You Are 65% Left Brained, 35% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Also, there were quite a few choices about which I was unsure. I think it would be more accurate if they put in a third option for "roughly equal" (e.g., the geometry versus algebra question--I'm good with both).

45% Left
55% Right

Cool

Since when do dogs go better with "reading and quiet" than cats?

Is there any actual evidence to show that the right side of the brain is more creative?

65% left brained, 35% right brained. Jeez.

Anyway, I think Music and Math are tightly knit. Why are they a differentiator?

45% Left Brained, 55% Right Brained

I think the near 50/50 split speaks pretty well of me. I tend to know a little about a lot of things - Jack of all trades, master of nothing.

Josh said: Jack of all trades, master of nothing.

Better way to say it...Jack of all trades, master of few.

Wow, 75% left. (The percentage right is left as an exercise for the reader.)

I wouldn't have said that high, since I have very little trouble writing and my math skills are good, but not like a real mathematician. I can't factor time or anything.

Then again, I tend to think Julian Jaynes was full of shit and the whole RB/LB thing is a crock of romantic moonshine. Which is a very LB thing to think.

Carl says: I wouldn't have said that high, since I have very little trouble writing and my math skills are good.

Well, keep in mind (no pun intended) that the 25% right mindedness may be more of the math center. 25% right still leaves half of the physical volume to be assigned. Imagine what the percentages would be for Vera off the old Alice show, being able to count a thousand pennies by shuffling them in a pan and listening. sheesh.

Good point, Mac. I hear RB is associated with pattern-matching and instant-recognition reasoning, you know, the skill that makes you good at "Where's Waldo?" And yet...that's exactly what I would have said it takes to be a first-class mathematician. An ability to pick out some meaningful pattern in a world full of numerical noise.

Whatever. I tend to think of the RB/LB business as like the Myers-Briggs thingy, a parlor game that substitutes for horoscopes in these supposedly more skeptical days.

Carl said: ...Myers-Briggs thingy, a parlor game that substitutes for horoscopes in these supposedly more skeptical days.

When I was an Air Traffic Controller in the military, I took that thing as part of a group building class. It pegged me perfectly, which surprised me. I remember distinctly answering the questions without bias, which is probably why it got me so good. But I also have a really high level of pattern matching/spacial relationship ability.

It pegged me perfectly.

I think you're speaking imprecisely. What you meant to say is: "It pegged who I think I am perfectly." In that respect, yes, it's a clever test. It asks you questions and then holds up a mirror and shows you your hopeful self-image, summarized. It does that very well.

But does it say who you really are? Does it have the qualities of a good personality inventory, that will also reveal to the trained interpreter the unpleasant traits you try to hide? My impression is that it does not. When I take it, it gives me a very nice result, tells me I'm just the man I've always wanted to be. Fortunately for my ego I'm a skeptic, and this "too perfect" response puts me on guard. I know very well my reality can't match my self-image so comfortingly.

It's an interesting exercise to do the Myers-Briggs thing twice for someone you know very well, once with the answers you'd give, and once with the answers you know he'd give. My experience is that if you like the person, the results tend to match, but if you don't, they don't. What this tells me is that the test is largely a mirror of your expectations. It does well in helping you to summarize what you think of yourself, or someone else.

But that's very far from providing genuine insight. By definition genuine insight is going to consist of things about yourself you find hard to believe. (Otherwise, you'd have already thought of them.)

Carl said: What this tells me is that the test is largely a mirror of your expectations.

Yes it is, if you allow youself to answer with bias. If you force yourself to answer truthfully, and not how you'd like to be, there is a difference. I don't consider myself an extrovert at all, but the test showed me I was more weighted toward it than not. I knew I was easily distracted...oh look, a bird!

Well, you have much more confidence than I in the ability of people to understand themselves by a mere exercise of will.

I don't think, generally speaking, that where people genuinely deceive themselves, they are even aware of the deception. They don't even see the "honest" answer, so there's no way they can invoke their will to choose it. They never see anything but the self-deceptive answer, and of course it "feels" right.

My impression is that the only time people experience genuine self-insight is (1) when it is forced on them by external experience, as in the old saying "when three people tell you you're drunk, you should sit down", and (2) they use their will and rationality to force themselves to consider evidence that their intuition (responsible for the deception in the first place) rejects, and (3) they're already skeptical that they know themselves well, that is, they already experience significant self-doubt.

Then again, genuine self-insight is overrated. What does it get you? Unless you're really defective, and need some kind of personality overhaul, it just brings you more psychologically handicapping self-doubt ("What else might I be hiding from myself?"). Best if one concentrates on doing what's right, and leaves the question of why that's easy, or hard, to your shrink or priest.

Carl said: when three people tell you you're drunk, you should sit down

That is about the funniest thing I've heard today. Thanks for the smile.