptiness.

I first encountered the idea that semiotics shows us that there are no “absolute individuals” in Umberto Eco’s excellent The Limits of Interpretation, which I recommend.

In place of personality, I now see individuals as more or less manifesting cultural or anthropological characteristics which they communicate as semiotic signs, symbols, and “meanings.”

When you talk to close friends or partners, you have to do a good job at microcosmic, real-time, semiotic analysis. If you don’t, you will make many mistakes and soon come to feel estranged from your friends and/or be forced to relate to them in static ways. If you don’t do FIML or something very much like it, you will be all but forced to cling to static semiotics. FIML could be defined as “microcosmic, real-time, semiotic analysis” between friends.

So far, in my readings on semiotics, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, or Buddhism, I have not seen anything that asks people to engage in “microcosmic, real-time, semiotic analyses” with each other. Nothing like FIML.

Maybe there is something, but I haven’t seen it. That’s the reason I started this post the way I did. What kind of conversation are we having? Is it possible for one person to read that widely in so many subjects? I don’t think it is. I probably know more about Buddhism, or have read more widely and thought more about it, than the other subjects. So, for me, this conversation is centered in Buddhism more than the other subjects. I like the way Buddhism is grounded in morality, so that’s another reason.

Semioticians tend to talk a lot about philosophy and literature, while Buddhism centers us more in the lives we are living as we perceive them, however fallibly.

Here are a few terms from semiotics that will be helpful to Buddhists: fallibilism, synechism, vaugeness or indeterminacy.

Fallibilism is the philosophical principle that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations, or their understanding of the world.

Synechism holds that the essential feature in philosophic speculation is continuity. It denies that all is merely ideas, likewise that all is merely matter, and mind-matter dualism. To my understanding, synechism denies in principle the “absolute individual,” or in Buddhist terms the “own being” of anything, which is another way of saying all things are empty.

Vagueness or indeterminacy, especially with regard to speech acts, mean that we can never be completely certain of what others mean or what we are hearing.

Semiotics is at the center of some other modern major innovations in how we think, such a deconstructionism, relative frames theory, and the vague, propositional indeterminacy that underlies multiculturalism. I often wonder how much semioticians and modern philosophers have been influenced by Buddhist ideas.

Taken together, the study of semiotics and Buddhism deeply changes the way we see the world and live our lives. They affect how we understand what it is to be human, how we communicate, and what we communicate. Buddhism is an excellent foundation for semiotics, while semiotics can extend Buddhist concepts into a more detailed, modern idiom.

Lies and self-deception

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

Most Buddhist practitioners will immediately understand and agree with the results of a recent study that shows that people feel better when they tell fewer lies. The study (Telling fewer lies linked to better health and relationships.*) is modest but worth considering.

Notice that the improvements found in the study come from refraining from lying.

“We found that the participants could purposefully and dramatically reduce their everyday lies, and that in turn was associated with significantly improved health,” says lead author Anita Kelly. (Same link as above.)

A good deal of Buddhist practice involves refraining from unwholesome thoughts and behaviors and ultimately eliminating them. Refraining from lying, or “false speech,” is the fourth of the Five Precepts, which are the basis of Buddhist morality. Lies cloud the mind and hinder clear thinking.

Buddhist mindfulness gets us to slow down and question how sure we are of our thoughts, feelings, and judgements. It helps us refrain from willfully lying, and it  can help us refrain from unconsciously lying if we have the help of a trusted partner.

Another term for unconscious lying is self-deception. Self-deception may make us feel good for awhile in some circumstances, but in the long-run it is much the same as any other kind of lying. It’s not true. It constitutes inner false speech and causes serious intellectual and emotional contradictions that will almost certainly lead to wrong thoughts, behaviors, and interpretations.

Michael S. Gazzaniga in a recent online essay has this to say:

The view in neuroscience today is that consciousness does not constitute a single, generalized process. It involves a multitude of widely distributed specialized systems and disunited processes, the products of which are integrated by the interpreter module….Our conscious experience is assembled on the fly as our brains respond to constantly changing inputs, calculate potential courses of action, and execute responses like a streetwise kid. (Source)

It is our “interpreter module,” to use Gazzaniga’s words, that can and does unconsciously lie to us or allow us to engage in self-deception.

In the same essay, Gazzaniga also says:

In truth, when we set out to explain our actions, they are all post hoc explanations using post hoc observations with no access to nonconscious processing….The reality is, listening to people’s explanations of their actions is interesting—and in the case of politicians, entertaining—but often a waste of time. (Source: same as above)

FIML practice may not be capable of giving us access to “nonconscious processing,” but it will give us access to what is/was in our working memories while showing us that what we said or heard may have been vague, ambiguous, muddled, or wrong.

