Tag: thought

Psychology as a feature (and bug) of language

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Since almost all uses of language are ambiguous and since this ambiguity can only be resolved sometimes, it follows that whatever is not resolved is interpreted subjectively.

Since such subjective interpretations happen many times per day, it follows that individuals will tend to deal with unresolved ambiguity in idiosyncratic ways that tend toward becoming patterns in time.

This results in what we call “personality.” Extroverts seek to define the moment by asserting meaning while introverts tend to wonder about that or just accept the meaning asserted by the extrovert.

A paranoid person sees danger in unresolved ambiguity while a neurotic person worries and reacts to it.

Having experienced early trauma associated with unresolved ambiguity, borderline personalities are acutely aware that something is wrong and often mad about it.

Besides these rough categorizations, all people are molded by their habitual responses to unresolved ambiguity.

Personality is little more than a name for our groping attempts to find or manufacture assurance and consistency in a world where little is certain.

Instead of talking so much about our feelings or pasts, we would do better if we talked about how we talk and how we deal with the ambiguity inherent in virtually all significant communication.

Language itself is neutral as a thing in itself, but the way we use it is not neutral. We assume way too much and clarify far too little.

Identity and signaling

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Identity is constructed of memories, memories that have to be tended to, and this takes time and energy.

You have to remember who you are and often have to work pretty hard just to maintain that image within yourself, to say nothing of projecting it toward other people and getting them to accept it.

A big problem with this way of constructing a “self,” an identity, is it’s probably based on misinterpretations and a good deal of self-deceit.

Our identities, such that they are, are complex fictions. They are a central flaw in our internal signaling system.

If your identity is large and complex, it will use a good deal of energy. As you signal internally to yourself about your identity, you will also be receiving signals from other people, and these signals will necessarily be processed by your large and complex identity. And that, of course, will lead to serious misinterpretations, both internal and external.

If you belong to a group that defines, or helps you define, your identity, you can save some energy but will have as much fiction, maybe even worse fiction.

Consider the codes of group behavior (group signaling)  for Stalin’s NKVD officers who purged so many millions of innocents in the 1930s. All of those officers had identities that were largely determined by signals coming from the NKVD and Joseph Stalin.

There was a weird sort of ethical behavior among those officers in that they were trying to adhere to a group signaling system and not go their own way. This same problem in less serious form can be observed all over the world in every culture.

One problem with ethics and ethical signaling within groups is ethical questions can be difficult. There are few formulas that will always work, and formulas are what hold groups together.

Back to your identity. I hope it is clear that you have to be careful when you base your identity on group signaling systems. If you are a banker, you might do many bad things out of loyalty to your group. Same for all of us.

While ethics are hard to codify, the will to behave ethically is simpler. I want to do the right thing but I don’t always know what it is or how to do it. That is a good statement to make. If you can honestly say that to yourself, that is good because that means that your internal signaling system is seeking greater integrity, great clarity.

When we seek clarity and integrity within our signaling systems, we are seeking better ethics. We are changing our identities, or allowing our identities to be transformed by a higher desire for clarity, purity, integrity, goodness.

When we seek to improve our signaling systems, our ethics, we begin to abandon static identities and poorly constructed fictions about ourselves by subjecting them to a higher order of thought. If we can take a meta-position on ourselves, we will find the process of improving signaling is easier and more enjoyable than clinging to a static fictionalized identity that may have been constructed years before, or by other people..

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. 

Anxiety and fight, flight, or freeze

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I suppose we all know what the fight, flight, or freeze response is.

In the wild, the freeze response is extremely valuable. You see a bear in the near distance and freeze. While you are frozen, you decide what to do. Quietly pull out the bear spray if you have any or just stay still in the hope the animal will leave.

The freeze response gets bad PR when we think of it as only the “deer in the headlights” response. That happens to deer because they do not understand that your car is moving at 60 MPH. If it were going at walking speed, the freeze response would protect the deer by giving it a few more seconds to consider more options.

