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Article 34
May 9, 1989
Re-revised January 11, 1991

Basic Principles of Metapsychology

In examining these basic principles, remember that all of them assume a strictly person-centered viewpoint. That is, each should be considered to be prefixed by the phrase, "From the viewpoint of an individual person, ...".

1. A person is a being who can assume different identities in order to fulfill his intentions.
2. Assuming an identity gives a person a world to interact with and abilities with which to act on that world.
3. A world is the totality of what exists for a person at a given time. It consists of three kinds of entities: phenomena (perceivable entities), facts (knowable entities), and ideas (conceivable entities).
4. There is a polar relationship between a person and his world. He is both joined to and separated from each entity in his world by one or more of his actions.
5. In addition to time and the three spatial dimensions, there is a fifth dimension, the polar dimension, that extends along the line of a person's actions, between the person and each entity in his world.
6. Having assumed an identity, a person is capable of two kinds of actions vis-a-vis the entities of which his world is composed: creative actions, in which he causes motion toward the world in the polar dimension, and receptive actions, in which he causes motion toward himself in the polar dimension.
7. In a creative action, a person initiates a flow toward his world, thereby changing it. He causes old entities to disappear or new entities to appear.
8. In a receptive action, a person initiates a flow from his world. He becomes aware of some part of his world.
9. Desire is the impulse toward, the wish for, an entity's existence.
10. Ability is the potential for action. It is composed of control and understanding.
11. An intention is composed of a desire, combined with the perceived or felt ability to carry it out.
12. Power is the capacity to intend and is thus composed of understanding, desire, and control.
13. The objective counterpart to power is empowerment, which is composed of the objective counterparts of understanding (the capacity to receive), drive (the capacity to desire), and control (the capacity to create). These are, respectively, heuristics (potential for promoting learning and understanding), pleasure (beauty or the quality of relieving pain), and order (potential for being controlled). A person attempts to act in such a way as to keep these three components in balance and maximize them. In so doing, he is also maximizing his power.
14. An entity is valuable to a person to the degree that creating that entity or promoting its survival enhances his power. Value is the creative aspect of empowerment. A person engages in creative acts in order to maximize value in his world.
15. A world-view, or any part of it, is valid for a person to the degree that receiving it enhances his power. Validity is the receptive aspect of empowerment. A person engages in receptive acts in order to maximize the validity of his world-view.
16. The three components of power form a triad, in which more understanding leads to more drive and control, more drive leads to more control and understanding, and more control leads to more understanding and drive. By acting so as to move this triad upward on, one can enhance one's power without limit.
17. Time is not a simple, smooth continuum but is divided up into periods. Each period of time is defined by an activity in which the person is engaged at that time, and each activity is governed by an intention -- the purpose of the activity.
18. An activity cycle occurs in each period of time, in which the activity defining that period of time starts, continues, and ends.
19. It is intention that creates a period of time, for an activity cycle starts when an intention is formulated, continues only as long as the intention exists, and ends only when the intention ends.
20. Present time is not a dimensionless point but, rather, is composed of all the periods of time that are created by the person's current intentions.
21. Although potentially a person may achieve an unlimited degree of intention (or power), at any given time he has only a limited amount. The more activities he is engaged in, the fewer new activities he can take on and the less power he has available for engaging in each of his current activities.
22. One goal of personal enhancement is to increase a person's power. This purpose can be achieved by helping him complete activity cycles by ending unnecessary intentions and fulfilling necessary ones, or by helping him increase his drive, understanding, and control.
23. Affection is the impulse to be close to a person, or, equivalently, to achieve a oneness of viewpoint with that person.
24. In a person's relationships with other people, he attempts to achieve a state of communion. Communion is composed of communication, comprehension, and affection. It forms a triad, with more communication leading to more comprehension and more affection, more comprehension leading to more affection and more communication, and more affection leading to more communication and more comprehension. By so acting as to move this triad upward, one can enhance one's communion with others without limit.
25. A person's highest goal, the reason why he seeks to enhance his power, is to maximize his communion with others. This is the ultimate goal of personal enhancement and of life.

Frank A. Gerbode, M.D.
Director, IRM