When we speak about the psyche, it is very easy to conflate several different things without noticing it: reality that exists independently of the human being; the organism interacting with that reality; the psyche; psychic content; the subject; the environment; and psychic reality.
In ordinary language, such conflation usually causes little difficulty. But in constructing a model of consciousness, the distinctions between these concepts become fundamental. If they are not made, the psyche begins to appear sometimes as an internal reflection of the external world, sometimes as a container of subjective experiences, and sometimes as the subject itself—the entity that perceives, feels, and thinks.
In the proposed model, these concepts are distinguished.
Independent reality exists independently of the psyche. The psyche generates its own content. This content forms the model of the environment. The subject and the environment constitute the fundamental dichotomy of psychic reality.
It is from these distinctions that the psyche, the subject, and psychic reality can be consistently defined.
Independent Reality
The human organism exists in the world and is part of it. It interacts with the physical world around it, exchanges matter and energy with it, and is subject to the same physical regularities as other natural systems.
The sense organs and the brain also belong to this reality.
Let us call it independent reality.
Independent reality exists regardless of how it is represented in the psyche—or whether it is represented there at all.
This definition makes no claim about its ultimate ontological nature. For the model of consciousness, what matters is the distinction between that which exists independently of psychic content and psychic content itself.
The effects of independent reality upon the organism are a necessary link in the causal chain leading to the emergence of psychic content. But it does not follow from this that ready-made content is transmitted from independent reality into the psyche.
The psyche does not receive ready-made images, invariants, changes, significance, or meanings from outside.
The psyche generates its own content.
What Is the Psyche?
The psyche can be defined as a system that generates psychic content.
This definition differs fundamentally from the conception of the psyche as a receiver, repository, or processing device for content that originally existed somewhere else.
In this model, a psychic function is likewise not an instrument that receives ready-made content and subsequently performs certain operations upon it. A function is the process of generating a particular type of psychic content and, at the same time, the content arising as the result of that process.
The four psychological functions generate four different types of content:
S — perception of invariants;
N — perception of changes;
F — generation of significance for the subject;
T — generation of significance for the non-subject.
S and N are perceptual functions. They generate knowledge about the environment.
F and T are rational functions. They generate the significance of knowledge.
At the same time, the psyche is not a single homogeneous system in the sense that all its content is produced by one universal process or can be reduced to a single principle of classification.
Its content is multiple.
It is generated by different functions; functions may operate in an extraverted or introverted attitude; content may belong to consciousness or to the unconscious.
The psyche therefore cannot adequately be represented as a single space mechanically divided into several non-overlapping parts.
But the multiplicity of the psyche does not imply a multiplicity of psychic realities.
To understand why, we must first define what this model means by the environment.
Independent Reality and the Environment
In everyday language, the expressions “external world,” “reality,” and “environment” are often used almost synonymously.
In the model of consciousness, they must be distinguished.
Independent reality exists independently of the psyche.
The environment, as a pole of psychic reality, is represented by a model formed by psychic content.
In other words, a human being has no direct access to independent reality in the form of ready-made knowledge about it.
Independent reality causally affects the organism. But knowledge arises in the psyche.
When a person sees a tree, hears a voice, recognizes a face, notices movement, discovers a recurring regularity, or anticipates the further development of an event, all of this is already psychic content.
We cannot imagine the “tree as psychic content” as first existing in the external world and then being transferred into the psyche through vision.
Physical processes occur in independent reality.
Content is generated in the psyche.
It is this content that constitutes the environment for the subject.
Therefore, the environment within psychic reality is not identical with independent reality.
This distinction allows us to avoid both the naive conception of the psyche as a mirror of the world and the opposite conception of the psyche as a closed sphere unrelated to independent reality.
There is a connection.
But it is a causal connection, not a transmission of ready-made psychic content.
Psychic Reality
We can now define psychic reality.
It is neither independent reality nor simply the totality of psychic content.
Psychic reality is a unified structure whose fundamental dichotomy is the distinction between subject and environment.
These two poles do not arise as two originally independent entities that are subsequently joined together in some way.
The distinction itself,
subject ↔ environment,
is the fundamental structure of psychic reality.
Psychic reality is therefore dichotomous from the outset.
On one side is the subject.
On the other is the environment, whose model is formed by the content of the psyche.
Independent reality is not a third element of this dichotomy. It is not part of psychic reality at all.
It exists independently of psychic reality while causally participating in the emergence of psychic content.
