Carl Jung- Introverted Rational, but J or P?

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Over spring break I met Olaf, a "communications consultant". He helps employees in companies communicate better with eachother and with their clients. He uses 7 different personality/communication tests, one of which is the MBTI.

Olaf is an INTJ, but he's a middle-aged and fairly well developed one. He and I shared stories about masking our behavior to make busybody SJs think that we're SJs, and give us an easier time because of that. (He got out of a fine for not stamping his train ticket in Switzerland, and had an easier time going through US customs for it. I've gotten away with turning in homework late and taking quizzes late from an ESTJ professor.)

Anyway! He said that Carl Jung was an INTJ. Since Olaf is pretty experienced in the MBTI I figured I wouldn't challenge it, just ponder it, because I had always thought that Jung was an INTP. I mean, him being an INTP was one of the persuasions to bring me to the MBTI.

Unfortunately Jung only typed himself as an Introverted Rational (INT) in his earlier "Psychological Types". The MBTI was first published in 1962, and Jung died in 1961- so close!

Anyway, what's the evidence for him being P or J?

Some links I found in preliminary research:
http://forum.infjs.com/showthread.php?t=384
^discussion on INFJ forum
http://www.intj.org/articles/jungs-type-redux/
http://www.intj.org/intj/jung-quotes/
^ INTJ propaganda
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ko...-s4KYN&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
^ from a MBTI business book

http://intjforum.com/showthread.php?t=759
^ a fairly balanced INTJ thread on the topic. *STAR*

 

[echoplex]

I remember reading that he, along with most of the people behind the MBTI, were INTPs. I can't remember where I read this though.

It does seem like the MBTI theories are a Ti kind of idea. Plus, if Jung was an "introverted rational", then it's not too much of a stretch to say that Ti being his dominant function would make the most sense.

 

[Decaf]

My rationale for why I believe Carl Jung is actually pretty simple. While he was happy to discuss his theories with his peers and present them even in writing, he always treated what he put forth as a rough draft. He hesitated from asserting much of what he believed because he felt like it wasn't finished. Not that INTJs don't have that kind of restraint, but I think for INTPs that kind of behavior feels more like default. He continually made revisions to his old work and developed his theory in a multitude of directions simultaneously while always keeping a cohesive wholeness to it.

*citation needed* yeah, I know, but I will try to find some reliable references that attest to those behaviors.

 

[Paladin-X]

Sorry to rehash this, but I've seen around this forum that people type Carl Jung as INTP. I would like to know the reasoning behind this, if someone would be so kind as to enlighten me?

Because of how old this thread is, it is no wonder that most of those links are now dead.

As for the term "Introverted Rational," in the Jungian sense, means IxxP in MBTI terms. It was Keirsey who defined NTs as the Rationals. They are two different labels.

 

[Cherry Cola]

How is he rational?

He was obsessed with religion, symbolism rituals etc. His theories were on the borderline of bogus and brilliance because of this..

Furthermore as he is I and he is N he is also J since his works and his life make it pretty obvious that he operates by a dominant percieving function which due to I and N must be Ni.

If you read about him you'll see that while he thinks a lot constantly he's also trying to create situations and living his life so that insights will come to him naturally, be it through dreams or vision, these insights are also typically paradigmatic in their effect on his work, giving him a direction. There are plentiful of examples of it, his dream about archetypes, his conscious descent into a psychotic state, his ritualistic building of a house... etc etc

This way of trying to create circumstances which will hopefully lead to insights is a typical percieving thing, and the fact that it was a recurring thing for Jung throughout his life, and indeed that these insights when they appeared to him were of the greatest importance to his theories further anchors his intuitive percieving function as dominant.

That being said, I also think it's pretty obvious that he is by no means at all an extraverted thinker, hencewhy INFJ.

But going by the dichotomy of the OP I guess I'll say INTJ.

 

[Brontosaurie]

he self-typed as an introverted thinker iirc. i'd be surprised if he hadn't considered introverted intuitive though because that probably describes him better.

 

[VelvetSteel]

lol Jung was INTP all the way. He even 'smell' like a INTP.

 

[scorpiomover]

He did an interview late in life. It's on Youtube. Very interesting. At one point in the interview, he was asked what Freud was like. He replied that when Freud said anything, he stuck to it, no matter what, while Jung "was doubting all along the way". Sounds like a P to me.

 

[Cherry Cola]

He was very forthcoming with his ideas, people around him said that he acted a bit like a guru. His language is vivid but dense and imprecise. He was a charmer. Ie definitive INFJ; he clearly uses Ni and Fe and no other type with those functions fit.

That he doubted his views is not a strong argument for P, everyone doubts internally. Or well, almost everyone. Was Jung a public doubter? No, not particularly.

 

[Base groove]

Introverted rational = P

Whether he was one or not I don't know... but that's just basic logic. In the framework of his typology, introverted rational = P.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Unless you consider INFJs introverted rationals which I guess you can as their introverted judging function is Ti then the OP is on the wrong path. I have yet to see any decent arguments as to why he'd be an INTJ, he is not.

 

[VelvetSteel]

He did an interview late in life. It's on Youtube. Very interesting. At one point in the interview, he was asked what Freud was like. He replied that when Freud said anything, he stuck to it, no matter what, while Jung "was doubting all along the way". Sounds like a P to me.

In another interview was asked to type himself, and he said that he has always been a thinker, then a intuitive, a sensor and his feeling side is not quite developed.
Those are the functions of INTPs, considering that he was a introvert.

 

[VelvetSteel]

He was very forthcoming with his ideas, people around him said that he acted a bit like a guru. His language is vivid but dense and imprecise. He was a charmer. Ie definitive INFJ; he clearly uses Ni and Fe and no other type with those functions fit.

That he doubted his views is not a strong argument for P, everyone doubts internally. Or well, almost everyone. Was Jung a public doubter? No, not particularly.

He was not a INFJ, as he had difficulty understanding Introverted Intuition, and has always fascinated him. He always compared Ni with Thinking, which is in itself a proof that he had problems understanding intuition, especialy Ni.

 

[Cherry Cola]

In another interview was asked to type himself, and he said that he has always been a thinker, then a intuitive, a sensor and his feeling side is not quite developed.
Those are the functions of INTPs, considering that he was a introvert.

He was a loner when young, ofc he felt that he could work on his feelings. Carl Jung has said a bunch of crap about which type he may be, even considering ISTP. What he thinks about his own type is not relevant.

The fact that he claimed he was a rational he did because he was quite the intellectual; moreover, he often felt compelled to proclaim his rationality, likely to ward of attacks on him and his work as being mere mysticism.

From here: http://www.celebritytypes.com/quotes/carl-jung.php <- Read all the quotes on his writing style. He is not an INTP it shouldn't need to be repeated.

Sigmund Freud: "[Jung's book 'Psychological Types'] contains no new thought. It is the work of a snob and a mystic."

Jung: "Everyone who calls me a mystic is just an idiot."

