Tag: psycholinguistics

FIML as a ‘loose’ method of control for chaos in interpersonal communication systems

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Interpersonal communication systems can become chaotic when there are misunderstandings. And they can become wildly chaotic when the misunderstandings are serious and/or involve emotional responses.

Normally, in virtually all cultures, out-of-control interpersonal communications are settled by authoritarian decree, by reverting to pre-established roles, by fighting until one side tires, or by ending communication all together.

It is nothing short of tragic when this happens in close relationships during significant or profound communication acts.

FIML is designed to fix communication problems that occur during communications between two (or more) people who care about each other.

FIML is a “loose” method of control in that FIML largely does not have any content. It is a technique that allows partners to discover their own content and their own ways to fix their problems.

As with so many potentially chaotic systems, interpersonal misunderstandings can become wildly unstable for even very small reasons. A single misheard word or a single misinterpreted expression can lead to destructive chaos within the system, no matter how dedicated the communicants may be to each other.

Evidence that supports the use of a “loose” method of control like FIML can be found in this paper: Stalling chaos control accelerates convergence.

To paraphrase from the abstract of that paper and apply their conclusions to FIML, we can say that FIML works “…by stalling the control, thereby taking advantage of the stable directions of the uncontrolled chaotic” system.

By not having a set outcome in mind, by not allowing static interpersonal roles to control the outcome, FIML can succeed in fixing even very serious communication contretemps between caring partners. FIML accomplishes this by providing partners with a means of achieving a meta-view of their contretemps and from that point of view gently coaxing their analysis toward mutual agreement, mutual transformation for both parties based on a complete and completely shared understanding of the unique conditions that generated the problem.

In this, FIML takes “advantage of the stable directions of the uncontrolled chaotic” system. The stable direction is the complete and mutually agreed upon resolution of all aspects of their contretemps. It is a “return” to the stable state of caring that preceded the problem, but a “return” with a significant upgrade because the new stable state will now include the experience of repairing the chaotic state that just passed.

A FIML resolution can be very enjoyable because it upgrades the semiotic systems of both partners.

An article on the study linked above describes the “loose” control method as an “approach that cleverly exploits the natural behaviour of the system.” (See: Control is good, freedom is better)

FIML exploits the natural behavior of two people who seek mutual caring and mutual positive transformation by providing a method that allows them to intelligently deal with the chaos that is 100% bound to arise during some of their acts of communication. Rather than flee from communication due to the fear of chaos, FIML partners have a reliable method of controlling it and reestablishing harmony on a higher, better level.

Humans as networks

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The advantage of seeing humans as networks is we can say interesting things about them parsimoniously.

A network is an organization of parts that are all connected.

Humans are networks of language. It is quite easy to see that language is a kind of network. Words connect in many ways and any word can be added to an existing network without difficulty. One word is defined by other words and we understand how it is used by how it functions among other words.

Humans are networks of semiotics. Semiotics function and are networked much like words, though a single semiotic may require many words to describe.

Meaning or what things mean is another network that is a fundamental part of being human. Meaning can be expressed in words, it can be apprehended through semiotic analyses, and it very often has a strong emotional component.

Emotions are another network that is fundamental to humanness. Emotions are often not as easily analyzed as the other networks since they can be vague, changeable, and based on complexities that are difficult to see while the emotion is happening. I am pretty sure that most, if not all, complex emotions are socially determined. Since semiotics are by definition communicative, the emotional aspect of all semiotics is a major aspect of both the semiotic and emotional networks. For this reason, emotions are often best analyzed through their accompanying semiotics.

Humans also have biological networks, perceptual networks, chemical and electrical networks.

All of these networks are hooked up with each other and all of them send signals internally and to the other networks.

If we conceive of a single human being as being a vast network that includes all of the above mentioned networks and others that have not been mentioned (aesthetic, gustatory, sexual, etc.), we can see that that vast network that is all of the other networks must have a basic need to be unified.

The biology must cohere and be healthy and the mind and feelings that exist together with that biology must be unconfused enough to guide the biology toward what it needs to maintain itself.

The cognitive networks (language, semiotics, feeling, reason, etc.) must have a strong tendency to forming basic conclusions about the world around them.

