The Data-to-Theory feedback path, in conjunction with further theory-bound observation, forms a theory-reconfiguring feedback loop that adjusts the Theory to lock-on to data and be better organized for the purpose of efficiently explaining and perceiving the data.
Observation of data is theory-bound. The scientific method is usually expressed in too-crude form: you make a predictive hypothesis, conduct an experiment, and observe whether the predicted outcome occurs or not. If not, make a different prediction. When the prediction is confirmed by the outcome matching it, the theory has been confirmed.
Then you communicate that theory to other observers (scientists) who repeat the experiment and collectively tally their results, producing scientific consensus. That's the popular, crass "Scientific Method as Predictionism" model, or way of putting it, that I so disparage.
"Prediction" is far too crude a model of science, yet all the poor books still push the crude vague ideology of Predictionism: the scientific method is Prediction then Confirmation or Refutation, then Collective re-Testing, achieving Scientific Consensus after Collective Confirmation.
My better, more flexible model than the crude model of the scientific method as "prediction and confirmation", with dynamics added, instead producing "theory-bound data-observation reconfiguring the theory to enable more coherent and distinct data-observation":
1. You create a partly right theory, and test it against the data, but are unable to perceive the data clearly. The data pushes back in a complex vector, shaping the theory.
2. The adjusted theory is better able to perceive the data, and the adjusted theory pushes against the data, and the data pushes back in another complex vector, shaping the theory further.
3. Finally the fully adjusted theory is able to perceive the data perfectly, the data doesn't push back with any vector, the theory is not altered, and the theory is now shaped in perfect accordance with the data.
There's a difference between the quality of your Theory or Mental Model in step 2 and 3:
In step 2, your model [eg my main article of 2005-2006] has barely enough match, is green, has minimal sweep/scope of confirmation, with the minimum possible indexings: a robust sapling, a glorious young tree.
Step 3 is a cornucopia, with increasing rate of lock-on feedback to quickly reshape the theory, perceive and gather data more effectively, and based on what's now perceiveed more clearly, further adjust the Theory-lens.
Step 2's mental model was solid, great, commendable. But step 3's resulting theory is masterful, luxuriant, copious, overflowing, plethora, is more concise, more organized, more dense, more capable. The more mature, well-formed, refactored, fine-tuned Theory after step 3 has greater explanatory power, greater conceptual coherence, fuller mapping to previous theories.
In 2005, I was busy writing the Theory-specification including metaphor, for the first time. 2011 with only a few more months of work compared to the end of 2007, … I evaluated what happened that enabled my recent feedback-buildup to yesterday, and the answer amounts to "all the ideas in the postings I wrote, Sep-Nov 2011".
The idea of Priority Sequence, being first Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Entheogens, then Metaphor.
Quitting paying any attention or giving away and legitimation to "what people think". Giving the finger full-on, to Establishment thinking; becoming radicalized and "militant", becoming a rabid, frenzied, berserking theorist; I went berserk on the received view, even taking down my fellow would-be cohorts for their being complicit with the Establishment. You have to violently rip and tear the received views and biases out of your thinking!
Tear out the hypnotizing worm! (The Matrix)
Rip off the tranquilizing control-puck from your android torso! (Star Wars)
Pluck the implanted controller-pill out! (The Candidate)
Stick the plucker-stick up through your nose into your brain and pull out the tracker! (Total Recall)
Leverage the force of hard-core doctrinal purity. Be ready to dictate to the data what it must say and be. Be extremist, simplistic, minimalist, doctrinaire, put all attention and commitment on defining the simplest possible 1st-order approximation — screw the fickle, mentally enfeebling politically correct efforts to please everyone. Anyone who doesn't like some aspect of the Theory, go jump off a high place.
If the data doesn't agree with the Theory, then too bad for the data — the Theory is correct.
I am in the headspace to shove those ideas to fullness and purity, to take the metaphor-extended Theory from the 2005 first effort first version, green, babe, hatchling, to sophisticated/masterful.
Theory develops by adjustment in light of data partially perceived. A phase-locked loop feedback. In loosecog, you perceive aspects of the target understanding, which enables you to perceive the object dynamics in question, which shapes your mental model (theory), through which you perceive in a theory-bound way (not a static theory though — a theory-under-adjustment). The result is dynamic theory adjustment based on observation feedback, with increasingly capable observation.
Doing the early 20th Century Modern Physics experiments in the laboratory helped me have the confidence, not alienation, to be an independent philosopher of scientific discovery and an independent philosophical interpreter of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. When you cannot perceive every aspect of an object, it is insane to conclude with Bohr that the object must not have the aspects that we are incapable of observing.
