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Published on Leave a comment on Personality Type Theory: the Problem of Opposites and the Lure of the “Other”

The spoiler

Maybe it was because she was born at the turn of the 20th century, in 1900. Her thoughts and feelings always teetering on the edge, drawn back into the 19th century. The glory days of the Clays of Kentucky, her ancestors -- statesmen, aristocrats. That gave my mother her gift for reflection. We both liked to reflect when the meal was done. Her gaze would drift out the window, through the trees into the sky beyond, and she was gone. Lost in thought. Lost to memory.

She could have gone on forever about her childhood. In a small college town in the hills of Western Pennsylvania, her family a single working mother with an only child. Church, piano, and friends. Silliness and laughter. College football and dances at the Fort Pitt Hotel in Pittsburgh. Familiar names and faces waving back from trolleys. She knew them all. An ideal of Utopian innocence that became the Utopian innocence of my childhood. Not particularly Utopian or innocent in either case, yet transcendent.

She wouldn’t go on forever if the subject was herself. She said she was afraid of what she would find if she looked too far within. Her voice went to singsong. And then it was over. The reflections stopped. Utopian beacons of innocence OK, guilt lurking in the shadows not OK. Leave it be.

Leave everything be that’s actually interesting. About ourselves and the people in our lives. Be content instead with what’s on the surface. With trinkets and dog food. Let guilt or whatever it is smash up the furniture in the darkness unmolested. Keep your distance.  Don’t be unsociable. Mustn’t shine a light. Mustn’t disturb the demon. Mustn’t intrude with the Truth. 

The world of personality types unexamined

Personality type theory intrudes. With analysis that would expose the fearsome thing within clinically, objectively. Deprive it of its animal passion dispassionately. The mindless will of the beast that resides in our animal brain: allegiance to the tribe, blood and soil. Honoring the code of loyalty. Unquestioning loyalty to Plato’s Cave and its Cave-master. To its unquestioned authority.

All of it a masquerade. A farce that mocks us with its provocations for being unable or unwilling to understand it. For being afraid to go there, afraid of the Truth. For being so easily separated from all that’s dear to us by a con artist behind a silly mask. A mask that goads us into making something of nothing. Whose only weapon is the treasure that we hand over to it. The cache of powers and abilities, valuables and talents, that is us. Our identity. Our Self.

Projected in two parts into a strange new world. An alternate “reality” of body-brains divided into personality types guaranteed to keep the farce going. Into compositions of parts that take the stage each in its own costume with its own tribal insignia. Ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, function and rank, talents, tastes, predatory styles, family mythology, and more. A few revealing individuality, the rest hiding it behind uniforms with numbers. Clones marching in lockstep.

All at the ready to manage the differences without understanding “there” or how or why they got there. Without self-awareness. All at the ready not to manage the differences but to bring them into conflict. To imagine that this must be their purpose and so to throw themselves into the melee with abandon. Into chaos, the state of a world of personality types unknown, unexamined, misunderstood. 

Schiller’s choice: idealism or realism

Myers-Briggs personality type theory evolved from the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. Specifically from the practice and intuition of the Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) and, before him, the ideas of the German poet, philosopher, and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). Jung’s Psychological Types (1921) is the first formulation of the basic types popularized by Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers: introvert-extravert, intuition-sensing, thinking-feeling. [Isabel Myers, Gifts Differing (1980)]

The choice presented to the observer logically takes the form of competition between two Myers-Briggs personality opposites: intuitive-reflective thinking vs. body-sensing feeling. The former inherently introverted, introspective-subjective, the latter inherently extraverted-objective. The choice is thus between types fashioned by sources whose reality resides within Mind, i.e. the world of thoughts-ideas, or in the external world of bodies-brains and other objects discernible by bodies’ senses.

Myers-Briggs captures the deep divide within the self-deluded Mind of the one Child, and therein lies the brilliance of its intuition. In the clarity of opposition between two sets of faculties, one concentrated in INTJ, the other in ESFP: introversion-reflection-thinking-judging vs. extraversion-sensing-feeling-perceiving. The former entirely mind-centered, the latter entirely body-centered, although to say that feeling can be entirely distinguished from thinking is an oversimplification. Not so but close enough.

INTJ is associated with the conscious thinking of mind that subjectifies. ESFP is associated with the unthinking will of emotion, seated in the body’s animal brain, that objectifies. INTJ is associated with the deliberation and civilizing conscience of Logic and Love that resides in mind. ESFP is associated with action and its socializing discipline seated in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. INTJ is associated with being, ESFP with doing. INTJ with right, ESFP with win. Share vs. own-possess. Affirm vs. rule. Empower from the bottom up, control from the top down. Individual Worth vs. group-tribal supremacy.

The choice is between “idealism” and “realism,” two irreconcilable worlds described by Schiller as “. . . an opposition which is responsible for the fact that no work of the mind and no deed of the heart can make a decisive success with one class, without thereby drawing upon it a condemnation from the other. This opposition is, without doubt, as old as the beginning of culture. . . .” [quoted in C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (Must Have Books 2019, p. 168)].

Personality type is bias.

The mind that imagines itself to be above the fray, objective, dispassionate, and so qualified to heal the separation, only adds to the turmoil. Personality type sitting in judgment of personality types is a fool. The bias of personality type compromises the Logic of explanation. Turns discussion among friends into debate among competitors.

Plato’s virtuous philosopher who blunders into the Cave may view himself as Truth-bearing sunlight, but to the menagerie of personality types within he’s just another personality type. Who happens to be Truth-bearing sunlight, but who asked for Truth? Who wants sunlight? They don’t or they wouldn’t be there. If the houselights need to be turned up on their fun, their delusion, it’ll happen when someone gets around to it.

So let the author confess and maybe we can get on with it. Let the reader put whatever the author has to say into context where it might add to understanding instead of misunderstanding. Are you eager to listen or itching to retaliate? In either case it could be because I’m an introvert. An intuitive-thinking-judging introvert. Either the thoughtful, compassionate, accessible, respectful, lovable INTJ or the moralizing, superior, elitist, aloof, interventionist, hated INTJ. All depends on your point of view. On your personality type. If you see me as one or the other it would be because I am one or the other.

