Issue 1

June 2017

You and I are conscious, but how does anyone else know this is

true? This is easy to show just talking to someone else, listening to

what they have to say, and coming to an understanding of the

common object held in both of your minds. This intentional object

is produced with two way communications using a common

spoken or written language. The conversation could be about an

external real object, such as an apple, that exists now on the kitchen

table. It exists there whether you are present or not in the kitchen

to observe it. The conversation could be about your subjective

object, such as that painful feelings of a tooth ache now which you

describe it to a dentist. The dentist cannot feel your pain but

knows what its is like from their past experience of pain.

Philosophy uses armchair thinking about ideas that can be

supported by ordinary observations using a person’s ﬁve common

senses to see hear, taste, touch, or smell real objects. Religions uses

revelations that are a one time event to particular individuals,

often a prophet with intuitive insight. Followers of religions such

as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam accept and believe recorded

prophetic revelations. The scientiﬁc method of empirical

1

Are you conscious?

Consciousness and Human Nature

What is consciousness? Why is it hard to deﬁne? How does the EPIC mathematical model help?

The Journal of Consciousness and Personality

Looking for knowledge in

philosophy, science, and religion

Issue 1

June 2017

investigation for real objects can’t be applied to these revelations

because intentional object types exist only in minds; they can be

listened to and written down for future reference if they are

trusted. A scientist can observe real mindless rocks or planets with

special instruments but cannot carry on a conversation with them.

Science uses special instruments to gather information about real

objects. Galileo extended his range of vision by using a telescope to

observe planets. He came to the conclusion that the earth revolved

around the sun and not the sun around the earth, and this upset

the conventional heliocentric model that was held to be true by

the Church. This contributed to the decline in their authority, to

the Protestant Reformation, to the separation between church and

state, and to the rapid advance in science, more special

instruments, inventions, and beneﬁcial industrial technology.

Science made a great leap forward when Isaac Newton, the natural

philosopher and mathematician, discovered the laws of motion for

real objects and invented the new language of diﬀerential and

integral Calculus to express the relations between changing

variables such as mass, location, time, velocity, and acceleration.

This mathematical language replaced ordinary spoken language

and could represent complicated changes in motion that take place

simultaneously in terms of the 1st derivative (velocity) and 2nd

derivative (acceleration) of space with respect to time. This

suggested to Laplace that the motion of everything in the universe

could be predicted into the future forever if their initial conditions

were known. We know intuitively that this is not true, because any

person at any time can change the course of events by exercising a

physical force on material objects to change their position.

Scientists exclude subjective mental activity of humans when

studying the external properties of real objects in real events. But

scientists, philosophers, and psychologists make a huge error when

they omit human free will and their subjective agency to ﬁrst

create new things in the mind and then actualize them in actual

practice in the real world where people live and move. Humans are

social animals but if philosophers and psychologists attempt to

study them as an isolated individual from the outside just as a

scientist would study a mindless rock then huge conceptual errors

occur. Humans lose their distinctive creative human nature when

viewed as objects without subjectivity and intelligence. First, the

2

The laws of physics for motion

omit the 3rd derivative of change.

A conscious person uses this as a

mental ideomotor function to

move in an intentional direction

and reach personal goals.

Mindless matter can’t do this.

The tree of knowledge of

real, subjective, and

intentional object types

Issue 1

June 2017

intentional object type supporting mutually understood signs and

symbols vanishes into thin air and all social communications is lost.

Second, a person’s subjective feelings of a tooth ache and other

pains or pleasures cannot be found by a “scientist” who focusses on

factual external evidence of real objects and events. A person’s

behavior can be observed by psychologists in the tradition of James

Watson. This leads to the cartoon of two behavioral psychologists

in a bar - “I see that you are enjoying your beer, but am I?”. The

EPIC model uses ten necessary and suﬃcient mental functions of

consciousness identiﬁed by William James and Carl Jung.

William James (1842-1910) was an American philosopher and

psychologist. He was trained as a physician, and oﬀered the ﬁrst

psychology course in the United States at Harvard University. He

introduced the concept of Stream of Consciousness which anyone

can verify in their own direct experience. His observations and

theorizing about a person’s attention, free will, imagination, body

motion, things vs ideas, ideomotor action, bodily emotions, and

subjective feelings are still valid today. His ideas on attention are

considered to be among the best by modern neuroscientists.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychologist and philosopher who

was trained as a doctor. He acknowledged William James as a

strong inﬂuence. Jung was a member of Sigmund Freud’s inner

circle that included Alfred Adler (1870-1937), but they both broke

with Freud (1856-1939) over what should be emphasized about

human psychological nature.

Jung found it odd that three scientists dedicated to careful

observations of the human mind could diﬀer so widely on what

they considered to be most important. This lead Jung to explore

the history of philosophy, theology, human character studies, and

poetry as it applied to the new science of psychology. His book

Psychological Types provides an answer to this puzzle of

diﬀerences of opinion. Building on James language of

consciousness, Jung identiﬁed a person’s necessary and suﬃcient

four function-types of consciousness (Thinking vs Feeling, and

Sensation vs Intuition) plus a person’s two attention orientations

or attitude-types towards real vs the subjective objects and events

(Extraversion vs Introversion) .

James and Jung use an essential “of” language to describe the

functional information experienced in a person’s immaterial mind

3

The origin of Jung’s

Psychological Types 1921

William James, Carl Jung,

and Mortimer Adler provide

essential concepts for a

science of consciousness.

Can a dentist feel your pain?

