The theory of theries and the model of models (2)
Perhaps somewhere is a place where we can browse through old theories and see why they did not work and look at sucessful theories and analyse what has made them sucessful. Maybe we could find elegant propositions and constructions in theories that failed and adapt them, assimilate them, into our own theory. Imagine taking the essential core of Euclidean geometry and bolting it onto the theory of ideal gases, then extrapolating gases into fluids and Euclid's theorems into hydraulics. Or imagine taking the theory of light, of magnetism and of electricty and putting them all together into one unified theory.
Take the corpuscular conception of the properties of light as discrete energy quanta propagating a continual distribution of the energy fields of light waves . . . radiating an unseen field of force . . . waiting for an empty theory to rest in . . .
English can be an analogous language, analogy and metaphor serve to give flavour to an otherwise bland explanation. Analogy is the spice of life. Just as we can place our metaphoric feet into various fields of learning and our heads become filled with knowledge, as we look down and past at the distant fields that men have trod to reach where you are now . . . just what can we see?
In this world of theories and explanation, a theory must be successful in order to succeed and be accepted as the theory, as the currently accepted theory (cat). It is unfortunate that we never start off with the correct theory in the first place. It would surely make life a lot easier. But invariably someone will not agree with the theory and will want to modify it, or change it, or just change it a little bit. Perhaps someone will want to introduce new information or to reinterpret old information that might have been misconstrued. It might be necessary to introduce a little falsity to our theory so that later on our theory can be proved conclusively true rather than falsified unjustifiably, and then our theory would get replaced or absorbed into someone else's theory. There can only be one currently accepted theory; the distant landscape is strewn with discarded old theories (dots). Perhaps once the dots were cats . . . but there can only one top cat.
The landscape looks bleak as we trace the paths that lead nowhere, wandering aimlessly through dead ends of uncertainty, miscalculations gaping in naked rectification, errors caught in their blatant reflection, assumptions stranded in their awkward poses, pompous misleading language snared sharply by its own intransigence. The lies of all shades and subtleties, isolated from the truth by their forensic inconsistencies.
The road is filled with the bones and skeletons of antique outmoded models, their structures lacking substance, their straight lines curving back to a fundamental beginning. Unproven theories writhe in abundance, misconceptions once used as fodder to feed the hungry masses are now no longer digestible. Rows and rows of nearly complete theories have had their structures kicked out from under them in order to support someone else's theory. Broken theories lay wounded, searching for the connection that can resurrect the essence of their truth. Parts of theories lay isolated like lepers, as if they still hold strange contagious knowledge. Half working theories scavenge the dust and remains of once successful and nearly successful theories, trying to salvage their salvation.
Rival theories joust for contention and priority, proudly displaying their finer points, strutting and trying to topple the top cats, hiding their faults from daylight and public attention, holding themselves together by their bootstraps. Theories by the thousands can be seen with gaping holes knocked in them, exposing falsity, fallacy and fantasy. New theories jockey for position, clutching at straws instead of structure, sprouting rhetoric instead of logic, lost in ambiguity, rounded down by approximation, emphatically underscoring their loss of focus, needlessly espousing their incoherent redundancies.
Real substances get reduced to symbols through mechanical and intellectual manipulations. Symbolic formulations are tried, tested and abandoned against the criterion of whatever will gain them the most credibility in agonistically structured, competitive fields. Compelling theories blind the unwary with rhetorical innovation, sweeping aside more superficial arguments with epistemic consequences. (Bazerman)