House of Eratosthenes

Regarding Architects and Medicators, there are many ways to define the difference, but of course there is an obvious problem with multiple definitions: When applied, they may produce different results and create an ambiguity. On the other hand, there is a reason the multiple definitions exist. People, at least in my experience, don’t often fall on different sides of the chasm when these different definitions are applied. That’s what makes the difference worth noticing in the first place. Most people are either all-of-one and none-of-the-other, or vice-versa.

Then again, “most” is not “all”; in my own experiences I have met some individuals who are hard to pigeonhole. And my own experiences are not universal, exhaustive or encyclopedic. But if you try a little, people aren’t that hard to read. We all want to make things work and we all want to fit into whatever community we’ve selected. But there’s the split — sooner or later, the challenges of a more complicated life will compel us to displease our peers, for the sake of making something work, or to agitate toward unworkable solutions in order to please peers. To make a choice. People generally spend their entire lives choosing one of those or the other, and which one they choose, reflects the path of development they chose at a very young age.

I was explaining it to Dean Esmay and I ended up jotting down something that had been germinating in my noggin about this:

The simplest way to distinguish it that I’ve been able to formulate, is: The Architect comes up with a plan to produce a desired outcome based on the predicted behavior of inanimate objects, and the Medicator comes up with a plan to produce a desired outcome based on the predicted behavior of living, sentient creatures. These habits are formed in toddlerhood, typically chosen according to which methods have produced a positive result in the personal experience of that person, and they last throughout a lifetime.

As we mature, the Medicator learns to produce Architect-like results and the Architect learns to produce Medicator-like results. Example: The geeky eighth grader who doesn’t socialize and spends his time in the computer lab or in the chess club. In adulthood, he eventually learns to talk to people. But he’s not emotionally sync-ing up, he’s using his experience to figure out what most people will like & dislike, by means of logic, process-of-elimination, etc. He’s effectively interfacing with living creatures as if they’re non-living. The same holds true with the Medicator…taking tests that are supposed to gauge command of the academic material. Some of the kids who score highest, actually don’t have good command of the material, they learn to anticipate how the quizzes are put together, what kind of answer does the teacher want to see.

And perhaps the simplest litmus test to be applied is, if the test subject is cut off from all other living things for a sustained period of time, does he lose his cognitive ability. Not — is he unhappy and lonely — but rather — does he become confused, disoriented, start losing his way. That’s the test. Is there a social feedback loop going on, which has become indispensable in the everyday task of forming strategies for resolving complex and challenging new problems, and instilling some confidence in those strategies.

As a result of that differential, it is unavoidable that a justified sense of confidence is the exclusive domain of Architects, who internalize the process, and therefore can self-assess it in some rational way. Of course, the most concise definition out of all of them has always been: Architects think things, Medicators feel things. The disadvantage to thinking things is that the fine art of compromise, is in itself compromised; even with very simple problems, if an outside opinion happens to be right, it’s right the way a busted clock happens to be right. So the outside opinion, really, is irrelevant in every possible way. And the disadvantage to feeling things is that it’s simply an irrational process. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so it can’t be reduced into component parts or analyzed or checked. It is a process of, like I wrote above, “anticipat[ing]…what kind of answer does the teacher want to see.” The answers are produced toward the same purpose everything else is produced: To arrive at an optimally desirable emotional state, in the person producing and in those who are in proximity.

Update: Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. An Architect can’t do this…not at age two anyway. You need to be responding to reactions from living things, to do something like this. (Hat tip to Linkiest.)

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The Simplest Way to Distinguish it That Doesn’t Lose Any DetailSaturday, March 24th, 2012

The Simplest Way to Distinguish it That Doesn’t Lose Any Detail
Saturday, March 24th, 2012