Peterkin

That's a very interesting question. Zapatos remarked early on: Do we all tend to assume that?

I hope it's not because I suggested that you know more about yourself than the Briggs people do! Initially, my question was simple aimed at whether the test revealed anything about you that was surprising. It was curiosity, not ridicule. I only asked because my general impression is that people can tell you about themselves without long questionnaires. But, when they have nothing to lose by it, people also like doing quizzes, enjoy having some aspect of their character reflected back. I'm not sure why that is - maybe it's like talking to the mirror on the wall. In that sense, it can also benefit the test-taker by reminding him of behaviours that could be modified. I've never believed that these personality tests administered to prospective employees are particularly useful; I think they are an invasion of privacy, and I'm very much against them as a condition of being considered for a job. The applicant is qualified or not; their inner self, or self-image is no employer's business. But I can see that such tests - in fact, now that I think of it, any of those quizzes they used to have in magazines - may be helpful in starting a discussion among peers, colleagues, teammates, even families, to promote better understanding. I can't speak for anyone else, but I gained some insight from this discussion.

No surprise there! If you already knew what type you are, the interviewer could just have asked you to tick off characteristics from a list. All the test does is go the long way around. The questions are transparent, but also blurry: the real answer is neither Yes or No, but Sometimes, or Depends how much they annoyed me the day before, or Only when my feet are cold. And because the answers can only be approximate, so is the result - the way S M L XL clothing fits. That's true. It's impersonal and - as far as you're concerned - objective, so you don't take offense, don't go defensive, as you might if a life partner, sibling or teammate made the same observation. This is an aspect of personality tests I had not previously taken into account. In this kind of assessment, the outcome is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It's just sorting, like blood-types: there are no good and bad ones, just categories of equal value. The idea is to see what environment you're best suited to and not hire you if you're the wrong type for their environment, because the employer won't adjust anything to you. In the old days, you were simply expected to adapt. Now, they want to save themselves any possible unpleasantness by saying right off: "It doesn't look like a good fit." So applicants who know what the employer wants lie on the test. We're only honest on these things when we have no vested interest in the result.

Distilling is a different proposition from just fermenting alcoholic beverages. Stills, especially home-made ones, can be unsafe. https://diydistilling.com/is-distilling-alcohol-at-home-dangerous/ I think the law attempts to address two potential hazards: to the moonshiner and possible his guests, and to the economy. If the distillery is poorly made or maintained, there is significant danger of burns, poisoning, injury from flying debris, etc. If it is successful, and unlicensed, the distiller may attempt to sell his product and evade the tax - which, former presidents notwithstanding - was already illegal. In Canada, you can apply for a license, and there are some small distilleries. https://learntomoonshine.com/is-it-illegal-to-make-moonshine-in-canada/ Looks like in the States, too. https://www.southernliving.com/travel/boutique-southern-distilleries

It's not dementia. It's a loosening of inhibition due to several factors: You've come to realize that you know more than a lot of the younger people around you; you've had time to test your abilities and judgment, and so you have more confidence in your own ideas and convictions; you don't second-guess yourself as much. Also, what others think of you matters less than how you see yourself. And every dishonesty or copout diminishes you in your own estimation. Yes, I do think it's a natural process of maturation. But there is another factor in our current, very noisy environment: we see how outspoken, decisive people in power are screwing up with impunity and seem completely unabashed by this. And there is a what-the-hell attitude in media, unedited language on social platforms: it seems that one cannot be heard in what we were taught is a normal, polite tone of voice. Apropos of which, it would be interesting to see, not only pre- and post- lockdown results of the same test, but results of the same test at 20 year intervals. And I also agree that any exercise that generates honest communication in a group is worth trying. I wonder whether a poorly-performing football team would benefit from taking one of these tests and discussing the results.

My father built a little still in our kitchen one time. He made wine in the hall closet, and it wasn't very good, so he tried making brandy out of it. Very little distillate off the lid, most of it went back in the wine, which got stronger, not better. So he constructed a still with copper coil inside a container of cold water (can't recall what it was made of) and got a steady drip. Lots of work, lots of mess, lots of time, and I have no idea how it tasted. Eventually he gave it up and went to the LCBO for his daily medication.