With the aid of a trusted partner, FIML helps us catch our minds on the fly. Partners are encouraged to refrain from long explanations and just stick to what they remember having been in their minds during the few seconds in question. This forestalls long, self-deceiving explanations.

Beginning FIML partners will likely be amazed at how often their interpretation of what their partner said is completely wrong.

FIML emphasizes using trivial incidents because partners will be much less likely to self-deceive when the incident is minor. A minor mistake is easier to change than a major one. If partners keep working with minor mistakes and clear them up as soon as they arise, how can major misunderstandings even develop?

In the future, we may have brain scans that can help us separate fact from fiction in our minds, but for now, I know of no better way to do it than with a trusted partner in FIML practice. Your partner will help you see the minutiae of your mind as it actually works and impacts them. This leads to a large reduction in lying and self-deception and an increase in feelings of well-being and mutual understanding.

______________________

*Sorry, could not find the actual study online.

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.

Rational actor, muddled actor

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The notion in economics that humans are “rational actors” has been widely and rightly criticized. Here is the basic argument against “rational choice theory” in economics as put by Edward J. Nell and Karim Errouaki:

To make rational calculations projectible, the agents may be assumed to have idealized abilities, especially foresight; but then the Inductive Problem is out of reach because the agents of the world do not resemble those of the model. The agents of the model can be abstract, but they cannot be endowed with powers actual agents could not have. This also undermines Methodological Individualism; if behaviour cannot be reliably predicted on the basis of the ‘rational choices of agents’ a social order cannot reliably follow from the choices of agents. (Source)

The problem is even worse when it comes to linguistics. All people much of the time are neither rational speakers nor rational listeners.

Speech arises out of complex mental, emotional, and environmental conditions. As speakers, we are often not aware of many of those conditions. The same is true for listeners. When the muddled aspects of speaking and listening are added together, the problem is made worse.

An even deeper problem is most muddled speech and listening never gets figured out. In place of clear mutual understanding, we normally go with muddled interpretations of what people are saying and how they understand what we have said.

Be mindful of what you say and how you are being understood. Listen carefully to others and notice how you are understanding what they are saying. It’s a very messy process even when topics are concrete and carry little or no emotional valence.

If basing a model of economics on “rational actors” does not work, the situation is far worse for psychology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, history, and more. The problem is worse because economic behavior is simpler than linguistic behavior, which underlies all of these subjects.

A good model of sociology might say something like this: People are emotionally and mentally muddled and they communicate very badly with each other except in simple situations or on the basis of simple semiotic models they already agree on and have been trained in. Culture, therefore, is little more than the simple semiotic models people use to communicate because they don’t know how to communicate in any other way.

A model for psychology might say something like this: Most people have profound emotional problems because they cannot communicate with others except in simple situations or on the basis of simple semiotic models they already agree on and have been trained in by experience. This is a disaster in intimate interpersonal relationships, often leading to anger, sadness, alienation, and depression.

A model for history might say: The above two paragraphs describe major historical forces that are as significant as economic and environmental forces. (This is why ‘history’ is so easily rewritten by those in power.)

We won’t fix the world just yet or change the course of history, but as individuals we can do something about this with our best friends and life partners. FIML corrects these problems because FIML exposes communication errors and corrects them while they are happening. If communication errors are not caught while they are happening (at least a good deal of the time), partners will be forced to rely on simple semiotics, simple extrinsic cultural norms, to conduct their emotional lives together, and that is a recipe for disaster.

People are muddled actors when it comes to communication and this is a serious problem when it comes to intimate interpersonal communication. But we can become much more rational and communicate much more clearly with at least one other person by using FIML techniques.

FIML and Bernard Lonergan’s GEM

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One aspect of FIML that continues to delight me, even after years of practice, is how so little can give us so much. In a nutshell “all” FIML does is stabilize and clarify our communication with one other person.

FIML does this by removing error and resolving ambiguities between two people. FIML cannot do this perfectly, but it does it well-enough that partners will experience a level of mental and emotional clarity that had not been available to them before.

I don’t believe anyone can know everything and I don’t believe anyone can even know very much. We really do not know if we are in a sim or not, so how can anyone make claims to philosophical certainty about anything, be they physicalist, atheist, religious, or even hedonist claims?

I am open to an individual saying he or she knows something through revelation, but their knowing does not help me because how do I know if they are telling the truth? Science gives us truths but many of the most interesting questions are outside of the realm of science. The Buddhist tradition is very good in this context because it asks us to base our understanding of “truth” on our own experience (which can and should include scientific inquiry).

The work of Bernard Lonergan struck me this morning as saying something important about how we know things and how we live in a world that is hugely mysterious.

