Orthogonal Complementarity

Transcendental philosophical foundation of the unity of physical and psychological

basic concepts
Marcus Schmieke, Kränzlin, 17 July 2018

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
psychei. In his social theory, the four-circle model of mind, matter, I and you emerge
from this. 1

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
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 contextii. 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 termiii.
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 processesv.
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.

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.
 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 expresses2:

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
"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

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.
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

3
This concept of the unconscious is therefore a summarizing objectification of many unconscious functions in actu
(remark by Johannes Heinrichs).
"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 reflection4 and
thus to the immediate consciousness of matter, mind, conscious/factual and

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.
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

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.
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
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