Can personality tests and interactives aid in work upon oneself?

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

I think there are infinite amount of subtleties and varieties in human personalities and natures, with infinite amount of reasons and causes. No mechanical/standardized test, separated from consciousness, is really good enough for such things. Applying a single template just doesn't work with the complexity of reality. It really takes consciousness, which means, you must have the knowledge, which includes the knowledge of the context of any particular person or situation. The rule of 3 - there is good, evil, and the specific situation that determines which is which. The tests do not account for this, they cannot - because they are not conscious and not aware of the person, the situation, and therefore cannot adjust accordingly.

 

[John G]

I think there are infinite amount of subtleties and varieties in human personalities and natures, with infinite amount of reasons and causes. No mechanical/standardized test, separated from consciousness, is really good enough for such things. Applying a single template just doesn't work with the complexity of reality. It really takes consciousness, which means, you must have the knowledge, which includes the knowledge of the context of any particular person or situation. The rule of 3 - there is good, evil, and the specific situation that determines which is which. The tests do not account for this, they cannot - because they are not conscious and not aware of the person, the situation, and therefore cannot adjust accordingly.

There is certainly much more to a human quantum conscious state than servicing the patterns of the 4 Jungian scales and tests aren't even capturing everything related to the 4 scales. I do think quantum consciousness is using its own math to create patterns where the 4 Jungian scales are math-wise like the 4 big spacetime dimensions. Tony Smith who knows the math much much much better than I has said the Jungian scales form Clifford basis vectors like spacetime does for his physics model.

The rule of 3 is related to the law of 3 with its active, passive, and neutralizing structure.

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=436&lsel=L

This shows up in the Enneagram as the assertive (3-7-8), compliant (1-2-6) and withdrawn (4-5-9) triads. If you plot the triads in Jungian coordinates, the assertive triad ends up on the extraverted side, the compliant on the introverted side and the withdrawn ends up exactly on a line bisecting the the extravert-introvert axis. From the other Jungian scales the assertive triad is in to discovery of the future (Jungian NP) while the compliant triad is into care for the past (SJ). There's a personality model called the Capability Snapshot that actually uses the terms present and future. This was all very interesting to me cause the introvert - extravert axis math-wise for physics is the quantum propagator phase and the axis ends would be like the past - future structure of a quantum transaction. Having said all that, the law of 3 in the Enneagram is still just a little pattern in the quantum conscious state. The real rule of 3 is the math of physics itself for the complete quantum conscious state.

I can similarly relate the head (5-6-7), heart (2-3-4) and gut (8-9-1) triads to the centers and to the Jungian Thinking and Feeling scales but again it's a little pattern not the real thing, the real thing is physics. There's also the law of 7 aka octave in the enneagram:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=9&lsel=O

This is like going from right to left on the Sefirot or math/physics-wise going from real spacetime to complex spacetime. A common analogy for complex spacetime is the interior of a ball while the surface would represent the real spacetime. The Capability Snapshot personality model (in addition to using present and future) also uses inward and outward for the part mapping to this law of 7 transition. But yet again this is just a little pattern within not the full math of physics as used in human quantum consciousness. It's really just interesting as an analogy not the real thing.

 

[abbyjo]

i agree with last post, it's more a tool for figuring out where you fit into The Matrix rather than a tool to help with The Work.

what got me to this page tonight is this link, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/right-brain-v-left-brain/story-e6frf7jo-1111114603615 which my teenage son just emailed to me.

i found this interesting because it reminds me of Sufi mystics...she's spinning...yet the "scientific" conclusions are very black and white. the irony is that if the dancer is reaching some mystical state, there is no mention of it in the text...what makes her spin, what is the dance of life? no mention of that at all...yet it was my first question.

my son said he can reverse the directions in his mind with a bit of effort. i cannot, i ONLY see it going to the right...which means I am, what....? a dreamer? impractical? the choice of adjectives here is very important. so i can be nice to myself and call myself a "big picture person" who tries to "get it."

how we use language here to label one another...CREATES OUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY...particularly if it is hard to modify those labels (because TV adverts, MDs, school workers will reinforce those labels). accepting any of those labels as fact just because "a scientist said so" is also creating conflict within families...one member labels the other one...plenty of STS opportunities there...does that mean all these instruments are 100% STS? I still think that depends on how the "data" is used, what the intention is by the test taker as well as the person collecting the data. IF intent is solely self-discovery, it can be STO. it appears to me the temptation is to "vector" these data for STS use...and i would be concerned very much about privacy for any long multiple choice test i take that has any of these types of questions about what "type" of person I am...not that i think i am special, just bigger than any particular category.

the human brain has miraculous power to become anything...it's limited by labels...if i tell my brain i am X not Y then i may believe I cannot ever be Y and that will create my reality, a self fulfilling prophecy.

