Human beings are part of a reality that exists independently of their psyche. The human organism is in continuous interaction with this reality: it is affected by light, sound, temperature, chemical substances, other organisms, and countless processes occurring around it. At the same time, human beings act and thereby themselves alter what happens in independent reality.
However, the fact that independent reality acts upon the organism does not mean that it transmits ready-made knowledge about itself to the psyche.
This distinction is a starting point of the proposed model.
Independent reality acts upon the organism, but psychic content is not transmitted from independent reality into the psyche. The psyche generates its own content.
To understand this relationship, several concepts must first be distinguished: independent reality, psyche, psychic content, environment, subject, and psychic reality.
Independent Reality
By independent reality we mean reality whose existence does not depend on the existence of the psyche or on the content generated by the psyche.
The human organism is part of this reality.
This is essential. In the proposed model, human beings do not exist within a closed psychic world. The organism belongs to the same independent reality as other physical objects and processes and is in continuous causal interaction with it.
Independent reality acts upon the organism.
But an effect and the transmission of content are not the same thing.
Light reaching the eye, sound waves affecting the auditory system, and mechanical, chemical, and other physical effects are physical processes. They may be associated with the emergence of psychic content, but they are not themselves knowledge.
Knowledge arises in the psyche.
The Psyche Does Not Receive Ready-Made Knowledge
Perception can easily be described using the metaphor of reflection: the external world acts upon the sense organs, after which an internal representation of that world appears in the psyche.
Such a metaphor, however, leaves the central question unanswered: where does psychic content come from?
If knowledge were already contained in a ready-made form within the effects of independent reality, the psyche would merely have to receive, transmit, recognize, or process it. The proposed model assumes something different.
The effects of independent reality on the organism do not contain ready-made psychic content.
There is a connection between these effects and the knowledge that arises, but this connection is not a transmission of content.
The psyche generates knowledge itself.
The psyche therefore cannot be understood either as a mirror of reality or as a system that processes ready-made content arriving from outside.
The Psyche as a Process of Generation
The psyche is a process of generating psychic content.
Psychic content is generated by four psychic functions in two attitudes.
The irrational functions — perception of invariants (S) and perception of changes (N) — generate knowledge.
The rational functions — feeling (F) and thinking (T) — generate the significance of this knowledge.
Psychic content therefore consists of two fundamental types of content:
knowledge and the significance of knowledge.
This content does not enter the psyche in a ready-made form from independent reality. It arises within the psychic process.
How the Environment Arises
At this point, it is necessary to distinguish between independent reality and the environment.
In everyday language, these expressions may be used almost synonymously. In the proposed model, however, they denote different concepts.
Independent reality exists independently of the psyche.
The environment is a model of the environment formed by the knowledge generated by the irrational functions.
The environment within psychic reality is therefore not identical with independent reality itself.
The psyche does not transfer independent reality into itself, nor does it create a copy of it. It generates knowledge, and this knowledge forms a model of the environment.
When speaking about psychic reality, this model will henceforth be referred to as the environment.
This terminological distinction is necessary because independent reality and the environment play entirely different roles in the model.
Independent reality acts upon the organism.
The environment, by contrast, is a pole of psychic reality.
The Irrational Functions and the Model of the Environment
The irrational functions generate two opposite types of knowledge.
Perception of invariants (S) generates knowledge of what remains unchanged during a certain interval of time.
Perception of changes (N) generates knowledge of changes in objects and processes during a certain interval of time.
S and N form a dichotomy. They arise simultaneously as opposite and complementary functions.
Their contents are likewise opposite:
invariants — changes.
Together, these two types of content form the completeness of the knowledge from which the model of the environment is constructed.
The functions do not discover ready-made invariants and changes in independent reality, nor do they extract them from it. Invariants and changes are psychic content generated by the respective functions.
The Environment Changes as Knowledge Grows
The model of the environment does not arise once and for all in a final form.
The psyche continuously generates new knowledge. As a result, the environment as a model can expand and become more complex.
A person acquires knowledge of new objects, processes, events, and relations. Newly generated knowledge becomes part of the model of the environment.
The expansion of the environment does not mean that independent reality itself expands. Independent reality does not become larger because a person has acquired new knowledge.
What expands is the model of the environment.
The environment within a particular person’s psychic reality therefore neither coincides with independent reality nor exhausts it.
The Emergence of Subject and Environment as a Dichotomy
The model of the environment does not exist within psychic reality on its own.
The opposite pole — the subject — arises simultaneously with the environment.
The subject does not first arise independently of the environment and only later enter into a relationship with it. Nor does the environment first exist as a single pole to which the subject is subsequently added.
They arise simultaneously as two poles of one dichotomy:
subject ↔ environment.
The subject and the environment are two opposite and complementary poles of psychic reality. The subject is atomic; the environment is the pole of psychic reality whose model is formed by the knowledge generated by the irrational functions.
Together, the subject and the environment form the completeness of psychic reality.
Thus:
subject + environment = psychic reality.
Psychic reality is not another type of psychic content. Psychic content is the content of the psychic functions: knowledge and significance.
Psychic reality is instead a structure that arises in the process of generating this content.
