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Enneagram Main Board Archive Re: A Plausible HypothesisPosted by walter on August 25, 1998 at 21:50:04: In Reply to: Re: A Plausible Hypothesis posted by Kronus on August 25, 1998 at 11:05:13:
********************************************* Kronos, So far your basic hypothesis are holding up nicely. The breadth and depth of the "sensation" perception function (S primary with N secondary) at Point Seven and the "iNtuition" perception function (N primary with S secondary)at Point Four are shown as we give more examples and counterexamples. I will add my comments in the body of your message, and try to add to the distinctions between sensation and intuition at Points Seven and Four. I will explore the significance of "time" at Seven and Four for awhile - then I will comment on your new message. ****** Chronological means arranged with earlier things or events preceding later ones. Chronology is called the science of arranging time in periods and ascertaining the dates and historical order of past events. There is a clockwork-like pattern to Cronos, and chronology. The Law of Seven 7-1- 4-2-8-5-7 is also a chronology or a mechanical sequence of functional sub-events that form one overall whole event cycle. Cronos and the enneagram Law of Seven go hand in hand. John Bennett, who carried on Gurdjieff's work, was forever puzzled that Gurdjieff never talked about "grace" that is so important in the World religions. Being open to grace requires freedom from habit and Cronos - because if something "special" does happen - you have to be awake to see and be present with it. Enneagram Point Four has this gift of perceiving the special meaningfulness of an event as it unfolds "now" in the real world, or "may" unfold in the future. Bennett talked about this issue in terms of what he called the Law of Hazard. ********************************************* : Walter: : 1. I do find Keirsey's thumbnails to be helpful. I would extrapolate the information to how adults view movies. As a SEVEN, I find that both elements of symbolism (metaphor) and description (continuity of story line) are important elements to the successful cinematic creation. My FOUR spouse and I often disagree about the content and value of a movie based on her wish for the film-maker to delve into more "relationship" story lines and my desire to see "shotgun fights." I must admit that I do have a bias for action, however, if the relationship line is important and contributes to the story line "shot gun fighting" becomes secondary. ************ What you describe here is consistent with how I understand the Law of Seven working as a Process. I assume that information is received from external objects at Point Three. I like to start the sequence at Point Seven, however, instead of Point Four. 7-1-4-2 is the pattern ES-ET-EN- EF. You are on the front end of this extraverted set of necessary information with 7-1 arrow or EST, and push on to build more objective meaning with EN. It sound like your wife prefers the 4- 2 arrow or EN-EF. The 7-1 arrow is the line that forms extraverted empirical realism (ST) and pragmatism. The 4-2 arrow is the line that forms extraverted meaningful values (NF) in relationships. Two notable films: Uley's Gold and Private Ryan. Both had action but the real dynamic was in the relationships of the characters... another notable feature was Mel Gibson's, Braveheart. In Braveheart not all of the war scenes were depicted, this made for a better movie in my opinion. ************** I saw Private Ryan and Braveheart. Both very powerful movies to the gut, heart, and head. My neighbor landed on Omaha beach, and saw the movie Private Ryan. I asked him if the movie was like "it was". He came in on the second wave, and missed being part of the carnage. He said it was very realistic. Miles up the beach the allies walked ashore without incident, but Omaha was well guarded. The question becomes: is this a result of equanimity between Sensing and iNtuiting function or is there another dynamic at work here? I play the game of tri-level logic used by Lofti Zadeh in Fuzzy Logic in recent years, and used by the Buddha 2500 years ago. It's a reasonable way - or middle path - down the road of reason and reality.
