Tag: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

How greed is mirrored in social groups

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

In my last post, I introduced the idea of mirroring to FIML terminology. Language, semiotics, and mirroring (LSM) can be thought of as a fairly simple set of factors that can help us understand social situations.

Several studies done at UC Berkeley (Unethical Behavior More Prevalent In The Upper Classes According To New Study) have shown that upper-class individuals tend to behave less ethically than others. Of course, any good historian knows this is the history of the world–privileged classes always become locked in a self-referential world that gradually moves far from the reality of the societies that support them.

If we consider the UC studies in terms of LSM, we can say that those people are ensconced (or trapped) in a subculture that upholds a “greed is good” semiotic, that they will speak to each other (language) in terms based on that semiotic, and that they will mirror each others’ expressions and bodily movements. Of course there will be a lot of variety in how they do these things, but generally we can expect to them to act in roughly those ways.

It is not surprising that in a capitalist society attitudes toward greed would be a central marker of upper-class groups. In ancient China, the operative upper-class words might have been obedience (of others) or loyalty. In traditional India, it would be sticking to your caste.

Traditional Buddhism makes a distinction similar to LSM. As Buddhists, we speak of the karma of body, speech, and mind. In this context, body = mirroring; speech = language; and mind = semiotics. Not exactly the same, but pretty close.

We can also see in Buddhist terms how it is that people get locked into their groups and why we call that “karma”. It can be very difficult to go against any group (and especially the upper-class) in any of those areas of body, speech, or mind. You can’t speak against them or speak all that differently from them; you can’t hold ideas that don’t fit (greed is bad!); and you can’t stop mirroring their expressions and body language when around them. If you deviate too much from any group, you will find yourself becoming separated, even ostracized, from it very quickly.

FIML partners have an excellent way to observe these general truths in the microcosm of their daily interactions with each other. Almost all FIML queries/discussions will contain small bits of body, speech, and mind, or language, semiotics, and mirroring. After a FIML query has been basically answered and understood, it is a good idea to review these three aspects by asking specifically about them.

What sort of mirroring was happening? Was one partner using the mirroring (body language) of a subculture the other partner did not understand?

What sort of speech/language was happening? Did one partner use a word or term that sounded off to the other? Did someone’s tone of voice sound wrong? Why?

What sort of mind/semiotics was happening? Was one partner assuming something (greed is good) that the other partner does not believe? Does the first partner really believe that or are they just mirroring the beliefs of others?

Buddhist teachings can help us a great deal during discussions of this type. Ask yourself, am I being wise or stupid right now? Am I trying to understand more deeply or just trying to bs my partner? Is my state of mind conducive to learning and wisdom or not?

In the studies described above, we can see that some of those people have allowed themselves to act unethically based on unsound thinking. They have a mistaken view of themselves and the world. In FIML, we call this sort of view a neurosis. If a person who held views of that type were to do FIML practice, they would eventually see their views intruding on their speech or on how they listened to other people. In FIML practice, they will get immediate feedback, so it will become difficult to maintain those mistaken views. In real life, too many of those upper-class people never get the feedback from anyone, so their delusion drifts further and further from what is right and wise. Ergo, the current state of the USA, but that’s another story.

Being able to do FIML

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  • Being able to do FIML means that you have developed a skill or trait that did not exist in you before. The ability to do FIML is a functional “state of mind” that emerges from other states of mind–from consciousness, awareness, self-reflection, self-criticism, communication, language use, emotion, etc.
  • Doing FIML will change the way you communicate, especially with your FIML partner. It will change the way you view language and its uses.
  • Since FIML depends on real data agreed upon by both partners and since FIML can convincingly change how we perceive ourselves and our partners, it can give us new perspectives on psychology and/or any activity that depends on language/communication.
  • The use of a linguistic/semiotic vocabulary in FIML allows us to classify a great deal of human cognition, psychology, and behavior as lying on a spectrum of public—private semiotics.
  • This perspective allows us to broadly define many human behaviors, thoughts, and feelings as mistakes. For example, a private semiotic may be a “neurosis” and can be defined simply as a “mistaken interpretation” or an “ongoing mistaken interpretation.” Similarly, any public semiotic that can be shown to be wrong can be clearly identified as a mistake or an “ongoing public neurosis.”
  • What is “normal” in FIML is, thus, that which is not mistaken. Partners have great leeway to decide much of this for themselves.
  • Very often, the least mistaken view is one of doubt or traditional skepticism, the view that we may not be able to be certain about whatever is in question.
  • FIML practice accepts the basic scientific view that a scientific theory must be testable or falsifiable, based on experiments that can be repeated, based on verifiable evidence, internally consistent, consistent with what is external to itself, useful or practical, open to change, and parsimonious in its explanations.
  • New scientific theories should also say something new and interesting, something that explains data in a new way or that provides a new way of understanding old data.
  • FIML differs from a good deal of science in that it relies heavily on the experiences of two (or more) partners. FIML is a kind of subjective science that also relies on the objectivity of a truthful partner.
  • For the most part, partners alone decide what is true for them, though they cannot honestly do this without reference to other fields of science and thought.
  • FIML resembles Buddhist practice, art, or the work of early scientists in that the existential/ experiential data acquired by individuals is of great importance to those individuals and is central to what they are doing.
  • FIML can be scientifically falsified if many people do it and fail to gain any benefit from it.
  • Done properly, at a minimum, FIML practice should clear up most communication mistakes/ problems between partners. FIML also provides the means for partners to continue clearing up new mistakes as they appear.
  • By clearing up mistakes in communication between partners, FIML practice alleviates a great deal of emotional suffering.
  • By clearing up mistakes in communication between partners, FIML practice will also relieve partners of other mistaken ideas and feelings, thus relieving a good deal of more generalized emotional suffering.

