Some Guidelines

A man writes to say: “After listening to you for some time now, and personally pursuing many of your ideas into useful realms, I have come to this present opinion:  even if I never do “wake up,” whatever that may actually be, I would be satisfied if I could simply learn to use my mind “solely” as an experimental laboratory.  (I find no fault with his observation if you understand the key word to be “solely” – “solely,” my friends – “solely” is the secret ingredient herein.)

Now I present for your consideration and potential edification The First Lemma Regarding Analysis of This Kinda Stuff: 
Continually scrutinize your models for flaws – for they are there.  Subsection:  If none are obvious, take some “fact” from your model and see what it might reveal afresh if its opposite were true.

As long as we are here; The First “Law-of-Laws” Regarding The Totality Of This Kinda Thing: 
No perfect models exist, and no “fact” is valid on its own, and even when it may seem to be, it is, perforce, within its place in the model, connected to other “facts” which are inapt and inefficacious.

This Gives Rise To:  
If it can be put in words – don’t rely on it.  At best it might be temporarily a useful schematic, but it will never be the machinery itself.

Here it seems appropriate to bring up another of the official “This-Kinda-Stuff” Guidelines:
If something strikes you as being relevant and useful, that has to do with matters outside of you, it can also be practically applied to those inside of you.

J.