Occlusion Theory

2.1 Regions of Experience

We divide experience into eight regions:

🌍 World (w)       💭 Thought (t)
   ↓                      ↑
🫀 Body (b)  →  💗 Emotion (e)

2.2 State Notation

A consciousness state is a function σ: Regions → {T, O, B}

We write states as 8-tuples:

2.3 Transformations (Practices)

A practice is a function π: State → State

We write transformations as:

Composition: Practices compose: (π₁ ∘ π₂)(σ) = π₁(π₂(σ))

Order matters. Shamatha then Vipassana ≠ Vipassana then Shamatha.

2.4 Derived Quantities

If the 8 regions are not arbitrary, they should map onto independent frameworks. Here's a sketch of correspondences:

This is a sketch. Each row deserves deeper investigation. The convergences and divergences are themselves data.

Without constraints, this is taxonomy. With constraints, it becomes physics. The following constraints generate predictions about what's possible, what's stable, and what requires effort.

4.1 Limited Attention

You can't pay attention to everything at once. More self-awareness means either less absorption in the world or a narrower focus.

4.2 Opacity Cost

Opacity requires maintaining content plus awareness that it's an appearance. Double the work.

4.3 Adjacency Constraint

To let go of something, you first have to notice it. You can't unsee what you never saw.

4.4 Blindness Momentum

Blindness accumulates inertia. Long-ignored content becomes hard to access.

4.5 Forbidden Configurations

4.6 Free Energy Gradient

O is inherently unstable. The system "wants" to resolve opacity: either by absorbing (→T) or excluding (→B).

4.7 Shevirat ha-Kelim (Shattering)

From Lurianic Kabbalah: too much light too fast shatters the vessels. The system has limited capacity to process sudden revelation.

The constraints above may have a deeper explanation: T, O, and B correspond to different computational regimes with different resource costs. Working memory, attentional capacity, and cognitive load offer a path toward grounding these ideas empirically.

Complexity Costs of States

The Indexing Chain as Compression

The content regions (w→b→e→t) form a compression hierarchy:

Each level up the chain is a lossy compression of the level below. Emotions are summaries of body states. Thoughts are summaries of emotions.

Attention as Resource Allocation

In OT terms: attention determines what gets precision-weighted (T/O) vs. pruned as low-salience (B). High precision = opaque or transparent. Low precision = blind.

This explains why attention (a) sits in the structural hierarchy: it's the resource allocator that shapes the entire computation.

Why B is Sometimes Optimal

Blindness saves resources:

• Irrelevant signals: The hum of the refrigerator doesn't need processing
• Automated skills: Expert performance requires B for component actions (you can't think about each finger while typing)
• Overwhelm prevention: B prevents information overload
• Energy conservation: Cognitive resources are finite; B frees them for what matters

Skill Acquisition as Complexity Reduction

Information-Theoretic Formulation

The T/O/B distinction can be formalized in information-theoretic terms. Let W denote the global workspace (reportable contents, working memory) and R denote a region.

Testable Predictions

• Dual-task interference: Increasing O in one region should degrade performance in others (competing for channel capacity)
• Metacognitive overhead: O states should show measurably higher cognitive load than T states (e.g., pupillometry, reaction time)
• Report-behavior dissociation: T states should show high behavioral sensitivity but low reportability; B states should show neither
• Capacity limits: Total O across regions should be bounded regardless of which regions are opaque

Summary

Attention can be modeled as a conserved fluid flowing through the network of regions.

Basic Setup

• Nodes: 8 regions (w, b, e, t, s, a, m, ∅)
• Edges: possible attention flow paths between regions
• Conservation: total attention A = 1 (normalized)
• State: each region r has attention level a_r where Σa_r = 1

T/O/B as Flow States

Dynamics

Where:

• F_ij = flow rate from region i to j
• S_r = salience-driven inflow (external events grab attention)
• D_r = decay/leakage

What Practices Do

Attractors

Stable flow configurations are attractors. Ordinary consciousness is a default attractor. Practices temporarily shift to other attractors. Trait change = reshaping the attractor landscape.

Each practice in the Harmonic Alignment database mapped to Occlusion Theory notation.