Catching small mistakes leads to big payoffs

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A good way to think about FIML practice is to think of yourself as looking for the smallest communication errors you can find. These tiny errors might be called morphemes of error. A morpheme is the smallest semantic unit (meaningful unit) of a language. Thinking in terms of very small mistakes can help partners because these tiny morphemes of error are where larger errors originate. If we are able to observe a tiny error the moment it happens and fully discuss it with our partner, we will prevent a larger error from coming into being. If we fail to catch the small error as it arises, it will be much harder to correct the larger error later on because by then we will never remember when and where it started.

In the early days of doing FIML, I used to call the practice of looking for small errors “catching mice”. I took great delight in finding the next little mouse/error because I knew that the benefit of catching it would be quite large compared to the little thing I had caught. (Note: I was and am involved mostly in catching mistakes in my own mind. It is my partner’s responsibility to catch the mistakes made in her mind. It is usually the person who initiates a FIML query who is the one concerned that a mistake may have arisen in their own mind. And this is why it is so important to ask as much as you are asked.)

Thinking of yourself as catching small errors and discussing them with your partner may add a level of interest to your FIML practice. This approach also allows us to be very detail-oriented without feeling petty. I guarantee that after you have caught a few of these little mice and fully discussed them with your partner, you will see the benefits for yourself. Small communication errors are the basic units of FIML practice. FIML partners can work with larger units (generalities, psychologies, philosophies, etc.), but it is best to spend most of your time just catching the small errors that inevitably arise in all communications.

An interesting example of this happened this morning. The mouse I caught was not involved directly in my communication with my partner, though I told her about it right afterward and we discussed it extensively. What happened is this:

I have been trying to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, but somehow gradually always start eating more of them till I am back to where I began. Well, I started being more strict a week or so ago. Today I went into the refrigerator to get something to eat and saw some boiled potatoes in one bowl and some vegetables in another. In my head a small tug-o-war ensued. I chose the vegetables, but as I turned away from the refrigerator and put them on the counter, I noticed that I felt slightly guilty. What was interesting is I was feeling guilty for doing the right thing. But some part of my mind was telling me, almost subconsciously, that I was actually being selfish because the potatoes should be eaten, they are cheaper, and maybe my partner would want the vegetables.

I could go on about this but to keep it short, let me just say that none of it was true. I had nothing to feel guilty about. Just to be sure, I asked my partner if she wanted the vegetables and she said no, she had already eaten. So that little piece of false-guilt was a mouse. It was a mistake, an error that was occurring in my own mind, probably to satisfy that part of me that still craves carbohydrates. In catching it, I had caught the smallest unit of eating-too-many-carbohydrates that I had ever seen. This first success will likely lead to my catching this same mistake (or something similar to it) again fairly soon. (These small mistakes almost always occur more than once or twice.) After a few more successes at catching my own mind while it is making a small mistake about my diet, I may succeed in fully defeating that part of myself that reaches for carbohydrates when I know I should not.

I bet stuff like that happens frequently with people who are addicted to anything or who keep making bad or immoral choices when, for the most part, they know they should not. We can feel guilty without having good reason to do so. Some other examples of this might be soldiers who do what others are doing even though they know it is wrong; police who do the same; employees who do the same; Buddhists, psychologists, scientists, mechanics, carpenters, etc.–we are all susceptible to making moral mistakes because we will feel guilty if we don’t.

Hence the Buddha saying:

One is one’s own protector,
one is one’s own refuge.
Therefore, one should control oneself,
even as a trader controls a noble steed.

Dhammapada 25.380

Psychology and mental illness

~ ABN ~ 4 Comments

The essay The Myth of Mental Illness by Paul Lutus hits hard. I agree with Lutus that there is a great deal of deceit and self-deceit in psychology and a grotesque paucity of physical evidence, but it’s not just psychologists who are to blame—many school teachers are involved in the support or even initiation of dubious psychiatric diagnoses while general practitioners are responsible for the majority of psychiatric prescriptions.

I still believe there is a valuable role to be played by psychologists, if only because they have spent more time with troubled individuals than most of us. That said, readers can make up their own minds about Lutus’s essay, which I recommend.

