Marcus Schmieke, Kränzlin, 17 July 2018

 

The four circle model of self-consciousness

 

In the transcendental philosophy of the Kant successors Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the I is constituted by self-reflection as a pure subject. The sociophilosopher Johannes Heinrichs, who stands in the tradition of the philosophy of reflection, regards this transcendental consummation of consciousness as the subject of a phenomenological model of mind, matter and I and You consisting of four sense elements, which in its ontological interpretation becomes the triad of mind, matter and psyche[i]. In his social theory, the four-circle model of mind, matter, I and you emerge from this. [1]

The model proposed in this work is also in the thinking tradition of German idealism, which sees in consciousness as self-reflection the transcendental reason of the objectified description of reality. From the necessary distinction between reflection in itself and other, or between self-reflection and external reflection, the separation of the experience of reality into an objective external reality and an internal subjective experience is derived. The Cartesian dualism of an objective res extensa and a subjective res cogitans is joined by the transcendental subject, whereby the res cogitans in the reflection light of the subject’s execution becomes the objective content of consciousness of the psyche. The psyche experiences reality in a complementarity of material and spiritual contents, whereby in the two complementary limit values the material concept of substance (mass) and purely spiritual contents of knowledge, such as mathematical laws, stand in opposition as extremes. All concrete mental contents have complementary material and spiritual qualities, which justifies the concept of complementarity in this context. Complementarity is understood here in analogy to the term coined by Niels Bohr. He describes pairs of terms or characteristics which represent mutually exclusive perspectives on a system, but which are necessary for a complete description. They are characterized by maximum possible incompatibility in the respective context[ii]. In this work, complementarity is used both in the strictly scientific quantum-theoretical and in this analogous sense, since a key to the connection of physical and psychological knowledge is presumed in this term[iii].

In this context, the spiritual, as in Johannes Heinrichs, is understood as a medium of meaning, an a priori of the communication community, since it organizes material as well as psychological things in a meaningful way and relates them to each other. [iv] It can neither be reduced to the material nor to the psychological, nor can it be regarded as dependent on these two categories.

The theoretical physicist, cosmologist and mathematician Roger Penrose bases his scientific understanding on an analogous three-world model that supplements a platonic-mental and a physical-material world with a mental world that can know the spiritual contents, which in turn are the arrangements of physical processes[v].  According to Penrose, the physical processes in turn form the basis of the empirical consciousness of the psyche. Empirical consciousness is dependent on representation in mentally permeated material spaces but is ultimately transcendental in self-reflection and therefore independent of a concrete physical embodiment.

Three worlds after Roger Penrose

The repeated self-reflection is the motor of the interaction of material and spiritual contents in the psychological consciousness and appears there as empirical time. Empirical time is reflected in material-spiritual processes as well as in human experience, which focuses on the present. In the classical scientific models of Newton´schen mechanics, Maxwell´schen electrodynamics and the Schrödinger equation of quantum physics, however, the now is not found as an excellent element of the per se linear understanding of time. It was Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker who, in his justification of quantum theory, first pointed out the fundamental significance of time as a present experience and placed this term at the beginning of his derivation of the structure of physics. [vi] The concept of the present is derived from the distinction between the factual of the past and the possible of the future and its dynamic transformation into one another in the present execution of the present.

 

Quantum Theoretical Conditions of Empirical Consciousness

Quantum theory has established itself for about 100 years as the basis of almost all scientific theories. It requires the division of reality into the observer to be described in factual terms by classical physics and the observed system, which is described with the use of the Schrödinger equation as a superposition of possibilities by the wave function. The interaction between the observer and the observed system takes place only in the now corresponding observation, whereby both change into an entangled state, which must be described by a common wave function.  This is a superposition of possibilities which then, at the moment of observation, merge into a single definite factual state (reduction of the wave function) which can then be described by the terms of classical physics.  The division of one reality into an observer and an observed system is called a Heisenberg section. This section reflects the Descarte´schen section as well as the relation between the transcendental subject and the empirical consciousness.[vii]

Only the factual result of an observation is suitable as the content of consciousness and thus becomes the conscious content of the psyche. The superposition of possibilities of the wave function and its dynamic temporal development according to the Schrödinger equation do not represent conscious contents, since they have no unambiguity and clarity.

