Tag: psychology

How (intimate) interpersonal language functions

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Parentheses around the word (intimate) indicate a spectrum from less to more intimate, less to more psychologically important.

1) If we study how (intimate) interpersonal language functions, we will discover that it is significantly both defined and impeded by errors in listening and speaking.

2) The more intimate interpersonal communication is the more idiosyncratic it is.

Since (intimate) interpersonal communication is psychologically more significant the more intimate it is, it follows that it is very important to analyze and understand this kind of communication. It also follows that (intimate) interpersonal communication is harder to analyze from the outside the more intimate it is.

It is essentially impossible for an expert to tell two lovers what their words mean or how to understand their acts of communication.

Therefore, the lovers must do it themselves. The expert can only show them how to do it themselves.

3) This is a fundamental truth that rests in the nexus between language and psychology: the more intimate the communication the more important it is psychologically and also the more important it is that the communicators be able to analyze their communication satisfactorily and correct errors that inevitably occur.

4) How to do that can be taught. This is a good job for psychologists. Doing the analyzing and correcting is the job of the intimate communicators.

5) If (intimate) interpersonal communications are not analyzed and corrected; if errors are not discovered and removed from the system, the psychologies of both communicators will be harmed.

6) Conversely, if (intimate) interpersonal communications are analyzed and corrected; if errors are discovered and removed from the system, the psychologies of both communicators will be benefited.

7) Indeed, removing error from an (intimate) interpersonal communication system will result in gradual optimization of both the system and the psychologies of the analyzers.


8) In sum:

  • communication error is inevitable in (intimate) interpersonal communication systems
  • it is very important to correct these errors
  • and to analyze them and the communication system itself in the light of these corrections
  • this optimizes both the communication system and the psychologies of both communicators

There is no other way to accomplish such sweeping improvement in both communication and individual psychology. There is no outside way for intimate communications to be analyzed and no one else to do it but the intimate communicators themselves.

This is a fundamental truth that applies both to intimate communication and psychology. And this makes perfect sense because psychology is determined by intimate communication and vice versa. FIML practice is specifically designed to correct (intimate) interpersonal communication errors.

first posted JANUARY 6, 2019, slightly updated today

John Money: The Pro-Pedophile Pervert Who Invented “Gender”

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“Gender identity” is a hot-topic today and has become a focal point of not just social discourse, but legal policy and procedure. But few people know the concept’s disturbing origins.

Dr. John Money, a sexologist and psychologist from New Zealand who practiced at Johns Hopkins, is considered the first to coin the terms “gender identity” and “gender role,” describing the “internal experience of sexuality” and the “social expectations of male and female behavior” respectively. These concepts are prominently featured in trans activism today, and are used to bolster claims of “gender fluidity.”

link

FIML Extra Lite

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FIML Extra Lite is fun and easy to do. Good for when time is short and/or you are just in the mood for a lighter touch. It’s also good if you are new to FIML.

The basic technique is very simple. Just ask whenever you feel like it, “Could you say that in another way?” Or, “Would you try saying that in a different way, please?” Whatever phrasing works for you.

The deep underlying reason for doing this is the same as for regular FIML—you have felt a slightly confusing or disturbing sensation—but what you initiate with your request is much simpler for your partner to respond to.

Ideally, both partners will play with this technique and use it for very “lite” reasons or just out of curiosity or to practice or prepare for basic FIML. Doing FIML Extra Lite frequently will give you insights into how you and your partner speak and hear each other. Also, you both will gain new insights into how spoken language actually works in real-time, real-world situations.

Before you start, at least be aware that spoken language can be very messy, imprecise, inaccurate, and misleading. FIML Extra Lite will reveal this very quickly.

It’s best that both partners have a real FIML agreement to do analyses of this type, but you could try FIML EL simply to get a sense of where the full practice will lead you.

High school students perform in drag for ADULT staff at secret event held IN SCHOOL

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It’s bad enough that drag performances for “families” are popping up all over the country with adults performing for children but a New Jersey High School has taken it to the next level – underage students performing in drag for adults. 

On October 27th, Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, NJ did just that.  Student club P.U.L.S.E. (People Understanding Love Serves Everyone) led by faculty advisor Heather Baldwin, held a student-performed drag show on school property in secret. 