What I want to do in this post is point out the ways that FIML practice does not have the sorts of problems Lutus describes. FIML is not (yet) supported by large studies because not enough people have done it and we don’t have the money to conduct the studies. Nonetheless, FIML practice is based on real data agreed upon by both partners and in this respect is evidence-based, though the kind of evidence used in FIML practice is not the same kind that is used in large studies of many people. (Please see A Theory of FIML for a rough idea of how FIML can be understood from a scientific point of view, and how it could be falsified.)

In my view, FIML is a growing tip of science. It is an idea coupled with a practice or technique. It works with real data that is objective in that both partners must agree on it. It is based primarily on words just spoken, thus limiting distracting generalizations and ambiguity. It allows for and relies upon comprehensive mutual understanding of what partners are actually saying. Normally, both FIML partners will experience a sense of relief after a FIML session because both have achieved a fuller, shared understanding of whatever was in question. Normally, both partners will also be capable of describing the event in question in ways that are essentially the same. Ultimately, partners will realize that many of their FIML discussions have been arising from on-going mistaken interpretations that they had always believed were true. Partners will also come to understand that simply using language to communicate—indeed, to communicate in any way at all—will lead eventually to serious misunderstandings and emotional suffering if their communication is never analyzed in a way similar to FIML practice. And all of the above will help partners understand how neuroses (mistaken interpretations) are formed and how they perdure. And this will gradually free them from neurosis and, it is hoped, most of what we now call “mental illness.”

Today, FIML is mostly an idea. That’s how science progresses. New ideas are explored, improved upon, or discarded. Though FIML has worked very well for me and my partner, I will happily discard the idea of it working for others if it can be shown to be ineffective.

On this site, we have frequently tied FIML practice to Buddhist practice because: 1) several core Buddhist ideas and practices greatly support FIML practice; 2) Buddhism is fundamentally a truth-seeking enterprise, somewhat like modern science but with greater emphasis on the experiences of the individual; and 3) we believe that in many ways FIML practice leads to the same liberative ends as Buddhist practice–freedom from delusion, unnecessary ambiguity, false ideas, emotional suffering.

Ambiguity and context

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An MIT study on linguistic ambiguity concludes that the human capacity for disambiguation allows us to use simple linguistic forms to say a lot. Our ability to disambiguate depends on our mutual understandings of the contexts in which words are used. (Link: The advantage of ambiguity)

I have no argument with these conclusions, but do want to add that our dependence on mutually understood contexts very often confines us to conventional semiotic interpretations. This is fine in many social settings–academic, religious, professional, etc. But with close friends or loved ones, it is a formula for interpersonal disaster.

As mentioned in other posts, the fundamental ambiguity of so much of our interpersonal speech requires us to form interpretations of what others are saying to us based on lousy data. We have to guess what they mean through context, facial expression, tone of voice, word choice, etc. And this means we are very likely to form false impressions even of those who are closest to us. Our false impressions will invariably lie somewhere on the spectrum that spans conventional semiotics to private neurosis. If you are guessing about what your interlocutor means you are almost certainly going to be wrong.

Being a little wrong can be fine for a while but it rarely stops there. The vast majority of us keep adding to our mistakes, eventually creating deeply erroneous impressions of each other.

Non-FIML sociology and Buddhism

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Non-FIML sociology cannot but be based on and imbued with vagueness and uncertainty. Individuals make their ways in this foggy social environment according to their upbringing, experiences, and the different ways they have learned to negotiate ambiguity. Each non-FIML individual cannot but conform to or accept a position somewhere on the spectrum of private neurosis-public semiotics.

This is so because non-FIML individuals cannot attain interpersonal certainty; they can only attain a semblance of interpersonal certainty that is necessarily made up of many erroneous interpretations of the world around them, their loved ones, and themselves. Their understanding of themselves and of others will necessarily be made up of either private interpretations (that are sure to be largely false and thus neurotic) or public/cultural interpretations that are similarly just as false and/or too narrow or generalized (science, mainstream psychology, professional societies, religious or ethnic allegiances, etc.) to be fully satisfying to the profound needs of the individual. This is not to say that many individuals living in conditions like that are not happy, but rather that their sense of who they are and what they are doing is false, utilitarian, exploitative, slavish, or otherwise limited in one way or another. Individuals in conditions like that cannot but offend their deep-seated needs for interpersonal honesty/certainty by compromising their individual understanding of what the world around them means by accepting either prepackaged public explanations (public semiotics) or making up their own (private neurosis).

Most individuals in the world are, thus, contorted in some way. Some are deeply unhappy because they can sense something is wrong but have no way to grapple with it. Others decide to make their way in the world as it is, fully accepting, even enjoying, their perceived “need” to deceive themselves and others, to manipulate others, to take advantage of them, etc.

I think the above roughly describes a big part of what is meant by delusion and suffering in Buddhism. Delusion and suffering constitute the first two of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth says unenlightened life is characterized by suffering or dissatisfaction. The second explains the first by saying, briefly, that people suffer because they become attached to delusions. Delusions can be egocentric, sociocentric, or both. They can be a private neuroses or the very public madness of a whole society, or both. However you look at it, individual human beings will suffer and experience discontent under these conditions because their core sense of what is true is almost constantly being violated.

