Defining Human Personality with Fractals

Most people who attempt to define the structure of human personality make the same classic mistake. They try to know something whose nature is non linear in a linear way. This results in linear expressions which at best reflect only partial truths, and to see this as true, all you need do is to look at how they arrive at these "truths." They arrive at them by eliminating any and all real world aspects present which would make the result non linear.

In effect, they remove the very things which make something natural; its fractility. Moreover, this spurious effort is the very foundation upon which all statistics are built. Statisticians eliminate everything which would prevent a linear answer from appearing. They create a proper "test situation" if you will. Unfortunately, eliminating this non linearity invalidates the answer. At least with regard to defining real world things.

Take for example a fourth grade girl's math skills, or a second grade boy's ability to be quiet in class. Most schools claim to be able to measure such things. In essence, they use statistics to try to describe individual aspects of children, and report cards are where they post their findings. The first thing you learn about statistics though is that in order for the results to be valid, you must use a big enough sample size. Why is this necessary? Because linear trends and typical patterns appear only in large sample sizes. Groups the size of all the math scores of all fourth grade girls in the state of New York, or all the second grade boys in the State of California.

What happens when we then try to apply these results to individual cases? We find that they are no longer valid. The truth we believed we'd find in those numbers quickly dissipates, because nothing in the real world is truly linear. Nothing. The truth about statistics then is that they cannot be used to describe real world patterns, not if you're trying to know the truth about anything in the real world.

Fortunately there is a way to find truth in small numbers. Find the fractal patterns present in the data. Fractals can accurately reflect non linear things at any and all scales, from an individual person to humanity as a whole. Which is why I define fractals as "recognizable patterns which always repeat differently."

Has anyone else noticed this disparity? We all have. We just ignore it. Including Noam Chomsky, said to be one of the smartest men in the world, who misses the very nature of his own famous description for language. He calls language, a "finite infinity." In essence he is saying that language is like all things in the natural world. A group of recognizable patterns of non linearity. A finite infinity. Yet he never notices how aptly his wonderful description applies to the whole of the natural world.

My point is, fractals are the only way we can define things in the real world, because only fractals can accurately describe and define non linearity. This means they are capable of measuring real world things with one hundred percent accuracy. All of the real world cases. Every recognizable pattern from snow flakes to oak leaf, and including human personality.

Unfortunately, understanding how fractals can represent the real world this accurately requires you know how to find these "recognizable patterns which always repeat differently." Beginning with that you realizethat all the non linerar things you could ever wish to measrue are fractal. Even Chomsky, though, said to be one of the smartest men in the world, never mentions this fractal nature. Only that language is a "finite infinity." This said, I still see him as one of the smartest men in the world. His comment about language is only the second true definition for fractility I've found.

My point is, learning how to fractally measure real world things easy. Thus what follows may do more to confuse you about this aspect of human nature than to clarify it. If you allow that all learning includes equal amounts of realizing what you have and have not learned though, it may ease some of this difficulty, in that what I am about to present includes and honors both the possibility you will, and will not, learn equally well.

How can you best cope with this potentially distressing admission? You can voice your doubts about what I present here to yourself on paper. Write them down as questions about what you do not understand, rather than as polemics against what you see as incorrectly voiced hypotheses.

Now consider what I said a moment ago; that all learning includes equal amounts of realizing what you have not learned. How many questions this would require with regard to what you learn? Ideally, it would require an amount of questions equal in number to the amount of statements you make about what you have learned.

The thing to know of course is that we avoid using fractals because we can never know them completely. The recognizable patterns, yes. But the entirety? Never. This means, whenever you study something fractal, you will suffer the true student's curse. Because there will be both a finite infinity of what you can know and a finite infinity of what you cannot know, and because not knowing hurts, you will suffer in direct proportion to your efforts.

I, myself, know this to be the truth. Thus I make no apology for the suffering I may cause. A complex gift given generates complex responses in the receiver. And being as blame is suffering disowned, I will not disown the suffering I am about to cause. We students can take it. We are up to the task.

All this said, now let's explore the basics of the topic at hand; the four levels, or prisms, of Layer 7. Character Types. Social Priorities. Decision Trees. And Gender Identities.

