Games as semiotic focus

Define a game as “a set of rules that focuses and directs thought, feeling, intention.”

Most human games are overwhelmingly involved with human semiotics. Human feeling, thought, and intention overwhelmingly operate within and are defined by human semiotics.

Humans are semiotic animals who live within semiologies as much or more than their natural environments. Few of us can even comprehend our natural environments save through a semiotic system.

A semiology is a signal system, a system of signals. Humans need and want their signal systems to be organized; from this arises culture and psychology.

From this arises the many games of human semiotic organization. Humans crave meaning—a synonym for semiotic organization and focus—and thus play games (as defined above) with their intentions, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, instincts, perceptions, desires, and so on. Without meaning, focus, purposive semiotic organization, life is dismal and many humans destroy themselves and others for this alone.

Human semiotic organization can be beneficially reorganized in two basic ways:

  • Through general thought, which mainly changes how we focus and what we focus on. This region of organization includes all culture and science, including mainstream psychology and its treatments.
  • Through analysis of the most basic elements of semiotic organization, individual semiotics and semiologies. To do this at the individual level, two individuals are needed because you cannot successfully analyze your own semiotics by yourself. This is so because a great number of human semiotics are fundamental to both psychology and communication. They do not exist independently.

The goal of reorganizing individual semiologies is to optimize them. As individual semiologies optimize, individual psychologies inevitably optimize apace. Much is possible at this level that is not possible at the general level of psychological theory.

Reorganization at this level is done through individual semiotics, the actual signals of individual communication and psychology alike. To play this game—the game of semio-psychological reorganization and optimization—you have to have rules. Here they are.

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first posted APRIL 12, 2018

Consciousness as reality itself

In Buddhism the idea that consciousness is reality and reality is conscious is called “mind only” or Yogachara.

David Ray Griffin, a process theologian, has come to similar conclusions—that reality is fundamentally conscious.

As has Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at UC Irvine.

Hoffman came at this subject from a mathematical angle, but arrived at a similar conclusion to Yogachara Buddhism. Hoffman says:

As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. (The Case Against Reality)

I tend to reach similar conclusions when I think about everything in terms of signals.

The advantage of thinking in terms of signals is we get a good picture of “reality” without needing to say what is real beyond the signal itself.

This kind of thinking is helpful for metaphysics but it is also extremely practical when it comes to human psychology.

Rather than posit personality types and what goes wrong or right with them, we analyze how people send and receive signals instead.

In thinking along these lines, I have come to the conclusion that most psychology as most people understand it uses “arms-length” language, the language of meso and macro signals rather than the much more precise language of the micro signals that actually comprise our shared “realities.”

The difference can be illustrated in this way: Rather than explain your most recent signal (sent or received) in terms of personality, explain it by accessing the micro-signals of short-term memory to find its true antecedents.

If you do this again and again by using a game such as FIML, you will probably come to conclusions similar to the above—that there is no deeper substance to psychological reality than your consciousness of it.  

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first posted 08/05/17

If you can’t trust the plan, trust the president

If you can’t trust the plan, trust the President. If you can’t trust the President because you’re feeling too anxious about events and the relentless demoralization campaign that is being performed for your benefit, remember, all the tea leaves in the world will determine absolutely nothing.

Of course you’re anxious to see action. Joseph Stalin was practically SCREAMING for the Normandy invasion for years before it happened. And yet, not even Eisenhower knew the precise day, since after years of preparation, he wasn’t able to launch it on June 5th as planned, and had to hold off for a day due to inclement weather.

So relax. There is no reason, none whatsoever, to believe things aren’t proceeding precisely as they are supposed to proceed. The double envelopment is taking place. The enemy legions are trapped and helpless. I won’t even think about worrying until 48 hours AFTER someone else is sworn in as POTUS. I am, quite frankly, more than a little excited to watch it all unfold. This is the sort of history about which we have only hitherto been able to read.

And if the time comes and things don’t go as we expect, then we fight in the shade.

Regardless, the Dread Ilk are feared; they do not fear.