What the Atomicity of the Subject Means
In the proposed model, the subject is not understood as a collection of psychic content.
We speak of the content of the psyche, the content of consciousness and the unconscious, and the content of the psychic functions, but not of the “content of the subject.”
The subject is an atomic element of the model.
Atomicity here does not imply the existence of a special indivisible substance, nor is it a metaphysical claim about human nature. It means only that, within this model, the subject is not further decomposed into constituent parts.
At the same time, the subject does not exist independently of the environment.
Subject and environment are the two poles of a single dichotomy and arise only together.
The Rational Functions and the Significance of Knowledge
The emergence of knowledge and the model of the environment does not complete the psychic process.
Knowledge acquires significance.
Significance is generated by the rational functions — feeling and thinking.
Feeling (F) generates the significance of knowledge for the subject.
Thinking (T) generates the significance of knowledge for the non-subject.
These functions also form a dichotomy.
The subject is therefore not a “bearer of psychic content,” nor does it contain the content of feeling within itself. It is the pole of psychic reality in relation to which feeling generates the significance of knowledge.
Thinking generates the opposite type of significance — significance for what is not the subject.
Together, these two types of significance form the completeness of the significance of knowledge.
From Knowledge to Action
The generation of significance is fundamental to action.
Knowledge tells us what the environment is like and how it may change. Significance connects this knowledge with subsequent action.
The psychic process therefore does not end with the construction of an internal model of the world.
The generated significance is connected with the actions of the subject.
At this point, a crucial transition occurs: the subject does not act upon the model of the environment; it acts in independent reality.
A person gets up and walks, takes an object, speaks to another person, builds a house, writes a text, changes direction, grows a plant, or switches on a device. All these actions are carried out through the organism and become events in independent reality.
The psychic process thus has a continuation beyond the psyche.
Closing the Loop: Back to Independent Reality
We can now consider the entire process as a whole.
Independent reality acts upon the organism.
In connection with these effects, the psyche generates knowledge.
The knowledge generated by the irrational functions forms a model of the environment.
Together with the environment there exists its opposite pole — the subject; together they form psychic reality.
The rational functions generate the significance of knowledge.
Significance is connected with the subject’s subsequent actions.
The subject’s actions are carried out through the organism in independent reality and become part of the processes occurring within it.
The loop is thus closed:
independent reality → effects on the organism → generation of knowledge → model of the environment → generation of significance → action of the subject → independent reality.
Closing this loop is of fundamental importance.
It prevents the model from turning into a conception of a closed “inner world” existing independently of external reality.
The causal connection with independent reality is preserved in both directions.
Independent reality acts upon the organism, and the subject acts through the organism in independent reality.
In neither direction is it necessary to assume the transmission of ready-made psychic content.
No ready-made knowledge is transmitted from independent reality into the psyche.
No psychic content is transmitted from the psyche into independent reality — the subject acts through the organism.
The connection is causal, but it does not consist in the transmission of content.
Psychic Reality Is Not a Separate Entity
This understanding makes it unnecessary to introduce psychic reality as an independent entity existing alongside the psyche and independent reality.
Psychic reality is neither a special substance nor an autonomous “psychological field.”
It is a structure that arises within the psychic process:
subject ↔ environment.
Psychic reality can therefore be compared with certain concepts of the psychological field developed in the history of psychology. Such a comparison, however, does not require us to assume the existence of a separate field as an independently acting reality.
Psychic reality does not “do” anything. It does not act upon a person, make decisions, punish, or reward.
The subject acts.
The psyche generates content.
Independent reality acts upon the organism.
These concepts describe different elements and relations within one system and should not be substituted for one another.
Two Worlds Do Not Arise
The distinction between independent reality and psychic reality might create the impression that the model introduces two parallel worlds: an external world and an internal one.
Closing the causal loop shows that this is not the case.
The organism belongs to independent reality.
The effects of independent reality on the organism are connected with the psychic process.
The psychic process generates knowledge and significance.
Significance is connected with the actions of the subject.
These actions are carried out through the organism in the same independent reality whose effects stood at the beginning of the loop.
Psychic reality therefore neither replaces independent reality nor separates human beings from it.
It arises in the process of the organism’s interaction with independent reality and forms the structure in which the subject and the model of the environment exist as two opposite poles.
From Effects to Knowledge and from Significance to Action
The entire construction can be reduced to two directions of connection.
The first direction:
independent reality → organism → psyche → knowledge → model of the environment.
Independent reality acts upon the organism, and the psyche generates knowledge. No ready-made content is transmitted in this process.
The second direction:
knowledge → significance → subject → action of the organism → independent reality.
Here, the generated significance is connected with the action of the subject, which, through the organism, becomes an event in independent reality.
The psyche thus occupies a particular place in the continuous interaction between the human being and the world.
It does not simply reflect the world.
It does not receive ready-made knowledge from it.
It does not exist in an isolated inner space.
The psyche generates knowledge and significance. Knowledge forms a model of the environment. Subject and environment form psychic reality. Significance connects the generated knowledge with the actions of the subject, and these actions act back upon independent reality.
In this way, psychic life is at once autonomous in the generation of its content and inseparably connected with independent reality.