Yes, there is another second dynamic here too. The Thinking and Feeling functions are also present for judging the objects of perception. And yes, there is a third dynamic. There is a movement in human consciousness to be aware of the whole gestalt presented by S-N-T-F in conjunction with living and moving (M - the 5th function) around. I'll stop at three factors. Jung visualized human consciousness in terms of a circle with four compass points (the four functions). There is movement in Jung's circle pattern of personality, just as there is movement in the enneagram circle pattern. ***************** There are so many good definitions of the four Jungian functions. I like these words from John Beebe's book "Integrity in Depth", Fromm Books, 1992, pages 24-25. I usually reference Daryl Sharp and Marie Louise Von Franz, but Beebe is especially good for this point in our dialog. Bebbe is a Jungian analyst and expert in MBTI theory and its connection to Jungian functions - especially in forming holistic patterns during the Individuation process of differentiating fully the four functions from each other. John Bebbe captures the developmental nature, or cronos. He says -- "In terms of Jungian psychology, there are two functions of perception, intuition and sensation. If these are outwardly directed. i.e. extraverted, they are functions for perceiving the outer world of things and people. Intuition perceives the variety and possibilities for developing and exploiting these things, whereas sensation perceives the specific identity of each person or thing in relation to each other person or thing in present time." [my note: experiencing sensations in present time just now is Seven's gift of extraverted sensation. Eight's gift is introverted sensation "now." The moving functions "now" work with sensation functions "now" to be in the moment fully in a "common sense" way. Beebe goes on with..] "If these functions are directed inwardly, i.e. introverted, they perceive the activity of the psyche in much the same way. Introverted intuition perceives the variety and the possibility for development of the inner images, whereas introverted sensation perceives the specific image which defines the psychic activity that needs immediate attention." If we need Jungian definitions for thinking and feeling - I will use Bebbe again! Kronos Comment: As to the identification of iNtuitors v. Sensors in early childhood: for a teacher the question is usually more of, does the child "get it" or are they interested? I suspect that most teachers assume the child is a "fence post" when in reality they are internalizing data or involved in iNtuitive response rather than kinesthetically moving about or demonstrating "correct behaviors". I believe we need to spend more time exploring this avenue to fully explain why children "shut-down" or at minimum appear to shut down. That subject is a special passion of David Keirsey. He is very much on the side of the child, and he has great inside into the SP child in the classroom. I have spent quite a bit of time learning about the process of reading and language development, and in the process attempting to reconcile kinesthetic, visual and audio learning styles. As an audio-cognitive process (speaking) the function of language acquisition appears fairly straight-forward; when we add in the visual-abstractive process of assigning symbols to audio stored units the process becomes more difficult, especially when we consider that the English language contains several meanings for the same audio cue, and perhaps as many for the written symbols. Now this opens up a new topic area of great importance. Learning a language involves S-N and T-F plus M functions. The meaning of language or music is a gift of Point Four (N-S perception function order). The law of seven works for language. For example, if I go to India, then I will see signs in Hindi with my sensation function at Point Seven. I can even write them down. But they will be meaningless to me. I will need an interpreter or need to use simple sign language to compensate for a deficit in extraverted intuition for that field of information. My Point Four is disconnected from Point One and Two because of this language gap - the special language filter for conversations is missing. The 7-1 arrow for language/sign "spoken-written" agreements is missing. There is also the matter of brain function and interconnectivity which occurs as a result of shifting from speech to written symbolism. Is the shift from purely audio-cognitive function to audio-visual-kinesthetic (kinesthetic here referring to motor function of the eye movement to view each symbol on the page) accounted for by Jung or Gurdjieff models? Or are they merely explanations for "defense mechanisms"? No Jung does not account for moving functions. His model of psychological type is entirely psychological. The Jungian Persona is the psychological image function of extraverted social relations or expected roles. It is the psychological function at Enneagram Point. Yes, Gurdjieff broadly accounts for them. They all are NOT defense mechanisms. Some instinctive moving functions do defend against harm. There are two classes - instinctive and learned moving functions. The instinctive reflex to blink an eye to protect it from danger is automatic. It is an instinctive moving function. If you accidentally place your hand on a hot stove, there is an automatic reflex -to avoid more pain and harm. If it is quite hot you may also make sounds of pain. These are the instinctive moving function at work. Learning to read is a learned moving function, as is playing the violin, piano, baseball or basketball. These are playing mechanisms. Or backing up a tractor trailer. ***** Here is an entertaining item on the learned moving function by Bart Kosko in "Fuzzy Thinking - The New Science of Fuzzy Logic" in Hyperion, 1993, page 203. Fuzzy logic, trivalent logic and the enneagram are related concepts. Kosko has worked with Zadeh. I wrote an article on fuzzy logic and the enneagram, and met Zadeh briefly at a conference last year. Here is Kosko's moving function story.... "Consider backing up truck and trailer to a loading dock in a parking lot. Truckers do this everyday. But no one has yet worked out the math. It's too hard, too messy, too non-linear. Truckers learn to back up their rigs by trial and error and by feel. First, they learn how to back up a car. That skill lets them back up a truck cab. But put a trailer on the cab and you have to practice. You put it in reverse and look behind you and pump the gas and the trailer goes the wrong way. So you turn the steering wheel the other way and the trailer backs up the right way. You do this until you do it right without thinking about it - until it "feels right". Practice makes perfect by making a habit and refining the habit. Your backing skill improves a lot at first and then improves slowly and then does not improve at all. You grow and then "max" out. First you run up the "learning curve" and then you only crawl up it. You need no verbal skill to learn to back up a truck and trailer. You do not have to talk your way through it. You just have to