Current theories of quantum neurobiology see the reduction of complex quantum physical fields in the brain to concrete factual molecular neuronal structures and activities as the physiological correspondence of consciousness processes. Here the classical result of a quantum physical measurement of the electromagnetic fields and states of the brain is mapped as a measurement result in consciousness. In this way, conscious contents of the psyche can be assigned to the factual content of quantum observations.

The model developed by Penrose and Hameroff for the orchestrated reduction of coherent neuronal quantum fields sees consciousness as a regular consequence of such reductions with a frequency between 40 and 80 Hz.[viii] The empirically experienced continuity of consciousness would thus result from a high-frequency overlap of conscious moments, each resulting from a factual reduction of quantum-physical possibility fields.

Within the framework of this theory, the wave function between its reductions develops into the factual according to the Schrödinger equation. For about 25 ms, a holographic quantum field extending over several centimetres is created in which an infinite number of possible states overlap. This superposition of possibilities generally does not correspond to conscious psychic contents due to a lack of precision but could be assigned to the unconscious psychic processes that lie between conscious thoughts or feelings and form the unconscious background of conscious events. This classification is useful because definiteness and clarity are essential properties of conscious events, while the unconscious psyche may include blurred contours and an overlapping of mutually exclusive thoughts and feelings. Later we will argue that in certain circumstances such extended quantum superpositions may appear as special extraordinary states of consciousness.

Just as in quantum physics, where a reality must be described by terms of factual and possible models, the description of psychological processes requires the coexistence of conscious and unconscious elements. In analogy to the quantum-theoretical concept of complementarity, the psychological opposition can be consciously-unconsciously regarded as a complementary system, as the following quote from C.G. Jung expresses[2]:

“Thus, we come to the paradoxical conclusion that there is no content of consciousness that is not unconscious in any other respect. Perhaps there is also no unconscious psychic that is not conscious at the same time, with the explicit exception of the unconscious and only soul-like.” [ix]

According to these considerations, in both physics and psychology it is necessary to describe both the objective and the subjective side of reality with complementary concepts, whereby the pure transcendental subject owed to the dualism of objectification remains in the background as an excluded third. In both disciplines, the objective side is represented by the complementarity of mind and matter, while the subjective side is characterized by the pairs of terms factually-possible and consciously-unconscious.

In both physics and psychology, the dynamical empirical process is based on repeated self-reflection as the pure subject. In physics, empirical time is expressed in repeated quantum observation, while in psychology it corresponds to conscious experience itself.

 

Orthogonal Complementarity

An orthogonal complementarity consists of two complementary pairs of terminologies. Since the involved complementarities already represent products of reflexive relations, a double complementarity is a double reflection, which is analogous to the self-reflection of the transcendental subject. Such an orthogonal complementarity could form the basis of the structural unity of physics, psychology and philosophy. The property of orthogonality indicates that the one complementary pair is already complete in the sense of a bivalent logic and the tertium non datur that is implied therein, and contains the other complementarity as its absolute negation, i.e. reflection.[x] The material-spirit duality thus needs to be supplemented by the perspective of the conscious unconscious and vice versa in order to describe the underlying introscendent origin of self-reflection. In quantum physics, the property of complementarity of non-interchangeable observables such as location and momentum can be related to the need to represent the wave function in the complex number space. The property of complementarity corresponds in some respects to the representation by complex numbers, since only the special calculus properties of complex numbers enable the common definition of complementary property spaces.[xi]  The representation of the dynamics of quantum states in complex number spaces also leads to the fact that in the interior of quantum states, i.e. in their subjective being, an imaginary time can run cyclically, which does not appear in the outer empirical time. A connection to psychological phenomena and to the distinction between conscious and unconscious perception of time could be investigated against this background.