His “generalized empirical method” (GEM) was designed to help people deal with meaning, ambiguity, and the relative values of ethical and philosophical truths. Lonergan’s theory of cognition, which is part of GEM, describes four levels of consciousness—“experience of data, understanding the data, judgment that one’s understanding is correct, and decision to act on the resulting knowledge.” (Source for this is the link in the paragraph above.)

His theory fits very well with Buddhism and is good way to assess what FIML does.

In FIML practice, partners “experience the data” of interacting with each other; they “understand this data” by doing a FIML inquiry on some part of it; based on this inquiry they are better able to “judge if their understanding is correct”; and following that judgment, they will be in a good position to decide what to do with the “resulting knowledge.”

FIML takes the weakest parts of interpersonal communication—the ambiguous and emotionally difficult parts—and turns them into some of the best parts; parts where understanding and resolution have been deepened even beyond the other parts.

FIML cannot explain the origin of the universe or which philosophy will dominate the world one hundred years from now, but it can provide a very good level of mutual understanding between partners. And this level of understanding will have a beneficial influence on many other aspects of partners’ lives—emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, and philosophical.

Both Lonergan and the Buddha described methods that a fragile individual can use to sift through the mountains of data that surround us to find the best stuff. FIML was designed to be a method that helps partners know one another to the best of their human capacities. It is a method that partners can use within a Buddhist, or other, framework to arrive at a better understanding of who and what they are.

Edit: Here’s a good quote from Wikipedia on Lonergan: The key to Lonergan’s project is “self-appropriation,” that is, the personal discovery and personal embrace of the dynamic structure of inquiry, insight, judgment, and decision. By self-appropriation, one finds in one’s own intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility the foundation of every kind of inquiry and the basic pattern of operations undergirding methodical investigation in every field. (Source)

FIML is a specific semiotic

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FIML is a specific semiotic, but it also says interesting things about the general semiotics of all languages and communication systems.

As a specific semiotic, FIML influences individual psychology, behavior, and thought. Since FIML rules can be generalized and taught, FIML also shows something about all languages and their uses.

FIML is a way that two people can check the specific semiotics that exists between them. Without FIML, or something like it, individuals cannot do this.

If an individual does not do FIML or something very similar in their primary relationship, that relationship will be characterized by semiotics extrinsic to the relationship and/or by illusions.

I don’t want to overemphasize the semiotic content of FIML practice, but a basic sense of how signs and symbols are interpreted can be a great help to understanding FIML.

In FIML practice, your partner can explain the “text” of what they said much better than you can interpret it. This can only happen if both partners are honest and trust each other and the interpretation/explanation of the “text” is brought up quickly enough that little or nothing has been forgotten by either partner.

As for honesty and trust, it is my guess that these areas can be a problem for people because we humans are almost always required to interpret what is said to us without any possible recourse to a better explanation. There are three major reasons for this: 1) convention, habit; 2) timing; and 3) emotion.

Taking the second reason first, timing makes it very difficult to get good information about what a speaker means because when we ask quickly enough for them to actually still be able to remember, we will appear confrontational or rude. The speaker will become flustered and often answer with an excuse rather than an explanation.

This happens due to factor three, emotion. Language evolved in hierarchical societies. To question someone quickly about what they said is to seem to question them, to doubt them. In hierarchies, we do not question the orders we are given. We wait our turn, we let the speaker finish, we don’t interrupt, etc. Yet, if we don’t act quickly—within a few seconds—the speaker will have forgotten the fullness of their mind at the moment they spoke. Their explanation for the “text,” for what they said, will be lost forever, even if we have a video recording of it.

Due to the quickness of human emotion, virtually all societies everywhere have constructed rules for listening and speaking that completely preclude a FIML-type inquiry. Most beginning FIML partners will, therefore, experience some difficulty getting used to FIML queries. Our moods, emotions, mental states, thoughts, and more have all been long conditioned by social forces that constrain us in the very place where we need more freedom—getting the real explanation from our partner to replace our interpretation.

You would never want to run a business or do an engineering project based on ambiguous interpretations, but most of us conduct our love lives and friendships in just that way.

FIML is a specific semiotic in that it deals with the communications between two specific individuals. FIML does not tell these individuals what to think, say, or believe. It merely provides a technique for them to fully explore the semiotics and all ramifications of those semiotics that occur between them. A general semiotic is one that says something about all languages. FIML fixes a general weakness that occurs, to the best of my knowledge, in all human languages.