The event was brought to the community’s attention three days later when an email was leaked to The New Jersey Project, an organization that advocates for parents’ rights in public schools, which wrote about the event on its blog, Chaos and Control.

link

Perfect communication is not possible (but greatly improved communication is)

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

Human beings cannot possibly expect to communicate with each other perfectly. Perfect communication would require complete transfers of information with no ambiguity.

This point is fundamental to understanding why we need a method to frequently correct or adjust interpersonal communication in real-time.

If we do not have a method to do that, mistakes will inevitably cause problems, some of which will inevitably snowball.

TBH, I don’t understand why no one before me has figured the method out. Many have seen the problem in one way or another, but none has provided a way to fix it as far as I know.

To simplify the problem a bit, let’s just stick with language.

Language is ambiguous in and of itself. And when it is used for interpersonal communication it is fraught with ongoing and very significant ambiguities.

These ambiguities are so serious, I believe I can safely maintain that they account for a major component of our personalities. They may even be the major component.

Why does this seem so obvious to me but not to many others I speak with? I really do not know. Why didn’t Plato or Buddha or Laozi or Kant or Dostoevsky deal with this? I don’t know.

It’s possible the Buddha did privately or that’s what the Pythagorean’s secret was. Buddhist monks traveled in pairs and may have had a method to deal with interpersonal ambiguity.

If they did, I doubt it would be very different from my method, which you can find fully explained, free of charge here: FIML.

Please consider the problem of ambiguity before you undertake FIML.

Give ambiguity some real thought. Contemplate how it has affected your life in many ways you already know about. Then consider how many more ways you do not know about.

How many mistakes in communication—just due to ambiguity and consequent misunderstandings alone—have affected your life?

Watch for it and you will see ambiguity happening very often. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes insignificant, sometimes it’s tragic. The more there is, the worse it is.

When just two humans clear up almost all ambiguity between them (a process that must be constant like any other maintenance chore), amazing things begin to happen to their psychologies.

For each pair, what happens will be different because FIML is only a method. It has no content itself. What could be better than that?

first posted JULY 10, 2019

‘God knows we need a better understanding what we’re up against’ ~ Michael T Flynn

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The Patriot Act of 2001 made it legal to spy on Americans. Obama made it policy to spy and do psyops on Americans. Flynn was targeted immediately after Trump was elected because he knew too much. Pence aided and abetted his downfall while also subverting the Trump presidency. The Russia collusion hoax was a psyop, as was the Mueller “investigation,” as were 2x impeachments, and election fraud. This stuff never stops and is always in your face all the time unless you live alone in the woods. Covid is/was a psyop, ditto the vaxxes, lockdowns, banning good treatments, perverse incentives for hospitals to murder people with bad treatments, etc. If you are afraid to talk about it, it’s probably a psyop. In today’s psyop American clownworld, a grown man dressed as a woman can flash his dick to children in school but we are all afraid to talk about who is in control of our country. ABN

I’ve been a teenage girl and I’m in process of raising two of them. Nothing about the horrific rise of gender confusion in girls surprises me

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1/ I’ve been a teenage girl and I’m in process of raising two of them. Nothing about the horrific rise of gender confusion in girls surprises me.
Puberty is an emotional tsunami for girls. Today they face a gross and degraded dating culture in which

2/their only measure of objective value is their micro bikini-fitness and willingness to make themselves sexually available to unscrupulous males.
From precious little princess to door mat in 2 seconds, plus the indignities, suffering, and strangeness of a woman's biology.

3/Their emotional pain is tremendous, even in the best of circumstances.
And how many have "best" circumstances?
Half perhaps or more have absent fathers, and no real conception of what an honorable, faithful and protective man looks like in action.

Continue reading “I’ve been a teenage girl and I’m in process of raising two of them. Nothing about the horrific rise of gender confusion in girls surprises me” →

Psychological optimization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, you have to learn how to do FIML.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their excuses will be they can’t understand it, don’t want to bother, don’t want to be that honest, don’t want that kind of relationship, don’t have the time, etc.

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

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

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

Your psychology needs similar kinds of input.

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

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

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

first posted 04/14/16

Motivated reasoning, speaking to effect

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Motivated reasoning means reasoning to gain. Speaking to effect means speaking to cause something.