Fetch!

How does my bias affect my judgment? According to Jung, the American philosopher William James (1842-1910) “was the first to indicate . . . the extraordinary importance of temperament in the shaping of philosophical thinking,” and what James noticed was that the idealist and “empiricist” (realist) “believes the other to be inferior to itself.” [quoted in Jung, op. cit. 373-374).

I, the idealist, believe that “realists” are fools. Chasing after material objects their senses detect without realizing that they’re playing fetch. Without realizing that the objects are their own tail, put there by their own bodies’ senses, directed by their own corrupted minds. Being chased for a purpose: so they’ll make fools of themselves. So their easily distractable minds won’t realize that they’re canines on a leash. And the figure at the other end of the leash is amusing itself at their expense. Keeping them from the Truth: that it, their bodies, and their fascinating material universe, are an illusion. Action-comics escapist nonsense. A flimsy, one-dimensional joke that I find genuinely amusing when it isn’t horrifying. This is how my temperament affects my judgment.

One or the “other”?

Delving within to uncover the mysteries of the human Psyche with personality type theory has another drawback besides bias. It implicitly reinforces a lie. One of the central pillars that hold up an entire edifice of lies, the alternate “reality” that we call home. “Life” on “earth,” each an illusion. The premise that we are isolated-separated bodies with brains inhabiting a material world of objects organic and inorganic. A world of interaction among individual selves and “others.” An illusion because it’s a logical impossibility. It can’t be.

The designation of personality types for purposes of analysis necessarily objectifies them. It recognizes them as “others” separate from our one ancestral mind when logically there can only be one ancestral Mind. A Mind that metaphysics tells me is a Child. The Child of Parents who reside in Reality linked to our alternate “reality” by a sequence of cause and effect.

A Child who was given a critical role in Creation: the role of Free Choice. Who lost consciousness and mistook its own shadow-opposite for a separate self. Who was thereby misled into projecting a perverted version of itself into an alternate “reality” -- the dream that is our material world -- to escape Reality. Who must now pass through this world to gain maturity and the competence to perform its role. Who must, with the help of its projections -- us -- regain Consciousness.

The underlying Reality

If humanity is to do its part it can’t repeat the Child’s mistake. It must recognize that Reality is one Child-Mind and there are no “others.” It must stop objectifying its own dark side as an “other.” And it must stop making its own dark side and the dark sides of “others” real by projecting unwanted, painful aspects of itself onto “others.”

Unless personality type analysis recognizes the underlying Reality of one ancestral Mind, one Child, at the outset; unless it takes a position against objectifying any type as an “other,” it will be misunderstood. It will perpetuate the cycle of misperception and misjudgment instead of achieving its purpose: to break the cycle with Understanding.

Myers=Briggs doesn’t inquire into its origin in metaphysics. It doesn’t ask or explain why or how it came about beyond the study of human psychology within the physical environment defined by sensory perception -- humanity’s “reality.” Beyond spontaneous insights from humanity’s sixth sense, the voice that can’t be silenced. These are my speculations. Myers-Briggs stands on the accuracy of its formulation -- on how well it aligns with subjective experience and perception. That is, on whether it makes sense and delivers results, and it does. 

The nature of feeling 

There are two types of feeling, one that’s an essential part of thinking, the other that’s opposed to thinking. Values required for evaluation are rooted in feeling, and evaluation is required for reasoning that supports the choices and decisions of judgment. Logic and Love can’t function independently and neither can thinking-reasoning and feeling-evaluation. For the same reason: one completes the other. To be a thinking type in the Myers-Briggs sense would be to limit judgment to quantitative measurements without input from subjective values, the incomplete “reasoning” of a machine. If personality type categories are to represent complete human functions then thinking requires feeling.

The brain’s amygdala -- our animal-reptilian brain -- is a source of unevolved emotion that ties back to pre-human ancestors and also to tribal-predatory passion. Which makes it a source for body-sensing’s feeling-sensation and reasoning-evaluation both. Yet it makes more sense for this source to be associated with the body-sensing type than the mind-centered thinking type. Animal will is notoriously opposed to thinking. It’s the cherished ideal of those who march in lock step to the force of “nature.” To the Triumph of the Will over all opposition. Body-sensing types opposed to thinking.

The 5-Factor theory: Myers-Briggs in reverse

Albert Einstein once observed that scientists aren’t strong in Logic. Logic is the faculty of Mind that enables analysis; that in turn fits parts together in logical order to form explanation; that in turn enables understanding. Its function is to establish purpose and meaning from the baseline condition. To establish context, not to reason what to do about it which is a separate faculty of Mind.

A good illustration of Einstein’s observation is the so-called “5-Factor” theory of personality type. The theory and its five factors -- extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism -- claim scientific legitimacy by its use of quantitative measurements. As if this alone legitimizes its “quest for knowledge.” It can’t if their accuracy and relevance to the subject are open to question. Quantitative measurements can’t be any more conducive to legitimacy than the qualitative analysis that went into the other theory. Not if the subject is forces beyond the observable universe that shape the human Psyche.

The difference between the two theories is the difference between mind-centric and body-centric. Specifically the difference between the qualitative intuition of subjectivity which can’t be verified by sensory perception and quantitative measurements which can. The Logic of the Myers-Briggs types is based on the empirical practice of psychology as well as the a priori Logic of philosophy. Both solid analytical ground for their subject. To suggest that the 5-Factor theory is more “scientific” for being quantitative is to demean any analysis that can’t be quantitative.

Spontaneous intuition plays a prominent part in every field; science included. Intuition couldn’t have played a part in the 5-Factor theory if Jung and Myers-Briggs came first. What did play a part was retaliation: the definition of an alternate theory by its opposite. Which is all that the 5-Factor theory is: not original thinking from anywhere but a copycat version of Myers-Briggs in reverse. The difference between the two theories is the difference between sense and nonsense.