And on his type from someone who knew him:

William McGuire: "Jung's psychological type, according to his own statement late in life, was that of intuitive-intellectual introvert. This category of personality seems scarcely proper to an articulate, expressive, humorous, friendly man, ready, even eager, to talk not only with countless friends and acquaintances, [but also] with visitors who were total strangers."

Now read about his life. He was a charmer (had two women at once), needed to recharge himself by spending time doing Se stuff in relative solitude. He was obsessed with symbols and he wanted to be seen as a particular someone.

INFJ. Not INTP. Definitely not INTJ.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

Total Ni lead. Archetypes, collective conscious, dream analysis...those ideas scream Ni. He was not into the hard sciences but urged getting to know people as a way to have an understanding of humanity. INFJ all the way.

 

[nanook]

Ne aux types have Ni as demonstrative function. demonstrative function is something you like to consume, you have curios interest in, but like a science fiction book, you put it to the side, partially fascinated, partially amused, not taking it fully serious, and continue to rely on what in this case would seem to be 'reality' (since extroverted), the iconoclasm of Ne. was carl jung living through Ni, was it his lifestyle? perhaps, he was in many ways following his dreams. but i'm undecided. perhaps he was following them like some people follow science fiction conventions. still having a regular job, not really becoming sci fi actors or authors. perhaps he was stalking his dreams, rather than becoming them.

I agree that what jung was saying in the interview, where he was asked about his type, implies that his own opinion on his type was: T dominant, intuitive, introverted. The way carl jung describes introverted intuition does also display distance to the phenomenon. He criticises Ni for being unable of becoming aware of how subjective perceptions say more about the subject, than about actual reality. This is true in undeveloped Ni and comes along with how Se looks outward in a matter of fact way. This is because Ni is rarely fully differentiated from it's shadow (Or so i explain it). If he were Ni dominant, his proud would probably have compelled him to explain, that Ni does not have to get stuck in this projective mode. In contrast, when he criticizes Ti of sometimes becoming too abstract and removed from reality, to have any practical meaning, he implies, that it does not have to end up this way. In his mind, he sees the adorable version of Ti before he sees the limited version.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

Yes, but how to make darkness conscious. Ni would respond, that imagining a figure of light is making the darkness conscious, because the imagination came out of darkness. Ni comes out of darkness. Out of the subject. However other imaginations do not. Jung was sceptical of his own imaginations, iconoclastic, which implies that many of his imaginations were inspired by culture and memory, which is how Ne relates to Ni: indirectly.

 

[kora]

INFJ

 

[Cherry Cola]

Nanook: You describe Ni perfectly. His intuitions did not form a consistent whole and they did not rest upon internally grounded facts and principles, rather they are consistent in what they revolve around, which is typical of Ni, marrying paradoxes.

He built houses, he did alchemy, he played with dolls. He had to act out in an Se fashion every now and then. That was how he sustained his intuitions. The concrete for him, he found in the external world, by acting in it and partaking in it not in an intuitive manner but through simple participatory actions. Ne thinkers pit their ideas against one another, they connect internal facts when they picture these in action, they do not build houses and stuff like Jung and Wittgenstein.

With Ne thinkers, you can follow their thoughts because their intuitions are not grounded in flighty impressions, flashes of revelation and the like. They are grounded in internally consistent facts. They may create their own terminology and they may be hard to read (Kant) but once you get them you get them. With Jung there's no point where you end up seeing his body of thought layed out bare, it remains ethereal and fluxative.

 

[nanook]

Cherry Cola, how would you type youtube personalities Teal Scott and Evan Rock? Which i consider to be different types by the way.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Edit: I don't know these people well, and I may be arriving at faulty conclusion. I would appreciate hearing your opinions as well as anyone else's too.

Teal is an xNTJ. She rebels against one dogma by replacing it with another without properly considering the consequences, typical xNTJ overraction. She's decently smart, but naive and overly categorical. She is also stone faced, speaks in a monotone voice, only utilizes acting and illustrative speaking when she is being sarcastic.

She is also dishonest or just hasty in the way she propels her position. She takes the common, general definition of a word (like she does with importance) where it is in a neutral context then moves it to another where it's meaning is not the same, but she uses it as if it were. Hasty logic, linguistic naivety, and etymological ignorance. When people are considered more or less important hierarchies are typically implied, judgements are cast based on importance, other qualities are tied to it etc. She uses arguments based upon the nature of human beings, but does not consider the whole of human nature, only that which suits her agenda. The ending sequence music, the way she presents herself and her theory are all superficial attempts at instilling in the minds of her viewers that she is important and should be listened to (paradox). The ending music especially buggers me, ugh. I think I will settle on ENTJ for now, but I don't know her. Definitely J, definitely T. The other letters are less clear. Probably N, but possible ESTJ (she does utilize a lot of pure facts, but this is probably just her attempting to ground her lofty and shallow theories). Sorry I can't keep a neutral tone but ugh, I really did not like her, she's an idiot when it comes to the subject she talks about in the video she linked.

The other guy is probably an ISFP. He uses tons of loose facts and impressions presented clearly and with genuine belief in their meaning, feeling that they imply, prove even, his muddled holistic vision. He's calm, comfortable where he is, not pushy but respectful. Seems like a nice guy. But he's also annoyingly clueless and unable to get his message across in a logical fashion.

Instead he paints and illustrates.Like a musician or poet almost, able to be spontaneous because his internal feeling guiding him throughout. Makes me think he has tertiary Ni and aux Se coupled with dominant Fi. The fact that what he says ultimately really doesn't mean anything or won't lead to anything does not seem to bother him at all. Some of the things he says reveal intelligence, but he seems to have confused meaning for purpose, having arrived at the former but stopping short of the latter despite the fact that the former urges the latter by definition.

 

[VelvetSteel]

If he was a Introverted rational, its not evident he was a Judger? Ti is Judging, Ni is Perceiving.
And MBTI is just plain wrong on this. INTPs are Judgers, and INTJs are perceivers, because Ni is a irrational function.

 

[Base groove]

If he was a Introverted rational, its not evident he was a Judger? Ti is Judging, Ni is Perceiving.
And MBTI is just plain wrong on this. INTPs are Judgers, and INTJs are perceivers, because Ni is a irrational function.

Yeah MBTI may appear to be incongruent, but it's not really if you accept the notion that the terminology pertains strictly to the extraverted component of the psyche.

With this in mind, 'introverted rational' pertains strictly to I _ _ P.

 

[Reluctantly]

Total Ni lead. Archetypes, collective conscious, dream analysis...those ideas scream Ni. He was not into the hard sciences but urged getting to know people as a way to have an understanding of humanity. INFJ all the way.

Yeah (meaning I agree with INXX), but MBTI Ni descriptors are different from Jungian Ni descriptors. So using Jungian Ni descriptors to deduce MBTI J or P isn't going to be very coherent.

 

[Cherry Cola]

There are those whose types are in doubt, Jung is not one of them.

 

[scorpiomover]

There are those whose types are in doubt, Jung is not one of them.

I agree. However, what difference does it make what type he was?

If you believe that it doesn't matter what type he was, then why not give Fe harmony and say that he was an INTP?

