Tag: signals

The agony of speaking

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

words 351

My SO and I are doing some painting. Mostly it’s fun, but as we discuss colors and color combinations, it has become glaringly obvious that it can be extremely difficult to talk about what we want but easy to convey our ideas by showing an example of what we want.

I wanted to do something in brown. Words flew all over the room but got us no closer to mutual understanding, let alone agreement. We looked at color charts on the computer but couldn’t agree on what we meant by saturation, muted, lighter, or darker.

My SO, who is much better with color than I am, thought the meanings of those terms were obvious. “You’re overthinking this! You must know what lighter and darker mean!”

“Not when I consider luminescence or saturation, I don’t. I really don’t.”

Is a red-brown lighter or darker than a blue-brown? More or less saturated? I honestly was lost in the terminology and was driving my poor SO crazy.

After several days of this, at some point I noticed my wallet lying on the table. “This is what I mean,” I said. “I want a color like this.” The wallet was a well-worn, dark, leathery brown.

She immediately knew what I was talking about now. “What you want is a really dark brown… that’s almost a black.”

Excited, we went back to the color chart (which has 3,500 color variations) and looked into a different classification of browns. Low and behold, the darkest one available—Tarpley Brown—is exactly what I wanted.

So,  I had something in my mind’s eye but failed repeatedly to convey it to my SO through the use of language. She tried to figure out what I meant but kept searching for a more woody sort of brown while becoming increasingly confused by my groping attempts at description.

From this, we can see how difficult it is to understand other people or even ourselves. Many important aspects of being human simply do not have clear examples in the world around us and are much more difficult to put into words than a color.

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

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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

Plants filter out green light to protect photosynthesis from “noise”

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Plants are able to make photosynthesis more efficient by filtering out spectra of solar light that change most rapidly in their environments.

Protecting themselves from such “noisy” input allows them to obtain “quiet” outputs of energy.

This provides “…a unified theoretical basis for the experimentally observed wavelength dependence of light absorption in green plants, purple bacteria, and green sulfur bacteria.”

That quote is from the study: Quieting a noisy antenna reproduces photosynthetic light harvesting spectra.

Nathaniel Gabor, one of the authors of the paper, said of it: “Our model is the first hypothesis-driven explanation for why plants are green, and we give a roadmap to test the model through more detailed experiments.” (emphasis added)

This general principle—turning noisy inputs into quiet outputs—can probably be applied to many other systems, including human psychology. In this respect, many human behaviors could be viewed attempts to achieve quiet, steady, or consistent outputs by reducing noise.

FIML is a super efficient noise reducer.

 

Personality disorders and signaling

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In my opinion, “personality disorders” are more easily understood as signaling problems.

All types of personality disorder involve dysfunctional signaling with other people. Signals are both sent and received in ways that result in suffering.

As currently defined, personality disorders “develop early, are inflexible, and are associated with significant distress or disability.”

Thus, if there are no significant brain injuries or other biological problems, all personality disorders (PD) develop through experience.

This means that during childhood the PD sufferer has received many bad signals (and/or interpreted many signals badly) resulting in their failing to form a coherent well-functioning internal signaling system.

The way to fix this is work with the signals. And the best way to do this is FIML practice. A professional psychotherapist cannot possibly provide this level of treatment.

This brings me to a second point: is there anyone who would not benefit from improving their signaling?

Why do we view psychotherapy as treatment designed merely to make us look and feel “average”? Why don’t we instead work to optimize our psychologies every day?

The Buddha said we are all crazy. We are. We all need to work on our signaling—our personality disorders—all the time.

The distinctions between one PD and another and those who have PDs and those who don’t are vague. This is because all PD problems (absent significant biological deficits, which may include intelligence) are idiosyncratic varieties of signaling malfunctions.

If signaling is the core problem, it should follow that all acquired PD will be classifiable as some kind of signaling malfunction. And that is precisely what we see.

Narcissism is a too simple signaling system. Borderline is an unstable signaling system. Compulsive, passive aggressive, histrionic, avoidant, and so on all are variations of a poorly formed internal signaling system.

The way to study this is through interpersonal semiotics; that is interpersonal semiotic analysis of real-time, real-world communicative signs and symbols.