Notes

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  • Made some changes in How to do FIML. Mainly removed the word neurosis from the explanation. Using that term was convenient but also became confusing because our definition was quite specific; that is, by neurosis we only meant “ongoing mistaken interpretation.” I think we have also become less “neurotic” due to FIML practice and so feel less need for the term.
  • The other change in the How to do FIML article involves explaining that the basic explanation of FIML is deceptively simple. You could say a computer is very simple because it works with 0s and 1s, but that doesn’t say much about computers. Similarly, basic FIML can be seen as a very simple practice, but as soon as it is undertaken during a real-life exchange with someone you care about, it will quickly expand into something very complex that is wholly unique to you and your partner.
  • We use the word semiotics a good deal because it suits FIML practice. We could even call FIML Dynamic Interpersonal Semiotics, or DIS.
  • Semiotics has a long history, but basically it is the science or art of interpreting signs, symbols, and language. Many semiotic interpretations are formal; that is, they classify signs and symbols and seek to determine relations among these categories.
  • In FIML practice, our main semiotic focus is on how partners interpret each others’ signs, symbols, and language.
  • This is a dynamic practice as opposed to a strictly theoretical or classificatory one in that the meaning of the semiotics as they are discovered in practice between partners is the subject.
  • This subject can only be reliably interpreted if the mental state of each partner is clearly remembered; that is, if each partner can clearly remember the semiotics in his or her mind at the time of speaking or listening.
  • If their mental/semiotic states are clearly remembered, then both partners will have good data that is worth analyzing.
  • Discussion and analysis of this data provides partners with very reliable insights into how they are actually functioning together, how they are understanding each other.
  • Rather than rely on psychological theories or other generalities, FIML partners are able to work with reliably objective interpersonal data.
  • This helps them avoid long detours into ambiguous discussions that often are counterproductive.
  • To understand, we must have a “prior category.” If you have never seen a hammock (if you have no prior category of hammock), you won’t know what one is upon first seeing it.
  • In this vein, much of what we hear is understood by “prior categories” in our minds.
  • FIML helps us check our prior categories. If one or more of my prior categories is mistaken, I will mishear a great deal of what is said to me.
  • If my trusted partner tells me that the prior category that I used to interpret her statement is wrong, or not applicable to what she just said, I must accept her data. Her assessment of her state of mind is better than my assessment of her state of mind.
  • Once partners get used to this, they will find it is a great relief. Who wants mistaken prior categories that cause needless suffering?
  • When we clear away dysfunctional prior categories through FIML practice, we will notice many beneficial changes in our mental and emotional make-up.
  • The core of all our behaviors, beliefs, motives, and emotions is meaning and how we interpret it.
  • If we can see that an emotional prior category is dysfunctional (i.e. it is getting used when it does not apply), we will find it fairly easy to discard it.
  • Having a good partner that you trust and that trusts you is essential for FIML practice because the quality of the data you will be working with depends entirely on mutual trust, mutual caring.

How do we know where our semiotics come from?

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For the most part, we don’t.

Look at it this way—how does someone like Dick Cheney, say, know he knows what he is doing, or was doing as vice-president?

He had a semiosis about what he was doing and where he stood within the American political/military hierarchy, but how did he know that that semiosis wasn’t a front for another semiosis (game plan) hidden behind it? How would someone like Cheney find out that there was no other game plan hidden behind the game plans he knew about?

I don’t think he did know or could have known. Did Cheney realize that? Does he realize it now? I can’t answer.

One way someone like that could get information that shows he at least knows a lot, if not the whole thing, is to exercise power. If someone can exercise power and not be stopped, they can be kind of certain that the semiosis they are working within is “true.” Their game plan worked, so there is a greater chance they are in control than if it had not worked. But how can they be certain? I don’t think they can be.

Take another example: A crime boss in the 1980s might have done his thing for years believing all the while that he had the system figured out. Because he kept getting away with his crimes (because he was able to continuously exercise power without being stopped), he may have come to believe that his game plan worked, that he was at the top of his power structure, that his semiosis was “true.”

But we know that many of those bosses in the 1980s were wrong. For years their phones and meeting places were bugged, leading to successful prosecutions under RICO laws. The bosses thought that they had found a way to distance themselves from the nitty gritty of their crimes, but they were wrong. Their game plan (their semiosis) was wrong.

So, law enforcement and the courts had a better game plan, a “truer” semiosis. But how did they know the real quality of their semiosis? Sure, they busted the Mafia, but did they bust all of it and who did they not even look at? How do they know that there aren’t more gangs or secret societies that may even now be controlling them?

I don’t think they do know or even can know. Before you start thinking I am paranoid, consider that behind-the-scenes control of American politics, or any politics, is common; Tammany Hall, Mafia control of NYC politics decades ago, Hoover’s denial that the Mafia even existed, the current state of our two-party “political” system, Libor, etc.

A similar sort of analysis can be applied to news. The problems politicians have with really knowing the deep game plan or ever speaking about it filters through our less-than-perfect news media to be consumed by citizens as bits of information structured into stories that are easy to follow. The American people do not govern themselves but rather at most serve as a weak brake on groups at the top who do almost anything they want.