 

[Puffy]

I agree with Ni-Fe for Jung, for the reasons Cherry & paradoxparadigm summarised. I read his autobiography last year and felt I deeply resonated with the way he put his life narrative together anyway. He didn't seem to put much emphasis on any event in his life that didn't hold some deep symbolic meaning for him, he makes his life read like a series of dreams, meaningful coincidences, correspondences.

It also had that Ni quality of a kind of teleological arch or feeling of inner destiny and guiding narrative. I think that pervades his ideas of the unconscious: this active guiding intelligence that is largely apprehended intuitively, or in noumenal terms, and will set someone on the right path if they learn to listen to it.

Jung was deeply fascinated by 'mystical' subjects all his life, parapsychology, synchronicity, alchemy and occultism, but simultaneously to this was embarrassed about being public with it and struggled to reconcile it with scientific models. Of course INTP's can be interested in such, I just feel he related to it in an Ni way and that the INTP, or the scientist, is more what Jung wanted to appear like to save face with the intellectual community.

 

[TBerg]

Didn't Jung say that during his time secluded in his hermitage that he was making a transition from being a Thinker to being an Intuitive? If the originator cannot be trusted to understand his own terms in his life, then how are we supposed to trust the constructions of the terms themselves? It's would be as though he did not observe anything correctly at all.

 

[Grayman]

Didn't Jung say that during his time secluded in his hermitage that he was making a transition from being a Thinker to being an Intuitive? If the originator cannot be trusted to understand his own terms in his life, then how are we supposed to trust the constructions of the terms themselves? It's would be as though he did not observe anything correctly at all.

If he was an intuitive INTP then 'correct' is always up for debate.

 

[nexion]

I agree. However, what difference does it make what type he was?

If you believe that it doesn't matter what type he was, then why not give Fe harmony and say that he was an INTP?

Because it's not true?

Jung is almost certainly INFJ.

 

[scorpiomover]

Because it's not true?

I thought it was INTPs who were interested in accuracy of understanding.

Jung is almost certainly INFJ.

Still interested in why INFJs seem convinced that he was an INFJ. Are there any great thinkers that came up with theories that INFJs totally relate to, and value as highly as they value MBTI, and that they do NOT think are INFJs?

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

I thought it was INTPs who were interested in accuracy of understanding.

Still interested in why INFJs seem convinced that he was an INFJ. Are there any great thinkers that came up with theories that INFJs totally relate to, and value as highly as they value MBTI, and that they do NOT think are INFJs?

I think you're conflating that most INFJ's think Jung is also INFJ. There are plenty of other types that think he was INFJ as well. An INTP written blog that you might already be aware of speculates similarly: http://personalityjunkie.com/12/jungs-type-intp-infj-intj-infp/

As for 'why', I think many have already stated why.

 

[nexion]

I thought it was INTPs who were interested in accuracy of understanding.

Overly reductionistic.

Also I think it is more probable I am INTJ anyway.

 

[scorpiomover]

I think you're conflating that most INFJ's think Jung is also INFJ. There are plenty of other types that think he was INFJ as well. An INTP written blog that you might already be aware of speculates similarly: http://personalityjunkie.com/12/jungs-type-intp-infj-intj-infp/

That would be like saying that white people aren't the only people who think Jesus was white. Some black people also think that Jesus was white. Still not white.

As for 'why', I think many have already stated why.

I didn't see anything that you wrote that indicated INFJ. Can you please explain?

 

[scorpiomover]

Overly reductionistic.

Don't understand what you mean. That's not a complete sentence. Normally, I'd try to intuit what an incomplete sentence means, and not worry about it. But my brain is just saying "Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute." Can you say the sentence fully?

Also I think it is more probable I am INTJ anyway.

But you did think you're an INFJ, right? And you still haven't decided for sure, right? So, you think you're an INFJ.

 

[Hadoblado]

I agree that Jung was likely INFJ, or at least not INTP. If Jung was INTP, then I'm almost certainly not. The type of thinking he uses is vastly different to my own.

I read in this thread the accusation that INFJ's were claiming him because they like his ideas, not because his type is the same. That is exactly the accusation I would make against INTPs claiming him.

 

[scorpiomover]

I read in this thread the accusation that INFJ's were claiming him because they like his ideas, not because his type is the same. That is exactly the accusation I would make against INTPs claiming him.

Ironic, because I was thinking just that same thing about myself, and have had that knocking against my brain for the last few years. It's put me off assuming that he was definitely an INTP. Sometimes, my P-ness won't let me get to a firm conclusion.

I agree that Jung was likely INFJ, or at least not INTP. If Jung was INTP, then I'm almost certainly not. The type of thinking he uses is vastly different to my own.

Ironic, because that's probably the biggest reason why I thought that Jung was an INTP, because he makes so much sense to me, when few others do, and because I was considered to be overly-logical to an extreme, and considered to be pontificating about ridiculous, seemingly impossible possibilities, by everyone who ever met me, ever since I was 5, and probably was like that even before.

However, it doesn't matter to me what set of letters refers to the characteristics of INTPs. It doesn't even matter to me if my way of thinking is like Architect or like Cherry Cola. A rose by any other name shall smell as sweet. I am what I am. I'm past requiring that I show that I understand Jung to show off my ego. I just would like to understand myself and others better, so that I can improve my dealings with myself and others, as at the end of the day, that's really all we have, isn't it?

Who knows? I might conclude that I'm an INFJ.

Given that I could be biased, I'd be curious as to hearing what precise aspects of Jung's behaviour that you find totally unlike your own behaviour, and what your behaviour on those matters is instead, as those things can be said to be objective facts, that are not reliant on any interpretation of my type, Jung's type, or your type.

 

[Hadoblado]

People were using the term 'internal consistency' earlier in the thread. That's what I'd say the difference is (I think of it as intellectual conservatism, but it's the same). We greatly differ in our willingness to build on ideas under which the truth values of the premises are yet to be established. That's not to say that I can't possibly think at an intuitive level, just that I wouldn't build massive structural cognitive models in so much detail without first looking at the base. To me, it seems sort of insane to say so much about something of which so little is known.

When looking for the truth, I look at the evidence and consider every single judgement call a weak point of the model, the familywise error rate gets out of control so fast when your conclusion relies on multiple unproven claims. Past a certain point (say... three measures of judgement) it just seems very unlikely I'll be right about every detail, so I put the model aside until I can justify relying on the premises, or find a way to reduce them. I'm very reductionist in thought, holistic understanding is only achieved after endless refinement to maintain internal-consistency.

His career focus was on the unknown, which is a good direction if you're trying to make discoveries, but his approach was not to slowly test and retest, but to jump in the deep end. I am drawn to his ideas because they're interesting and sort of awesome, but his process is very different.

Note: I don't really know that much about Jung, though I've been peripherally exposed to his ideas for quite a while. I'm not trying to bring any authority to this discussion, just thoughts.