If you happen think you have ANY idea what’s going on behind the scenes based upon the media coverage, rest assured that you don’t. There is apparently a MASSIVE trial of the Calabrian mafia that began today, and there is not one single word of it in the Italian media. We first caught word about it in the French media before it was covered by the English media…

Be patient, everyone

Is covid political theater? And if so what’s the plot?

The line of thought presented in this Twitter string is that China understood covid is a minor illness and ignored it.

That means that the CCP has been doing political theater: 1) first with the showy Wuhan lockdown and fear campaign last winter; and 2) then claiming their superior one-prty state has defeated the virus through tough measures.

Isn’t it strange that even today it’s hard to be sure what is going on in the West? Are year-on-year death rates the same with many being falsely classified as covid? Why is there no flu this year? PCR tests are notoriously inaccurate, yielding very large false positives.

Is “the West” destroying itself? Or is the West’s Deep State destroying the last remnants of independent thought and action among its plebs by destroying small businesses? The largest transfer of wealth in world history has been the transfer from small businesses to large ones due to covid lockdowns. The second largest has been the transfer of wealth from the West to China. Are the two connected by political ideology as well as greed and psycopathy?

A sinister, and I believe plausible, possibility concerning covid is China had already vaccinated its people before they released the covid bioweapon in 2019. That would mean covid is real in the West and that the West has not been deliberately destroying itself but is actually trying to save itself.

Then again, the truth may be a combination of all of the above with the addition of truckloads of Western corruption and naivete toward China. One thing is certain in my mind, the Western Deep State/Dem/RINO/media/corporate cabal have used covid to persevere in their coup against president Trump and the American people.

Clear explanation of the war China is waging against the world

…The turn of the millennium was the right time to introduce many concepts in a more aggressive manner. One of them was to modify the thought process of the world, in China’s favor. The deception was the key ingredient of this concoction. Major western think-tanks, policymakers, and columnists were either hired for the purpose or misled into believing the deceptive information. The western media was flooded with advertisements depicting China, as a very powerful, very advanced but still very humble, and just country. Over 500 Confucius Institutes, on the campuses of foreign universities, were effectively used to further the spread of the Chinese way of thinking.  University campuses were the right place to start the spread of Chinese psychological tool, ‘Alienation’. It aimed at generating dissension and discord in the intra-governments, military-civil, and intra-military groups of the rival countries. The purpose was simple, demoralize the key elements of the opposing forces at any cost. This task was further supported by a team of over 2 million hackers and deep-fakers. They bombard rival countries with disinformation and fake videos. The quality of these fakes is extremely good and has been successful in altering the opinion of the populace in many countries. Nepal is one such example. Chinese firmly believe in the phrase, “castles are inevitably easier to attack from within”.

WORLD WAR III HAS BEGUN AND WE ARE UNAWARE

Fourth wave cognitive behavior therapy

The third wave of cognitive behavior therapy is a general term for a group of psychotherapies that arose in the 1980s, inspired by acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

To me, third wave therapies seem more realistic than older therapies because they accept emotions as they are and pay close attention to how they function in the moment.

The link above is well-worth reading. The frames of these therapies are also well-worth considering.

FIML, which I am calling a “fourth wave cognitive behavior therapy,” differs from third wave therapies in that FIML does not use a professional therapist. Instead, partners become their own therapists.

Moreover, how FIML partners frame their psychologies or generalize their behaviors is entirely up to them. Similarly, their psychological goals and definitions are entirely in their own hands.

At its most basic, FIML “removes wrong interpretations of interpersonal signs and symbols from the brain’s semiotic networks.”

This process of removal, in turn, shows partners how their minds function in real-time real-world situations. And this in turn provides the tools and perspectives to reorganize their psychologies in whichever ways they like.

FIML is based on semiotics because semiotics are specific and with practice can be clearly identified and understood. They give partners “solid ground” to stand on. Words, tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions are some of the major semiotics partners analyze.

Using real-world semiotics as an analytical basis frees FIML from predetermined frameworks about personality or what human psychology even is. With the FIML tool, partners are free to discover whatever they can about how their minds communicate interpersonally (and internally) and do whatever they like with that.

