#I’m just saying surface level thoughts is a really vague framework and if you’re like me and have subtle spell it’s very easy to get info

[samglyph]

Depending on how your dm plays it detect thoughts is kind of an op spell when not in combat.

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #1, Introduction

This first part of the series will concern itself with the Book “Human Types - Essence and the Enneagram” by Susan Zannos, on the system that is known as Essence Type, Planetary Body Type or 12Type Enneagram. 

Basics/ Book Review

First off I am going to say that I’ll quite deliberately disregard the esoteric and pseudoscientific elements as I do not personally believe them nor am I interested in them - 

Conversely, I will not be dissecting or refuting them in detail as this is not my aim here either. Going in, chosing to pick up & pay for this book, I knew that an esoteric perspective, some lowkey misantrophy, golden age fallacy (”Ancient Wisdom”), pseudoscience and anti-intellectual tirades would be part of the deal - I strongly believe that every book, fiction or nonfiction, is a kind of conversation, and that you should be able to converse with people you don’t agree with, especially if it is to reach a common objective or obtain raw information to draw your own conclusions from - 

I have chosen to read this book because I find that this system has some useful distinctions & clearly recognizeable archetypes not found anywhere else, and whatever explanation you may or may not attach it, a heuristic that sorts by characteristics can still have its use - Besides, archetypical and metaphorical language is sometimes indeed the best tool or shorthand to talk about the human experience. (in the same way that “The shrooms told me to practice non-judgement” can still be the most natural, intuitive way to describe a drug trip even though you weren’t “talking” to anyone but yourself & simply failing to notice because you deliberately downregulated the neural networks that handle the distinction between “self” and “other” by ingesting disruptive chemicals)

While other “Popularized/Sanitized” Versions of the system are available (I’ve ordered this book, too), as well as other individuals who have expanded it more in line with the esoterics (x) (x) (I’m tempted to arbitrarily add my own because it infuriates me when something includes Pluto and not Eris), I quite deliberately choose to sample the system in it’s original form to form my own opinion in case the author of the other/above book “cut away” something I’d deem salvageable and substantial. (Indeed, I wasn’t sure wether I was Lunar or Saturn untill I read the more “in depht”/ “unsanitized” descriptions, the above author gets too hung up on the concept of “childlikeness” when there’s the whole “emo introvert” aspect to it that makes it very obvious which one I am and what the distinction is.) 

As far as antintellectual tirades go, I was actually surprised to find at most three paragraphs, mostly framing it as “just ONE way of aquiring knowledge/intelligence” while still aiming for some sort of “fairness” - Despite the golden mean and a lack of reflection on what reason actually is, I’d say that the author legitimately tried and truly wrote this to the best of their understanding - There’s no consistent trash talk and the however out of context scientific funfacts were genuinely presented as exciting & interesting (Did you know the surface of the moon is covered in a layer of dust from rock that has been ground to powder by meteor impacts, including tiny ones that the lack of atmosphere lets pass when Earth’s atmosphere wouldn’t? Also, interesting biographical details about artists & musicians.) - I mean, the confirmation bias and lack of true mechanistic understanding are apparent and some of the info is sorely outdated (How many moons does Jupiter have again? (If you pardon my socionics, I smell 2D Thinking),  but the author aims for a thought-through, comrehensive presentation and writing style drawing from all kinds of mythology & traditions - Reading this book did not hurt, and at the end, it’s more about the intuitive content than the logical one. 

Where the author and I are in agreement, though, is that the purpose of typology - whatever typology one chooses to use - is not primarily the labeling of things, but increasing self-awareness and compassion for others, as well as finding out what really suits you & reframing one’s view of self & others in terms of non-judgement, simply seeing things as they are and she has some interesting musings on that concept.

Also, I’d also agree that the nature/nurture debate kind of overlooks both interactions and the factor of personal choice/self-awareness/attitude, though they would probably conceptualize this within their own, highly specific framework. 

I have, however, a few dissagreements of the philosophical level that I think it is more fair to make here than anything borne out of my evidentialist worldview, as they would pertain to a sphere we can both inhabit under the same presupositions. 

For one thing, I must protest the idea expressed here that negative emotions have no place in a healthy psyche and are merely a tacked-on product of malfunction (and that thinking otherwise is a great misconception of our time)

They accept “survival evolutionary reasons” for instincs so I’ve got to tell them that negative emotions like sadness, anger, envy and fear all serve important survival purposes - rather than expungned or be expected to dissapear with healing or “awakening”, they should be adequately handled, integrated, questioned-analyzed and expressed constructively as to serve the protective purpose for which they evolved - and if anything, restraint of them was LESSER in the past, where might often made right and people were killed in anger and entitlement quite easily. 