 

[scorpiomover]

People were using the term 'internal consistency' earlier in the thread. That's what I'd say the difference is (I think of it as intellectual conservatism, but it's the same). We greatly differ in our willingness to build on ideas under which the truth values of the premises are yet to be established. That's not to say that I can't possibly think at an intuitive level, just that I wouldn't build massive structural cognitive models in so much detail without first looking at the base. To me, it seems sort of insane to say so much about something of which so little is known.

When looking for the truth, I look at the evidence and consider every single judgement call a weak point of the model, the familywise error rate gets out of control so fast when your conclusion relies on multiple unproven claims. Past a certain point (say... three measures of judgement) it just seems very unlikely I'll be right about every detail, so I put the model aside until I can justify relying on the premises, or find a way to reduce them. I'm very reductionist in thought, holistic understanding is only achieved after endless refinement to maintain internal-consistency.

His career focus was on the unknown, which is a good direction if you're trying to make discoveries, but his approach was not to slowly test and retest, but to jump in the deep end. I am drawn to his ideas because they're interesting and sort of awesome, but his process is very different.

Note: I don't really know that much about Jung, though I've been peripherally exposed to his ideas for quite a while. I'm not trying to bring any authority to this discussion, just thoughts.

That sounds a very sensible and evidence-based approach.

I've often been accused of going off on wild goose chases. Sometimes, they are worthless, and sometimes, they reveal things that were really useful, that other people never considered. That's part of why I consider myself an intuitive, because I am inclined to take risks based on my intuition, even when it's against the facts. I'll give lots of things a go, just to see what comes out of them.

Since we are so very different, do you think we could possibly be the same type, or not? If we are the same type, then how do we differ so very much? If we are not the same type, then which of the 4 MBTI dichotomies do you think we differ on, and what sources do you have that support that one side of the dichotomy sticks to the evidence and only advances from it very slowly and very carefully, while the other is someone who is willing to go off on the wildest of wild goose chases and propose the most insane of ideas, knowing full well that he's probably wrong, and quite happy to be so, because every so often, he gets brilliant ideas that really advance his understanding greatly, even if he has no clue yet on how it will help him achieve any goals at all?

 

[Hadoblado]

I remembered at some point mentioning this to you on your wall, and a conversation point was found.

Scorpio:

I noticed that too. But my Ni-ness is a lot more detailed and logic-based, than intuition. I do a lot of Ti-Ne comparison by myself, trying out angle after angle, asking myself question after question, until I get that Ti-based "Aha!" moment, when everything suddenly slots together, like a bunch of lego bricks that won't fit together, and you keep trying different ideas of what parts could look like, until finally, you know exactly how the pieces fit together, and it's obvious what it has to be.

Jung described this with Ti, when he wrote:

Its task is accomplished when the idea it has fashioned seems to emerge so inevitably from the external facts that they actually prove its validity.

I've also seen Ni based conclusions described as "Aha moments". "Aha" implying that the comprehension arrives all at once, which is rarely how I experience it. I have an idea about how things might work, I then check all the premises and see if I can validly arrive at my conclusion from knowns. Often the ideas are formed from an overlap or equivalence of concepts in the components from which I am building the model (in my head this is like a wormhole bending to put the overlap in in the same position spatially, leaving only the divergence standing out). Essentially I see this as Ne casts wide and filters for conceptual similarity, and then Ti rigorously and brutally slams into it repeatedly via the construction process of the model. Not many survive. There’s no ‘aha’, only “hmmm, that’s interesting, what if …?”
I guess the distinction I would draw between my own process and the lego analogy is that when I play with lego, there is no right way to fit the lego together. There is lego, and from it I might make a house or a vehicle, or I might try and fail to make a dinosaur, but the majority of my lego use leads nowhere externally recognisable. At some point my house might start looking like a dinosaur, in which case I keep the pieces for if ever I want to come back and make one.

With the previous quote in mind, we then have:

I've often been accused of going off on wild goose chases. Sometimes, they are worthless, and sometimes, they reveal things that were really useful, that other people never considered. That's part of why I consider myself an intuitive, because I am inclined to take risks based on my intuition, even when it's against the facts. I'll give lots of things a go, just to see what comes out of them.

In contrast to a process by which the ‘idea it has fashioned seems to emerge so inevitably from the external facts that they actually prove its validity’, you’re taking chances with hunches that you understand to have a risk of being wrong. I’m not saying that the process I understand to be Ti is never wrong, but before going out on a limb it already has a good understanding on just what the truth value of a conclusion/idea is contingent on. Your process seems more… loose and free?

As for

Since we are so very different, do you think we could possibly be the same type, or not? If we are the same type, then how do we differ so very much? If we are not the same type, then which of the 4 MBTI dichotomies do you think we differ on, and what sources do you have that support that one side of the dichotomy sticks to the evidence and only advances from it very slowly and very carefully, while the other is someone who is willing to go off on the wildest of wild goose chases and propose the most insane of ideas, knowing full well that he's probably wrong, and quite happy to be so, because every so often, he gets brilliant ideas that really advance his understanding greatly, even if he has no clue yet on how it will help him achieve any goals at all?

Well… you place great emphasis on your intuition. Though I get the impression that your definition of intuition is broader, I don’t disagree with your diagnosis. While you seem to imply that the divergence can be explained by me being a senser (apologies if that was not your intention), I find that quite unlikely (If you think it worth pursuing, I’m happy to take you up in the witch-hunt thread). Perhaps intuition is higher up on your stack than it is mine? Assuming I’m INTP (and that MBTI is a thing), that’d mean you’re a dom, leaving ENTP, ENFP, INFJ, and INTJ. I know INFJ has been on the table for you in the past, do any of the others ring at all true? ENTP is quite similar functionally to INTP, but is certainly less focused on internal consistency.
You look to your experience a lot when talking about your type, but the conclusions that are drawn by comparing yourself to your surroundings are entirely dependent on the context of your surroundings. It seems to me that you’re smarter than the people around you, and the thing about smart people is that they’re really good at winning arguments and appearing logical, but that success rarely continues once they’re held to the standard of a logical proof. Are you the type of person that would assume themselves logical because other people perceive them as such? Is it possible that your logical excellence is the by-product of a more general capacity?

 

[nexion]

If he was a Introverted rational, its not evident he was a Judger? Ti is Judging, Ni is Perceiving.
And MBTI is just plain wrong on this. INTPs are Judgers, and INTJs are perceivers, because Ni is a irrational function.

I had this gripe forever, turns out the people who made the theory weren't complete idiots like I thought, they just made the J/P axis correspond to which of the first two functions in the stack interfaced with reality (ie. are extroverted).

Don't understand what you mean. That's not a complete sentence. Normally, I'd try to intuit what an incomplete sentence means, and not worry about it. But my brain is just saying "Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute." Can you say the sentence fully?

Saying "X is the only type that can do this kind of general and also fairly important thing" is bad, ok?

But you did think you're an INFJ, right? And you still haven't decided for sure, right? So, you think you're an INFJ.

There have a been a few fleeting moments where I heavily suspected as such, but for an indeterminate amount of time into the future, I shall remain an INxJ.

Note that "being" an INxJ does not mean I think that I am both an INTJ and an INFJ, since that is physically impossible. It merely means I haven't decided yet, or more accurately, I haven't yet obtained enough information on the differing functions in INFJ and INTJ to conclusively determine which one is a better fit for my own personality.