How do those groups know which one is on top? I am not sure they do. Is NSA domestic surveillance actually an attempt to find out?

If you know everything about everybody and you know how everybody is connected to everybody else, can you know for certain who is at the top?

If so, that will be a first in human history. I do recognize it is possible, though there would be problems with who controls the data, who analyzes it.

A basic point I want to make in this post is that power is very much about meaning, about semiotics. If you can exercise power and not be stopped, you know something about your semiosis. That sure as heck is not the Buddhist way to go about it, but that is the way a great deal of power and semiotics actually works in this world. Power defines meaning.

When this function of power and meaning gets down to the levels of ordinary people, it greatly affects what we say to each other and how we think about each other. Basically, far as I can tell, it causes most people to live in fear because we all know that if we say anything unusual, other people will start wondering about us. If we say the wrong thing, someone will be offended and talk behind our back, or worse.

So it becomes dangerous to say a great many things, or at least very difficult. Almost every subject of real interest is shrouded in semiotics that permit just a couple of standard views. Don’t like Obama, vote for Romney, what’s your problem?

I point all of this out because it is crucial for understanding who we are to understand how ideas, semiotics, and cultures are formed. We live in hierarchies. In hierarchies, the top people determine a great deal of the semiotics of that society. They further their semiotics and prove it to themselves by exercising power. Those people themselves cannot really ever be certain that they know their true position in the hierarchy. How much less can ordinary people expect to know the truth of the semiotics that trickles down to them?

Not everything is stuck in a culture you can’t control and can’t be sure of, but most/much of it is.

In this context, FIML practice allows partners to examine and discuss all aspects of the semiotics they hold in common or as individuals. Since FIML provides partners with a very good level of interpersonal certitude and the means to reinvigorate this certitude at any time, FIML allows partners to say what they want to each other without being misunderstood. It provides a freedom of speech and expression that allows the mind to bloom in ways that normal adherence to normal cultural semiotics cannot.

Just as politicians and powerful people can never be sure they know what others are thinking or where they stand, so ordinary people can’t either. All of them are trapped in the semiotics of their culture, which is usually a hierarchy. It is only through FIML or FIML-like techniques that individuals can free their communication systems from the need to create meaning through self-assertion or submission.

Trust

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One of the features of FIML practice that interests me is how it depends upon and strengthens trust between partners.

I cannot think of another system that strengthens interpersonal trust as well as FIML.

My understanding of game theory is not very good, but I suspect FIML could be seen as a game that works with human consciousness to strengthen trust in six ways. If there are two FIML partners—A and B—partner A will strengthen trust in B, in A, and in A and B together. The same is true for partner B. Added together, trust is strengthened in six different ways.

For example, after doing FIML properly for a few months, I will almost certainly trust my partner more than before, myself more than before, and the both of us together more than before. I will be able to trust myself more because I will have a better sense of what to say and why. I will be able to see how my honest answers have a good effect on both my partner and myself. From this, I will be able to quite reliably conclude that my partner is experiencing something similar. And from this we will both be able to see/conclude that the both of us together have a much more trustworthy interpersonal system than we had before we started doing FIML.

A few months of FIML practice will make it abundantly clear to both partners that lying is a huge waste of time. A few months of practice also shows partners how ambiguity and/or soft lies commonly arise in non-FIML relationships. Those same few months will also help partners find many of their blind spots. They will discover how cultural conditioning influences their perceptions and expectations.

Some other systems

Some other systems for establishing interpersonal trust are making vows, getting married, exchanging gifts or confessions, signing agreements, or even spending 100% of your time together.

The best or deepest of these methods is probably the vow, but even a well-meant vow, willingly and mutually undertaken by both parties, will not be all that reliable because it will be stated in general terms and have no way of dealing with the thousands of unique situations that will always occur in all lives. Vows typically have few rules for communication and they rarely, if ever, take into consideration the enormous difficulties all people have with the ongoing details of interpersonal communication.

Vows are general and often highly emotional. Exchanging gifts or making confessions may be slightly more concrete or specific, but there is less obligation. At their best, they are one-time signals of an implied vow. At their worst, they are ways to trick others.

Prenuptial agreements, or other contracts, can limit damage from fake vows or real ones that cannot be kept, but they are actually based on a sort of mistrust and won’t do much to strengthen trust. Some people have actually tried spending all their time together, but all this assures is that partners can’t say or do anything that violates their vows. It doesn’t mean they are telling the truth to each other or even know how. Maybe it would work. I don’t know. I respect people who do this, but it would drive me nuts.