It is not surprising that physics Nobel Prize winner and co-founder of quantum physics Wolfgang Pauli came to a similar conclusion, as he conducted an intensive dialogue with C.G. Jung for more than twenty years, focusing on the unification of the physical with the psychological point of view. In “Modern Examples of Background Physics” Pauli wrote in an article not intended for publication:

“The complementarity of physics has … a profound analogy to the terms “consciousness” and “unconscious” in psychology.”[xii]

Further Pauli writes in the same article:

“According to the view held here, quaternity would not be valid within physics, but a quaternity would probably be assigned to the wholeness consisting of physics and psychology, insofar as the complementary pair of opposites of physics is reflected again in the psychic. It would be conceivable, and it even seems plausible to me, that there could be phenomena where the whole fourness plays an essential role, not only the physical and the psychological pair of opposites alone. In such phenomena, conceptual distinctions such as “physical” and “psychological” would no longer be meaningful.”

He sees the complementary pair of opposites of physics mentioned here by Pauli in analogy to the terms “conscious” and “unconscious” as the observer and the observed, whereby he sees consciousness as the subjective observer and the unconscious as the objective observed.[3] Pauli takes this view in a letter to C.G. Jung from 1954, which Jung quotes for the first time in “The Spirit of Psychology”:

“The physicist will indeed expect a correspondence in psychology at this point, because the epistemological situation concerning the terms “consciousness” and “unconscious” seems to show a far-reaching analogy to the situation of “complementarity” in physics outlined below. On the one hand the unconscious can only be opened indirectly through its (ordering) effects on contents of consciousness, on the other hand every “observation of the unconscious”, i.e. every making conscious of unconscious contents, has an initially uncontrollable retroactive effect on these unconscious contents themselves (which, as is well known, excludes in principle an “exhaustion” of the unconscious through “making conscious”). Physics will therefore conclude per analogia that precisely this uncontrollable reaction of the observing subject to the unconscious limits the objective character of its reality and at the same time lends it a subjectivity.

 

Furthermore, although the position of the “cut” between consciousness and unconscious (at least to some extent) is left to the free choice of the “psychological experimenter”, the existence of this “cut” remains an inevitable necessity. The “observed system” from the point of view of psychology would therefore not only consist of physical objects, but would also include the unconscious, while consciousness would play the role of the ” medium of observation “. It is unmistakable that the development of “microphysics” has brought the nature of the description of nature in this science closer to recent psychology: While the former, due to the fundamental situation referred to as “complementarity”, is confronted with the impossibility of eliminating the effects of the observer through deterministic corrections, and must therefore in principle dispense the objective recording of all physical phenomena, while the latter could fundamentally supplement the only subjective psychology of consciousness through the postulate of the existence of an unconscious of objective reality to a large extent.”[xiii]

The quaternity to be formed from Pauli’s suggestion would thus consist of the poles observer – observed – consciousness – unconscious. This shows convincingly how Pauli saw the quaternity as a reflection of the complementarities of physics and psychology in the other discipline, while the quaternity on which this article is based consists of two complementary complementarities which can be found in each of the disciplines. Pauli’s above-mentioned assumption that a common quaternity of physics and psychology is possible in certain phenomena seems to be realized in this approach, since matter and mind are concepts of both disciplines, while the subjective axis can be formulated in psycho-physical terms. Human experience as a whole thus, seems to be such a phenomenon to be described by a psycho-physical quaternity.