Also, since you technically directed this at me:

Are there any great thinkers that came up with theories that INFJs totally relate to, and value as highly as they value MBTI, and that they do NOT think are INFJs?

First, there are a few, but I don't really recall them (or read very many great thinkers at all). I'll have to get back to you on that.

Second, I don't really value MBTI very highly. I don't value many external ideas very highly in general (probably why I can't remember the ideas that I consider great by any of the great thinkers). The way I relate to the external idea primarily is drawing essence out of it, then taking that idea, exploring it in every possible way, incorporating it into my web of ideas, and then exploring it in every possible way again, as it relates to every other idea and how it affects all of them and the paradigm as a whole (a process I call 'idea fetishizing', although it happens mostly unconsciously). But the idea in the external world only usually matters, and in some ways only really exists, in so much as it is able to catalyze the process into going. So I am constantly becoming attached to these ideas, getting what I need out of them, and then forgetting they exist in the external world. That seems to be the major difference between Ni and Ne to me.

 

[Base groove]

I had this gripe forever, turns out the people who made the theory weren't complete idiots like I thought, they just made the J/P axis correspond to which of the first two functions in the stack interfaced with reality (ie. are extroverted).

Here's a theory.... what they dichotomized as "P-type behavior" corresponded much more strongly with extraverted perception types (incl. auxiliary) than it did with irrational types at large & vice versa.

So, they went with the indicator that they did (which you have put very elegantly, in fact). It wasn't a mistake and it's not wrong.

Not exactly trying to refute what you said just putting it another way - as plain and basic as I can.

 

[scenefinale]

Just another (relevant) perspective on this.
http://youtu.be/K6GU1OV_OeE?t=3m10s

Also, if you watch one of the many videos of Jung available on youtube, take note of his language.

I have observed that Te tends to express things as "fact", Se tends to describe things as an "experience" (think of the way Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld tells a story, an overkill analogy, perhaps), Fe tends to describe things as feelings, and Ne tends to describe things as abstract ideas which can be later be applied to specific situations. These, of course, are not to be approached as boolean, end all type-determining-steps (e.g. INTPs can occasionally express facts too.) But I hope that it will be a helpful perspective.

 

[scorpiomover]

[mention]Hadoblado[/mention]

I've also seen Ni based conclusions described as "Aha moments". "Aha" implying that the comprehension arrives all at once,

Generally, that's how "intuition" works, at least, the older meaning of the word from which Jung seems to have borrowed his concept.

which is rarely how I experience it. I have an idea about how things might work, I then check all the premises and see if I can validly arrive at my conclusion from knowns. Often the ideas are formed from an overlap or equivalence of concepts in the components from which I am building the model (in my head this is like a wormhole bending to put the overlap in in the same position spatially, leaving only the divergence standing out). Essentially I see this as Ne casts wide and filters for conceptual similarity, and then Ti rigorously and brutally slams into it repeatedly via the construction process of the model. Not many survive. There’s no ‘aha’, only “hmmm, that’s interesting, what if …?”
I guess the distinction I would draw between my own process and the lego analogy is that when I play with lego, there is no right way to fit the lego together. There is lego, and from it I might make a house or a vehicle, or I might try and fail to make a dinosaur, but the majority of my lego use leads nowhere externally recognisable. At some point my house might start looking like a dinosaur, in which case I keep the pieces for if ever I want to come back and make one.

Jung suggested that everyone has all 4 functions. Jung seemed to me, to consider Sensation just as we understand it, those who rely on facts, empirical data, and what we can be reasonably certain of, such as what we physically see and can detect via instrumentation, rather than relying on inspiration, imagination or invention. Sensors have intuiton. But they prefer to rely on the facts. They tend to try intuitive possibilities when they've exhausted other possibilities.

In contrast to a process by which the ‘idea it has fashioned seems to emerge so inevitably from the external facts that they actually prove its validity’, you’re taking chances with hunches that you understand to have a risk of being wrong. I’m not saying that the process I understand to be Ti is never wrong, but before going out on a limb it already has a good understanding on just what the truth value of a conclusion/idea is contingent on. Your process seems more… loose and free?

Yes. It's like throwing darts at a dartboard while wearing a blindfold. I have to trust my brain to direct my hands correctly. My experience in my 20s, was that half the time, I missed the dartboard completely, and half the time, I hit the bulls-eye. I realised that the cost of throwing 2 darts instead of one, is very little, compared to the gain of hitting the bulls-eye.

However, my sensing abilities were incredibly weak. E.G. I only learned to drive when I was about 41, and it took me 4 years and over 300 lessons to get my licence.

When I was younger, I didn't trust my intuition that much, mainly because rationally and scientifically, intuition has usually meant psychic phenomena, and is supposed to be nonsense. Jung's version doesn't really change that much from that concept, only he believed that things that rationalists reject, such as astrology, G-d, religions, and shamanism, are worth listening to. As a result, I didn't have intuition or sensation to get decent ideas from. I was a mess.

Over time, I realised that I was just ignoring my natural skills just because it didn't agree with what I'd been told, and I might as well give it a shot. My ideas improved tremendously.

Not everyone is like that. Sensors typically say that they don't get that much from intuition, which is why they tend to avoid it. Their sensing abilities seem to be very strong. They usually take to things like driving like a duck to water.

I don't know why mine is like it is. I just know that it's been consistently like that since as far back as I could remember.

Well… you place great emphasis on your intuition. Though I get the impression that your definition of intuition is broader, I don’t disagree with your diagnosis. While you seem to imply that the divergence can be explained by me being a senser (apologies if that was not your intention), I find that quite unlikely (If you think it worth pursuing, I’m happy to take you up in the witch-hunt thread).

It's just where logic led me. It could be right or wrong, depending on what info I currently have needs updating or is missing. If you fill in more info on your experiences, then I figure that eventually, we'll get to a common understanding where everything should be clear. At least, that's what I have found usually happens when people do that.

Perhaps intuition is higher up on your stack than it is mine? Assuming I’m INTP (and that MBTI is a thing), that’d mean you’re a dom, leaving ENTP, ENFP, INFJ, and INTJ. I know INFJ has been on the table for you in the past, do any of the others ring at all true? ENTP is quite similar functionally to INTP, but is certainly less focused on internal consistency.

I've been discussing Ni on INTJf, and am finally getting an understanding of Ni that some INTJs are confirming is accurate. It's definitely completely alien to me, like aliens from another universe.

ENTP doesn't fit either. My forte seems to be in diagnosing problems accurately. I'm much weaker at implementing solutions. I'm also not all that adventurous in trying lots of things, preferring to experiment in my own mind, so to speak. I'm also pretty private about my experiences. I often have only revealed things to friends years after they happened. I'm also lousy at "social chess". All of this seems to be the opposite of ENTPs.

