Theory underlies ALL human experience including every seemingly raw observation or assertion of true fact. Theory is the vehicle of all conscious experience.
Simply put, theory-making consists of setting forth an assertion, no matter how trivial or grand, in which we claim “If this, then that”. In other words, theory is prediction.
My theory of consciousness is that it is rooted in our genetic predisposition to construct theory (Darwinian). The structure of theory is narrative. Theory is “story” that we tell to, among, and with others, real and imagined, as in our imagined “selves”.
The construction of narrative (i.e. theory), is no more mysterious than the behavior of birds gathering twigs and bits of string to shape into a nest in which they will thereafter reside, along with their developing offspring. Instead of twigs and string, we gather up our self-created vocal and gestural material and shape it into symbolic-narrative nests of varying utility, in which we reside, and without which we are not and cannot be conscious.
Every conscious being comes into existence in the context of theory shared by others as narrative, and thereafter in continuous interaction with others and the substantive world at large. It is in this complex ongoing interaction of story-tellers predicting their way through the world that theory comes to be accepted and taken-for-granted. Theory that comes to be taken-for-granted (e.g. Self-evident or “proven”) forms the foundation for the edifice of subsequent theory we construct continually.
We cannot extricate ourselves from theory — we cannot be conscious of ourselves from outside our narrative nests. I think of this as a “belief barrier” that we can only overcome by practices designed to give-up self-awareness (i.e. Non-consciousness). OOOOM!
In the business of formal theory-making that we call modern science, the predictions made — the “if this then that” stories told — can never be proven for the simple reason that in prediction, the totality of all possible future outcomes is unknowable. A theory can be falsified by one disconfirming outcome, but never proven.
But as we approach the belief-barrier, the falsification of theory that forms the foundations of our consciousness threatens our very conception of the socially constructed self. To actually break the belief-barrier would be to descend into incoherent madness — a bird’s nest distorted into useless form —rather than sublimely pure awareness. An individual bird of a nesting species who, for whatever reason, becomes incapable of building a functional nest, is incapable of surviving, and so too for the conscious creature who becomes incapable of constructing a narrative nest.
This helps us to understand why down here, near the belief-barrier, theory often stands despite repeated falsifications in practice. The coherence of our symbolic narrative nest is of paramount importance and evidence-be-damned, such coherence must be sustained at all costs, lest the story-teller be plunged into incoherent, suicidal, madness.
The boundaries of theory-making down near the belief-barrier are circumscribed by what “works” as prediction, more or less, but also by the symbolic material itself. Like twigs and string, the structure of “if this, then that”, prescribes a form that is self-limiting and self-bounding, but infinitely variable within those limits.
In consciousness, we cannot overcome the belief-barrier but we can characterize it. In doing so, we can eschew illusions of truth and proof that restrict our ability to improve the form of our nest with purpose and intention, while sustaining our nest’s functional coherence.
I believe that the process of theory-making down near the belief-barrier is universal in nature and can be both described and explained as a whole. These essential elements transcend the variety of forms regarded as “proven” that continue to confound our inquiry.