 

The Four-Circle Model of the Human Experience Space

The double complementarity can now be represented in the form of four circles which penetrate and overlap each other in such a way that the intersection of all four circles, four triple intersections around them, flanked by four double intersections and the four simple residual circle segments are created in the centre. This image allows the representation of the mutual overlapping of two complementarities in relation to different reflection levels, whereby the number of overlapping circles characterizes the reflection level. The possible assignment to basic concepts and elements of physics and psychology, in particular quantum physics and depth psychology, suggest that the diagram and the assumption of the underlying orthogonal complementarity of physics and psychology represent common structures of reality. In this way, this structure could help to find a common language for the psychological and physical realms of reality.

The simple residual circle segments correspond to the first depth of reflection[4]  and thus to the immediate consciousness of matter, mind, conscious/factual and unconscious/possible.[xiv] These sensory elements in themselves are not capable of consciousness separately from each other. The unconscious without reference to the spiritual or to matter is not conscious, neither is the purely spiritual without reference to the conscious. In this context, special consideration should be given to the spiritual, which also includes the concept of information in the physical and psychological context. At the level of the first depth of reflection it is necessarily meaningless information which cannot yet be assigned to any psychic, material or living object or process. Thomas Görnitz, the quantum physicist and long-time collaborator of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäckers, has introduced such meaningless information in contrast to the classical Shannon concept of information in order to enable a derivation of the basic physical concepts without having to refer to the psyche.[xv]

 

The four basic psychic functions according to C.G. Jung

The second depth of reflection of the double circle elements corresponds in the psychological domain to the four basic functions of consciousness, which in the representation of C.G. Jung result in an equally orthogonal system of two complementary axes.[xvi] Here thinking and feeling are just as complementary as feeling and intuition. The latter pair of concepts forms the axis of perception, while feeling and thinking form the axis of judgement. Perception and judgement are also in complementary relation to each other.[5]

A perception should be as non-judgmental as possible, but at the same time requires the ability to recognize, which cannot be non-judgmental. At the same time the judgement changes the perception and is at the same time a perception of the same from a different perspective. Pure perception and pure judgment do not exist without the other. Likewise, the two opposite poles on the two axes are complementary to each other. The sensation perceives the being now of an object, while the intuition recognizes its possible becoming. In feeling and thinking, the overall judgement again depends on the sequence. First thinking and then feeling probably results in a different result than first feeling and then thinking about it. In this respect thinking and feeling behave like the quantum physical measurement of the location and the impulse of a particle.

In physical terms, these reflection elements of the second order of depth form the basic concepts of physical description such as mass (feeling), the phenomenology of classical observation (feeling), its measurement results (thinking) and the quantum theoretical wave function (intuition).

In the following, the four basic functions of consciousness are presented individually and set in relation to their physical counterparts. These correspondences form a core thesis of this model, since they reveal the structural and content-related similarity of analytical psychology according to C.G. Jung and quantum physics and represent an offer for further interdisciplinary theory formation:

Thinking: In the interface between the mind and the conscious pole of the psyche, thinking emerges as self-reflection with simultaneous reflection on the object of the spiritual. In this way, the human being recognises mental connections and carries out theory formation, with the help of which he can arrange the sensory perceptions gained empirically through perception. This includes, for example, the recognition and comprehension of mathematical laws, which in turn can serve as a quantitative arrangement of the results of physical measurements. The physical correspondence of thoughts is thus the quantitative measurement result, which is a transformation of sensory perception by thinking. In the language of quantum physics, this is the current information obtained by a measurement within the framework of the given theoretical model. It characterizes a classical state of the measuring device, on which the common system of measuring device and object of observation was mapped by the measurement or observation. Thinking produces systems of logic, mathematics and philosophy, which can be described as conscious figures of the spiritual. The measurement results in their arrangement follow the laws of classical logic and the formulas of mathematical physics. Philosophy relates them from the perspective of thought to its transcendental reason, self-reflection.