You look to your experience a lot when talking about your type, but the conclusions that are drawn by comparing yourself to your surroundings are entirely dependent on the context of your surroundings. It seems to me that you’re smarter than the people around you, and the thing about smart people is that they’re really good at winning arguments and appearing logical, but that success rarely continues once they’re held to the standard of a logical proof. Are you the type of person that would assume themselves logical because other people perceive them as such? Is it possible that your logical excellence is the by-product of a more general capacity?

When I was a kid, I used to lose almost every argument. Often, I'd lose arguments in less than a minute. I was also horribly impractical. If I was sent for the milk, I'd often come back with nothing, or the wrong milk, or sometimes, orange juice or gherkins.

When it came to maths, physics, programming, anything rational and theoretical, I was a natural. It just all seemed to make sense to me. I couldn't get my head around why anyone else found it hard. As my older brother later on explained to me, it was like most people would go from A to B to C to D, and my mind would go straight from A to D. My mind was so impossibly fast, that I'd have to double-back and repeat the process, to recall how I calculated the answers, so that I could explain it to others and write down my working in exams.

I know that sounds like Ni. But from what I've learned, Ni is primarily strategic. I was logical to an extreme. But extremely impractical. I could use my brains to solve abstract problems. But it would take me months to convert it into a practical solution. Also, the ability to convert

My brother is a classic INTJ, in every sense of the word. He's not like most INTJs on INTJf, in that most of them seem to be quite good at science, maths and programming, and he's far, far better at networking and things like that.

 

[scorpiomover]

Saying "X is the only type that can do this kind of general and also fairly important thing" is bad, ok?

I agree. I was talking about focus, not hardware capability. The hardware is pretty much the same in everyone.

IME, and from what I've read that INTPs and INTJs keep saying on INTJf, INTPs tend to be more interested in developing their. INxJs tend to be more interested in achieving results, and consider "truth" to be adaptable, according to the context.

There have a been a few fleeting moments where I heavily suspected as such, but for an indeterminate amount of time into the future, I shall remain an INxJ.

Note that "being" an INxJ does not mean I think that I am both an INTJ and an INFJ, since that is physically impossible. It merely means I haven't decided yet, or more accurately, I haven't yet obtained enough information on the differing functions in INFJ and INTJ to conclusively determine which one is a better fit for my own personality.

OK. So you're an Ni-dom, and are currently unsure if you're an Fe-aux or a Te-aux. You've concluded that Jung was an Ni-dom, with Fe-aux. INTJs there say that Ni-doms automatically understand each other, but no-one else does.

I've noticed that they've usually typed Einstein, Jung, Batman, Sherlock Holmes, House, Newton, Bruce Lee, and anyone else they admire and would like to be like, as an Ni-dom, and anyone that they didn't like to be associated with, such as Anders Breivik, and anyone who was not a success or smart, or anyone who was universally considered evil without any redeeming admirational qualities, to be definitely NOT an INxJ. Some have given up on Sherlock being an Ni-dom. But they're still maintaining that he's an Ni-tert.

I can pretty much predict whether they'll say someone famous is an Ni-user or not, by whether they'd like him/her to be their type, and whether they'd like him/her to be NOT their type. Don't even need to think about what the person is like.

I'd rather not see here turn the same way.

First, there are a few, but I don't really recall them (or read very many great thinkers at all). I'll have to get back to you on that.

Second, I don't really value MBTI very highly. I don't value many external ideas very highly in general (probably why I can't remember the ideas that I consider great by any of the great thinkers). The way I relate to the external idea primarily is drawing essence out of it, then taking that idea, exploring it in every possible way, incorporating it into my web of ideas, and then exploring it in every possible way again, as it relates to every other idea and how it affects all of them and the paradigm as a whole (a process I call 'idea fetishizing', although it happens mostly unconsciously). But the idea in the external world only usually matters, and in some ways only really exists, in so much as it is able to catalyze the process into going. So I am constantly becoming attached to these ideas, getting what I need out of them, and then forgetting they exist in the external world. That seems to be the major difference between Ni and Ne to me.

The "learn and dump" method, as my ENFJ friend calls it.

From what I've read of the "You know you're an INTP when..." thread, and on other posts, there is a common theme amongst INTPs, where we'll learn something that doesn't seem to be useful now, but might be useful in the future, think about it, draw useful conclusions about it, then store it away for when we might need it.

Days, weeks, months, even years later, a context turns up where it's useful, and where everyone else has tried and failed, and then we pull it out of our data store, apply it, solve the problem in 5 minutes, and move on. This happens again and again and again, as if the knowledge was far more useful later, than it ever might have been at the time.

A very different understanding of what is useful.

 

[Hadoblado]

Welp! Then I'm absolutely not at all sure in the slightest

As for me being a senser... my outlook and beliefs rely on empiricism and logic, but the direction of my thoughts are almost strictly in the abstract. It's a philosophically self-imposed position, not a temperament. There are infinite thoughts you could think in the pursuit of truth, but the highest correlates of truth are evidence and logical consistency.

When thinking entirely on my own I'm lax on evidence, but I don't come to the table without keeping it in mind.

 

[scorpiomover]

Welp! Then I'm absolutely not at all sure in the slightest

"Not at all sure in the slightest" of what exactly?

As for me being a senser... my outlook and beliefs rely on empiricism and logic, but the direction of my thoughts are almost strictly in the abstract. It's a philosophically self-imposed position, not a temperament. There are infinite thoughts you could think in the pursuit of truth, but the highest correlates of truth are evidence and logical consistency.

When thinking entirely on my own I'm lax on evidence, but I don't come to the table without keeping it in mind.

For hundreds of years, people believed that there were smart people and stupid people, that most people were stupid and only a few were smart, that it was inborn and could not be changed, and that as a consequence, the only rational way to run society was to put the smart people in charge and to require that the stupid majority would have to do what the smart people said was good for them. If they refused, because it seemed irrational or immoral, or extremely unfair, then they had to be forced, because they were too stupid to be expected to recognise good sense when they saw it. As it was inborn, it was most likely inheritable. So it was expected that that the majority of the smart people's children would be smart and should be the future leaders of society, and that the majority of stupid people's children would be stupid, and that if anyone differed from that, such as that a child of stupid working-class parents claimed to be smart, then only the smart powerful elite could be expected to know if he was, and they had to thus be the ones to decide if he was really smart or only pretending.

That was the basis of the class system.

When we demolished that system, we were also saying that perception of humanity was fundamentally wrong, and was effectively a rather naive and self-interested way of looking at the world.

So when we come along with things like personality typing, it can't be about smart versus stupid, and likewise about those who are interested in science versus those who are only interested in physical pursuits, because we rejected those concepts, because they're WRONG.

Saying that sensors or extroverts or feelers aren't interested in science, or can't think clearly, or anything like that, is implying those people think that we should be run by an inheritable class oligarchy.

Can you not find another way of talking about the differences between sensors and intuitives?

 

[Hadoblado]

@Mods
This particular part of the discussion no longer pertains to the OP. Could it please be moved to the witch-hunt thread? If we do manage to settle the differences (lol pseudopuns) between Scorpio and myself we could then come back armed with that information to tackle Jung.

