Tag: science

A psychological, historical and philosophical context for understanding FIML practice — John Range

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

[Below is a very thoughtful comment on an ABN post: Psychology and mental illness. In his comment the writer, John Range, provides a first-rate psychological, historical and philosophical context for understanding FIML practice. I hope readers will take the time to consider Range’s insights. The article he refers to is The Myth of Mental Illness by Paul Lutus. ABN]

Dear ABN

I applaud your efforts to reintroduce the study of the “psyche”into psychology.

FIML’s methodology rests on pure experience, the only point allowing for a scientific resolution of the deep seated and serious problems raised by Paul in his article.

FIML tacitly recognizes the genuinely empirical nature of data “immediately” given in the 1st person perspective of our “inner” or mental world of experience as well as, data “mediately” given in the 3rd person perspective of our “outer” or physical world of experience. It does this without reducing one to the other or invalidating either, in any way. Psychology has heretofore lacked such an explicitly stated methodology integrating without distortion these two disparate domains. The methodology of FILM has the added and by no means trivial advantage of being clear simple and intuitive.

Paul correctly notes and laments that psychology in failing to find a way to ground its theories based on 1st person experience in an unbiased and impartial manner has in many ways descended from its lofty status as healer and guardian of an unbiased and impartial standard of sanity to the dubious level of emotional masseurs and/or agents of state totalitarianism.

Whereas Paul fails to consider the mental world of experience as anything other than a myth derived from the ghost-in-the-machine epistemology, FIML, is rooted in an astute recognition the subject/object dichotomy does not itself inhere within the structure or function of pure experience, but is rather a set of external relations added to it.

“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.” [Psychology and Mental Illness]

The recognition of “immediate” 1st person experience as real data, that is to say as real empirical data runs directly counter to the (hidden in plain sight) metaphysical bias underpinning Western civilization since Descartes and Newton.

Ironically, even the connotations of the terms “subject” or “subjective” when taken in contradistinction to the terms “object” or “objective” imply our “immediate” and directly perceived 1st person experience is somehow ontologically inferior to our 3rd person experience which is merely indirectly perceived and “mediated” through the senses.

This provably false bias, is virtually ubiquitous in modern culture, as it operates at the pre-conscious conditioned level in which people believe without knowing they believe. For example, the term “objective” can denote (1) “Unbiased and Impartial” and/or (2) “the 3rd person perspective”. These two distinct meanings, of the term “objective”, are chronically (and all too often disingenuously) conflated.

By including the qualifying phrases “in this respect” in the above quote and “in that” in the following sentence “It works with real data that is objective in that both partners must agree on it.” [ibid] you sagaciously, albeit tacitly, recognize and avoid this conundrum.

Nevertheless, the conflation of these two (in matter of actual fact mutually exclusive meanings) lies at the root of Paul Lutus’s suggestion that in order for psychology to be a legitimate science it must emulate Newtonian physics by simply abandoning its quest to incorporate our lebenswelt or “lived-world-of-experience” basing itself solely on “physical” data. From the perspective of non-linear consciousness studies, this is hardly a step forward. Rather epistemologically speaking it is a step back into the dark ages.

I cannot fail to note in this regard, that I said emulate Newtonian physics because as it turns out, Paul’s “suggestion” runs counter to developments in Quantum Mechanics.

For more than half a century, attempts to resolve what is known as the “measurement problem”, (“In QM you know exactly what is happening until you look”), have forced a grudging yet growing consensus and recognition from practicing theoretical quantum physicists, that even, and especially in, QM’s deep foundational mathematical structure; the 1st person perspective of the observer cannot be separated or excluded from the 3rd person perspective of the system being observed!

The empirical data of quantum physics together with its irreducibly descriptive mathematics has, taken by itself, literally forced theoretical quantum physicists to recognize the stubborn fact that within the formal structure of quantum theory, the observers “immediate” 1st person perspective cannot be discarded, disregarded or stripped from the mathematical description of experimental results. [CF Theoretical quantum physicist Henry Stapp’s oeuvre for example]

Paul’s suggestion is not new. Psychology has for over a century been trying to model itself after Newtonian physics to the point that in its early development, the study of the psyche (our “immediate” 1st person experience) was banished by behaviorists from psychology (psychology is, of course, etymologically rooted in Greek meaning “the study of the psyche”).

