A Crash Course in

Connection Theory
v1.1

1/29/11

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Connection Theory, Stated
3. Intrinsic Goods
3.1. What Intrinsic Goods Are
3.2. The List of Intrinsic Goods
3.3. How Intrinsic Goods Change
3.4. The Distribution of Intrinsic Goods
4. Actions
4.1. Actions and Non-Actions
4.2. How People Act: The Action Rule
4.3. Path Diagrams
5. Beliefs
5.1. Beliefs and Concepts– updated!
5.2. Elegant Updating
5.3. How Beliefs Change: The Belief Rule
5.4. How Concepts Change
6. Some Consequences
6.1. The Source of Inelegant Updating
6.2. Attainment Responses
6.3. Mode Shifting
6.4. Pseudo-Beliefs
6.5. Self-Perceptions of Power
7. Explaining Mental States
7.1. Types of Mental Content
7.2. How to Explain Mental Phenomena
7.3. Explaining Some Phenomena– updated!
7.4. Comprehensive Mind Charts
7.5. How to Build Mind Charts
8. Changing Mental States
8.1. Making Predictions
8.2. Recommendation Plans
9. Conclusion

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1. Introduction

Connection Theory (CT) is a simple, comprehensive theory of human belief and action. This
document provides a relatively brief introduction to the theory itself, as well as some of its
consequences and applications.
Is CT true? Is CT useful? Thus far, we have acquired a noteworthy amount of evidence
favor of CT and have found it extremely useful in a large number of ways. This document,
however, is not meant to address the questions of CT’s truth or usefulness. These questions are
treated elsewhere. The goal here is merely to introduce the theory.

2. Connection Theory, Stated

Connection Theory is a theory that consists of the following five claims:

1. Everything a person is aware of is (a) a sensation, (b) a spatial relation between

sensations, (c) a belief or concept, (d) an awareness of something, or (e) a combination of
these.

2. Every person’s beliefs at a time are determined entirely by the person updating his or her
beliefs in the most elegant possible way, given the sole restriction that the person always
believe that each of his or her intrinsic goods will be permanently achieved.

3. Every person always acts in the way that person believes will lead to all of his or her
intrinsic goods being permanently achieved.

4. A person has something as an intrinsic good if and only if that thing is on the list of
intrinsic goods and the person has a concept that directly represents it.

5. The concepts a person has at a time are exactly those concepts that are used in the beliefs
that the person has at that time.

This formulation is superficially different from the official version in a few ways. It is not meant
to be different in any substantive regard.

3. Intrinsic Goods

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3.1. What Intrinsic Goods Are

Start with any person. Take her present action. Consider what results she intends that action to
accomplish. Then consider what further results she intends those results to lead to. Follow the
chain of intended results to the end. At the end, you will reach the ultimate intended results of
the person’s actions. Let’s call those ultimate intended resultsthe person’s “intrinsic goods”
(“IGs”).

3.2. The List of Intrinsic Goods

According to CT, there is a single universal list of possible intrinsic goods. People can have
different intrinsic goods, but every intrinsic good a person has must be drawn from this list.
Where is this list of possible intrinsic goods? Excellent question – but not something we
need to discuss now. What is on the list? We’re not entirely sure, but we would very much like
to find out. CT itself does not comment. Thus far, the IGs we’ve encountered in the process of
charting out people’s minds seem to divide into four categories:

Personal Pleasure e.g., pleasure, relaxation…

Interpersonal Relationships

Social Acceptance

World-Scale IGs
e.g., being accepted by one’s mother, being understood by
one’s family, having several close friends, having
mutual love and caring with someone…
e.g., being accepted by society, being tolerated by
society…
e.g., universal human flourishing, social unity, social
harmony, universal mutual benevolence…

It is open that these are not the only IGs or the only categories of IGs. And since it is difficult in
practice to verify that something actually is an IG, it is open that not every example just given in
really an IG. Again, we do not know for sure which IGs are on the list. These are just a good
sample of the things we have tentatively identified as IGs so far.
There is one thing we can say about the types of things that can be IGs. For reasons
explained elsewhere, every IG involves a particular state. No IG involves having “as much as
possible” of anything.Thus while “widespread human flourishing” and“universal human
flourishing” might be IGs, “having there be as much human flourishing as possible” is not an IG.
If a person is pursuing as much as possible of something, what they are pursuing is not an
intrinsic good.

3.3. How Intrinsic Goods Change

According to CT, each of the things on the list of possible IGs is directly represented by a
concept. A person has an IG when he has that concept and fails to have an IG when he fails to
have that concept. It follows that a person gains or loses an IG when he gains or loses the
concept that directly represents the IG.

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 For example, suppose that close friendship is an IG. Then a person has the IG of close
friendship if and only if he has the concept that directly represents close friendship, that concept
being, of course, the concepts “close friendship”. If he does not have this concept and gains it,
then he gains the IG of close friendship. If he has the concept and loses it, then he loses the IG
of close friendship.
As we will see when we discuss how concepts are gained and lost (5.4), people gain IGs
only in very special circumstances and almost never lose IGs. For practical purposes, if you
have something as an IG, you’re stuck with it.

3.4. The Distribution of Intrinsic Goods

How many IGs do people typically have? Of which types? From what we have seen so far,
people typically have 4-12 intrinsic goods. People often have one social acceptance IG, one IG
for each parent and sibling they grew up with, one or two other interpersonal relationship IGs, at
least one personal pleasure IG and 0-2 world-scale IGs.

