A Knot Model in Psychology

Akio KAWAUCHI

ABSTRACT

By evaluating the ve-factors in Five-Factor Model of personality established by H. J. Eysenck-S. B. G. Eysenck and P. T. Costa-R. R. McCrae, we construct a knot model of a human mind in terms of 2-bridge knots so that the knot type of a mind-knot gives the personality We relate the classication of the self-releasability relations of mind-links to a certain classication of links The (normal) self-releasability relations for two mind-knots and three mind-knots are classied into 3 relations and 30 relations, respectively.

Mathematical Subject Classication 2000: 57M25, 91E45, 92-08 Keywords: Five-Factor Model, Personality, Human mind, Psychology, Knot, Link, Self-releasability relation 1. Introduction In this paper, we propose to visualize a mind situation by constructing a knot model of a human mind (briey, a mind) as an application of knot theory. For several years ago (cf.[9]), the author considered that there is no contradiction by considering minds as knots whose knot types are regarded as the personalities and whose crossing changes are regarded as mind-changes, from the reason that several expressions on minds, such as a tame (straightforward) character: (sunaona seikaku) in Japanese and a twisted character: (hinekureta seikaku) in Japanese1 , are represented in daily life by strings which are main research objects in knot theory. Besides, the author knew by R. Ruckers book [12] that B. Stewart and P. G. Tait2 appears to say in their book [16] that the soul exists as a knotted vortex ring in the aether, although the aether hypothesis is known as a wrong story and the author

Furthermore, ( )(omoi no ito) meaning a string connecting human feelings, (kokoro no kotosen) meaning ones heartstring, (ningen kankei no motsure) meaning an emotional entanglement on human relations, (kokoro ni wadakamaru) meaning being rooted in ones mind. 2 P. G. Tait is known as a pioneer of knot theory.

does not clearly understand what they mean. For our purpose, the following points are some diculty points which we must overcome to construct our model (cf. [3]): (1) (Birth-Time Mind Situation) By a genetic character inherited from Parents, we cannot always assume that the mind in birth time is untwisted. (2)(Estimation on Changes of Environments) There are many sources of mindchanges coming from changes of environments on (i) Age (ii) History (iii) Non-standard event factors. In our knot model of a mind, we count the conditions (1) and (2). Throughout this paper, we mean by knots unoriented loops embedded in the 3-space R3 , and by links, disjoint unions of nitely many knots in R3 . The types of knots and links are understood as the equivalence classes of them under the Reidemeister moves in Fig.1. For general terms of knot theory, we refer to [8].

Figure 1: Reidemeister moves Concluding this introduction, we mention here some studies on applying topology to psychology. E. C. Zeemans work on the topology of the brain and visual perception in [20] and the topological psychology by K. Lewin [10] which is an application of topological space are respectively pointed out by R. Fenn and by J. Simon with an implication by S. Kinoshita during the international conference International Workshop on Knot Theory for Scientic Objects . L. Rudolph reported to the author his works of several applications of topology to psychology which are published in [13, 14, 15] and his works (in preparation) on a rehabilitation of K. Lewins topological

psychology. Incidentally, the author also knew J. Valsiners book [18] by Rudolphs report. 2. Constructing a knot model of a mind To clarify our viewpoint of a mind, we set up the following mind hypothesis: Mind Hypothesis 2.1. (1) A mind is understood as a knot, so that an untwisted mind is a trivial knot and a twisted mind is a non-trivial knot. (2) A personality is understood as the type of a knot, so that the untwisted personality is the knot type of a trivial knot and a twisted personality is the knot type of a nontrivial knot. (3) A mind change is understood as a crossing change of a knot(see Fig.2).