The sane approach, per Albert Einstein, Heisenberg, David Bohm, and James Cushing, is to use the clues that are avaiable to construct a conceptually coherent model of what is evidently going on underneath the covers of what we *can* see. That model, being tangible and visualizable and comprehensible (unlike Copenhagenism) then provides maximal ability to do further experiments and observations, making progress in expanding the mental model and Theory.
Science must not be derailed by the separate, distinct issue of Ontology. We must look to Engineering instead, seeing as Science has lost its mind and its nerve and has prostituted itself in subservience to propping up the egoic project of freewill reification; when we need to figure shit out, Science gets off on throwing up its arms, while Engineering says "step aside: let me make sense of things and construct a sensible model of what's going on under the covers.
Go do your Ontology stroking your beards, reveling in the prospect of joyous incomprehensibility, but don't confuse that with real Science, which is about figuring shit out by hook or crook to make sense of the world, leveraging Feyerabend's story of real science, which is "whatever method gets the job done, whatever it takes, case-by-case".
What Philosophy of Science book discusses feedback between theory and data: the theory shapes the observation of the data, and the observed data shapes the theory, forming a feedback loop that alters the theory and the observing of data, until the theory and data match.
That's how real science really works. hypothesis/prediction–>experiment to confirm/disconfirm (or way better, to *partially* confirm in particular ways: the confirmation isn't a Yes or No; it's a *complex vector* serving to push back to reshape the theory, not dumbly answer Y or N. A dynamic, elaborate data pushback vector.
The data to be explained (the explanandum) is: things experienced in loosecog, and mythemes.
Put simply:
Explain entheogen tripping, and explain mythemes.
Approach the data (explanandum) with initial rough ill-formed theory "mythemes are something to do with Cybernetics, Heimarmene, and Entheogens". Tune and adjust some of the hypotheses in line with the explanandum:
Maybe snake = heimarmene.
Maybe the ancient banqueting tradition = entheogens.
Maybe "being alone and wrestling with the unnamed man all night to get a blessing from God" = control-cybernetics.
Maybe king = cybernetics.
Is there evidence throughout Western Esotericism and Western religion to support such conjectures? Yes, to the extent that metaphor is so interpreted, which requires judgment on "reading" metaphor, judgment to measure the degree of confirmation.
During 2001-2005, I got some possible confirmation of the 3 pillars (Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Entheogens) being expressed in the 4th pillar (Metaphor), in Western Esotericism and Western Religion. Entheogens were fairly easy and concrete to confirm the presence of.
Then, a few weeks ago (such as Sep 2011), I thoughts about books that have bits of my pillar-topics in them and yet fall miles short — that led me to invent the idea of organized weighting, in mythic Esotericism interpretation: the Pri1 referent and emphasis is required to be Cybernetics; Pri 2 = Heimarmene, and Pri3 = Entheogens, particularly mushrooms.
That Priority Sequence is versus Carl Ruck et al, who implicitly theorizes that the Pri1 target of myth is entheogens, and there is no Pri2 required, to understand myth.
Acharya S asserts, in throwback 1880s fashion, that the Pri1 reference topic is (literally) the sun, and there is no Pri2 target topic, to understand the religious myth around Christianity. Look at my posts 2001-2005 and ask in what way they were not yet a complete breakthrough to the degree I now have.
Why, or in what sense per Paul Thagard's cognitive science-based computer modelling of scientific discovery, did I manage a mountain of total breakthrough around November 23, 2011, while in comparison, there was less complete breakthrough around November 14, 2001, 2005 with my main Theory-specification article, and by the end of December, 2007, when I tore myself away to hiatus til Sep. 2011?
It's a matter of degree of cross-indexing, "deepening" the associations, and refining the internal infrastructure of the Theory, and gaining fluency and facility and adeptness at "reading" myth. I had to apply pressure for a few months in 2011 to turn the relatively charcoalish diamond of 2005 into a pure diamond. I had to do some passes at refining the Theory, making various *kinds* of improvements.
I finally had to yesterday start working on a model of theory-deepening or "breakthrough", because I keep re-learning is that a breakthrough comes not at one moment, one day, but is preshocks, big earthquake, then aftershocks. The weeks and days leading up to yesterday, November 23, 2011, felt like a jackpot, joined by an increased rush of gold coins, followed by further bursts of increasing the flow every day, over a couple weeks.
I feel today that I'm past the peak of this unexpected motherlode jackpot, though I expect to find plenty more confirmation, not that any is needed. Now myth is before me like a library to read for general strengthening of the Theory and enjoyment — just the same way that reading yet another mysticism or religion book often feels worthwhile, for a somewhat different tone and perspective.
