If consciousness is 'liminocentrically' structured, we would expect that it should be possible to construct a personality system that reflects this fact in some fundamental way. The key conceptual ingredients for just such a system are available in Jung's work, although Jung did not incorporate these aspects into his early formulation of the theory of psychological types (1921). Nor are they manifest in the second-generation Jungian typologies (such as the MBTI or Keirsey's system) that are built on Jung's early formulation.

In this paper we

1. Present a visual metaphor for 'liminocentric' organization;
2. Explain why we believe consciousness to be most aptly described as liminocentrically structured; and
3. Suggest that 'enantiodromia' is a key Jungian concept on which a personality system sensitive to the fact that consciousness is liminocentrically structured can be constructed.

Part 1 - A Visual Metaphor

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Each of the following figures can be conceived as having three levels of organization. Each is a whole comprised of parts, and the parts are comprised of even smaller parts. At the highest level of organization all three figures are similar; they each comprise a letter 'T'. But each is also different - made up of different KINDS of parts, in different heirarchically arranged ordering patterns.

This configuration, which is a T (at the top or 'first' level of description) is made up of Xs (second level), which in turn are comprised of Os (third level). This arrangement is not fractal. The parts aren't identical to the whole, at any level of description.

Here is a T that is made up of smaller Ts, each of which are made up of even smaller Ts. This arrangement is a fractal arrangement, as the parts are identical to the wholes that they make up. It is indeed what we might call 'fully' fractal, in that it is fractal at EVERY level of organization. Level one is fractal with respect to its level-two parts; and each level-two part is fractal with respect to its level-three parts.

This arrangement might also be considered a fractal arrangement. But it is not 'fully' fractal. In fact, it is not fractal at the interface between any two adjacent levels of the heirarchy. For the large T is made up not of smaller Ts, but of Xs, and these Xs are not made up of smaller Xs, but of Ts. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that the larger T is actually ULTIMATELY made up of small Ts. We might describe this arrangement as a 'once removed' fractal organization.

One can easily imagine a structure that would be a 'twice removed' fractal arrangement - a T made up of Xs made up of Os made up of Ts, for example. Or we might imagine a 'thrice removed' fractal structure, or one that is '10 times removed'.

When, like the figure immediately above, a structure is fractal with respect only to the highest and lowest levels, it is fractal at its two extremities and we may say that it thus resembles what we have been calling a 'liminocentric' structure. It is (relatively) 'indistinguishable' at its highest and lowest levels of organization.

If one is to believe what 'string theory' in physics has to say, extremely large distances in the physical world may be LITERALLY identical to (i.e. indistinguishable from) extremely small distances. Physical reality may thus exhibit a fractal identity at its extremities, and turn out to be a liminocentric structure. [See 'A Conversation with Physicist Brian Greene', in this issue of the Journal.]

Liminocentric structures also seem sometimes to manifest strange, paradoxical features - such as 'holographic' organization, in which the part appears to 'contain' the whole. By examining the following figures it is easy to see how holographic structure is a natural consequence of liminocentric organization.

Figure 1 The figure to the left depicts a series of nested frames. Frame-B is nested inside of Frame-A, Frame-C is nested within Frame-B, and so forth. But what if we should discover that A and E are identical and indistinguishable? Suppose, for instance, you walk through the front door of your house and enter the hall. Then you proceed up the stairs to the bedroom. You open the door to the bedroom, walk in, and walk toward the closet. But when you open the door to the closet and step in you find yourself back on the front porch, in front of the front door to your house. This is how one might experience a liminocentrically organized house, if there were such a thing. If A and E are identical, then Figure-1, which diagrams a linear nesting order, would be a little bit misleading. The straight vertical dotted line might better be shown to wrap back on itself, in a circle. Figure 2 It is a little more difficult to re-draw the figure so that the dotted line circles back on itself, but it might look something like this. Frame-A still provides the setting for Frame-B, and so forth, but the figure becomes non-linear. A looped heirarchy of contexts is shown. Figure 3 If the same non-linear heirarchy is drawn in linear fashion - as an 'approximation' to the truth, let us say - any of the frames could be depicted as the 'bottom-line' frame, depending on how one wanted to punctuate or parse the series. So it makes just as much sense to think of A (depicted as the 'whole' in Figure-1 ) as CONTAINED in E (depicted as the 'part' in Figure-1 ) as it does to think of E as contained in A.

