If you know a teacher who works with students who have difficulty learning through traditional instructive techniques, you may point them to this post. I expect there are many conceptual theoreticians out there. If I had teachers in my childhood who understood me, my life would have been much different. Just being aware of the process goes a long way to dealing with it.
Google or Bing “Concept Theory” and you will get diverse, loosely related definitions. Odds are you won’t get a firm definition of the specific phrase itself. Though I came up with it on my own, it would be narcissistic of me to think that I actually coined this term. Surely someone else thought of it first. Whether their definition is the same as mine is yet to be determined. Here is my definition.
Concept Theory is a verb describing a thought process. It’s how I view the world. Indeed it’s the framework for my very perception of reality. It’s not something I learned or taught myself, but rather my attempt to define the process by which I arrive at conclusions. Growing up, I wasn't able to learn like the other kids in school. This brought me difficulty with both my peers and teachers alike. It wasn't until I applied Concept Theory to my own thought process that I was able to determine how it is that I think. Concept Theory is the act of theorizing concepts.
A Conceptional Theoretician thinks in 5D. Now we’re all used to the three spatial dimensions, height, width and depth. So thinking in 3D is like contemplating a cube. We’re also all familiar with the linear dimension of time. Therefore, 4D thinking is like contemplating that cube as it exists in past, present and future. The fifth dimension (spatial) is best described as inwardness and outwardness, and is a little more complicated.
I have a tool box. It is a 3D object. It’s also dirty and scratched. How it got that way is a function of time. It exists in past, present and future, making it a 4D object. Impacts, collisions and other forces from outside the box through the course of time have had an effect upon it. That’s outwardness. Moving still outward are the forces that caused these forces to interact with the box, and the forces that acted upon them, and outward to infinity. Outwardness is infinite. Open the lid and the box is cluttered with various tools, nuts, bolts, nails, pins, staples, etc. That’s inwardness. All my tools are dirty and scratched. Everything inside the box has been affected by outside forces over time. Various objects within the box are designed to interact with others. The wrench is designed to interact with the nut for example. The tools can be used to influence the world outside the box - outwardness. Moving still inward are the various components of each tool; how these components interact with each other to cause the tool to function. Inwardness is finite down to the sub-atomic level of each atom comprising the molecules of each component. Each component of every tool can be explored 5 dimensionally to complete the 5D perception of the box.
5D thinking then, is to examine a concept from every possible perspective, what it contains, how it interacts with other concepts over time. Patterns emerge. These patterns interact with other patterns to produce more complex patterns. This process may take seconds, minutes, hours, days or years. A concept is “chewed” on until it has been thoroughly digested, exploring inwardness and outwardness only as far as necessary. At any given moment in time, I have several concepts being simultaneously processed in my head. This occasionally keeps me awake at night or causes me to be distracted during conversations.
Another way of exploring inwardness is asking the question “Why?” Then repeating the “Why?” to each answer until there are no “Whys” left. When your four-year-old keeps asking “Why?” as you try to explain something, instead of saying “Because I said so.” try eliminating the whys one at a time. You might discover something you’ve never considered before.
Concept theory then is the process of applying thought to raw observation to arrive at a theoretical conclusion. “Raw observation” is data that has not been cluttered with other applied thought processes.
When I apply concept theory to my personal Biblical studies, I contemplate a particular idea, looking inward, dissecting it, looking at it from various perspectives, relating it to surrounding Biblical ideas, expanding outward to how it relates to the entire Bible, outward still to current events, society, culture, history and various perceived future possibilities. Once I have the raw observation digested, then I look at how my conclusions relate to the conclusions of others. Sometimes I find things that cause me to reevaluate, and the process is repeated. Sometimes another completely different idea emerges and the original concept is shelved for later contemplation. I also include prayer in this process. God has already provided all the needed data and using Him as a resource for compiling it is one of the best tools that I have ever encountered.
Concerning geopolitical concepts the idea is similar. I observe something, I evaluate it 5 dimensionally and produce theories. I disregard clutter (pundits for example) unless I think further data is needed to complete my hypothesis.
This is how I think, and why people sometimes find it hard to understand me. I’m not always right, and even when I am, my conclusions are often difficult to quantify, which is why I call this Concept THEORY.
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