Article: The Necessity for Reorganizing Information

It is my aim, and the aim of those I work with, to bring Jung’s typology out of the shadows and into a realm of legitimate, scientific study. Our aspiration is to devise novel ways to test for this phenomenon’s existence and to see what reality tells us about the nuances of its contours. As we have already begun to do this, we have discovered some nuances that shed light on Jung’s typology and correct some key areas of ambiguity. This article is about the implications of change and what to do about previous misconceptions.

An Attachment to the Past

We must begin by realizing that even in the best case scenario, if psychological type is to ever attain an empirical validation, such a discovery would necessarily modify some of the base assumptions and impressions that currently exist about the phenomenon. We find this happens in every realm of study where a new instrument or methodology is developed to analyze a phenomenon to greater levels of magnification – phenomenon which were previously only known or seen through distorted lenses. We know now that the “planet with ears” possesses a ring surrounding its equator, while never directly touching it. The dwarf planet Pluto was imagined as a static, icy world, but discovered to be a highly geologically active planet.

It would be no surprise if what we found, when type is quantified fully, differs from what our analysis originally was when we necessarily focused far more on the behavioral indicators given to us, to determine type. When all we held to grasp the phenomenon were effects, then we typed people according to those effects for lack of a better way to understand their actual nature. For example, in the past we have typed celebrities or philosophers based on their most prominent philosophical works and what those works suggest about their psychology. But we fail to understand that, in an realistic sense, those philosophies — although certainly indicative more of some types than others when analyzed in a sterile, contextually free, fashion — could belong to a multitude of different types. Lacking a better instrument of measure, these philosophies became the cornerstone of our deductions and classifications of people’s types.

Albert Einstein was first imagined as a TiNe from his contributions to physics and his socially inept personality, although closer analysis now reveals he was not a TiNe type. If we remove from sight his famous contributions to science and his status as a genius, imagining for a moment that fame never entered his life, then we see a psychology that is highly scattered, lead by abstraction (not the rigid process of judgment), dreamy, ethically-minded, visceral in his flow of life and altogether matching the description of a high- Ne type with Fi. We find this confirmed when we compare his psychology to the visual signals elicited from his few surviving video samples. In like manner, we must now move away from typing by accomplishments, iconic quotes or philosophies and move to typing by a direct analysis of the person themselves through physiological and quantitative means.