In 2007, I reached 70% toward 100% breakthrough. What was the 30% still missing?
o Priority Sequence (Pri1:Cyb Pri2:Heim Pri3:Mshr)
o Mushroom focus (very streamlined and thought-clarifying compared to hazy, uncertain, doubt-inducing "entheogens")
o In 2005, I relied and was dependent on piecemeal evidence, needed Diamond Hammer of Interpretation to transcend bits of evidence — as I wrote recently: Quit acting as if the entheogen theory stands or falls with individual mushroom findings in art; certainly there are lots, it's way too late to act as if we can dismiss the whole by rejecting every instance.
Andy Letcher in his helpful and harmful, badly argued, uninformed book (do your homework!), barely even acknowledges any of the by-then well-known instances of mushrooms in Christian art; his careless waving-aside of them starts to sound like that move JZ Smith critiques as obstinate apologetics: Protestant Jesus-guild members write "Because no one instance of pagan mythic religion is *exactly* the same as Christianity, we are justified in facilely dismissing the assertion "Christianity is like pagan religion; Christianity is pagan Mystery cult in Jewish drag."
Letcher acts as if it's unimportant whether his arguments actually have any persuasive power, or whether he presents a coherent argument; the only thing that's important is to, one way or another, including kettle logic (inconsistent argumentation structure) to dismiss any bits of evidence he admits exist, to discredit in any way, in favor of any other (inconsistent) goal he invents on the spot to represent his own (inconsistent, shifting) position. His aim isn't to construct a consistent position, except the general, ludicrous and ill-defined position, vaguely amounting to the position that religious mushroom use has no history.
o With the major topic of Entheogens, too, for a breakthrough, I had to recently quit piecemeal data-consideration; leverage the whole hypothesis system with vigor of consistency of assumption and interpretation/observation. I had to end the mere *piecemeal*-oriented focus to get it in our heads that "We get it, yes, mushrooms are all throughout myth."
It's not as if the Entheogen Theory of Religion any more these days hangs on the interpretation of a single item of data, like we could use the Plaincourault fresco as proxy for all the hundreds of explicit mushrooms throughout Christian and religious art.
o For yesterday's breakthrough, there was a similar situation regarding the Heimarmene hypothesis/interpretation. *If* we interpret and "read" all snakes in all world myth as representing Fatedness of your worldline of your life, then certainly the idea of Heim is everywhere in religion. Indeed the snake is everywhere: why would it be, unless Heimarmene really is important and the snake really represents it?!
Snakebite and shedding skin are *not* represented; they are specifically — deliberately — *not* represented. That omission strategically only leaves the *shape* of the snake as the point, the reason, why the snake is chosen by religion as the main symbol depicting religious wisdom.
Then I combined 'thread', and the turning point was the argument I posted around Nov. 21, 2011 that snake = heimarmene based on:
Fates = finite thread = worldline
thread is isomorphic with snake
thread in Daedalus' Labyrinth and Daedalus' ant-threaded seashell.
serpent = wisdom
That finally led to my insight yesterday or so (~Nov. 22, 2011) of "serpent vs tree… oh, I see!, serpent in tree as a compare/contrast teaching-instrument, ; the serpent teaches about thinking about treeness (decision-tree openness or illusoriness) in the course of our life as control-and-decision-making agents.
My grasp of metaphor broke through to a greater depth of facility and skill in that I got that much better at reading mythemes, metaphors, analogies — for example, a big mytheme-recognition recently (one of many, coming too fast to type) was "the revealed knowledge in initiation is like a snake in a basket with a lid that can be removed to reveal the hidden snake". Thus "initiation = revealing the hidden snake"
Also my recently forged Hammer of Interpretation rejects irrelevant noise: it told me that "shed skin and poison" are false derivations of why serpent = wisdom.
Also a big jump in my reading-ability was a deepening of associations, going a bit beyond what I wrote years ago. Why ivy is closely related to mushrooms/entheogens: things make sense if ivy's *shape* is important and the mushroom reveals insight about the *shape* of a snake and *shape* of ivy vine.
How is 'vine' related to psychoactive 'mushroom'? Either it's a vine we never heard of (a long shot, pure conjecture), or, vine = mushroom because the mushroom reveals vine-shaped Fatedness of the worldline of a person's life (a close association with great conceptual coherence, if we adopt my Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence).
70% reading-ability –> 100% reading-ability — involved many, many insights in the past week, 2 weeks, 2 months. The missing 30% was – of course — by definition, the ideas in my recent postings. So many of my recent postings are "the explanation" of why I had a breakthrough, a deepening, a great increase in the number of associations and the ability to read myth with greater facility than in 2005 or 2007.
I was working on so many different, interrelated topics through 2007, I didn't only work on how to read religious myth. I made record progress 2001-2007, and was severely constrained in word-count in my main article.
