Why even bother with live journal?
Mar. 4th, 2003 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipPersonalities are mutable. They change according to climate, the setting, the institutional environment, and the time of the month. Any attempt to narrow down a person's personality into a single test is doomed to failure, which is part of the reason why I don't actually think psychology will ever be able to justify it's own existence. It will never be able develop objective criteria to the individual universe. At best it will only ever be an interesting combination of psychiatry (the science of the brain) and psychotherapy (the interpretation of action).
To give three contextually driven examples, the "people-oriented" Donald Kiersey test (http://keirsey.com/) describes me as: "The Field Marshall Archetype" (Rationalist, eNTJ Extrovert Intuitive Thinking Judge). In other words, I treat life as war. It's short, resources are limited and it's deadly serious.
On the other hand, when tested on a simple "artistic-orientated" test, such as: (http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~chua/test/test.html), I am described as: Introspective, Sensitive, Reflective.
"You come to grips more frequently and thoroughly with yourself and your environment than do most people. You detest superficiality; you'd rather be alone than have to suffer through small talk. But your relationships with your friends are highly intensive, which gives you the inner tranquility and harmony that you need in order to feel good. You do not mind being alone for extended periods of time; you rarely become bored."
The seemingly frivolous "What D&D Character Are You?" ( http://irulethe.net/~neppyman/dndwho/) describes me as: a Lawful Good Elf Ranger/Mage, and worshiper of Mielikki (the ancient Finnish goddess of nature). Which matches my interest in an organized and rational civil society for the welfare of all, my love of the natural world and an inquisitive mind with an interest in languages.
All three, in particular contexts, are true.
My life is dominated by serious work and serious research. Most of what I do is in the public domain already.
I tend to reflect a great deal internally before expressing opinions or engaging in actions. My friends, through email and personal communication, know this already.
So why even bother with livejournal? What am I going to do with it?
I guess I'm (finally) bothering with a livejournal out a sense of interest and loyalty to my dear friends. If they express themselves in the written form through the medium of the journal, I will want to be able to participate in helping them. Their development, their social and mental security, is important to me.
As for what I'm going to do with it, well I do subscribe to the Socratic dictum that "an unexamined life is not worth living". It will be reflective and it will be serious. Stylistically, I think it is opportune to engage in experimental and literary writing.
You won't find much about what I've done on a particular day here. But you will able to elucidate a great deal from particular feelings and convictions.
TCPIP
Universal Communication. Universal Access. Freely Distributable. Open Source.
To give three contextually driven examples, the "people-oriented" Donald Kiersey test (http://keirsey.com/) describes me as: "The Field Marshall Archetype" (Rationalist, eNTJ Extrovert Intuitive Thinking Judge). In other words, I treat life as war. It's short, resources are limited and it's deadly serious.
On the other hand, when tested on a simple "artistic-orientated" test, such as: (http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~chua/test/test.html), I am described as: Introspective, Sensitive, Reflective.
"You come to grips more frequently and thoroughly with yourself and your environment than do most people. You detest superficiality; you'd rather be alone than have to suffer through small talk. But your relationships with your friends are highly intensive, which gives you the inner tranquility and harmony that you need in order to feel good. You do not mind being alone for extended periods of time; you rarely become bored."
The seemingly frivolous "What D&D Character Are You?" ( http://irulethe.net/~neppyman/dndwho/) describes me as: a Lawful Good Elf Ranger/Mage, and worshiper of Mielikki (the ancient Finnish goddess of nature). Which matches my interest in an organized and rational civil society for the welfare of all, my love of the natural world and an inquisitive mind with an interest in languages.
All three, in particular contexts, are true.
My life is dominated by serious work and serious research. Most of what I do is in the public domain already.
I tend to reflect a great deal internally before expressing opinions or engaging in actions. My friends, through email and personal communication, know this already.
So why even bother with livejournal? What am I going to do with it?
I guess I'm (finally) bothering with a livejournal out a sense of interest and loyalty to my dear friends. If they express themselves in the written form through the medium of the journal, I will want to be able to participate in helping them. Their development, their social and mental security, is important to me.
As for what I'm going to do with it, well I do subscribe to the Socratic dictum that "an unexamined life is not worth living". It will be reflective and it will be serious. Stylistically, I think it is opportune to engage in experimental and literary writing.
You won't find much about what I've done on a particular day here. But you will able to elucidate a great deal from particular feelings and convictions.
TCPIP
Universal Communication. Universal Access. Freely Distributable. Open Source.
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 06:38 pm (UTC)Heya CD.....
Funny you should mention about the 'quantifiable intelligence thing'. I was going to include some remarks abuot that on my initial post. Basically, not even the American Psychological Association has a clear definition of 'intelligence'. There's a great paper of there's entitled "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns", which followed that ratbag publication "The Bell Curve". It can be found here:
http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/~eischens/know.html
Personally, I like the intelligence theory of Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky argued for proximal, or social intelligence. The idea that intelligence could be accurately measured by an evaluating the capacity of an isolated individual with no reference materials to solve an abstract problem seemed pure nonsense to Vygotsky. He claimed that if intelligence is about fixing a practical problem, then there should be no limit to the range of source material that a person should be allowed to draw upon in evaluation.
Intelligence is thus not just what you know, but also knowing how to find the solution to the problem and having the necessary social empathy that
other people want to help you. It can vary according to proximity. Some people will have good 'close' intelligence (it's all in their head) and others will have excellent 'distant' intelligence (they can find the solutions to problems).
The reason why IQ tests seem to be fairly good at predicting how well a person will fare in educational institutions is because educational institutions value the abstract and theoretical.
That said, I am arguing against my own interests here. The last time I did a serious IQ test (from the Psych department of UC Davis about three years ago) based on logic and comprehension I came out at 143 - which is about in the top 0.5%. I guess that means that I'm pretty good at boolean logic and language comprehension. Fortunately I can cook a reasonable dinner, start a campfire and replace a faulty disk drive.
With regards to Komodo dragons, I have a fascination with creatures that are survivors from a another time. The ceolocanth, a very ancient fish, also falls into the same category (it makes a nice title for a Shriekback instrumental as well, from the sheer-bloody-brilliant 'Oil and Gold' LP). I almost managed to get face to face with some Komodo dragons a little over a month ago however the prevailing weather conditions were most unkind for those travelling by sailing vessels. Maybe June-July instead.
Assuming the world isn't in flames by then :(
Best regards,
tcpip