It might be better to call the “freeze” response the “neither” response, or the “neutral” response or the “neither and keep thinking” response. Fight, flee, or do neither.

Rather than panic and run at or away from the bear, we do neither. Just stay still and consider our options. Time often dilates in such situations and most people probably have at least a few memories of making a very good decision during that brief time dilation.

In the human social realm—the realm of human signals—anxiety is often a sign of a stalled fight-flight response.

What I propose is that the next time you feel anxious about anything, consider the “freeze” or “neither and keep thinking” response rather than fight or flight. Call up and explore your freeze response. It is a very rich and useful response.

You can practice on a small anxiety-inducing incident, even manufacture one.

Do something that normally causes you to feel slightly anxious, but rather than feel anxious choose the “freeze” response instead. If the incident is small enough you will be able to engage in a cool, neutral brain state that greatly resembles beginner’s mind of the Zen tradition.

This technique moderates our instinctive response to a stressor by adding a layer of metacognition that guides it to what we want it to be.

It makes us mindful that we have more options than simply feeling anxious. Since we are social animals, human social stressors very often induce outsized responses that get stuck in a panic mode.

With just a small push from a metacognitive vantage, we can transform counterproductive anxiety into a more open and creative “freeze” response.

The five skandhas and modern science

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A recent study on emotional response—Amygdala Responsivity to High-Level Social Information from Unseen Faces—indicates that the Buddha’s five skandha explanation of consciousness has it right.

From the study’s abstract:

The findings demonstrate that the amygdala can be influenced by even high-level facial information before that information is consciously perceived, suggesting that the amygdala’s processing of social cues in the absence of awareness may be more extensive than previously described.

Note that all important phrase “…before that information is consciously perceived.”

The five skandhas are form, sensation, perception, activity, consciousness. A form can arise in the mind or outside of the mind. This form gives rise to a sensation, which gives rise to perception, followed by activity (mental or physical), and lastly consciousness. In the Buddha’s explanation, the five skandhas occur one after the other, very rapidly. They are not a continuous stream but rather a series of discrete or discernible moments. A form arises or appears, then there is a sensation, then perception, then activity, then consciousness.

Advanced training in meditation and mindfulness is probably necessary for most people to be able to observe the five skandhas individually, as they are actually “firing,” but it can be done. A good deal of Buddhist practice is based on being able to do that.

Though all brain imaging studies must be taken as provisional since the technology is not completely reliable, they still are providing us with some very interesting information worth considering.

The amygdala study cited above seems to confirm that people form significant emotional reactions to faces without being conscious of their reactions at all. In Buddhist terms, their reactions are (or take place at) the second skandha—sensation.

The skandha of sensation is defined as a reaction to a form that is either positive, negative, or neutral. That is, in varying degrees, we are either attracted to, repulsed by, or neutral toward the form. In the amygdala study the form is the face that is flashed very briefly on a screen. The face appears so briefly, for just a few milliseconds, that it is not possible to actually “see” or be aware of having “seen” it.

I think it is fair to extrapolate from this study that we humans are forming sensations all the time without being aware of what we are doing. As the authors of the study say, the study “[suggests] that the amygdala’s processing of social cues in the absence of awareness may be more extensive than previously described.”

“…processing of social cues in the absence of awareness” is pretty good description of what the Buddha called delusion, especially if we realize that the delusions we “process” from forms arising outside of us are entwined with and not very different from delusions we process from forms arising within us.

The Buddha’s five skandha explanation, thus, provides a way to observe and analyze our minds to prevent our becoming deluded by the tug of sensations that happen in the “absence of awareness.”

Some time ago, I reposted an essay that touches on this subject from a different angle and a different study: we do not sample our world continuously but in discrete snapshots.

Here is a pretty good article on the study cited above: Friend Or Foe? Even When Faces Are Not Clearly Visible, Your Brain Unconsciously Makes Judgments.

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.

link

__________

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

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 .