A manifesto of tribal dominance

What are its “factors” but a transparent ploy by bias? To redirect humanity’s self-identity away from the possibility of mind-awareness and individuality suggested by the intuition of Myers-Briggs back toward the body-awareness and collectivity of the herd. Back toward “nature:” the beast swinging from trees. What are the five factors but deceptions:

  • “Extraversion” that leaves out introversion would make of introversion an unnamed, unrecognized subset of itself. The “logic” of which can only be numbers that confirm that, yes, there are more extraverts than introverts. And so extraverts “win” and whoever “wins” dominates. The law of the animal will. Numbers deployed in service to the irrational.
  • “Agreeability” is sociability required by tribal conformity that triumphs over independent judgment required by individual character, honesty, and integrity. Agreeability is smiling, ass-kissing obeisance to authority, superficiality that masks its mindless animal will. Incapable of trusting or being trusted. Positive on the surface, something very different underneath.
  • “Openness” is the pose of inclusiveness and accessibility adopted by sensory perception. “Open” in the exhilaration of discovery to the world of its five senses, closed to the Logic and Love of Understanding, purpose and meaning, from its sixth sense. The triumph of matter and senselessness over mind and sense. Of body-sensing over mind-intuition.
  • “Conscientiousness” is the tribe’s self-congratulatory feeling for its own: tenderness toward its children and specialness toward its members. Set off against the unfeeling that it directs toward “others,” the competition: indifference, insensitivity and cruelty, rage and hatred. Self-justification, the false innocence of helpless victimhood that masks harmfulness and guilt. The absence of Love.
  • “Neuroticism” is psychosis -- detachment from reality -- that affirms the root of psychological pain not in Mind corrupted by self-delusion but in neurons of the brain contaminated by chemicals. That would relegate any dissent from independent judgment against the unquestioned authority of “agreeability” to the status of mental illness.

The 5-Factor theory is five values shared and reinforced by tribe. A manifesto of tribal identity over one Self, supremacy over other tribes, and dominance over individuals. Crushing the spirit out of individuality, the atrocity that is authoritarian supremacy and the global threat to democracy and world order. The opposite of science’s vaunted objectivity and anything but “conscientious.” It is the work of a con artist. A farce.

The 5-Factor theory’s real intent

If there is bias in the choice between theories it is the bias of personality type that’s built into the claim of every field whether “subjective” or “objective.” Mine is the bias of the INTJ type. But the so-called “more scientific” theory has its own bias: the extraverted objective body-sensing feeling type. Which accounts for Einstein’s observation that Logic is not the strong suit of scientists: they’re letting bodies’ senses dominate their “thinking” instead their minds. Instead of mind over matter they put their faith in matter over mind. A logical absurdity.

The 5-Factor theory may present itself as an alternative to the idealist Jung / Myers-Briggs theory but the realist’s actual intent is to replace it. Their opposition is part of a larger philosophical divide that’s been with us forever and may go on forever so long as realists cling to their five senses and fear their sixth.

Myers-Briggs is on solid ground

It bears repeating that the mindset of science is grounded in the religion of sensory perception. In the unquestioned supremacy of the body’s senses -- taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound -- to establish the baseline condition. Thereby denying any but a tangential role for the sixth sense of intuition. For a perspective not grounded in sensory perception that our sixth sense routinely reminds us is there. Which makes of science not a mindset grounded in Logic but in professional and institutional bias as irrational as any it’s had to deal with from its ancient enemy, the Church.

It bears repeating that personality type theory that’s grounded in the Logic of mind-centered philosophy, corroborated by the practice and intuition of analytical psychology, is on far more solid ground, more accurate and more to be trusted, than theory that relies on the quantitative measurements of a body-centered science that distrusts the intuition and Logic of Mind.

Captive to the dark lord of the body

Freudian psychoanalysis was earthbound. Centered on physiological causes of behavior termed “neurotic” because neurons -- brain chemistry -- explained it. Freud’s protégé, Carl Jung, broke with his mentor to look elsewhere, into what mind had to reveal about the condition of the human Psyche instead of mindless, procreative urges of the body. The distinction between mind- and body-centered psychology brought about a seismic shift in orientation away from humanity identified with tribes, disciplined by the conformity of belonging, to humanity identified with individuals liberated, enabled, and empowered by family.

The shift didn’t go far enough to liberate Jung from an earthbound perspective. But turning away from the body’s five senses to mind’s sixth sense did liberate others who followed his lead. The lead of a personality type now flooded with insights into what caused his seismic break with Freud: the baffling difference in their personality types that impeded communication and understanding and yet accounted for a remarkable intuitive grasp of moving parts that make up the personality. The psychological equivalent of physics breaking down the atom, opening up a new world of possibilities for analysis and discovery. Not without resistance, because even though analysis guided by Logic-Love from the sixth sense has made inroads, every field remains captive to the tyranny of the five senses. To the dark lord of the body.

“Fate” isn’t happenstance.

Hence the appearance of body-centered competition with Jung’s mind-centered personality type theory. The 5-Factor system that matches the number of senses that produced it. Beginning with “agreeability” that, like the other components has but one overriding purpose: to pull humanity’s identity back from the Jung / Myers-Briggs system’s focus on the individuality to tribe. Because this is how the mind of one Child corrupted by its opposite, Child-the-many, views itself. Not as an individual but as a group. Not as an individual with self-awareness and Free Choice, guided by deliberation, but as an animal-herd willed by instinct, driven by emotion.

It's a mistake to think that because evolution seems to progress by happenstance that it’s not willed by mind. It is willed by mind but in a state that’s captive to delusion. And it’s for us, its projections inhabiting a mad dream, with guidance from Logic-Love, to help break the cycle of happenstance, restore order, and bring it back to Reality.

The captivity is intentional. Whether we are aware of it or not. It is willed by Mind in a state that’s not functioning properly. That’s corrupted -- out of its mind. And the will that won’t allow us to understand who we are, that insists that we can’t be individuals supported by family, that we can only be tribes forcing their members into conformity, competing with one another for dominance, destroying one another in a mad quest to rule without opposition, to eliminate competition, is anything but happenstance. Is anything but the accidents and mistakes that define evolution as we know it. It’s purposeful. And when it shows up in the guise of “agreeability,” all good-guy likability and humor, it does not wish us well. It means to keep us captive to what it is and all that it is: self-delusion. Mistaken identity. The idea that we are who and what we aren’t: our opposites.

