The Eaton T. Fores Research Center:
"Backward Chaining" Learning Methodology

In first-order logic, and in expert systems, the term backward chaining refers to an inference strategy in which the conclusion is already known, and the system works backwards to determine which known premises entail that conclusion.  This is the opposite of the way reasoning ordinarily proceeds, with each premise evaluated to see what follows from it.  We use the term "backward chaining" in a metaphorical way, to describe an approach to learning which we have found far more effective and enjoyable than the "bottom up" style of learning typically in use today in educational institutions, where it produces boredom, stress, and a sense of meaninglessness about learning, and strangles the natural hunger for knowledge that is the birthright of every human being.  Since all of the ETFRC's intellectual development processes are grounded in this idea, it's appropriate to make explicit exactly what it means, and just what the thinking behind it is.

The Problem: Natural Curiosity Meets Structured Education.

People are naturally curious.   Anyone who has observed children (when they are not in school, of course) knows this.  So why is education so stultifying that, by the time they reach high school, most children have lost all interest in anything remotely intellectual?  Learning is an end in itself, but the few students who continue to vigorously pursue their studies do so with education as a means, not an end.  Either they fear the opprobrium that will be dispensed by their families, or they desire the prestige and financial security that the proper education can confer.   Thus, courses of study in the liberal arts dwindle, while applications for Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs skyrocket.  Education is not held as a primary value by educational institutions themselves; our Universities and Colleges have become, in effect, fancy vocational schools.

What sort of educational process could make learning a chore rather than a delight?   The ETFRC believes that the "bottom-up" nature of virtually all contemporary education is to blame for this.  Let us say that one is, even from childhood, fascinated by something.  In keeping with the ETFRC's focus, let us say that this something is the human brain and the relationship it stands in to conscious phenomena.  If one expresses this interest, bottom-up education will prescribe a course of study as follows.  First, the groundwork for understanding the objective features, and only the objective features, of the subject at hand will be laid, entirely severed from the subject itself.  Thus the student is required to study some mathematics, general chemisty, organic chemistry, and physics -- all in complete isolation from what originally interested him or her, and with no clear idea of how these subjects pertain to what he or she really wants to know.  Work in these classes is for this reason dessicated and boring, progressing only by brute force and memorization.  Philosophy, even to the shallow extent of understanding the assumptions inherent in what one is studying, its potential for generating fallacies, and rudimentary logic itself, is entirely ignored -- even ridiculed.  Wisdom is not valued, rather, problem-solving skills that can be applied to industrial ends are the only things schools seek to instill in students.   Over time, "education" becomes something entirely different from "learning."   "Education" is reduced to the ability to rapidly absorb arbitrary facts for no particular reason, and to recite them on demand.   In general, studies seem so arbitrary that the student often loses sight of what originally interested him or her.  Should the relationship between coursework in calculus and curiosity about consciousness ever be questioned, the answer will take the form, "you must know x before you can know y, and you must know y before you can know z."  The spontaneous human joy of learning has been converted into yet another exercise in delayed gratification.  In the process, the motivation that originally impelled one to learn has been entirely quashed.  The student is being prepard for a productive life, productivity being, notwithstanding the Latin mottoes of various Universities, the only actual value.  

This is in keeping with the general contemporary metaphysic, which might be termed "physicalist scientism," which holds that reality is ontologically third-person; that only what can be verified via the methods of science is real; and that ethics, aesthetics, and indeed all value have no basis save their being artifacts of the evolutionary process.  This metaphysic, which, it is telling to realize, counts itself as anti-metaphysical, manifests in human life in myriad ugly ways, including the substitution of behavior for experience (which denies the personhood of one's fellows); insincere "bad-faith" relationships with others in which one's fellows are used as means rather than respected as ends in themselves ("a nation of salesmen"), stomach-turning Corporate "Values Statements" affirming the worth of every individual, presumably including the tens of thousands recently fired so that the upper echelons of management might pocket a few hundred million extra dollars, the weighing of friendships in terms of what they can do for one; the impossibility of free will on its terms, and the consequent obliteration of moral agency ... the list could be multiplied without end.  How many people, people who go to work at huge corporations every day, have given thought to the concept of "Human Resources?"  Though probably intended to be the apotheosis of the neutering of "Personnel," this concept, taken straightforwardly at face value, embodies everything that has been called evil by virtually every ethical view ever articulated.

