User:DrJJShenkman/The Human Personality – an evolutionary approach

It ties together different human activities
 * 1) 	Science
 * 2) 	The arts
 * 3) 	It relates science and the arts
 * 4) 	Growing up
 * 5) 	Explains the aims of education and health
 * 6) 	Compares human and animal personalities
 * 7) 	Explains the reason for freedom, democracy and law
 * 8) 	Our love of nature
 * 9) 	Language
 * 10) Mental disease
 * 11) 	Our search for contentment and happiness
 * 12) 	Human evolution - change and adaption

Explanation: Our personality is related to our natural surroundings. It has evolved in response to Time, Space, Energy and Matter (T.E.M.S) through 3.5 billion years of life. Our main 8 personality faculties correspond with the T.E.M.S of our surroundings. They are:


 * Memory
 * Consciousness and the 5 senses
 * Reason
 * Imagination
 * Energy / motivation
 * Emotion
 * Use of hands
 * Association – an ability to use the above faculties together

But such apparent simplicity can give rise to complex human behaviour because these 8 faculties as so disparate.

How they correspond: Time is the past, present and future. For the past - we have a memory, for the present – we have consciousness and the 5 sense, and for the future – we have reason and imagination. We use reason to work out what might happen from our memory of past experience and observing what is around us, as well as imagination by guessing what might happen. We use the mathematical part of reason to live in space. The energy of nature causes change. We need our own energy and motivation to adapt to that change. Matter is an animal, vegetable and mineral. The commonest animals we meet are our fellow humans and we relate to them through our emotions. Vegetables and minerals are converted to food and things we use through the use of our hands. Finally, because those 7 faculties are so different and conflicting, we need an ability to use them together – call it association. Association fibres, which make up more than 50% of our brains, joins up its different parts.

1.	Science The scientific method tries to understand nature and then applies the knowledge to make and grow the things we need. Science can observe nature (Consciousness and the 5 senses) and draw conclusions (Reason). Experience (Memory) helps, as does the imagination. Conclusions can be tested by reasoned experiments. Hand-made apparatus may be needed and observation made, sometimes involving years of patient work (energy and motivation). Seldom clear answers emerge, so scientists have to love (emotion) what they do. Results are collated (mathematical part of reason) and conclusions drawn. Scientists may work alone or in teams, forming relationships and empathies. All 8 faculties are needed. The scientific method has been one of the most successful activities of human behaviour.

2.	The Arts The human personality expresses itself through many different arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, music and dance. Poetry, literature, plays and television also express them, but with more emphasis on the humour, paradox, conflict and tragedy of those 8 faculties. The truths expressed are not about nature’s subject matter, as in science, but about the make-up, disparateness and growth of the human personality. They range from popular music, ballroom dancing, kitsch and ‘soap’ to Mozart, classical ballet, Leonardo and Shakespearian tragedy. They are the same in kind, but differ in degree. Take painting for example: Memory is expressed through the recording of past events. The expression of consciousness and the 5 senses depend on how carefully and in how much detail these events have been recorded. Examples are in photographs and the pre-Raphaelites. Reason is always present in a work of art. Balance where one side of a painting roughly equals the other is prime. Balance in art is equivalent of equals = in mathematics. Without it, there cannot be knowledge or metaphor. Contrast is not equals Harmony and variation of a visual theme are the equivalent of multiplication and division in science. Colour, light and shade help add to the expression of reason. Space is expressed through point, line, area, volume and distance (perspective). The imagination in our personality consists of dreams, daydreams, and unconscious thoughts. It was emphatically expressed by the Surrealists. Diagonals, things falling over, swirls & diagonals shows energy. The rhythm of movement overlaps the expression of multiplication and division of harmony and variation. Texture (impasto) shows the use of the hands. The expression of emotion is self-evident. Overlap, ambiguity and expressing the faculties together shows association. How we view the work art depends on our mood and perceptual set. We will see different faculties at different times. Different Schools of Painting favour different faculties. Abstract painters and Cubists favour reason. The Pre Raphaelites of the English School expressed the precision needed to reflect Consciousness and the Five Senses as well as the past events of memory. Surrealists showed us the wildness of the imagination. The Romantics expressed emotion. Turner expressed the energies of nature together with the human emotion that goes with it.

3.	How it relates to Science and the Arts Quite simply, the arts express those 8 faculties which science uses. There has been much discussion about this relationship. C.P.Snow gave a lecture about it in 1959. It was followed be a book by Snow, then another by Professor F.R. Leavis and Michael Yudkin. Lord Melvyn Bragg broadcast about it on BBC Radio 4 several years ago. People use those faculties; others express them, but most enjoy them.