The only “factors” that matter: Logic and Love

By abandoning the straits of physiology in Freudian psychology Jung’s sixth sense took a first step toward accessing another perspective. The perspective of Logic-Love that never left the Mind that’s mistaken. The perspective that never deluded itself into mistaken identity. That recognizes us only for who we are and not for who we aren’t. And offers the choice of a guide who has no intention of anything but our freedom to grow and create as we will, according to our own unique gifts and our own individuality. Individuality that Jung’s intuition with personality types can now be managed not for the purpose of service to warring animal tribes but in service to Creativity -- the order and harmony of Logic inseparable from Love.

This is the context of Jung’s insights and the personality type theory that evolved into Myers-Briggs. This is the context, too, of the body-centered so-called “scientific” 5-Factor theory that means to replace it. That’s doing the bidding not of science but of self-delusion. The only “factors” that matter are Logic and Love.

Why opposites?

Logic-Love says everything in Reality-Creation must have a definition that defines what it is and what it does. So that it can be known and recognized by Logic-Love, the gatekeepers to Reality-Creation responsible for fitting all its constituents together. In logical harmony or order, which means without contradiction.

The definition of anything except Oneness logically implies the existence in some form of its opposite. If one thing must exist then why not its opposite? A question that Logic-Love can’t wave away because it’s inconvenient. Or because it spoils perfection if perfection is a state of rest where there are no more implications of Logic to pursue, no more connections and relationships of Love to be made. Where Energy has no more work to do. In short, where there is no point to Reality-Creation and so what can it do but shut down.

Why Free Choice?

Eternal Peace -- a state of impossibility so long as Mind / Logic-Love exists. Since it, too, is defined by what it does as well as by what it is. Since Reality-Creation is both what it is and what it does. Everything under the laws of cause and effect, the Force of Necessity: Reality-Creation is Worth and has Worth because it earns Worth. “Worth” that can’t come about any other way. Thus there can be no Being without Doing. Observing, thinking, feeling, or judging without acting.

The notion of “heaven” as eternal peace, where all is at rest and nothing happens, is the flip side of the notion that we are where the “action” is. Because we aren’t at rest. We’re in eternal conflict and therefore something must be “happening.” Both sides of an absurd notion equally deluded, equally mistaken.

The original circumstance that calls for Logic-Love to define with meaning and purpose was and is itself. Where we come from: Worth. We have Worth because we are Worth. And the affirmation, enablement, and empowerment of Worth by Free Choice is our mission whether we are one Child-Mind functioning with Free Choice unimpaired in orderly Creation or the appearance of many body-brains trying to function with Free Choice messed with in a disorderly dream.

Why it’s hard to understand.

The relationship that emerges between opposites and Reality-Creation is a strange one that’s baffled the best minds down through the ages. It’s hard to grasp that opposites can’t co-exist with Reality-Creation when it’s also true that they’re a necessary part of it. It’s hard to grasp:

  • when the explanation involves one Mind, one Consciousness, that performs two distinct functions that would contradict one another if they overlapped and thereby un-define all of Reality-Creation.
  • When one of these functions cannot encounter error and exist in a state of unconsciousness while the other can.
  • When the second function must operate on a lower plane of Creation since it and its plane are extensions of the first. Inferior to the superior in line of authorship-succession but not in line of control since neither superior nor inferior has anything to do with control.
  • When the second function encounters the parasite that is its opposite in a state of unconsciousness, deludes itself into reversing roles, and imagines that it has projected itself into a world opposite to Reality-Creation.
  • When the alternate “reality” is our world made “real” by Energy, the source of matter and the agent of Mind. And now the agent of its opposite, an illusionist. The enabler of a magician’s act meant to perpetuate its world of opposites. Our self-delusion.

The mother of injustice

“Control” is misperception of the laws of cause and effect of Reality-Creation, backed by the Force of Necessity, to which Mind itself and all of its definitions are subject. Think of the “Force” in Star Wars without the rule of absolute authority dispensed arbitrarily from the top down. Applied instead from the bottom up at the direction of Logic and Love in enablement and empowerment of Creation instead of itself.

Otherwise Reality-Creation is distinguished not by the presence of control but by its complete absence. A Truth that the collective mind of humanity, corrupted by its captivity to control, finds virtually impossible to grasp. A Truth that accounts for virtually every injustice known to history including the crucifixion: misperception of authority and misjudgment in its application. Injustice that breeds animal rage and hatred and accounts for history’s turn, time and again, to conflict to assuage it.

The authority of making sense

I know of one source in literature that provides a coherent, comprehensive context for understanding opposites. For understanding how they’re reconciled in Reality-Creation by both Logic and Love. Fragments have shown up here and there: notably Parmenides’ metaphysics, the Truth implied by the miracles of Jesus taught by the Gnostic Christian Valentinus, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. Otherwise, it’s not from Laozi’s Tao, Siddhartha Gautama’s Buddhism, Hinduism’s Upanishads, classical philosophy, biblical Christianity, or anything “new age.”

It’s A Course in Miracles, metaphysics taught by a source that appears to be Jesus but isn’t biblical Christianity. The name given to its author may not matter in any case so long as it’s an agent of Soul. Authenticated not by any earthly affiliation, by any ideology, philosophy, or religion, but by the authority of Logic and Love. By making sense. The “authority” that gave the life of Jesus resonance and the Course too.

How and where opposites are resolved

What to do with opposites is resolved by the one possibility in Reality-Creation of a state where opposites may “exist” without contradicting it: the state of a Mind that has consciousness but isn’t defined by it, so that it can lose consciousness and still be what it is. If Mind / Logic-Love is Consciousness by definition then it can’t lose consciousness. But if it extends itself to produce a Child-Mind with a different function that it Free Choice, then its extension is given a different definition that can’t be Consciousness. It’s Free Choice that has consciousness that can be lost and still exist.

And in this state of existence without consciousness, a mind, as we well know, can dream anything. Anything it wants, where what it wants lies beyond awareness and may include opposites. Opposites that now “exist” but only in a dream where they can’t contradict Reality-Creation. Where they can’t have any real consequences, and so the issue of what to do with opposites is resolved.