FIML as a game

FIML can be thought of as a game in many ways. Here is one basic formula for FIML as a game that may stand in for many others. It’s very basic, so enhance it or add to it as you see fit or as fits your circumstances.

The formula deals with semiotics by grouping the ongoing semiotics of a conversation between two people into three parts. The first part (the first semiotic grouping) is the context in which the conversation is occurring. The second is the semiotics in the mind of one partner, and the third is the semiotics in the mind of the other partner.

Generally, the context in which the conversation is occurring defines many aspects of the conversation. If partners are in a museum, the museum displays and the need to be quiet will determine a good deal of what is said and how it is understood. If partners are at work, the context will be different.

If partners are relaxed in their own home and with a decent amount of free time, the context will be perfect for a FIML discussion, should the need arise.

No matter what the context, partner A will speak with some sort of semiotic in their mind. It might be very specific or it might be vague. Partner B will listen in much the same way—they may be hyper-attentive to one aspect of what A is saying or they may be in a relaxed state or even daydreaming.

There are many ways that the semiotics of A and B can and will be different. In most cases, these differences glide along and resolve or are ignored in common ways without causing problems. You can’t possible monitor everything that happens in your minds.

But, if the semiotics in the minds of partners A and B get too far apart—if they diverge from each other too much—misunderstandings and mismatched feelings will begin to arise.

This is when you do FIML—when the semiotics in your mind and your partner’s mind are no longer referring to the same thing and one or both of you notices, either by feeling the mix-up or by other signs.

The game is to see the mix-up right when it happens, then to discuss how and why it happened, appreciate that it is very common for stuff like that to happen, figure out what to do about it (if anything), enjoy what you have learned, and then keep doing what you were doing.

The value of this game is you will not only keep doing what you were doing but you will enjoy it even more. If you don’t do the game, you won’t get that added level of fun and you won’t see more deeply into your shared awareness.

FIML as mindfulness

A friend yesterday said in an email that FIML was working well for him and his fiancee. He also referred to it as Buddhist mindfulness. FIML is greatly enhanced by Buddhist mindfulness, but it is not exactly the same because FIML involves two people being mindful (and honest) together. Having a second person do detailed mindfulness with you is different from doing mindfulness alone. When you do mindfulness or introspection by yourself, you have no way of checking your work. When you do it with an honest partner, you can check your conclusions, and very often find out why you were wrong.

The value of FIML lies in being able to check our mindfulness with an honest partner who is also being mindful. Doing this corrects interpersonal mistakes as well as individual idiosyncratic ones. FIML also increases trust and honesty while improving communication overall between partners.

Identity and semiotics

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Mental (unemotional) identity is almost always a mix of public semiotics. Mental identity defines, conditions, and guides emotional identity.

Raw emotion might be thought of as a limbic response. The term limbic response will probably be replaced one day, but for now it is a recognized way to refer to strong emotional responses that happen suddenly and can often seize control of an individual’s thoughts and behavior.

Mental identity as a composite of public semiotics indicates the communicable beliefs of the individual—their religion or lack thereof; their sense of history and their place in it; their ethnic, racial, or national identity; their career and the specialized knowledge and attitudes that go with it; the intermingling of their beliefs with those of their friends,  etc. If the person can more or less communicate it, or more or less find it outside of themselves, or more or less be able to alter it through communication with a trusted other, it is a public semiotic.

Mental identity defines, conditions, and guides emotional identity. In turn, emotional identity guides, conditions, and either restricts or expands mental identity. A person raised to hate some “other”, for example, may overcome their mental identity through feelings of compassion. The same person may overcome their feelings of hatred through reason. These are just crude examples.

For the most part, all people have problematical mental and emotional identities. The reason this is so is it is very hard to honestly access the kinds of semiotics and emotions that comprise the amalgam of emotional and mental identity.

Why is that? That is because public semiotics almost by definition cannot fully allow the individual to redefine him/herself. If you are a traditional anything (Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, crime boss, ethnic chauvinist, capitalist, etc.), once you start questioning the public aspects of your mental/emotional identity, all you can normally do is adopt some other version of public semiotics. You may become a lapsed Catholic, or a weekend Buddhist, or a soft versus hard atheist, a reformed crime boss, a tolerant ethnic chauvinist, a reform-minded capitalist, etc.

These changes will produce changes in your emotional identity, but you will still be hooked into a public semiotic and the emotions it defines and conditions. Maybe you will feel more doubt or uncertainty; maybe you will become apathetic; maybe you will get fired up about making reforms. It’s hard to say exactly what will happen, but at the core there will still be a public semiotic and an emotional conditioning closely related to it.