Figure 2: A crossing change To construct a concrete knot model, we consider the basic factors of a mind by H. J. Eysenck [4, 5] and H. J. Eysenck-S. B. G. Eysenck[6, 7], which are described as follows: (1) Introversion-Extroversion. (2) Neuroticism. (3) Psychoticism. These basic factors are rened by P. T. Costa and R. R. McCrae [1] as Five-Factor Model (= Big-Five Model) described as follows: (1) Introversion-Extroversion. (2) Neuroticism. (3.1) Openness to Experience. (3.2) Agreeableness (3.3) Conscientiousness Our idea of constructing a knot model of a mind is to evaluate the degrees of the ve-factors of the personality of a mind at the n-year-old as follows(See [19] for a concrete test): 3

Denition 2.2. (1) The introversion-extroversion degree IEn at n-year-old takes the value IEn = 1, 1, 0 according to whether the mind is introverted, extroverted, or insignicant. (2) The neuroticism degree Nn at n-year-old takes the value Nn = 1, 0 according to whether the mind is neurotic or not. (3.1) The openness to experience degree On at n-year-old takes the value On = 0, 1 according to whether the mind is open to the experience or not. (3.2) The agreeableness degree An at n-year-old takes the value An = 1, 0 according to whether the mind is disagreeable or not. (3.3) The conscientiousness degree Cn at n-year-old takes the value Cn = 1, 0 according to whether the mind is unconscientious or not. We dene the psychoticism degree at n-year-old from (3.1)-(3.3) as follows: (3) The psychoticism degree OACn at n-year-old to be the product OACn = On An Cn = 1 or 0. We also need Fathers and Mothers data IEF , NF , OACF and IEM , NM , OACM on their introversion-extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism degrees at the babys birth time, respectively. Namely, we have the following denition: Denition 2.3. (1) Fathers and Mothers introversion-extroversion degrees IEF and IEM at the babys birth time take the values IEF = 1, 1, 0 and IEM = 1, 1, 0 according to whether Fathers mind and Mothers mind are introverted, extroverted, or insignicant, respectively. (2) Fathers and Mothers neuroticism degrees NF and NM at the babys birth time take the values NF = 1, 0 and NM = 1, 0 according to whether Fathers mind and Mothers mind are neurotic or not, respectively. (3.1) Fathers and Mothers openness to experience degrees OF and OM at the babys birth time take the values OF = 0, 1 and OM = 0, 1 according to whether Fathers mind and Mothers mind are open to the experience or not, respectively. (3.2) Fathers and Mothers agreeableness degrees AF and AM at the babys birth time take the values AF = 1, 0 and AM = 1, 0 according to whether Fathers mind and Mothers mind are disagreeable or not, respectively. (3.3) Fathers and Mothers conscientiousness degrees CF and CM at the babys birth time take the values CM = 1, 0 and CF = 1, 0 according to whether Fathers mind and Mothers mind are unconscientious or not, respectively. We dene Fathers and Mothers psychoticism degrees at the babys birth time from (3.1)-(3.3) as follows: (3) Fathers and Mothers psychoticism degrees OACF and OACM at the babys birth time are the products OACF = OF AF CF = 1 or 0 and OACM = OM AM CM = 1 or 0.

We dene Parents introversion-extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism degrees IEP , NP and OACP to be IEP = F IEF + M IEM , NP = mF NF + mM NM , OACP = nF OACF + nM OACM for non-negative integral constants F , M , mF , mM , nF , nM . In our argument here, we take F = M = mF = mM = nF = nM = 1, but the values shuold be chosen by estimating carefully a genetic character inherited from Parents (cf. [3]). The total introversion-extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism degrees of a mind at n-year-old are dened as follows:
n

IE[n] = IEP +
i=1 n

IEi , Ni ,
i=1 n

N[n] = NP + OAC[n] = OACP +

OACi .
i=1

Let a = IE[n] + N[n] and b = OAC[n]. We have 2n 4 a n + 2 and n 2 b 0.