The one thing is Real by virtue of Parent-Mind Conscious; the other is unreal by virtue of Child-Mind unconscious. A state of Reality-Creation Parent-Mind Consciousness plus unreality Child-unconsciousness we can call “Everything.” A state held together by the attribute of Parent Mind-Consciousness that is the Interconnectedness of Soul-Energy. The attribute of Being or Oneness that is the unique state of Innocence without opposites. Soul-Energy that can embrace Everything because it knows no boundaries. Because it is its own enforcer: Energy, the Force of Necessity. And therefore it alone is impervious to the contradictions of opposites.

The engine of awakening

All attributes of Parent-Mind that is Logic-Love. Our best friend in our world of illogic, fear, guilt, and hatred. That’s accessible through the gift of Mind that is, thankfully, our sixth sense. The sense that one unconscious Child-Mind corrupted by its opposite, dreaming that it’s many animal-brains trapped in their five senses, fears for the end that it can bring to the dream. To the self-delusion that Child-Mind is its opposite.

How can Child-Mind restore sanity? Not by Logic-Love, its Parents, waving a magic wand for this would end Free Choice and their Child along with it. Not by sending a “savior” to do what Free Choice must do for itself. But by helping with explanation that leads to Understanding accessible to projections in the dream when they liberate themselves from captivity to their body-brains’ five senses. When they learn to listen to an agent of Soul through their sixth sense that connects them to Logic-Love, Child-Mind’s source.

That could never interfere with Free Choice by coercion, intrusion, or captivity of any kind but can guide with Logic-Love when asked. Because Relationship between Parent-Child has existed since the Growth of Creation when the Child was born. It can never be broken, and guidance is part of what it does. It’s the engine of Creation, and now that Child-Mind has lost consciousness it must be the engine of its awakening. Healing the separation. 

Which will it be?

We can’t do what we’re here for without Relationship between Parent-Child. We don’t “exist” alone. Like the inorganic stuff of the dream we are “relational.” We only “exist” in relationship. Not with one another but with Logic-Love through one another: the understanding that our one ancestral Mind only exists in Relationship with its Parents and therefore its projections in the dream can only “exist” in relationship with the same Parents. Whether we choose to be aware of it or not.

Carl Jung’s and Myers-Briggs’ contributions to personality type theory start from appearances and let us follow theirs and our sixth sense beyond. To connect with the source of their intuition and ours that can lead us, if we let it, not into troubled encounters with others but through them to the Truth of reconciliation beyond. Get it right with Logic-Love and we do our part to help Child-Mind awaken. Get it wrong and we continue on our path to a “paradise” of “action” in a universe of violence. Which will it be?

 

 

 

Published on Leave a comment on Mind versus Brain and the Dance of the Wild Siberian Tiger

Note: The following is an imaginary conversation with a bright pre-adolescent, a talented dancer whose style evokes comparison with a wild Siberian tiger. Her voice is in regular font, mine in italics. 

The Ultimate in Cool

You were up there on stage at the South Coast Botanic Garden. I was? Doing what? Doing your world-renowned Dance of the Wild Siberian Tiger. An elegant, svelte, supremely beautiful beast. Untamed. Master of her environment, allowing herself to be admired but belonging to no one.  Super cool -- that’s me! That is you. The beauty and seductiveness of style. The Toast of the Coast. And more. How can there be more when I’m already a star?

An image of two absolutes: absolute authority and absolute freedom. Two of the most compelling and consequential drivers of human thought and behavior in all of history. Forces of nature that ideally no one and nothing can limit. Wow! I knew my tiger was important but not this important! How did this happen? 

Rose

Something with this much hold on the human Psyche must have deep roots, and it does. It goes all the way back to when our one ancestral Mind imagined that it was many bodies. To our split identity between Mind and brain. But first, does your tiger have a name? If she does she hasn’t told me. Well, while we’re waiting I have a suggestion. “Rousseau.”

Calvin had Hobbes. Who was that? A boy in a comic strip with a stuffed tiger that he brought to life with his imagination. They were great friends and had fun, and they were entertaining. Cool! Thomas Hobbes was a 17th century English philosopher who thought human nature needs to be under universal absolute authority to be civilized. An 18th century Swiss philosopher thought it’s more like “noble savages,” essentially good but corruptible by tribes. His name was Jean Jacques Rousseau. Their philosophies live on in the great political and economic debates of today. 

He was a guy. My tiger is a girl. Can we call her “Rose” while I think about it? Of course! 

The one Mind that’s Logic combined with Love

So what’s this about minds and brains?

“Mind” and “brain” are two distinct entitles with two distinct sources and two distinct functions. They occupy two distinct worlds or “realities:” one that’s real and the other that isn’t because there can only be one Reality. You’ll need Mind to understand this because brains are matter that depend on their bodies’ five senses. They only see what’s in front of their eyes. The sixth sense of minds -- Intuition -- helps them sense the other world. 

Our minds are actually one Mind. Their source is the fusion of two distinct functions in one Relationship. Functions of thinking and feeling with Logic and Love. All the things that our minds do when they make sense and decide, judge and choose. When they stand up for good values and try to do what’s right. Understanding plus conscience. 

The Relationship between Logic and Love is between equals that aren’t complete without one another. Mind can’t make sense and do the right thing without the values of Love, and it can’t move forward and get things done if it doesn’t have the direction and discipline of Logic. Neither can Create without the other -- Create new life, new compositions of beauty and joyfulness. Everything that gives Creation its Worth. That makes it worth doing. 

Powerball 

Creation that requires Logic and Love working together in harmony but also working with something else that’s necessary: Free Choice. If we think of Logic as Choice and Love as Freedom Free Choice is their Child. With its own distinct definition and function that Creation needs, acting freely without interference. Its own Self along with its own function. 

It’s able to choose freely because of two conditions. The first is Order: the laws of cause and effect that apply to everything. Civilization “under the law.” The second is Relationship: the connection between Free Choice and its source, the Mind of Logic and Love. 