Concrete Examples

If the constraints define an energy function, practices trace paths through a potential landscape. Some configurations are valleys (stable attractors), some are peaks (unstable), some are forbidden (impossible).

Key Regions

Additional Visualizations

Occlusion Theory connects to developmental psychology, particularly Robert Kegan's Subject-Object theory.

In OD terms:

• Subject = T (transparent, identified with)
• Object = O (opaque, can examine)
• Development = T→O for increasingly fundamental structures

The OD Addition to Kegan

Kegan's framework has Subject and Object. OD adds Blind.

Development isn't just T→O. It also involves:

• Healthy B: Appropriate exclusion (not everything needs to be conscious)
• Pathological B: Repression, dissociation (trapped content)
• The B→O transition: Therapy, shadow work, retrieving occluded content

Other Developmental Phenomena

OD's framework extends beyond Kegan to explain a range of developmental phenomena:

Piaget's Cognitive Development

OD insight: Each stage makes previous cognitive operations visible (O) while operating through new invisible structures (T).

Attachment Patterns

Earned secure attachment = learning to shift e and s between T/O flexibly.

Trauma and PTSD

• Flashback: B→T sudden eruption (occluded memory becomes immediate experience)
• Dissociation: Defensive T→B (make self/body blind to escape)
• Hypervigilance: Stuck in w=T, a=T (can't let world or attention become background)
• Recovery: Gradual B→O (making traumatic content examinable)

Skill Acquisition (Dreyfus Model)

Mastery = the ability to make transparent skills opaque again (to teach or refine them).

Moral Development (Kohlberg)

Moral development = successive T→O transitions for the basis of ethical judgment.

Language Acquisition

• First language: Acquired as T (we speak through it, not at it)
• Grammar: Invisible rules that structure thought
• Second language: Initially O (effortful, visible), fluency = shift to T
• Metalinguistics: Ability to make language O (examine it)

Identity Formation

Despite surface differences, contemplative traditions converge on similar sequences. OD reveals the underlying structure.

8.1 The Concentration Path

Pattern: Increase |B|, stabilize remaining T

Convergence: All narrow phenomenal bandwidth (increase |B|) to stabilize and deepen remaining experience.

8.2 The Insight Path

Pattern: Increase |O| systematically, see construction

Convergence: All cultivate metacognition (T→O) to see through habitual identification.

8.3 The Surrender Path

Pattern: s→B, ∅→T (self dissolves, ground appears)

Convergence: All move the self-construct from transparent to blind, revealing what was always beneath.

8.4 The Dark Night

Pattern: Rapid B→O overwhelms capacity (Constraint 7 violated)

OD extends beyond individual practice to relationships. What happens when two occlusion patterns meet?

9.1 Complementary Blindness

In healthy relationships, partners cover each other's blind spots:

• One partner is body-aware (b=O), the other is emotionally attuned (e=O)
• One tracks external threats (w=O), the other tracks internal states
• Blind spots don't collide: they interlock

9.2 Love as Occlusion Pattern

What is love in OD terms?

9.3 Intersubjective Practices

9.4 Synchronization and Alternation

Healthy relationships alternate between:

• Synchronization: Same regions opaque/blind at once (shared attention, shared blindness)
• Alternation: Taking turns: one holds awareness while other processes

If consciousness is shaped by what it occludes, ethics becomes: What should be occluded?

10.1 Moral Blindness

10.2 Virtue as Occlusion Pattern

Classical virtues can be reframed as skilled occlusion:

10.3 The Ethics of Attention

Attention is not morally neutral. Where you look matters.