4.	Growing up The evolutionary approach shows how the personality develops to cope with life’s future challenges. It contrasts with Freudian psychodynamics prevalent in the 1960’s and 70’s which emphasised self and its interactions with the child’s immediate society. At birth, the baby is a mass of emotion seeking food satisfaction, comfort and warmth. A few months later it discovers the use of its hands to explore its mouth and immediate surroundings. It learns to respond to other peoples approaches. It learns to walk and explore its surroundings. Around 3, its full of energy which needs to be channelled. It mixes with other children and has to learn that they also have feelings. Through its schooling it learns that signs in books can represent ideas and things, and that numbers and figures are part of the reasoning process. Use of its hands are exercised through handicrafts. Common memory us shared through the acquisition of knowledge. It is taught history, geography and languages. With adolescence comes sexual feelings. Ideally by the early twenties, the youth matures into an adult by coming to terms with all 8 faculties.

5.	The aims of education and health Parents, teachers and colleges bring up, educate and train the faculties of the individual to use, express and enjoy to the best that inheritance, health age and experience will allow. Likewise, the health agencies look after the wellbeing of those 8 faculties to the best that inheritance, training experience and the age allows.

6.	Comparing humans with other creatures All other creatures have one or more of these faculties. Viruses smell through chemical means just as we do. It helps them detect where to enter the susceptible cells of the host. Dogs have memory and consciousness and 5 senses. They have lots of energy and feelings. They have an unconscious mind and dream - as any dog owner will confirm. Chimpanzees have all 8 faculties as the work of Jane Goodall shows, but less well developed and associated. Irene Pepperburg demonstrated that her African grey parrot could be taught to count and reason.

7.	Freedom, democracy and law An evolutionary approach shows these are not ends in themselves. They are a means to a peaceful society where people can get on with their lives, supporting their families, bringing up and educating their children and producing things to buy and sell. Such creativity is not easy. It needs all 8 faculties to be encouraged by society and is made difficult by corruption, injustice and oppression.

8.	Our love of nature It can be understood in terms of those 8 faculties. Nature reflects what we are. Old trees awaken our awareness of the past. The shapes of mountains shows the effects of time and energy on our surroundings. The things we see around us, snow, rain, flowers, fields and clouds alerts our 5 senses. The balance and symmetry of trees, leaves and animals awaken our reason. We see the energy of nature through the destructive effects of volcanoes, earthquakes, wind, sea and sun. Textures are everywhere, the bark on tress, the crunch of dead leaves, walking in fresh snow and breaking the thin puddle of ice.

9.	Language It is a means of showing that the brains of different creatures has evolved along similar lines in response to TEMS. Consider the language of early childhood. Take the nursery rhyme “Mary had a little lamb...”. “Mary” is matter, “had” is a time statement in the past of the relationship of Mary to another item of matter “lamb”. “little” expresses the size of that matter “a” tells the number of pieces of “lamb” matter. Similarly with other nursery rhymes. Chimpanzees can learn simple sign language up to 200 words, will use it to communicate with other chimps and teach it to their offspring. Bonobo chimps, especially those brought up by humans can appreciate spoken word order and grammar (Kanzi : Sue Savage – Rumbaugh). Irene Pepperburg showed parrots can carry out detailed verbal instructions and ask questions about it, if they are not fully understood. Recently, in Germany, a sheep dog showed it could remember the names of hundreds of objects and by fetching them to the owner from another room.

10.	Mental illness Those 8 faculties are a dynamic system prone to breakdown. They are inherently conflicting. Emotion conflicts with reason. Reason and motivation are active, the imagination is passive. Images and intuitive solutions to problems just appear, unbidden, into our consciousness. Tradition from memory conflicts with new ideas from reason or the imagination. Use of the hands has been regarded as inferior to the products of the intellect, yet everything we have starts with the use of hands. Living in the present through the pleasures of our 5 senses is the opposite of the ‘get up and go’ of reason and motivation. Too much or too little of any of those faculties can throw us off balance. Too much anxiety makes decision making difficult. Suppressed feelings can lead to depression, which if allowed to continue may result in loss of reason and psychotic depression needing hospital admission. In a retreat from the real world, the imagination can come to dominate conscious thought in psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disease. Thought is un-tempered by reason. Day and night dreams give bizarre, nonsense thoughts which are normally sorted out by reason, but not in psychotic illness. A common mental illness is to become overwhelmed, over motivated, unable to slow down, irritable and difficult to live with. It becomes difficult to think, to rest and to sleep. Rest from work for 6 weeks usually cures it. We really do need 8 hours sleep and 8 hours fun alongside 8 hours work. As well as a days rest at the weekend to keep us sane.