In the right context, when justified & rightly guided/directly, they can even be beautiful and an important component of a full experience. 

And since they are demostrably natural at the chemical and inborn level, they cannot be eradicated, merely repressed, which is more likely to be adverse. 

Same can be said about much of the talk of “not noticing” things, like how the lack of memory of everyday events is an indication of not having paid conscious attention to them

In actuality, everyday memories that we don’t retain long-term are discarded in our sleep when our brain “filters” for which ones to keep. This is known & demonstrated, and not only is it a bit preposterous that you would remember everything if only you “paid attention” and we’rent “awake”/making conscious decisions if you don’t remember, the idea that we could it would not be useful & clutter our mind with repetitive things. 

Same with not noticing environmental details. 

“Tuning out” things, like negative emotions, is an useful natural function. Some of us are iNtuitives, in fact, I think the author is one, and would have to trade in some traits that I’d waver she strongly cares about if she wanted to be a Sensor - Her esoterics theories may not be that different from “pondering something in your head”, they’re sure not raw data. 

I get how in some context you may want to alter your attention level, but in the interest of, as she’d put it “not bein anything other than yu are”, I’d aknowledge that it’s normal. 

And last there’s the usual “spiritualist” assumption that we have to “raise above” and “disengage from” this world or our functionalities/ patterns in it to get to some vaguely-defining “beyond” that for all its claims of maturity and trancendency often consists of simple vague superlatives and contrasts based on very anthropogenic frameworks - It’s simply not-this, better-this, beyond-this, and if you don’t buy it you’re supposedly “trapped inside a material box” 

Thing is no matter what size the actual box is, human beings can always imagine more, because such is imagination- and what’s a humbling” or “proud” answer is wholly subjective, an interpretation pretty indepent from whatever facts or unfacts you derive it from. It could just as easily be said to be “pride” to postulate that our reaction patterns and networks are simply what we are. We’re merely self-aware enouh to regongize shift our own patterns. 

I have mixed feelings about what is in some ways a pretty good line/reasoning, in that there’s  notable difference that can be made to you subjectively by changing your attitude, even if you can’t change the world (somewhat in line with stoic philosophy) or even your attitude, that you can kind of just accept it and that just that can be a significant difference.

For me, there’s a significant “it depends” here, like, it seems to stray into a sort of slave moral and surrender of just “swallowing”, a fixedness and a “okay-ness” in terms of behavior that IMHO is only there to an extent - and not even in a moral or judgy way, but, isn’t what you want and what you can live with just as inoxerably a part of yourself?

Now that this is out of the way, let’s get on to discussing the actual content. 

Essence

So what is it we’re attempting to classify?

The author defines it as the basic “factory settings” of a person, the part of their nature that would be the same regardless of culture, societal impressions/expectations or ones’ particular experiences, here categorized as a basic recognizeable archetype. Probably what’s left of you if you have so much acid you temporarily forget who you are XD

However, it’s not strictly ‘nature’ as opposed to nurture, as the human brain continued to grow into toddlerhood & develop in response to language and socialization factors that can become an inoxerable part of the person’s wiring and how it’s expressed- 

Where I would most certainly disagree with the author is their assertion that everything else about a person, all changes induced by experience or nurture, are somehow false or fake. It’s those things that make you distinct from another person with the same type, of whih there’s bajillions,but there’s only one you. 

Besides, it’s ALL stored as changes in brain wiring, all memories, all trauma responses, to the point that even your job  or hobby may change your activity patterns, so though you might come up with more or less sensible, useful definitions of which parts are “real”, there will always be a nature of subjective interpretation about it. Though a person may have predispositions and type, I do think there’ something to the thought that at least part of our essential being comes after we exist, though our formative experiences and the choices we make - 

That is, I see developement less as a “return” to some vague idealized mystical precogndition, and more a reaching towards unseen heights to become “better than you are” - Nonetheless for that endeavour it’s still crucial to know the base material you’re working with & throw out deceptions - You want to become a better version of YOU, not of someone else: If you’re a cat, you’re not gonna beat the dogs at dogging, rather, learn how to cat properly. 