4. Actions

4.1. Actions and Non-Actions

As yet, we do not have a definition of the term “action”. Instead, we just have a rule of thumb
that helps us to distinguish actions from non-actions in the case of bodily movements. That rule
of thumb is: “some movement of a person’s body should be interpreted as being an action if and
only if the best explanation of that movement involves the movement arising in some way from
the person’s beliefs”.
For example, suppose that a person eats a slice of pizza. There are various possible
explanations for the person’s behavior. Perhaps the person wanted to experience pleasure and
believed that eating the slice of pizza would be pleasurable. Perhaps the person wanted to
eliminate her hunger and believed that eating the slice of pizza would help with that. Perhaps the
person wanted to clean out the fridge, didn’t want to waste food and believed that any option
other than eating the slice of pizza would count as wasting food. All of these explanations
involve a reference to the person’s beliefs. Thus if any of them is the best explanation of the
person’s behavior, the rule of thumb says that eating the slice of pizza should be interpreted as an
action. Now compare eating a slice of pizza to getting heartburn. The best (immediate)
explanation of a person’s getting heartburn will refer to the person’s stomach acid, not the
person’s beliefs.Thus the rule of thumb says that getting heartburn is not an action.
There are plenty of other examples. Jumping off a cliff is an action; falling through the
air after having jumped is not an action. Kicking during martial arts class is an action; kicking
after a doctor strikes one’s knee with a reflex hammer is not an action.
It is important to note that the rule of thumb here does not provide a way of
distinguishing actions from non-actions in every case. In particular, it does not show how to
distinguish which sensations are actions and which are not. We will discuss the possibility that
some sensations are actions in section 7.3.

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4.2. How People Act: The Action Rule

According to Connection Theory, there is a very simple rule that determines all of a person’s
actions. That rule is called the “Action Rule”:

The Action Rule:

Every person always acts in the way that person believes willlead
to all of his or her intrinsic goods being permanently achieved.

The Action Rule has many implications. First, it implies that no one ever sacrifices an
intrinsic good. If a person is presented with strong evidence that one of his IGs will never be
achieved, the person will continuing pursuing the IG just the same. If a person is presented with
strong evidence that his IGs are incompatible, he will continue pursuing them all anyway. In the
face of evidence than an IG cannot be achieved, can a person lose the IG? No. For practical
purposes, IGs can never be lost (3.3; see also 5.4). In the face of evidence than an IG cannot be
achieved, can a person permanently defer the pursuit of that IG and focus on pursuing the others?
No. According to the Action Rule, the person will continue pursuing all of his IGs at all times.
A person might choose to achieve some earlier and some later, but none can be permanently
deferred. Does this mean that a person must always act in a reasonable and proactive way?
Certainly not. A person may believe that his IGs will be permanently fulfilled by the Greek god
Zeus at the end of time if he sits patiently and waits. In such a case, the Action Rule says that the
person will simply sit patiently and wait. This is not reasonable or proactive – but it is how the
person believes that his IGs will eventually be permanently achieved.
A second implication of the Action Rule is that every action is intended to achieve a goal.
This means that no actions are merely a result of habit. No actions are a result of following
hidden subconscious rules, unless those rules simply say to pursue the permanent achievement of
all of one’s IGs. Actions that occur spontaneously without any forethought are intended to
achieve a goal just as much as actions that are based on careful deliberation.According to the
Action Rule, a person does not behave in a shy manner because he has the character trait of
shyness. A person behaves in a shy manner because he believes that this is part of what will lead
to the permanent achievement of his IGs. According to the Action Rule, a person does not
smoke because he has a physical addiction. A person smokes because he believes that this is part
of what will lead to the permanent achievement of his IGs.

4.3. Path Diagrams

In most cases, a person does not perform an action with the immediate goal of permanently
achieving all of his IGs. Instead, a person usually performs an action believing that that action is
part of a chain of actions and/or states that will ultimately yield the permanent achievement of all
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of his IGs. Let’s call the chain of actions and states by which a person believes he will achieve
an IG his “path” to that IG.
By asking a person questions and by observing his actions, it is possible to determine
what a person’s path is to each of his IGs. Paths can be represented in flowchart form as follows:

When paths are represented this way, we call them “path diagrams”. The path diagrams here are
relatively simple. Some path diagrams on a completed CT chart are like this or are simpler.
Some are much more complex. (The boxes with red borders are IGs.)
Paths are plans. Path diagrams are representations of plans. What does one get if one
puts together all of a person’s paths to all of his IGs? One gets a plan which could be rightly
called the person’s personal master plan for bringing about the permanent fulfillment of all of his
IGs. Of course, people do not usually think about themselves as acting in accordance with a
master plan. People typically cannot even articulate what their IGs are, let alone their total plan
for achieving all of them. If the Action Rule is correct, though, then every person has such a
plan and is acting in accordance with it.