Issue 1

June 2017

about objects of interest and attention. A psychological function is

called a function of consciousness because it belongs to consciousness,

is used by consciousness, but is not consciousness itself.

A function carries an object’s image and its information to

consciousness who is the Witness and temporary owner of the

function’s delivered information. The Witness is like an unmoved

axle around which a wheel of conscious functional content rotates.

The hub of the wheel rotates around the axle and connects the

radial spokes or ten psychological functions to the wheel rim where

contact is made with real or subjective objects. Core consciousness

is created out of the biological landscape of the brain according to

neuroscientist Antonio Domasio. First, real public objects are

represented, then subjective private objects are represented in

reaction to action, and ﬁnally the observing subject-agent is

represented in one whole neural ﬁeld of consciousness.

The EPIC Functions of Consciousness

The EPIC (Emergent Patterns of Individual Consciousness) theory

is a 10-dimensional functional model of Bernard Baars Theater of

Consciousness assumed to be in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.

EPIC uses a novel mathematical method to specify recognizable

mental functional patterns that are combinations of four

cooperating functions with feedback between them. The EPIC

mathematical theory is validated because it predicts empirical

results of the Five Factor Personality Trait model, and the MBTI

complementary opposite preference pairs. EPIC mathematical

theory also tends to predict dichotomous functional networks

found in fMRI neuroscience brain scans and mental self-reports.

You are a conscious agent and participate in any event if you

selectively place your attention on details of your work as it

unfolds in time. Each frame of an event is assumed to be formed in

working memory using ten functions of consciousness. The model

places the individual functions in ten continuous hexagon shaped

containers and in their logical order for the orderly progression of

an event. The ten hexagon geometry guarantees that couplings

between individual functions can be speciﬁed by decimal number

system as strings of numbers. This is not a far fetched idea because

hexagonal geometry for memory in the brain was proposed by

4

Consciousness has been hard to

deﬁne and scientiﬁc research at the

university level has not been

encouraged until the last 20 years.

Things are changing for the better.

EPIC theory cracks the tough nut!

Jung emphasized the need for a

predictive mathematical model for a

science of psychology analogous to

the science of physics. EPIC theory

predicts a mathematical map based

on the hexagon geometry of space

and the decimal number system.

Issue 1

June 2017

Calvin, and hexagonal geometry was found by Mosher in the brain

of rats trained to run mazes and remember their experience.

The Jungian function types for real “r” and subjective “s” objects of

attention have a blue color for two types of Thinking (Tr and Ts),

have a red color for two types of Feeling (Fr and Fs), have a green

color for two types of Sensation (Sr and Ss), and a yellow color for

two types of Intuition (Nr and Ns). These four judgment and four

perception functions are rather passive, and require the active use

of the two additional intention functions to produce information

for the perception and judgment functions. The Attention (A) and

Imagination (M) function types have white and orange colors.

Prime number 101 speciﬁes strings of four cooperating functions

from the available ten functions. Each string is a subroutine and

includes the attention function for top down voluntary control or

bottom up involuntary control. The color code yellow vs green

and blue vs red is often used by Jungians to denote the functions.

Yellow for intuitive insight is the color of the sun on a sunny day,

green for down to earth touchable things is the color of healthy

grass. Blue is the color of cool or cold impersonal judgment. Red is

the color of warm or hot interpersonal judgment.

The Potentiality mode contains the Adapt subroutine (yellow Ns,

blue Tr, white A, and green Ss), Progress subroutine (yellow Ns, red

Fr, white A, and green Sr), Concept subroutine (yellow Ns, yellow

Nr, white A, blue Ts), and Intention subroutine (yellow Ns, orange

M, white A, and red Fs). The Actuality mode contains the Goal

subroutine (blue Tr, orange M, blue Ts, and white A), Relation

subroutine (red Tr, orange M, yellow Nr, and white A), Action

subroutine (orange M, green Sr, white A, and green Ss), and

Intention subroutine (orange M, red Fs, white A, and yellow Ns).

The Rationality mode contains the Reﬂection subroutine with red

Fs, green Sr, white A, plus blue Ts, the Reaction subroutine with

red Fs, yellow Nr, white A, plus green Ss, the Standards subroutine

with red Fs, blue Tr, white A, plus red Fr, and the Intention

subroutine (red Fs, yellow Ns, white A, plus orange M).

Issues 2 of Consciousness and Personality will discuss the MBTI

and experiencing the 3 mutually exclusive modes of consciousness.

5

Actuality Mode

Relation (M Fr A Nr), (M Nr A Fr)

Goal (M Tr A Ts), (M Ts A Tr)

Action (M Sr A Ss), (M Ss A Sr)

Intention (M Fs A Ns), (M Ns A Fs)

NrTs

Potentiality Mode

Adapt (Ns Tr A Ss), (Ns Ss A Tr)

Progress (Ns Fr A Sr), (Ns Sr A Fr)

Concept (Ns Nr A Ts), (Ns Ts A Nr)

Intention (Ns M, A Fs), (Ns Fs A M)

Rationality Mode

Reflection ( Fs Sr A Ts), (Fs Ts A Sr)

Reaction (Fs Nr A Ss), (Fs Ss A Nr)

Standards (Fs Tr A Fr), (Fs Fr A Tr)

Intention (Fs Ns A M), (Fs M A Ns)

The 10 functions of consciousness

for real, subjective, and intentional

objects. 8 functions have radial

symmetry and 2 functions have

circular symmetry

The event cycle of consciousness

is organized into 3 mutually

exclusive modes