My Criticisms of the Big 5, and an alternative Dynamic Systems Paradigm

 (Disclaimer - this is a really long facebook post I once made during an arguement and it is kind of a work in progress right now.  I just want to get some of the ideas out there.  This is basically a summary of my objections to the Big 5 and an alternative Dynamic Systems Theory model)

This is an article I reference just to show an example of the common criticisms of MBTI

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-grant/goodbye-to-mbti-the-fad-t_b_3947014.html 

Ok  - Here is what I think.  First, from what I understand all the studies that have been used to check the validity of Meyers Briggs do not use the theory correctly.  As JT Cove points out the author of this article does not use the theory even remotely correctly.  All the Academic discussions I have seen on this do the same thing.  They ignore the role of cognitive functions and instead use the simplistic idea that MBTI models personality as what I can best describe as a Cartesian, 4-dimensional “pseudo-binary” space.  When you use this line of thinking (which is incorrect) you guess that for E-I, S-N, F-T, and J-P you should see bi-modal distributions in the data.  This is not what I understand you see in the data though.  The data always comes out unimodal with a mean in the middle.  The problem is though that the MBTI theory does not model personality in Cartesian sense at all.  The mathematical framework that I currently think best matches Jungian theory is something more like a Markov chain or a probabilistic graphical network, where the states in the model are the cognitive functions.  If nothing else I think some kind of dynamic system model is much more appropriate to model human personality.  Actually one of the main strengths of MBTI over the big 5 in my opinion is that it does take into account that all people have thinking and feeling, etc, etc.  They are just used in different preference orders (sort of).  The author in the article totally misses this.  Big 5 just places people on a static point on a continuum.  To the best of my knowledge no psychologist in academia has ever tried to fit any kind of dynamic system model to personality outside of perhaps some work with infants.  Dario Nardi at UCLA has also mentioned dynamic systems models, but I can find no peer-reviewed papers of his.  If humans are better modeled like dynamic systems I really do not know what the resulting distributions in a Cartesian representation these types of models would give on the questionnaires used to check the validity of psychological tests.  Hard to say if it should come out bi-modal or uni-modal.  I could actually use some hand-wavy central-limit theorem argument to explain the fact that the data does keep coming out unimodal.  Personality is a pretty complicated and this hunch is not totally unreasonable but I really have no idea.  It would need to be studied more deeply.  This leads me to my criticisms of big 5. 

First, we need to take a step back and look at what big 5 actually is.  Big 5 is really a data-driven, static, 5 dimensional Cartesian model of human personality.  From what I can tell psychology researchers basically took a bunch of surveys and performed factor analysis on them and got out 5 main factors and said that is a good way to model human personality.  Now the fact that it is purely data driven means there was never any theory really used to guide the investigation other than perhaps the implicit idea that humans can be broken into independent factors.  This means in some ways it is arguable whether or not it is even “scientific” because there really is no hypothesis or model you are trying to test against.  It is more like a modified form of an observation.  This criticism is common and I think the big 5 article on Wikipedia also mention it.  My main question though is, why in the world does anyone think a static, Cartesian model is a good way to capture human personality?   What about humans is static?  Why did they do this?  I will give my theory.  Basically psychology is often considered a “soft” science and as a result I think the academic field sort of has an "inferiority complex."  In order to maintain credibility they seem to try to tie everything to data as much as possible.  This is reasonable enough, but I see at least one problem in the implementation.  Psychology education appears to have chosen statistical factor analysis as its weapon of choice for data analysis.  They focus on using statistical factor analysis for pretty much everything.  Problem is that in doing this they are making the assumption that everything can be modeled in a static Cartesian space.  This is kind of ridiculous.  Many important phenomena are much better described using other types of models.  Dynamic system models for instance (This is my current preference for modeling humans).  I am pretty sure Psychology researchers do not have the same kind of mathematical maturity that an engineer or computer-science researcher has.  My background was full of dynamic system models and techniques do exist to fit data to them.  I think psychology is in a mode where they really like factor analysis and either are not aware of other types of models, or they just do not want to bother with them.  I feel like they are kind of caught in a case of “When your only tool is a hammer the whole world becomes a bunch of nails.”

One quick mention on the tests.  I do not think the current survey-based tests are very good.  They are not really repeatable or reliable.  I am currently exploring the possibility of using different types of tests to measure personality.  I am wondering for instance if tracking the kinds of moves people make in playing certain kinds of games might provide a better measure. Fe might be measurable by looking at how much vital signs in a person change when exposed to certain images.  I am also curious if for instance S and N people might remember details from scenes differently.  This might be a measurable difference.  I think better testing techniques need to be developed before progress can be made.    

