Belief networks can float by connecting only to each other

The same ability that lets humans model unseen causes — atoms, gravity, evolutionary history — can be hijacked. Beliefs can form networks that connect only to each other, never to any anticipated experience.

Phlogiston: alchemists believed it caused fire. But the link was always configured after observing fire, never before. It never constrained what they expected to see. A belief that only gets connected to experience retroactively predicts nothing.

"Retropositional author": a professor says Wulky Wilkinsen is retropositional because his books show alienated resublimation, and alienated resublimation is characteristic of retropositional thought. Circle complete. What do you now expect from Wilkinsen's books? Nothing. The two labels support each other and nothing else.

This is a uniquely human failure mode. Other animals form beliefs through direct experience. Humans can build entire floating architectures — internally consistent, disconnected from the world.

Source claim: Humans can build networks of beliefs that mutually support each other but have no connection to anticipated experience — these beliefs feel meaningful but predict nothing.