Because I lack the core motivations of compensating for my ability to live in the world via gathering of knowledge.
Interesting. I myself do have that motivation sometimes. Though I wouldn't say it's core for me. I know someone who definitely emphasizes this attitude a lot more than me so I can see that relative to him I don't as much...
What now? That wouldn't turn me into a 5, regardless.
My theory is that it might if you're at it long enough. I know someone else - not the same person I mention above -, she kind of seems like to have gone that route... I'm not that far along myself on it and I would not want to be. Though maybe her head fix is 5 anyway. Not sure
It doesn't have much to do with anything, that's the point. Key is, I exhibited those behaviors, which were not part of any psychological or cognitive process.
How are you sure they were not part of e.g. mbti-related cognitive processes? When my behaviour in general changed in some periods of my life, I experienced a shift in my patterns of habituating of cognitive attitudes and other psychological mechanisms (enneagram related too). Internally, yes*. Not just in the external behaviour. Which makes perfect logical sense, because the behaviours all originate in your brain so if the output (=your behaviour) changes, something in the "black box" (=your brain) changed too. (The logic is obviously really simplified here overall.) What exactly changed internally is another question of course, so I'm not saying you could not be right about the claim that it wasn't mbti or enneagram related.
Btw I'm sure you just happened to word the bolded the wrong way but they were definitely psychological processes. Just maybe not within the scope of one specific typology or other psychology theory. Still, as said, the behaviours all originate in your brain so it's psychological processes by definition.
*: I didn't even notice my behavioural changes as readily as the internal changes. I did notice the external changes of course, just ..it was not as readily obvious.
"Living for the moment" is also a philosophical premise, which I have developed in accordance with realizing my own mortality. I'm not Se-dom because that's not the way my cognition goes. In a cognitive sense then, I still suck at living in the moment. But my attitude is, don't worry about tomorrow, it may never come. Enjoy whatever it is you have now.
OK, that makes sense. If it doesn't come to you naturally but you have to force it by adopting this philosophy thing then you're not Se-dom
However then the bolded part in your original statement was not really precisely put: "I currently wander the world,
live for the moment, and fight anyone who gets in the way". Because, you know, without providing the context you did now, it was pretty much in the context of MBTI (Se) which you mentioned in the same sentence later. So, easy to misunderstand.
Being a 5 means you center your life around the acquisition of knowledge to compensate for a belief that the world will demand too much of you, and that you can't cope with that. Fives are thus extremely sensitive to obligations of others and feel readily depleted. This was never my coping mechanism, nor does it appear that the other guy has necessarily shifted his deeper emotional motivations.
OK. I see. Unfortunately, I certainly related to these 5 issues in a certain period of my life. As a result, I had to temporarily withdraw from being around people as they were sucking my energy away so much. I got depleted even by friends. They did nothing wrong to me, I didn't blame them or anything for it, it just simply was that way. I was not like that before that period of my life. I was in this state for years. Just trying to come out of it recently. Anyway, as I said, I was not always like this. So for some reason my attitude changed really crazily substantially. I didn't even have TBI, goddammit.
Anyway back to the Jason Padgett case. His emotional motivations seem to be changed; prior to the TBI, his motivation was just living in the moment, enjoying physicality for what it is. Afterwards, he started to be deeply motivated by his inner visions and by research. He states in the book several times that research was now his focus. Researching things online all day, 24/7, enjoying it greatly. He later married and his wife did help him go out into life more. But, he had to be helped, meaning he didn't really have the motivation for those Se&7-ish experiences anymore.
That's why I'm saying that a) I'm not a 5 and b) that other guy doesn't have to be a 5 either. 7s, for instance, are often extremely intellectual, and it's possible he just learned to access another part of his brain that helped him see the joy in these new concepts as opposed to his prior experience. Enneagram is far more about core motivations and psychological underpinnings, not necessarily behaviors, so it would depend on whether he now identifies with the motivations of 5. I don't see anything in that short article that suggested a true shift in his psychological orientation.
The temptation of 5 certainly seems to be true for him: "replacing direct experience with concepts", sitting and thinking all day about concepts seems to qualify IMO. He got the 5 desire of "mastery" too, he went back to school to understand things better. He even started to looked like a really bad stereotype of a 5 after a few years of just sitting at home locking the entire world out. That was also the PTSD stuff of course. What I could see as 7 is his joy in seeing the geometrical things in the world. Though you could say it's the joy of a 5, love of concepts more than the world itself. I don't know. I can be convinced that this somehow can still be 7-ish.
MBTI wise, I'm more certain that his Se really went down the drain.
Btw I see now that the article I linked really IS short
I don't know if there's a better one out there... I guess the stuff I'm telling here does sum up the contents of the book somewhat.