 I believe my thoughts on this could actually be used to build much more life-like machines.  I think many algorithms you see in computer science map to cognitive functions.  For instance, search algorithms seem sort of like Ne.  Design of experiment is like Se.  Simulations are like Ni.  Pattern recognition is like Si.  POMDPs seem a lot like Te.  Hierarchical deep learning and PCA are sort of like aspects of Ti.  Neural networks seem somewhat similar to Fe (You can make fast decisions on complicated data but you really do not know how you did it).  Fe is in some ways like using your own system as an analog computer to calculate results about external events.  I think you could make a machine with current algorithms and arranging their use according to some kind of dynamic system model such as a Markov Chain.  I have seen some cutting edge personality engineering work for robotics, and in my opinion it is pretty crude.  Engineering researchers are blindly adopting big 5 as well, and I think it is to their detriment.  Engineering is not constrained as science is to concepts such as searching for “truth.”  It just has to work.  I think I can make a better human-like machine using MBTI theory.  I am laying down theoretical framework for this in my spare time.

At the end of the day MBTI is just a model like anything else.  The pertinent question is how useful is it.  I know however that a person is going to have a hard time convincing me that there is no such phenomena as the “INTJ” or “Fe.”  I think if nothing else Jung was really onto something.  May not be perfect but something is there worth taking a look at. A dynamics systems approach may be the paradigm shift the personality research field needs to advance. 

The year starts off in flames... Messages For Liam #001

 After about a year of hiatus I am getting back to telling the story of how I spent my senior year of college building a racecar.  This is the beginning of the story.  The worst day of my life to date, and my truck going up in flames. 

 

Zombie Apocalyspe, Emotion and Sin

It is no secret that zombies are very popular today.  What is it about swarms of grotesque, walking dead creatures that appeals to people.  I would like to offer a reflection why this might be based on a dream I had last night.  But first a little background on what I have been thinking about the last few days since my dreams seem to come from recent experiences.  

First, the last few days I discovered that the adoration chapel in Los Alamos has a book from Magnificant called "Praying with St Paul."  Now for most of my life St Paul has been one of my least favorite Saints and I did not care for him on a personal basis.  However in the last year or so he is now one of my most favorite Saints and I have wanted to learn more about him so I have been going in and reading the book.   So far one reflection I found very thought provoking and that is the shocking nature of the crucifix.  We do not think about it much but we are literally wearing recklessness of a guy being executed around our necks.  Imagine what people thought about that 2000 years ago.  Apparently St Paul was a big proponent of the Crucifix.  The modern equivalent would be to wear a t-shirt of a guy in an electric chair.  If you think about it this really is not that different than many of the heavy metal t-shirts out there.  It is not a very pleasant symbol.  We have just been sensitized to it. 


Second, 5 years ago I came across a situation that forced me to realize my view of the world might be incomplete.  I am naturally a very rational person and am not influenced much by emotion in comparison to most people.  However I came across a person who forced me to rethink my stance.  I began studying emotion and forgiveness in earnest.  Both it's strengths and weaknesses.  One person I came across during this study was Kina Grannis.  She is an independent musician from Los Angeles who gained a world-wide following on YouTube for her emotionally honest music.  I think personality wise we are in many ways opposites so I found it interesting to see her point of view of the world.  Every couple of months I might look and see what she is up to on her YouTube channel.  I did so last night and I came across.  Some collaboration she was doing with some former UCSD students.  Here it is.  It is called "The Last":





Now when I saw this I was impressed by their ability to use emotion to tell a story.  Now I went to UCSD for graduate school and in my experience it has a culture that is somewhat emotional and mellow in nature.  I can connect with some of the videos because they film them at apartment complexes I am familiar with.  It was not like my prior undergraduate experience at Colorado State which was much more rough.  I am not surprised these guys came out of this kind of ecosystem.  However a few things bothered me.  First, I have noticed that over the years Kina has subtly shed innocence.  She never claimed innocense as a trademark but as time has gone on it has happened.  She has subtly implied through her music that she is comfortable with not practicing chastity and this particular video reinforces that observation.  It is clear to me that we have different values systems.  It makes me sad, but I am not surprised.  Most people accept a non-chaste values system.  I am used to it.  That is also why though I am typically quite impressed when I come across the rare person who does.  Personally I am a big fan of innocence.  If you ever met me you might not think so but I am.  For instance I HATE swearing.  I hate it especially when I hear my brothers swear.  It makes me sad because they are eroding their dignity away when they do it.  Second, the story itself while heartwarming is not realistic.  If you talk to most people they will not have fond memories of may prior love interests.  Most of the time these stories are marked by betrayal and brokenness.  Sure you can learn something from them but at a very great cost.  It is debatable to me if the cost is even worth it.  My personal opinion is that it is important to guard your heart.  In reality emotion cannot heal these pains so I felt as if the movie was in some sense lying.  Kina and the other guy are in some sense lying to one another even because they have not made any kind of real commitment to one another.  I looked through comments on the video and I saw other people shared my point of view.  One of the most mysteries I spend the most time trying to gain more insight into justice, mercy and forgiveness and how this works in relationships.  Christianity seems to add a super-rational element to the discussion that is beyond understanding.  "Beyond I make all things new."  I am trying to find ways to understand this better in my own life.  For instance there have even been Saints you have made the claim that certain types of damage that can be engaged in during relationships that cannot even be healed by God.  God's justice and mercy are quite interesting for me to think about it is baffling. 