"Not at all sure in the slightest" of what exactly

I was withdrawing all speculation as to your type in light of the evidence you provided. You may have a type, but I am clueless as to what it is.

For hundreds of years, people believed that there were smart people and stupid people, that most people were stupid and only a few were smart, that it was inborn and could not be changed, and that as a consequence, the only rational way to run society was to put the smart people in charge and to require that the stupid majority would have to do what the smart people said was good for them. If they refused, because it seemed irrational or immoral, or extremely unfair, then they had to be forced, because they were too stupid to be expected to recognise good sense when they saw it. As it was inborn, it was most likely inheritable. So it was expected that that the majority of the smart people's children would be smart and should be the future leaders of society, and that the majority of stupid people's children would be stupid, and that if anyone differed from that, such as that a child of stupid working-class parents claimed to be smart, then only the smart powerful elite could be expected to know if he was, and they had to thus be the ones to decide if he was really smart or only pretending.

That was the basis of the class system.

When we demolished that system, we were also saying that perception of humanity was fundamentally wrong, and was effectively a rather naive and self-interested way of looking at the world.

So when we come along with things like personality typing, it can't be about smart versus stupid, and likewise about those who are interested in science versus those who are only interested in physical pursuits, because we rejected those concepts, because they're WRONG.

Whoah you sure like to complicate things. This is an unexpected direction. I’m sorry I’m having difficulty even comprehending what you mean.

What is the purpose of the smart/stupid distinction? That’s just a point of comparison right?

What is the relevance of the class system? Isn’t the class system in the terms you’ve described it very much still a thing?

Are you implying that I am acting from a self-proclaimed position of established authority to dictate who is and isn’t an INTP?

How does it follow from the abolishment of the class system that a particular brand of pseudoscience can’t categorise people according to their intelligence, the direction of their attention, or the area of their interests? How are these concepts wrong?

Saying that sensors or extroverts or feelers aren't interested in science, or can't think clearly, or anything like that, is implying those people think that we should be run by an inheritable class oligarchy.

Are you saying that I was saying that sensers, extroverts, and feelers aren’t interested in science and can’t think clearly? Is this derived from…

Spoiler

As for me being a senser... my outlook and beliefs rely on empiricism and logic, but the direction of my thoughts are almost strictly in the abstract. It's a philosophically self-imposed position, not a temperament. There are infinite thoughts you could think in the pursuit of truth, but the highest correlates of truth are evidence and logical consistency.

When thinking entirely on my own I'm lax on evidence, but I don't come to the table without keeping it in mind.

?

Because it does follow from

[no sensor thinks only in the abstract]

and

[I think only in the abstract]

that

[I am not a senser]

But it does not follow from these premises and conclusions that

[no senser can think in the abstract]

If this is what you are inferring to be my position then you are mistaken. As for …

is implying those people think that we should be run by an inheritable class oligarchy.

If we assume I was saying that they couldn’t think or science, how does this follow?

Can you not find another way of talking about the differences between sensors and intuitives?

I can find a lot of ways. What way would you prefer?

Could we err… just conclude that I’m less intuitive than you already and start communicating ideas more concisely? No offense, but it feels like at this rate this discussion will be decided by attrition rather than reason. If every time you say something I need to unpack a string of inference and how it pertains to social class theory and intelligence, we’ll be here a long time.

As for clarifying my own position:

I am not saying sensers can’t intuit, I’m saying that I rarely sense. Extroverted sensing is completely out of the question, and while one can infer Si from a preoccupation with reality, my preoccupation is with discerning fantasy from reality. I rarely look to history or experience comparative to other people, and I have little patience for facts unrelated to my current goal. I am far more interested in the possible and fantastical than the actual, but I take great issue when the possible is proclaimed the actual without evidence.

Other than this particular facet of my personality, do you have other reasons for thinking me a senser?

 

[Reluctantly]

Didn't Jung say that during his time secluded in his hermitage that he was making a transition from being a Thinker to being an Intuitive? If the originator cannot be trusted to understand his own terms in his life, then how are we supposed to trust the constructions of the terms themselves? It's would be as though he did not observe anything correctly at all.

This is a good point. Though he didn't hold the belief that types were innate, so whether he is 'correct' or not seems kind of moot.

But given that he seemed to have plenty of self-awareness throughout his life, it might very well have been the case that he was an introverted thinker that became an introverted intuitive. And if that's what he said happened, he would know himself better than anyone else...


There's an interview where he talks about his type:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsnDmXU4d8k

Interviewer: Have you concluded what psychological type you are?
Jung: Naturally I've devoted a great deal of attention to that...painful question, you know.
Interviewer: And reached a conclusion?
Jung: Well...[stuttering] you see the type is nothing static...it changes with the course of life...uh...but I was certainly characterized by thinking...or with thought...[Says something I can't understand]...and I had a great deal of intuition too...and I had a definite difficulty with feeling...and my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for a [stutters]... diagnosis.

Not only did he put a lot of thought into determining his type, but he never said anything absolutely about it, instead stating what was actually true of himself and allowing people to take from that what they will.

It's also interesting that he stutters when trying to explain that type isn't a static thing; he also, more or less, says that he didn't resonate well with feeling. And stutters when deciding what to call type...deciding on referring to it as a "diagnosis" rather than a "type".

That said, he basically says he is INTX. Though from the abstract way he approached psychology and his uncomfortable disposition with making absolute statements regarding it, INTP seems more acceptable over INTJ, which isn't commonly correlated with these attributes.

 

[Reluctantly]

I had this gripe forever, turns out the people who made the theory weren't complete idiots like I thought, they just made the J/P axis correspond to which of the first two functions in the stack interfaced with reality (ie. are extroverted).

The problem with this justification of reasoning is that introverted functions manifest themselves to observers, whether it's intentional or not. But more importantly, because of this, when someone is introverting, they are still interfaced with reality; and this introversion not only then effects the way one orientates with reality (while introverting), but it will effect how they extrovert as well.

Thus, as an example, take an NiTe and TeNi ego. The NiTe introvert, by nature of introversion, is going to put more effort into passively perceiving the world around them before deciding to be more direct with their Te. Then to argue that all one sees is the Te-directness and nothing else is quite misleading because anyone that gets to know that introverted person is going to see how much effort is spent perceiving the world around them before they choose to be more direct with their Te, as well as how much care gets put into the underpinnings of their Te (heavy Ni or Si) and what it is.
Now contrast this with the TeNi extrovert that is much more focused on judging the world around them and perceiving it later and there becomes a big difference between dominant Te and auxiliary Te from an external observer, where one is much more focused on judging and the other on perceiving. And they will manifest quite differently; the introvert will have a much more harmonious Te as it passively takes things into account (with Ni or Si), whereas the extrovert much more dissonant, as it makes judging blunders to be fixed after-the-fact (with Ni or Si). Thus, it's misleading to suggest that one's extroverted function is all that people see. It's not that simple for anyone that actually pays attention to other people's unique personalities.

 

[scorpiomover]

@Mods
This particular part of the discussion no longer pertains to the OP. Could it please be moved to the witch-hunt thread? If we do manage to settle the differences (lol pseudopuns) between Scorpio and myself we could then come back armed with that information to tackle Jung.