Both are the most common forms of thought and speech for all people with few exceptions.

Speaking to effect and motivated reasoning maintain personas.

Because it is difficult to tell truths and because trying to do so brings calamity, we don’t. We narrow thought instead; our voices dull faceless muffled sounds with no meaning.

This is the tone and timbre of samsara, the feeling of group delusion, the Suffering of the First Noble Truth.

Narcissism, alcoholism, and malice

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Narcissism is an interesting condition because it does not appear to have a large genetic component, if any, and it can be understood as a cognitive strategy.

Narcissism often co-occurs with alcoholism or is the result of alcohol addiction.

I think it is probably a mistake to say that narcissism leads to alcoholism because alcoholism so often begins in the late teens and early twenties when personality and cognitive strategies are not well developed.

We generally study language and cognitive development by studying growing children, but we can also gain valuable insights into language and cognition by studying how they decline in alcoholism and other degenerative conditions later in life.

My sense is that in alcoholics, narcissism can be understood as an overall cognitive strategy that works because it is a simple and relatively easy way to organize general cognition.

With fewer things to consider, the narcissist is better able to function while drunk or while suffering the neurotoxic effects of years of alcohol abuse.

Why are narcissists and alcoholics so often malicious?

I think the reason is much the same as the argument above: malice is a simple, self-centered response to poorly understood or completely misunderstood social stimuli.

Malice is a side-effect of the simplicity of the narcissist’s overall cognitive strategy which has placed enormous emotional weight on an inflated sense of self.

In terms of FIML theory, narcissism is a dominant network of semiotics centered around self-interest and self-aggrandizement. (Narcissism as a cognitive strategy)

I think FIML practice would be very difficult, maybe impossible, for mid-stage and beyond alcoholics due to reduced capacity for the meta-cognition needed for FIML.

A non-alcoholic narcissist or an alcoholic in the earlier stages of the disease would, in my opinion, benefit greatly from FIML practice if conditions are good.

Rather than being a mysterious force directing personality, I believe narcissism is cognitive strategy. As such it is based on self-centered heuristics that are founded on semiotic networks that can be perceived through FIML practice.

I also believe that these networks almost certainly will be identified by brain scans or other instruments within the next few decades.

first posted APRIL 22, 2016

Is the greatest emotion taking pleasure in correcting our own mistakes?

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Surely it’s in the top few.

In the Buddhist tradition, shame is sometimes called the greatest emotion because shame makes us open to changing for the better.

But shame can also be felt and avoided or hidden or misdirected. Shame here generally means something bothers our conscience.

Correcting our own mistakes often follows shame but not always. Someone may tell us of a mistake that does not make us feel ashamed.

Taking pleasure, even delight, in correcting our own mistakes is very close in time and psychology to actually making the correction.

Whether it is the greatest or not, the emotion that accompanies self-correction is well-worth cultivating.

first posted APRIL 1, 2018

Ithaca College follows other schools in futile attempt to ‘dismantle white supremacy’ by segregating white staff

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Here is an article about it.

At the heart of all of this lies semiotics and semiotic codes. You cannot work out some vague problem of “racism” by dismantling and clashing an assortment of semiotic codes. In Buddhist terms, this is like two delusive selves battling each other for uncertain goals, or many delusive groups (which resemble delusive selves) battling each other for uncertain goals. If the goals appear somehow certain, they will undoubtedly be idealistic which means nothing more than based entirely on simplified semiotic codes, often projected into the future. Ideologies based entirely on simplified semiotics, like communism or equity, always fail because they are not only wrong as is but also grossly oversimplified. As such they are fantasies that enthrall individuals and groups that have a poor understanding of group semiotics. Notice that the allure of such ideologies often becomes passionate and violent. These emotions are strong semiotic signals that replace reason, logic, clarity, and practicable goals. Semiotics are not easy to understand. Semiotic codes are even harder to understand because it is hard to stand outside of them. In many ways, trans ideologies, confusions and fantasies are similar to racial ones. In extreme cases, when trans fantasies go beyond harmless playfulness, the biological semiotics of sexuality are harmfully altered–even in children–to fulfill a delusion. Should we try that with races? ABN