5. Beliefs

5.1. Beliefs and Concepts

What are beliefs? What are concepts? For the purposes of this document it will be perfectly fine
to think about beliefs and concepts in accordance with our pre-theoretical, folk-psychological

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conceptions. Or rather, it will be perfectly fine to think about beliefs and concepts in accordance
with these conceptions with one minor adjustment.
People frequently picture things in their mind. People also frequently mentally say things
to themselves. Often, people believe that these mental pictures and mental words are their
beliefs and concepts. But this is not the case. Beliefs and concepts are not mental pictures or
mental words. This can be shown by at least one philosophical argument. For the sake of
comprehensibility, however, we will just state a number of considerations that tell against mental
images and words being beliefs or concepts.Regarding mental images:

– Mental images are in some ways more detailed than the associated concepts. The
concept of a triangle does not specify a particular color, but every mental image of a
triangle includes some color.
– Mental images are in some ways less detailed than the associated concepts. The concept
of a solid, opaque cube includes that there is material inside the cube; the associated
mental image does not display this.
– Mental images are sometimes only barely related to the concepts they occur with. For
instance, one may become aware of mental images when one thinks of an invisible
person or an hour or goodness or the smell of roses. But those images are clearly not
images of invisible people, intervals of time, goodness or smells of roses.
– The same mental image can occur with multiple different concepts. Think of a 1000-
sided figure. Now think of a 1001-sided figure. In some cases the mental image will be
the same even though the concept is clearly different.

Regarding mental words:

– The same mental word can occur with multiple different concepts. Mentally say the
word “bank” while thinking of a financial institution. Mentally say the word “bank” – in
just the same way, with just the same intonation – while thinking of the ground beside a
river. The mental word is the same but the concepts are different.
– The same concept can occur with different mental words. Think of a cat while mentally
say the word “cat”. Now think the very same thought while mentally saying the word
“gato”, which is “cat” in Spanish. The mental words here are different but the concept is
the same.

These considerations each suggest or imply that mental images and mental words are not the
same things as the associated concepts. Similar considerations show the same thing for beliefs.
If mental images and mental words are not beliefs or concepts, then what are they? And
what are beliefs and concepts? As far as we can tell, mental images and mental words are simply
very faint visual and auditory sensations that occur at various times. As for beliefs and concepts,
again it is perfectly fine for the purposes of this document to think about them in accordance
with our pre-theoretical, folk-psychological notions – just so long as one keeps in mind that they
are not mental images or mental words. We will explain one reason why the distinction between
mental images and mental words on one hand and beliefs and concepts on the other is important
in section 7.3.

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5.2. Elegant Updating

A person starts with some beliefs. The person then has some sensations: visual sensations,
auditory sensations, and so on. On the basis of the old beliefs and the new sensations, the person
adopts some new beliefs. Let’s call this process “updating one’s beliefs”.
There are many conceivable ways a person could update her beliefs. For instance, a
person couldupdate her beliefs in a way that fulfills the following conditions to a greater or lesser
degree:

#1. Explanatory Power: the more the new beliefs explain the current sensations, the better
#2. Explanatory Completeness: the more the new beliefs have explained within them, the better
#3. Minimal Change: the less the new beliefs differ from the old beliefs, the better

Let’s say that the more a belief update fulfills these conditions, the more “elegantly” the person
has updated. If a belief update fulfills these conditions as much as possible, let’s say the person
has “updated elegantly”; otherwise, let’s say that person has “updated inelegantly”.
An example will help to illustrate. Suppose that a person with a relatively normal belief
system is sitting under a tree. The person looks up and has the sort of sensations one has when
one is looking at a enormous bird. What might happen?
First, the person might update her beliefs in a way that does not in any way respond to the
bird-image she is aware of. This would be updating inelegantly. To update elegantly, the
person’s new beliefs would need to explain her current sensations as much as possible; the
update just described doesn’t explain her current sensations at all. (This update fails the
Explanatory Power condition.)
Second, the person might update her beliefs by adding in the beliefs “there are aliens”,
“aliens sometimes shapeshift” and “I am looking at a shapeshifting alien in a tree”. This would
be updating inelegantly as well. To update elegantly, the person’s new beliefs would need to
have as much explained within them as possible. The new beliefs proposed here, however, add
in a lot more unexplained factors (e.g., pertaining to the shapeshifting aliens) than simply
positing that she is looking at a bird. (This update fails the Explanatory Completeness
condition.)
Third, the person might update her beliefs by adopting wholesale everything taught by
the philosopher G. W. Leibniz and also adopting the belief “I am experiencing a bird-image
because that is what my nature calls for me to experience right now”. These beliefs would
explain the person’s current sensations. They also would substantially diminish the number of
unanswered questions in her belief system: Leibniz’s philosophical system has explanations for
almost everything. But the person would still be updating inelegantly. This is because the
update involves far too much change from the person’s preceding beliefs. (This update fails the
Minimal Change condition.)
Fourth, the person might update her beliefs by adopting the belief “I am looking at a
bird” and by changing little or nothing else. This update would explain the person’s current
sensations, involve only a minor change and would not substantially alter how much is explained
within the person’s belief system. As a result, updating in this way may very well be updating
elegantly.
The idea of elegant updating is very close to the idea of updating one’s beliefs normally
or rationally or reasonably or on the basis of one’s evidence or in a truth-seeking manner. As a

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result, in most cases it is acceptable to treat elegant updating as being equivalent to updating
normally, rationally, reasonably, etc.

5.3. How Beliefs Change: The Belief Rule

According to Connection Theory, there is a very simple rule that determines all of a person’s
beliefs. This rule is called the “Belief Rule”:

The Belief Rule:

Every person’s beliefsat a time are determined entirely by the person
updating his or her beliefs in the most elegant possible way, given the sole
restriction that the person always believe that each of his or her intrinsic
goods will be permanently achieved.