For example, all humans live in fundamentally uncertain circumstances. We don’t know when we will die, what happens after we die, how stable our social lives are, our economics, our biology, and so forth. To function, our cognitive network(s) must have a basic answer to the question of uncertainty. Here are some ways that people answer or respond to the fundamentally uncertain nature of human existence:

  • Many just declare that this is how it is. People like this might say, “Life is tough and you gotta do what you gotta do ’cause that’s how it is.” Or, “I growed up poor so I gots to be rich now and that just how it is.”Answers of this sort, while not complex, can be very motivating. I am sure that many conventionally “successful” people deal with uncertainty on terms like these.
  • For many, religion, science, or philosophy answers this question. “God said so.” “Science has shown that.” “Do as thou wilt.”
  • Another common response is “No one has ever been able to answer that question, so I am going to ignore it and get all I can because you only live once.”
  • In my limited experience (wish it were more limited), a good many alcoholics love the feeling of being sure or of knowing how things are. Booze activates an easy confidence of this sort and can even be charming in an occasional drunk. By the time booze is an addiction, though, this form of confidence becomes a bad habit, declining in charm as the cognitive functions are eroded by the alcohol.
  • In cultures that have a belief in rebirth, the question of uncertainty is often answered by what happened in the past or resolved by what might happen in the next life.
  • Some people deal with this question by focusing entirely on one thing—their career, their children, their nation, their business, etc.
  • Some deal with it by facing it and finding that nearly everything produces a sense of wonder because hardly anything is known for sure. Others feel anxiety by facing it. Others anger or frustration.

I am sure that readers can add many more examples of how humans deal with fundamental existential uncertainty. What I find most interesting in thinking in this way is you don’t need to imagine a person’s ego or wonder too much about how or why their emotions developed as they did. You really just need to ask them how they deal with uncertainty and they will tell you.

The vast cognitive and biological networks of individual humans often can be understood as being based on a simple answer to a simple question like that.

Since psychological explanations are the coin of the realm today, many people will confuse themselves and others by further adding long stories about the development of their personality or how their parents treated them. These factors can be interesting and are real, to a point, but it is much simpler and more profitable to focus directly at the answer/response to the basic question of life’s uncertainty. A major bias or unifying principle of the human network can be found in a straightforward answer to that question.

Beyond this basic question discussed above, there are many other questions we can ask about a particular human network. Is the network closed or is it open? Is it complex or simple? Is it independent of social definitions/constraints or dependent on them? How well does it see itself, understand itself? Does it perceive other networks or does it see other people as two-dimensional aspects of its own network? Is it willing to interface with other human networks in complex ways or only in simple conventional or established ways? Is it secretive? Does it see the vastness of the networks outside and beyond itself? Does it see how it is connected to them?

The advantage of analyzing humans as networks is it avoids many of the ambiguities of psychological analysis. Rather than focus on such dubious concepts as personality, ego, the subconscious, or self, a network analysis simply asks how is the network functioning. From a network point of view, a personality or self is little more than a focal point, a unifying principle that provides an illusion of certainty where there need not be one and cannot really be one. A human can function perfectly well without an ego, self, or well-defined personality. Indeed, there is greater stability in seeing yourself as a complex network that is always open to analysis and always willing to add or remove parts as they show themselves to be either good or bad.

 After basic network questions have been asked and answered, I think the best starting point for a more detailed analysis is  an examination of semiotics and how they are functioning in the individual’s life, and especially in their communications with others. This is best done through FIML practice.

In this context, as in so many, it is important to remember that humans are entry-level conscious semiotic animals. As such, we are prone to processing semiotics with the abrupt and often violent instincts of animals. A network approach provides specificity (what semiotic are we talking about), malleability (oh, I didn’t mean that), an appreciation for the functionality of network nodes, what they are doing and how or why. Since FIML partners have a prior agreement to do analyses of this sort, it is fairly easy for them to segue from ordinary conversation to analysis of that conversation and then back to the ordinary conversation.

Etymology of symbol

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The actual purpose of a creed is to provide a doctrinal statement of correct belief or orthodoxy. The creeds of Christianity have been drawn up at times of conflict about doctrine: acceptance or rejection of a creed served to distinguish believers and deniers of particular doctrines. For that reason, a creed was called in Greek a σύμβολον (symbolon), which originally meant half of a broken object which, when fitted to the other half, verified the bearer’s identity.[9] The Greek word passed through Latin symbolum into English “symbol”, which only later took on the meaning of an outward sign of something. (link)

Someone sent this to me, believing I might find it interesting which I do.