Anyways - let's get to the matter at hand...  Zombie's, now keep in mind this was a dream so it is a little hazy so please forgive ambiguity. 

In my dream I was transported back to my old house in San Diego.  Throughout the dream some friends and I were driving around town and I noticed that some of them were changing.  They were becoming agressive and they were hurting one another.  In particular they would tear at each other's skin especially around the face and mouth.  Generally with sharp objects such as knives and skewers. For all intended purposes they looked like zombies to me so that is how I will refer to them.  The people who were zombiefied were in various stages of zombification.  Some were only slightly zombies.  Others very much so and you could tell the difference based on how cut up they were.  The zombie's also really did not attack non-zombie's.  Only their own kind and it was proportional to how zombified the person was.  The most zombified person's were attacked the most.  The least zombified persons were attacked less so by other zombie's.  The zombie's sort of had a disease but not really. some of the zombies were able to get away from the lifestyle.  In fact some of my friends who had become zombified were able to get away from it and become normal again.  The zombies could not be described as mindless.  They had consciousness about them and the person they once were was still there.  It was more like they were totally enraged with hate.  Also, interestingly, the zombies did not really try to infect everyone to be zombies.  They mostly focused on their friends and family.  Effectively the zombies would form what were effectively family groups consisting of family and friends they had convinced to join them.  That is who they tried to pull down the most to live in the zombie life style.  They were not extremely violent about it.  It was more like a form of peer pressure they used to get people to join their group.  It is not really clear to me what exactly convinced people to decide to join a zombie family other than the fact they knew the other zombies as friends and family.  They did not hide the violence and torture they engaged in with each other and were quite open about it.  They actually seemed to convince others to join in.  Even though the zombies only recruited family and friends I could tell the epidemic was spreading across the city.    You just could not see it as you walked down the street unless you looked more closely and intimately.  In day to day life many of the zombies looked fairly normal.  The worst zombies looked only slightly cut up while they walked down the street.  You could particularly tell the home of a "zombie family."  When you did get into a house that was infected with zombiism the members of that family were in some sense literally torturng one another.  Their was typically one Alpha zombie in the house and a number of subservient zombies.  All the zombies would yell at each other and engage in tearing flesh off of each other's bodies and faces with knives and other sharp objects.

In particular one friend of mine (This person did not correspond to any person I actually know,  I just thought of him as close friend) was an alpha zombie.  As we were walking down the street together a rival group of zombies drove up in a white car and kidnapped my friend by throwing him in the car and driving off.  They wanted to make him a subservient zombie in their group.  They took him to the top of a building where the other zombies in their group were.  Myself and another friend were watching what was happing from the top of a neighboring building in hopes of rescuing him.  It turned out though that my friend was too strong a zombie for them and he took over as the head torturer of the group that kidnapped him.  I could watch him stab one of his kidnappers through the cheek with a knife and proceed to drag him around and take control of him.  I was worried he might be the worse zombie of all.  

The dream ended with me on the top of a metal roof where a zombie family was living.  In this particular home there were members in a much lower state of zombiism that did not participate in the torture or even hang out near it.  These persons would cook food and throw it to the more violent zombies to keep them in their state of death and their lifestyle of torture.  At this particular time we had just realized a particular chemical weakness of the zombies.  Unfortuntately the zombies realized it shortly after we did as well and had begun to take steps to work around it.  Basically the dream ended there.

Ordinarily I would just ignore a dream like this and think nothing of it, but I am kind of in a season of reflection right now so I decided to ponder it awhile and I asked God if there was anything worth learning from this.  Then I just zoned out and fell asleep again and when I woke up I had a thought. 

Zombies are essentially the "walking dead."  In some sense who else is the walking dead?  People not living in a state of grace.  I have often wondered what the world would look like if a person's state of grace were visible.  I wonder now if I have seen some glimpse of what that might look like.  So often I feel as though family/friends is either the ultimate conduit of virtue or vice.  Some family and friends just pull you down to a low common denominator and encourage sin.  This happens alot among people you would hope have your best interest at heart.  Think about all the unmarried couples living together or the friends who encourage others to steal or engage in various other things they should not be doing.  Sometimes even parents or aunts or uncles encourage sin at times.  No one is really innocent, and we have all led others to sin at some point.   It is not all bad though, sometimes family and friends do help get you out.  It goes both ways.  The low-order zombies throwing food to the worse zombies are kind of like enablers.  Somewhat involved but perhaps not to the same degree. In the end the worse zombies are only hurting themselves and those around them.  And the fact that people for no real reason joined the zombies was indicative of the irrational nature of sin.  There was hope and redemption too though.  As I said some zombie's left the zombie lifestyle.  I had friends in the dream that did this.  Even my friend who was one of the worst zombie's was trying to get out when he was more of his normal self on the street.   The thing is so many things look nice and friendly and sweet on the outside, but when you look closer things might not be so ordered. 