Obviously, I'd have to read the book before coming to a definitive conclusion here, but most of the reclusive behavior seems to have been PTSD-related (it's possible the OCD is as well, since both involve the brain mis-firing anxiety signals). It also indicates he's using another part of his brain to see structures that didn't exist before--that's indicative of a new, uncommon ability, but again, not indicative of a change in psychological orientation or cognition.
If you are interested in the book, I'm happy to send the ebook. Feel free to PM me.
It's pretty interesting and honestly I wasn't originally thinking about MBTI let alone enneagram when starting on the book, but the things in the book really jumped out at me as... really interesting in the context of typology (beyond simply being very interesting anyway).
The reclusive behaviour vs PTSD vs OCD, I don't know for sure. Part of it definitely due to it. Like, not even leaving the house for years (except at night once every week to be able to get groceries without people being around). That's definitely overkill and had to be PTSD. Otoh, I would think that if someone loves living in a world of concepts all day they would not have much time nor the interest to just party hard.
His OCD, you are right, it could be related to PTSD, not that I thought OCD was necessarily type related anyway. In the book he said something about not trusting people so he would develop OCD about cleanliness, e.g. when shaking hands with people, he has to use a cleaning towel immediately afterwards. I haven't finished the entire book yet but I just got to the part where it says that someone figured out there was this connection between the loss of trust in people and the OCD. Afterwards he was able to hug the person (could not before that due to the worry about germs).
It's interesting btw yes, he started using another part of his brain but seems like the organization of stuff of a more general nature changed too, I think he did get injury to the frontal lobe too, and maybe that part of the brain is related to whatever determines the MBTI preferences. The structures thingie is a parietal lobe thing but obviously the parts that got overactive there are only overactive because another part of the brain got injured that used to inhibit these parietal areas. Damage to that area would remove the inhibition and allow those parietal lobe functions to go overdrive. This again might be to do with the mechanism of how there are cognitive preferences in the first place, that is, that the brain has some areas habitually more active than other areas. (Though of course function theory isn't just about that but also about a hierarchy between these parts.)
No, but many people assume special abilities = 5, and many extroverted PTSD sufferers have complained about being "introverts" now. It is better to state unequivocally that these things are not the same.
Well yeah I don't know if those extraverted PTSD sufferers still felt better being extraverted - if they managed to overcome their fears at times - or if their brain genuinely started being more active in certain areas that seem to be linked to introversion. Like, introverts in general have more activity in certain parts of the brain while extraverts need outside stimulation to have enough activity.
If he was an Se-dom, it's possible he's just developing his inferior. He may still extrovert his sensing primarily, but instead use it in the service of his new ability.
If the Se is used in service of another thing, then by definition Se is not the dominant function.
I have not tried to determine if he still prefers Se/Ni over Si/Ne though it's possible that this is the case. However he certainly uses more intuition, when he looks at things, he will associate them with concepts, going really far with speculation and imagination. His old self didn't seem to do that. Btw I mentioned I had some shift in emphases of cognitive attitudes, right? Even with all that, I still did not stop being an S type. This guy... yeah the change is more profound. I can see him as N type instead of S type.
I think so. I think people can do whatever they set their minds to, regardless of type, and if he suddenly saw the value of mathematical concepts, he'd be more than capable of embracing them with passion.
Still, an ESTP would still primarily deal with his/her surroundings in a very concrete fashion, not thinking of math literally all the time. Example, he has a furniture shop where he sells the furniture, he was doing that before the TBI too, and now he can only get through the day if he can have a chance to think about the stuff and it especially helps if he can discuss this stuff with customers of the more curious type. Some fun stories about that in the book
I wouldn't want to return to my old self, either. I am certain I didn't change my type, however.
Heh. What's your old self like that you don't want to return to?
I always wished to return to my old self myself, well partially at least.
It's possible that personality originates in an area untouched by the particular alteration he suffered, however.
Possible but how, if his entire life got turned upside-down as I said before in this thread?
From what I understand, he only suffered a deep concussion involving certain isolated areas, not the entire brain, and the results involved some anxiety-oriented fall-out (PTSD, OCD) as well as improved access to captivating new brain functions.
Just because it's not the entire brain it doesn't mean it can't be profound changes. Try removing just this little part of your brain called the thalamus for example and watch the results. Also the brain does not have "isolated areas", it's all interlinked, a lot of complicated patterns of areas affecting each other in several ways. Of course damage can be isolated in the sense that it doesn't affect your life too much, only part of your life. In his case it affected his entire life to a very substantial degree. I already said this too but he explicitly says that he felt like a different person after the injury and he had trouble for a while to reconcile that inconsistency but he did eventually accept the new self, over years.
A full-out type change is something I would hesitate to declare based on the information we have about this guy, as well as on what I understand of cognitive functions and enneatype.
What is it that you understand of cognitive functions and enneagram? I never believed in the dogma that type change isn't possible.