This distinction can be represented as follows:
independent reality → causal effects upon the organism → generation of psychic content → model of the environment
This sequence, however, describes the origin of the content of only one pole of psychic reality.
Its other pole is the subject.
What Is the Subject?
The subject cannot be identified with the psyche.
Nor can it be defined as the sum of the psychic functions or as some internal centre in which their contents are combined.
In the model, the subject has an entirely different logical status.
The subject is the atomic pole of psychic reality, opposed to the environment.
Here, atomicity does not mean physical indivisibility and says nothing about the structure of the brain or organism.
It is a characteristic of the structure of the model.
There is no separate subject of invariant perception, separate subject of change perception, subject of feeling, and subject of thinking.
Nor are there several subjects corresponding to different functional attitudes, to consciousness and the unconscious, or to different regions of psychic content.
There is one subject.
Here we encounter a fundamental asymmetry of the model:
the subject is atomic, while the psyche is multiple.
But the subject is not a central control mechanism governing the multiple psyche.
It does not assign tasks to the functions, collect their results, and turn them into a unified picture of the world.
The unity of psychic reality does not require such an internal governing centre at all.
Psychic reality is already unified by virtue of its fundamental structure:
subject ↔ environment.
Consciousness and the Subject
The subject acquires particular importance when consciousness and the unconscious are distinguished.
Consciousness and the unconscious are not two types of psychological functions. They characterize a different dimension of the psyche.
Any of the four functions may be conscious or unconscious.
At the same time, conscious psychic content is given to the subject.
Unconscious content is not directly given to the subject.
The subject is therefore related to consciousness but is not identical with consciousness.
We cannot say:
subject = consciousness.
Consciousness is a domain of the psyche, whereas the subject is one of the poles of psychic reality.
This distinction is especially important because it allows us to abandon the image of consciousness as a little observer inside the head.
Consciousness is not the subject.
The subject is not the content of consciousness.
And the psyche is not the subject.
Perception and the Model of the Environment
The functions S and N generate the content of the model of the environment.
S generates the perception of invariants—that which remains unchanged over a certain interval of time.
N generates the perception of changes—that which changes over a certain interval of time.
Invariants and changes are not ready-made elements extracted by the psyche from independent reality.
They are psychic content.
This does not mean that they are arbitrary.
The psyche generates them in the causal interaction of the organism with independent reality. But the result of this process already belongs to the psyche.
Through S and N, the environment exists within psychic reality as structured occurrence: something remains stable, something changes.
Moreover, the perception of invariants and changes makes possible not only knowledge of the present and the past.
It opens psychic reality toward the future.
The Possible Future
Invariants can be extrapolated.
If a certain property has remained stable until now, the psyche can anticipate its persistence in the future.
Changes can likewise be extrapolated.
If an object or process is changing in a particular way, the direction of change makes it possible to generate a possible continuation.
Psychic reality therefore contains not only psychic content relating to what has already happened or is happening now.
It includes possible and probable future states of the environment.
This makes particularly clear why the environment of psychic reality cannot be a copy of independent reality.
The possible future does not yet exist as an accomplished fact of independent reality.
But it can already exist as psychic content.
The psyche does not merely generate knowledge of what is happening.
It generates possible continuations of what is happening.
The Subject and Feeling
If S and N generate knowledge about the environment, F and T generate the significance of knowledge.
Here the fundamental dichotomy of psychic reality acquires a new importance.
F generates significance for the subject.
This definition makes it possible to distinguish feeling from emotion in the ordinary sense of the word.
The F function does not simply “experience emotions.”
It answers a structurally more fundamental question: what is the significance of this knowledge for the subject?
What is desirable?
What is undesirable?
What attracts?
What repels?
What matters?
What is irrelevant?
What corresponds to the subject’s needs?
What conflicts with them?
The existence of F therefore presupposes the subject as one of the poles of psychic reality.
Without a subject, it is impossible to define what “significance for the subject” means.
Thinking and the Non-Subject
T forms the opposite pole of the rational dichotomy.
T generates significance for the non-subject.
Here, the non-subject should not be understood as some particular other person.
It is everything in relation to which the significance of knowledge is determined independently of the needs of the given subject.
It is here that information emerges.
Knowledge that acquires significance for the non-subject becomes suitable for transmission, interpretation, and use by others.
Thinking in this model therefore cannot be reduced to logical operations, calculation, or reasoning.
Its fundamental content is determined by the relation of knowledge to the pole of psychic reality opposite to the subject.
If F concerns significance for me as subject, T takes knowledge beyond this immediate subjective significance.