11.	Our search for contentment and happiness Both are difficult to achieve in such a dynamic personality as ours. The best we can hope for is a fluctuating balance together with an awareness of what we are. Some problems can be avoided others, perhaps, met head on stop. There is never a dull moment. A sense of humour helps. The Jewish toast “L’chaim – here’s to life” sums up this attitude. It is different from the Buddists Zen where an activity such as the art of archery is pursued and the archer, the arrows and the target can become one through the mind becoming attuned to the unconscious. It is alien to the western mind which might dismiss it as allowing the imagination to dominate a motor activity such as shooting a bow and arrow. The aim here is, through understanding the relationship of the human personality to nature, to make the pain of the sordidness of life with its follies, conflicts and tragedies more tolerable. Everyone at some time feels depressed, empty and let down. Ask which faculty has been overused, or which hasn’t been used or enjoyed lately. Occupations often unbalance those 8 faculties. Hobbies help to correct it. DIY, carpentry and working on old cars could compliment academic jobs. Gardening is a favourite. Charitable work helps provide emotional stimulus. The personality needs continual growth. Acquire knowledge. Travel. Learn about science and how discoveries are made. Visit museums and art galleries where those 8 faculties can be used as a checklist as to what is being expressed. Meet people. Form relationships. We are all the same underneath except our faculties show different strengths and weaknesses. That is why we have to live in groups. Insight and effort invested, a richer life is the reward.

12.	Human evolution – change and adaption The next hundred years will test human ingenuity to its limits. The world population will reach 9 billion. The land suitable for growing food is limited and is likely to get smaller as sea levels rise. Near the equator the rise in temperature will make the growing of food more difficult. Spain and France will suffer drought. There will be shortages of oil, copper, zinc, lithium and rare earths, elements essential for electrical equipment. Emphasis will be on the use rather than the expression of those 8 faculties. More scientists, technicians and people who are willing to use their hands will be needed. There will be more emphasis on science based subjects in education. Finally, humans wonder about their origins. Did we just evolve from the contents of a rocky planet which was formed 4.5 billion years ago, or did life come from elsewhere? Recently, we have discovered fifteen hundred planets in our galaxy, of which 50 are similar to earth. They are at least 2,000 light years away. If life were found on one of these, it would support the idea that it could arise spontaneously. Further, we know little about the origins of the universe or the exact interrelationship of Time, Space, Energy and Matter. A big bang? But what happened before the big bang? We use quantum mechanics in everyday life, but cannot provide a satisfactory quantum theory. Without gravity, our buildings would fall down. We have no idea what gravity is or how it is transmitted. We are also ignorant of the relationship between quantum and gravity. But outside help is not needed. Because of its origins, the human personality has it within itself to answer these questions.

References:
 * The Chimpanzees of Gombe – Jane Goodall – Belknap Harvard
 * Apes, Men and Language – Eugene Linden – Penguin
 * Kanzi - Sue Savage Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin – Doubleday
 * The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. The Rede Lecture 1959 – C P Snow – Cambridge University Press
 * Two Cultures? The Significance of C P Snow – F R Leavis and Michael Yudkin – Chatto & Windus
 * The Two Cultures – a second look - C P Snow  - Mentor 1964
 * Spinosa – Stuart Hampshire – Penguin
 * Zen in the Art of Archery – Eugene Herringel – Penguin Arkana
 * Textbook of Human Anatomy – Ed. W J Hamilton – Macmillan
 * Child Development and Personality – Mussen, Conger–Kagen – Harper
 * Human Development – Eric Rayner – George Allen and Unwin
 * Introduction to Psychology – Hilgard and Atkinson – Harcourt, Brace and World
 * Art Books – Numerous

Main ideas from:

1.	Philosophy Now – Issue No. 6 1993. Page 15 “Surgery reflections” Dr John Shenkman

2.	As yet unpublished – 60,000 word manuscript “Aspects of Personality” © Dr JJ Shenkman 1988. It compares personality in Art and Science

Dr Shenkman can be contacted directly by email through dr.shenkman@btinternet.com