In the Buddha’s day, you fixed this problem by becoming a monk. You can still do that today, or you can practice Buddhism as a lay person. My feeling is that if you only practice Buddhism and do not do FIML practice, you will make a lot of progress but remain unsatisfied. Societies today are so large and complex, it is nearly impossible not to be influenced constantly by them. If you can join a monastery or build a cabin in the woods, lucky for you. Most of us, though, will continue to live among unenlightened people and will continue to have deep needs for highly satisfying interpersonal communication with our loved ones and close friends. FIML practice fits in right there. Since so many monasteries today are burdened with the weight of their own semiotics, FIML practice probably would be a very good practice even for monks, if it can be arranged.

In the Chinese Buddhist tradition, there is a story about heaven and hell. In hell people sit at a dinner table to eat but are forced to use chopsticks that are so long they cannot put any food in their mouths, and so they go hungry and feel miserable. In heaven, conditions are exactly the same, but people there use their long chopsticks to feed each other, so everyone if well-fed and very happy.

FIML practice is like heaven. By doing it we feed each other and grow more satisfied as we come to understand what the real conditions of this world are.

Metaphors, words associations, and paralinguistics

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If we consider spoken language as a complex linear system, we will be able to use it as a pretty good standard for understanding individual psychology as well as interpersonal communication.

All words have words associated with them. Though we all share many of the same word-associations (coffee/beverage; booze/drunk; etc.), we also all have an abundance of word associations that belong only to us. I suppose this is fairly obvious, though I am not so sure it is well enough appreciated.

For example, we all know that coffee is a beverage and that booze can make people drunk, but beyond that each one of us has many other associations connected with these words, unique associations that have been gathered through years of experience. You may have pleasant associations with coffee and unpleasant ones with booze, or it could be the other way around. You may visualize the Caribbean when you think of either of these words, or Alaska. As the associations become richer and get further from the word that generated them, the psycholinguistic network they create will become increasingly complex.

If we could put diagrams of these associative networks on paper–including all of the images and feelings that go with them–I am sure that each person would be uniquely identifiable from just a few of them, in much the same way that we can be identified from our fingerprints. No two of us are alike in how we use and understand language.

The ways in which words, phrases, word-associations, gestures, tones of voice, expressions, dramatic poses, and so on strike each one of us are unique. This point is more than touched upon by an Emory University study, Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex, that demonstrates that “texture-selective somatosensory cortex in the parietal operculum is activated when processing sentences containing textural metaphors.”

What this means is that when people hear a tactile metaphor (soft as silk), the brain responds, at least in part, as if the person is feeling silk. I would contend that this and similar sorts of extended responses within the brain (and body) are a huge part of virtually all interpersonal communication. In this context, what FIML does is allow partners to access these deep associations and sort them out rationally without becoming lost in different associative versions of the “same” linguistic event.

FIML does not have to always depend on language, but it helps to bring it back to the actual words spoken as much as possible because the other sorts of associations and emotions that are generated during speech events are simply too complex to sort out without a stable reference point most of the time. Actual short bits of speech provide partners with the best data that both can readily agree upon. The many associations that are connected to that short segment of speech are often a big part of the material of a FIML discussion.

How to view FIML

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This article provides a good way of understanding what FIML can do for you: Anyone can learn to be more inventive, cognitive researcher says.

The researcher, Anthony McCaffrey, says of his theory: “I detected a pattern suggesting that something everyone else had overlooked often became the basis of an inventive solution.”

This is exactly what FIML does. Normally, we all overlook the indisputable fact that we simply do not understand one another a good deal of the time. We get impressions, we get the general idea, we trust, we love. But we don’t have good, clear understanding of the small units of communication, out of which our impressions of others are built. With most people in professional or formal settings, this does not matter greatly (or maybe it does but it is hard to fix in those contexts), but with close friends, and especially loved ones, not having a clear idea of what they are saying can and often does have very serious consequences.

What FIML practice does is show us how to notice what we are overlooking in our communications with our partners. Since both partners are equal participants and both are active in the practice, it doesn’t take very long to get good results.

Mistakes and communication

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882 words

A fascinating aspect of FIML practice is it provides experiential evidence that a good deal of what we say and hear is mistaken. We frequently make mistakes when we speak and when we listen. A major part of FIML practice involves catching these mistakes as they happen and correcting them.

We have spell-checkers for writing and when they kick in most of us calmly–even gratefully–attend to the red lines under misspelled words. In speech, though, very few of us have the habit of even noticing when a mistake has been made, let alone correcting it. In fact, if one is pointed out to us, we might even deny it or try to justify it. Once we say something, we generally have a strong tendency to want to stand by our words as if we meant them even if we did not mean them, or only sort of meant them, in the moments just before we spoke.

What kinds of mistakes will you find through FIML practice? Pretty much any way you can think of to describe or categorize speech will constitute a way that mistakes can be made. A mistake might involve word-choice, tone of voice, pronunciation, a dramatic stance that doesn’t suit you or is misunderstood by your partner, not hearing, missing the main point, becoming distracted, using or hearing a word that carries an idiosyncratic emotional charge, speaking or listening from a point of view that is not well understood by your partner, and so on. Mistakes can and will occur in as many ways as you can think of to describe language and how it is used.