What Is Layer Seven?

Start with that Emergence Personality Theory see personality as a nested set of ten layers. Layer Seven is the fourth from the core. Moreover, the best way to envision Layer Seven is to see it as a set of 4 nested prisms, each of which divides personality into a set of 4 Primary Colors.

Before considering what each prism does, take a moment to imagine these prisms in context; as the four nested glass prisms through which the pre birth light of connection shines and emerges as our basic, core, uninjured personality. Can you imagine this? Four nested bowls of glass, each of which adds its own beautiful colors to the mix.

What do these prisms actually do?

Each of them acts like a lens which divides the light coming into it into varying amounts of four possible colors. And yes, all four sets of four colors emerge within every human being, albeit, in intensities which vary over time based both on how connected we currently are to our pre birth light and on the naturally beautiful distortions present in all personality prisms.

In effect, these four prisms make our personalities resemble psychophysical kaleidoscopes, each of us beautiful in our own infinitely interesting ways. Each of us a finite infinity.

Now let's look at the individual prisms, starting with the first to appear, the Character Type prism.

The Four Character Types

In the real world then, when the light of connection shines through the first of our four lenses, four possible colors emerge. and in the case of the Character Type prism, each of these colors represents one of four possible ways we feel urges to give or get. No coincidence these four colors first appear in personality in an order which parallels the needs of babies; from the totally needy newborn's need to get (Type 1) to the needs of a three plus year old to imitate both her parents by giving then getting (Type 4).

The Four (conscious) Character Types are:

• Character Type 1: I feel the potential need to Get (then Get)
• Character Type 2: I feel the potential need to Give (then Give)
• Character Type 3: I feel the potential need to Get then Give
• Character Type 4: I feel the potential need to Give then Get

An important thing to remember here is, an urge is not a behavior. Thus we can feel urges to give and not do it. Similarly, we can feel urges to receive but not speak them. Babies hide these urges much less than adults. After all, they have less to hide behind. They literally have not developed the inhibitions present in the Middle and Outer Layers, each of which further dims our connection to our pre birth light. In fact, this is why I commonly call the Layer 7 state of consciousness, "baby consciousness." Only babies, and adults in their most spiritual moments, experience it in its full intensity, sans the distortions of the Middle and Outer Layers.

Note that like the tri-part set of pairs of opposites in Carl Jung's original personality typology (before Isabel Meyers and Katheryn Briggs augmented it with "judging" versus "perceiving"), all four possible Character Types have two forms, a conscious form and an unconscious form. This means all four Character Types have a polar opposite, a conscious form which exists in us for the most part every day, and an unconscious form comes into play only during times of great stress.

The Four (unconscious) Character Types are:

• Character Type 1: I feel the imperative need to Get (then Get)
• Character Type 2: I feel the imperative need to Give (then Give)
• Character Type 3: I feel the imperative need to Get then Give
• Character Type 4: I feel the imperative need to Give then Get

Ultimately then, we can say that there are 4 possible fractal patterns here, each of which has a conscious and an unconscious way of manifesting. Four pairs of opposites. Four continuums. Four basic ways to represent our urges to give and receive.

Note that something interesting lies within this numeric progression, something immediately recognizable to anyone who has studied Emergence Personality Theory's master fractal, what we call the "fractal for fractals." What I'm referring to is that all fractals can be represented by two crossed continuums crossing in front of a circular ball, the nature of which is that it contains the realm of all experience.

This first prism then is fractal in nature, and to see this, consider the diagram below. The two crossed continuums crossing in front of the orange ball of experience. Now notice how the four numbers on the crossed continuums accurately represent the Four Character Types. The number one point representing the ideal "all receiving" state of Character Type 1 is the polar opposite to the number two point which represents the ideal "all giving" state of Character Type 2. Likewise, the number three point which represents the ideal "all receiving, then all giving" state of Character Type 3 is the polar opposite to the number four point which represents the ideal "all giving, then all receiving" state of character Type 4.

As for the other ideas you see represented here, please disregard them as studying this fractal is far beyond the point of this article. Suffice it to say that like all four prisms in Layer Seven, this first one; Character Types, is a fractal aspect of human nature.