This kind of arrangement - the looped series of nested-frames that we are calling a 'liminocentric' structure - has cropped up in various fields, where it has proven itself to be a useful model. The following diagram, for example, was used by Richard Schenchner, a Professor of Performance Studies at NYU, in his book Between Theatre & Anthopology. ¹ He was trying to illustrate the fascinating 'suspension of disbelief' that characteristically takes place in theatre and performance art, in which there is an 'agreement to let the smaller frame AB become the larger frame AB¹'. The resulting nested frames thereby assume what we would call a liminocentric arrangement.

AB1 Performance Subjunctive A World 'as is' Indicative B World 'as if' Subjunctive AB Performance Subjunctive

We have also argued that participatory democracy is the form of SOCIAL organization that is closest to displaying a liminocentric structure. ²

But why do we want to attribute such a strange structure to consciousness per se? In order to adequately explain this, we must begin by taking a look at what motivates us to say that consciousness 'has a structure' in the first place. For only then can we describe what it means to say, more specifically, that it has a 'liminocentric' structure.

Part 2 - The Structure of Consciousness

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In this section we wish to show how, on the basis of previous work that has been done in the area of philosophy of mind, it can be said that consciousness has a structure. And then we want to demonstrate what advantages there are to saying that consciousness might ultimately best be characterized as 'liminocentrically' structured - that is, structured like a series of chinese boxes, one within the other, with the innermost box indentical, paradoxically, to the outermost box.

The metaphor of the Chinese boxes becomes especially meaningful when we identify those boxes as the experiential 'frames' or 'contexts' that operate within the individual's consciousness as she goes about her daily business. So we will start there - with an analysis of how our experience of 'context' is constructed in everday life, out of the more basic elements of consciousness.

A Model of Consciousness that Conceives of it as Structured

The singlemost important fact about consciousness may be, as philosopher of mind C.O. Evans (1970) was the first to point out, that it is structured, and that it is structured BY attention. ³ Attention plays the function of 'bifurcating' consciousness, dividing it into levels of awareness. It brings a 'figure' (of which we are explicitly aware) into relief against a 'background'. The background remains in what Evans called 'unprojected' consciousness. Although elements in the background of consciousness remain outside of the focal area circumscribed by attention, they are nonetheless 'in' consciousness. We can be said to be 'aware' of what is in the background, but in a different way than we are aware of what is in attention.

We are 'subsidiarily aware' of what is in the background of awareness, according to Evans and Fudjack (1976) ⁴, who chose to use Michael Polanyi's term to describe the kind of awareness that is relegated to the background. Out of this subsidiary awareness of elements in the background of consciousness we construct what we normally call 'context'. As we go about our daily business we are aware of the contexts in which we operate, albeit subsidiarily aware.

Objects of our attention are best conceived, then, as embedded in contexts, somewhat like a content in a container. The context, when it is operating AS context, remains in the background and is experienced in a non-focal way, with a more diffuse type of awareness. Context is typically experienced, Evans and Fudjack postulated, in the mode of 'feeling' ⁵ - we directly experience context as an 'underlying feeling state'; it lends a 'feeling tone' to whatever the object of attention is at the moment.

From behind the scenes, our feeling states influence what items will be 'selected' and relevated into projected consciousness as objects of attention. It is in this way that our feeling states can be said to perform the 'evaluative' function that Jung singled out as the defining quality of what he called the 'feeling function'.

Conversely, we respond to the objects to which we attend by subtle changes that occur in our feeling states (moods) or not-so-subtle changes (emotions).

So there is a feed-back and feed-forward relationship between what is in projected consciousness at any given moment and what is in unprojected consciousness. There are shifts in our feeling state as attention deflects from one object to another, in a complex series of moves which, taken together, make up the personal 'storylines' of our lives.

Although we can bring elements of the background into attention, we can never make the background itself an object of attention. ⁶ But this does not prevent us from widening the scope of attention in order to make explicit what is currently in 'subsidiary awareness' as an element of unprojected consciousness - although by doing so, that element is taken out of subsidiary awareness and is brought into projected consciousness as a focal object of attention.