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first posted

The invented God argument

The invented God argument is similar to the simulation argument, but does not have to be earth-based or limited to historical sims.

Our universe is some 13.2 billion years old. Somewhere in that universe, maybe within our own galaxy, there likely is at least one civilization with technological capabilities that are many millions of years more advanced than ours.

A civilization of that type would be something like a Type V or beyond civilization. Their powers would be God-like. We may be part of their “world” or they might be us far in the future, able to reach back to us now.

In this sense, even a strong atheist is forced to admit that there may indeed be God, gods, higher realms, divine intervention, immortality, heavens, hells, reincarnation, karma, ghosts, visions, divine forgiveness, divine laughter, effective prayer, and so on.

The Buddhist tradition has six realms, billions of world-systems and Buddhas, Buddhas and bodhisattvas with “supernatural” powers, Dharma protectors, demons, rebirth, enlightenment, karma, and much more.

The usual way Buddhism is understood today by “educated” people is little if any of that stuff is true; it’s just the beliefs and superstitions of people of yore that have accreted to the tradition or that were used by the Buddha (who thought like us, of course) to make his points to “uneducated” audiences.

The invented God argument could also be called the invented Buddha argument or anything else that pushes the limits of our imaginations. I take this argument seriously and find it well-worth contemplating as doing that forces us to shift off the narrow seat of materialist/physicalist complacency and the fake sense of certainty that goes with it.

I don’t think we need to buy everything in every religious tradition from the past, but we can with little effort today see that the real state of our universe and our knowledge is complex and that we do not know its limits. Why wouldn’t having a pure mind, a developed moral sense, openness to visionary insight and higher realms be valuable skills?

One of the best Buddhist sayings, which I heard from Master Hsing Yun some years ago, is simply “make your mind bigger.” This saying can be applied to any problem, including the problem of unnecessarily narrowing our understanding of where we are and what is going on here.

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first posted

Military thought experiment Part 4: Did China already do it?

In Military thought experiment Part 1, I described how a force of 10,000 military operatives could conquer a nation of 100 million within a few generations and without most people even noticing.

Key factors in the success of that operation were ruthlessness, deceit, long-term planning, plausible deniability, and the use of “subtle weapons” such as poison. physical maiming, propaganda, educational misdirection, medical malpractice, and character assassination.

Plausible deniability for each and every attack (including the overall attack) is of paramount importance for the success of such an operation. Each individual attack must be deniable or excusable as a mistake if discovered, and best of all never be discovered. Of course, no one but the inner circle must know of the ultimate plan: to conquer a nation of 100 million with just 10,000 operatives.

Has China’s Communist Party already done a similar attack against the rest of the world? Is Covid-19 but the first open onslaught?

Strong similarities with the plot described in Part 1 are plausible deniability, ruthlessness, and use of a “subtle” biological weapon, Covid-19.

Other similarities are the prominent uses propaganda, IP theft, strict control of operatives stationed in USA, educational misdirection, and character assassination.

An attack of the magnitude of Covid-19 would not have been done without well-formed plans for a variety potential followup attacks.

As evidence mounts that Covid-19 may cause long-lasting debilitation even in mild cases, the acutely critical nature of our present predicament should be obvious and alarming.

From a military standpoint, notice the value of plausible deniability, ruthlessness, and “subtle” or asymmetric weaponry:

  • The plausible deniability of the covid attack has left us paralyzed. Squabbling over school openings, masks, and who is to blame for missteps are keeping us from facing reality. I hope our president and military leaders are not being fooled as much as the public. I can understand why informing the public of how serious the situation is might do more harm than good.
  • The ruthlessness of the attack comprises the lion’s share of its effectiveness because most people cannot imagine such a thing.
  • The use of a “subtle” weapon like covid has stretched the umbrella of plausible deniability for over a half-year and counting.