Intuition: While thinking appears as a more active conscious reflection of the spiritual, the reflection of the mind on the unconscious aspect of the psyche results in the more passive function of intuition ascending from the unconscious. C.G. Jung describes intuition as the function that recognizes what is possible in the objects of perception and, so to speak, takes a look around the corner into the future. This corresponds to the aspect of spiritual information, which does not clearly exist, but provides information about possible future developments. In quantum theory, this is called potential information and is represented with the wave function. It is a mathematical function that describes the temporal development of all possible states of a system in a complete superposition. While the factual measurement results which correspond to the thinking always refer to the past, the wave function which corresponds to the intuition enables a probability view into the future of the possible. The wave function develops in time strictly causally determined by the mathematical formalism of the Schrödinger equation. However, this does not result in a causality for the relationship of the measurement results to each other or for the relationship of a state of the wave function and a possible measurement result, since the transition from superposition to the factual uniqueness of the measurement results occurs through the acausal process of reduction of the wave function within the framework of a quantum observation, which is located in the quadrivalent central field of the four-circle model. This spontaneous process maps the repeated self-reflection of the transcendental subject to the empirical objectified level. It is, so to speak, the clutch at which the shaft transmits the torque of the engine to the gearbox of the four-circuit model.

Sensation: Sensation is the conscious reflection of the material and its arrangement in the outer physical space. It consists of concrete impressions, which arrange sensory impressions such as colours, forms, smells, sounds and touches spatially next to each other and chronologically behind each other. From these directly gained sensory impressions, the quantification in measurement results, which are subject to thinking on the opposite mentally-conscious side, only becomes possible in extended theory formation by comparison with collectively defined scales. In physics, the conscious reflection of matter corresponds to observation itself as physiologically performed sensory perception with direct reading of the pointer position of the measuring instrument and the sensual evaluation of the actual material processes. Just as in thinking the potential abstract information of the wave function is updated, in perception in observation the abstract matter is realized as an unconscious expression of the extended being in subjective conscious perception.

Feeling: In feelings, the unconscious aspect of the psyche and the material overlap, leading to a passive ascent of psychological impulses that occur as a physically unconscious reaction to sensations or intuitions in the consciousness. Feeling refers to the inner side of the physical, just as feeling refers more to its outer side. Although there are also sensations purely related to the inside of the body, they are more conscious and externalized than the feelings ascending from the unconscious psyche, which can bring out the depths of the material just as thinking can lead the depths or vastness of spiritual connections to consciousness. In the physical context, the matter reflected in the unconscious corresponds to the concept of mass, which appears as the idea of pure substance detached from externally visible qualities such as movement, energy or information. From physics we know today that mass in the sense of rest mass can be converted into energy and converted. The dynamics and interaction associated with this, however, is implicit and hidden in the concept of mass inside and thus unconscious. Also, in the field of unconscious mirrored matter the spiritual aspect of information is hidden as entropy. An old insight of mystical experience and tradition can be found in this analogy: The mass-aspect of the material is the spatially externally visible expression of the unfeeling. Or formulated pragmatically: In the outer you encounter as material what you are not prepared to feel in the inner.

 

Two complementary modes of consciousness

Between the bivalent fields of mass and potential information, in the intersection of matter, spirit, and the unconscious aspect of the psyche, there is a dynamic penetration of spiritual and material contents in the unconscious psyche which is shifted toward the possible on the temporal axis of the psyche. While the middle tetravalent intersection of all four circles corresponds to the dynamic process of the reduction of the wave function in the present and thus to the creative actualization of the inner and outer reality in conscious self-reflection, the two tetravalent intersections above and below the middle, which are each shifted in the direction of the unconscious and conscious pole, must be interpreted as components of this present process of time pointing into the future or into the past. The possible material-spiritual forms are still shortly before the complete reduction of the wave function, while its actual correspondences represent the traces of these events in material events. In quantum theory there are two types of reduction of the wave function which are called strong and weak.[xvii]  According to the quantum neurobiological models already described, processes in the brain that manifest themselves in molecular changes or actions of the neuronal network become particularly conscious. These complete reductions of large-scale coherent quantum superpositions are referred to as strong reduction and leave factual traces in the memory and thus generate clear and definite contents of consciousness. They could be assigned to the trivalent intersection of matter, mind and consciousness.[xviii]