This flawed approach brought us the various flavors of behaviorism and (along with the difficulties so strongly pointed out by Paul) contributed to the tarnishing of the star of the various psychological disciplines which partially grounded their approach in the 1st person perspective such as Karen Horney’s psychoanalysis, Carl Jungs analytic psychology, Victor Frankl’s logotherapy, Fritz Pearl’s gestalt therapy, etc., etc.

Their tarnishing pf the 1st person perspective in psychology was also assisted, by at least two other not entirely unrelated historical factors.
(1) Data given within the 1st person perspective of our “inner” or mental world of experience remained stubbornly incommensurable with the best data given within the 3rd person perspective of our “outer” or physical world of experience. Both in theory and in practice the non-local nature of mind proved exasperatingly difficult to integrate with the local nature of the brain.
(2) In psychology’s parent discipline, “philosophy” Husserl and Brentano were having finding it equally difficult if not impossible to find their coveted philosophical “Archimedean Point”. Ultimately they failed to discover an unbiased and impartial ground for phenomenological analysis. Here too, incommensurability reared its head.

FIML deftly avoids all these pitfalls. By simply focusing on the here and now interaction of two individual mindstreams, the justification of FIML’s methodology rests securely on one self evident, empirically given fact concerning the nature of being in time: we directly perceive our mindstreams as being none other than this very coveted integration of our inner and outer worlds of experience.

FIML also is quite compatible with William James’ “Radical Empiricism” as put forth in his seminal paper “Does Consciousness Exist?”

As an aside, for my part, after meditating on these relations and in the interests of crystal clear communication, I now attempt to avoid using the word “objective” when I mean “impartial and unbiased,” even though it is grammatically correct.

Otherwise, since subjective data may be taken in this sense to be “objective” data, one must insure that adequate pains are taken in order to avoid rather convoluted and/or highly ambiguous sentences.

Best Wishes
John Range

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Boltzmann Brain hypothesis

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Boltzmann Brain hypothesis is a thought experiment in cosmology and statistical mechanics suggesting that, in an infinitely long-lived universe approaching thermodynamic equilibrium, self-aware brains could spontaneously form from random quantum or thermal fluctuations—complete with false memories of a past that never existed. 

These hypothetical brains would be indistinguishable from ordinary human brains in their thoughts, memories, and perceptions, but they would arise not through evolution or a structured universe, but as fleeting, isolated events in an otherwise empty, featureless cosmos. 

The core paradox arises from statistical reasoning: it is vastly more probable for a single brain to fluctuate into existence than for the entire universe to have formed in the low-entropy state we observe.  This leads to the unsettling conclusion that we are far more likely to be Boltzmann brains than evolved humans, which undermines the reliability of our memories and observations. 

This idea was originally proposed as a reductio ad absurdum to challenge Ludwig Boltzmann’s explanation for the low-entropy state of our universe. Today, it remains a key concern in cosmology, especially in theories involving eternal inflation, multiverses, and de Sitter space, where the “measure problem”—how to assign probabilities in infinite universes—has no consensus solution. 

Despite its theoretical appeal, most physicists consider the Boltzmann Brain hypothesis untenable as a description of reality, because it leads to cognitive instability: if you were a Boltzmann brain, your beliefs—including the belief in the hypothesis—would be unreliable.  As physicist Sean Carroll puts it: “We’re not arguing that Boltzmann brains exist — we’re trying to avoid them.” 

Recent research, including work by David Wolpert and Carlo Rovelli, suggests that the paradox stems from subtle circular reasoning in how we define the past and interpret entropy, implying that the hypothesis may rely on assumptions about time and observation that are not physically justified. 

Lab–grown LIFE takes a major step forward – as scientists use AI to create a virus never seen before

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Lab–grown life has taken a major leap forward as scientists use AI to create a new virus that has never been seen before.

The virus, dubbed Evo–Φ2147, was created by scientists from scratch using new technologies that could revolutionise the course of evolution.