Suppose that a woman has an IG of being accepted by her father. Suppose further that
there is plenty of evidence that (a) the woman’s father will only accept her if she succeeds
academically, (b) the woman’s father will never change in this regard, (c) the woman is not
succeeding academically, and (d) the woman is never going to start succeeding academically. In
this case, an elegant update would have the woman believe that her father does not accept her
now and will never accept her in the future. The Belief Rule, however, says that a person must
always believe that all of her IGs will eventually be permanently achieved. Since being accepted
by her father is one of the woman’s IGs, it follows that the woman cannot update her beliefs
elegantly. She must end up having some system of beliefs according to which she will
eventually be accepted by her father.
Both by itself and in conjunction with the Action Rule, the Belief Rule allows one to
explain a very large number of psychological phenomena. We will give some examples below
(7.3; see also 6.1-6.5).
One point of clarification: a person believing that an IG will be “permanently fulfilled”
does not require that person to believe that the IG will be fulfilled at all times throughout an
infinite future. It requires only that a person believe that there will be a time in which the IG is
fulfilled, such that the person does not believe there are any times after that time in which the IG
stops being fulfilled. Thus a person with the IG of close friendship does not have to believe that
she will have close friendship with someone over the course of an infinite future. She might
believe that. Or she might believe that after some point she will have gotten a close friend and
then she might simply not have any beliefs about what happens after that.

5.4. How Concepts Change

We have seen how CT says that a person’s beliefs change. A person updates her beliefs in
accordance with the Belief Rule; if she updates to a system that contains a new belief, she has

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gained a new belief. Likewise, if she updates to a system that does not contain a belief she just
had, she has just lost a belief. What about concepts? When do people gain and lose concepts?
According to CT, the acquisition of concepts is entirely dependent on the acquisition of
beliefs. To be precise, according to CT, a person has exactly those concepts that are included in
her belief system. If a person updates to a belief system that includes a new concept, she gains
that concept. If a person updates to a belief system that does not include a concept she just had,
she loses that concept.
The illustrates something important about the Belief Rule. The Belief Rule does not say
that a person updates her belief system as elegantly as possible, given the constraint that the
person must believe that her IGs will be permanently achieved and using only the current stock
of concepts the person possesses. A person can update to a belief system that contains concepts
she has never encountered before. When she does, she gains those concepts.
We can now explain how people gain and lose IGs. A person has an IG if and only if she
has the concept that directly represents that IG. So, for instance, a person has the IG of social
acceptance if and only if she has the concept “social acceptance”. This means that a person gains
a new IG when she updates, in accordance with the Belief Rule, to a belief system that contains a
belief that includes the concept of that IG. Similarly, a person loses an IG when she updates, in
accordance with the Belief Rule, to a belief system that does not contain any beliefs that include
the concept of that IG.
We said in section 3.3 that people gain IGs only in very special circumstances and almost
never lose IGs. Why? First let’s consider gaining an IG. It is not difficult in general to gain a
new concept. Simply expose oneself to new patterns of sensations – seeing a new animal or new
piece of technology will often do this – and one will often update to a belief system that includes
a new concept. Gaining a new IG concept, however, is difficult. To gain an IG concept, one
must update to a belief system that includes beliefs that contain that concept and that includes the
belief that the IG in question will eventually be permanently achieved. So, for example, to gain
the IG of social unity, a person must not only update to a belief system that contains some belief
involving social unity; the person must update to a belief system that contains the belief that
social unity will eventually be permanently achieved. Usually, however, this additional belief,
the belief that the IG will be permanently achieved, detracts from the explanatory completeness
of the belief system in question. In plainer terms, the additional belief usually makes the belief
system less reasonable given the evidence. As a result, a person updating her beliefs in
accordance with the Belief Rule is far less likely to update to it.
This explains why it is difficult to gain an new IG. Regarding losing an IG, a person
loses a concept only when every single belief employing that concept is lost. This makes losing
an IG virtually impossible. In what realistic scenario could a person, updating as elegantly as she
can, update to a belief system that does not include any beliefs about X, where X is something
the person has been constantly pursuing for as long as she has understood it? For instance,
consider an IG of social acceptance. In what realistic scenario could a person update her beliefs
in accordance with the Belief Rule and come to have no beliefs about social acceptance, despite
the person’s having pursued social acceptance ever since she first acquired the concept? It is
hard to think of any such realistic scenarios. This is why we say that for practical purposes IGs
cannot be lost.

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6. Some Consequences

6.1. The Source of Inelegant Updating

Now let’s look at some consequences of the Belief Rule and the Action Rule. Some of these will
be in the form of straightforward theoretical implications. Others will be examples of
phenomena we should expect to encounter.
The first consequence we will consider is the source of inelegant updating. The Belief
Rule says that each person updates his beliefs as elegantly as he can, given the constraint that he
must believe that all of his IGs will be permanently fulfilled. It follows that if a person does not
update his beliefs in a perfectly elegant manner, it for a single reason: updating elegantly would
lead the person to have a belief system according to which not all of his IGs would be
permanently fulfilled. To put this differently, from the Belief Rule it follows that the sole source
of inelegant updating is evidence that a person will not eventually achieve his IGs.
Speaking very roughly, CT implies that there is a single source of rationality and a single
source of irrationality in the mind. Both arise from the Belief Rule. The single source of
rationality is the part of the Belief Rule that says that people update their beliefs as elegantly as
they can. The single source of irrationality is the constraint that people must always believe that
their IGs will be achieved.