Some questions and concerns for military planners:

Clearly economic pressure from us is not going to win the day, though it will contribute. China has itself deliberately ruined Hong Kong, while cementing deals with Russia and Iran with an eye, probably, to moving their financial capital from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Their deals with Russia show the foolishness of our entangling ourselves in the “collusion delusion” for three years rather than forming a valuable alliance with Russia, as wise heads had advised.

How will we protect ourselves against a second or third bioweapon attack? Vaccines take a long time to develop. If China has already vaccinated its people against their followup bioweapons, what will we do? How long will we wait before reacting? How long will we be fooled by yet another creeping plague of plausible deniability?

Notice that few Westerners even noticed that China was engaged in clandestine military operations to destroy them. Even worse, the West educated, financed, and provided technology, even military technology, to the CCP, often for free.

This shows that secrecy and ruthlessness when played in concert with guile and long-term divide-and-conquer strategies are extremely effective means to weaken and overpower even very powerful adversaries.

By promoting Western allies though bribes and favoritism, over several decades China undermined the West while laying the groundwork for a full-scale bioweapon attack. When the time was right for the attack—when they knew they had lost the trade war—they were already in position to launch the largest military assault the world has ever seen.

Note 07/25/20: Why we can be reasonably certain China manufactured Covid-19 and released it deliberately

There are two important facts about contagious deadly viruses that show with reasonable certainty that China manufactured Covid-19 and released it deliberately, thus knowingly poisoning the world.

  1. Deadly viruses rarely jump species. When they do, the new host
    almost always dies or recovers and there is no contagion beyond the one or two individuals who were initially infected.
  2. Viruses rarely become highly contagious quickly, thus the odds that covid came naturally from bats and quickly became highly contagious are small.

Stated another way, two improbable events happening in rapid succession like that are unlikely to be naturally occurring.

What is more likely is China’s Communist Party made or acquired the bioweapon Covid-19 and released it on the world.*

Note 08/01/20: It was best strategy to allow the virus to spread early and widely in China itself.

A point often missed in analyses of the pandemic is once the virus spread outside of China, a worldwide pandemic that would also include all of China was inevitable. Thus, it was good military strategy to allow it to spread within China early and widely. The quicker and wider the initial spreading the more certain the pandemic would affect the whole world, and especially USA. This strategy would also cause China to be hit first and thus able to recover soonest.

Furthermore, this strategy provided China with some plausible deniability. Additionally, from their point of view, killing off even several million of their weakest people would not be considered an important loss.

*Another point regarding Note 07/25/20 above: the SARS epidemic of 2002-04 killed only about 800 people worldwide. It probably did jump from civets to bats to humans (unless it was a trial run for covid19) and if so illustrates the rarity of a virus becoming highly contagious soon after jumping to a new host species.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

the above was first posted JULY 11, 2020

UPDATE 09/18/22: As of today, we now know that an Omicron-type of virus appeared in China in 2017-2018 and circulated widely in China and surrounding regions, thus conferring covid immunity to large portions of those populations. The same virus also circulated worldwide before late 2019, similarly conferring immunity in other parts of the world though to a lesser extent.

As of today, we now know that the Western response to covid has been so harmful, unscientific, and wrong that it appears to have been a deliberate act of war against Western peoples. Who may have done this we still do not know, but this fact alone is strong evidence for a powerful, secret cabal that manipulates all Western nations simultaneously. This Western response to a large degree provides some kind of plausible deniability to China. A possible explanation is actors in China and the West colluded to release covid. Supporting evidence is China did covid theater in early 2020 with people falling dead in the streets and the West bought it. The West also bought Chinese lockdowns and panic.

Be that as it may, in the West today we see an abundance of evidence that the vaccines, which weirdly cause our bodies to make the most deadly part of the virus, are causing more harm than good and that the harm they cause may continue for decades and even persist into future generations. An important thing to remember when discussing this kind of military thought experiment is almost everything is kept secret. The violence is hidden through the use of poisons and other such weapons. The leadership is not known. The strategy is never announced. Notice that today we do not even know who controls the office of the president of USA, why we are on the verge of WW3, why our economy is being so badly mismanaged and more. ABN