All people need to do this to optimize their psychologies (their internal signaling systems). Why would anyone not want to do this? Maybe not wanting to do this is the surest sign of PD there is.

The hardest part about doing FIML is finding a willing and able partner. To me, this shows how pervasive bad signaling is. Most people will do almost anything but examine their own signaling with the help of another person.

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Scientists reckon “active civilizations” exist in the Milky Way

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A new cosmic-scale estimate on the evolution of intelligent life figures that “there should be at least  a few dozen active civilizations” in the Milky Way.

Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Conselice who led the research, explains: “There should be at least a few dozen active civilizations in our Galaxy under the assumption that it takes 5 billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as on Earth.” Conselice also explains that, “The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit.” (Research sheds new light on intelligent life existing across the galaxy)

Buddhist cosmology has long claimed that the universe is teeming with sentient life.

Two other basic ways to figure the probability of intelligent “communicating civilizations” existing in the universe are:

  • from a strictly materialist point of view or
  • from the view that we are living in a “mental universe.”

From a materialist point of view, conscious life is a sort of ordinary phenomenon that could arise on many planets under a wide variety of conditions; therefore it must have arisen many times in the cosmos, including within the Milky Way.

From the “mental universe” point of view, thought itself is a fundamental part of the cosmos underlying everything in the universe; thus the evolution of many intelligent “communicating civilizations” besides our own would be expected.

 

Indeterminacy of translation and FIML

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I betray my poor education by admitting that I had never heard of W. V. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation” until last week*. My ignorance is especially egregious as I have worked as a professional translator for many years.

Maybe I had heard about it but had forgotten. I am being self-reflective because FIML practice is deeply, fundamentally concerned with the “indeterminacy” of translating one person’s thoughts into another person’s head.

Quine’s thesis is not just about translating from one language to another, though there is that. It is much more about the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.

If I had known about Quine, I probably never would have thought of FIML because his ideas and the slews of papers written on “indeterminacy of translation” surely would have made me believe that the subject had been worked through.

As it was, I have plodded along in a delightful state of ignorance and, due to that, maybe added something practical to the subject.

In the first place, I wholeheartedly believe that speech is filled with indeterminacy, which I have generally called ambiguity or uncertainty. In the second place, I have confined my FIML-related investigations mainly to interpersonal speech between partners who care about each other. I see no solution to the more general problem of indeterminacy within groups, subcultures, or linguistic communities. Until brain scans get much better, large groups will be forced to resort to hierarchical “determinacy” to exist or function at all.

For individuals, though, there is much we can do. FIML practice does not remove all “indeterminacy.” Rather, it removes much more than most people are aware is possible, even remotely aware is possible. My guess is FIML communication provides a level of detail and resolution that is an order of magnitude or two better than non-FIML.

That is a huge improvement. It is life-changing on many levels and extremely satisfying.

FIML does not fix everything—and philosophical or “artistic” differences between partners are still possible—but it does fix a great deal. By clearing up interpersonal micro-indeterminacy again and again, FIML practice frees partners from the inevitable macro-problems that micro-ambiguity inevitably causes.

Moreover, this freedom, in turn, frees partners from a great deal of subconscious adhesion to the hierarchical “determinacy” of whichever culture they are part of. Rather than trapping themselves in a state of helpless acceptance of predefined hierarchical “meaning,” FIML partners have the capacity to sort through existential semiotics and make of them what they will with far less “indeterminacy,” or ambiguity, than had been possible without FIML practice.

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first posted
*that would not be over five years ago now

A signal-based model of psychology: part two

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If we consider humans to be complex signaling systems or networks, then it is readily apparent that each human network signals within itself and also is connected by signals to other networks.

In A signal-based model of psychology: part one, we said:

the only significant interpersonal signaling data we can really know with significant certainty are data noticed, remembered, and agreed upon by two (or more in some cases) people engaged in significant interpersonal communication (signaling).

More recently, in Indeterminacy of translation and FIML, we discussed W. V. Quine’s thesis, which describes;

the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.

When we analyze a person based on vague ideas like “personality,” “psychology,” or “cognition,” we are principally assigning ambiguous referents to amorphous categories. We have more words but not much more understanding.

Cognition is a huge grab-bag of a word that means almost anything, as do the terms psychology and personality.

