1. Our level of psychic energy is a direct function of the degree of incoherence we experience.

  Proposition: The greater the degree of experienced incoherence, the greater the level of psychic energy.

2. Incoherence is an unsettled psychological state that we naturally seek to resolve--we seek coherence because it pleases us biologically and psychologically (see D. Meyer and J. Dewey).

  Proposition: We seek coherence as a universal motive.

3. Incoherence is brought about by our experiencing information that seems to us to be disorganized, unorganized, or unclear. Incoherence is the condition where the psychology (psycho-logic) of the mind is at odds with the logic of the event or object confronting the mind.

  Proposition: Incoherence is an unsettled psychological state where the information available to us is cognitively incomplete or unrecognizable.

4. The unsettled state resulting from experiencing incoherence is identical to a motive state (Incoherence--->Motive State=Motivation=Interest)

  Proposition: The energy resulting from incoherence or the motive state is transformed through the process of seeking coherence (see progression/regression and reflectivity).

5. The psychological functions (SNTF) mediate the process of perceiving incoherence, seeking coherence, and resolving the incoherence--transforming psychic energy.

  Proposition: The degree to which psychic energy is transformed (motive state resolved) is a function of the degree to which the subject applies the psychological functions in a manner most appropriate to the nature of the problem at hand or a function of the degree to which the problem is amenable to any sort of resolution.

6. Motivation and cognition are inseparable. When we are thinking we are motivated, when motivated we are thinking.

  Proposition: Motive state (regression in the narrower sense) is a necessary and sufficient condition for cognition.

7. The biological and psychological purpose of cognition is (a) anti-entropic; (b) to achieve coherence in a particular sense; (c) to achieve coherence in a general sense, i.e.., to develop a repertoire of knowledge that is personally meaningful.

  Proposition: Thinking is the means for greater organization of our intellects and is necessary for greater personal consciousness.

8. We engage in applicative, interpretive, associative, and replicative uses of information (knowledge) to make coherent (progression) the new information (focal) in any given encounter (see Broudy, Polanyi, Jung, Dewey).

  Proposition: In the process of using our knowledge to make new information coherent, psychic energy is transformed, motive state ended, and progression occurs.

9. Adaptation, progression, cognition, development, and consciousness are all dependent upon the information available to the psychic system during the process of experiencing problematic (incoherent) situations. The information most immediately available is that which is held within our repertoire of latent (tacit) knowledge. That is, when faced with an incoherence, we first draw from what we have learned from previous experience in order to resolve the incoherence. When that knowledge is insufficient, we look for new knowledge. If that new knowledge provides for coherence (progression), it then becomes part of the repertoire of latent knowledge: It is learned.

  Bottom Line: We learn those things and only those things that increase our sense of coherence. It is from this that meaning is created. To experience something is to engage the source of our incoherence and try to make it coherent, to derive meaning. Quite literally, we learn from experience and only from experience(ing).

NOTE: The meaning we apply to what we have learned is what determines the warrantability or value of the new knowledge. For example, superstition is knowledge that makes for coherence but it does not stand up to any tests of warrantability. Much of what people believe is not warranted by the study of evidence. Ideological beliefs are typical of knowledge that is very coherent, but fictional.

Critical reflectivity is the process by which we make sound judgments and establish the warrantability of a meaning or belief. In one sense, the proposition that says we learn those things that increase our sense of coherence needs to be qualified by adding that we seek coherence without regard to its consequences. This is why people do not automatically individuate, indeed it is possible to remain in a primative state of mind throughout one's entire life.

Therefore, the application of critical reflectivity to experience is requisite for growth toward greater consciousness.