The so-called weak quantum observation, on the other hand, does not lead to a complete reduction of the wave function to a definite state, but only to its deformation.[xix] Through this, certain possibilities become more probable and others lose probability, but there is no clear selection of a certain state. Some models of the quantum theory of consciousness assume that such quantum processes can also lead to conscious perceptions. These can be predictions of future events or contents of so-called expanded states of consciousness, as they can occur in dreams, near-death experiences or induced by psychedelic substances. These events could be assigned to the intersection of mind, matter and unconscious. The experience consciousness of the now in the central tetravalent intersection corresponds to the periodically repeated actualization of the wave function. In this context, the unconscious trivalent field can be assigned to the quantum fields of global coherent states in the nervous system and their states of consciousness modified by weak quantum observations and entanglements, while the conscious trivalent field corresponds to the classically actualized brain and consciousness processes emergent from the actualization of the wave function of the global coherent quantum fields of the brain.[xx]

In depth-psychological language, C.G. Jung expresses this connection in the following quote:

“But since the existence of highly complex, consciousness-like processes in the unconscious is at least made immensely probable by the experience of psychopathology and dream psychology, we are forced to conclude that the state of unconscious content is not more consciously equal to that of the brain, but somehow similar. Under these circumstances, there is probably nothing left to do but to assume a middle ground between the concept of an unconscious and a conscious state, namely an approximate consciousness.”[xxi]

The approximate consciousness is an approximation or approach to the superposition of its two described factual and potential varieties and does not occur as a pure form, as is characteristic for complementary conceptual systems. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker describes the existence of separate individual objects as a classical approximation as well as the individual conscious subjects, caused by Heisenberg’s cut.[xxii] From the point of view of quantum theory, empirical consciousness is thus an approximation of the transcendental subject and thus also an approximative one.

 

Material and mental poles of psychic dynamics

The central tetravalent field of self-consciousness is flanked on the spirit-matter axis by two further trivalent fields, each shifted either toward the spiritual or material pole. This represents a shift on the spatial axis which could result in different spatial manifestations of consciousness. In a similar way as shifting on the temporal axis leads to more future or past related forms of consciousness.

A shift of the overlapping of conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche towards matter in the matter-psycho-field could rather produce organic disordered spatial structures of consciousness as found in the vegetative nervous system of the human abdominal brain. However, if the center of consciousness is shifted toward the spiritual as in the mind-psych field, more hierarchically structured forms such as those of the central nervous system could emerge. In the terms of the Swiss psychotherapist Remo Roth, the matter-psyche field would be assigned to Eros consciousness, which is carried by the vegetative abdominal brain, which spreads in a network-like manner in the body, while the mind-psyche field corresponds to the Logos consciousness of the hierarchically structured central nervous system.[xxiii] Thinking and intuition thus lead into Logos-consciousness and out of the body, while sensation and feeling lead introvertedly connected into the body. Only in their complementary combination do these two forms of the human psyche lead to a complete consciousness.

The Space and Time Axis

Space and time form a superordinate complementarity in relation to consciousness, since they cannot be experienced and described separately in empirical consciousness. However, the two orthogonal axes can be assigned to the terms space and time, since the conscious and unconscious pole of the psyche as the factual and possible correspond to the two modes of time, while matter and spirit constitute the classical res extensa of extended substance. While our consciousness reflects the past and thus its own history, the psyche in the unconscious prepares the near and distant future. While I am typing these words, in the unconscious aspect of my psyche, the words at the end of this sentence are already ready, even though my consciousness does not yet carry them within itself. At the same time, however, I am already aware of the meaning of the entire sentence at the beginning.