As time goes on I realize how much brokenness and hurt there is out there among people.  When you really try to follow a Christian lifestyle I have found you are shielded from alot of problems you may be totally ignorant of.  For instance I had a friend once tell me some problems he was having with his girlfriend.  I could not believe it because though I have had trouble with Catholic Ladies at times it was nothing like what he was describing.  After that I say give me the Catholic lady challenges any day thank you.  I definitely appreciated them more that day.  You don't appreciate this as much if you grow up Christian and hang out with Christian friends, but if you talk to people that have not had this benefit you can see real hurt.  Christians have their own hurt and challenges no doubt, but I would gladly take those problems over some of the more secular problems some people have shared with me.   Some people just seem somewhat hopeless.  That light of the world stuff is no joke. 

Ultimately what I cannot help but wonder is whether or not the appeal of the hordes of the "walking dead" resonates with some sense of spiritual death people are capable of feeling or want to avoid or see in others.  Do they feel they are spiritually dead and not realize that is what it is?   That is what I wonder.  It may be a stretch but maybe not. 

The Prodigal Son, Recovery, Relaxation and Growth.

Why do we sleep?  I was asking myself this question a few weeks ago.  I was particularly busy and I was wondering why we bothered with all this sleeping stuff.  I looking over the internet a little bit and as far as I can tell science does not really have a good answer to this one at this time. 

Last night I was eating dinner with a friend and she told me how she decided to give up eating one of her favorite foods for the sake of a special intention.  I asked her how long she thought that was going to go on, to which she replied, "Until I die if I have to,"  I told her, "God really doesn't work that way, he is usually actually friendlier than we humans are."  I told her she would probably be back to eating her favorite food by sometime next year.  God's "Yolk is easy and his burden is light."  In my experience we humans tend to be the ones to make things more blood and guts than they actually need to be.  I think it is a part of human nature.  Maybe broken human nature always trying to atone for things that we cannot. 

I was driving home this morning and I was thinking about the prodigal son and imagination.  I was thinking about the elder son.  In my life I tend to most identify with him.  A lot of people like to give the older son a hard time, but I just was not convinced that he was just some jealous/petty person.  I felt there was more to the story.  I have been reflecting on it all weekend. 

At first before the start of the weekend I realized explored the idea that the elder son was actually more respected by the Father.  The Father and the Elder son had a more adult relationship than the Father and the younger son.  In some sense the Father had to appease the spiritually weak younger son with parties much like a child needs to be entertained with toys.  This reminded me of people's conversion stories.  In the beginning they are usually very sweet and flowery.  Then later things get more difficult.  I thought he was simply providing the sons with what they need according to their current spiritual development. 

I realized there was a problem though and it was not this simple. - the father wanted the elder son to join the younger son at the party.  He wanted him to participate in the fun too.  He wanted him to also step away from the labor, he wanted him to go on the retreat.  He wanted everyone to take some time off and enjoy life and have the child-like spirit. 

Ideally is every conversion is an opportunity for rest and relaxation and celebration for everyone?  It may be up to us though whether or not we take it.

I think it is deeper than simply relaxation though.  In my own life periods of relaxation after more difficult periods are the time during which we revaluate what we are doing and where we are going.  This is the time we plot our new directions.  These periods are the rudders of our lives.  Small changes here greatly affect where we make our next steps.  This is the time at which we are really open to new ideas and creativity.  This is the time during which we can take risks.  This is where true new innovations and metamorphosis occurs.  These periods are times at which we truly transform instead of only making sequential progress.  Could every sinners conversion be an opportunity for the whole community to be transformed? The Father calling both sons to the party may be a call for both of them to be transformed and be brought to the next stage of their development.  The Father pleads for the older son to go.  I think he knows that what the older son is doing is good, but if he keeps up business as usually he will not get a chance to go on to the next stage of his growth.  He must go to the party and stop and smell the roses.  He must look for the next direction.  Much as the younger son has gone through his own hardships now is his time to rest.  Both sons have experienced hardships just of a different nature.  Both sons have been humbled.  One by living with the hogs.  The other acting as a servant to the Father.  They both must rest and recover. The Father wants them both to grow. 

