Tag: thought

A major unit of psycholinguistics that I have not seen described: convertations

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

When we consider psycholinguistics from the point of view of interpersonal communication (especially psychologically rich communication) we can identify a unit of communication that springs from the working memory as it indexes deeper and more extensive information stored elsewhere in the mind/brain.

This unit of communication is used to start a conversation and then maintain it.

For example, my partner recently had a performance review at her job. This morning I asked her about it. When I asked her, I intended to start a conversation. Along with my intention, I knew a few things:

  • that she would be interested in the topic
  • that she would have new information
  • that I knew a good deal about it but not as much as her
  • that we would almost certainly engage in a conversation that is of practical as well as psychological interest to both of us

In raising the subject, I held an amorphous notion in my working memory roughly described by the text just above. I embarked on the subject with a pointed yet open-ended question, “So how is the job review going…”

That question signaled in my mind, and it turns out in may partner’s as well, that I wanted to converse with her about her job review.

I want to call what I did there the initiation of a convertation,(which is the word conversation with a “t” in place of the “s”). I am using a special term because I want to isolate and describe it as a psycholinguistic unit of major importance to both speech and psychology.

I submit that a convertation, which the above is merely a single example of, is a major psycholinguistic unit; a major piece of psychology and language both together and separately.

A convertation springs from the working memory where it appears as an index of much more. Many convertations could be described as “gambits,” but gambits are only one type.

Loosely speaking, a convertation includes an intention, a purpose, somewhat defined content, and open-endedness. In the example above:

  • My intention was to converse with my partner, listen to her speak, enjoy the morning, have fun talking with her, and find out how her job review was going.
  • My purpose was to get new information and assess how the review was affecting her and if I had any role to play in it.
  • The content (once it began) of now our convertation was the job review and my partner’s psychological responses toward it. Less important but also significant were my psychological responses to hers.
  • The open-endedness could be anything sparked by the original premise of the convertation.

In the case above, everything went smoothly. My partner was not stressed by the review. It seemed to be going well. I felt some relief but was not surprised. At some point, we began a discussion of why her employer did the review the way they did. Lastly, I said our talking constituted a good example of what I mean by convertation.

Convertations can be fruitful and very pleasant as in the above example. Or they can be fraught with dangerous misunderstandings, misplaced emotions, psychological and linguistic harm.

Sometimes a convertation constitutes an entire conversation. Sometimes a convertation is a sub-unit of a larger conversation. If you isolate convertations and view them as units in themselves, sharper distinctions can be made about how and why people speak to each other.

The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian

~ ABN ~ 10 Comments

This speech should be read by everyone interested in China. Draw your own conclusions about how much it has to do with recent events. Chi Haotian was the defense minister of China from 1993-2003. An excerpt from his speech can be found just below. Be sure to read the whole speech. More information about it is provided at the link below.

…Conventional weapons such as fighters, canons, missiles and battleships won’t do; neither will highly destructive weapons such as nuclear weapons. We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons, despite the fact that we have been exclaiming that we will have the Taiwan issue resolved at whatever cost. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio-weapons have been invented one after another. Of course, we have not been idle, in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of “cleaning up” America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focus instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country.

From a humanitarian perspective, we should issue a warning to the American people and persuade them to leave America and leave the land they have lived in to the Chinese people. Or at least they should leave half of the United States to be China’s colony, because America was first discovered by the Chinese. But would this work? If this strategy does not work, then there is only one choice left to us. That is, use decisive means to “clean up” America and reserve America for our use in a moment. Our historical experience has proven that as long as we make it happen, nobody in the world can do anything about us. Furthermore, if the United States as the leader is gone, then other enemies have to surrender to us.

Biological weapons are unprecedented in their ruthlessness, but if the Americans do not die then the Chinese have to die. If the Chinese people are strapped to the present land, a total societal collapse is bound to take place. (The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian) (The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian: Full Copy)

I have posted the translation found on J.R. Nyquist’s blog because this version contains parts left out of other versions I have seen, particularly Chi’s introductory discussion of an online survey.

As far as I have been able to determine, this translation is an accurate rendition of a real speech given to high-level Communist Party leaders.

Below are some quotes from Sun Tzu:

“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

A strong argument that coronavirus was bio-engineered and escaped the Wuhan lab

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

The following article makes a strong case that the coronavirus (COVID19) was a bio-engineered pathogen created at the Chinese Wuhan BSL-4 lab and that it most likely escaped from the lab due to negligence.