How often do mistakes occur? Often. In an hour of normal speaking you will surely encounter a few, if not more. Many of them are not serious and are of little or no consequence. That said, even small mistakes can have huge ramifications. If I misunderstand your respectful silence as indifference, my misunderstanding could start a division between us that is truly tragic because my mistake (however slightly I notice it) is 180 degrees off. If I see you behave that way again, I will be more likely to make that same mistake again and to feel it more strongly. It is tragic because I am interpreting what is in your mind good behavior as something that reflects negatively on me.

A speech act or an act of listening can lock our minds into a position that is dead wrong if we are not careful.

FIML practice prevents this from happening while at the same time providing a great deal of very interesting subject matter for partners to ponder and discuss. Speech can lock our minds into mistaken impressions, but it can also free us from limitations if we use it to do FIML.

In other posts we have called neuroses “mistaken interpretations” and generally used that definition in a context that supports the meaning of an ongoing mistaken interpretation. A neurosis is a mistake in thinking or feeling that manifests in listening or speaking and that almost certainly originated through speaking or listening. I would contend that many neuroses begin with nothing more than an innocent mistake. Once the mistake is made, it snowballs (especially in the mind of a child) until it becomes an established way of listening and speaking.

Whether that contention is right or wrong, only time will tell. For this post today, all I want to say is that FIML partners can and should expect to notice a good many small mistakes occurring almost whenever they speak together.

Generally, mistakes most frequently occur when we start a new subject or add a new factor to an old subject; when we want to say something slightly different from the norm; or when we want to add a slight nuance or qualification to something that was said. One reason this happens is a slight change in a familiar subject may not be noticed by the listener, leading them to misunderstand what is being said and react in ways that do not seem fitting. A second reason this happens is a new subject often causes both partners to call up different frames of reference, leading to confusion.

FIML will get you to see how common these (and other kinds) of mistakes are and it will help you correct them. As you do this, both partners will gain great insight into how they speak, listen, and perceive each other. Once you get going, it is a lot of fun. I cannot think of any other way to accomplish what FIML does without doing it.

From a Buddhist point of view, FIML can be thought of as a sort of dynamic mindfulness done between two people and using language. It is a very intimate and beautiful way to be deeply aware of your partner and yourself. Those who have practiced traditional Buddhist mindfulness for a year or more will probably find FIML fairly easy to do. I hope that Buddhists will also notice that doing active FIML/mindfulness practice with a partner provides a way of checking each other–someone else will have something to say about what you thought you heard or said. It takes you out of yourself and provides wholesome feedback about the mind you are being mindful about.

Why FIML practice works so well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contretemps and FIML

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In FIML practice, we use the word contretemps to indicate a mix-up of meanings between partners. When partners are thinking, speaking, and/or listening from incommensurate perspectives, they are experiencing a contretemps. This causes mental confusion and can quickly lead to emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation. As we have seen in other posts, when you do not resolve a contretemps to the satisfaction of both partners (and to the satisfaction of what is true), you will cause a division, however, small in your shared understanding of each other. You cannot fully resolve a contretemps without doing a FIML dialog about it.

Some of the common ways that contretemps are generated:

  • you are dealing with a new subject
  • you are dealing with a different aspect of a familiar subject
  • one of you is saying something close to but not the same as what the other is hearing
  • one of you out of curiosity wants to revisit a subject but to the other it sounds argumentative
  • one of you is not getting sufficient confirmation from the other about what you said, so the point gets repeated

Notice that the origin of all of these contretemps is mental; that is, not terribly emotional. Once the mind becomes confused, however, even if only slightly, it begins to mishear and misspeak, thus compounding the problem while adding emotional elements to it. This happens because interpersonal communication is a complex system. By complex system, I mean it is a system that changes very rapidly and which is characterized by initial starting points not providing sufficient data to predict later outcomes.

Once you understand these points, it should become clear why interpersonal relationships can be so difficult without FIML practice. In non-FIML speech, even very simple contretemps can, and often do, lead to deep frustration and strong emotions. Whether those emotions are expressed or not, they exist. Partners may feel resentment, anger, blame, self-blame and so on due simply to a mix-up of very trivial meaning.

Let me give an example. This morning I noticed that we had very few clean dishes (of a certain type) in our cupboard. They were all in the dishwasher. In my memory, that was the smallest number of clean dishes of that type I had ever observed in our kitchen. I felt curious about it and asked my partner why she thought there were so few. She said it did not seem unusual to her. I asked again, she repeated her answer and we went on to other matters. Sometime later, I became curious about the dishes again and asked her again if she knew why we had so few clean ones. This is where the contretemps began. When she answered, either she had an unconscious tone of impatience or I mistakenly heard a tone of impatience (neither of us is sure). Whatever the case, I thought she was probably feeling that I was blaming her and so my voice rose slightly with the vague intention of putting out a fire before it got going. I wanted to emphasize that I was just curious. Of course, that tone did not work at all but only made matters worse. At this point we began a FIML discussion and within a few minutes established a mutual understanding that was satisfactory to both of us concerning what had just happened.

