Consistent Histories and Life Narratives. A Phenomenological Perspective on Virtual Operativity

This paper discusses the phenomenology of life history through an analogy with the consistent histories approach in quantum physics. This analogy, originally suggested by M. Houellebecq, allows us to shed light on a dimension that is not yet articulated as an all-encompassing story, but is populated only with fragments or scraps of possible narratives. In order to unpack this hypothesis, we start with a philosophical account of the consistent histories approach, as formulated by Robert Griffiths and pushed further by Roland Omnès, Murray Gell-Mann, and James Hartle. We pursue with a description of a pre-narrative, untamed phenomenological field by drawing on Marc Richir’s phenomenology of wild essences. Finally, we discuss some possible structural analogies between the histories in physics and life history, focusing on how narratives and their symbolic cohesion blend out an original field of inconsistencies, that nevertheless is at the basis of consistent stories. Drawing on these analogies, we argue that there is a kind of virtual operativity in every narratively articulated life history, which contributes to narrative sense-making at a distance and which makes creativity possible.