This report is the product of a collaboration between a retired professional scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed publications and 30 years of experience in genomic sequencing and analysis, who worked at the Theoretical Biology Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and later helped design several ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, as well as a former NSA counterterrorism analyst. It considers whether the Wuhan Strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) is the result of naturally emergent mutations against the possibility that it may be a bio-engineered strain – directly altered by genetic manipulation, subject to artificially-guided evolutionary selection, or both – most likely released into the public by accident since China’s rate of occupational accidents is about ten-times higher than America’s, and some twenty-times more than Europe’s, the only other regions with high-level virology labs.

Raising the odds of an accidental release, researchers from China’s only BSL-4 lab in Wuhan were reported to have particularly sloppy field research methods, being both bled and peed on by local bats that host coronaviruses remarkably similar to the Wuhan Strain COVID-19. And they’ve also been reported to smuggle used research animals out of their labs, selling them for cash on the street. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in mid February the Chinese Ministry of Science sent out a directive to all its labs emphasizing the important of carefully handling bio-infectious agents and alluding to slack oversight and past lapses, even mentioning coronaviruses specifically. (Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19))

There are good links and a video available in front of and within the above article.

I vastly prefer the hypothesis that the virus was negligently released from China’s Wuhan BSL-4 lab. And there is good circumstantial evidence for this.

But there is also good circumstantial evidence that the virus was deliberately released by the CCP as payback for losing the trade war. Either way, gross negligence or deliberate hostility, the Communist Party of China at the very least owes the world a real and thorough explanation, a real apology, and probably very massive reparations.

If the virus was an act of war against the entire global community, I don’t know what to say or what will happen next.

Coronavirus: fiasco, hoax, or the real thing?

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

It would be a fiasco if preventative measures are far in excess of what is warranted; a hoax if a deliberate agenda lies behind the fiasco; the real thing if our worst projections are born out by facts we do not yet have.

John Ioannidis makes a strong argument that we should wonder if the global response to the virus is a fiasco:

…The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population. (A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data)

That the US response is a hoax or possibly a hoax is explained by sundance, a well-regarded conservative blogger:

…There’s been a debate about possible political motives surrounding the panic he has created; the massive economic damage he has inflicted; and the conflicting assertions of National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.

CTH identifies the motives as sketchy.  He appears to use his position to advance theories and yet position himself to avoid scrutiny.

Sometimes within a 24 hour period Fauci will make a statement, then contradict the initial assertion, then attempt to cloud his own conflict with obtuse and wordy explanations. (Political Health – The Motives of a Very, Very, Political Dr. Fauci…)

If it’s the real thing, a real pandemic with unusually high mortality rates, then we still have many unknowns to consider. Chief among them is the question of whether the virus is a bioweapon or not. If it were a man-made bioweapon, its chemical and RNA structure should reveal that. If the virus evolved naturally, it still could have been used as a weapon.

If it was a weapon, was it released due to negligence or design? If by design, who did it? Since the virus first appeared in Wuhan, which is also the site of a virus research lab, the most likely explanation is it escaped into the general population due to negligence.

Other explanations are, the CCP did it deliberately as payback for losing its parasitic privileges in world trade; the US did it to finish the CCP off; someone else did it, possibly Russia or Israel (because Iran has also suffered badly).

Of course, there are many other possibilities worth considering. Variations on the coivd19 story read like prompts for playwrights.

From a Buddhist point of view, there is much to be gained from this catastrophe, no matter how it eventually comes to be seen. Life, death, impermanence, emptiness, the value of mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion are all stimulated producing heightened awareness and sensitivity to the miracle of existing at all.

Bioweapons and US research on them

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Dr Francis Boyle used to be a frequent bioweapons commentator on MSM. Until he said that the anthrax used in the post-9/11 attacks came from Ft Detrick. Then he disappeared from TV.

Boyle is still worth listening to. He claims, I think credibly, that the coronavirus was developed at a lab in North Carolina and was either shared with or stolen by China. China, according to Boyle, further weaponized the virus in Wuhan where it was negligently allowed to escape.

(I believe it is also worth considering that the CCP purposely released the virus to destabilize the Western capitalist system. Payback for losing the trade war.)