It is through this process that knowledge can acquire the form of information.
Knowledge and Significance
We can now see why the four functions are not merely a list of four different psychic capacities.
S and N generate knowledge:
invariants ↔ changes.
F and T generate the significance of knowledge:
significance for the subject ↔ significance for the non-subject.
These are two different dimensions of psychic content.
At first, this distinction may seem unusual, because in ordinary language perception, feeling, and thinking are usually understood as different capacities of a person.
But the model asks a different question:
What kind of content is generated?
And then two fundamental pairs become visible.
Some functions generate knowledge about what is happening.
Others generate the significance of that knowledge.
Psychic reality is therefore not only a reality of objects, events, invariants, and changes.
It is also a reality of significance.
The Psyche Is Not the Subject
From all this follows a distinction that is easy to lose sight of.
The psyche generates content.
But the psyche is not the subject.
This is particularly important for understanding feeling.
If the subject were identified with the entire psyche, the definition of F as the generation of significance for the subject would become almost tautological: the psyche would be generating significance for the psyche itself.
But in the model, subject and psyche have different statuses.
The psyche is multiple.
It contains different functions, attitudes, conscious and unconscious connections, and different modes of content generation.
The subject is atomic.
It is one of the two poles of psychic reality.
The opposition between F and T is therefore connected not with the opposition between “subjective” and “objective” in their ordinary meanings, but with the fundamental structure of psychic reality:
subject ↔ non-subject.
Psychic Reality Is Not the Contents of the Psyche
A further important clarification follows.
We cannot say that psychic reality simply “exists inside the psyche.”
If psychic reality were the totality of psychic content, the subject would also have to be made an element of that content.
But the model does not assume this.
The content of the psyche forms the model of the environment.
The subject is the atomic pole opposed to it.
Psychic reality is the unity of these two poles.
The relation between the principal concepts of the model therefore cannot be expressed by the simple equation:
psyche = psychic reality.
Nor is the following equation correct:
subject = psyche.
Instead, we can say:
the psyche generates the content of the model of the environment; the subject and the environment constitute psychic reality.
This distinction allows us to preserve simultaneously the active character of the psyche, the atomicity of the subject, and the unity of psychic reality.
The Unity of Psychic Reality
The psyche is multiple.
Its content is generated by different functions. Functions exist in different attitudes. Psychic content may be conscious or unconscious. Different structural characteristics of the psyche intersect and cannot be reduced to a single division.
But it does not follow that there are multiple psychic realities.
There is not one reality belonging to S, another belonging to N, a third to F, and a fourth to T.
There is no separate extraverted psychic reality and introverted psychic reality.
Nor are there two psychic realities, one conscious and the other unconscious.
All these distinctions belong to the multidimensional structure of the psyche.
Psychic reality is one.
Its unity is not created by the functions and is not established by the subject after separate pieces of psychic content have already arisen.
It is given by the fundamental dichotomous structure:
subject ↔ environment.
The unity of psychic reality therefore does not require the homogeneity of the psyche.
On the contrary, a unified psychic reality can exist together with an internally multiple and distributed psyche.
Three Different Principles
The relations among the three central concepts can now be stated in the most concise form.
The subject is atomic.
The psyche is multiple.
Psychic reality is unified.
These three propositions do not contradict one another because they refer to different aspects of the model.
The subject is characterized by its position in the fundamental dichotomy of psychic reality.
The psyche is characterized by the multiplicity of processes and structures through which content is generated.
Psychic reality is characterized by the unity of the fundamental structure within which the distinction between subject and environment exists.
It is only when these three levels are conflated that an apparent contradiction arises.
Once they are distinguished, a coherent picture emerges.
The Psyche as Generation Rather Than Reflection
The proposed model therefore abandons the metaphor of the psyche as a mirror.
Independent reality is not transformed into psychic content through copying.
It causally affects the organism.
The psyche generates content.
The perceptual functions generate knowledge of invariants and changes.
The rational functions generate the significance of that knowledge—for the subject and for the non-subject.
The content generated by the psyche gives rise to the model of the environment—the pole of psychic reality opposed to the subject.
This distinction allows us to define the very nature of psychic life more precisely.
Psychic life is not the transfer of content from an external world into an internal one. Nor is it the sequential processing of some initially received material that already contained, in ready-made form, everything that would later appear in consciousness.
Psychic content arises through the activity of the psyche.
Changes and invariants do not “enter” the psyche as changes and invariants. Significance is not contained in objects as a ready-made property. Information likewise does not exist for the psyche as something already formed that merely needs to be received and stored.