6.2. Attainment Responses

The next consequence is a phenomenon we should expect to observe if the Belief Rule is true.
Suppose that a person believes that the only possible way he will achieve one of his IGs is if
some particular thing, X, is the case. Suppose further the person believes that it is impossible for
things to change from X’s not being the case to X’s being the case. What follows? The Belief
Rule says the person must believe that all of his IGs will eventually be achieved. Thus the
person must believe that the IG in question will be achieved. But the person believes that this is
only possible if X is the case and also believes that X cannot ever be the case unless it is already
the case. Conclusion: the person comes to believe, regardless of the evidence, that X is the case.
We call this an “attainment response” as the person automatically comes to believe that he has
attained something essential for the achievement of some IG.
For example, suppose that a person has an IG of social acceptance. Suppose further that
the person happens to believe that the only way he can achieve social acceptance is by
demonstrating his intelligence. Suppose that the person believes that the only way he can
demonstrate his intelligence is by being intelligent, and suppose that the person believes that
intelligence is a characteristic fixed at birth. What follows? The Belief Rule says that the person
must believe that he will achieve social acceptance, either now or in the future. The person
believes this requires that he be intelligent and the person believes that he cannot ever be
intelligent unless he is already intelligent. Result: the person has an attainment response and
comes to believe that he is intelligent. This belief may accord with the person’s evidence or it
may not. In any event, it is not a belief that will be responsive to the evidence.
In path diagrams, powerlessness is indicated by a box shaded in a distinctive way.
Likewise, things automatically believed to be the case via attainment responses are indicated by
boxes shaded in a distinctive way. If we assume that the person in the example just given

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achieves social acceptance only by the demonstration of intelligence, the person’s path diagram
would look like this:

Here, the box shaded gray and white indicates powerlessness. It is included as a route to the step
of “demonstrate my intelligence” because it is part of an alternate route a person could take to
demonstrate his intelligence, if only he believed he had the power to do so. The box shaded blue
indicates an attainment response. From what we have encountered so far, people’s paths to
social acceptance are usually much more complicated than this, especially before they have
completed their first recommendation plan.
In practice, we have observed a very large number of psychological phenomena that are
cleanly and easily interpreted as being attainment responses.

6.3. Mode Shifting

Another phenomenon we should expect to observe is something we call “mode shifting”.

Suppose that a person frequently switches back and forth on a particular belief on the basis of the
evidence he encounters. He encounters some evidence and switches one way. He encounters
some more evidence and switches back. Now suppose that the belief that the person is switching
back and forth on is a belief that plays a significant role in determining the person’s paths to one
or more of his IGs. Then, when the person switches back and forth on that belief, the person
may end up switching back and forth between different paths to his IGs.
For example, suppose that a person has an IG of world peace. Suppose further that the
person keeps switching back and forth, on the basis of the evidence he encounters, between the
belief “people would demand an end to the horrors of war if they only knew about them” and
“people are too apathetic to demand change”. Then he may end up switching back and forth
between two significantly different paths to his IG. It may be that when the person believes that
people are on the brink of demanding change, his path to world peace is to agitate, spread
information and rile people up, but when he believes that people are too apathetic, his path
involves waiting for the current world order to crash – after which time he believes people will
have learned their lesson and be ready to live in peace.
When a person has stable sets of beliefs that he switches back and forth between, such
that these switches substantially alter his paths to one or more of his IGs, we say that the person
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has “modes”. Each “mode” is the belief system a person has while having one of these stable
sets of beliefs; a person is “in” a mode when he has that belief system. When the person
switches from one set of beliefs to another, we say that he is “switching modes”.
At any one time a person is always in a single mode. In every mode a person will have a
path to each of his IGs. Modes can overlap, so that the person has the same path to one or more
IGs in multiple modes. Modes cannot perfectly overlap, of course, because then they wouldn’t
be different modes.
On a path diagram, we represent different modes using different types of boxes. Color-
coding is a common way to do this, with each mode having its own color. The path diagram for
the world peace IG for the person described in the example above might look like this:

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Here, the blue mode is the mode in which the person believes that people would be motivated to
stop the horrors of war if only people knew about them; the green mode is the mode in which the
person believes that people are too apathetic. The box in red is the IG. The boxes in black are
boxes shared by both modes. As the person gains evidence that people will be motivated by
information, he switches to the blue mode. As he sees evidence of people’s apathy, he switches
to the green mode. While in the blue mode he researches, organizes and works to spread
information; while in the green mode he waits.
In practice, we have observed a large number of psychological phenomena that are
cleanly and easily interpreted in terms of the framework of modes and mode-shifting.