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Humans as networks

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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.

Well what the hell are you infected with to believe the official story that Tyler Robinson woke up one day and decided to drive 4 hours from his home to a college he’d never been to but just so happened to know exactly where to go and exactly how to get there in order to fire his single 30-06 round from his recently reassembled WWI rifle which was miraculously stopped by Charlie Kirk’s neck-bones made of steel? Is this some kind of vaccine side effect? Are you all recently boosted???

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Megyn Kelly saying Tyler Robinson is 100% guilty and she hopes she’s there when they flip the switch doesn’t taint the jury pool?

Jack Posobiec posting edited pictures claiming Tyler Robinson was a gun nut doesn’t taint the jury pool?

Andrew Kolvet posting a video of Tyler in court with fabricated lip reading quotes doesn’t taint the jury pool?

What planet do you people live on???

You think we have a “brain virus” because we can see what’s in front of us doesn’t add up?

Well what the hell are you infected with to believe the official story that Tyler Robinson woke up one day and decided to drive 4 hours from his home to a college he’d never been to but just so happened to know exactly where to go and exactly how to get there in order to fire his single 30-06 round from his recently reassembled WWI rifle which was miraculously stopped by Charlie Kirk’s neck-bones made of steel? Is this some kind of vaccine side effect? Are you all recently boosted???

link

How envy causes conflict

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…The most cursory look at the sort of thinking now dominant in the West shows that it is doing the reverse. Anti-racism never concerns itself with the spiritual self-improvement of its beneficiaries. It is concerned with worldly goods, but does nothing to help people improve their lot through effective means such as learning skills or deferring gratification and planning for the future. Its constant message is: You have less because the white man has more, and he has more because he has rigged the game in his favor.

Critical race theory inculcates resentment among children to whom it might otherwise not have occurred to compare themselves invidiously with their white neighbors, and directs their attention away from practical ways to improve their own lives. As we have seen, many societies have been dominated by envy, but I cannot think of another case of a regime systematically trying to maximize envy in the rising generation. It is genuinely cruel to the non-white children who are supposedly its intended beneficiaries, but as we would expect from envy-inspired behavior, the aim appears to be to harm us rather than to help them.

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While you may not agree with all of this article, it is worth reading just for having raised the issue of envy and focusing on it.

Personally, I can truthfully say that not understanding the power of envy has caused me many problems. If you do not feel envy or do not feel it much or often, it may not occur to you how often it distorts the thinking of others.

A Buddhist nun, who is a good friend, often used to tell me that “jealousy” or “envy” were the root causes of much of what we were seeing around us.

For years, I always countered her statements with some anodyne explanation but no longer do.

Envy over talent or status and sexual jealousy are among the strongest negative emotions we humans have.

If you are blessed with decent looks and brains and some ability to work productively, you may not realize how much others may be seething with envy.

If you feel envy, practice Buddhism. It will cure that malady well.

If you do not feel envy or do not feel it much, Buddhist contemplations on others—intellectual empathy—may help in understanding that the karma or conditions endured by others can be very difficult for them to bear.

Buddhist monks live simply and have “left home” (the world) both to keep themselves from feeling envy and to keep others from envying them, among other reasons.

If you are blessed (or have earned) a mind rarely sullied by envy, be careful not to be oblivious of it in others. ABN

Hierarchies evolve to reduce connections (and confusion)

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Large social systems, especially those with many members who do not know each other, evolve into hierarchies because the number of connections is reduced.

When the number of connections that hold a group together is reduced, it is less costly to maintain the group and thus such groups are more likely to survive.

Military organizations, companies, religious organizations and schools are usually organized into hierarchical structures. Creative, independent modules can relieve some of the formalism of hierarchy but these modules will still fit into the hierarchical structure somewhere.

Hierarchies are (always?) organized around a purpose—money for corporations, winning for militaries, belief and organizational systems for religions, food for animals and so on.

You can even see the hierarchical principle in plant structures.