Connection that’s part of something larger that holds everything together: the Force of Energy that we call “Soul.” Interconnectedness. Everything fitting together in the harmony we call “Order” because it’s all directed and disciplined by Mind. By Logic and Love. Then Rose and I can be soulmates. You can if she’s an agent of Soul and not absolute authority and freedom. To understand that the source of Energy -- of power -- is Soul, and that Soul is Innocence that Interconnects everything, is to begin to understand its true nature. To understand how helpful it can if we make it our friend.

What’s wrong with absolute authority and freedom? Aren’t they good? History tells us that between the two ideals, being part of Soul that Interconnects everything and part of absolute authority and freedom, only one is helpful. The other is harmful. There can’t be a Force of nature that no one and nothing can limit. Like Palpatine and his Galactic Empire, it’s a fantasy. It’s OK if Rose portrays a beautiful but impossible ideal in performing arts. It’s done all the time. Having unlimited authority and freedom is like winning the lottery. But it’s dangerous when we try to make it real. This will take some explaining. I’ll try.  

Living the dream 

The source of mind’s thinking is one Mind. The individual Free Choice that’s our ancestral Mind. It can’t not exist since it’s part of Reality and it can’t not have Choice if it’s part of Creativity. All it has to do is to use its talents for Logic and Love to take part in Creation. In other words, Mind in Reality is Logic and Love working together to Create Life and Worth in Relationship with their Child, Free Choice. Then what is the brain?

Brain is a copy of Mind in reverse -- Mind’s opposite. It came about when the Mind of the Child of Logic and Love lost consciousness. When it dreamed what we can think of as an alternate “reality” that seems real to us but isn’t. If it’s a dream how can it seem so real? It seems so real because we rely on our brains and their bodies’ five senses to tell us what’s real and they’re part of the dream. And because the Force of Soul that Interconnects Reality is temporarily animating the dream. The dream will end?

Logic says so and so does physics: the energy that powers our universe is headed for inertia. It’s dying. So we think we’re experiencing Reality when all we’re experiencing is Energy activating a dream, with our bodies’ senses providing the 3-D movie projector. All in Technicolor! Real but unreal. 

The code that defines the dream 

The Mind unconscious and the brains of the bodies that it’s dreaming both contain the same code that defines the dream. The opposite of the Logic and Love that define Reality and Creation, and so it’s always pulling us into the dream away from Reality. Always misleading us into misperceptions, misjudgments, and wrongdoing. Why? Because Reality-Creation is Good and the code that defines the dream is its opposite. Parting with this thing that’s messing with our character and values, our thinking and relationships, is the great task of humanity. It’s why we’re talking about it. 

Why did the Child lose consciousness? I’m writing a book about it. A book I read about philosophy and theology said nobody so far has come up with a rational explanation. Then my intuition -- my sixth sense -- started explaining with insights that made sense. That was over three years ago. The book is still writing itself. When will you be done? When the insights tell me I’m done. So far they’re not letting up. I have to ignore the clock. 

Are minds and brains both helping with the great task of humanity? They are, but since they’re both deluded by the dream’s code it’s mostly inadvertent. Inadvertent? Unintentional, indirect. Brains belong to bodies and bodies are hard-wired into the dream. They have a different agenda, but their work still adds to our understanding. Minds with their sixth sense are receptive to other perspectives that aren’t hard-wired into the dream. It’s this other dimension that can get us somewhere. 

Two contexts, two agendas 

What’s different about their agendas? Mind’s context is the individual, brain’s the tribe or the herd. It’s because they have opposite sources: Child Mind-the-one in Reality and Child Mind-the-many in unreality -- in the alternate “reality” or dream defined by the code. 

We are equipped with two kinds of thinking -- brains and minds -- because we are two kinds of beings. Not a contradiction because, remember, only one is Real. We are tribes that need brains to disempower individuality for conformity and families of personalities that need minds to empower individuality for creativity. If Mind is one Child creating in Reality with its Parents, brain is many versions of Child in unreality socializing many versions of the beast. Many beasts in humanity’s animal brain that need to be organized and controlled so the tribe-herd survives. 

One part of the brain, the amygdala, links us to our distant past when we were animals that hadn’t yet become humans. We’re animals? We still are, only now with a difference. Ape evolved into Homo and Homo evolved into Homo Sapiens. Sapiens is Latin meaning “rational.” The amygdala at the base of the brain acquired a talent for thinking at the top: the prefrontal cortex. Sapiens. 

Socializing many beasts 

If we’re civilized humans it’s because we have minds as well as brains and because our cortex, generally but not always, tames the beast in our amygdala. It socializes the tribe so individual members cooperate when they have to hunt prey, fight with other tribes, or raise their young. To do whatever it takes to survive in a world of tribes. Without the cortex it would be like herding cats. What does “socializing” mean?

We equate socializing and sociable with agreeable, social life with fun. But what’s behind “social” isn’t intimacy among individuals. It isn’t Love, trust, and honesty that validate our distinctive personalities, empower creativity, and make us soulmates. Brain doesn’t care about any of this. It’s making its members wear mental uniforms to preserve its integrity. Imposing the sameness of conformity so personalities that define our individuality and enable intimacy disappear into a group. So they don’t make trouble by challenging its authority. 

Socializing brings the tribe’s beasts under control by imposing discipline on behavior within and among groups. The graphic book I sent not long ago helps to explain the neuroscience. Oh, that book. Right. It’s called “Two Heads: A Graphic Exploration of How Our Brains Work with Other Brains.” Clear evidence from people who study the brain that it’s not concerned with us as individuals. Then what is it concerned about?

Brain is only concerned about us as tribes. And as we’ll see this doesn’t necessarily mean it cares about us. It wants us to belong but once we do it’s not certain that it’s for our own good. Not if tribes get into fights. Not if they start world wars and threaten mass annihilation. The belonging of tribes is not the Loving of individuals. It may not even be the loving of tribes. 

Great performing art 

So why do we need minds if we’re civilized? We need minds because brains socializing beasts so that tribes can maintain group integrity in competition isn’t the same as civilizing. The wealth and happiness we get from minds is purpose and meaning. The heart of civilization that needs forward movement, led by vision toward a destination that stands for something. Toward a shared ideal. Toward Worth that has substance and consequence. Toward the integrity of individual character and values. 