The purpose of bottom-up education is the production of "human resources."  Little wonder, then, that the process fails to satisfy human epistemic hunger, fails to give any delight, and becomes associated with drudgery rather than excitement.  With human intellectual capacity fully harnessed to "productivity," culture shrivels, becomes a caricature of itself, and ultimately dies.  As culture is what is most distinctively human, its loss is a tragedy beyond description.  This loss cannot be offset by a few hundred more television channels, or cellular telephones the size of a nickel.

Re-learning How To Learn.

Learning is as natural for human beings as flying is for birds.  It does not require great discipline or the postponing of gratification: indeed, it itself is intrinsically gratifying.   Becoming re-acquainted with learning, however, is not as easy as learning itself is.  No support for "non-productive" learning (i.e., what has throughout human history been called "culture" and "education," and valued above almost everything else) is to be found anywhere; such learning, in fact, is looked upon with some suspicion.  Since it is inconceivable to most people today that learning might be undertaken as its own end, and since no end or motive for knowledge of, say, philosophy of science can be found, the idea that an ulterior motive lies behind such learning is bound to suggest itself.  And in a nation as positively anti-intellectual as America, learning for its own sake may seem subversive by definition.

As with every other activity of deep personal value in human life, the development of the intellect is best done in the company of like-minded individuals.  When such individuals are found, they should be cherished, and understood to be friends with whom one is going to go the distance.   The cultivation of deep friendships, if only a few of them, based on shared values is one of the single most important aspects of life.  But even if one must go about leaning alone, the "backward chaining" approach will prove more effective both at learning and at keeping the intellect alive than the bottom-up method that herds millions of unhappy and ungrateful students through an education of no personal value or meaning, and into a life in which the idea that one might learn something that one didn't have to learn is unthinkable.

So, what does one do in backward-chaining learning?  It is really very simple: we start by finding something about life, or about the world, or about culture, that we are fascinated with.  We disregard everything we think we know about learning, and find a question that really fascinates us, a subject we would really love to understand, or a form of creative expression we would really love to master.  We don't worry about having the necessary "background" or "prerequisites" to understand this question or topic.   We begin to hunt down everything we can find out about it.

Soon enough, we will find ourselves in the position of being unable to progress any further, because we lack the necessary understanding of some conventionally antecedent subject: e.g., my attempts to understand how the brain works run ashore due to my limited understanding of physiology.

What happens now?  I take up the study, not of general biology, or even general physiology, but of neurophysiology.   I cannot help but be aware of why I want to study this, and how each piece of knowledge I gain about it serves my overall purpose of understanding the brain.  At some point in my study of neurophysiology, I run aground again, this time because I do not understand organic chemistry.  I begin to study organic chemistry and find myself chaining backwards into general chemistry.  Then, perhaps, I unwind the path I have taken, finish learning what I need to know about organic chemistry, finish learning what I couldn't learn about neurophysiology because I didn't know organic chemistry, and arrive back at the brain again.  Now, I have gained substantial knowledge in several areas, without losing sight of what really interests me, and without falling into rote learning on the promise that "someday" I'll understand why I had to learn it.  I have studied exactly what I wished to understand.  If I keep trying to learn about human brains, I will run though this backwards chaining process many, many times, until I have quite a broad understanding of the various subjects that contribute to biology in general and neurobiology in particular.  I will never complain about what I am studying, simply because there will never be any reason why I am studying it save my desire to understand it.  Knowledge acquired in this way cannot be contained.   It cannot be restricted to the practical or the technical or to knowledge related to a particular job.  The social consequences of the topic will end up being explored; the human meaning of the style of thought associated with it will be studied; and various philosophical perspectives on it will become familiar as well.   One will ultimately acquire a breadth of understanding that makes the spoon-fed, bottom-up style of education seem anemic, constricted, and painfully uninsightful.

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