Of course, we could also describe this fractal as a mathematical progression, as one (a single person) whose light of being gets divided into two raw possibilities (the me state and the you state), which then manifests as four fractal patterns (the four Character Types), each of which has a conscious and an unconscious form (the eight Character Type forms). A One into a Two into a Four into an Eight. A fitting progression for the divine vertical axis, don't you think?

This makes the "physical world's" horizontal axis the two most basic derivations of the two most ideal states in all of human nature; giving and receiving.

The Four Social Priorities

Next we have the second of these four nested prisms, the one which creates our Social Priorities. Know that like all of the four prisms in Layer 7, this one divides the pre birth light of connection into four colors. This time though, because this prism affects light only after in emerges from the Character Type prism, it divides light which has already been divided and is varying in intensity.

The Four Social Priorities are:

• The need to get or give Comfort
• The need to get or give Organization
• The need to get or give Understanding
• The need to get or give Freedom

Know that we each have all four of these "raw" priorities within us. Thus we each have one of 24 possible Social Priority patterns (the permutation of 4 things taken 4 at a time). However because each raw priority varies in intensity between and within each person, what actually emerges from this second of the four Layer 7 prisms is a more complex fractal pattern than that which emerges from the first prism. Thus including both the unconscious and conscious patterns, there are 48 possible patterns which vary within an infinite range of possible intensities.

Interestingly enough, the math minded among you may be wondering why there are not 32 conscious possible Social Priorities and 64 total possibilities. This occurs because we need to subtract the "identity permutations," the patterns which represent the possibility that the eight basic patterns (the 4 raw priority states times the 2 possible states of consciousness) can change to the same starting positions, from the total possibilities. Thus when you subtract the duplicate possibilities from the total possibilities, 32 possibilities becomes 24 and 64 possibilities becomes 48.

Why do the four priorities not emerge in equal intensities? To picture this, consider that like all things in the natural world, the four prisms of Layer 7 are less than perfect. Thus the intensities which emerge from each of these four prisms are never equal, neither between each other nor within each other.

As far as what the Social Priority prism does then, it divides our urges to give or get into a prioritized set of the four primary things we give or get; comfort, organization, understanding, and freedom. Moreover, like the afore mentioned tri-part set of pairs of opposites in Carl Jung's original personality typology, all people's four Social Priorities are divided into a conscious pair and an unconscious pair, the conscious pair being what we normally feel and the unconscious pair coming into play mainly during times of great stress.

For example, say we are talking about my personal pattern of Social Priorities; Understanding, Freedom, Organization, Freedom. Since Understanding is my highest Social Priority (and since I am a Character Type 2), my conscious pattern is to feel the potential need to Give Understanding. Add to this that my second conscious priority is Freedom and you have my basic personality; I feel the potential need to Give Understanding Freely.

My unconscious pattern then is the inversion of this pair of pairs of opposites. Thus during times of stress, I feel the imperative need to Give Comfort Neatly, to force Comfort on someone in a "rigidly organized" way. For instance if I'm having an argument with someone and it reaches extremes, I feel an imperative need to Comfort the other person in a rigidly Organized (perfectly clear and concise) way.

I feel the need to force on someone Perfectly Clear Understanding during an argument. Can you imagine what a burden this is?

Not so good for the person on the other end either.

The Four Decision Trees

Now we arrive at the topic at hand; the Four Decision Trees. Also known as the Four Mind Maps. To understand what emerges from this prism then, know that here again, there are only four Decision Trees possible, these four being:

• The need to make what we give or get Precise
• The need to refine what we give or get though ongoing Corrections
• The need to make what we give or get comprehensive through infinite Digressions
• The need to make an abrupt escape from these infinite digression though Bluntness

Here again, we are looking at the four possible primary colors for every decision we make. The four processes through which the pre birth light of connection must potentially travel whenever we are faced with a decision.

For instance, say you are about to have a baby and are in the process of picking a name. If your Decision Tree begins with Precision, you will need to know the sex of the baby. How could you chose a name without this knowledge?