Buddhism, as I see it in this context, is designed to dig deeper into that mixture of mind and emotion and remove all thought and emotion that is not supported by profound inner experience and reason. Buddhism removes clinging to all thought and feeling that is false, deluded, and/or empty. Buddhism teaches us that clinging to things that are false, deluded, and/or empty causes suffering.

Thus, deep mindfulness coupled with years of contemplating/comprehending the emptiness and impermanence of “mental dharmas” (public semiotics in this context), leads to liberation from the core cause of suffering.

A few paragraphs above I said “…public semiotics almost by definition cannot fully allow the individual to redefine him/herself.” I said “almost by definition” because Buddhist practice, which we first learn as a public semiotic, does indeed allow individuals to redefine themselves.

Sometimes, it’s hard to do this in traditional Buddhist settings because the public semiotics can also get in the way. The temples and statues and quiet rooms are wonderful for beginners because they allow them to get a feeling for where Buddhist practice will take them. Intermediate practitioners, though, may get tired of the symbols and want to take a break from them. But after a time, they usually come to realize that the symbols and public semiotics (basic Dharma) were essential for their development and they will probably want to help others by donating time, money, or deep service to a temple.

It’s important to recognize where you are in all that. Surely you can guess that your initial enthusiasm may not last or that it will change. Surely you can see that becoming tired of the symbols and semiotics is not the end of Buddhist practice; it just shows you are starting to really get the idea. When you feel like going back to the temple and helping, you will know why.

Now what about private semiotics? Private semiotics are the signs, symbols, and language that we hold as idiosyncratic individuals and can communicate with others only with significant difficulty if at all.

Traditional Buddhist practice may not work well with private semiotics because traditional practice is, by definition, a public semiotic. So how do you get to your private semiotics? Contemplation, meditation, and mindfulness help, but you will always have problems with a sort of solipsism. How can you know that your analysis of something is right? You can’t unless you check it with other people. But as soon as you do that, you are back to public semiotics. The other person really won’t understand you all that well and/or you will end up revising your insights to look and feel like something more public.

I think the above basically describes why so many Buddhists kind of fantasize having a perfect teacher, a guru who will know how to guide them at all times. I am not going to say whether that is even possible, but for most of us, it won’t happen.

So what can we do? I propose in this context that Buddhists undertake FIML practice. I say this because FIML practice deals directly with the complex inter-workings of interpersonal semiotics and emotion. There are many links on this site describing how to do FIML and what it is.

Brain-to-brain coupling: a mechanism for creating and sharing a social world

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Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one’s mind, most cognitive studies focus on processes that occur within a single individual. We call for a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. We argue that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. Brain-to-brain coupling constrains and shapes the actions of each individual in a social network, leading to complex joint behaviors that could not have emerged in isolation. (Source)

Very much agree with this statement, which is the intro to a short scholarly opinion piece on interpersonal cognition.

The very basis of FIML practice is the interaction of two people. The FIML technique is designed to allow two people to become deeply aware of the (normally) elusive, idiosyncratic, and highly complex signalling mechanisms that are always functioning whenever they interact.

As partners become richly aware of this dynamic system, they will find they are able to change it for the better by removing mistakes and ambiguity. Mistakes and ambiguity are prominent—indeed, characterize—virtually all normal interpersonal communication. By largely removing these factors from their interpersonal communication, partners will experience significant improvements in communication, general awareness, and feelings of well-being.

The linked essay asks the following question: How to further develop principled methods to explore information transfer across two (or more) brains?

One answer is do FIML practice. Rather than study themselves from outside, FIML partners will study themselves as they are in all of their own unique complexity as uniquely “coupled brains.” In the terms of the linked paper, FIML practice is “brain-to-brain coupling” that leads to “complex joint behaviors” that cannot possibly “emerge in isolation.”

FIML practice provides a general “shared set of rules” that allows “complex behaviors” to “emerge” between two (or more) people. These “complex behaviors”, in turn, give partners the opportunity to control and transform how they “shape” their minds.

Repost: The Shaming of the Shrew

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Contemporary American culture tells us that we’re supposed to function as free, autonomous, self-sufficient individuals. Certain behavioral guidelines and proscriptions have arisen to support this ideal. They exert tremendous influence over how we conduct our interpersonal relationships.

For example, we are not supposed to be clingy or needy. We are supposed to allow our loved ones to “have their own space”. We should be “cool” and not interfere too much. We are definitely not supposed to nag.

As long as they are properly applied, these proscriptions can be seen positively as facilitating healthy consideration for the needs of the other. But hypertrophied and over-applied, as no doubt they often are, they present a barrier to communication and true intimacy, thus rendering FIML very difficult or even impossible.

Continue reading…

Belief, knowledge, and well-being

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Belief means you are mostly convinced but not completely sure. Knowledge is more certain. These two words can be used as follows—I believe the universe probably started with the Big Bang, but I know the earth revolves around the sun.