With just 11 genes, compared to the 200,000 in the human genome, this virus is among the simplest forms of life.

However, scientists believe that the same tools could one day create entire living organisms or resurrect long–extinct species.

This artificial virus was specifically created to kill infectious and potentially deadly E. Coli bacteria.

While only 16 were able to attack the E. Coli, the most successful were 25 per cent quicker at killing bacteria than the wild variants.

Scientists have made a major breakthrough towards creating artificial life, as they use AI to create a new virus that never existed in nature (pictured)

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FIML is a dynamic fact-gatherer, a dynamic gatherer of facts between two people

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FIML is a dynamic fact gatherer, a dynamic gatherer of facts between two people.

As these facts increase into the dozens, then hundreds, partners will see in themselves and each other a very different picture of who they are, a unique mosaic of their actual psychologies as they actually function in real-time, real-world situations.

This gathering of many idiosyncratic facts, this creation of a mosaic of psychologically unique communicative facts, reshapes the mind, its self-awareness and its understanding of what mind and consciousness truly are.

FIML is a species of subjective science.

It works with objectively agreed upon micro communication data.

The advantages of working with micro-data are three:

  • 1) micro-data are easy to identify, remember and agree upon with little ambiguity or confusion
  • 2) micro-data once discovered are emotionally and psychologically easy to accept, to admit
  • 3) micro-data are objective in that both partners agree on what they are

Acquiring a mosaic of micro-data facilitates beneficial extrapolation into meso and macro levels of the mind.1

And this allows for a profound reshaping of both partners’ minds and psychologies.

This dynamic fact-gathering and enhanced understanding of the mind forestalls solipsistic error and also the error of clinging to group norms.

For Buddhists2 and others who practice mindfulness, FIML can be understood as partnered mindfulness. ABN

  1. See Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding for more. ↩︎
  2. For Buddhists, a FIML query arises in the second skandha, deepens in the third skandha and is initiated verbally in the fourth skandha, thus altering the fifth skandha or preventing its habitual recurrence. See The Five Skandhas for more. ↩︎

FOR BUDDHISTS: I hope readers of this site who are members of a Buddhist Sangha or close to one will encourage their Sangha to learn and practice FIML mindfulness.

FIML would work especially well within a monastic community. It would greatly enhance their mindfulness and raise their common awareness to new heights of clarity and harmoniousness.

Lay Buddhists who see each other often and already communicate well would also benefit greatly from FIML practice, both as a group and as individuals. ABN

Facial reconstructions of a 2,300-year-old Pazyryk Scythian male and a female outlier from the same kurgan in Berel, Kazakhstan

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The man and woman, approximately 30-55 years old and 18-25 years old, respectively, were buried in the same kurgan, richly furnished with grave goods. Morphologically, the two individuals differed: the man displayed a mix of Caucasoid and East Asian traits, with a stronger leaning toward Caucasoid features, similar to other cranial remains from this set, and was likely of local Pazyryk Iranic Scythian elite origin. In contrast, the woman exhibited more pronounced East Eurasian features. Individuals with such traits appear in both common and elite burials, such as at the Ak-Alakha-3/5 cemetery. Archaeologists and anthropologists have speculated that the female outlier may have been incorporated into the elite stratum of Pazyryk society and is possibly associated with the Korgantas culture.

Both skeletons show evidence of post-mortem trepanation. The male skull bore an irregular perforation resulting from blunt trauma, later refined with a sharp tool. The female skull exhibited a rectangular perforation (64 × 35.8 mm) with cut marks, along with the excised fragment (42 × 33 mm), suggesting a deliberate opening after death, likely as part of the mummification process.

Cranial measurements indicate that the man had a medium-large cranial length of 185 mm, a medium-large cranial width of 147 mm, and a large cheek width of 139 mm. The woman had a large cranial length of 182 mm, a medium-large cranial width of 143 mm, and a large cheek width of 135 mm (Kitov, 2023).