You know the old adage that begins, "In this world, there are two kinds so people..."? Four kinds of people, whatever. It's tempting to categorize everything according to a system. And it's not that difficult: once you compress all the possible reasons for an observable behaviour (picks fights or avoids confrontation) into a 'character trait' (aggressive; passive) and if their behaviour doesn't fit neatly enough, you can invent expressions like 'passive-aggressive' (how do they argue with that?) Then you can group related traits (as expressed in simple answers to simple questions) and call each grouping a 'type'. Then you can aim the questions on a test to those types, rather than let the subject answer in their own words. That's my guess. Now, I'll go read the article. Interesting. I've read something similar for an earlier discussion of the same subject. But it gave me this If you were asked just this question: Under which heading do you see yourself? How many could not answer it without the multiple choice? How old are you? I have noticed that, as people approach the point of 'nothing left to gain' (and thus, less and less to lose), they tend to be more ready to throw off the constraints of social convention, caution, deference. It's possible that the generation in which I particularly noticed this was my parents', and they certainly had a lot more limits imposed on them than my generation did, but I'm now finding the same tendency in myself. At least, my language has definitely coarsened. (But maybe that's just the influence of forums...)

Not as much

Were the results of the tests a surprise to you? Did they reveal anything you had not known about yourself and could not have articulated, if someone asked: "What kind of person are you?" Or even if they just named the categories and asked you to pick one?

Or, I could just drive into a bridge abutment and wait for Him. They were serving buffalo burgers. Very nice with sumac chutney.

So am I. It's nobody's fault I lack the specialized vocabulary.

Sometimes.

What we have here - with respect - is a failure to communicate.

I think that misses a step. The brain doesn't produce automatic output in the form of behavior. To a given stimulus, it responds by informing itself (the network of relevant functions) what part of the body is being affected, whether it's being damaged, whether action is required. It doesn't turn into behaviour of the entire organism until all that has been processed and interpreted. The interpreting is what requires memory and pattern-formation. Awake, the interpreting process is experienced by the entity as thinking, followed by deliberate, observable action. Asleep, it is witnessed by the unconscious as dreams; if there is observable activity, it's limited to eye movement and limb twitching. (I know when a dog dreams of chasing prey, e.g.) By aggression here, do you mean a violent physical attack? That's a whole series of separate stimuli, each of which has to be reported to to brain by sensory equipment throughout the body, processed by the brain and posed as a problem: What to do? This is what I'm not at all convinced of. Human bodies and sensory functions may be similar, but they are not all the same. A big muscular man kicked in the chest may suffer a broken rib or two, but a four-year-old will probably die. Human brains may not all be the same, either; not equally adept at distinguishing sounds, for example, or discerning colours. If the aggression is merely a threat, both stimuli and response become even more variable, according to the subject's previous experience. I don't see that, either. Quantifying, I mean. What's being measured, on what scale? And how does that translate to movies? I'm beginning to suspect that we don't disagree on anything but the use of some particular words.

Sometimes.

Sorry, that's not making any sense to me. Or I'm not making any sense of it. Or my brain is not processing it...

The run of a room under supervision, and one kid on sweep-up duty at all times. They actually learned to behave quite well, except for the inability to control the droppings. They got along wonderfully with the cats and trained one puppy to be so tolerant that she later fostered a guinea pig. The breeding and selling idea was stillborn anyway; just not in our nature.

So, you started with dog crates and customized them for rabbits? Interesting approach. We - by which I mean, brother and I assisting father - built from scratch, by trial and error (back in the iron age). First, a tall fenced enclosure. Of course, some predator climbed over the fence. Then a large-mesh wire hutch. A rat or weasel reached through and mauled two of the kittens that later died and killed one outright. Then came the small-mesh wire. That worked. What worked even better was bringing the remaining two rabbits into the house as pets, with sleeping quarters in the storage room.

That would make "we" a separate entity from "our brain" with different processing of data being done by each. I can't quite follow that reasoning: I have learned to believe that personality [identity - the I] is a product of neural activity in the brain. How 'we' respond to input depends entirely on how 'we' interpret it. An example of stimulus: heat. When I'm too hot at night, I tend to dream of violence. The stimulus of feeling an uncomfortably high temperature generates images of hectic activity, weapons, menaces, danger - but not always the same film-sequence. Actually, the choice of cinematic imagery is heavily influenced by the videos I've been watching. If my feet are uncovered, I tend to dream of water: wading waist-deep in a swamp, or crossing a river. Noises stimulate various images of things make a similar sound: train whistle for a kettle downstairs; church bells for a telephone; dog or wolf howling for a siren. I have some idea where these associations of image to sound come from. (I just this minute realized that my mind transfers quite a few modern sensations and sounds into primitive contexts... Hm... racial memory?) How do you know? I think that's the wrong way around: the brain responds the same way, but the individual mind interprets differently. Without the subject reporting - according to their own conscious impression and memory of a dream - how do you compare dream content? You can compare red and yellow patches on a scan, and measure brain-waves, but that only tells you what bits are active, not how they're interpreting stimuli into visual, auditory, sensory and sometimes even olfactory images. That sounds more like 'facile' than 'easy'. That, in itself, makes the interpretation not universal. We speak different languages, for one thing, so the puns and homonyms can't work the same way for German and Korean subjects. Our arenas of experiences, from which the memories - image libraries - are drawn are vastly different. All the brain can do is fire off neurons - it doesn't understand the 'wicked stepmother' trope, or the sexual significance of a snake.