Our word symbol started out as a very concrete concept. It makes sense that it would come from something more basic than itself and with a much narrower meaning.

It’s also quite beautiful that a symbol only works as intended when it connects more or less as intended with the mind of its receiver(s). As with a symbolon, all symbols that work must have at least two functioning halves, a sender and a receiver.

This is a basic part of the definition of semiotics; that a message always has a sender and receiver, though in semiotics it is well-recognized that the receiver often receives the message differently than the sender intended.

If a symbol falls in the woods and no one perceives it is it still a symbol?

The illusion of culture

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Cultures have illusory “grammars” that outline what can and cannot be said.

Culture wars, essentially, are battles over what can and cannot be said, done, signaled, thought, believed, valued, etc.

Some time ago in You can’t say what they don’t already know, I said:

Cultures demand constant authorization and reauthorization from their members. To stray from established norms is to weaken group authorizations.

That’s how it works for all cultures with more than a few members. Cultural bonding and affirmation involves nothing more than authorizing and reauthorizing the basics of the culture.

It even works that way in groups as small as two people. This is because two people speaking together typically do so in a larger cultural context that is defined and accepted by both of them.

Just as most people do not make up their own words or jokes, most people do not make up the bases of their culture(s).

Even committed couples speaking in private typically do not leave their shared cultural script(s). This happens because they do not know any other way to speak to each other.

A profound and rich world of subjective insight and perception eludes them because they are afraid they might stray too far from the established script.

Culture becomes deeply illusory at this point. Its tenets are held not due to thought and insight but only to stabilize or maintain a rote communication pattern.

You can change this by using a functional communication pattern instead of rote cultural grammar that has been imported into your mind from outside.

As an experiment, try not feeling anything about the basics of your culture. Do FIML from this point of view and see what happens.

__________

Edit: BTW, the above roughly explains how mass mind-control works.

The controllers insert material into the public’s metacognitive vocabulary/ semiology, and sure enough, their minds shift.

There are so many examples of this, I trust readers can discover their own.

The thing to see is how easily something new can be inserted and become ‘reality’ for many because it’s the latest way to talk and think.

The other thing to see is the old and ancient metacognitive vocabularies/semiotics/ memes which have been in whatever culture for decades or centuries.

Seeing what those are and where they came from and what they do is a fundamental part of Buddhist practice, which sees all of them as empty, impermanent, delusive.

Hence the notion of ‘Buddhism without beliefs’.

Cling to none of them, including Buddhism.

The Buddha was the world’s first, still famous skeptic. ABN

My fellow Christians: we must be vigilant for false teachings & false shepherds

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

__________

Christians, you have already been infiltrated. Your Bibles have already been altered, their meanings already changed.

I am filing post this under ‘psycholinguistics’, among other tags, because this is a deep and very disturbing example of psychotic psycholinguistics.

This is ponerology in the extreme.

This also shows why it is dangerous to revere texts as being ‘the Word of God’, and especially to do so innocently, naively.

The Buddha warned against this because of what we are seeing being done to Christianity today.

It is spiritually blinding to revere words, to rely so much on their meanings.

When we do we trap our minds at mundane levels of comprehension and leave ourselves open to infiltration by false shepherds.

This is a very deep benefit of Buddhism.

Why do I, as a Buddhist, dare speak on this subject?

Because I deeply respect Christianity and am able to clearly see what is happening to it. ABN

Two PTSD therapies compared

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Pragmatic Comparative Effectiveness of Primary Care Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

__________

Negative side-effects of SSRIs are not included. Written Exposure Therapy is a kind of psycholinguistic engagement and seems to work OK. If people with PTSD can find a way to do FIML, I am confident many will be helped. The biggest obstacle for most people to doing FIML is having a good partner who can and will engage. That right there is the cause for most emotional disorders. If you are reasonably intelligent and have a good partner, do FIML. You both will benefit enormously. ABN

CANDACE OWENS: Straight up ad hominem attack on a pioneer journalist producing better work than all of US Big Media combined

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Straight up ad hominem attack on a pioneer journalist producing better work than all of US Big Media combined.