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Alibi anomalies in the Charlie Kirk Investigation: CitiBank receipt raises red flag — Project Constitution

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Folks, let’s talk facts: In a standard CitiBank mobile app or online receipt, the button for disputing a charge is ALWAYS “Dispute Charge” – both words capitalized. But in the screenshot provided as part of Cabot Phillips’ alibi? It’s “Dispute charge” with a lowercase ‘c’. This is NOT standard. Multiple verified screenshots and app guides confirm the consistent capitalization. This irregularity could indicate an abnormality, such as a potential digital alteration or Photoshop edit – or perhaps an outdated app version/glitch. Either way, it’s highly unusual and not what we’d expect from an authentic, current Citi receipt.

Why does this matter? It ties directly into the timeline around Charlie Kirk’s tragic death. Witness Mitch Snow’s testimony places key figures – including Erika Kirk and Brian Harpole – at Fort Huachuca on Sept. 8, 2025, specifically at the Candlewood Suites hotel, followed by a suspicious high-level meeting on the morning of Sept. 9 where the witness places Cabot Philips in attendance.

Cabot Phillips (Erika’s ex) shared this receipt and a Publix photo as an alibi to show he was in Nashville buying balloons on Sept. 8, far from Arizona. If the alibi holds, great – but these inconsistencies cast doubt.

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__________

Investigations always work with speculation and small, but telling, facts.

That’s all this is. The lack of capitalization of one letter is a small but telling fact.

Crowd-sourcing is the new journalism of today. And it is very powerful.

You may remember that back in the 90s and early 00s, it was a common prediction that one day citizen journalism would replace mainstream mind-control fake journalism.

That prediction has slowly come to be,

and fully landed with an enormous boom during Candace Owens’ crowd-sourced investigation of Charlie Kirk’s murder.

The aftermath of Candace’s reporting over the past several months has seen mind-control operators and ‘influencers’ flip out.

For now, we can clearly see who is a real journalist and who is a mind-control fraud, a $7000 ‘influencer’, a Jewish Supremist or just a POS for whatever reason.

The time to observe carefully and investigate fully is NOW, before we lose all of our rights. ABN

Simple test reveals if you are one of the millions who suffer hidden disability aphantasia

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A simple test can reveal whether someone unknowingly lives with a hidden disability known as aphantasia – a condition that leaves people unable to form mental images in their mind.

Often undiagnosed and poorly understood, aphantasia affects the brain’s ability to visualise pictures, scenes or faces, even though eyesight itself is completely normal.

Although estimates suggest between two and five per cent of people have aphantasia, the vast majority are never formally diagnosed. 

Because the condition is invisible and not routinely tested for, experts believe millions are unaware they have it and only discover it later in life by chance. 

…Both groups – 42 people without aphantasia and 18 who reported having it – showed a normal pupil response when actually viewing the images, demonstrating that their eyes and visual pathways were functioning normally.

However, when both groups were then asked to visualise the same light and dark shapes in their mind, a clear difference emerged.

Participants without aphantasia showed the expected pupil response, with their pupils changing size depending on whether they were imagining light or dark objects.

By contrast, the pupils of those with aphantasia did not change at all when they attempted to visualise the images.

While visual aphantasia is the most common form, researchers say the condition can also affect the ability to imagine sounds, touch, smells, tastes and movement.

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Scientists Are Quietly Admitting Something Is Wrong With Our Understanding of Space

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For decades, modern cosmology rested on a reassuring idea: we mostly understand how the universe works. Gravity, expansion, dark matter, dark energy—imperfect, yes, but largely mapped out.

That confidence is now cracking.

Across observatories, research papers, and closed-door scientific meetings, astronomers are confronting a growing realization: key measurements of the universe no longer agree with each other, and the mismatch is getting worse, not better.

Something fundamental may be missing.

The Expansion of the Universe No Longer Adds Up

The problem begins with one of cosmology’s most basic numbers—the Hubble constant, which measures how fast the universe is expanding.

In 2019, two of the most trusted methods of measurement produced conflicting results. Observations using distant supernovae suggested one expansion rate. Measurements of the early universe, based on cosmic microwave background data, suggested another.

The difference was small—but statistically significant.

By 2021, researchers confirmed the discrepancy was not caused by faulty instruments. By 2023, the tension had reached what physicists call “crisis level.”

Both results cannot be correct.

And no existing model explains why.