By manipulating attention in this way, we can bring what was previously operating AS CONTEXT into the foreground of attention, as object. Or, conversely, we can narrow the scope of attention, focusing on some 'detail' of a particular object of attention - making this detail the new object of attention, while allowing other aspects of the previous object of attention to recede into the background.

Because we can widen and narrow the scope of attention in this way, it makes sense to speak of consciousness as not only organized by attention into two levels - which we can refer to by respectively speaking of 'content' and 'context' (or 'foreground' and 'background') - but also as organized into a multiplicity of HIERARCHICALLY arranged levels, which we experience as nested contexts.

Consciousness as Liminocentrically Structured

A model of consciousness such as the one presented in the section above describes an arrangement that is very close to a liminocentric structure. All that need be done in order to conceive of the structure that is modeled as 'liminocentric' is to recognize the nested heirarchy of contexts as arranged in a non-linear fashion - with the beginning of the series wrapping back around on the other end, in a loop.

But what does this 'looping back' mean EXPERIENTIALLY? For unless there is some experiential significance in seeing consciousness in this way modeling it as a liminocentric structure could turn out to be just a meaningless abstraction.

Experientially, what it means for consciousness to have such a structure is that one winds up in the same place whether one NARROWS the scope of attention to the maximum possible extent (by 'concentrating' awareness) or WIDENS the scope of attention to the maximum possible degree (thereby diffusing awareness). At both extremities one experiences a 'pure', 'undifferentiated', or 'objectless' state of awareness. These two extreme mental states are indentical and indistinguishable, phenomenologically speaking. While IN the objectless state of awareness, there is nothing to distinguish the state arrived at by an extreme concentration of attention from the one arrived at by an extreme expansion of attention.

It may, however, be the case that the same state can be used in different ways, depending upon how one exits or enters it. For instance, there is an undifferentiated state arrived at by a concentration of attention that is called 'samyama' in Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutras'. One enters into this state by concentrating on an object, peeling away its successive conceptual layers. It is as if one is entering into the 'essence' of the object of meditation when the undifferentiated state that this process results in occurs. When one returns from the undifferentiated state, however, it is presumably with paranormal knowledge about the object - according to these sutras. We might describe what happens in such a process by saying that one 'intuits' something about the object by permitting oneself to enter so deeply into it as to experience its 'empty core'.

What about the undifferentiated state arrived at by diffusing attention? When we widen the scope of attention to include progressively larger frames, what happens? If, as Evans argues, our experience of 'self' arises out of our identification with the frames that remain in the background of awareness as we attend to objects in the foreground  ⁷ then the progressive widening of attention will make the series of nested frames explicit; so as one pulls back or 'zooms out', the larger, more inclusive frames are brought into focus and one 'steps out' of lower-level frames and lower-level self-identifications. The outer limit to this process is to bring 'everything' into attention, with nothing remaining in 'background awareness'. This would be commensurate to a realization of 'egolessness', as Evans pointed out back in 1970. ⁸

In either case - whether we expand or contract attention to its limit, consciousness winds up 'undifferentiated', lacking the bifurcation (into subject and object) that characterizes normal or 'everyday' consciousness.

Accomodating Mystical Knowledge about 'Extreme' States

Basically, what we have done by taking the model one step beyond the work of Dr. Evans, and specifically identifying the structure of consciousness as 'liminocentric' is to accomodate what mystics have been telling us for ages about the basic nature of the mind, as this essential nature is revealed by an investigation of certain 'extreme' mental states.

In the West we tend to think of 'enlightenment' itself as an exceptional mental state, outside of (or separate from) ordinary states. But in many of the spiritual traditions of the East, enlightenment is described as, in essence, a 'realization' ⁹ about the ultimate nature of the mind. Enlightenment is really nothing but the 'ordinary' state, as seen (and experienced) from a somewhat wider perspective, as it were. This is not unlike how the Newtonian frame which describes events in the material world at a HUMAN scale can be conceived as enclosed within a wider frame of explanation that is Einsteinian.