If we replace these terms with the concept of signaling networks, we gain specificity. For example, rather than analyzing the “cognitive-behavior” of a person we can more easily and profitably analyze their signaling.

The advantage of examining signaling rather than “cognitive-behavior” is signals are quite specific. They can usually be defined pretty well, they can be contextualized, and their communicative intent can be determined with reasonable specificity.

To be most effective, signaling analysis works best if we abandon the idea that we can accurately analyze the signals of someone else, especially if we do not analyze our own signals at the same time.

Moreover, a signaling analysis will work best if we do it with:

  • someone that we care about and that cares about us
  • someone with whom we can be completely honest and who will be completely honest with us
  • someone who is willing to spend the time to do the analyzing

Sad to say, it can be difficult to find two people who fit together in those ways, but that is how it is. Much of this problem is due to social expectations, which presently greatly reduce opportunities for clear, honest communication. And much of this is due to how we normally conceive of a person, as a bundle of vague things that cannot be pinned down.

The ideal signaling analysis will be done between close friends with the above qualifications. A signaling analysis will not work well, if at at all, if it is done between a professional and a patient. A professional psychologist would do the best for their patient by teaching them how to do signaling analysis with a friend. If they don’t have a friend, maybe one can be found; if not, a different approach should be used.

But you don’t have to have “problems” to do a signaling analysis. Everyone will benefit from it.

Signaling analysis works because partners learn to work with good data that has been generated between them during real-life situations. Having this data allows partners to do micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis on it. And these different levels help them see the specifics of a particular signal exchange, the immediate context of the exchange, and the larger social or historical context from which the exchange has derived some or much of its meaning.

For example, if clear data on a tone of voice has been agreed upon, both partners can then explain the micro antecedents and context of that data, the meso context of those antecedents, and if necessary the macro context that gave rise to either or both of those. The same outline applies to all micro data, be it tone, gesture, word choice, body language, reference, etc.

With practice, a new way of understanding communication will arise in partners’ minds. Rather than having a vague “cognition” about some poorly-defined “emotion” or “personality trait,” partners will find that they can benefit much more by simply analyzing what actually happened based upon data they both agree on.

It is very important for partners to do many analyses of specific micro-data, a single word or phrase, a single tone of voice, a single gesture, etc.. The reason for this is we can’t accurately remember much more than that. When we try to do more, we are pushed immediately out of specific micro data into vague meso or macro generalities that constitute nothing more than general categories with general references to other general categories. Rather than analyzing something that has actually occurred, we instead argue about general emotions, vague traits, unsubstantiated assumptions about “personalities,” and so on.
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General analyses of signaling systems illuminate fundamentals of psychology

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Individual psychology is a locus or node within a larger social system.

More precisely, individual psychologies are particular signaling systems within larger social signaling systems.

It is valuable to see this because general analyses of signaling systems—even those having nothing to do with human psychology—can shed light on human signaling systems, including both individual psychology and many aspects of sociology.

When human psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can readily see that narcissism is bound to occur because narcissism is fundamentally a simplistic signal system.  (See Narcissism redefined (yet again) for more.)

When human sociology is viewed as a signaling system, we can similarly see that parasitism is bound to occur because the exploitation of one system by another is a fairly simple matter.  (See Social parasitism in ants and humans for more.)

In like manner, we can see that social hierarchies importantly have evolved because they are simple and decently efficient signal (communication) systems.

We can also see why hierarchical system often are overthrown and why they often do not arise in systems where they are not needed.  For example, no hierarchy is needed for a language system once the basics have been established.  A parasitic or authoritarian group might impose a hierarchy on a language system, but that’s a different animal.

When individual psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can see that a great deal of what we consider “disordered” or “ill” within that system is fundamentally a problem of the signal system itself and not the “personality” we have mistakenly abstracted out of that system.

Indeed, most of what we think of as personality is nothing more than an individual signal system attempting to conform to its understanding of the larger social system within which it exists.  When science is applied to “personality” erroneously conceived, we arrive at the many psychometric tautologies on personality traits we now have.  Psychometrics have limited value for describing societies, but are frequently misleading, even damaging, when applied to individuals.  In this, they resemble BMI data which originally was used as a marker for the health of whole populations, not individuals, and which can be misleading when applied to individuals.