i perceive these as tools for a certain limited kind of self-discovery, mainly discovering that there are different orientations, different ways of approaching "reality" and that does assist somewhat with the developing of empathy...if i cannot grok you at least i can grok that you are one of the other categories...or simply that you are limitless also but you start from a point where you see the dancer going left not right...that helps a bit. trying to reverse her direction in my mind shows me my own resistance to thinking in a different direction...that's also helpful information for me personally.

i approach all new people from a fact-based point of view (reading what they say) first, then if there is a connection, sometimes I move onto sound, touch...which for me are far more personal...because by making direct contact in one of those ways i open myself to them psychically...yet that behavior will never be measured in a test like this...how many test administrators or data gatherers include the test limitations with the results? most people i have encountered off this forum just want the label, the number, the "score." i want to know more than that. i want to know what the numbers mean, where they came from, where they are going...as it says...past...future...is the domain of "right" brained thinkers...

the test is defining that the "norm" is to be focused on 3d FACTS which is linear thinking...but if i were 14 and did not have someone to compare with, i might think of myself as "defective" or "abnormal" because of my ability to see it going only one way....this is very similar i think to discussion in "Adventures with Cassiopaea, Chapter 20" about what is alienation, how is it defined by our society...if we answer honestly that existing norms are not meaningful to us personally, we get the label "alienated," along with an RX for a pill...

maybe we cannot measure alienation...we may be able to measure neural hemispheric activity--the number of nerves firing on one side or the other and the number of connections between two hemispheres with some kind of visual test (if there is not already), it still is only a scientific record of activity IN THAT MOMENT.

much disinformation about the brain comes from our public schools, my son participating in a high school psychology class this semester, some is correct info, some is not, he stopped wanting to discuss it after awhile, because that's more work...he just wanted to do the homework and go play games or watch youtube.

disinformation is not just in science and history but particularly damaging in science...if our survival depends on understanding stuff like climate changes and media manipulations...having some "gut feeling" about things and people seems to me to be a useful survival tool. I do not apologize for my abilities, whether i can measure them at this point or not...my employers never cared about whether i could read their thoughts and emotions, only how fast i could type and whether i sounded "nice" on the telephone. The last lawyer i tried to work for in 2008 cared more about my footwear than anything else!

so...introducing disinformation as "fact" and "norm" and then quizzing and judging our kids or ourselves based on their "performance" which is really acceptance without argument of the factoids passed off as "science" in other words, my take on all these "tests" is it is like so many blind men feeling the elephant...no one test is conclusive just because the "big picture" is missing...they are not a total waste of time because they educate us about The Matrix...it's when we take them as authority that we short change ourselves and our kids with unnecessary limitations...starting with the very first IQ test and on and on...

Gurdieff and Jung did not use tests because there were no such tests available at the time, but i hope they would have balked, at the efforts to quantify the human soul.

abbyo

 

[Buddy]

my son said he can reverse the directions in his mind with a bit of effort. i cannot, i ONLY see it going to the right...which means I am, what....? a dreamer? impractical? the choice of adjectives here is very important. so i can be nice to myself and call myself a "big picture person" who tries to "get it."

One commenter suggested that it may just be a delightfully mindless way to avoid working. :)

...the test is [coming up] inaccurate because it provides a crude view of the “lateralization of brain function,” or the concept that each side of the human brain specializes in certain mental activities.

The concept was born in the 1960s, when Roger Sperry studied epilepsy patients who had had a nerve connection between their hemispheres surgically cut. He found that the left brain hemisphere seemed to possess “speech and a rational, intellectual style,” while the right side was “inarticulate, but blessed with special spatial abilities.”

Modern neuroscience studies using brain imaging technology such as fMRI – which shows active areas of the brain while a person is trying to perform a task – have further suggested that language ability tends to be localized in the left hemisphere, while spatial ability tends to be in the right hemisphere.

However, neuroscience-minded blogs like Neurophilosophy point out that doing any complex mental activity requires cooperation from both sides of the brain, although certain processing tasks required for that activity may be concentrated on one side or the other. In other words, saying that “math and science are left brain functions” is an over-generalized statement.
...
The idea that emotion processing only occurs in the right brain hemisphere and fact processing in the left is also misleading. Brain imaging studies have showed that people processed emotion using small parts of both brain hemispheres.

“The popular notion of an ‘emotional’ right hemisphere that contrasts sharply with a ‘rational’ left hemisphere is like a crude pencil sketch made before a full-color painting,” noted a 2005 Scientific American Mind article.

Believing in left brain or right brain people also fails to account for the human brain’s mysterious flexibility and plasticity.

Depending on the assumptions made and visual cues picked up, your brain can make the dancer spin either way.