Perhaps we can explain this by using a second visual metaphor, as follows.

donut w/hole in space

The torus is a donut-shaped topological surface. It is, roughly speaking, a three dimensional spherical shape, with a hole in the middle. Drawn on a two-dimensional surface, we'd get something like the figure to the left. The brown area is the donut itself. It is probably a chocolate donut. It is contained in a 'space' which turns out to be continuous with the 'hole' that occupies its center.

donut in space, seen from distance

But if we step back far enough from the donut we see only what looks like a solid object (as content) in the midst of an empty space (which appears as background). The hole at the center of the donut is too small to see, and goes unnoticed.

donut in space, seen from extreme distance

If we zoom back even further - extremely far - the donut itself becomes too small to see. There seems to be only empty space left. There is no background, no foreground, just one homogenous field.

closeup of donut w/hole

Or if we move, in the other direction, toward the torus and focus on it from a very close distance, we will see the hole in the donut (as the object of our attention) against the mass of the donut (which fills the background of our perceptual field). We are too close to the object to be able to see the space that surrounds it.

closeup of the hole

And if we get EXTREMELY close, entering into the hole in the donut, all we see is the space within the hole. The donut itself seems to 'disappear'. This space is indistinguishable from the space that is arrived at by backing far away from the donut.

But if we find the midpoint between these two extremes of distance, we see not only the mass of the donut - but also the hole in the middle, AND the space surrounding the donut. And we are in a good position to realize that the surrounding (outermost) space is in fact continuous with the enclosed (innermost) space. The two 'spaces' are indeed the same.

In this metaphor, when we are seeing the donut as solid object in space, this is like ordinary everyday consciousness. When we see the donut and the hole at its center, this is like a stage of realization in which 'form' is recognized as 'empty'. When we zoom in extremely closely and inspect the 'emptiness' at the center, or zoom out an extreme distance away from the object and the donut seems to disappear and we have only empty space - this is like certain 'objectless' states of awareness that can occur in meditation. But the final goal is not to achieve the undifferentiated state itself; it is to come to the special perspective that allows us to continue to see all three aspects at once - the donut, the whole in the middle, and the space surrounding it - this is like the 'enlightened' state, in this analogy. ¹⁰ The innermost and outermost psychological 'space' (which is here a metaphor for 'concentrated attention' and 'diffused attention') are recognized as indeed the same, continuous.

By 'dilating' and 'expanding' the scope of our attention we not only discover that 'form is emptiness' (the donut has a hole), but also that 'emptiness is form' (objects precipitate out of the larger 'space') - to use Buddhist terminology. The emptiness that we arrive at by narrowing our focus on the innermost is identical to the emptiness that we arrive at by expanding our focus to the outermost. The 'infinitely large' is identical to the 'infinitesimally small'.

This enlightenment experience is a realization about the nature of the mind which entails recognizing it (in a direct, experiential way) as liminocentrically organized. The overall structure is paradoxical, and so the articulation of this realization will 'transcend' logic - insofar as logic itself is based on the presumption that nested sets are not permitted to loop back on themselves in a non-heirarchical manner. ¹¹

But as we tried to demonstrate in our recent series on the Enneagram as Mandala, liminocentric organization not only provides a structure that explains why consciousness is inextricably paradoxical, and accounts for our sense of irony and mystery, it also permit us to appeal to logic (the 'law of the excluded middle') within certain limited and specifiable boundaries. Such a structure thus reconciles 'incompatibles' (logic and paradox, in this case) by conceiving of the system as odd or unusual (ie, 'paradoxical') ONLY at its extremes. ¹²

Part 3 - Topology and Personality Typology

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We are all familiar

Figure 1

with the orthogonal x, y, z coordinate system that is used to describe the three 'ordinary' dimensions (height, length, width) of the 'space' in which our human-scale physical world exists. According to contemporary physicists ¹³, these dimensions may turn out to in fact be 'circular' from a much larger perspective that takes into consideration extremely great (cosmic) distances, rendering the diagram to the left over-simplistic (to say the least). But it nonetheless models physical reality in a way that continues to work well for us in the everyday world in which we move and interact with other human-scale physical objects.