Our knot model of a mind is the knot M(n; a, b) which is represented by a knot diagram with 2|a| + 2|b| crossings illustrated in Fig.3 and called the nth mind-knot. In the gure, we illustrate the case that a is negative. The picture for the case that a is positive is given by changing all the the crossings in this 2|a|-tangle part into the crossings with the opposite sign. When the knot diagrams M(n 1, a , b) and M(n; a, b) are distinct, we consider that some mind-changes are made during (n 1)year-old and n-year-old. Thus, in our model, the total picture of a mind-knot from the birth time to the n-year-old is considered as a cylinder immersed properly in the 4-dimensional space R3 [0, n]. If we evaluate the degrees of the ve-factors ner, then a ner mind-knot model can be constructed. See 5 later for the other mind-knot models. The following proposition is a consequence of the well-known classication of 2-bridge knots in knot theory (cf. [8, 17]). Proposition 2.4. A mind-knot M(n; a, b) is untwisted if and only if a = 0 or b = 0. Two twisted mind-knots M(n; a, b), M(n ; a, b) have the same personality if and only if (a, b) = (a, b) or (b, a). Proof. The knot M(n; a, b) is a 2-bridge knot whose type is calculated as follows: 1 2a + 1 2b = 2b . 4ab + 1

Figure 3: A mind-knot M(n; a, b) Thus, M(n; a, b) is a trivial knot if and only if 4ab + 1 = 1 that is ab = 0. Let M(n; a, b) and M(n ; a, b) be non-trivial knots. If they belong to the same knot type, then we have 4ab + 1 = (4a b + 1), so that ab = ab = 0. Further, we have 2b 2b (mod 4ab+1) or 4bb 1 (mod 4ab+1). If the rst case occurs, then there is an integer k such that 2(b b) = k(4ab + 1). The integer k must be even, i.e., k = 2k and we have b b k = 4abk . Suppose k = 0. Then for N = max{|b|, |b|, |k |} > 0, we have 3N 4N, a contradiction. Hence we have k = 0 and b = b, a = a . If the second case occurs, then we have 2b 2a (mod 4ab + 1). In fact, 2b(2b + 2a) 4bb + 4a b = 4bb + 4ab 1 1 = 0 (mod 4ab + 1) and, since 2b is coprime with 4a b + 1 = 4ab + 1, we have 2b + 2a 0 (mod 4ab + 1). Using that M(n ; a, b) and M(n ; b, a) belong to the same knot type, we see from the argument of the rst case that b = a and a = b. For example, M(n; 1, 1) and M(n; 1, 1) are trefoil knots which are each others mirror images, and M(n; 1, 1) = M(n; 1, 1) is the gure-eight knot. 3. Self-releasability relations on mind-links When we consider a mind as a knot, it is an interesting problem to consider a mindlink, that is, a link of mind-knots. We consider that a mind-link is generated by a crossing change (called also a mind-change) between a pair of mind-knot components and a mind-change on a mind-knot component. We shall introduce here a concept of self-releasability relation on links of n( 2) mind-knots. Denition 3.1. Two non-splittable mind-links L and L have the similar selfreleasability relation if there is a bijection from the mind-knots Ai (i = 1, 2, . . . , n) 6

of L onto the mind-knots Ai (i = 1, 2, . . . , n) of L such that for every mind-knot component Ai and every sublink Li of L\Ai (1) the splittability between Ai and Li coincides with the splittability between the corresponding Ai and Li , and (2) the splittability between Ai and Li up to nitely many mind-changes of Ai coincides with the splittability of the corresponding Ai and Li up to nitely many mind-changes of Ai. In Denition 3.1, we say that a mind-knot component Ai is self-releasable from Li if Ai is made split from Li by nitely many mind-changes of Ai, which is equivalent to saying, in terms of topology, that Ai is null-homotopic in R3 \Li . The similar selfreleasability relation is an equivalence relation and we call the equivalence class of a non-splittable mind-link under the similar self-releasability relation a self-releasability relation. To consider the classication of self-releasability relations, we consider a restrictive mind-link which satises the following hypothesis: Normal Relation Hypothesis(NRH). For every i, Ai is self-releasable from Li if and only if Ai is self-releasable from Aj for every mind-knot component Aj of Li .