Owens is establishing a new paradigm for journalism; one that draws on crowd-sourcing and direct feedback from the public.

Her podcast is booming because it’s very good and her audience can sense this is the right way to do news in today’s super-connected world.

She is a talented rhetorician to boot.

My guess is her main opponents savaging her are being paid, directly or indirectly, by the real perps; are part of the psyop themselves; are simply envious of her swift rise to global prominence due to her talent and content.

Rational and reasonable speculation is real content in the real-world in real-time.

Actively hunting for the truth is the most fundamental content everyone wants.

Candace has established a new formula, guys — crowd-sourcing, which yields tons of info and is deeply engaging; reasonable, focused content, including speculative content and queries; immediacy, authenticity and talent.

Since Kennedy’s piece is behind a paywall, I was not able to read it, but the headline, which itself is truly evil, is so bad I think it makes my fundamental point vividly:

No one else is producing bold, up-to-date content on Kirk’s murder, and that is what the public wants.

Not government, not Big Media, not TPUSA, not $7,000 podcasters.

Only Owens is doing the real work modern civilization deeply wants and requires. ABN

FIML and cerebral efficiency

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

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”.

Culture and psychology, a way out

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

That each human is unique is common knowledge.

That the uniqueness of each human scales down to even their smallest reactions to words, pictures, signs, symbols is also well-known.

Experimental support for this position can be found here: Researchers can identify you by your brain waves with 100 percent accuracy. The study this article is based on is here: A Novel Method for Very High Accuracy Event-Related Potential Biometric Identification.

By averaging individual EEG responses to 500 images, researchers were later able to identify individual people with 100% accuracy. The main expected use for this research is biometric identification of people wanting to enter secure spaces.

That this research also has implications for social-psychology is what I am interested in today.

If each of us is unique with unique responses to pretty much everything, how are we able to communicate?

We communicate with each other in cultural terms. That is, we use unifying cultural concepts to provide a sense of agreement. Some might say to manufacture an illusion of agreement.

Culture is a hierarchical group of unifying principles that organizes the minds of its members.

Similarly, what we call the “self” or the “ego” is nothing more than a unifying principle that organizes the mind of the individual.

It should not take too much effort to see that what people think of as their “self” is usually an imported hierarchy that comes from the individual’s understanding of the culture to which they belong.

Individuals tailor their imported “selves” in much the same ways that we decorate our rooms or choose our clothes. There is a good deal of leeway in how you construct yourself, but there are also serious limitations.

This why individuals in one culture differ from individuals in another. If they have commonalities, those are often shared cultural roots or instinctive human behaviors that find expression in all societies.

I believe the above view of culture and the individual’s role in it describes a dangerous trap.

This is so because the resonance between “self” and “culture” is a powerful tautology, based on illusions.

No matter how you change culture, the trap remains the same.

Change in culture means little more than a rearrangement of limited parts that will never come together as an enlightened whole because cultures are always lowest common denominators.

Make culture more “tolerant” and it will gradually be undermined and replaced by those who come into the tent under the new rules.

We see exactly this happening with SJWs whose demands for tolerance have morphed into totalitarian demands for tolerance as they define it.

Do as we say or be fired, ostracized, demonstrated against, beaten-up.

I do not see any way to get out of this problem except the Buddhist way. Renounce culture in most of its guises and as an individual withdraw from its worst bs as much as possible.

Culture, as much as the ego or self, is a fundamental delusion. It is the stuff of the first noble truth and it causes suffering.

As a Buddhist, I understand that culture is necessary for our educations up to a point. And I understand that the self is necessary for healthy individual development up to a point.

But once that point has been reached, I  renounce the totalitarianism of culture, the totalitarianism of the self, the totalitarianism of any lowest common denominator anything.

Notice I said totalitarianism of.

I can accept and function in a culture that allows great freedom of thought with few rules. I always gladly obey all the rules in national parks and adore the Bill of Rights, though sadly it is slipping away.

Similarly, I am good with a healthy persona restrained by the five precepts and used as a basis for social intercourse and freedom of thought.

first posted April 19, 2016

Dynamic patterns that change over time

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Signal networks should be conceived of as dynamic patterns that change over time.