practice it. I have found that most truckers cannot explain how they back up though they are glad to show you how. And I have asked a lot of them." I associate the learned moving function with Enneagram Point Three in the Heart Triad. Kinesthetic memory in the limbic system (heart triad) accounts for the memory to repeat learned moving function patterns - rather automatically. This memory is different from the grey matter memory in the cerebral cortex for the Head or intellectual Triad. Kronos, have you seen Issue 1 of the "Enneagram and the MBTI" released this month at The editor, John Fudjack, has a nice article on the Fifth Function that I proposed to integrate Jungian Psychology and Enneagram psychology. I also wrote an article on "Why the Enneagram of Consciousness?" *************************************************************** Kronos Comment: - : ACTION: ability to make determinate decisions and to follow a course of action (syn: movement) Those are good enough definitions to start with - short and on target with lots of meaning just below the "water line" of those ships of language. Implicit in your definition is free will for human beings. And sufficient learning, education and experience - so that free-will can be well used to be as fully human as possible. That's a book in itself, especially when there are debates as to whether free will exists or not. It is fair to say that without free will, habit takes over, and enneagram personality types get formed and set in place. Enneagram theory is very powerful because it can speak about this paradox of strong almost irresistible habit - and the path to move from habit towards freedom and being more awake and more conscious. The Triad of information with the Law of Three makes it possible to escape rhetorical dualistic dead-ends (that have no feedback or third principle built in to resolve the difference between opposites). ****************************************************************************** : 4. Let's return to the Anecdotal Observation in our next missive. ****************************************************************** : Case Study: Joe is a person who acts. When faced with a decision he quickly analyzes the available information and moves toward some activity which will resolve the remaining unanswered questions, but allow for modification of that decision if his intuitive assumptions were initially incorrect. Joe has a bias for action and results. He regularly describes himself as "the reasonable man" and attempts to frame everything in terms of cause and effect. On the surface Joe is trusting of people's motivations but underneath it all he does not believe that people will act anyway but in their own special interest. Joe sounds like an ST information pattern. That is 4 of the 6 functions in the Law of Seven [ 7-1- 4-2-8-5]. First is ES-ET with E (ST) then comes EN-EF with E (NF) and then comes the I(ST) track on the tail end with IS-IT. One complete learning cycle for one event has 360 degrees of a circle - in my concept of the enneagram of consciousness. Type is like roughly like putting all your attention on one point of the information process. Things pile up there, and its like trying to look at 9 aspects of an elephant by standing at just one point - so that there are 8 blind-spots. : Sally, tends to require facts, figures, and view all potential outcomes with skepticism and caution. She always has an unanswered question about situations confronting her in her life. She tends to be able to look at a situation and ask deep meaningful questions and extrapolate, almost mystically, scenarios which no one, heretofore, had thought of. She is cynical of people's motivations always looking for the hidden agenda. Privately she will express this, but remains mute on the subject to the public. Sally tends to sound both Sixish and Fourish here. You have added the Jungian valuing function here or feeling function (NOT feelings or emotion.). You describe her with more Six traits. We agree that Four has N-s and Seven has S-n. I find that Four has N-f-t-s and that Six has F-n-s-t. The Six has potentially the most well founded doubts. They have superior private feeling, or a gift for introverted (introspective) feeling directed towards subjective internal objects of private attention. But their intuition (EN) of the external real world is not as good as a Healthy Four because Four's gift is EN. Four's introverted sensations (IS) picks up somatic energy in the Heart Triad. But Six's introverted sensation (IS) picks up somatic energy in the Head Triad. It is in 3rd place, instead of 4th place for Four. Six's IS picks up unexpected sounds (for example) and they may be anxious if they can't see where the sound is or what it means. Then their imagination can work that unknown sound into fearful possibilities (EN) with their second function. Six's superior IF can make things better on a "good hair day" - or add fuel to the fire to imagine even worse possibilities. There is much relief when a kitty cat is found to be the cause of a broken glass on the kitchen floor, and not the Boston strangler coming though the window after you for sure. Six needs to move to their Seven wing to discover the real facts with Seven's superior ES, and rule-out fantasy possibilities. : When buying a new car Joe quietly goes about researching price, reliability, and relative value of one model over another; Sally accepts Joe's input but relies more heavily on past experiences with similar vehicles. Joe establishes a grid of relative values and selects the one vehicle with the best performance rating within his price range; Sally tends to look more at the absolutes and prefers to find ways of affording the best/highest value irrespective of price. When Joe has decided to BUY he moves toward that end; Sally never appears to make a decision and questions occur to her, which she asks, even while signing the loan papers. Many of Sally's questions are either considered irrelevant, overly detailed, or of negligible concern to Joe, who demonstrates annoyance with their being asked AFTER his decision has been made. : When the car needs routine servicing Sally asks: could this have been avoided; whereas, Joe views it as a normal event to be encountered. Sally loves the way the car looks; Joe is more in tune with how the car performs. Sally thinks the car is jinxed because she has been sideswiped twice. Joe wants to pay it off and get another car because of all the body work and potential for internal damage that can't be detected. ******************** ****************************** : Kronus Kronos, this is turning into an interesting dialog. Maybe the most important thing is that we are actually in dialog in a healthy respectful way. Secondarily, we both are trying to be informative on a subject that is important to both of us. I'm personally enjoying this, and benefiting from your insights. The Truth of Being, and Truth of knowing tend to come out in the process itself. This is longer than I expected, but I started off-line at my leisure. Then I posted the message to the becca message board. Best wishes, Walter
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