Maybe sleep is God's way of reminding us all of the need to slow down so we can ultimately obtain transformative growth.  For many of us, if we could we would never sleep and just do, do, do.  For others, sleep is the more natural inclination.  There are some who would be happy just sleeping all the time.  Day and night remind us of both.  There are two sides to the coin.  Some people are naturally the Martha's always trying to organize stuff, others are the Mary's just trying to get in experiences.  This seems to come up over and over. Dante even maintained Day and Night in Purgatuario - Penitent souls could only travel up the mountain in the day by God's grace.  It was like there was an enforced retreat.  Learning to rest and enjoy is almost a requirement for learning to live in Paradise even in the demanding purification of Purgatory. 

"
But see now how the day is declining, and ascend

by night we cannot; therefore tis well to

think of some fair resting-place.
"
 Purgatuario:  CANTO VII -

Work and rest are part of the rhythm of life.  When we workout we must rest or we risk overtraining.  Too much rest leads to losing our edge.  In engineering and craftsman ship I find there is a time to put your nose to the grindstone, work hard, and hit the deadlines.  There is also a season to step back, relax, and review the literature, explore topics you have never considered, and even just daydream at times. This is why we have sabbaticals for professors. There is a concept of "Fast and slow" thinking that I believe maps to this. 

I think the homeless are a witness to this in some sense.  I have a policy of picking up hitchhikers to help they go where they need to go.  In my experience most homeless people did not get to be homeless by being responsible.  They often are very impulsive and somewhat scatterbrained.  They often have a tendency toward begin nomads.  I am not sure many of them would even want to live in a house if you gave them one.  They might just leave.  I am pretty convinced there are some people that are just born to be wanderers and would probably never fit into "established" society.  These people have a role to play.  I think they help remind us that we need to stop and smell the roses and look beyond ourselves.  They are almost like the lilies of the field. 

Every conversion is a party for everyone - To be happy is to be in tune with the will of the Father. It is a chance to learn to be in tune with the Father. 

I think this is part of the message Pope Francis is trying to get across.  He is downplaying things that we have held as important for so long.  He is downplaying our defensive position.  I have felt defensive about Catholisism my whole life.  I am tired of it.  But I recognize now to go through this metamorphisis we have to let something's go and trust that God will take care of them.  This is really scary, but honestly, are we really doing that great of a job of evangelizing the culture right now?  I think we are doing a pretty poor job personally.  We have tried our best and to some degree failed.  It is not futile.  Just the first step to humility.  Pope Francis is asking us to grow spiritually.  As Churchhill said:

" You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks."

When you really think about it all the important social issues we have been arguing over the last 60 years really come down to a root in greed and selfishness.  I feel when I was young I realized this but forgot somewhere along the way.  The root cause is what needs to be addressed and I am not sure that we have really tried to address it. 

Maybe some of us need to step back for a moment and just go with God's flow on this as scary as it might be. Not everything needs to be blood and guts on our part. 

My second trip to the floatation tank - A negative result

Back in the fall I took my first trip to the sensory deprivation tank.  It was an interesting experience.  The thing I remember most about it is that my sense of touch was greatly enhanced after some time in the tank.  I also experienced the sensation of my body falling asleep in many different ways.  Today I happened to be in Santa Fe, and I was driving by the flotation tank place and I thought - hey I need to do that again, so I stopped in and tried the tank out for another hour in hopes that I would learn more about how I can reduce the signal-to-noise ratio for human sensing and pattern recognition. 

First some notes of my state at the time.  When I was driving by I was feeling a little tired and I wanted to take a nap.  I figured that I could either take a nap at the park or I could rest in the tank.  I thought resting in the tank would be a good a place to rest as any so that is part of the reason I took that route.

Now in the time since I last went in the tank I have heard some interesting accounts from people.  First, some people have told me that they are able to very distinctly feel their pulse and their blood pumping in their body when they are just sitting at their desk.  I personally was shocked by this because I have never been able to just feel my pulse.  Some people tell me they are so sensitive to their pulse they find it distracting.  I found this interesting.  I have a hard time going out of my way to feel my pulse manually.  One night I tried lying as still as I could in a dark room to see if I could sense my pulse.  If I concentrated very hard I could, but it was not easy.  It felt like my body was going to sleep.

Now at this point I was somewhat familiar with the sensory deprivation tank drill.  I hopped right in and started floating.  I was much more comfortable with it than I was the first time I did it.  The first time I did not know how to let my body relax and so some of my muscles felt achy.  This did not happen this time.  I was very relaxed this time for some reason.  I did notice right away that my hand felt some pain.  It turns out I had a few cuts on my hand that were being burned by the salt water.  I thought this burning might mess up my "singal-to-noise" ratio, but after awhile I stopped noticing it.  The first time I was in the tank I was able to notice very distinctly that I could feel all the aches and pains of my body very distinctly.  At least for the first 10-15 min. 