All these forms of content must be generated.
The psyche therefore does not simply reflect reality.
It creates psychic content in causal interaction with independent reality.
This does not mean that the psyche creates independent reality.
Nor does it mean that psychic content is arbitrary.
Independent reality constrains the possible content of the psyche through its causal effects upon the organism. But there is no relation of identity between physical impact and psychic content.
Psychic content belongs to the psyche.
The Environment as a Psychic Construction
An unusual but important conclusion follows.
What the model calls the environment is not simply another name for independent reality.
The environment is the subject’s environment as represented within psychic reality.
Its content is generated by the psychic functions.
In this sense, the environment exists as a psychic construction.
The word “construction,” however, does not mean invention.
If a person sees a moving car, the car exists independently of that person’s psyche. Light physically affects the sense organs, and certain processes occur in the nervous system. But the movement of the car as psychic content must be perceived—that is, generated by the function of change perception.
If the person recognizes the object as a car, detects its stable properties, and distinguishes it from other objects, invariant perception is involved.
If the car is approaching the person, the significance of what is happening for the subject becomes relevant.
If knowledge about the movement of the car is to be communicated to another person, incorporated into a description of the traffic situation, used in a calculation, or employed in action, another dimension of significance emerges—significance for the non-subject.
Thus, the same causally relevant fragment of independent reality may become content of different functions.
But this content already belongs to the psyche.
It is from such content that the environment of psychic reality is constructed.
Why the Environment Is Opposed to the Subject
One may ask why it is necessary to speak of the dichotomy “subject–environment” at all. Why not regard the subject as simply another element of the model of the environment?
Because the subject occupies a special position in the structure of psychic reality.
The environment is everything that is given to the subject as non-subject.
The subject, by contrast, is the pole relative to which “significance for the subject” can be defined.
This asymmetry becomes especially clear in the rational functions.
If there is significance for the subject, there must be a pole relative to which this significance is determined.
If there is significance for the non-subject, there must be an opposition between the subject and that which is not the subject.
Thus, the opposition between F and T presupposes a more fundamental opposition:
subject ↔ non-subject.
Within psychic reality, the non-subject is represented by the environment.
The dichotomy of the rational functions is therefore derivative in relation to the fundamental structure of psychic reality.
F and T do not create the subject and the environment.
They generate two different kinds of significance within a psychic reality that is already structured by the distinction between subject and environment.
The Subject Is Not the Owner of the Psyche
It is very easy to imagine the relation between the subject and the psyche in terms of ownership:
a person “has” a psyche, and within it are that person’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and memories.
But such a conception explains very little.
In the model, the subject is not the owner of the psyche and does not control it as an apparatus.
The psychic functions are not instruments in the hands of the subject.
The subject does not directly choose what content a particular function should generate at a given moment.
Moreover, a considerable part of psychic content arises unconsciously and is not directly given to the subject.
This means that the psychic system has its own structure and its own dynamics.
The subject is present within this system not as a command centre.
Its structural role is different.
It is one of the two fundamental poles of psychic reality.
This is why conscious content is possible: content that is given to the subject.
This is why the feeling function is possible: the generation of significance for the subject.
But none of this implies that the subject governs the psyche as a whole.
The Psyche as a Distributed System
This understanding leads to the conception of the psyche as a distributed system.
There is no need to postulate a single internal centre that receives the results of all the functions, compares them, and then makes a final decision.
Different functions generate different kinds of content.
They occupy different positions within the structure of consciousness and the unconscious.
They may be connected with one another in different ways.
Some connections may be conscious, others unconscious.
At the same time, no function becomes the absolute governor of the entire system.
Even the dominant function is not the “director of the psyche.”
It occupies a particular position within the structure of a psychological type, but this position does not mean that it controls the other functions.
The unity of psychic reality therefore cannot be explained by the existence of a single psychic control centre.
The model requires no such centre.
Unity arises at another level.
Psychic reality is unified because the multiplicity of psychic content exists within one fundamental structure:
subject ↔ environment.
Unity Without a Centre
This distinction is particularly important.
We are often tempted to explain the unity of a complex system by the existence of a centre.
If there are many elements, it seems natural to assume that there must be some authority that unifies them.
But distributed systems demonstrate that unity of functioning does not necessarily require a single central controlling element.
Something similar occurs in the proposed model.
The psyche is multiple, but psychic reality is unified.
The subject is atomic, but it is not the central processor of the psyche.
The psychic functions are different, but they do not create separate worlds.