Socializing and civilizing are different functions performed by two different agents with different agendas. If we’re talking about our animal brain It means giving its unthinking will and emotion, its raw energy, direction and discipline. We direct it with reason and values. With conscience that knows right from wrong. And we discipline it with the judgment of Logic that establishes and enforces boundaries. It’s called “governance.” Civilization. 

Brains preoccupied with tribes may seem to have our best interests at heart, but do they really? They begin life with play at dominance in competition. When they’re done with procreation they take on tribal competition for real as if looking for something to occupy us. All the while distracting us with style instead of substance, seduction instead of connection. Is that what was happening when Rose and I danced? You and Rose were being seductive with style and it made for great performing art! Great entertainment. 

From one to three dimensions 

The seductions of “action” consist of physical and emotional pleasure, pain, and winning and losing in tribal competition. Contrivances without purpose and meaning going nowhere. Every man for himself. A script composed by a writer who has no real idea what he’s doing and so he’s making it up. Unaware that his real purpose may not be to entertain and be entertained but to grow up. 

Minds come to the fore with contemplation when brains step back after procreation. Individuals released from conformance to groups share wisdom and compassion that adds depth to the purpose and meaning of civilization. A world that had seemed like a one-dimensional comic strip of unfeeling, self-centered action figures takes on an added dimension. The depth of judgment, insight, and understanding from mind’s sixth sense. From the individual’s Free Will.

The servant that must never be master

Energy -- the “Force” popularized by “Star Wars” -- acts at the direction and under the discipline of Mind because it’s the servant of Mind. The relationship between our animal brain and the brain’s socializing function in the prefrontal cortex is servant to master. Without the civilizing influence of Mind our animal will has no intelligence of its own to guide it. To put it to its intended use, which is to supply motivation, passion, drive. To translate thought and feeling into action. To back up civilized thinking with force. With instinct that acts when there’s no time for thought.  What happens when servant takes over? 

It's what happened to 1930s Germany: thinking, conscience, and judgment of Mind are all taken over by a predator. The human animal reverts to animal, the state we were in before we became human. Before ape evolved into homo sapiens. Only worse because now the animal in us has access to all the ways sapiens can think of to dominate and destroy. Like handing the nuclear code to Frankenstein’s monster. I think I’ve heard this story before. We all have. Technology comes up with new stuff and always it falls into the wrong hands. Germany was working to develop the atomic bomb when WWII ended. 

The power of the dark side 

To prevent servant becoming master we make sure that Rose, our wild Siberian tiger, hasn’t transformed from an agent of Soul into an ideal of absolute authority and freedom. We make sure that we haven’t transformed ourselves into Rose the wrong ideal. What would happen if we did? We would eventually revert to living in caves and hunting and foraging. Without civilization. Civilization is the rule of law that applies to everyone. The “ideal” of absolute authority and freedom is the opposite: lawlessness. It’s where authoritarian regimes like Germany’s were taking us.

The raw power of beast combined with style, the exquisite gracefulness of beauty that you and Rose portrayed, is capable of casting a spell over the human imagination. So compelling that some would rather let it rule and live under its spell. Who does that? Authoritarians who want our world to be ruled by the Force of will that is Energy ungoverned by Mind. Because that’s who they want to be. “Conservatives” who don’t like democracy because it governs. Because it won’t let them have and do whatever they want. “Traditionalists” who don’t want change because it’s harder to control than things the way they are. That sounds selfish.

Selfish and irrational. To them the “free” in “free market” is an ideal of absolute freedom, a wild Siberian tiger that they don’t want tamed. Arguments over whether this is the best thing divide whole schools of economics and spill over into politics and philosophy. How to handle this compelling image of a wild Siberian tiger, an impossibility, has been a big deal forever. Conflict over whether to let servant be the master when the answer should be obvious. 

Hand-me-downs from other lives

Conservatives gave themselves another name when they took over 1930s Germany: “National Socialists.” The Nazis adored their version of a wild Siberian tiger who seduced them with his shining ideal. He called it “triumph of the will.” An ideal of wildness that is a law unto itself. Ruling arbitrarily, doing whatever he wants. Which is no law at all for everyone else because laws structure society with boundaries. If the “boundaries” are whatever the absolute ruler decrees and he can change his mind then there are no boundaries. No structure, only disorder. We can’t live with confidence in disorder. We can only live in fear and hope for our safety if we obey the ruler. 

France went through this earlier during the French Revolution. It was known as the “Terror.” That was Germany in the 1930s? For many Germans, yes. And yet many others were glad to obey. As if they liked allying with someone who could be wild and do whatever he wanted even if they couldn’t. As if he were living its ideal for them. Living others’ lives for them? Is that possible?

Psychologically it is, and it’s not uncommon. Ordinary people in England lived lives of unlimited ease and pleasure vicariously through the lords and ladies of nobility, especially when Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire. Many live vicariously through royalty and other celebrities today. “Vicariously?” Your American Heritage dictionary has a nice definition just for you. I would rather learn vicariously through you. Touché! 

The human animal 

Did Germany’s will “triumph” in the end? It did just the opposite. It led everyone into another world war that Germany lost. It led to mass destruction and total defeat. Who was this guy? Adolf Hitler. He didn’t survive. And his shining ideal of wildness? It died too? No. The tragedy of all our wars: warriors die but the mad ideal of absolute authority just goes on and on. That doesn’t allow independent thinking. That crushes individual initiative and creativity. That prizes obedience and loyalty above all virtues. And all because of Rose? Our animal brain? 

You might think so. But animals on their own have survived for hundreds of millions of years. Like the dinosaurs? Yes. And mammals and fish too, even though they prey on one another. Within their herds or species the caring and character they display can put humans to shame. Animals in the wild prey on one another for food and self-protection. If they’re brought up in conditions where it’s not necessary some species lose that instinct. They become domesticated, even playful and affectionate. They deserve our love and respect. 

