It is very rare that a person can use one particular set of pigeonholes to categorize a person — probably isn’t possible at all. But most measuring devices will come up with “answers”. Looking at those answers more closely, we find that the answers all end up “kind of”.
I have a result for the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory of INT/FJ. The “/” indicates that I “balance” between the aspects of “Thinking” and “Feeling”. The reality is that the T to F scale is a spectrum. I test out at the very middle. It is my understanding that there is now a refinement that breaks the type-casting into smaller gradations. It also seems to be true that we shift based on relationships. My wife is strong on the Process-oriented side of the MBTI while I am moderate on the Judicious side. When I am with her, my "J” aspect becomes stronger as I counter-balance her “P” tendencies.
There are many areas that can be measured — with an arbitrary division that says one endpoint or the other (for weight; overweight versus underweight). Some are known to have large “loopholes” but are used anyway for convenience. One such is BMI. For most people (about 90%), this ratio of height to weight works — but for those who have either a lot of muscle mass (such as athletes or other heavy exercisers) or truly “large boned” it does not work well. The measurement of height seems straight-forward but we are all shorter at the end of the day (the older, the greater the difference) and whether we are “short” or “tall” depends within what pool of people we are measured. When I was visiting castles in Wales, I (at 5’ 7” tall) had to duck under every door arch and watch my head within rooms. The suits of armor appeared to be made for junior high school children.
One of the areas that end up being categorized the most is “race”. Most people would think that this would be definitive but it is actually composed of many gradations and very arbitrary divisions. The concept of race was created to give apparently rational excuses for distinguishing between different pools of people. Thus, one pool could be considered “superior” to others and justified colonialism and slavery. But, if you break down the qualities that are measured, we can quickly see that such classification is balderdash.
At our sons’ elementary school, there were a variety of genetic backgrounds. I believe there were about 800 students. If, on a particular day (it would be different on another day because of tanning or season of the year), you lined all 800 students up from the most pigment to the least, you would probably have around 50 or so clumps where the pigment level would be difficult to discern between individuals. According to the “race” aspect, however, somewhere between two clumps, the children would be classified as “white” or “non-white”.
The same set of methods could be applied to hair texture, nose proportions, eye color, cuticle shapes, and so forth. With each spread and grouping, the concept of “race” becomes more and more ludicrous.
This is not meant to negate personal histories, ethnic commonalities, and other aspects which can tend to group people and may coincide with the categories of “race”. Such identification may be very important to a person, their history, and their perspectives on the rest of the world — but the outside envelope is incidental.
We have four sons, two of which are on the Autistic spectrum. Before a change in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), they were considered to have Asperger’s Syndrome. Autism is not a disease but it is a change in brain structure that creates challenges for people to deal with inside a “neurotypical” (or “normal”) population. The changes happen before birth and, therefore, nothing that happens after birth has any relevance.
From a “techie” point of view, you can say that their I/O (Input/Output) connections to the world are wired differently. With this difference in “wiring”, interactions with the outside world do not work the same as others. Hearing, speaking, touching, tasting, seeing, smelling and other bodily interactions with the general population can sometimes be like speaking different languages.
But our two sons are considered “high functioning”. They have strong verbal skills and are able to do most things that others do. But they do them differently — and one of them includes an aspect of “sensory issues” where the volume of the outside world can vary, in his perception, from moment to moment. As a child, this caused him great distress so he would scream to drown out the outside world with something “he could control”. It continues to affect him about what foods he can tolerate.
The grandson of a friend is towards the other “end” of the spectrum. His “I/O circuitry” does not allow verbal output. He is not fully at the “end” (where there is NO interaction with the outside world) as he is still able to interact with others and can be an enormous pleasure to be around. It is impossible for those around him to know just what/how/how much/why he processes information.
Our society has a terrible habit of assuming that those with sensory challenges also have intellectual challenges but such aspects are quite independent. From all points within the autistic spectrum, the goal is have them be able to interact well with others who do not have their particular configurations.
Another famous spectrum issue is that of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). It has been proposed that IQ is only one of a number of different types of intelligence with all of them having their own “score” or place upon the spectrum. Often a “100” means “average”. Half of the population is meant to be below 100 and the other half above 100. But there are also scales (or spectrums) for emotional intelligence (EQ) and physical intelligence (PQ) and a couple of others. Alas, there is no such thing as a “common sense” quotient — because that term is primarily used as a comparison between those setting the ideal and those either following along or diverting from that ideal.
Score, scale, spectrum — we are all of more this way than that and the combination of all such comparisons, or evaluations. The array of results, as expressed in lists of numbers, emphasize how unique we each are rather than allowing a single number to pigeonhole us.
We are one species, one people and our differences all form a part of the population as a whole.