Figure 4: An anomalous self-releasability relation for three mind-knots We call a mind-link satisfying NRH a normal mind-link. The other mind-link is called an anomalous mind-link. A self-releasability relation on normal mind-links is called a normal self-releasability relation, and the other self-releasability relation an anomalous self-releasability relation. A self-releasability relation for 2 mind-knots is always normal. However, for three mind-knots, there are anomalous self-releasability relations. A typical example is the Borromean rings in Fig. 4 (We denote a split link of two mind-knots A and B by A B in the schematic diagram.) The anomaly follows from a classication of link-homotopy (see J. Milnor[11]). The classication of self-releasability relations for 2 mind-knots is given as follows: Proposition 3.3. The following cases (1)-(3) give the complete list of the selfreleasability relations for 2 mind-knots A and B. (1) Neither mind-knot component is self-releasable from the other. This relation is denoted by AB. 7

Figure 5: Self-releasability relations for two mind-knots (2) Both mind-knots are self-releasable from each other. This relation is denoted by AB. (3) One mind-knot component, say A is self-releasable from the other mind-knotcomponent B, but B is not self-releasable from A. This relation is denoted by AB. In this case, A is necessarily a twisted mind. Proof. Let A B be a 2-component non-split link. For example, if the linking number Link(A, B) = 0, then it satises (1), because A is not null-homotopic in the space R3 \B and B is not null-homotopic in the space R3 \A. If A and B are untwisted mind-knots and the linking number Link(A, B) = 0, then A and B are respectively null-homologous in the spaces R3 \B and R3 \A which are homotopy equivalent to S 1 , so that A and B are null-homotopic in R3 \B and R3 \A, respectively. Thus, this link in this case satises (2). If Link(A, B) = 0 and B is an untwisted mind and not null-homotopic in R3 \A (in this case, A must be a twisted mind-knot), then A is self-releasable from B, but B is not self-releasable from A, satisfying (3). The typical examples of the cases (1)-(3) are given in Fig. 5. In (3) of Fig. 5, we note that A is a trefoil knot and B is a trivial knot and represents the element x1 y in a group presentation (x, y|xyx = yxy) of the fundamental group 1(R3 \A) (see [2]). Since this group is non-abelian, we have x1 y = 1 in (x, y|xyx = yxy) and we see that B is not null-homotopic in R3 \A. 4. Classication of normal self-releasability relations for three mind-knots We give here the classication of normal self-releasability relations for three mindknots. Proposition 4.1. The list of 30 links in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 is the complete list of normal self-releasability relations for three mind-knots. 8

Figure 6: Normal self-releasability relations for three mind-knots 9

Figure 7: Normal self-releasability relations for three mind-knots(continued)

Proof. This construction is done by listing rst all the distinct triangle relations with virtices A, B, C up to permutations of A, B, C and then realizing them by links. The non-splittability and normalness of the links listed here are easily checked if an argument similar to the proof of Proposition 3.3 is used. 5. Further discussions By taking aP = IEP + NP , bP = OACP , a = a aP , and = b bP , we have a b dierent knot model M(n; aP , bP , a, of a mind, illustrated in Fig. 8. If bP = 0, b) then we have M(n; aP , b, , = M(n; 0, 0, a, where Proposition 2.4 can be used a b) b) for the classication. However, if bP = 0, then M(n; aP , bP , a, b) is on a dierent behavior from M(n; a, b) in general. We have also a further rened knot model by decomposing a and into the numbers ai = IEi + Ni and bi = OACi (i = 1, 2, . . . , n), b 10