Mods haven't moved it yet. I do believe that it is pertinent. So for the time being, I'll continue, i.e. can't be asked to start a new thread. If you want to, you can.

I was withdrawing all speculation as to your type in light of the evidence you provided. You may have a type, but I am clueless as to what it is.

Not really necessary. In order to type other people, I had to question a lot of assumptions made about the way that the brain works in relation to MBTI. When I did that, I found that a lot of what is assumed about the brain that is in relation to MBTI, seems to contradict scientific discoveries about the brain, and seems to contradict basic questions that we can all ask about how we think.

Whoah you sure like to complicate things. This is an unexpected direction. I’m sorry I’m having difficulty even comprehending what you mean.

What is the purpose of the smart/stupid distinction? That’s just a point of comparison right?

It's a division that many people often make about people in general, that some are smart, and some are stupid. Generally, MBTI fans who type themselves as Intuitives, tend to regard Sensors as stupid and themselves as smart. They then go on to make fun of anything that other people do, and anything that the person personally doesn't understand, as something that only Sensors would do, and also something that is utterly ridiculous to do under any circumstances.

Personally, I find such attitudes rather parochial, conservative, and rather trivially inane, because it's just an egotistic way to justify one's own behaviour, and to justify mocking anything that differs with one's own behaviour, without any true justification for one's behaviour, or if it's consistent with Sensors worldwide, or if it's inconsistent with Intuitives worldwide, which often, it isn't.

Effectively, it's just shoe-horning MBTI to fit in with one's existing POV, including one's existing biases. It's not learning about MBTI at all.

What is the relevance of the class system? Isn’t the class system in the terms you’ve described it very much still a thing?

Same as the above. It's the same sorts of thinking that we see as common in the Medieval Age, that modernists claim that we've rejected. Abstracting the concepts, we're still thinking the same ways, only we're just dressing it up in different jargon and different behaviours that are more applicable to the modern age.

Same problem as above.

Are you implying that I am acting from a self-proclaimed position of established authority to dictate who is and isn’t an INTP?

Not deliberately. But when one describes MBTI only in ways that fit in with those medieval assumptions, then it's forcing everyone to be understood only in terms of those medieval paradigms.

If one is to be objective, one needs to outline all of the ideas upon which one bases one's understanding of MBTI, and question each and every one.

How does it follow from the abolishment of the class system that a particular brand of pseudoscience can’t categorise people according to their intelligence, the direction of their attention, or the area of their interests? How are these concepts wrong?

The class system was based on the notion that most are as stupid as animals that are unable to control their most base impulses in the interests of a better life, and that a minority were super-intelligent beings who were super-intelligent due to some property that was inherent to their nature. It was that notion that dictated that the super-intelligent Aristocracy should dictated the every decision of the supposedly-stupid Proletariat.

The breakup of the class system was in large part based on the principle that the above was incorrect, that the Aristocracy only appeared to be smart, because they had an education that trained them to be competent at certain cognitive skills, that were in turn considered the measure of intelligence. The Proletariat thus only appeared to be stupid, because of a lack of education in those areas. That was then an impetus for public education, to correct the imbalance, under the presumption that that correction would in time, show that all the classes were roughly equal in intelligence.

The S/N division seems to be treated the same way by people who say they are intuitives. But according to the reasons for the dismantling of the class system, we're all equal. We don't have the right to say that Sensors are in any way, shape or form, less intelligent than Intuitives, any more or less than we have the right to say that about African-americans. We can say that they are "differently intelligent", but not "less intelligent".

Are you saying that I was saying that sensers, extroverts, and feelers aren’t interested in science and can’t think clearly? Is this derived from…
?

Because it does follow from

[no sensor thinks only in the abstract]

and

[I think only in the abstract]

that

[I am not a senser]

You seemed to be implying that.

But it does not follow from these premises and conclusions that

[no senser can think in the abstract]

Even amongst those who are of the opinion that Sensors are monumentally stupid morons who can only do as they are told, they'll still admit that there might be some exceptions to the rule.

If this is what you are inferring to be my position then you are mistaken.

If it's still your "general rule", then it takes some explanation as to how it does not look like a modern-day revisionism of the medieval smart/stupid dichotomy, re-framed in terms of today's lifestyle.

As for …

If we assume I was saying that they couldn’t think or science, how does this follow?

Same was as all those people who say that most people can't understand science, and need to be told what to do by scientists, and so advocate a Technocracy.

I can find a lot of ways. What way would you prefer?

I don't want to tell you what conclusions to reach. That would be unfair. Your answer might be just as accurate as my own. I'm open, so long as it conforms roughly to what Jung wrote about Sensors and Intuitives, and conforms to give a reasonable explanation of many of the common behaviours associated with both groups, and is consistent with scientific experimental results, although it doesn't have to match their theories, and, most importantly, it doesn't fall into the genetic fallacy that some people are just born smart, and the rest are born stupid. At least, not until we have a solid biological proof that I can't find any fault with.

Could we err… just conclude that I’m less intuitive than you already

If you want, although I can't say for sure if that's true or not.

and start communicating ideas more concisely?

There we might have a problem. In school, I was going to fail, because I'd write down the answers, without the working out, which invigilators would have seen as cheating. I was forced to explain myself at length. Even into my 30s, people would say that when others when from A to B to C to D, I would just go straight from A to D. So you might find me confusing, if I'm so concise that I lose clarity.

No offense, but it feels like at this rate this discussion will be decided by attrition rather than reason. If every time you say something I need to unpack a string of inference and how it pertains to social class theory and intelligence, we’ll be here a long time.

Seems to be an inherent problem in 99% of MBTI discussions.

As for clarifying my own position:

I am not saying sensers can’t intuit, I’m saying that I rarely sense. Extroverted sensing is completely out of the question, and while one can infer Si from a preoccupation with reality, my preoccupation is with discerning fantasy from reality. I rarely look to history or experience comparative to other people, and I have little patience for facts unrelated to my current goal. I am far more interested in the possible and fantastical than the actual, but I take great issue when the possible is proclaimed the actual without evidence.

Oh. OK. I hear you. So you are saying that you don't mind people saying that space elevators are possible, but you don't like it when people say they are certainly do-able without clear proof? I'm with you on that one, except that I also extend that to popular ideologically-based theories about religions, atheism, libertarianism and other ideologically-based arguments. I don't trust self-interest. Too much tendency for bias.

Other than this particular facet of my personality, do you have other reasons for thinking me a senser?

Not particularly.

But one thing really does bug me: believing in supernatural beings, does not seem to be directly empirical by nature, and defy what our senses show us, but seem readily grasped intuitively, which suggests that religions were the product of, and most easily understood by, the minds of intuitive types, particularly intuitive-dominants.

Yet, so many INTPs and INTJs, and a lot of INFJs and INFPs, all seem to be of the opinion that Sensors would be most likely to be religious, while Intuitives would be most likely to be atheists. This seems to go totally counter to the basic premise of the dichotomy between Sensation and Intuition.