Similarly, the ordinary 'psychological' space in which our experience as human beings takes

Figure 2

place, might be defined by a similar orthogonally arranged coordinate system. Jung did precisely this when he described four socalled 'mental functions' and conceived of them as comprising the relevant 'dimensions' of such a psychological space. The simple figure to the left shows the diagram he used. Jung did not label the intersection of the two axes 'Point A', as we have done - for reasons that will become apparent shortly.

Just as the orthogonal x, y, z coordinate system that models human-scale physical space provides us with only a rough and partial truth - and thereby constitutes a 'limiting case' of a more general law - Jung's diagram does not adequately represent psychological space. A more accurate picture, like Figure 3 below, would show the dimensions wrapping back around on themselves so as to constitute an 'enantiodromically' related function-pair, as we defined that in our Conclusion to the mandala series.

Figure 3

Point-A in Figure 3 is the same point as Point-A in Figure 2.

In our Mandala series we showed how Thinking and Feeling (and also iNtuition and Sensing) comprise a complementary pair of polar opposites that are so inextricably intertwined that one is tempted to think of them as conceptually inseparable. Like the 'incommensurables' that the mandala nevertheless succeeds in 'reconciling', the incompatible functions are inextricably joined together in a pair of polar opposites. So when we talk about one of these functions 'turning into' its polar opposite, we must construe this quite literally.

And then the 'extended' diagram above, with its 'circular' dimensions, becomes the more apt illustration of the psychological space in which we live. As we move along the T-F axis, away from the original intersection (A), T incrementally increases until at some 'extreme' point (B) it 'enantiodromically' transforms into 'F'. The same thing can, of course, be said about moving in the other direction, along the 'F' portion of the T-F axis. Or about what happens as we move outward along the 'S' limb of the 'S-N' axis (when suddenly we find 'S' transforming into 'N') or along the 'N' limb (where, at some point, 'N' transforms into 'S').

Loomis's Critique of Jung's Simple 'Cross' Diagram

Jungian analyst Mary Loomis makes a similar point to the one that we are here making - about the inadequacy of Jung's simple 'cross' diagram.

The oppositional arrangement of the functions as imaged by the cross was a teaching device used by Jung to explain the possible interactions of the functions. Unfortunately, it has contributed to the misunderstanding of Jung's theory. The cross is an incomplete symbol. The oppositional arrangement contradicts Jung's basic premise that the aim of psychological growth is the resolution of opposites. [Mary E. Loomis's Dancing The Wheel of Psychological Types (Wilmette, Illinois: Ciron Publications, 1991), p. 31)

Furthermore, it is not JUST the diagram with which Loomis finds fault. 'Jung's use of the cross symbol', she suggests, 'is not the ONLY reason why misconceptions about his theory have occured'. Loomis, we believe, is politely hinting at the fact that Jung's position changed in some signicant ways after he published his 1921 work on personality.

'It is my intent ...', she continues, 'to clarify the concepts in Jung's theory of psychological types, utilizing his later, more obscure writings and comments.' She is referring to the same material to which we appeal in the 'Enneagram as Mandala' series in order to explain how Jung came to believe that personality could change profoundly by re-organizing it around what he called 'the Self', as opposed to taking the 'ego' as its center. 'Then I will reframe the dynamics of his theory,' Loomis announces, 'in order to return to Jung's original intention that typology be a road map for the individuation process'. ¹⁴

What, specifically, is misleading about the cross-diagram, according to Loomis? It misleads us, she says, when it comes to explaining how what she calls the 'eight cognitive modes' [Ni, Ne, Fi, Fe, Ti, Te, Si, Se] characteristically 'interact'.

The image of the cross reinforced the idea of oppositions and of preferring or developing one function at the expense of another function. But permanent oppositions, as we have noted, are contrary to Jung's basic premise that the resolution of opposites is the aim and goal of an individual moving toward increased consciousness. It becomes obvious, as we examine Jung's theory of psychological types more closely, that Jung utilized the symbol of the cross as a teaching device to explain how he conceived the four functions to be interacting in an unaware, unconscious individual personality.