The basic type of contretemps that led to that discussion was the second-to-last one of the bullet points listed above: one of you out of curiosity wants to revisit a subject but to the other it sounds argumentative.

I hope it is clear to readers that even small stuff like that can cause problems. And I hope it is also clear that you really have to take the time to figure it out with a FIML discussion. If you don’t, both of you will draw wrong conclusions from the incident or at least be vague about it. If we had done as most people do and just dropped the subject when it got a little out of control, I might have concluded that my partner was mad at me for being petty or blaming her for something when, in truth, I was only curious about a small domestic anomaly. She might have thought I was angry about something else and was using the dishes as a way to get in a dig. Even more to the point, neither of us would have had any way to be sure we understood each other or the incident in question. Most couples would probably go on about their day, ignoring the issue while waiting for positive feelings to arise again.

But that doesn’t work so well. It’s an OK way to go once in a while and for some situations, but if you do that a lot, you will develop deeper and much more serious contretemps in the way you relate to each other. In engineering, I believe, there is a saying that cracks never get better but only worse. In interpersonal relations, contretemps similarly don’t usually get better because they almost always lead to further mistaken interpretations. She is too sensitive. You are too argumentative. Etc. Fill in your own blanks. Once the contretemps develop and are not addressed through FIML practice, at least some of them will get worse.

To repeat: almost any particular contretemps is in itself trivial. But if we do not figure it out and resolve it, it stands a good chance of having deleterious effects on our relationship. Interpersonal communication is a complex system. It is dynamic and moves very quickly. We ourselves are often not aware of why we said something, let alone why our partner did. If we do not deal intelligently with those levels of communicative reality, we will run into problems, many of which will not later be soluble.

I can’t think of any other way to successfully deal with the complexity of interpersonal speech than FIML. Even if we have a video and a perfectly accurate transcript of what was said, when we play it back or read it, there will not be any way we can be sure of what was in someone’s mind as they spoke. The really deep and true—the most valid—level of interpersonal communication can only be accessed by quickly recalling the few seconds of speech that have just passed. Then, these few seconds must be discussed using FIML techniques. With practice, slightly longer time-frames can be accessed, and narrative and episodic memories can also be accessed and used, but that can be difficult and won’t work if the basic FIML technique is not part of your interpersonal foundation.

This is one area where I have a fairly serious disagreement with the way Buddhism is often practiced today—with it’s overly strong emphasis on being inoffensive when we speak. If I had done that when I became curious the second time about the dishes, I probably would not have said anything. But if I had not said anything, I would have not done so because I was falsely assuming my partner was overly sensitive and I would have been falsely assuming that my curiosity was somehow wrong or that I would not be able to make myself clear to her. That would have constituted a silent contretemps, a crack in our understanding of each other. On some later day, secure in my conclusion that my partner is overly sensitive, I might have widened the crack by withholding something else from her.

The preeminent virtue in Buddhism is always wisdom, not compassion, not being inoffensive, not necessarily being silent when you aren’t sure. I think FIML gives us a way to do wise Buddhist practice with our partners without resorting to external semiotics or judgements, or misapplied slogans.

By the way, the example of the dishes is a pretty good example of something that might prompt a FIML discussion. It was a trivial incident that, like so many others, might have seemed to be of no special importance. But it was also sort of a trap, one half of which was the incident and the other half of which was our, we humans, poor abilities at speaking, feeling, and thinking. If the incident is so trivial, it ought to be easy to figure out, right?

FIML and illusions, visual and verbal

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It’s well known that memory, context, and expectation are fundamental to our perceptions of “reality.” For more info on this see: FIML and memory distortion.

In this post I want to give a few examples of how this happens and then discuss how these examples are relevant to FIML practice.

Yesterday I took a walk with my partner. It was a sunny day and at one point the reflection of a leafless tree in the windshield of a car parked about thirty yards ahead of us caught my eye. Most of the car was in shade, so the reflection stood out prominently though I could not quite figure out what I was seeing at first. As I stared at the windshield, I saw the crude image of a human face. It flickered in my mind and changed several times as we advanced toward the car. Was I seeing a person sitting in the passenger seat, I wondered. Or was it something else? What I saw in the reflection was more of a proto-face than a real human face. My brain made several attempts to interpret the reflection as we drew closer to the car. At last, I saw that what I was looking at was a bright reflection of tree branches high above the car. The scene fooled me because the car was in the shade and the tree branches were in the sun quite high above the street.

This incident illustrates how our minds try to make sense out of what we are seeing even before we have sufficient information to do so reliably. Why did I see a person and not a cat or something else? The answer is probably that a person would be the most significant to me of the likely interpretations of what was there. In a kind of self-centered all-too-human way, I interpreted the reflection as an image that would have the most bearing on my life. In the case of that reflection, I was able to ascertain what the image really was. I remember being quite curious about it. It was kind of a delightful optical illusion which was fun to ponder once I understood it.

