Transcendental Philosophical Justification of the Unity of Physical and Mental Basic Concepts
Author: Marcus Schmieke
Category: Philosophy
Issue No: 81
By looking together basic concepts from psychology and quantum physics such as conscious-unconscious and observer-observed, the author comes to the realization of their complementary unity. In addition, theories from quantum neurobiology are consulted, since they all describe the same aspects of reality despite different conceptualizations and images.
In the transcendental philosophy of Kant’s successors Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the ego constitutes itself as a pure subject through self-reflection. The social philosopher Johannes Heinrichs, standing in the tradition of reflection philosophy, considers this transcendental consummation of consciousness as the subject of a phenomenological model of mind, matter and I and Thou consisting of four sense elements, which in its ontological interpretation becomes the triad mind, matter and psyche.
The model proposed in this work is also in the tradition of thought of German idealism, which sees in consciousness as self-reflection the transcendental ground of objectified description of reality. The separation of reality experience into an objective external reality and internal subjective experience is derived from the distinction of reflection into oneself and others, respectively into self-reflection and external reflection, which is necessary here. To the Cartesian dualism of an objective res extensa and a subjective res cogitans the transcendental subject is added, whereby the res cogitans in the reflective light of the subject’s execution becomes the objectified consciousness content of the psyche. The psyche experiences reality in a complementarity of material and mental contents, whereby in the two complementary limit values the material substance concept (mass) and purely mental cognitive contents such as mathematical laws are opposed to each other as extremes.
All concrete mental contents possess complementary material and mental properties, which justifies the concept of complementarity in this context.
Complementarity is understood here in analogy to the term coined in natural science by Niels Bohr. It describes pairs of terms or properties 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. In this work complementarity is used in the strictly scientific quantum theoretical sense as well as in this analogous sense, because in this term a key to the connection of physical and psychological knowledge is assumed.
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REFLECTIONS ON TIME AND CONSCIOUSNESS
The repeated self-reflection is the motor of the interaction of material and mental contents in the psychic consciousness and appears there as empirical time.
Empirical time is reflected in material-spiritual processes as well as in human experience, which centers on the now. In the classical scientific models of Newtonian mechanics, Maxwellian electrodynamics and also the Schrödinger equation of quantum physics, however, the now is not found as an excellent element of the inherently linear understanding of time. Only Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in his foundation of quantum theory pointed out the fundamental importance of time as an experience of now and placed this concept at the beginning of his derivation of the structure of physics. The concept of now is derived from the distinction between the factual of the past and the possible of the future and their dynamic transformation into each other in the present-completion of the now.
The quantum theory has been established for about 100 years as the basis of almost all scientific theories. It requires the division of reality into the observer to be described by classical physics in factual terms and the observed system which is described by the wave function with the help of the Schrödinger equation as a superposition of possibilities. Only in the observation corresponding to the now, the interaction between the observer and the observed system takes place, whereby both pass into an entangled state, which must be described by a common wave function. This represents a superposition of possibilities, which then pass at the moment of observation into a single unambiguous factual state (reduction of the wave function), which can then be described in the terms of classical physics. The division of the one reality into an observer and an observed system is called the Heisenberg cut. This cut reflects the Descarte’s cut as well as the relation between the transcendental subject and the empirical consciousness.
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 evolution according to the Schrödinger equation do not constitute contents suitable for consciousness, since they do not possess uniqueness and clarity.
The central quadrivalent field of self-consciousness is flanked on the mind-matter axis by two other trivalent fields, each shifted toward either the mental or material pole. This represents a shift on the spatial axis that could result in different spatial manifestations of consciousness, in a similar way that shifting on the temporal axis results in more future or past forms of consciousness.
Shifting the overlap of conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche toward matter in the matter-psyche field might produce more organic disordered spatial structures of consciousness, such as those found in the autonomic nervous system of the abdominal brain of man. However, if the center of consciousness is shifted toward the spiritual as in the mind-psyche 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 associated with the Eros consciousness carried by the vegetative abdominal brain, which spreads out in the body like a network, while the spirit-psyche field corresponds to the Logos consciousness of the hierarchically structured central nervous system. Thinking and intuition thus lead into Logos consciousness and out of the body, while sensing and feeling lead introvertedly connected into the body. Only in their complementary combination these two varieties of the human psyche lead to a complete consciousness.
About the author: Marcus Schmieke
Born in 1966 in Oldenburg, studied physics and philosophy in Hannover and Heidelberg. He lived twelve years as a monk in a Vedic tradition. On this basis he wrote more than 20 books and developed the TimeWaver System for Information Field Medicine. 1994 co-founder of Tattva Viveka.
www.timewaver.de
This article has also been published on the German Website: Die orthogonale Komplemantarität