Source: _http://www.scienceline.org/2007/10/29/ask-hsu-spinning-girl-right-left-brain-hemispheres/

 

[Eongar]

For me the IQ test and some evidence of this style I find food for the ego. If someone gets a great score "Oh, how clever I am", and if the contrary is frustrating. Humans tend to quantify everything, even the most abstract.

The mnemonic exercises it may be useful to increase the memory capacity.

This is my opinion, perhaps I´m wrong.

 

[abbyjo]

thanks for that, Bud! & i will email it to him! he concluded before reading what i wrote that test is not valid...so he has critical thinking abilities, yay! this came up because of the psychology class, state exams this week and his general rejection of anything that does not look "scientific" enough, i am trying to get him to evaluate what "science" is...

 

[lake_george]

There is another theory of types that uses the enneagram. It is described in Rodney Collin's "Theory of Celestial Influence." To sum it up quickly, at the moment of birth, influences are received from the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Depending on the positions of these in the sky, influences from some or one of these will be stronger. Each of these 7 'bodies' influences one of the 7 adrenal glands in the body. There are 7 'classic' body/essence types each of which reflect aspects of the ruling 'planetary' body, and result from the over activity of the corresponding adrenal gland. The types can also combine but only along the lines in the inner circulation of the enneagram.

Here is more information on this with illustrations which help it make sense:

_http://www.promart.com/9gram.html

For what it is worth to anyone, I have been working this information for decades and have verified it to myself. Typically it is discounted by orthodox 'Gurfjieffians' because it is taught in the Fellowship of Friends (long story - google it to see the problem). However, in "Views from the Real World", p. 257, G describes a "big wheel, hanging upright above the earth with 7 or 9 enormous colored spot lights fixed around the rim"...."All beings born on earth are colored by the light prevailing at the moment of birth, and keep this color throughout life."

My speculation is that G had this information, that it is ancient -perhaps going back to the Chaldeans - and that G gave the information to O who gave it to Rodney Collin.

 

[lake_george]

P.S.:

I posted the previous without the Most Important part!!!

This information has been incredibly helpful to me in that it helps me lose less energy from being identified regarding the manifestations and characteristics of myself and others. It helps me see how SO VERY MUCH - perhaps virtually everything - is just mechanical! Whether people get along, don't get along - it is virtually all mechanical.

Each type has characteristic strengths and weaknesses which occur mechanically - not from one's choice or out of one's own power - they just >are< - so praise and blame, respectively, become much less 'inflating' or 'deflating' respectively. Also, having a better idea what my mechanical weaknesses gives me something to pay attention to and 'work against'.

Moreover, the 6 types (excluding the Solar) on the enneagram divide into 3 pairs of 'maximum attractions' - reflected in many 'couples'.

 

[lake_george]

In the first post, I mean 'endocrine' glands - not adrenal glands (yikes!).

 

[John G]

There is another theory of types that uses the enneagram. It is described in Rodney Collin's "Theory of Celestial Influence." To sum it up quickly, at the moment of birth, influences are received from the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Depending on the positions of these in the sky, influences from some or one of these will be stronger. Each of these 7 'bodies' influences one of the 7 endocrine glands in the body. There are 7 'classic' body/essence types each of which reflect aspects of the ruling 'planetary' body, and result from the over activity of the corresponding adrenal gland. The types can also combine but only along the lines in the inner circulation of the enneagram.

Here is more information on this with illustrations which help it make sense:

_http://www.promart.com/9gram.html ...

Moreover, the 6 types (excluding the Solar) on the enneagram divide into 3 pairs of 'maximum attractions' - reflected in many 'couples'.

I've seen it mentioned that Oscar Ichazo kind of stole (without crediting) his Enneagram of Personality related ideas from Collin and I can see that via the link you give. There are certainly (in my view) three pairs of opposite (left - right on the Enneagram) personalities and your link has that. The "Negative" from your link seems like a correlation to the modern Enneagram One pole/side and the "Positive" correlates to the Eight pole/side. The active/passive seem to describe two equilateral triangle triad cycles around the origin.

The modern Enneagram is certainly into body typing (could be endocrine related) and I've seen brain chemicals linked to the Enneagram. I don't know the biology well enough though to see if your link matches modern Enneagram ideas. Psyche ( a doctor) posted a link here on brain chemicals and personality in general; it's certainly an interesting research area.

I've seen the Enneagram related in various ways to Zodiac signs and planets. I have a favorite way to relate it to the Zodiac but don't know enough about the planets to have an opinion.

 

[Jones]

The earliest explanation I read about the enneagram as it is used for personality was that it was initially meant as a tool for self observation, not for personality typing per se as it is more popularly used these days.