I was greedily staking a claim across all religious myth — yet there were various major points still to be prioritized and somehow(!) squeezed in; which words could I have omitted to buy some more space to write explicitly the particular spin of the following idea, very important in myth?
male–>female = uncontrollable thought-source–>helpless thought-receiver
source domain (metaphor) = target domain (non-metaphor)
metaphor = non-metaphor
A key idea was one that came to me in a forest walk on the path, thinking about whether Antiquity could have been able to comprehend the idea of worldline and heimarmene in a block-universe. Of course they could: the worldline idea is merely, simply like walking on a path. Actually I had that "path to Eleusis = worldline" idea for some time, from back when I read about Eleusis; see posting dates.
Well there's an example of "getting an idea, yet not getting it all the way yet" — a common experience for me.
Yes, say in 2005, I had the idea that "path to Eleusis = worldline = snake", but that's slightly different than the recent 2011 idea that "That the concept of a worldline in a changeless spacetime block was easy for Antiquity to understand, is proven by the analogy of "procession along sacred ancient path to the Mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis = brass snake = vein in marble block = presetness of our lives and stream of conscious experiencing = worldline = heimarmene."
Iterative, "deepening" Theory design is like the visual lock-on process when ferreting out a hidden autostereogram image: you glimpse some bits of data, create a theory of what else is there, try it, let the data push back, revise the theory, look more, see more, that perception of data pushes back more, revising your theory more, until you gain coherent lock-on, and then form a perfect theory (image) in your mind.
In 2005, I deduced the image yet didn't truly directly perceive it. I saw the correct reading of Esotericism and religion correctly, but still it felt indirectly, piecemeal, haltingly, unnaturally.
11/23/11, I saw it in its direct fullness, richness, directly, thoroughly, via the more rigorously tuned, clarified, amplified, Diamond Hammer of Interpretation.
This was like correctly figuring out the autostereogram image by still only glimpsing pieces, so having a full image in mind yet not able to actually directly perceive and simply "read off" that image; your mental model/theory then is still not strong enough, good enough, to truly tune in, lock on, to the point of reading-off — it's like singing along holding a hymnal but really just winging it, vs. actually reading-off from the hymnal.
Like looking while near-blind, and correctly knowing what's there, but barely seeing it directly. Or accurately determining which song is playing on hissy FM reception and singing along, but really going from memory rather than truly hearing the song that's playing.
Now I can sing along with the dead religions, even though the hymnal is too blurry to truly read.
I couldn't actually *hear* it before, when I wrote my complete Theory-spec in 2005, which achieved closure and (at least implicit) comprehensiveness despite its severely constrained length (28 pages to dominate the entire set of fields, to take ownership of the entire field of religion, myth, altered-state mysticism, revelation, enlightenment, and satori, showing the way all the way for Cognitive Science of altered-state phenomenology as called for in Benny Shanon's 2002 Antipodes of the Mind).
In 2005, I stated what I deduced the meaning to be — labored strenuous word-by-word reading or translating one word at a time. Like me reading French. I can eventually produce a translation, like working a jigsaw puzzle, out of order, with much hypothesis and tentativeness: correct, but anything but fluent; halting, struggle, unsureness but "I'm pretty much sure that's what it is saying to the native speakers".
In 2011, I directly perceived and read-off the meaning — fluent "transparent" direct reading of the text. Like me reading English. I do on-the-fly translation, not even felt as translation but "simply reading".
My recent Priority Sequence idea was important — has roots in top-level outline of main article 2005, but then, I didn't firmly list the *sequence* of priorities, such as judging Cybernetics to be more Important than Heimarmene, which was more important than Entheogens, which was more important than Metaphor.
I recently (see posting dates) thought of the *Priority Sequence* idea and the ancient *simplicity* (or "obviousness") of the seemingly esoteric *heimarmene-snake* idea while I was walking in the forest looking at the changing mushrooms that are always there at the base of the decision-branching trees while controlling my legs to walk myself meandering along the fixed serpentine path that already existed winding itself around the executive decision trees such as are used by the king as pilot who steers the ship of state.
I was complaining about Manly Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages, which emphasizes most what matters least, but should emphasize most what matters most (that's the Priority Sequence idea; walking myself with my weakened leg and my powerful leg along that winding path, I identified "Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Entheogens, Metaphor" as the correct priority sequence.
Degrees of comprehension:
The final paragraph of my main article/theory-specification does talk about the sacred marriage such as Dionysus and Ariadne, and Christ and his Elect (those who were chosen for regeneration before the foundation of the world), but a few important points are only implicitly present (the cost was a million dollars per word) — omitted partly because of intense self-imposed word-count limitations, and partly because more time was needed to do more extensive cross-indexing of the ideas and metaphors.
Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
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