Consciousness and the unconscious are different, but they do not constitute two independent psychic realities.
Extraverted and introverted attitudes are different, but they likewise belong to one psyche.
Unity here is neither homogeneity nor centralization.
It consists in the belonging of multiple content to one structure of psychic reality.
Reality, Psyche, and Psychic Reality
We can now draw the boundaries between the principal concepts once again.
Independent reality exists independently of the psyche and the subject.
The organism belongs to independent reality and causally interacts with it.
The psyche is a system that generates psychic content.
Psychological functions are different modes of generating this content.
The model of the environment is formed by the content generated by the psyche.
The subject is the atomic pole of psychic reality.
Psychic reality is a unified structure whose fundamental dichotomy is the opposition between subject and environment.
These concepts cannot be substituted for one another without loss of meaning.
Independent reality is not the environment of psychic reality.
The psyche is not psychic reality.
The psyche is not the subject.
The subject is not consciousness.
Psychic content is not independent reality.
Yet relations exist between all these levels.
Distinguishing them allows us to avoid both naive realism and the conception of the psyche as a completely closed subjective world.
Two Realities?
The term “psychic reality” may create the impression that we are speaking about two parallel worlds: an external one and an internal one.
But the model requires no such assumption.
Independent reality and psychic reality have different statuses.
Independent reality is that which exists independently of the psyche.
Psychic reality is the structure within which psychic content exists in relation to the subject.
They are not two independent universes.
Psychic reality arises in the causal interaction of the organism with independent reality.
But causal dependence does not eliminate the distinction between them.
One might compare this distinction with the relation between a map and a territory, although even this metaphor is limited.
A map is created in dependence on a territory, but it is not the territory.
Psychic reality, however, is more complex than a map: it does not merely depict what already exists. It contains predictions, significance, possible actions, relations, and forms of significance that cannot be found in independent reality as ready-made psychic objects.
Psychic reality is therefore not a copy but a generated structure of the relation between the subject and the environment.
Significance Does Not Exist Without Relation
The generative character of the psyche becomes especially clear in the rational functions.
An object does not contain within itself ready-made significance for the subject.
The same object may be vitally important to one subject, irrelevant to another, and dangerous to a third.
Significance arises in a relation.
The F function generates the significance of knowledge relative to the subject.
But significance for the non-subject is likewise not contained in the object as a physical property.
For knowledge to acquire significance extending beyond the given subject, it must be organized in such a way that it becomes usable beyond that subject: for communication, coordinated action, reasoning, rules, measurement, description, or some other form of use.
It is here that the informational dimension of T appears.
Thus, the rational functions do not discover ready-made significance.
They generate it.
In this respect, F and T are just as generative as S and N.
Psychic Life as Continuous Creation
This leads to a more general view of psychic life.
If the psyche does not receive ready-made content, then all psychic life is, in a fundamental sense, a process of continuous creation.
This does not mean artistic creation.
The point is more general.
To recognize a familiar face is already to generate an invariant.
To notice a change in the expression of that face is to generate a change.
To feel that this change matters to me is to generate significance for the subject.
To understand that this change matters to others, or that it should be communicated to others, is to generate significance for the non-subject.
Even the most ordinary perception is not a passive reception of the world.
The psyche continuously generates the content through which an environment exists for the subject.
In this sense, psychic reality continuously arises.
The Openness of Psychic Reality
Psychic reality is not closed.
First, it is causally connected with independent reality.
Second, it is open toward the future.
Third, the T function makes it possible for individually generated knowledge to acquire the form of information capable of entering relations between people.
Knowledge may be expressed in speech, writing, diagrams, signs, numbers, gestures, or other forms.
Once expressed, it becomes a causal factor within independent reality: an utterance is a physical event, a written text is a material object, and an action changes the surrounding world.
This changed world can then affect other people, whose psyches generate new content.
A cycle arises:
independent reality → psychic content → action or communication → change in independent reality → new psychic content.
The boundary between independent and psychic reality therefore does not imply isolation.
On the contrary, continuous causal interaction takes place across it.
The Subject and Other Subjects
At this point another interesting question arises.
Another human being belongs to independent reality just as the body of the subject, a tree, or a house does.
But within psychic reality, that person is initially given as part of the environment—as non-subject.
At the same time, that person may be recognized as another subject.
This distinction is particularly important for human communication.
Another person does not become part of my subject.
For me, that person remains an element of the environment.
But I can generate knowledge that the person before me is another subject possessing a psychic reality of their own.