Another incident that happened yesterday also occured while I was walking with my partner. This time it was dark. On the street ahead of us she saw what she told me looked like a pillar that had fallen in the road. That would have been a real anomaly, so she kept looking at the object. Eventually she realized that it was a car parked in shadows in such a way that its outline had not been clear. Why she saw it as a collapsed pillar, I don’t know, but as I had done earlier in the day, she was quite curious about what she was seeing as we approached the scene. When she figured it out, she described what had happened and we discussed how it relates to FIML.

What she noticed is that since the anomaly was visual, it was fairly easy to figure out. She also noticed that her curiosity would have made her walk toward the pillar/car to see what it was even if it had meant going out of our way. Most of us, I think, would do the same. Visual illusions like that are not threatening and usually are fun to figure out.

If an illusion arises in what we think we have heard someone say, however, most of us will normally not pursue the matter. What kinds of illusions arise when we speak with others? Any interpretation that is wrong is an illusion. Any interpretation on the personal-public spectrum of possible interpretations that is not what our interlocutor meant is an illusion. Any interpretation founded on our own private neuroses or on public misconceptions instead of what the other person really meant is an illusion.

An example might be someone seems too familiar when they greet you, so you interpret their behavior as being disrespectful, flirtatious, or nutty when the person is just feeling good because of something that had recently happened. In real life, you usually can’t figure those sorts of illusions out unless they occur with your FIML partner. In real life, that sort of thing occurs many times per day and is compounded by as many people as we deal with. Just being “positive” and “a friend to all” doesn’t solve the problem either because maybe that person actually was being disrespectful or flirtatious or nutty or all of them at once. You will be deluded, to some extent, no matter what you conclude because you have no way of knowing what really happened, what was really in their mind. That is the vague and irresolute reality in which we all live. We deal with that poor level of mutual understanding by emphasizing professional standards, good manners, shared beliefs, and so on. This works well enough in the public sphere but will lead to sorrow in your private life.

A third incident occurred later that evening. As we were getting ready for bed, my partner noticed a car outside stopped near our driveway with its motor running. It was getting late, so she wondered about it. Was someone coming over? Were they turning around? The car was pretty rundown and noisy so it looked maybe a little suspicious. My partner kept watching. After a few minutes, our neighbor’s daughter got out of the car and waved goodbye to the driver. All questions answered. This is another example of how we can usually have our curiosity about visual events satisfied while it is much more difficult to do the same with verbal events.

If you can understand this and notice stuff like this in your own life, you will probably be able to see what the value of FIML is and how and why it works so well.

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”.

FIML: A few FAQs

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I have a partner who is willing to do FIML. How do we start?

Find a clear space in your relationship–a time or place or subject where there is no conflict. Start there.

What if we have some big issues? How can we address them with FIML?

In the beginning, don’t. FIML works especially well because it is designed to work with small things. Work with small stuff first and then gradually add small bits of your big issues when and if they arise. A big issue is only big because we believe it is or have learned to deal with it in that way. If you nibble at the edges of it with your partner you may find that your big issue was not so big after all.

What if my issues really are big?

All anyone can do—no matter what their background—is make the best of it. When analyzing ourselves we need to be careful about two things: 1) overly generalizing and 2) expecting complete change. Instead, we want to focus on: 1)  the particulars of who we really are and what our conditions really are and 2) upgrading those things as needed. For FIML practice avoid general diagnoses about what you think your condition is. Seek to upgrade your traits rather than completely change them. Begin with good, clear communication with your partner based on honest FIML practice.

In many places you have said that a neurosis is a “mistaken impression” or that I will find that my understanding of what my partner has just said will almost certainly be a mistake or at least not the whole truth. But what if I did understand what they meant and they confirm it? What if I sense that they are mad at me, do a FIML query and am told by my partner that they are mad at me for something I said or did?

If something like that happens it is because your partner missed an important opportunity to do FIML. When they first noticed their own reaction to whatever it is you said or did, they should have initiated a FIML query. Both partners must understand that asking and answering honestly are equally important skills. If your partner finds it hard to initiate a FIML query, think of ways you can make this easier for them. You might have them practice by just randomly asking you what is in your mind or what you associate with a random word or phrase. Do the same for them. With a little practice you will find it not so hard to do this. It is important that each partner learn to ask as well as answers FIML queries.

We are always very honest with each other and deeply in love. Isn’t that the same as or better than doing FIML?

Maybe. But keep in mind what FIML does. FIML uses objective data agreed upon by both partners to catch and eliminate mistaken interpretations (kleshas, neuroses) the moment(s) they arise. FIML is a practical method that helps partners ensure and maintain excellence in their relationship in a way that emotions or vows alone cannot do. FIML accomplishes most of what it does by being a technique that is called up quickly, the moment it is needed.

We already have a good relationship and my partner thinks it would be risky to do FIML.