6.4. Pseudo-Beliefs

Next let’s consider the phenomenon of “pseudo-belief”. Suppose a person does not believe X.
Suppose also the person believes that in order to achieve one of his IGs, he needs to believe X.
Finally, suppose that the person believes that it is impossible for him to go from a state of not
believing X to a state of believing X. What follows? According to the Belief Rule, the person
must have an attainment response (6.2) and come to believe that he believes X.
Pay careful attention here. The Belief Rule does not imply that the person must come to
believe X. It implies that the person must come to believe that he believes X. Why? The Belief
Rule does not say that if a person believes something to be necessary for the achievement of his
IGs then that thing will happen in reality. The Belief Rule says that if a person believes
something to be necessary for the achievement of his IGs then that person will believe that that
thing will happen in reality. In the case described just above, the person believes that it is
necessary that he believe X in order to achieve one of his IGs. So the Belief Rule implies that
the person will believe that he will believe X – and if the person believes that he cannot switch to
believing X from not believing X, then the Belief Rule implies that the person will believe that
he believes X now.
If a person believes that he believes X, but does not believe X, let’s say that the person
has a “pseudo-belief” that X is the case.
Here is a concrete example. Consider a person who has an IG of social acceptance.
Suppose the person does not believe in miracles. Suppose also that the person lives in a society
that only accepts people who believe in miracles. What can the person do? The person could
find a new society. The person could try to change the acceptance standards within his current
society. The person could lie and say that he believes in miracles, even though he does not. Or
the person could try to change his beliefs so that he now actually does believe in miracles.
Suppose though that the person believes himself unable to do any of these things. He does not
believe he can find a new society; he does not believe he can change his current society; he does
not believe he will be able to successfully deceive people; he does not believe that he can change
his beliefs to make himself believe in miracles. What happens? The person still needs a path to
his IG of social acceptance. Every other route is barred, so he has an attainment response and
comes to believe that he believes in miracles. He does not come to believe in miracles – he does
not start anticipating miracles occurring in everyday life, he still immediately concludes that

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people who report that they’ve seen miracles are mistaken. But he does come to believe that he
believes.
If we omit the details regarding the other things the person undoubtedly believes are
necessary for achieving social acceptance, his path diagram for the IG of social acceptance might
look like this:

Here, the boxes shaded in gray and white indicate the person’s beliefs about what he is powerless
to do. The box shaded blue indicates an attainment response. In particular, it indicates that the
person automatically believes that he believes in miracles. The red box indicates the IG.
In practice, we have observed a number of cases that are easily interpreted as being cases
of pseudo-beliefs. It is worth noting that the fact that pseudo-beliefs are psychologically possible
according to CT does not mean that CT supports proposing that any belief at all is a pseudo-
belief. According to CT, pseudo-beliefs occur only under specific, well-defined circumstances.

6.5. Self-Perceptions of Power

Another important consequence of the principles of CT is that it is extremely important what a

person believes himself capable of doing. Why? The things that a person believes he can do and
the things he believes he cannot do crucially shape his paths to his IGs.

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 For instance, suppose a person has an IG of being correctly understood by his mother.
Now consider what he believes his own powers are. Does he believe he has the power to
improve his mother’s ability to understand him? If so, no problem. If not, he will have make
sure he does not have or gain any important features that would exceed what his mother can
understand. Does he believe he has the power to get his mother to understand him as he is? If
so, no problem. If not, he will have to change himself to render himself understandable to her.
For a specific illustration of how the ways in which a person believes himself to be
powerless can determine his path to an IG, see the diagram in section 6.4. There the person has
four crucial ways in which he believes himself to be powerless; alter any of those and his path to
social acceptance might change substantially.
If one would like a metaphor, conceive of a river with a single, unalterable destination,
whose course is determined by a number of stones. Put down a new stone and the river is forced
to change course to flow around it. Remove a stone and the river can follow a straighter course
to its destination. The river, here, is a person’s path to one of his IGs. The IG is the unalterable
destination of the river. The relevant ways in which a person believes himself to be powerless
are the stones. Add in a new relevant way in which the person believes himself to be powerless
and his path will have to change to handle it. Remove a way in which the person believes
himself to be powerless, i.e., give him a new relevant power, and he will take a straighter course
to the achievement of the IG.

7. Explaining Mental States

7.1. Types of Mental Content

Let’s call everything that a person is or can be aware of “mental content”. According to CT,
there are four basic types of mental content:

Sensations e.g., red sensations, loud high-pitch sensations, hot

Spatial Relations

Beliefs/Concepts

Awareness
sensations, rose-smell sensations, sweet sensations,
pleasure sensations, pain sensations…
e.g., the relations between visual sensations in the visual
field
e.g., “the sky is blue”, “two plus two equals four”, “the
sky”, “two”, “social acceptance”…
e.g., an awareness of red sensations, an awareness of spatial
relations, an awareness of beliefs/concepts…

Any mental content that is not one of these four types can, according to CT, be broken down into
components from these four types. For instance, consider emotions. Emotions include both a
sensation component and a belief component. They thus do not fall under any one of the four
types but can be broken down into components from the four types.
It is worth noting that when awareness itself is a mental content, we are talking about
awareness as an object of awareness, i.e., the awareness of awareness.

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7.2. How to Explain Mental Phenomena

To give a CT-compliant explanation of a psychological phenomenon, one must first break that
phenomenon down into its component pieces. Each of those pieces should fall under one of the
four basic types of mental content recognized by CT (7.1) or else be an action.
Once the phenomenon is broken down into components, the next step is to determine
which of them can be explained using CT and which cannot.CT purports to explain all
occurrences of beliefs, concepts and actions. It does not purport to explain the occurrence of
sensations, spatial relations or awareness of awareness, unless any of them happen to be actions.
After one has determined what components from the phenomenon CT purports to
explain, one can then give general explanations of those components. The general explanation
for any belief is: “the person has this belief because it is part of the most elegant update on her
previous beliefs she could perform, given the constraint that she must believe that each of her
IGs will eventually be permanently achieved”. The general explanation for any concept is: “the
person has this concept because the person updated to a belief system that includes beliefs that
include this concept”. The general explanation for any action is: “the person is performing this
action because it is part of how she believes all of her IGs will be permanently achieved”.
Once the general explanations are given, all that remains is to fill in the specific details.
What beliefs did the person have previously that made this the most elegant update she could
perform? What belief system did she update to that included this concept and why did she
update to that belief system? What is the person’s belief system like such that this is the action
the person believes will ultimately lead to the achievement of her IGs and why did she update to
that belief system?