I do not agree with Boyle that the USA must stop bioweapons research. Since there is nothing the USA can do to stop bioweapon research in other countries, we would be foolish to stop it ourselves. If we stop it here (which we have not), other countries will quickly get ahead of us. Research in this field also includes finding vaccines and cures. Indeed, sharing research with other countries, as may have been done with China, is one reasonable way to stave off malicious use of these weapons.

Bioweapons are similar to nukes or the NSA database. Nothing will stop other countries from developing these weapons/tools, so we have to do it too.

I believe it would probably be a good idea for Trump to just come out and say basically what has been said above. This is a level of reality we all can understand. Once this level is admitted, we might also hope for more transparency and decency in how these tools are used (data-mining in particular) or dealt with (bioweapons in particular).

Here is a link to a recent Boyle interview:

https://banned.video/watch?id=5e61749ff40ae500aa048732

If the coronavirus is a bioweapon, we are on the brink of war

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Whether USA did it to China or China did it to the world, if the coronavirus is a bioweapon at this point it no longer matters. We are on the brink of WW3.

The public will never know what happened and neither government can possibly know what the other will do next. If it’s a bioweapon, whether it was released accidentally or deliberately, we are on the brink of war because suspicion and threat assessments will be at their highest levels.

A bioweapon need not be lethal to be effective. Witness the effects of coronavirus right now. When people are harmed in great numbers, but not killed, they require expensive care and paralyze whole societies.

Signs coronavirus is a bioweapon are its “gain of function.” Gain of function is jargon that means weaponizing a natural pathogen through genetic or chemical manipulation to produce a more lethal, contagious, or otherwise effective organism.

The coronavirus shows several signs of “gain of function.” It is highly contagious, has a long period of symptomless transmission, and is lethal enough to cause panic and social confusion.

If it is a bioweapon, the two most likely perpetrators of its release are USA or China. The release may have been deliberate or it may have been accidental. It is quite possible a third party is responsible; Russia, some rogue NGO, or some other entity.

A significant sign that coronavirus is a bioweapon is to date no government has officially released a chemical or genetic analysis of its structure. If it were a naturally occurring virus, such an analysis would be an important part of the news.

Unofficially, there are more than a few indications that coronavirus (COVID19) is a chimera containing parts of the HIV and SARS viruses spliced onto a naturally occurring coronavirus.

If coronavirus was accidentally released, whoever did it will have to work very hard to prove it was an accident. There are some signs the virus was accidentally released in the USA last summer. Other signs that it was released in China in early November.

At this point, all we the public have is probabilistic thinking and guesswork. I posted these thoughts not to be alarmist but to be realistic. I can understand governments not divulging all the facts. They do not want to further panic their populations. But many of us are smart enough to handle the details. For us the opacity is what is most unsettling.

Evolution can favor mild viral infections, thus possibly making East Asians more susceptible to Covid19

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

…I [have] argued that coronaviruses have coevolved with the Chinese population, to the point of developing a commensal relationship. A few points:

–  Such viruses include the common cold and are normally mild in their effects.

– Repeated coronaviral infections of lung tissue may actually help increase resistance to more serious pulmonary infections, like tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the Spanish flu of 1918—which curiously spared China. 

– Chinese lung tissue would thus facilitate coronaviral infections as a sort of routine vaccination. 

– If this is true, modern medicine has inadvertently made the Chinese population particularly vulnerable to deadly diseases like the Wuhan coronavirus by reducing the prevalence of milder pulmonary infections. (Coevolution with the plague)

This is the best essay I have seen on the topic of are or why are East Asians more susceptible to Covid19.

Nowadays, the topic of racial differences is avoided like the plague. If Covid19 is more harmful to East Asians (Mongoloids) due to ACE2 receptor differences in the lungs, no one benefits from hiding that information.

Good overview of Game Theory as applied to Artificial Intelligence

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Game theory is experiencing a renaissance driven by the evolution of AI. What are some classic and new ideas that data scientists should be aware of.

Game theory is one of the most fascinating areas of mathematics that have influenced diverse fields such as economics, social sciences, biology and, obviously, computer science. There are many ways to think about game theory but one that I find really helpful, although overly simplistic, is:

game theory is probabilities with incentives

Games are playing a key role in the evolution of artificial intelligence(AI). For starters, game environments are becoming a popular training mechanism in areas such as reinforcement learning or imitation learning. In theory, any multi-agent AI system can be subjected to gamified interactions between its participants. The branch of mathematics that formulates the principles of games is known as game theory. In the context of artificial intelligence(AI) and deep learning systems, game theory is essential to enable some of the key capabilities required in multi-agent environments in which different AI programs need to interact or compete in order to accomplish a goal. (A Crash Course in Game Theory for Machine Learning: Classic and New Ideas)

Are 1,200 bodies burned every day in mobile incinerators in Wuhan?