It is here that a fundamentally new relation becomes possible: the content of my psyche can be transformed into information significant for another subject.
Speech, writing, gesture, signs, art, ritual, and many other forms of human interaction become ways of changing independent reality in such a manner that another person’s psyche can generate certain content.
Psychic content is not transmitted directly from one psyche to another.
Physical signals are transmitted.
The content is generated anew each time.
This proposition has far-reaching consequences for the understanding of communication.
Information Does Not Transfer Psychic Content
When one person communicates something to another, it seems natural to say that they have “transmitted a thought” or “transmitted information.”
But literally, psychic content does not leave one psyche and enter another.
The speaker generates certain content.
The speaker then performs a speech act—a physical event in independent reality.
Another person perceives sounds or written signs.
On the basis of these effects, that person’s psyche generates its own content.
If communication is successful, a sufficient correspondence arises between the contents generated by the two psyches.
But correspondence is not identity.
Understanding therefore always contains an element of generation.
A person does not extract ready-made meaning from a message.
The person generates psychic content for which the message serves as a causal condition.
This is precisely why the same utterance can be understood differently by different people.
Psychic Reality as Relation
We can now make one further clarification.
Psychic reality is perhaps best understood not as a special kind of “space” filled with psychic objects, but as a structure of relations.
Its fundamental relation is:
subject ↔ environment.
Within this structure, knowledge of invariants and changes arises.
Within it, the significance of knowledge for the subject and for the non-subject arises.
Within it, conscious and unconscious content are possible.
But psychic reality itself cannot be reduced to the sum of these contents.
It is the structure within which they acquire their place and significance.
The expression “psychic reality” therefore does not designate yet another thing alongside the subject and the psyche.
It designates the form of their structural relation.
The Unity of Psychic Reality and the Multiplicity of the Psyche
The apparent contradiction between unity and multiplicity can now be resolved.
The psyche is multiple because content is generated by different functions and organized according to several independent dimensions.
The subject is atomic because, within the fundamental dichotomy of psychic reality, it is represented as a single pole.
Psychic reality is unified because the multiplicity of psychic content exists in relation to the same fundamental distinction between subject and environment.
It follows that:
the unity of psychic reality is not the unity of the psyche.
The psyche need not be homogeneous for psychic reality to be unified.
Nor must the subject govern the entire psyche in order for psychic reality to retain its unity.
This unity arises not through centralization, but through structure.
Subject, Psyche, and Environment
The relations among the principal elements of the model can now be expressed as follows.
Independent reality exists independently of the psyche.
The organism belongs to independent reality and interacts with it.
As a result of this interaction, the psyche generates content.
The content of the perceptual functions forms knowledge about the environment as a pole of psychic reality.
The rational functions generate the significance of this knowledge.
The subject is the atomic pole opposed to the environment.
Conscious content is given to the subject; unconscious content is not directly given to it.
Thus, neither the psyche, nor the subject, nor the environment can be reduced to one another.
Only by distinguishing them can psychic reality be defined.
Conclusion
In the proposed model, the psyche is neither a reflection of the external world nor an internal space populated by ready-made psychic objects.
It is a system for generating content.
Independent reality causally affects the organism, but psychic content arises in the psyche.
The S and N functions generate knowledge of invariants and changes.
The F and T functions generate the significance of this knowledge—for the subject and for the non-subject.
The generated content forms the model of the environment.
The subject is neither the psyche, nor a function, nor a governing centre of consciousness. It is the atomic pole of psychic reality.
The environment is the opposite pole and is represented by content generated by the psyche.
Psychic reality therefore cannot simply be defined as the sum total of psychic content.
Its fundamental structure is the dichotomy:
subject ↔ environment.
This structure allows three propositions to be combined which, at first sight, may appear contradictory:
the subject is atomic;
the psyche is multiple;
psychic reality is unified.
It is precisely the distinction between these three levels that allows us to abandon both the conception of the psyche as a mirror of the external world and the conception of a single internal subject governing psychic processes.
The psyche does not copy a ready-made reality.
It generates content in causal interaction with independent reality.
The subject does not create the unity of the psyche.
It is one of the poles of psychic reality.
And psychic reality arises as a unified but internally multidimensional structure in which the atomic subject is opposed to the environment generated by the multiple psyche.
In its most concise form, this construction can be expressed as follows:
Independent reality acts.
The psyche generates.
The environment arises as psychic content.
Subject and environment constitute psychic reality.
And more concisely still:
The subject is atomic. The psyche is multiple. Psychic reality is unified.