A research project on this topic as it applies to artificial intelligence demonstrates that biological networks evolve into hierarchies:

…because hierarchically wired networks have fewer connections. (Research showing why hierarchy exists will aid the development of artificial intelligence)

If we accept this principle behind the development of hierarchies, I would submit that we can also apply it to how language has developed as a hierarchy in and of itself and also as a support system for the social hierarchy within which it is used.

Language and culture are held together by a system of hierarchical categories.

These categories are what we think of as beliefs, values, codes, stories, political systems, who’s who in the group, and so on.

Hierarchical systems based on general categories of that type typically also exist between individuals within any society. Indeed, we can find the same sort of hierarchical system within the individual.

This is an efficient and very reasonable way to maintain a society and a language.

Problems arise in this system, however, when the individual does not know any other way of organizing themself or of communicating with others.

An individual who exists and communicates only within a hierarchical structure will be alienated from the great mass of idiosyncratic perceptions, responses, thoughts, and emotions that exist within them and others. I think that this causes a great deal of psychological suffering and is a major part of what the Buddha meant by delusion.

FIML is designed to fix this problem between individuals.

Metacognitive rift posited in silly story about Usha’s wedding ring

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The Second Lady was ringless during her visit to Camp Lejeune military base in Richlands, North Carolina on Wednesday with First Lady Melania Trump.  

Photos show Usha, 39, getting off a plane with her left hand in full view – and the wedding band nowhere to be seen. 

Second Lady Usha Vance was seen traveling to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on Wednesday with her wedding finger noticeably bare 

Additional images from Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River confirm the ring remained off throughout the visit.

The Vice President, meanwhile, was photographed wearing his wedding band during a speaking event in Washington on Thursday.  

The image comes after weeks of nasty trolls whispering about the state of the Vance marriage, which began in October with the Vice President’s tight hug he gave to Erika Kirk during a memorial for her husband, the right wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The speculation about a possible rift between the Second Couple was fueled by the VP admitting that he has pleaded with his wife to convert from Hinduism: he is a Roman Catholic.

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The Buddha is the world’s first still famous skeptic.

Pyrrho of Elis, a Greek philosopher in the 4th century BCE is the world’s first still famous Greek skeptic.

Pyrrho learned his skepticism from Buddhist monks in Bactria where Pyrrho stayed for ten years with Alexander the Great.

Skepticism in Buddhism can also be called ‘Buddhism without beliefs’.

The Buddha never answered questions about who and what we are, where we go or do not go after death, the existence of God and so on.

These, and more, are known as the ‘unanswerable questions‘.

‘Therefore, O monks, do not brood over [any of these views]. Such brooding, O monks, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine pure conduct (s. ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla), does not lead to aversion, detachment, extinction, nor to peace, to full comprehension, enlightenment and Nibbāna.[17]

This means that the Buddha did not have a rigid, verbalizable view of human metacognition.

The story above is silly for obvious reasons.

But it is a culturally clickbait-worthy story because both Christians and most Hindus hold rigid metacognitive ‘beliefs’ about their religions.

From a Buddhist point of view, rigid metacognitive beliefs or ‘views’ are:

‘Accompanied by suffering, distress, despair, & fever, and do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening, Unbinding…

‘Whoever speculates about these things will go mad & experience vexation’.

In like manner so it is with all rigid meta-cognitive views on the self, our analyses of ourselves, our understanding of others, our political views, our scientific views, our religious and spiritual views.

In Buddhism, all metacognitive views should be open, pliable, moveable, viewed as impermanent, viewed with a healthy skepticism that allows us to focus on what is of greatest importance — the attainment of liberation through wholesome practice.

Buddhism must be experienced to be understood.

A battle between opposing metacognitive views, such as the one being implied in the story above, is a waste of Usha’s time, Vance’s time, and everyone’s time, except insofar as this example may help others understand the futility and unwholesomeness of being rigid in any metacognitive view about ultimate matters. ABN