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

This information is has not been confirmed but it comes from a famous Chinese dissident who also happens to be a billionaire. I do not believe he is lying. His information may be wrong, but many other signs point to a large pandemic that can no longer be contained. Watch the vid and decide for yourself.

https://twitter.com/TruthAbtChina/status/1231782255271522304

EDIT: Here is another tape from Guo.

https://twitter.com/Bobkrobinson1/status/1231923598949961728

What we know about COVID-19 and some speculation

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

First, what we know:

Speculation based on what I have read, COVID-19:

  • is likely a bio-weapon that escaped from a BSL-4 (Biosafety level 4) laboratory in Wuhan, China
  • it could also be a dangerous naturally-occurring virus being studied at that lab
  • statistics on numbers of infected and deaths in China are grossly underreported
  • clusters appearing in other parts of the world and within institutions indicate significant likelihood that a worldwide pandemic may be unavoidable
  • the virus attacks through ACE 2 receptors in the lungs
  • at this point in time, this seems to indicate that Mongoloid-type individuals (who have more ACE 2 receptors than others) are more susceptible to the virus, though this has not been confirmed. Counterevidence includes: a) China is the epicenter and b) disease clusters are also appearing in Italy and Iran
  • the WHO has been very ineffective against COVD-19 and may have hindered early containment (due to political connections with China’s CCP)
  • the virus is highly contagious and can be spread by carriers who are entirely symptomless
  • thus, it is only reasonable to take extra precautions against transmission: clean hands, don’t touch your face, shower more often, avoid crowds, and keep your distance from others

As for whether COVID-19 is a bio-weapon, RNA analyses seem to show that it is an unusually contagious chimera that could not have occurred naturally. WHO and all governments have been downplaying the danger of the virus to avoid panic and/or angering China.

If the virus is eventually shown to be a bio-weapon, worldwide turmoil will ensue. The above is what I have gathered from reading about the virus. On a small site like this, we can be honest without worrying about contributing to worldwide panic.

My listing of probabilities and uncertain evidence above is a sort of Bayesian reasoning tree. If any of the parts change, the whole tree could also change. A few other pieces of evidence in this line of reasoning are: a) a bio-weapon pandemic has been predicted for decades, largely because bio-weapons exist and several have already escaped (Lyme, SARS, MERS, etc); and b) a simulation of just such a pandemic was conducted in October 2019.

EDIT: Twitter feed with frequent updates: #Covid19

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: a discussion

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Linked below is a thoughtful discussion of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).

Personally, I think we all have CPTSD for how can the basic needs of a child (acceptance and security) ever be fully met?

A core aspect of Buddhist mindfulness training is noticing disturbing psychological responses the moment they arise. The ways these responses are dealt with and cured is a major focus of Buddhist practice.

The discussion linked below explores mindfulness in CPTSD therapy. It also describes the therapeutic concept “co-regulation,” which entails two people mindfully regulating or curing unwanted stressors together. (FIML does that extremely well, btw.)

Here’s the discussion. It’s a good read.

-Behaviors serve a purpose and are maladaptive attempts to meet an unmet need and trauma survivors generally have maladaptive behaviors which came from shame and recreate shame. If you struggle with an eating disorder, substances, or other compulsive or destructive behaviors, honor the need you were trying to get met, the feeling you were trying to feel/not feel, and work on addressing that in a substantial way instead of focusing on controlling symptoms or shaming yourself for “bad” behavior

-our childhood relationship solutions are our adult relationship problems. Complex trauma is attachment trauma, so we are all impacted primarily in our ways of relating to ourselves and others. Be gentle with yourself for the childhood solutions (fawning, complying, running, clinging, manipulating, avoiding, etc) that are now causing adult relationship problems. Don’t label yourself as co dependent or rush yourself to not feel what you feel – you’ve been programmed this way and it takes conscious unlearning and practice to create new patterns

-there is nothing wrong with craving deep, meaningful, secure relationships. We are meant to be connected and healing takes place not just in our relationship with ourselves but our relationship with others. Often children with complex trauma will develop one of two attitudes to cope. A) if I’m good enough I’ll be lovable or B) fine I don’t need these people anyways. If you need love and the needs are unmet those needs become so painful we sometimes shut them down, which creates inner tension because the deep need for attachment and love never truly goes away, it’s just repressed. Unfortunately, some “recovery from co-dependency” can mimic this message of needing to be independent, self sufficient, and shut down the need for co-regulation and attachment.