At this point I just floated there in the tank.  It was pretty relaxing.  I think I just zoned out for the hour I was in there.  Supposedly in the first episode of Hawaii 5-O a sensory deprivation tank was used as a torture device.  I am not sure how this would work, because I personally found it to be pretty comfortable.  I have heard some people are uncomfortable in the tank, but I really do not experience that.  This time I did not experience a heightening of senses as I did the first time.  At least not nearly as much.  I am not sure why.  The tank was definitely dark and quiet.  Prehaps even more so that the first time.  I wonder if the temperature is correct.  I might bring a thermometer next time.  I read a story that the guy who invented the sensory deprivation tank got visited by aliens while being in there.  That definitely did not happen to me.  I have a suspicion that he had other things going on that I do not consider advisable.  I have a read that a recent study from 2009 found that some people experience various hallucinations.  I never experienced anything like that either.  Mostly I was just hanging out with myself.  I actually do not remember much about it.  Nothing notable happened.  I tried similar tests with my tactile sense as I did the first time, but I did not feel my sense of touch had been heightened.  As I mentioned earlier, according to the Meyers Briggs test I am a very highly intuitive person.  More so than everyone I have tested except one person.  I wonder if I am becoming even more intuitive and even being in the tank does nto heighten my senses.  Alternatively maybe being tired reduces the effect.  This is my first guess actually.  The first time I did this I was very alert.  It may help to be mentally alert.  I will have to test this more.  Also, I tried to just feel the pulse of my body while I was in the tank, but that was a no go as well.  I did not feel my pulse at all. 

In the last month I have been told I am a "sensual learner," and a "kinesthetic thinker."  This is probably true to some degree.  Recently I was building some mechanical structures, and I very much naturally like to feel out the prototypes to understand how tolerances and stiffness effect how things go together and operate.  When I was a machinist I could get some sense what a .001" slop in a 1/4 inch hole felt like.  I had a tactile feeling for what being .005" off on a cut felt like.  At the same time though when I was a wrestler it was very difficult for me to physically remember wrestling moves from day to day.  I found later that I learn these kinds of tasks more easily if I visualize them in my mind.  Regardless, I started thinking that given our current computational power, CAD, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software we may be able to tactily let engineers feel what their models look like before design.  This could be very helpful.  What if the designer could see and feel the stresses/deflections as he manipulates what he is modeling, and then on-the-fly makes changes to improve the design.  This could be powerful.  It could also help with introducing artists and sculpters into the design of engineered structures.  I will be thinking about this more.

In summary this may be a kind of negative result day, but now I am getting a sense for the limitations of the tank for reducing "signal-to-noise: ratio in humans.

A Proposed Iteration of Mercy and Justice - Personality based Juries

One of the most unusual concepts out there in my opinion is the concept of justice. It is really hard to nail down what it is.  Especially in a practical sense.  How does one go about judging whether or not something is just?  There are so many factors to consider it can make your head spin.  Then at the end of the day we are practically limited by what we are actually able to implement in practice.  A classic example of this is the question of how a person should be judged who has a mental illness and commits some crime.  Many people think of a mental illness plea as a loophole for evil.  I strongly disagree myself, but I am not going to go into why now.    Things become a bit more complicated when you look at them from the Catholic point of view and you throw in the complementary concept of "mercy."  It is really hard to say even what is merciful and what is not. I am going to illustrate what I am talking about with a recent incident that brought all this to the forefront of my mind.  The incident that I have in mind is the recent suicide of Aaron Swartz.  Aaron Swartz was a computer programmer involved with the creation of both RSS and Reddit.  In 2011 he was arrested for breaking into the JSTOR academic database so you could download journal papers and share them for free on peer-to-peer websites.  It turned out that charges were pressed against Swartz and he faced sentences on the order of 35 years in prison, and 1 million dollars in fines.  Now granted the prosecution apparently indicated that they were not going to pursue the maximum sentence.  They wanted Swartz to go to prison for six months.  Regardless, Swartz could not take this kind of stress and killed himself.  If you want to learn about the details of the story I am going to let you check it out for yourself.  Here is one link that talks about it.

www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/01/guide-finger-pointing-after-aaron-swartzs-suicide/61015/

Now I could talk about whether or not the maximum sentences were just, but everyone and their brother talks about that so I will not talk about this.  I am going to talk about what I think was going on with Swartz.  First off, (based on my third hand account) Swartz was considered a suicide risk.  Now for alot of people the thought of six months in prison would not be pleasant, but I do not think it would lead them to commit suicide.  I can say however that in the time I have led various teams my observation is that there are some people that just really cannot take stress.  Even what many people would consider normal stress.  I have seen guys get really upset after having to drive past a place where they may have had a bad experience a decade earlier.  I have seen people who would almost breakdown if they could not complete what I would consider simple tasks, and I have seen plenty of others just give up on life after being subject to relatively minor medical problems.  More and more I am starting to wonder if this difficulty dealing with stress has some relation with personality type or Cognitive function preference.  