7.3. Explaining Some Phenomena

In this section we will generally describe a few psychological phenomena and then give one or
more CT-compliant explanations for each.

Phenomenon #1: Being seen by society.Some people have the background sense that they are
constantly being watched. Other people have the idea that whenever they speak, they are
speaking “on the record”. These thoughts and ideas persist even when the people are clearly by
themselves, with no one watching or listening. Why?
Here is one CT-compliant explanation. Suppose that a person has an IG of social
acceptance. Suppose further that this IG requires that the person be known by society. Add that
the person does not believe that she has the ability to be known by society if she is not already
known. Result: the person has an attainment response and comes to believe that society can
automatically see her or hear her.

Phenomenon #2: Expecting the apocalypse. Some people say that they expect the world to end
in a dramatic, supernatural manner. Why?
Here are two possible explanations. First, it could be a case of pseudo-belief. Many
people have IGs of social acceptance, belong to communities that require them to echo various
religious proclamations, do not believe they have the power to find a new society, do not believe

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that they have the power to change the rules of their current society, do not believe that they have
the ability to deceive their society and do not believe that they have the ability to get themselves
to believe something like “the world is about to end”. If CT is correct, people in these conditions
will have attainment responses and start believing that they believe that the world will end. Why
would they then report these pseudo-beliefs to others? It may be part of their plan for achieving
social acceptance.
Second, it could be a case of genuine belief. Since most people will not have
encountered much evidence in favor of the proposal that the world will end in a supernatural
way, a person’s genuine belief here will most likely be explained as something the person
believes as a result of her need to preserve a path to one of more of her IGs. One plausible way
this could occur is if the person has a world-scale IG. World-scale IGs involve enormous things,
like social harmony or universal human flourishing. What is the most reasonable total worldview
on which social harmony or universal human flourishing eventually occur? “The world ends in a
fiery apocalypse and then God sets things up right” is a pretty good contender, all things
considered. Thus it might be that the reason a person believes that the world is about to end is
that she’s been updating her beliefs as elegantly as she can – while operating under the enormous
constraint imposed on her by her world-scale IG. (Of course, further detail will be needed to
explain why a particular person went with the fiery apocalypse possibility rather than the
environmental catastrophe possibility or any of a number of other world-ending options.)

Phenomenon #3: Irrational belief in illness.Sometimes people become irrationally convinced

that they have some terrible life-threatening illness. What could cause this?
The following is an example scenario in which CT says a person will come to believe that
her headache is actually brain cancer. Imagine that a woman has an IG of being respected by her
father. The woman’s father demands excellence and absolutely refuses to respect her unless she
is on track to become a luminary in her field – or unless she has an overwhelmingly good excuse
for why she’s not on track. The woman believes that her father is unchangeable in this regard
and also believes that being on track to be a luminary in her field would require her to work all
the time. Apart from her IG with her father, the woman also has an IG of having a group of
friends. She currently has a group of friends and so that IG is currently fulfilled. Unfortunately,
the woman does not believe that she could get another group of friends if she loses this one. She
also believes that her friends are very intolerant of people who work all the time. As a result, she
believes that if she worked all the time she would quickly lose her group of friends.
The woman in this scenario has a problem. According to the Belief Rule, she must
believe that she will eventually achieve all of her IGs. But the most plausible paths to her two
IGs seem to conflict. If she works all the time to be on track to become a luminary in her field,
she will be well-positioned to achieve the IG of being respected by her father, but in doing so she
will lose her group of friends and thus sacrifice her IG of having a group of friends. If she
doesn’t work all the time then she will be able to preserve her group of friends and thus preserve
her achievement of her IG of having a group of friends. But then she will not be on track to
become a luminary in her field and being respected by her father. There seems to be no way to
go without sacrificing an IG… unless there is a loophole. Which there is. There is one way the
woman could believe that she would achieve both of her IGs: she could not work all of the time,
thereby preserving her friendships, and she could have an overwhelmingly good excuse for not
being on track to become a luminary in her field. Since having an overwhelmingly good excuse

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is part of the only possible route she sees to her IGs, the Belief Rule implies that she will believe
that she has such an excuse.
Then the woman gets a headache. She is already constrained to believe that she has an
overwhelmingly good reason for not being on track to being a luminary in some field. At this
point, it might be that the most reasonable thing for her to believe given her constraints is that
her headache is a sign of brain cancer. Having brain cancer gives her exactly the sort of excuse
she needs to not work all the time and still gain the respect she needs from her father. So she
updates her beliefs in accordance with the Belief Rule and concludes that her headache is brain
cancer.

