(urth) Dionysus

[Gerry Quinn]

It's a few years since I tested myself - I came out INTJ, but my J answers did not exceed the Ps by all *that* great a proportion!

Maybe there is something in David's P vs J characterisation.  But my issue is not with things being left open-ended (in fact I believe nany mysteries in Wolfe's books probably have no humanly accessible solution), nor is it with the exploration of possibilities.

It is not that I want to rush to a decision.  What distresses me are endlessly proliferating trees of association and conjecture that seem to have as many negative correlations as positive with the works they are allegedly based on. I is not because I lack imagination that I find these distressing - it is because I have enough imagination that I recognise that there are infinitely many such trees of association possible, and if no invalidation is deemed permissible, how are we to distinguish useful trees from random ones? 

So I pull hard on the trunk to check it is securely rooted, and shake the branches to make sure they are strong and the leaves do not fall out.  I'm not out to kill the trees; I assume any tree worth considering is strong enough to stand up to this treatment.  

My actions may be distressing to the gardeners.  All I can say is that my ultimate goal is the same as theirs - to produce good wood.

- Gerry Quinn


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: James Wynn 
  To: The Urth Mailing List 
  Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 2:48 AM
  Subject: Re: (urth) Dionysus


  On 12/8/2010 7:37 PM, David Stockhoff wrote: 
    ---Ps tend to seek to increase options and can analyze forever. 

    ---Js tend to seek to decrease options and move on. 

  This is actually pretty perceptive (no pun intended), although it isn't the *quite* the way I learned it. The Myers-Briggs website puts it this way:

  "...when it comes to dealing with the outer world, people who tend to focus on making decisions have a preference for Judging because they tend to like things decided. People who tend to focus on taking in information prefer Perceiving because they stay open to a final decision in order to get more information."
  http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/judging-or-perceiving.asp

  I haven't really noted a war between these personality types. Perceivers want a decider as long  as as much time as possible was made available for investigation. But I can see that Judgers would be distressed by an environment where investigation is inevitably open ended, where all the answers might never be nailed down.
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