The cross itself is an incomplete image. The way it was used by Jung forces a static intepretation of typology and does not provide a picture of how the individuation process proceeds. (Loomis, page 38)

As we shall see, the problem is not so much that the resulting typology is 'static'. The difficulty, rather, is that the topological surface on which the relationship between the four functions is mapped is two-dimensional and 'linear' - i.e., it does not depict the 'enantiodromic' capacity that T has for 'turning into' F (or vice versa) or N to turn into S (and vice versa).

Motivated partially by a desire to conceive of each function as capable of an enantiodromic shift, Loomis offers an alternative to the cross-diagram ¹⁵, but one which tries to remain within the limiting confines of a two-dimensional surface. Her only recourse for dealing with the linearity imposed by a flat surface is to enclose the cross in a 'circle', which hints at the fact that the outer edges of the cross might be able to connect in some kind of 'looped', non-linear fashion.

There are advantages, however, to extending the 'simple cross' diagram using the alternative that we suggest above, by creating a 3-dimensional model. The original two-dimensional figure can then be seen as a projection of the sphere onto a plane. One can easily see why Jung's figure is not wrong, per se - when one recognizes that if one looks down at the sphere in Figure 3 from the top, one sees Figure 2. This doesn't make Figure 2 any less misleading, insofar as it gives the impression when taken by itself that the dimensions or axes are linear when they are in fact circular.

Topological Typologies

There is a second, perhaps more important advantage to working with a three dimensional model of the sort we've put forward above. We begin to see that the dimensions of human psychological space can be defined or described in such a way as to create a very interesting topological surface on which human personality types can be 'mapped'. This surface is similar to the kinds of surfaces on which modern physics has, for nearly a century now, been mapping our physical world (See 'Conversation with Physicist Brian Greene').

In comparison, until very recently psychologists have followed an increasingly conservative path with respect to modeling. In their desire to be seen as 'real' scientists they have ironically not permitted themselves the same kind of conceptual freedoms that brought success in other fields like physics. This is doubly ironic, because long before the physicists adopted such strategies, artists, mystics, and folk psychologists demonstrated a profound interest in describing human experiential space in terms of additional 'unseen' dimensions and in terms of dimensions related in non-linear, paradoxical fashions.

As a consequence of this conceptual conservatism in psychology there are no major theories that map personality onto the kinds of unconventional topological surfaces that we have been considering in this and other papers on this site.

It seems to us that the first step in moving in this direction is to recognize the need to do so. We must sensitize ourselves to the benefits of non-linear topologies, perhaps by looking to physics and other disciplines, where they have been used successfully.

The second step is to identify precursors in this regard - the Buddhist system, for instance, which maps personality type onto the surface of the 'mandala', which, as we have attempted to show, is conceived as a non-linear (indeed 'liminocentric') surface. Or we can look to the Enneagram, which can also be construed as a mandala with liminocentric structuring, as we have shown. In addition, we might turn our attention, as we've done here, to the implications that the concept of 'enantiodromia' has for understanding the relationships that exist between the very DIMENSIONS of psychological space.

Since none of the systems mentioned above carry the topological mapping project to completion, it is probably wise to consider them precursors to the kind of personality typology that might be constructed in the future if topological concerns are taken seriously. The Buddhist system, like the Enneagram, lacks the idea of personality 'variables' (or 'dimensions') that are defined independently of the personality 'types' that are distinguished - what we have elsewhere called an adequate 'theoretical infrastructure'. But, by virtue of its sensitivity to liminocentric structuring, it offers us profound insight into what a 'path of realization' approach to personality is. It shows us how we might conceive of our inadvertent internal 'contradictions' as telling us something PROFOUND about the nature of the non-linear shape of the psychological space in which we exist as conscious human beings.

Similarly, although the MBTI (as an offshoot of the Jungian system) provides us with a viable theoretical 'infrastructure' by which the dimensions of human psychological space might be fundamentally described, it fails to discern the NON-LINEAR nature of the topological surface that will be required to adequately model the structure of the mind. It thus winds up providing an over-simplified description of the psychological 'space' in which we abide as human beings.

Only by avoiding these theoretical pitfalls, while continuing to cherish the insights that each system respectively offers, can we put ourselves in a position to arrive at a synthesis of the two, a more complete view of what a sophisticated and adequate personality theory might actually look like.