The DISC Theory

November 21, 2014 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

William Moulton Marston, the creator of the DISC personality theory, has been in the media lately. The book “The Secret History of Wonder Woman” by Jill Lepore was released recently, and interestly enough, Marston created this super-hero as well as the psychological theory from which the DISC assessment was based. His life was indeed quite fascinating.

The basic four-fold of the DISC theory deals with an agent’s perception of her ability to act in relation to her enviroment. For the agent, she sees herself either more powerful or less powerful than the environment. For the environment, it is seen to be either favorable for her actions or unfavorable. Thus there are four combinations.

Inducement: More powerful than a favorable environment.
Dominance: More powerful than an unfavorable environment.
Submission: Less powerful than a favorable environment.
Compliance: Less powerful than an unfavorable environment.

It is fascinating that many brain function, behavioral, personality, and psychological schemas are based on a four-fold distinction. I have already briefly mentioned the Four Temperaments, but I hope to look at several more in the near future.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston

Images of DISC theory.

[*8.90]

epistemology, fourfolds, Space and Time

Relative Time

November 14, 2014 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side and the future on another.

— From Orlando, by Virgina Woolf

As we can see on the previous four-folds of space and time, all have a degree of conditioning to the location and orientation of an observer. In other words, there are no absolute frameworks of space or time. That does not mean that they are not useful conventional and conceptual tools.

What would a four-fold of Relative Time be like? Because time seems to be linear instead of two dimensional, relative time would be very different than relative directions. What if we contrast our understanding of what happened in time with what actually occurred? What if we compare our thoughts of an imagined future with what becomes realized?

One could contrast an individual’s notions of past and future with a group or society’s notions of past and future. Or one could contrast an individual’s or society’s recalled past and imagined future with the actual past and the realized future. Some might argue that there is no actual past, but only the past we think or recall that it is. Similarly, those or others might argue that there is no realized future, because once the future becomes the present it has already slipped into the past that we can now only recall.

As the future becomes realized, the imagined future is discarded or blended into it to become our recalled past. As we understand more about the real past, our recalled past may be discarded or blended into it to become our new recalled past. Or one can refuse that knowledge and believe whatever suits them.

[*8.99, *9.60]

fourfolds

The Diurnal Cycle

November 10, 2014 Martin K. Jones 2 Comments

A four-fold of Time.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diurnal_cycle

[*8.98]

fourfolds

Relative Directions

November 6, 2014 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

Here are four relative directions: Left, Front, Right, and Back. Perhaps I should have said “forward” and “backward” instead of “front” and “back”, but the words would have been substantially longer. So maybe I should have called this “relative sides”, but I like “relative directions” better. And perhaps I should have added “up” and “down”, but then it wouldn’t have been a four-fold! At any rate, for entities or observers bound by common gravity, up and down are fairly consistent. For all such beings, all down directions should converge to some idealized point in the center of the earth but all up directions should diverge in all directions like the light rays from the sun.

If you compare this four-fold to that of the Cardinal Directions, you can see that these directions are indeed relative to an observer, and depend on how the observer is turned. So they are fixed to the frame of reference of the observer. In comparison, the Cardinal Directions are fixed with respect to a location on the earth, but they vary from location to location, and so are relative to location and fixed for an observer at that location. For example the direction of North at New York City is different from North in Los Angeles, even though they converge at the same point on the earth, the North Pole.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_direction

[*8.74, *8.98]

fourfolds

The Four Seasons

October 31, 2014 Martin K. Jones 4 Comments

A four-fold of Time.

My diagram is so dull compared to others.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season

Images of the Four Seasons.

[*7.194, *8.99]

fourfolds

The Four Cardinal Directions

October 30, 2014 Martin K. Jones 4 Comments

Four-fold of Space.

There are so many images, why not add another?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction

Other images of Cardinal directions.