In the case of Aaron he was most likely either ENTP or INTP.  I would tend to guess INTP.  Either way these are both relatively rare personality types.  Most people would not understand their point of view.  Both of these personality types also happen to be responsible for many of the innovations and paradigm shifts in society.  Einstein for instance was INTP.  I cannot help but wonder if part of what made Swartz so scared was the thought that in his mind he felt he was doing the right thing, but he feared he would be totally misunderstood by society and a jury.  He had probably long experienced being misunderstood by most people. 

What I have found is that different personality types have very different ways of looking at the world.  They naturally have very different values even when they profess to have the same values.  This can lead to major, nearly unreconcilable arguments and conflicts.  It leads people to totally misunderstand one another.  Even when people are aware of these differences they have a hard time actually recognizing it in practice. 

This leads me to a concept I have been toying with lately.  In The U.S. we like the idea of trying people by a jury of their peers.  I would like to suggest that perhaps in the next iteration of mercy and justice we try people with juries entirely consisting of people with exactly the same personality type.  My reasoning is that people of the same personality type will be best able to apply mercy when it is called for.  They will best understand a person's point of view.  In some sense these people will be a potentially very good group of "peers."  Looking back I can say there are people who I have absolutely detested, who I thought were the most terrible human beings that ever lived.  Now I realize all I really detested was their personality.  They still do not amuse me, but I now realize that my dislike of these people was mostly due to how they viewed the world.  Their point f view has positive and negative qualities like every other, and may be more or less effective depending on the situation.  On the other side however, this group of people will also be the best on calling you out when you are acting inappropriately.  When people misunderstand you they can sometimes be too lenient. 

I sometimes wonder if Aaron Swartz would have acted differently if he knew he was going to be tried by a jury consisting of other people with the INTP personality type.  He may have felt much less stressed out and may have felt like he would be understood.  Having the same personality type does not necessarily mean you hold the same positions.  It just means you tend to look at and influence the world and self in a similar manner.  It would not necessarily mean everyone would get off Scott free.  Actually in some cases I wonder if the effect lawyers have to spin stories would be diminished simply because everyone would be on the same page.  Expecially if the lawyer had a different personality type from everyone else in the room.  People might just ignore the lawyer. 

I will be the first to say there are some problems with this concept, but I do think it is worth further reflection. 

My ENTJ Dog

It is often said that dogs adopt the personality of their own.  I think this is true.  My guess is that because dogs are pack animals they are trying to maximize relationship happiness, and being of a similiar personality helps make this happen.  As a result they adopt the personality of their owner in order to better relate to them.  Sometimes you hear about a person complaining that their spouse hangs out with their dog more than them.  I think what is going on is that the spouses have different personalities and the dog adopts one of their personalities and so the person relates more easily to the dog than to the spouse.  Anyways after some thought I realized my childhood dog actually became an ENTJ like myself.  It turns out I realized this all along. 

When I was in 3rd grade a dog showed up at our house.   We lived out in the middle of prairie and it turned out a neighbouring farmer had picked the dog up at the pound and brought him to his farm to be a watchdog.  Well no one was usually at the farm so apparently the dog got lonely and decided he had had enough so he broke his chain and left the farm to look for some friends.  We lived not too far away and were probably noisy because there were 7 people in my family at that time.  So he decided to come live at our house where the action was.  We decided to keep him.  I named him Cody after one of my elementary school friends.  This got expanded by my dad to Cody Ack Bear (middle name Ack, last name Bear.)  I think he intended Kodiak bear (my dad loves bears), but I did not know what a kodiack bear was so it remained Cody Ack Bear.  Cody was some kind of german shepard mutt. 