The spatial axis between matter and mind can be occupied again with the complementary properties concrete-abstract, while in relation to the psyche the conscious side can be described as external and the unconscious as internal. This results in the square concrete-abstract-external-internal, which can also be translated into the four functions of consciousness. The concrete-external consciousness expresses itself in sensation, while the opposite abstract-internal consciousness expresses itself in intuition. The external-abstract consciousness is thinking, while the internal-concrete can be assigned to feeling. The physicist Harald Atmanspacher comes to this assignment in his work Raum, Zeit und psychische Funktionen[xxiv] (Space, Time and Psychic Functions), but in relation to the concepts of space and time in Emmanuel Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). However, he assigns sensation and intuition to space and thinking as well as feeling time. In the scheme shown here, the four functions of consciousness are not clearly assigned to space and time, but always connect both forms of perception with each other.

Summary

The structural diagram of two orthogonal complementary axes of human knowledge presented here can be understood from a transcendental philosophical point of view as an objectified representation of self-consciousness as repeated reflection in oneself and others. From an epistemological perspective, it thus combines psychological and physical concepts and concretizes them into neurobiological structures. The resulting analogy and clarity of the structural and sense references indicates that the orthogonal complementarity of objective (material/concrete-spirit/abstract) and subjective (conscious/external-unconscious/internal) represents fundamental reflexive structures of empirical consciousness. The focus is on the physical quantum observation process, the spontaneous psychic experience and the dynamic interplay of global coherent non-local neurobiological quantum fields, which, as extended quantum presences, reach some way into the past and future, as well as into mind and matter, thus forming the present as the fundamental mystery of human life.

 

Special thanks go to Prof. Johannes Heinrichs, whose work provided the basis for many of the thoughts behind this work and who helped to sharpen some concepts and con

[1]
The German philosopher and logician Gotthard Günther also sets up a space for reflection with four ontological components: being, nothing, I and you, whereby nothing is to be understood as a reflection of being, the I as a reflection on the not-being negation and the you as the thematic inversion of the I. The German philosopher and logician Gotthard Günther also sets up a space for reflection with four ontological components: being, nothing, I and you. The juxtaposition of mind and matter cannot be understood in the sense of a classical reflection, but as a thematic inversion, just like the relation between ego and you. While in the classical reflection according to Günther being and non-being face each other in the sense of a negation, the thematic inversion always represents the transition from the determining to the determining motif of reflection. Thus, thinking is the thematic inversion of self-consciousness, you the thematic inversion of the I, and spirit the thematic inversion of matter. In the latter relation, matter is no longer understood as pure being in the sense of classical logic, but already as a process reflected in itself, as is compellingly apparent from quantum physics. In the context of quantum theory, matter can only be regarded as an interplay of abstract dynamics of probability functions and empirical observation as a reduction of the probability function, which in itself represents a reflection process. Since matter itself is already reflexive, it cannot simply be represented by a classical negation in thought but requires a thematic inversion into the spiritual. Matter and spirit appear here as the objective and subjective side of an inversion relationship in which the inside is depicted in the outside and the abstract in the concrete in one another. Therefore, the matter appears objective and the spirit subjective, although each of these sense elements carries in itself the other pole as its essence. The thematic inversion has a strong correspondence to the concept of complementarity of quantum theory and to the relationship between the psychological concepts of the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious is the sense of the unconscious, just as the unconscious is the sense of the conscious. Both concepts need each other for mutual determination. The thematic inversion, so to speak, only turns its interior into the exterior and vice versa. The physical impulse is only defined by the temporal change of place, while the place as a spatial property is classically derived from movement. In the place the movement is contained and in the movement the place. Therefore, both terms are complementary as observables in quantum physics, as are the associated images of particles and waves. The wave is defined as the possibility of local interactions in the form of particles, while the particle appears as an update of a spatially extended wave process. The relation of the thematic inversion seems to me to be closely related to the concept of complementarity.