An interesting thought is that people might particularly remember points where they acted outside of habit or with deliberate choice (& therefore uncharacteristically), therefore making it harder to catch onto characteristic vibes than for a neutral observer - As in, there can be a difficulty here because society tells people to bend themselves into pretzels, but the natural pattern still pervades when the person isn’t “trying”

Contrary to the claim here that you need years for typing (esoterics peeps making everything sound so ~enlightened~ and ~mystical~ imho) I’ve read other articles lauding this system precisely because it’s rather simple and working with pretty regonizeable basic universal archetypes, particularly when it comes to the basic 6, peeps can “pick one�� rather fast even if they never thought about it before

                       intellectual emotional   action-oriented

personal          lunar           venus       mercury 

non-personal   saturn         jupiter       mars

and the other influences also being based on easily recognizeable archetypes. 

The Book

Interestingly, the Book doesn’t get to the actual type descriptions until halfway through, at first treating us to some basic theories on both the history of the system  and this particular school of esoterics, the pseudoscientific “basis” as well as a model of a “soul anatomy” or composition of the human mind which, despite the card metaphors,  is basically an effort in philosophy and could indeed serve as a typology system on its own (Queen of Diamonds person here, in case anyone cares)/ is later used to explain type characteristics and define a set of Attributes. 

The Sailormoonian collection of components, which actually receives further subdivisions, consists of: 

The Instinctual Center - Pain & Pleasure. Survival concerns, basic body functioning, homemaking - perhaps analogous to sp instinct. Ranges from basic necessities to physical pleasure to badass survival instincts/vigilance

The Movement Center - Rest & Movement, learned movements, sensorical-reactionary patterns. Perhaps analogous to the Sensing function and/or Spatial-Kinesthetic intelligence. Ranges from drudgework to love of traveling/adventure to, at its peaks, mechanics & inventors

The Intellectual Center - True or False, concern with abstract ideas, concepts and symbols, as such not strictly Jung’s thinking function or the ‘head center’ from the 9-gram. Ranges from recited knowledge to excitement/curiosity, to metacognition (”knowing that you don’t know”) 

The Emotional Center -  Like & Dislike. Feelings oriented toward people.  Seems anologous to sx instinct. Ranges from social pleasantries to passion and wild out of control dramatics, to, at its peak, altrustic emotions. And yes, there were alice in Wonderland allusions. (”Queen of Hearts”) 

The gist of the idea is that for each of the centers, the learning process involves first passionate captivation, then deliberate sustained attention and finally a transfer to a basically “mechanical” function that can be performed without attention, like when you learn to ride a bike and eventually become able to do it without thinking. 

It further postulates that these are often operating in parallel, and that to become an actualize person you should “archieve unity” that is, become aware of and “synchronize” them.  

Also, some romantic shmaltz about how only the highest part of the emotional center can see “higher” centers (I presume in line with certain shools of esoterics where three of those have a counterpart simply called “higher moving”, “higher emotional” etc. The distinction seems quite arbitrary to me personally.  )

It has always been my opinion that the strict distinction between rationality/logic and creativity/emotion/lateral thinking is arbitrary 19th century romanticist bullshit.- though of course the brain has different, parallel “layers” which is probably what this refers to in a psychological sense. But the social processing we’d call “higher emotions” is up there in the cortex just there with cognitive skills, and there’s not really a separation from bare survival stuff, either - The brain is very much what we have instead of claws or wings, and each layer builds on the assumption that the previous one is there. 

BTW: Another point I disagree on is that Donal Trump (Listed as Solar-Saturn-Mars) does not have a drop of Saturn in him. We could argue about Solar or Jovial admixture or consider him a pure Mars type - he’s certainly naive and vain, but more than anything else, he’s bull-headed. 

(As with the ESTPs before you, here’s my condolences to you Martials.)

To be fair, the author couldn’t have known that he’d go from random frivolous celebrity to fascist proto-dictator, making any reference to him retroactively cringey and wanting of disclaimers. 

[emilymulleraccd]

Week One Thursday

Video: WHAT ARE IDEAS AND WHO GETS TO HAVE THEM?

 “We’re all nomads in the land of ideas.”

 Mike Rugnetta spends the last three episodes of Idea Channel reflecting on what they tried to do over the past five years – kind of like the final season of Mythbusters reflecting on favorite myths of theirs or when sitcoms look back at memories from past episodes. These aren’t explanations of how every episode was made, but more of a broad view of what Idea Channel was about and why it was important to Rugnetta & co.

 This episode specifically focuses on ideas. Rugnetta reminds us that all subjects of mental activity are ideas, implying concepts and concrete things alike are ideas in terms of how our brain functions and thinks of them.

