Ranking of Fingerprints

Hi,
In Richard Unger's Life Purpose-Lesson System, the fingerprints are ranked as:
ARCH - 1, TA - 2, LOOP - 3 and WHORL - 4.
Why not ARCH - 1, LOOP - 2 and TA - 3 WHORL - 4?

In 5-E system, the graduation of materiality is considered from earth to water to fire to air, which goes with ARCH, LOOP, TA and WHORL.

Any insights?

Agree with Martijn that Richard's system and 5-element system each have their own unique approach.
But Kiran you can think of the 'tent pole' in TA print as adding fire.
in 5 element sytem adds fire to the (earth) arch or
in Richard's system to the loop. (although Richard does not use 5 element system, it still fits to add fire to the (water) loop!)

Thank you Martijn and Lynn.

My main qtn was: Why is TA ranked higher than LOOP in Unger's system.
While in 5-E system TA comes after LOOP, considering that TA is FIRE and LOOP is WATER and elemental graduation of materiality.

But, Martijn's picture on finger prints ordering by Cummins and Midlo helped me to understanding the ordering.

B.t.w. is this ordering by Cummins and Midlo from 1 to 39 based on the reversal of the time required for development of these finger prints?
(the development of each individual pattern is a result of 'timing' & 'size' - which implicates that whorls can result from a DELAYED development... just like arches can be the result of a LACK of development.)

Kiran, as you know, Richard's system and 5-element system are just different ways of looking at hands. His ranking system is not based on graduated materiality, so you can't really compare the two.

Personally, I find Richard's system confusing regarding TA. He classes true tented arches AND loops with a central triradius, both as tented arch. so I guess that's why he puts them between arches & loops.
Loops with a central triradius would be classed as loops (water) in 5-element system. Whereas the 'tent pole' upthrust in the TA is seen as fire.

Okay.

Lynn - That's why I wanted to understand on what basis Richard was ranking these. But, got what you're saying.

Martijn - Couldn't understand the much of biological stuff there . But you made it simple - "one can not say that whorls develop faster or slower than arches".
Then is it that - archs are easy to form, while whorls are difficult?. That's what I could see from the Cummin's and Midlo diagram.

The issue I am facing is - we have many things in the palm, which I think have to be prioritized.
Finger prints, handshapes and skin structure form the basic structure of hand upon which the rest of the story gets woven. However, fingerprint should be given highest priority as they are totally fixed.

Within the fingerprints, Richard has formed a system-by comparing the rankings of these and getting into different dimensions of life. Trying to get a basic grounds of this system.

Kiran, you know that 5-element order earth,water,fire,air is based on graduated materiality of the elements from most tangible & concrete to most intangible, discrete.

Richard seems to have based his ranking on triradius - none (arch), one central (TA), one off-centre (L), 2 (whorl). In his introduction he says that his inspiration for this system came from looking at the diagrams in Cummins & Midlo "Fingerprints, Palms & Soles", as though remembering a long-forgotten ancient wisdom, and he received the whole picture in his brain. I guess like a Eureka moment.

"Ranking" doesn't mean that any print is worse or better than any other. These are just ways of putting them in some sort of order.

Richard says "There are many ways to think about fingerprints, but it doesn't matter how or why fingerprints operate as a map to our core psychology. The fact is they do."

As you say Kiran, the fingerprints are very important because they represent a fundamental, fixed aspect to our personalities that was formed when we were foetus of about 4 months, and they never change.

Regarding the biology, this page explains some of it - scroll down to fig 1.4b and read below it.
http://www.njshort.com/background/biometrics/biometrics

also this page http://therealcsi.tumblr.com/post/35639945201/this-image-shows-the-development-of-planar-volar

I also found it interesting to read in that article, that when they talk about the pads "regressing", "The pad does not actually shrink in size, but the surrounding area growth begins to catch up and the prominence of the volar pad decreases."

(I was going to ask a question here, but as I wrote it, the answer came to me!)
I was going to ask - so if it doesn't shrink, why does he still use the term 'regress'? But now I get it, when he still talks about it regressing (returning to a previous state), it returns to its earlier proportion to the rest of the finger, because the finger grows.

Thanks for pointing this out Lynn, nice to see that this passage caught your attention as well (see my earlier comment).

Martijn, yes things are falling inline for me now.

Lynn - nice material. Thank you. Unfortunately, I have left Richard's Lifeprints in India!! .

Interesting Martijn. Thank you.

Coming back on this:
What I am looking for is if there is any study which compares the presence of 1 set of finger prints against the other and one set of finger prints pulls up, while the other pulls down.

For ex: I have 1 whorl(air element) and 9 ulnar loops(water element)
whorl and the related air element marking in hands will be enhancing the knowledge aspect of the person.
while loop and water related element markings in hands will be giving a loving and connecting tendencies in the person.
Now, these 2 might go with each other/contradict with each other(in which case, one will be life purpose and another is life lesson). In either case, both has to be balanced.

I am just trying to co-relate the finger prints with the hand formations and want to listen to your opinions here on how do you merge the readings giving a high importance to finger prints and mixing them appropriately and relatively with hand markings.

No Martijn, you were right. You didn't misunderstand what I was asking.
However, the 9/1 combination was not of my hands. I have all 10 loops, I was just quoting an example.

You're saying there is no system in the world which compares 1 set of FP with another set.
But, unger's does. right?