Well, the first one would be horrible to live in and, being on wheels, the coyote will knock it over the better to search for its vulnerable points, and your rabbits will die of fright. There is not very much room in there; you'd have to invest an awful lot of money to breed in any meaningful way. I don't know what kind of snakes are native to that region; some could get in all right. The second is a bit less pricey, more pleasant-looking, convenient and covered in what looks like half-inch wire mesh. I don't see a stoat chewing through that. It's way heavier gauge than a door screen. You could do as well or better, much more cheaply. https://aivituvin.com/products/aivituvin-large-indoor-rabbit-house-with-pull-out-tray-waterproof-roof-outdoor-rabbit-houses-with-big-run-xz7001

I have extensive personal experience of this, as well as anecdotal reports from mature adults I have no reason to doubt. As to the personal, when I was doing art, I often dreamed images of something I wanted to create. The dream would take a fairly obvious form. For example, I went to a craft fair (something i often did in waking life), looked at many attractive items and bought the one I liked best. But some authority would not allow me to take it out of the building. The message: Since I owned it, I was free to make a replica in the real world. Or I might dream of acquiring a house and deciding how to allocate the spaces in it. Again, a fairly plain reference to organizing a project. Even more directly, I would often repeat in my dream, actions I had to perform in the learning of a skill : practice through visualization. A close friend used to solve problems in computer program design in his sleep, sometimes even starting awake to write it down or test it; another came up with story ideas. Emotional interpretation is much more difficult, subject to a private vocabulary and image library. I understand my own by now, and can take a shrewd stab at those of people I know well. I know many of the 'universal' symbols - they're not, really; many are culture- and vintage-dependent, and there is always individual variation on common themes. With a stranger, especially one with a very different background, I would be guessing and asking, guessing and asking, until the dreamer herself arrived at an answer they recognize.

Yes. People absorb their society's cultural mores and habits and speech. Most English-speaking people, whether they are Christian or not, use the same Jesus- and God-related swear words when they drop a can of soup on their toe, or when their spouse fails to comprehend the argument they're making. Similarly, when growing exasperated with their employees or teenaged children, they tend to raise their eyes and hands toward heaven in a beseeching gesture, and might even mutter "Give me strength!". Not because they really expect help from that direction; simply because it is a habit of their culture to place a sympathetic deity up there. A Roman father would probably roll his eyes at his household shrine and a Druid would gesture toward the holly grove. Similarly, when people are spared a tribulation, encounter a favourable outcome, they are quite likely - atheist, agnostic and undecided, equally - to exclaim "Thank God!" or "Saints be praised!" Not because they really believe the good luck came from that deity; simply because it is the habit of their culture. And so, when a person who is not a believer, but neither is he locked in a dead-set vendetta against the Christian version of godhood, is the beneficiary of a great piece of good luck, his "Thank you" is automatically directed to the heaven of his cultural tradition. Emotionally, that's both more direct and more satisfying than trying to apportion the credit among designers, engineers, car factories, highway construction crews, traffic law makers, other drivers, the luck of weather conditions, etc. Just as, having scored a goal, football players look up and thank the sky, which they know had nothing to do with their three seconds of triumph. If they thought Jesus was scoring their goals, they wouldn't train and practice so hard, would they? People who really believe God will heal them don't go to the hospital in the first place. But people who trust in doctors, nurses and medicine, still thank God for their recovery. It's an emotionally satisfying habit.

So, probably, has a town in Brazil and another one in China. I simply suggested another factor two places might have in common. I don't propose to do your research; I'm just recommending that you take all of the relevant factors into consideration before concluding that two common factors are the underlying cause of all similarities.

It's not unusual for people to have a "Damascus moment" after a narrow escape from death or danger. It's not a rational process; it's a great emotional upwelling or relief, joy, surprise, humility and gratitude. It's purposeless and undirected, so it spontaneously goes toward whatever supernatural entity is central to the belief system of his society. Of course, the religious community welcomes the convert and makes him feel cherished, important, consequential - all of which feels good to him, and is, with the collusion of the community, attributed to the deity. The unconsidered inclination to believe is reinforced and rationalized, and veiled in a tacit agreement never to scrutinize it too closely.

Oooh! At this very millennium, somewhere in a distant arm of the galaxy, an identical sun is aligning the orbits of its 8.5 planets to match ours. Sweet! Thanks; will check it. We did recently get Crusade , but it's reserved for together-time; can't watch it in insomniac time.