Idea Channel has focused on unexpected and complex ideas, specifically.  This happens when you combine something familiar with something unexpected or unfamiliar: Rugnetta uses an example of “skateboarding is a type of ballet” -  it’s a kind of paradox or juxtaposition, making it more complex than the more straightforward ideas of home, a tree, what’s for lunch, etc. These complex ideas take those normal ideas a step further, combining elements from big, old ideas; concepts like love, being, popularity, evil, liberty; and experience-based things like world events, personal experience, media, entertainment, the mundane, the familiar, etc. Rugnetta calls it a “theoretical framework.”

Idea Channel focuses on these complex ideas because of their natural inclination to encourage conversation. Rugnetta realizes the challenges with this – many people don’t feel welcome to theorize, believing it’s not something everyone (us “commoners” and regular people) are able to do.  He suggests that the act of taking these old concepts and making them new and less precious, less stern, etc. makes them more accessible. Rugnetta stresses the importance of taking ideas and making them your own, but through discussion – exploring and testing together in conversation as opposed to trying to build and perfect on your own. Collaboration, Rugnetta believes, leads to greater ideas.

 I’m inclined to agree with what Rugnetta is arguing – we see it daily in our design work. A good designer recognizes the importance of critique. Considering others’ opinions, perspective, and input allow us to forge stronger work. We are limited to our own experience, so the collaboration of ideas with other bolsters our own thinking, while also challenging us to decide if we believe our own ideas. It’s kind of like nights spent around the kitchen table with friends or new acquaintances: you share ideas and learn and challenge each other’s beliefs; those times spent around the kitchen table are vital for all the reasons Rugnetta brings up.

    Video: A DEFENSE OF OVERTHINKING IN POP CULTURE

 “Popular culture is an abstract location where values are secured and challenged.”

 In this video, Rugnetta discusses pop culture, its significance, and why he feels it’s important to ‘overthink’ it. This summary may feel a bit redundant because the video felt redundant. It was a bit of a doozy. I’ll also summarize in bullet points to help keep it a little more concise (and, well, I just function better doing it this way rather than how I tried to do it for the first response). (UPDATE: Now that I’ve pasted this into Tumblr, the bullets & sub bullets are all messed up. I apologize for the mess.)

 ·      Rugnetta starts by stating popular culture is “important material for intellectual investment” and stresses the importance of overthinking.

·      He often receives four arguments against overthinking and why it’s ‘bad’:

o   Argument 1: Movies are ‘just movies,’ video games are ‘just video games,’ etc.

§  All you need to gain from these media comes from their surface level content

o   Argument 2: Going beyond surface level content to find deeper meaning is opinion masked as fact.

o   Argument 3: Uncovering ideas and concepts is reading too far into these things – their creators never intended for them to be dissected and if you’re finding your own meaning in it that’s bad.

o   Argument 4: Why bother?

·      Rugnetta explains Idea Channel is an exercise in challenging /ignoring these arguments. He believes:

o   Nothing is just itself.

o   Meaning & significance are deeply personal to audience/viewer – this is what makes something useful.

o   Meaning in media that is unexpected or unintended is still ‘part of the work’ because it is a result of experiencing the work. (My agreeing opinion: if a creator doesn’t want someone to take their own meaning away from the work, then the creator probably should rethink doing any type of work that could be misconceived. Meaning, the people that create the type of work Rugnetta is talking about are most likely okay with people forming their own ideas of what it’s about…)

o   Media is a useful, powerful tool in deepening one’s experience of the world.

·      Why do we do what we do:

o   Things that contain theory cause people to think deeply about their surroundings & experiences.

§  Films are philosophical exercises.

§  Video games are executable thought experiments.

o   There is a stigma that only certain thoughtful works “DO philosophy,” meaning something has to be pretty well established or ‘high class’ to be considered philosophical.

§  Rugnetta argues all media is capable of doing at least some amount of potential philosophical work. I.e. there is potential for meaning to be found in anything and everything, depending on one’s own perspective.

·      The main place for this is pop culture:

o   Popular culture: working definition: media and goods which are available to the masses.

§  Media is any material of communication to be consumed by other people

§  Books, texts, gifs

§  Goods, products, makeup, chargers, fidget spinners

��  The masses are, well, the people.

o   Pop culture is not what’s made FOR the masses but what’s available TO them.