[2]
Der quantenphysikalische und hier vorgeschlagene psychologische Komplementaritäts-Begriff kann, wie in einer vorigen Fußnote bereits dargelegt, als thematische Inversion im Kontext einer auf den Sinn bezogenen Reflexions- oder Sinnlogik verstanden werden. Während in der klassischen Logik das Sein als mit sich selbst identisch nur widerspruchsfrei gedacht werden kann, definiert die Sinnlogik den Sinn als durch einen geschlossenen Reflexionskreis, der seine eigene Negation durchläuft. Sinn ist keine Identität, sondern ein Gegenverhältnis zweier Bewusstseinsmotive, die sich darin gegenseitig bestimmen wie z.B. Wahrheit und Irrtum oder das Endliche und das Unendliche.

[3]
This concept of the unconscious is therefore a summarizing objectification of many unconscious functions in actu (remark by Johannes Heinrichs).

[4]
Gotthard Günther’s non-classical logic contains four levels of depth of reflection on the third and final level of reflection, the first corresponding to immediate consciousness, the second to simply reflected consciousness, the third to infinitely iterable consciousness and the fourth to self-consciousness.

[5]
Judgement, strictly speaking, could also appear as a reflection on perception, which in my opinion does not fully do justice to the functions of consciousness it contains, since each of these is to be understood fundamentally at the same level as a reflection process of self-consciousness. Feeling could therefore also be understood as perception of a sensation, while intuition could also be seen as judgment of a thought.

[i]
Heinrichs, Johannes; Öko – Logik: Geistige Wege aus der Klima- und Umweltkatastrophe; Steno 2007

 

[ii]
Atmanspacher, Harald. (1996). Metaphysics taken literally. In Honor of Kalervo Laurikainen’s

80th Birthday. In U. Ketvel (Ed.), Festschrift in Honor of K.V. Laurikainen’s 80th Birthday. (pp. 49-59). Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press.

 

[iii]
Walach, Harald; Generalisierte Quantentheorie (Weak Quantum Theory): Eine theoretische Basis zum Verständnis transpersonaler Phänomene

 

[iv]
Heinrichs, Johannes; Kritik der integralen Vernunft Bd. 1 und 2; 2018

 

[v]
Penrose, Roger; Das Große, das Kleine und der menschliche Geist, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 1997

 

[vi]
Weizsäcker, Carl Friedrich von; Aufbau der Physik, DTV 1988

 

[vii]
Lucadou, Walter von; Leiblichkeit – L’homme machine – Mensch-Maschinen-Interaktion: Erweiterung oder Konstriktion des Weltbezuges. Dynamische Psychiatrie 2016,  Vol. 49, S. 208-234.

 

[viii]
Stuart Hameroff, Quantum computation in brain microtubules? The Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model of consciousness, Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA

 

[ix]
Jung, Carl Gustav; Theoretische Überlegungen zum Wesen des Unbewussten, GW Band 8 § 385

 

[x]
Gotthard Günther, Metaphysik, Logik und die Theorie der Reflexion, Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik, Band 1, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1991

 

[xi]
Sautter , Ulrich; Komplexität und Korrelation: eine logische Propädeutik der Quantenmechanik, Tectum Verlag, Marburg 1999

 

[xii]
Pauli, Wolfgang, Moderne Beispiele der Hintergrundsphysik, 1948

 

[xiii]
Jung, Carl Gustav; Theoretische Überlegungen zum Wesen des Psychischen, GW Band 8 S. 262, Anm.

 

[xiv]
Gotthard Günther, Metaphysik, Logik und die Theorie der Reflexion, Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik, Band 1, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1991, S. 28

 

[xv]
Thomas Görnitz/ Brigitte Görnitz; Die Evolution des Geistigen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009

 

[xvi]
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[xvii]
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