A psychological example of this might be a short exchange between two people during which one person interprets a small signal coming from the other.

The signal might be a fleeting expression. The person who sees this signal is likely to interpret it and remember (weakly or strongly, for some period of time) what that interpretation is.

As something held in memory—short or long term—that interpretation of the fleeting expression has become both itself a signal and part of a signal network that is changing over time, changing in part due to that new signal.

Of great importance psychologically for both persons described above is the fact that neither knows how the other interpreted the fleeting expression or if it was interpreted or sent or received. Or remembered or for how long. And almost never do they know how to get that information.

This is a micro example of human communication as it happens in time.

If this micro signaling network is held in the mind and analyzed correctly by the two persons described above, much will be revealed to both of them about how their psychologies actually function in real life and real-time.

FIML does that.

Lies and self-deception

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Most Buddhist practitioners will immediately understand and agree with the results of a 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 an 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.

Fake theology mind-control extravaganza December 2025

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

  • The video highlights a real December 2025 event where over 1,000 U.S. evangelical pastors and influencers visited Israel for a weeklong solidarity mission, the largest since 1948, aimed at combating antisemitism through pro-Israel advocacy in churches and media.
  • Attached video footage shows participants praying at the Western Wall and Temple steps, meeting rabbis, and emphasizing evangelical support for Israel as “God’s place for God’s people,” aligning with speakers like Mike Huckabee’s message that “pro-Bible is pro-Israel.”

__________

UPDATE: This going to greatly damage Christianity if not kill it off altogether. These pastors should be required to register with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Older and less well-informed Christians may fall for this schtick but I doubt younger Americans will. ABN

Psychology as ‘signs of something else’

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

When we see a human behavior as a “sign of something else” we begin magnifying it.

When we live in a culture where people normally do this, we tend to think it is right to do this even to ourselves.

People often feel relieved when their “signs of something else” have been analyzed—either professionally or by self-administered questionnaires—to reveal what that “something else” is.

Once analyzed and categorized, the “something else” itself becomes a sign, or a meta-sign, a diagnosis that explains behavior while directing us to a cure based on whatever that “something else” is.

The DSM reads like a Ptolemaic system of circles and spheres. In it signs are identified, quantified, and classified to indicate what they stand for, what their “something else” is.

Professionals are needed to do this work of course, and though the manual rests on “scientific” tests and other measurements, it changes every few years and very few people are getting better because of it. Moreover there is very little consensus among thoughtful people, including psychologists, about what the classifications of “mental illness” or “personality disorder” actually mean.

This is a sure sign that something is wrong.

I submit that what is wrong is our systems of classification of mental disorder do not describe the actual disorders because these descriptions exist on a different level from the disorders themselves.

It is widely observed that many disorders as currently classified blend into each other, share attributes, are co-morbid. It is also widely known that when disorders are extreme, sufferers can exhibit symptoms of all of them.

This indicates that the human mind is a complex system that becomes disordered by over-emphasizing or under-emphasizing parts of its system.

And this may be why drugs, psychedelics, shock therapy, or shamanic rituals sometimes help. Because they reset the entire system.

If you don’t want to use drugs, can’t get psychedelics, don’t want to undergo shock therapy or shamanic ritual, I suggest you try FIML practice. If you have a good partner, are fairly intelligent, and want to truly optimize your psychology (not just terminate your ambiguous disorder), FIML will probably do this for you. In fact, even if you can get psychedelics, FIML is better.

A disorder is unique to its system and though we can speak of some generalities that may apply to it, these generalities exist at a different level from the disorder itself and cannot provide a cure.

To cure a disorder the disorder must be experienced as it is happening by the sufferer. If too much of the disorder is revealed at once or the sufferer is simply confronted with its classification, more harm than good may result. If small bits of the disorder are revealed over a longish period of time, however, the sufferer will be much more likely to gain beneficial insight into the disorder.

In my view, all people everywhere are deeply disordered and thus all people everywhere would benefit from FIML practice. People who may not benefit from FIML include, among others, those who cannot self-observe, who are severely alcoholic, whose disorder prohibits self-analysis (narcissism, for example) and, sadly, those who cannot find an honest partner.