Figure 8: A mind-knot M(n; aP , bP , a, b) respectively, and by considering the knot M(n; aP , bP , a1 , b1, . . . , an , bn ) illustrated in Fig. 9. In our construction, we used the full-twist tangles of the numbers a, aP , , ai a bi . If we use the half-twist tangles of these numbers instead of the fulland b, bP , b, twists, then our knot model changes into a link model which is a mind-knot or a link of just two untwisted mind-knots. Also, we note that there is a ner concept of the self-releasability relations for three or more mind-knots described as follows: Two non-splittable mind-links L and L have the same global self-releasability relation if there is a bijection from the mind-knots of L onto the mind-knots of L such that for every mind-sublink L1 of L and every mind-sublink L2 of L\L1 , we have (1) the splittability on (L1 , L2 ) coincides with the splittability of ( (L1 ), (L2)), and (2) the splittability on (L1 , L2 ) up to nitely many mind-changes on the components of L1 coincides with the splittability of ( (L1 ), (L2)) up to nitely many mind-changes on the components of (L1).

Figure 9: A mind-knot M(n; aP , bP , a1, b1, . . . , an , bn ) 11

The same global self-releasability relation is an equivalence relation. The equivalence class of a non-splittable mind-link under the same self-releasability relation is called a global self-releasability relation. Then we set the following problem, meaningful even in knot theory when we replace n mind-knots by general links of n components, which will be also discussed elsewhere. Problem 5.1. Classify the global self-releasability relations for n mind-knots. Finally, the author does not yet succeed in constructing any process model of generating a mind-link from mind-knots.

References [1] P. T. Costa and R. R. McCrae, From catalog to classication: Murrays needs and the ve-factor model, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(1988), 258-265. [2] R. H. Crowell and R. H. Fox, Introduction to knot theory, Ginn and Co. (1963). [3] H. Enomoto and T. Kuwabara, Personality psychology (in Japanese), A textbook of the University of the Air(2004). [4] H. J. Eysenck, Dimensions of personality, Transaction Publishers(1997). [5] H. J. Eysenck, The biological basis of personality, Transaction Publishers (2006). [6] H. J. Eysenck and S. B. G. Eysenck, Personality structure and measurement, London: Routledge(1969). [7] H. J. Eysenck and S. B. G. Eysenck, Psychoticism as a dimension of personality. London: Hodder and Stoughton (1976). [8] A. Kawauchi, A survey of knot theory, Birkhuser (1996). a [9] A. Kawauchi, Physical-chemical systems and knots (in Japanese), in: Have fun with mathematics, 5(1998), 72-80, Nihon-hyoron-sha. [10] K. Lewin, Principles of topological psychology, McGraw-Hill (1936). [11] J. W. Milnor, Link groups, Ann. of Math., 59(1954), 177-195. [12] R. Rucker, The fourth dimension, A guided tour of the higher universes, Houghton Miin Company, Boston(1984). [13] L. Rudolph, The fullness of time, Culture and Psychology, 12(2006), 157-186. 12

[14] L. Rudolph, Mathematics, models and metaphors, Culture and Psychology, 12(2006), 245-265. [15] L. Rudolph, Spaces of ambivalence: Qualitative mathematics in the modeling of complex uid phenomena, Estudios de Psicologia, 27(2006), 67-83. [16] B. Stewart and P. G. Tait, The unseen universe or physical speculations on a future state, MacMillan and Co., London and New York (1894). [17] H. Schubert, Knoten mit zwei Brcken, Math. Z., 65(1956), 133-170. u [18] J. Valsiner, The guided mind: a sociogenetic approach to personality, Harvard University Press(1998). [19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big ve personality traits. [20] E. C. Zeeman, The topology of the brain and visual perception, Topology of 3-manifolds and related topics, pp. 240-256, Prentice-Hall(1962). Osaka City University, Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka 558-8585, Japan
kawauchi@sci.osaka-cu.ac.jp

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