• Making something O is an ethical act: you're granting it reality, acknowledging its existence
• Choosing B can be protection or avoidance: healthy boundaries vs. moral cowardice
• Collective attention shapes collective reality: what a society blinds itself to reveals its values

10.4 Responsibility for Blind Spots

Three categories of B:

• Innocent B: Genuinely couldn't know. No access. (Not blameworthy)
• Negligent B: Could have looked, didn't. Comfortable ignorance. (Partially responsible)
• Willful B: Actively chose not to see. Strategic blindness. (Fully responsible)

10.5 The Paradox of Necessary Blindness

Complete transparency (all O) is neither possible nor desirable:

• You cannot hold everything opaque at once (Constraint 1: bandwidth)
• Some B is necessary for action: paralysis comes from too much O
• Healthy boundaries require appropriate B
• The question is not "blind or not" but "what to blind, when, and why"

A theory is only as good as its falsifiable predictions. Occlusion Theory generates the following testable claims:

11.1 Neural Predictions

11.2 Behavioral Predictions

11.3 Training Predictions

11.4 Clinical Predictions

11.5 Experimental Protocols

Eye Tracking Validation

If T/O/B are real states with distinct computational signatures, they should produce measurable oculomotor differences:

VR/AR: Real-Time State Detection

Virtual reality with integrated eye tracking enables closed-loop experiments:

1. Calibration: Guided state induction (T, O, B for multiple regions) while collecting eye/pupil data
2. Classification: Train personalized model to infer current state in real-time (<100ms latency)
3. Adaptation: Environment responds to inferred state:
   • O(w) detected → slow scene changes, enhance aesthetics
   • B(w) detected → simplify, reduce stimulation
   • High switching → stabilize scene
4. Training: Provide feedback when target state achieved, gamify attentional flexibility

Clinical VR Applications

• Anxiety: Detect T(e) + negative valence, prompt shift to O(e)
• ADHD: Monitor T(w) stability, re-engage when attention wanders
• Dissociation: Alert when excessive B(b) or B(e) detected, prompt grounding
• Meditation training: Detect target states, advance difficulty when achieved

Unsupervised Region Discovery

The 8 regions (w, b, e, t, s, a, m, ∅) are proposed, not derived. Future work could discover region boundaries from data:

Method:

1. Dense sampling: Experience sampling across many contexts—meditation, therapy, flow, daily life, altered states
2. Multi-modal data: Combine self-report probes, eye tracking, HRV, EEG, behavioral measures
3. Embedding: Learn low-dimensional representation of attentional states (VAE, contrastive learning)
4. Clustering: Find natural groupings in the embedding space
5. Validation: Do discovered clusters map onto proposed regions? Are there more? Fewer? Different boundaries?

This would move Occlusion Theory from vocabulary toward empirically grounded model—or reveal where the vocabulary fails.

Falsification Criteria

The framework fails if:

• Eye patterns don't distinguish T/O/B above chance (~60% for 3-class)
• Classified states don't correlate with self-report
• Adaptive environments don't improve outcomes vs. static
• Attentional flexibility doesn't improve with training
• Unsupervised clustering finds no structure in attentional state space

Occlusion Theory synthesizes insights from multiple traditions:

OT frames psychological conditions not as deficits but as different default allocation patterns: each with trade-offs. Pathology arises when patterns become stuck rather than flexibly deployed.

13.1 Mood Disorders

13.2 Neurodivergence

13.3 Trauma-Related

13.4 Personality Patterns

13.5 Other Conditions

13.6 Therapeutic Implications

Occlusion Theory is a framework, not a finished theory. Here are its known limitations and areas requiring further development.

14.1 Theoretical Limitations

14.2 Empirical Challenges

• Measurement problem: How do you measure T/O/B? Self-report is unreliable (you can't report what's B). Need indirect measures.
• Observer effect: Asking someone about their state may change it (asking about O induces O).
• Training confounds: Experienced meditators report differently: is this perception or vocabulary?
• Neural correlates: The predictions are testable but require sophisticated neuroimaging protocols.

14.3 What OT Doesn't Explain

14.4 Open Questions

• Is there a "view from nowhere"? Can you have experience with all regions B? Or does consciousness require minimum content?
• What is ∅ (ground)? Is emptiness a region like others, or something categorically different?
• Can m (model) ever be fully O? Seeing the construction process completely might be impossible (you'd need another model to see it).
• Are some transitions forbidden? The T↔O↔B adjacency is postulated: is direct T→B truly impossible, or just unstable?
• What happens at death? Is death total B, or dissolution of the T/O/B structure itself?
• How does language interact? Does naming something automatically shift it toward O?

14.5 What Would Falsify OT?