Humanity has evolved from its animal roots into a different kind of animal. One that isn’t content with propagation of its species. “Triumph of the will” isn’t content with live and let live. Authoritarian supremacy wants more. It will have its ideal of absolute authority or take us all down with it. A mindset that’s interested in surviving for hundreds of millions of years but only on its own terms. Which means it places its ideal -- its authority -- even above our species’ survival. It’s fatally self-centered. Hitler and his admirers fought to the last man; their cause transformed from absolute authority to absolute destruction. The act of a human animal. 

The inhuman animal 

What humanity’s authoritarian mindset appropriates from its animal nature is the wildness. The instinct of a predator ruled by the law of the jungle: kill or be killed. Far from civilization governed by reason and judgment, by gentle loving kindness. The Force of nature represented by your beautiful tiger doesn’t have a dark side. It’s there to serve Mind. If the Force of nature seems to have gone off track it’s because its master, the Mind that directs it, has gone off track. Whether “the Force” is good or bad depends on the use we put it to. The human mind does have a dark side, and it’s made of your lovable Soulmate Rose something that she isn’t. Palpatine and his evil Galactic Empire!

A false ideal that humanity keeps coming back to and every time it’s a disaster. An absurd authoritarian fantasy that releases the worst instincts of humanity. That turns us back into uncivilized animals. Into predators. How can Palpatine be so cruel without feeling bad about it?

You’re thinking Palpatine is human. But in order to live his authoritarian fantasy he’s made himself inhuman. By denying his human qualities: reason, values, conscience, and sensitivity. The ability to relate to others as humans. His galaxy is inhabited by inhumans who can’t feel. Cruelty among inhumans can’t be possible if only dominance and defeat are possible. If you resist Palpatine’s rule and get hurt it’s your own fault. So there’s nothing to feel bad about. 

The all-powerful whimpering kitty 

Crushing others with absolute power is so unfair, so unjust! Doesn’t Palpatine see that it’s wrong? No. He thinks he’s right. Not causing injustice but righting a great injustice. An injustice done to him that stole his self and all its resources -- mind, heart, talents, functions that gave him life. An injustice that abandoned him to a dangerous, competitive world. That made him a helpless, innocent victim. 

Tough-guy authoritarians like Palpatine and Hitler begin their rampage with self-pity and blame. Feeling sorry for themselves and so they take it out on others. 1930s Germany began its rampage of authoritarian persecution by believing that it was the persecuted. But I want to be innocent. “I did nothing wrong!”

We all want to be innocent -- wrongdoers especially who think they’ve been mistreated. And we all feel sorry for ourselves. There’s plenty of injustice to go around that we can’t do anything about. But there’s a better way to serve conscience than imagining we’re helpless innocent victims. How’s that? We’re never helpless. We have Free Will. We have gifts and powers. And every situation has its opportunities to use them. It’s why I think, why I write. Why my tiger and I dance. You have wonderful talents of mind, heart, and body that will be put to good use. 

World of individuality, world of creativity 

We need minds to take us to the next level of evolution: beyond demonstrating one talent to demonstrating another. From the talent to socialize and civilize to the talent to exercise -- to exercise Free Choice. From developing the capacity of groups to get along to developing the capacity of individuals to be creative instead of self-destructive. To think and act creatively with understanding. With self-awareness that can only come from Relationship with Logic and Love, our Source. The one Mind that we are. The way to Freedom from the confinement of misunderstanding, the strange appeal of absolutes. 

Whose side are brains on? 

It takes much more than socializing animal brains to achieve our ideals as individuals and as a society. There’s no possibility of Free Choice without the Order of civilization and the governance of democracy. Though brains are supposed to socialize beasts history and everyday experience tell us that they’re not up to it. Civilization has advanced in some ways but in other ways it’s gotten nowhere. The beasts in our animal brain keep getting out of their cage. Our world and our lives are still precarious. 

Brains with their bodies’ five senses think this is “normal” and nothing can be done about it. They aren’t moved by true ideals. True ideals are creative. “Triumph of the Will” is destructive. The Mind that we share through our sixth sense is moved by true ideals. It thinks the opposite. A world that’s not making real progress, that’s stuck in a status quo that’s actually taking us backward, isn’t normal and something can be done about it. Mind is Possibility. Mind is Hope. 

I don’t have a good feeling about this. Brains that think we should be OK with the beast taking over; that have no ideals; that are content with getting nowhere -- whose side are they on? They have a different agenda so we have to wonder. 

Dance of the Big Bang 

Here’s one possibility. Since all they can detect with their five senses is the surface of things brains may be using the lure of absolute authority and freedom to distract us. From what? From discovering what’s underneath. Like a magician’s act that diverts attention with sleight of hand. What could be underneath? The Truth that the magician doesn’t want us to know. That appearances are all there is. That they’re all illusions -- magician’s tricks -- and we’re being fooled. There’s nothing underneath. Our “alternate reality” is a movie studio façade. 

Minds perform a critical function that brains lack: the capacity to understand with Logic that defines and explains, that structures and orders our situations. Exactly what absolute authority and freedom seek to avoid because it’s all about setting limits. Maybe all about figuring out what brains are up to. Good reason for brains to push minds out of the way? Makes sense. 

So we can be friends and soulmates 

Then what is Mind’s agenda? To furnish us with the functions of individual minds that tribal-herd brains deny us. Functions that enable us as individuals to make sense of our situations. To learn and grow to maturity. To gain the competence to distinguish between Truth and appearances, right and wrong. So we can understand meaning and purpose, exercise Free Choice, and move forward. Understand personalities and the psychology of relationships so we can be friends and soulmates, get along better. So we will stop being lured by false ideals and return to where there are real ideals. To Real Worth. To where we belong. 

It may have been the promise of absolute authority and freedom that lured our ancestral Mind into its dream. To a fairyland where there are no Parents or laws to keep it from having and doing whatever it wants. When you and Rose performed the dance of the wild Siberian tiger you might have been re-enacting a historic seduction. Historic? Me? The seduction of our ancestral Mind that produced our universe. Recognition at last! 

Your choice 

We don’t have to be imprisoned like beasts inside a brain. If we are Free Choice we have a choice: Mind and its sixth sense. A hopeful Mind that offers us purpose with a vision. That offers possibility and Creativity -- a way forward. Which will yours be?