Cody was my constant companion until I left home for college.  I thought he was the best dog ever.  He was a very fast runner and very smart.  He liked to be with people.  He was quite brave and in some ways even contemplative.  I remember one time we locked him in a shop during a party at our house so he would not get in people's way.  He did not care for this and wanted to be with everyone, so he figured out a way to open a window and got out to join the party.  He figured out numerous ways to escape from cages.  One time I even saw him open a screen door.  He loved hunting animals.  If he found a rabbit he would chase it and if it went in a hole he would dig and dig and dig to get it.  One time he dug a hole so deep only his tail was sticking out of the ground.  He could be very tenacious.  He liked to get in fights with snakes too.  Sometimes he would bark and bark at then and then he would lunge at them grab them with his mouth, shake them around, and throw them in the air.    It was pretty entertaining to watch.  When he got the chance he liked chasing antelope too and he would chase them for a long time.  One thing about Cody that stuck out was that he had a bit of an independent streak to him.  He hated wearing collars.  If you put a collar on him he would find a way to take it off.  He really was not very trainable.  He knew how to "sit" and how to "come," but other than that he would not learn any other tricks.  He also liked to go on trips out into the prarie to look for things to eat.  He would drag all kinds of crazy stuff back.  In alot of ways he also had a serious persoality.  He did not play fetch or any other dog game like that unless other dogs were doing it.  Then I think he only took their ball to be difficult.  He really was not too interested in those kinds of games.      If you tried to get him to play a dog game he would look at you skeptically.  Cody was also very emotionally stable.  He was very patient.  I do not think I ever saw him actually get mad about anything even when people perturbed him.  I also remember Cody was also very noble.  He used to sit o the dirt next to our house and stare out at the prarie watching what was going on.  I do not think dogs know how to think, but he was probably contemplating the mysteries of the world as best as dogs can.  Cody was also very sociable but he was no pleaser.   I really thought Cody was the perfect dog and I admired him.

What really struck me when I was young though were Cody's weaknesses because they mirrored my own.  There was one thing in particular.  Cody was a pretty brave dog but he was not a daredevil.  You could tell he wished their were some risks he wished he was more willing to take but was hesitant to do so.  In some cases it was because I think he felt he was not in the right.  I saw this in some specific cases.  I would go running down the prarie roads with Cody and we at one time had a new neighbor with two big rottweiler dogs.  The dogs saw us running by and decided to try and chase us.  There were no fences out their, but I decided just to ignore them and keep running as normal.  I could tell the who thing was kind of making Cody nervous and he got shy and went to the other side of the road.  Ultimately the rottweilers ran right up to us, but I just kind of ignored them and kept jogging.  The just ran up really close, put their heads close to the ground, barked and than ran all the way back home. I think Cody got nervous because he thought he was in their territory and not his own.  Cody was a bit of a fighter.  Even when he was old and arthritic he fought off a pit bull that came to our house and started beating up a new dog we had.  But I think Cody had some sense of where he could and could not be.  When he was in the right and when he was not.  When he can make a stand and when he should not.  Some people make stands in cases where it seems to me they have no place to do so.  I had long admired this trait because I did not have it.  Sometimes I wish I were more of a daredevil and able to take bigger risks, but I realize it is not a strength of mine.  It is something I wish I had but really do not.  Now I realize some people are just more naturally inclined to that.  I could relate to how Cody felt.  I could see he felt ashamed he was not willing to stand his ground against the rottweiers.  Espeically when he saw those rottweilers were really just all talk.   

Now looking back I am pretty sure Cody was an ENTJ dog.  He had alot of ENTJ personality characteristics.  I think he adopted my personality.  When I talk to other people about their dogs they usually sound nothing like Code.  Alot of dogs are very friendly, learn to do tricks, play fetch the ball, and so on.  Cody didn't do that stuff.  That is part of what made Cody, Cody.  After I left for college I could tell Cody had changed too.  He hung out with my other brothers and sisters more.  I did not come home much, but when I did I could tell Cody's personality had changed somewhat.  Part of it was probably that he mellowed out.  He was starting to get quite old, but I think he changed somewhat to match my brother's and sisters.  I think to the end though he still had some ENTJ in him.

Sometimes I miss Cody.  He was a really great dog. 

The dog my family later got was named Bear.  He started hanging out with my INTJ brother and I think he is very much an INTJ dog.  He really does not like to be around people much.  Mostly he just stays in his dog house ruminating about his problems.  He also is not good at controlling his emotions.  He is not a very emotional dog, but he does occasionally have emotional outbursts.  One time he bit my INTJ brothers lip in half because he got mad which escalated into an INTJ-INTJ fist fight.  He is not a happy-go-lucky dog nor is he a pleaser.  He has an independent streak to him, but he is however willing to learn a few tricks unlike Cody.  I notice INTJs tend to be more likely to adapt to into established frameworks than ENTJs.  ENTJs do it, but they also create new frameworks as needed and when the opportunities arise.  I think this is why the new dog was more willing to do the tricks.  Another odd thing he does is that he enjoys wearing a leash.  Cody hated the leash and almost never had to wear one.  Bear thinks the leash is great.  He has to whole prarie to run around totally free, but he really likes it when people put the leash on him and take him for a walk.  I think this is because INTJs have a deep desired to be loved and included by those they admire.  ENTJs have this as well but it is easier for them to ignore. Prehaps to our own detriment.

So in conclusion I think dogs really do take on the personality of their owner.  My Godmother was very friendly ENFJ and she had a very friendly ENFJ dog that loved being social, going to the park, and dressing up in costumes.  Some people have dogs that like to run away.  I think those are P-type dogs.  Do you see yourself in your dog?