When we view individuals as signaling systems rather than personalities, we can immediately see that these systems can and should be optimized for better communication.  Indeed, this is the real job of psychology—optimizing individual signaling systems. Not just treating “personality” disorders.

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first posted

Intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity

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A recent study shows that An insight-related neural reward signal exists and is more active in some people than in others.

This study also confirms the idea that “intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity.”

Some other findings that may be of interest:

…our findings suggest that individuals who are high in reward sensitivity experience the sudden emergence of a solution into awareness as strongly rewarding whereas individuals who are low in reward sensitivity may still experience insight as sudden and attentionally salient but lacking in hedonic content.

As lifelong autodidact, I wonder if others with this marvelous “addiction” can relate to feeling almost not alive unless there is something to wonder about or figure out. I recently read a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein. One standout was his strong tendency to seek out simple or humble environments that stimulated his mind.

…Individuals high in reward sensitivity are more likely to take drugs, develop substance-abuse disorders or eating disorders, and engage in risky behaviors such as gambling. The fact that some people find insight experiences to be highly pleasurable reinforces the notion that insight can be an intrinsic reward for problem solving and comprehension that makes use of the same reward circuitry in the brain that processes rewards from addictive drugs, sugary foods, or love.

Getting lost in the woods or on a motorcycle ride, for me, is a highly enjoyable feeling. There have to be slight tremors of fear and agitation followed by finding my way again. I suppose others may experience similar feelings in social settings or as live performers.

…These findings shed light on people’s motivations for engaging in challenging, often time-consuming, activities that potentially yield insights, such as solving puzzles or mysteries, creating inventions, or doing research. It also reinforces the notion that intrinsic motivation is important for sustained creative activity. The expectation of intrinsic rewards from comprehending and creating, rather than from an extrinsic source such as payment, is thought to be the most effective type of workplace motivation…

A society with universal basic income in which no one has to work unless they want to might bring about the greatest flourishing of human talent ever. Then again, maybe not. Inspiration does need a stick on the back sometimes and “joy has no children,” meaning happiness produces few inventions.

Here’s an article about the study: Aha! + Aaaah: Creative Insight Triggers a Neural Reward Signal.

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 just 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?

General analyses of signaling systems illuminate fundamentals of psychology

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Individual psychology is a locus or node within a larger social system.

More precisely, individual psychologies are particular signaling systems within larger social signaling systems.

It is valuable to see this because general analyses of signaling systems—even those having nothing to do with human psychology—can shed light on human signaling systems, including both individual psychology and many aspects of sociology.

When human psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can readily see that narcissism is bound to occur because narcissism is fundamentally a simplistic signal system.  (See Narcissism redefined (yet again) for more.)

When human sociology is viewed as a signaling system, we can similarly see that parasitism is bound to occur because the exploitation of one system by another is a fairly simple matter.  (See Social parasitism in ants and humans for more.)

In like manner, we can see that social hierarchies importantly have evolved because they are simple and decently efficient signal (communication) systems.

We can also see why hierarchical system often are overthrown and why they often do not arise in systems where they are not needed.  For example, no hierarchy is needed for a language system once the basics have been established.  A parasitic or authoritarian group might impose a hierarchy on a language system, but that’s a different animal.

When individual psychology is viewed as a signaling system, we can see that a great deal of what we consider “disordered” or “ill” within that system is fundamentally a problem of the signal system itself and not the “personality” we have mistakenly abstracted out of that system.

Indeed, most of what we think of as personality is nothing more than an individual signal system attempting to conform to (or coexist with) its understanding of the larger social system within which it exists.  When science is applied to “personality” erroneously conceived, we arrive at the many psychometric tautologies on personality traits we now have.  Psychometrics have limited value for describing societies, but are frequently misleading, even damaging, when applied to individuals.  In this, they resemble BMI data which originally was used as a marker for the health of whole populations, not individuals, and which can be misleading when applied to individuals.

When we view individuals as signaling systems rather than personalities, we can immediately see that these systems can and should be optimized for better communication.  Indeed, this is the real job of psychology—optimizing individual signaling systems. Not just treating “personality” disorders.

__________

first posted

Consciousness as reality itself

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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