You previously wrote,
So the octahedron tilts one way or another, and causes one end to appear in conscious thought, while the other dips down into subconscious reaction (Newton: for every action, an equal and opposite reaction) ?
You've made me realise something about myself: along my life's path, I have consciously made myself aware of my own subconscious reactions, through careful and self-critical observation. So perhaps that is why I can see Fi and Fe in my own activity?
So they act with Fi or Fe, but never both. I can see that. Even with my introspective awareness, I cannot act with both, although sometimes I can shuttle between them, trying to balance them - examining my own feelings to something, then looking outwards at the social landscape, and so on. I think a lot of people can do this.
But as you say - not egotistical people, who tend to act strongly from their own perspective, and remain staunchly attached to it. I think there are 2 kinds of ego-driven people - those who cannot see beyond themselves; and those for whom ego is an over-reaction to a naturally egoless state. The latter, given a free choice - will often refuse to break that egocentric mindset, to see another person's perspective. As if they once were more open, but they suffered whenever they lost a grip on their own perspective, so they hold onto it forcefully. The former type is more naturally blind. But for both, there is a marked blindness to the subconscious reaction (natural or chosen), eg. to Fe when using Fi. - is this what you mean by the "ego" in the octahedron?
Now, you say when one function acts subconsciously, it represents a separate persona, or consciousness that you cannot attribute to yourself. How does that work?
- But the centre, integration of all 8 - has a connection with the universe? How does that work, eg. physically as well as symbolically?
Which ones are next to which ones, and why?
Presumably, when one function dips into the subconscious, the functions either side of it are also pulled down? - or are they like 4 independent see-saws?
That was Quoting your post #29
All four axes are equally displaced from each other. Four axes cannot be equally displaced from each other in a two-dimension plane. But they can be in a three-dimension cube. The cube has eight corners. Each of the four internal diagonals, from one corner, through the center of the cube, to the opposite corner, is actually equally displaced from the other three. In other words, if you look at one side of the cube, and look at one of its corners, there are three equal length edges of the cube meeting three other corners. Two of these three corners are in the plane of the side you started with. The third corner is not. It is in the plane on the opposite side of the cube. So with this structure it is fair to say that Se-Si is next to the other three axes, and so on. They are all four next to each other! Pretty neat, eh?
But the structure we are dealing with is not just a barren, empty cube. Our cube has an octahedron embedded in it so nicely that the octahedron's six vertexes touch the center of each side of the cube. Furthermore, when we include all 12 face diagonals (2 on each of the six faces of the cube) we get the eight tetrahedrons attached to the octahedron that produce the stellated octahedron. So we have tetrahedron-octahedron-tetrahedron for each function axis, Se-Si for example. There is more to the structure, namely another structure inside the octahedron that is a link to the universe and will be explained or explored further down.
I need to point out that this structure is completely stable. Energy flows in it, I suspect like electricity. Rather than operating mechanically, tilting, twisting, pulling, I think of the structure as rigid and fixed, supporting electrical activity everywhere. Each vertex supports rather complex electrical activity. For example, The Se tetrahedron has, or is connected to, everything needed to support Se. The energy flow itself, psychic energy being part of all energy, produces the tensions from Se, vectorially along the edges of the stellated octahedron structure, that affect Si, Te Ti etc. - all of them - without altering the stellated octahedron structure.
The center of each side of the cube, the octahedron's six vertexes, is where archetypal images or characters can be generated because at these six points the four functions meet. Characters require the four functions. All this is made possible by assuming an LCD (lowest common denominator) definition of consciousness (ability to maintain an attitude). Jung, whose admitted worst subject in school was math, instead adopted a highest standard approach by using the ego. Mathematically you can work with different things by finding their LCD. So we end up with 14 key points on the stellated octahedron, 8 for the attitude-functions, 6 for the potential generation of archetypal images.
So far this has been a description of the comprehensive operation of the psyche (according to my conception). Its balancing point is the center of the cube which is also the center of the octahedron.
The ego-complex's underlying structure is a different matter. It is embedded in a subset of the comprehensive structure just described. The center of the ego is in the center of one side of the cube. The ego-complex can only directly connect to four of the eight attitude-functions and use them abstractly. Furthermore, the ego has a hierarchical preference of use giving rise to the types, while the comprehensive structure does not. The ego can receive the benefit of the abstract operation of the remaining four attitude-functions through the tensions, images etc. that those attitude-functions pass to the structural integration function and appear in our fantasies. It is those thoughts and images that we experience as foreign to our consciousness that, I believe, come from one or more others within us. And if we do not (or cannot) pay close attention to them, dissociate from and lose touch with our other side, it will turn its natural complementary into antagonism and influence the ego-complex at its weakest points, which are its two inferior attitude-functions. This is how the ego loses control to compulsions, for example.
CONNECTION WITH THE UNIVERSE
I have been convinced since I was quite young that if we have no psychological connection to the universe then it is a quite meaningless place indeed, all the religious myths and revelations notwithstanding. So if I could not convince myself that there is no such connection, I would have to assume assume that there is until such time that I could convince myself otherwise. This approach seems to me contrary to what a lot of people do, thinking it is scientific to assume no connection until evidence smacks them in the face. I could not accept that approach because I could see that I might be somehow blocking myself from perceiving such evidence if I adopted such a position.
Here is how the connection works, I conjecture, both physically and symbolically. Consciousness is part of psychic energy which is part of all energy. Amazing things happen at the most tiny levels. Light passes right through glass as if it wasn't there. Radio waves go through walls and people as if they aren't there. For me the question becomes can we be transmitting psychic energy waves to the universe and also receiving them. I think that it is possible at the tiniest level, at the nuclei of the atoms that make our bodies, where energy and matter naturally interface. This would be at a level undetectable with current technology and also more sophisticated. This of course seems preposterous if we think of matter and energy as basically psychically dead. But then you have to conjure up the origins of consciousness from none at all, which seems impossible to me.
A great indication to me that this connection exists is the stellated octahedron structure. It has been used to model a theoretical generation of an electromagnetic wave at the most minute level. So it appears to me that the psyche can have a physical structure independent of the the physical structure of the brain, a structure dependent on atomic or subatomic activity unimpeded by the macro organization of an organism yet interfacing with it. Millions if not trillions of atoms can be involved, and that is just in our body. Who knows where the interaction with the universe may end, if anywhere.
The stellated octahedron works symbolically by gathering the insights from all eight perspectives (Se Si Ne Ni Fe Fi Te Ti), but in a two-stage process. First it takes six different e/i combinations of the four functions at the six vertexes of the octahedron. Then it mixes these together. It can do this second step because of additional structure within the octahedron.
Connecting the midpoints of the octahedron produces the cuboctahedron within. This structure can be produced with closest-packed spheres. Closest-packed spheres have been conjectured to be related to the nuclei of the atomic elements in the periodic table. The idea is that energy entangles and forms some basic structure that is either spherical or has a spherical boundary as a first building block of the material part of the universe. They become the protons and neutrons that are in the atomic nucleus of each element.
Anyway, it seems to me, connecting these ideas up, that a psychic energy field alignment across these fundamental constituents of matter is able to underlay and sustain the process of consciousness. The tensions in the psyche's structural integration function, the stellated octahedron, are able to resonate to the micro level where they are free to interact with the universe. Working the other way also, integrating images, thoughts, etc. present themselves.
