Okay how about Einstein then? My understanding is that he also worked backwards in order to develop his theory of Special Relativity; he was trying to "fit" a theory to a universe that presupposed that the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe, including a constant speed of light for all observers. Relativistic effects weren't known to be reality at the time this theory was proposed. Much later, scientists developed experiments to confirm relativity.

Maybe we're still searching for the right theory of consciousness to know what exactly we're trying to measure?