Phenomenon #4: Self-hating thoughts. Some people frequently say negative, insulting things to
themselves in their mind. Why?
To understand why people might say negative and insulting things to themselves, it is
important to first correctly classify this phenomenon in terms of the types of mental contents
recognized by CT (7.1). At first, many will think to classify it as a case of belief. The proposal
would be that the negative things people say to themselves are their beliefs. However, we earlier
argued that mental words were not concepts or beliefs (5.1). Instead, we proposed that the
mental words people say to themselves are actually just faint auditory sensations.
If the negative things people say to themselves are sensations, then the only way CT can
offer an explanation is if those sensations are actions (7.2). Here is how such an explanation
might go. Suppose that a person has an IG of social acceptance. Suppose also that the person
believes, as a result of the mechanism described above in the analysis of phenomenon #1, that
society can see her thoughts. Postulate that the negative things the person says to herself are
actions. Then it could very well be that the person is saying negative things in her mind in order
to communicate something to society. For instance, it might be that the person believes that she
has various socially negative features and wants to ameliorate the negatives by indicating to
society that she agrees that the features are in fact negative.

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This is not meant to be the only possible explanation of self-hating thoughts. It is just meant to
be one CT-compliant explanation.

7.4. Comprehensive Mind Charts

By questioning a person and observing the person’s behavior, it is possible to create a

comprehensive chart of the person’s mind. A comprehensive CT chart includes (a) a
comprehensive list of the person’s IGs, (b) a description of the person’s major modes, and (c)
path diagrams for all of the person’s IGs that each represent the person’s path to the relevant IG
in all of the person’s major modes.
How much material is on a completed mind chart? It varies from person to person. Right
now, our expectations are that a completed CT chart will include a list of 4-12 IGs, a description
of 1-3 major modes and 4-12 path diagrams. Between them, the path diagrams might have in the
ballpark of 250 boxes.
The best way to get a sense of what a completed CT chart looks like is to see an example.
Right now, a somewhat simplified example CT chart is available. We hope to have multiple
sample completed CT charts available in the future.

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7.5. How to Build Mind Charts

A lot can be said about the nuances of building accurate and comprehensive CT charts. This will
be described in another document or in a future version of this document.

8. Changing Mental States

8.1. Making Predictions

Using CT and a person’s completed CT chart, it is possible to determine the conditions under
which a person’s mind will change in various pre-specified ways. For example, suppose that a
person’s mind has been charted accurately and that his CT chart includes the following path
diagram:

This person has an IG of social acceptance. His way of achieving social acceptance is by
demonstrating his intelligence. He believes that he does not have the power to change from not
being intelligent to being intelligent. And he persists in believing he is intelligent regardless of
what evidence he encounters.
Using CT and the path diagram, we can make the following predictions:

• If the person comes to believe that he has the power to become intelligent, he will stop
believing, regardless of what evidence he encounters, that he is intelligent. He may
continue believing that he is intelligent or not; the difference is that his beliefs will now
be responsive to the evidence.

• If the person’s evidence shows him that he is not intelligent and the person comes to
believe that he has the power to become intelligent, he will stop believing he is intelligent
and start believing he is not intelligent.

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 • If the person develops a reliable way of being socially accepted that does not involve
being intelligent, he will stop believing, regardless of what evidence he encounters, that
he is intelligent. He may continue believing that he is intelligent or not; the difference is
that his beliefs will now be response to the evidence.

• If the person’s evidence shows him that he is not intelligent and the person develops a
reliable way of being socially accepted that does not involve being intelligent, he will
stop believing he is intelligent and start believing he is not intelligent.

In the course of making these predictions, we have ignored problems that may arise as a result of
interactions with the person’s paths to his other IGs. In a real-life case, these problems can be
anticipated and avoided.
In practice, it is feasible to use CT and a completed CT chart to make a large number of
specific predictions. Some predictions are sufficiently vague that it is difficult to tell whether
they come true as predicted. Many, however, are sufficiently precise that it is easy to see
whether they have come true. Testing predictions generated from CT charts is one of primary
ways we have been using to gather evidence regarding the truth and/or usefulness of CT.

8.2. Recommendation Plans

After completing a CT chart, people are often interested to use the full power of CT to change
their minds in various ways. To do this, one should first create a list of desired changes. Then
one should use CT and the chart to determine feasible conditions under which those changes
would take place. Then one should convert those conditions into recommendations.
For example, suppose the person from the example in 7.1 wants to stop being insensitive
to evidence that might show him that he is not intelligent. How can he change his mind? From
the previous section we can take two predictions:

• If the person comes to believe that he has the power to become intelligent, he will stop
believing, regardless of what evidence he encounters, that he is intelligent. He may
continue believing that he is intelligent or not; the difference is that his beliefs will now
be responsive to the evidence.

• If the person develops a reliable way of being socially accepted that does not involve
being intelligent, he will stop believing, regardless of what evidence he encounters, that
he is intelligent. He may continue believing that he is intelligent or not; the difference is
that his beliefs will now be response to the evidence.

We then can easily turn these into recommendations:

• Recommendation #1: Gain the power to become intelligent.

• Recommendation #2: Develop a reliable way of being socially accepted that does not
involve being intelligent.

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Either should be sufficient. Depending on the circumstance, one or the other might be easier to
implement.
If a person wants to change his mind in a large number of ways, it is possible to compile
a whole list of recommendations. We call all such lists “recommendation plans”.

9. Conclusion

We have now presented CT and a small sample of its consequences and possible applications. If
you would like to learn more, consider reading the following documents:

• “Connection Theory – Theory and Practice”

o This document contains a more technical and more detailed discussion of CT.
o This document also contains a much more thorough explanation of how to create
CT charts.

• “Evidence for CT”

o This document contains a discussion of the evidence for and against CT.

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