We derive a degree of intellectual well-being from the beliefs and knowledge afforded us by modern science and engineering. But knowing that the earth revolves around the sun or that the Big Bang is the most likely explanation we now have does not provide us with very much emotional or psychological well-being.

We need more, or we need something different, to achieve a deep state of emotional well-being.

To achieve a deep state of emotional well-being we need to know that we can really believe at least one other person. That person should be our primary interlocutor, the person we deal with the most. If we cannot believe that person and/or they cannot believe us, we can’t achieve a deep state of emotional well-being.

To the best of my knowledge, there exists no common communication system (or even uncommon one) that allows us to deeply know and believe someone else, except the FIML system.

The reason this is so is all other human communication systems rely too much on implication, interpretation, and assumed shared beliefs.

When you do any of those things with your primary interlocutor you will necessarily make mistakes and/or be uncertain about what they are saying or how they are understanding you. Mistakes and uncertainty create shadowy feelings and wrong or multiple interpretations in the mind. Rather than have a clear knowledge of what your partner thinks or understands, you will be guessing.

Even if you are right every time you guess (and this is not possible), you will still have no way of being certain. You will not know if you are right or not. And your partner will have the same problem with you.

Emotional well-being depends on the quality of our communication with our primary interlocutor. There are substitutes—careers, religions, political causes, money, power, sex, etc.—but none of these will ever equal the emotional well-being that comes from very high-quality communication with your primary interlocutor. To have high-quality communication, you and your partner must have a system that removes doubt and uncertainty and replaces them with knowledge and belief.

Repost: On the Importance of Honesty and the Decision to Believe

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An element of FIML practice that will no doubt receive further emphasis is this: At the outset, both partners must agree to be honest with one another.

Perhaps if we were totally honest with ourselves, we’d admit that this sounds kind of scary. Perhaps it conjures up images of tear-soaked confessional outpourings, during which you disclose all your deep, dark, embarrassing secrets on demand. But this is not the kind of honesty we’re talking about.

Say you feel a slight twinge of irritation at not being able to get your meaning across as quickly or easily as you’d like during an exchange with your partner about some mundane topic. If you were to assign a percentage to this irritation, perhaps it would only be 4% of everything that’s in your mind at that moment, but nevertheless you feel it. Say your partner, detecting this slight twinge of irritation in your voice, initiates a FIML discussion and asks, “Did you feel at all irritated just now? The last thing you said sounded a little short,” you must admit to it, rather than saying, “No, I wasn’t irritated at all. I wasn’t being short.” The fact that the irritation was slight, that it only represented a very small percentage of what was in your mind, does not mean it’s too trivial to bring up. Quite the contrary! As far as FIML is concerned, the more trivial the better.

Continue reading…

 

New study supports FIML practice

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This study—Neural Correlates of People’s Hypercorrection of Their False Beliefs—supports the contention that FIML practice can produce deep, wide-ranging, and enduring changes within the brain/mind of practitioners.

The basic finding of the study is:

Despite the intuition that strongly held beliefs are particularly difficult to change, the data on error correction indicate that general information errors that people commit with a high degree of belief are especially easy to correct. (Emphasis added.)

According to the study, this happens due to …enhanced attention and encoding that results from a metacognitive mismatch between the person’s confidence in their responses and the true answer.

This is exactly what happens when a FIML query shows the questioner that his/her assumptions about what their partner’s thoughts or intentions were were wrong.

Initially, FIML partners may experience some embarrassment or disbelief at being wrong, but since FIML queries are generally based on negative impressions, being shown to be wrong will also produce feelings of great relief and even delight.

A FIML query will generally arise out of a state of “enhanced attention” and usually further increase it by being spoken about. Incidentally, this is probably the most difficult aspect of FIML practice—controlling the emotions that accompany enhanced attention, especially when that attention concerns our own emotional reactions.

With continued practice of FIML, however, even strongly held erroneous interpersonal beliefs will be fairly easily corrected whenever they are discovered during a FIML discussion. Correcting core false beliefs (mistaken interpretations) has a wide-ranging, beneficial effect on all aspects of a person’s life.

Since the hypercorrection effect discussed in the linked study only occurs during moments of enhanced attention, the FIML technique of focusing quickly on good data agreed upon by both partners can be seen as a way of inducing states of enhanced attention that will lead to deep changes in both partners. This technique (using good data) also turns the discussion from one about feelings to one about “information,” which the study finds makes errors “especially easy to correct.”

Furthermore, since FIML practice tends to deal with very small incidents, the enhanced attention FIML induces works like a laser that quickly and painlessly excises erroneous thoughts and feelings while they are still small and have not been allowed to grow into full-blown emotional reactions.