Notes:

Also, the four corners of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_corners_of_the_world

Also, a recent good book about the subject:

Jerry Brotton / Four Points of the Compass: the unexpected history of direction (2024)

[*7.122]

fourfolds

A Game of Four-folds, Part 3

October 21, 2014 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

Here’s another idea for the Game of Fourfolds, instead of using hexaflexagons. Since each fourfold can be permuted six ways, how about arranging those in six squares on the faces of a cube?

Here are the permutations of Heidegger’s “das Geviert” arranged on the faces of a cube, if one cuts it out and folds it up properly. Not only is the square the regular polygon of materiality, the cube is the regular polyhedron of Earth, the most material of the ancient four elements.

It might be awesome to have a cube of every fourfold I’ve talked about (at least the good ones), to combine and compare them. Even more awesome are the cubes for the REAL elements I’ve seen when I’ve searched images for “element cube”.

What I want to know is whether the six permutations can be arranged in a symmetric way on a cube?

[*8.81]

fourfolds, Mathematics

The Collatz Conjecture

October 17, 2014 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

I thought I might be continuing my apparent effort to convert all triads into fourfolds, but I’ll take a little break to bring you this mathematical fourfold for the Collatz Conjecture. The Collatz algorithm starts with any specific nonzero integer, then iterates in the following way to turn the number into the next number to operate on, and so on. If X is even, then replace X with X/2. If X is odd, then replace X with 3*X + 1. If you get to 4, then you get 2, then 1, but you next go back to 4. In fact, if you have any power of 2, you quickly drop to 4 and so cycle. The Collatz Conjecture is that if you start with any number, then you will eventually reach 4. (Actually the conjecture is that you will reach 1, but since I’m partial to 4, I’ll state it in this way since it’s pretty much the same thing.)

The conjecture is not proven, but has been shown to be true for every number up to some very large numbers. Some numbers can jump around from larger to smaller to larger again, or up and down and back up, for quite a few steps before being reduced to the 4-2-1-4 sequence. That’s why these sequences are also called hailstone numbers.

One might think of the Collatz algorithm as a model of a toy universe in the following way. The procedure starts with a given number, which for the toy universe would be its initial state. As time moves from instant to instant, the procedure operates to halve the number, or multiply by three and add one. So instant after instant the procedure operates, making the number smaller, or larger as required. The conjecture, if true, would mean that no matter how it starts, our toy universe would always wind down and cycle endlessly through the sequence of 4-2-1-4-2-1-4-2-1-4…

Plato’s Chariot

October 13, 2014 Martin K. Jones 2 Comments

At the risk of being labeled a neo-platonist, another triad of Plato’s that is often discussed is that of the Allegory of the Chariot. This analogy is supposed to bring insight into the workings of the human soul and consists of two horses, one good and one bad, and the charioteer whose duty is to control them.

You never hear about the chariot itself (but it is always pictured), but it is required to have a chariot, after all. The charioteer isn’t just standing on the backs of the horses, like Jean-Claude Van Damme doing his epic split, although that would be cool. (They do this at the circus, and I know I’ve seen it in old gladiator movies when the chariot loses a wheel and the charioteer has to cut away the chariot.)

Thus, unless you want to change the nature of the analogy, the chariot is required for everything to be connected together. This fourth material component completes the triad into a fourfold, and I place it at the lowest, fundamental position where I added The Real to The Beautiful, The True and The Good.

And of course everyone knows that Bad Horse is the Thoroughbred of Sin!

Plato Redux

October 9, 2014 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

What is, is The True
What is, is The Good
What is, is The Beautiful
What is, is The Real

— Anonymous

I recently finished reading Rebecca Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. In it there was much talk of The Beautiful, The True and The Good.

Besides Plato’s Divided Line, which was mentioned in The Republic and consists of four parts, the threesome of The Beautiful, The True and The Good is mentioned in various dialogues.

Being the quadraphile I am, I thought adding The Real to the threesome makes the now foursome nicely balanced. Usually one hears of just the three, without the fourth, but why is that?

Some argue loud and long that The Real has no part in this threesome of Universals, that the three are sufficient among themselves. Others disagree. Which side would you say I’d be on?