My personal observations with it, admittedly without the help of a network to be sure that I was being objective about it, was that I initially formed an ego identification with one of the types. Whether or not I am predominantly that type may or may not be true. Perhaps ego identification with a type might serve to reinforce buffers instead of help breaking them down? This seems to be the case amongst those that I know who also know or have chosen their enneagram type, it's like it has become a fixed mold that provides little room for or resistance against growth. That's OK if that's their choice, but I think it may perhaps serve to work against the Work under these circumstances.

I remember reading somewhere that G said that it was a waste of time to introduce the enneagram too soon. Perhaps he was thinking in terms of ego identification with types?

Besides, there seem to be complexities in the enneagram some of which are beyond me at the moment, so simplifying it all down to man 1, 2 or 3 works for me for now, even though I do sometimes try to relate stuff that I learn back to what I think I know about the enneagram.

 

[Tristan]

As regards the MBTI I would like to contribute a little more information about it that I think you can take an approach to personality type according to Jungian psychology.


A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY ANALYSIS: THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR

Among the most widely used psychological types are those developed by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung(1875-1961). His typology emerges from his deep, holistic* philosophy about psychology and people. He viewed the ultimate psychological task as the process of individuation**, based on the strenghts and limitations of one's psychological type.
Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Crook Briggs, developed the MBTI based on jung's typology. Underlying these typologies are four personality traits, or functions:
Extroversion-Introversion: Do you recharge your energy via external contact and activity (extroversion) or by spending time in your inner space (introversion)?
Intuition-Sensing: Do you rely on your inner voice (intuition) or observation (sensing)?
Thinking-Feeling: When making decisions, what do you rely on most--your thoughts or your feelings?
Judgement-Perception: Do you tend to set schedules and organize your life (judgment) or do you tend to leave options open and see what happens (perceptions)?
People fill out self-assesment questionnaires to determine the degree of each trait in his/her personality. The first trait defines the source and direction of a person's energy expression. The extrovert has a source and direction of energy mainly in external world, while the introvert has a source of energy mainly in the internal world. No one is only introvert or extrovert, but one side is usually dominant.
The second function defines the method of a person's information perception. Sensing means that a person believes mainly information he receives from the external world. Intuition means that a person believes mainly in information he receives from the internal or imaginative world. The short quiz on sensation and intuition illustrates the differences.
--> Please see the attached file

The third function defines how a person processes information. Thinking means that a person makes decisions mainly through logic. Feelings means that, as a rule, he makes a decision based on emotion.
The fourth category defines how a person implements or uses information that he has processed. Judging means that a person organizes all his life events and acts strictly according to his palns. Perceiving means that he is inclined to improvise and seek alternatives.
The different combinations of the traits determine a type. There are sixteen possible types. Every type has a name (or formula) according to the combination of criteria. Letters stand for each trait. For example: ISTJ is Introvert Sensing Thinking judging, or ENFP is Extrovert Intuitive (N) Feeling Perceiving.
A type formula and a quantitative measure of expression of each criterion (strength of the preference) can be determined using the type inventory. Then a corresponding type description can be derived, as shown below.

ENFP: The ENFP takes her energy from the outer world of actions and spoken words. She prefers dealing with patterns and pssibilities, particulary for people and make decisions based on personal values. Her life is flexible, following new insights and possibilities as they arise. She is creative and insightful, often seeking to try new ideas that can be of benefit to people. She may sometimes neglect details and palnning, but she enjoys work that involves experimentation and variety, working towards a general goal.

(*) holistic: emphasizing the importance of the whole and interdependence of the parts.
(**) individuation: Jung's term for the process of becoming a complete being who has developed all aspects of "self."

 

[abeofarrell]

Gurdjieff refused to teach clearly on the Types, saying that when you reach the necessary level you will recognize them yourself (at least that is what he says in ISOTM). In regards to personality, it is not something which we should allow ourselves to become obsessed with and waste energy on (as Anart pointed out) except for identifying our Chief Trait and fighting against it. It is supposed to be the most difficult part of the Work so do you really think a test could show you the answer? Let alone some tool made by someone who themselves are a part of the Matrix and totally under hypnotic sleep? Who wrote the books or papers? Who published the papers? I am very wary of anything published, especially published in the US where all publishing is done by the same cronies controlling TV, music, newspapers, book etc. I totally agree with Anart that the answers must be found within as you devote yourself to working esoterically. Using such tools seems to be a cop-out to avoid the Work. Do the Work daily, hourly, moment by moment. Remember your SELF and observe your SELF. Network here with others who can be part of the discovery process.

I must admit it is so very tempting to find some easy tool where we answer a hundred questions and cut 10 years off our development time but that just doesn't work. Nobody can tell you how your machine works, you need to go through the Hard Labor of esoteric work until you see it in all its grime and filth. I wish you the best in The Work.

Just my opinion, feel free to show me wrong.