The James Webb Space Telescope Made Things Worse

When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began operations in July 2022, many scientists hoped it would resolve the debate.

Instead, it deepened it.

JWST observed galaxies that appeared too large, too bright, and too mature for the early age of the universe in which they were found. According to established timelines, such structures should not exist so soon after the Big Bang.

Some researchers initially suspected calibration errors.

Those errors did not materialize.

By early 2023, independent teams confirmed the findings. Galaxies were forming faster and earlier than theory allowed.

The universe, it seemed, had skipped steps.

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__________

These are good signs. Scientific paradigms must fall when they not longer work well or are contradicted by too much counterevidence. ABN

Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis

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Abstract

Mystical and religious experiences are hypothesized to be evoked by transient, electrical microseizures within deep structures of the temporal lobe. Although experiential details are affected by context and reinforcement history, basic themes reflect the inclusion of different amygdaloid-hippocampal structures and adjacent cortices. Whereas the unusual electrical coherence allows access to infantile memories of parents, a source of god expectations, specific stimulation evokes out-of-body experiences, space-time distortions, intense meaningfulness, and dreamy scenes. The species-specific similarities in temporal lobe properties enhance the homogeneity of cross-cultural experiences. They exist along a continuum that ranges from “early morning highs” to recurrent bouts of conversion and dominating religiosity. Predisposing factors include any biochemical or genetic factors that produce temporal lobe lability. A variety of precipitating stimuli provoke these experiences, but personal (life) crises and death bed conditions are optimal. These temporal lobe microseizures can be learned as responses to existential trauma because stimulation is of powerful intrinsic reward regions and reduction of death anxiety occurs. The implications of these transients as potent modifiers of human behavior are considered.

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I don’t get why consciousness can’t be emergent

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A lot of the disagreement here comes from what kind of emergence people are talking about.

Most philosophers are perfectly fine with weak (scientific) emergence. Temperature, liquidity, elasticity, traffic jams, economies, etc. all emerge from lower-level interactions. They’re not properties of single particles, but once you understand the micro-story, there’s nothing mysterious left over. Crucially, all of these are structural or functional properties, describable entirely in third-person terms.

The worry about consciousness isn’t really about complexity. It’s about the fact that consciousness seems to involve an experiential aspect — there being something it is like — and critics argue that this doesn’t follow from structural or functional descriptions in the same way temperature or liquidity do.

Similarly, when people say “you can’t open the skull and point to consciousness,” they’re not making a naïve spatial claim. The point is that no amount of third-person description of neurons, firings, or networks seems to capture or entail first-person phenomenal qualities like pain or redness.

So you see, consciousness isn’t treated as special because it’s complex, but because it seems to introduce a different kind of property — phenomenal experience — that standard emergence stories were never designed to explain. Whether that really is a problem is exactly what the debate is about.

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An Immortal Stream of Consciousness: The scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death — Dr. Nicolas Rouleau

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Introduction

The concept of a soul or vital force is consistent across scientific, medical, theological, and philosophical thought1 . The soul is often described as contained within specific organs but separate from the body, and it is unsurprising that its location has been a subject of great debate throughout history2 . Despite much contention, those historically in search of the soul have generally agreed that it is the essence of a person – their true and immortal self1,3 . Indeed, when confronted with the challenge of identifying themselves, most people point to their chest or, approximately, their heart. This cardiocentric model of who we are is described in humanity’s earliest writings from the third millennium BCE, indicating that Ancient Egyptians believed souls were immortal and located within the hearts of impermanent bodies4 . The related idea of the pneuma – ancient Greek for breath, spirit, or soul – represents one among many similar beliefs about the essence of human life5 . Consistent with the heart’s exalted status throughout history6 , and until very recently, irreversible cardiac arrest was considered the medical standard for death7-9 . Which is to say, when your heart stopped beating, you stopped being. However, the importance of other bodily organs did not go unnoticed by our ancestors. Notable philosophers such as Plato and Descartes championed the brain as the locus of the soul10-13 and modern definitions of death rest squarely on the structural and functional integrity of the brain, not the heart7,8 .

rouleau-immortal-consciousnessDownload