# Typological distance



## Schwarz (Nov 10, 2008)

So I recently posted a blog about tesseracts (the four dimensional analogue of a cube) and MTBI mapping onto each other. At first I thought that I had once again come up with something entirely useless, and what Nightriser asked me what it implied I gave her a joking, nonsensical answer.
However, having thought about it, I realized that there actually is a fairly useful application for the MBTI tesseract. Assuming a pure example of each type as the endpoints (with E being given a value of zero on one axis, I given a value of 100 on the same axis, and so on, with N and S, T and F, and J and P each matched on opposite ends of their respective axes), each individual's position on the tesseract can be represented by an ordered quadruple. Although I don't believe the quiz results in the badge are necessarily 100% accurate, they can be used to place each individual in a specific location on the tesseract. Using the distance formula (an extension of the pythagorean theorem, in case anyone hasn't run into it), we can find the approximate typological distance between any two individuals. Two identical individuals would have a distance of 0, whereas individuals who are at opposite extremes (a pure ESTJ and a pure INFP, for example), would have a distance of 200.

With that in mind, here's a list of how far a moderately random sampling of PersonalityCafe users is from me:
The Happy Minority: 17.9 (INFP)
Slowriot: 41.1 (INTP)
SurrealBreakfast: 45.0 (INFP)
Snail: 47.0 (INFP)
Moonchild: 47.6 (INFP)
Grish: 47.8 (INTP)
Nightriser: 52.4 (INTP)
StarryNights: 74.4 (ENFP)
Leanna: 89.9 (ISTJ)
McGooglian: 89.9 (ISTP)

Interestingly, because I'm only a borderline INFP, Slowriot's score came closer to mine than the scores of most INFPs, even though he scores as an INTP, and not a particularly weak one.

The same idea could be applied to the multiple intelligences test, which would be interesting (though that would need to be a 7-dimensional hypercube instead of a tesseract). I don't really feel ambitious enough right now to do the math on that, though.

Anyway, if anyone out there is curious, I could try to construct a sort of mileage chart between various individuals on Personality Cafe, although I would need people to give me exact percentage breakdowns.

Any thoughts or comments people have on this would be appreciated.


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## Linesky (Dec 10, 2008)

I'm curious. I'd like to see an image of your idea, maybe then it'll make sense to me  I didn't have the balls to read through your whole introduction part because I'm not too familiar with the terms, but .. I'm curious


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## Schwarz (Nov 10, 2008)

This is basically the idea I had, crudely sketched up in MS Paint.







It's hard to draw a good tesseract with a touch pad mouse thingy.

Anyway, on this particular version of the MBTI tesseract, the front faces represent pure introversion, and as you move further back you get closer to pure extroversion.
The bottom faces of the tesseract are judging types, and the top perceiving. Left is feeling, right is perceiving, and the fourth dimension covers the sensing/intuiting distinction. Pure types connected by a line differ by one letter, types occuring in the same quadrilateral are at most two letters apart, and types occurring in the same cube have at least one letter in common.

The map/distance idea comes from the idea I had that people aren't purely representative of any type, and might show up halfway or two thirds of the way between left or right or top or bottom, which is maybe easiest to represent using a series of two dimesional images. I have those at home, but I don't feel like recreating them on the library computer at the moment...


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## Linesky (Dec 10, 2008)

I like this : "The map/distance idea comes from the idea I had _that people aren't purely representative of any type, and might show up halfway or two thirds_ of the way between left or right or top or bottom".

It looks interesting and might even be valid, nice work


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## Schwarz (Nov 10, 2008)

Thanks, Skyline.


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