§  Pop culture has to do with accessibility more than popularity in many cases (the opera example)

o   High (smart & artful)/ low distinction is hard to identify how it fits in with pop culture

o   Set of things, media and goods, but also abstract location – contradictory things mix before being available to masses (Don’t quite understand this part)

·      Why its worth overthinking:

o   Pop culture is pretty much the only place where vastly different outlooks come together to interact and have shared experiences.

o   It can make personal stories available to masses (spreads awareness, connects people, etc.)

  Off the bat I disagree with Rugnetta calling this ‘overthinking.’ My definition of overthinking is bad: overthinking is when I go down the rabbit hole of every possible outcome of my life after graduation, when I spend hours dwelling on something someone said, or when I second- and third- and quadruple-guess my choices in design, et al. What I believe Rugnetta means by ‘overthinking’ is simply thinking deeply. By this definition, I agree with the majority of what he’s saying. I don’t really know how to articulate why, because he pretty much argued his point to death. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything, I just maybe don’t fully understand tiny parts of it. Something about abstract location and contradictory things mixing before being available to the masses – do they HAVE to mix? Is he just mentioning the idea thing like in the previous video? I don’t believe things have to mix before being available.. some things just exist and by simply existing are enough for people to latch on to. Maybe? I’ll think on that…..

  Video: THINKING WITH OTHERS

 “It matters what stories tell stories. It matters what ideas we think other ideas with.”

 Idea Channel’s last scripted video talks about people and thinking. It basically meshes many concepts from the previous two videos and adds to them.

 ·      Idea Channel has always been about people and for people:

o   Comment responses

§  Viewers get a say in the show itself.

·      They challenge or agree with his points & his views.

o   People, not media or tech, have agency. PEOPLE make actions, not objects.

o   How fans respond to pop culture and its impact on audiences

·      Why people:

o   “Critical empathy”

§  Overthinking = critical thinking. (Oh NOW he calls it critical thinking.)

o   Rugnetta used to think of critical thinking as vague and attempting to be objective (pretentious) But it’s actally:

§  “Interwoven modes” of thinking

§  Quantity, space, change

§  What humans should do to be good

§  Different disciplines

o   What IS critical thinking?

§  People & thinking

§  Self-guided, self-disciplined thinking

§  Intellectual integrity, empathy, etc.

§  Avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues

§  Complexities

§  Thoughts about things

§  Thoughts about thoughts (This reminds me of hearing people say that the human brain is the only brain smart enough to study itself – those mean this both medically and philosophically, I think.)

o   “Critical thinking requires you to be aware of yourself.” (My thoughts: you can’t look at the world without seeing yourself in it and it in yourself)

o   What this means for Idea Channel:

§  Difficult selfless thoughts about many things, which then inform the self

§  Inspect, dissect, examine & grow

§  The show changed, shifted & grew because of the thinking done here and because of the conversations here (viewers)

o   We learn more from each other than alone (ties back to the Idea thing)

o   Many people put emotion in contrast to thought but emotion is thought

o   “Intellectual virtue” – still not sure what this means

·      Back to critical empathy:

o   It’s the “process of establishing informed and affective connections with other humans.” – Look, I’m a fairly deep thinker but some of this stuff is just way over my head. Also, he talks fast. I’ve rewatched many parts many times and some of it is still lost on me.

§  “Profound civic implications” (Again, hard to follow.)

o   How does your identity connect and not connect with someone else’s?

o   “Good thinking emanates from doubt” – the “doubting game” synonymous with critical thinking but adding to it – the Believing Game. Is this not entirely contradictory to doubting?

§  Be welcoming to every idea we encounter

§  “The doubting game is the rhetoric of propositions, while the believing game is the rhetoric of experience.” Hmmm.

o   Idea Channel uses the Believing Game by choosing to believe what people were saying to them. Is this just in the instance of temporarily entertaining the idea to see if there is validity to it?

o   “Think with one another” – It helps you lean and grow

o   Think about each other

o   Believe each other (Again, this is temporary, right? Because believing people right off the bat seems like quite the opposite of thinking critically.)

o   Pop culture is so much more than just stories – it helps us see and think about the world, where values are secured or challenged, etc.

o   Pop culture isn’t yours but it is available to you. – He’s mentioned this a few times between a couple videos and I still don’t understand it. I mean I think I do but I don’t understand why he says it. It seems redundant to say this because I don’t think people necessarily had a contrarian viewpoint, and it seem fairly obvious.

o   Think with and about these things, and one another. – Good way to end.

 I like that the essence of this video is about relating to people and that people matter. I feel like the first two videos were agreeable but not necessarily as impactful as this one because this really makes the case for why the other two are important.