If, however, your Decision Tree begins with Digression (the need to make sure you have seen every possibility), you will quickly lose you way and want someone else to make this decision. You may even announce this need to your partner rather abruptly, never realizing you have hurt this other person's feelings.

Here too we all have all four colors, only occurring in a different order and in varying intensities. Thus while the conscious order does not normally change, during times of stress, this order inverts, again, as pairs of opposites.

Using me once more as the example then, my Decision Tree is Precision, Correction, Digression, Bluntness. Thus my conscious pattern is to refine (add Corrections to) an already Precise way of Giving Understanding Freely. And my unconscious pattern is to Digress into a Blunt outburst of forcing Understanding on another; usually to understand why we should stop the whole freakin' process.

How Mind Maps work then is they act like four black boxes though which we send every decision we make, from what we want to name our children to what we want to eat for lunch. Of course, included in these decisions is every single question we ever ask ourselves, especially those questions we ask ourselves in order to learn.

Mathematically, the third prism functions a lot like the second; the permutation of four things taken four at a time. Thus there are 24 conscious possibilities and 24 unconscious possibilities, again resulting in 48 total after subtracting the theoretical possibilities that we change to the same state.

The Four Gender Identities

Finally we have the fourth prism of personality, the Gender Identity prism. In this prism, everything we need to do gets a final spin put on it before it emerges out into the world at large. The four Gender Identity possibilities are:

• The need to Physically make what we give or get Precise, Correct, Digressed, or Blunt.
• The need to Psychologically make what we give or get Precise, Correct, Digressed, or Blunt.
• The need to Socially make what we give or get Precise, Correct, Digressed, or Blunt.
• The need to Sexually make what we give or get Precise, Correct, Digressed, or Blunt.

Here again, we see four possible colors. But because this is the last prism before our personality emerges in the world of others, each possibility has two faces. The original face as in being connected to our mothers; the way we live out our intimate two-that-are-one relationship, and the secondary face as in being connected to all others; the way we live out our casual two-that-are-one relationships.

Examples would be, if your Gender Identity starts with being Physically Assertive (physically yang), you will take up a lot of physical space wherever you go. Thus you will make a good policeman, fireman, solder, and construction worker. And if your Gender Identity begins with being Psychologically Receptive (psychologically yin), your conscious pattern will be to receive and even seek the ideas of others, making you a good ear for friends or for your partner.

Know that like the four Social Priorities, there are 24 possible Gender Identity fractal patterns, each varying in intensity in an ongoing way. Unlike the Four Social Priorities though, because this prism is the gateway which connects us to the world of others, each possible Gender Identity has two possible states, the assertive (yang) state and the receptive state (yin), as well as two possible stages, Internal, as in who you are in family type relationships, and External, as in who you are in friend type relationships.

Here the word "family" refers to the relationship you had to the parent whose Character Type begins in the opposite place to yours (our Internal private relationships), and the word "friend" refers to the relationship you had to the parent whose Character Type begins in the same place as yours (our External public relationships).

Mathematically? We have four raw possibilities, each taken four at a time. But we also have the two stages on which these Identities occur, the family and friend states, as well as the conscious and unconscious possibilities. Thus we have the permutation of 8 things taken 8 at a time, times 2. This means there are 40,320 possible fractal Gender Identity patterns each of which has two stages for a total of 80,640 possibilities.

Now if you multiply this total by the preceding 3 prism's possibilities, you'll end up with a heck of a lot of fractal patterns with which to precisely represent human nature. Something like 1,486,356,480 basic fractal possibilities. Not bad for a simple pattern of four nested groups each of which has four patterns.

Are you beginning to see how amazing fractal patterns really are? More so when we nest then one inside the other. This then is how Layer 7 can contain our entire core personality, our basic self before it gets dimmed and inhibited by the middle and outer layers.

This is also why consciously experiencing Layer 7 gives us the best possible chance to learn from our suffering. But only if we can be unashamed of those times wherein we feel like babies.

Quite a gift to give ourselves and others, don't you think?

Have any questions now? Me thinks you had better :-) .

As always, I'm here for you if you need assistance.

Warmly,

Steven