-co dependency isn’t about your relationship with anyone else,‘ it’s about a lack of a relationship with yourself

-identifying and healing my nervous system and attachment patterns and rebuilding self trust are the two most important parts of my healing (The main things I’ve learned as a CPTSD survivor and trauma therapist so far)

Unfortunately, the original post linked above has been deleted. I posted it because it is a very natural voice of someone with real life experience. I also like it because it is a clear description of what underlies poor interpersonal communication. FIML not only fixes problems like these but also raises interpersonal communication to its full optimal potential. ABN

Facial expressions: we often read them wrong and then make huge mistakes

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Both emotions and facial expressions are ancient instincts.

Human language and cognition have grown well-beyond ancient instincts. Grown beyond but also still affected by.

We have become more complex.

Today, we not only read instincts, we also read instincts into other people’s cognition through what they say, how they say it, how it sounds, how their faces move.

Which micro-expression is the right one?

The truth is we don’t know. Our readings of facial expressions in real-time, real-world situations are often wrong, often tragically.

Our cognition has advanced beyond our instincts but generally speaking it has not advanced far enough for us to generally recognize this fact.

Cultures and social groups deal with the ambiguity of facial expressions by being formal, wearing masks, emphasizing “face” or “saving face,” promoting respect or strong egos that can sell themselves through assertion of meaning, Botox, makeup, boobs, etc.

I think it is arguable that many/most/all people take on and use religion or philosophy in order to provide themselves with a generalizable set of emotions and facial expressions that can be employed in many situations. In this we can see how the architecture of our cognition (our philosophy/religion) is connected to our emotions and facial expressions.

Obviously, our reading of other people’s faces and emotions is not always wrong. If it were we wouldn’t do it at all. But our readings are wrong often enough that tragic mistakes are frequently made.

It is a pity that these truths are not more widely recognized. Browse almost any psychological forum and you will find many comments concerning the anguish people feel at having a condition that is widely misunderstood or misread.

At least they know what is going on.

This morning I saw this article: NEVER trust a person’s face: Scientists say it is ‘completely baloney’ that you can read people’s emotions from their expressions.

And that led me to search for this paper: Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements.

I am sure most, if not all, psychologists recognize the basic problem of our poor abilities at reading emotions, tone of voice, gesture, and even what we mean at all when we speak and act.

Does anyone know what to do about it?

Global Workspace Theory and mistake awareness & correction

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Global workspace theory is a description of how our minds work. The word global refers to the whole mind or brain, not the world.

The central feature of this theory—the global workspace—is conscious working memory, or working memory that could be made conscious with minimal effort.

This global workspace is also what a great deal of Buddhist mindfulness attends to. If we focus our attention on what is coming in and out of our global workspace, we will gain many insights into how our minds operate.

The Buddha’s five skandha explanation of consciousness can be understood as a form (or percepta) entering the global workspace.

Consciousness is the fifth skandha in the chain of skandhas. It is very important to recognize that whatever we become conscious of is not necessarily right.

With this in mind, we can see that being mindful of what is entering and leaving our global workspace can help us forestall errors from forming and growing in our minds.

In the Buddhist tradition, ignorance (a kind of error) is the deep source of all delusion.

But how do I know if the percepta or bits of information entering my awareness are right or wrong?

Well, there is science and Bayesian thought processes to help us, and they are both very good, but is there anything else?

What about my actual mind? My psychology? My understanding of my being in the world? How do I become mindful and more right about these?

Besides science and Bayes, I can ask an honest friend who knows me well if the percepta I think I just received from them is right or wrong.

If my friend knows the game, they will be ready to answer me before my global workspace changes too much. If my friend confirms my interpretation of what they just did or said, I will know that my interpretation (or consciousness) is correct.

If they disconfirm, I will know that my interpretation was incorrect, a mistake.

This kind of information is wonderful!

We calibrate fine instruments to be sure we are getting accurate readings from them. Why not our own minds?

This kind of calibration can be done in a general way, but you will get a general answer in that case. If you want a precise reading, a mindfulness answer, you need to play the FIML communication game.