I honestly do not believe that FIML practice will harm anyone’s relationship but only improve it. Try a few small FIML exercises with your partner—even if you are both skeptical—and see what they do for you. You will probably discover that there are large areas of your minds that are looking at each other and the world differently. It is not a problem to see this, but a benefit. If you really do have a good relationship, you will only find each other more interesting when you do FIML practice. I do not want to sound too idealistic or simplistic here, but want to be brief for this format. For more information on this or any other FAQ, please look through some of our other posts.

Where do we start?

At the top of the page are some links—What is FIML? How to do FIML? Please read those links and/or other posts on this site. Eventually we hope to give classes on FIML practice but cannot do so quite yet due to other commitments.

FIML and truth

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Truth can be defined as:

  • “best practice” or “very best practice”
  • “eliminative” in that we eliminate from consideration things that are not true
  • “relative” to something else
  • “pragmatic” or what works
  • “socially acceptable”
  • “best explanation/description”
  • “does not offend the conscience”

Mahayana Buddhism distinguishes “ultimate” from “relative” truth. I am honestly not sure if the Buddha spoke about ultimate truth in the Pali canon, but I don’t remember it being such a big deal in Pali as in Mahayana texts. If someone knows differently, please let me know. Anyway, in the Mahayana tradition ultimate truth is mostly sort of a positive description of nirvana, which in that tradition encompasses a full knowing of “ultimate reality”, or words to that effect. Nirvana, the term, literally means “blown out” or “gone out” and is used most basically in Buddhism to mean the extinguishment of “delusion”. Again, I just don’t remember how this word is used in the Pali canon, but I suspect the Buddha probably meant just that–that his teachings would lead to the extinguishment of delusion. What that state actually is in positive terms, he basically never said.

Modern science somewhat resembles Buddhism in this respect in that science, properly understood, never claims to have proved anything or to know anything with absolute and perfect certainty. A common metaphor used to explain this is the black swan. We used to say (Euro-centrically) that all swans are white because no one had ever seen a black one, though we now know they do exist in Australia. The point is that most anything could be true, but science reduces the probability of some occurrences to very near zero.

As human beings how are we to think of truth? I have always wanted to be a truth-seeker though I am aware that that expression sounds either pretentious or trite or both. But I don’t know of a better way to put it. Most American Buddhists would probably not object if you called them truth-seekers. As Buddhist truth-seekers, we seek nirvana or the blowing out of non-truths in our mind streams. We want to eliminate scientific non-truths as well as moral ones. We want to offend neither our reason nor our consciences.

Buddhists recognize that some of the most dangerous and egregious non-truths are immoral thoughts and behaviors; this means thoughts and behaviors that harm other sentient beings–killing them, stealing from them, sexually abusing them, lying to them, or getting drunk so much you can’t even remember where the lines between right and wrong are.

In modern psychology, a mental illness is pretty much defined as something that interferes so much with your thoughts and behaviors that you can’t take care of yourself. It doesn’t say much about morality or ethics. The problem with this sort of definition, for truth-seekers, is you can be a real shit and still be considered “normal” by most psychologists. As long as you don’t break too many laws and/or are part of a big group of powerful people, you can literally steal vast sums of money from the public and not only not get caught but actually be respected in many circles for your actions.

Psychologists themselves–our modern doctors of the mind–have been caught up in serious scandals in recent years. Isn’t this due, at least in part, to their definition of “normal” not including the basic ethical principles outlined by the Buddha? (The article linked here was just a quick find; readers who want more info can use Google to find many stories on this subject.)

Medical researchers and many scientists have the same problem. See Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science for more on this subject.

Any real truth-seeker knows you have to include your conscience in your pursuits. What good is my status as a scientist if it is based on bullshit? Or worse if it harms other beings?

The real scientific method, the true one that really works, absolutely demands that scientists be honest about their research. But in the modern world, honesty, in too many cases, won’t do the job because you also have to know how to kiss ass, get grants, play the game, form self-referential clubs that approve each others’ research. If you think I am being too cynical, please be sure to read Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science. The way science–our most powerful and profound modern truth-seeking enterprise–is actually conducted is pretty bad compared to what it could be if people consulted their consciences more than their greed, pride, status, fear, and other moral failings.

I hate sounding like a moralist, and fully admit to being a massively flawed human being, but it’s still true that nearly everything in the modern world is rotten with corruption and sleaze, and this includes science, medical research, academia, and of course, religion.

So how can we be honest? What does it even mean to speak the truth? How can anyone even do that?

You can do it with FIML. If you do FIML you will learn how to be honest with at least one other person. And I am not talking about just making some grandiose declaration but about how to do it. If you do FIML practice with the person you hold most dear in this world, you will be convinced through experience of the value and efficacy of honesty, of treating them right based on mutually agreed ethical standards. FIML will show you that anything less robs both of you of everything worth having. I do not see any other way to accomplish this except through FIML.

In the Buddha’s day, monks generally traveled in pairs for most of the year teaching the Dharma. I wonder if they did something like FIML. Did the long days with one other person for months on end produce similar results to FIML in that the monks were always able to say everything they wanted and always able to achieve a wise and calm resolution for any misunderstanding? Did their consciences always guide them toward the truth? Does yours?