INTP BC

[loveofreason]

BC = Before Computers.

Whatever did the INTP do before computers and the internet?

 

[Dissident]

If there wasnt internet I would read more, which is kind of sad, cause I should read more.

Maybe they were forced to have more "real" social interaction before internet.

Play board games?

Maybe without instant access to all this information they would tend to develop crazyer theories even less connected with reality.

Thats all I can think of for now

 

[Agent Intellect]

BC = Before Computers.

Whatever did the INTP do before computers and the internet?

come up with theories about relativity and other such things. i imagine they were probably forced to be a lot more productive, as i find the internet to be the biggest contributor to my procrastination lol.

 

[loveofreason]

Before I personally discovered the internet I did indeed read a lot more. I absolutely loved libraries. (So quiet - I can't stand noise!)

I think fortunate INTPs would have prospered under some kind of generous benefactor arrangement. You know, someone wealthy paying your way through life just so you could have the time to think. And write. Being tolerated in polite society because you were that eccentric who was writing a book and you were somehow a favourite of the social patron.

Of course there's always been philosophy and scientific theory to indulge in, but we still would have needed to be in someone else's good graces, shielded from the coal pits and such...

 

[Jordan~]

We sat around in studies and argued with our fellow intellectuals. During our childhoods, we featured in short stories by Katherine Mansfield.

 

[Thread Killer]

I'm thinking back before I get into teh internets. I mostly daydreamed, read, went outside (shocker), watched TV, and most of all, played video games.

 

[fullerene]

video games here... lots and lots of rpgs and rts. I also played a little soccer and basketball though.

 

[Kuu]

Ever had a multiple-day blackout? Technological withdrawal is horrible, but soon enough are reading more, and start to get creative with thinking about anything that you can find in your house...

 

[Jesin]

Yes. Even when it's just a day and a half, it still works. Especially during summer break, when I don't have to do homework.

 

[Ermine]

Books. Lots and lots of books. Before I was an active internet user, I read books like crazy. Also sports, board games, writing stories and theories, music (both playing and listening). While the internet is indispensable, there's stuff to do.

 

[Thread Killer]

I actually considered creating a routine to set a day aside each week that does NOT involve the computer at all. I have done my own philosophical musings about technology, especially internet addiction plays such an integral role in people like me. It might be a good routine to seriously pick up on. Just thought I'd mention that for no good reason.

 

[loveofreason]

I'm interested in the routine you're suggesting, but think it would have to all or nothing if I attempted to change my internet habits - I've given up addictions before. Only cold turkey method works for me.

So INTPs are data junkies, and books were the vector of choice before the internet. But once books were scarce. There was a time before paper. A time before the printing press. My god, did INTPs even exist before writing was invented?!

 

[Fleur]

They probably were the ones, who invented writing.

 

[Radioactive_Springtime]

I played video games and read books

 

[tfa1]

Before discovering the internet I played video games. Before video games I watched TV. And all the while I went to school and did homework.

I have no idea what I'd do without technology besides read books. Indeed, now that I'm slightly bored with the internet, video games, and TV I spend a great deal of time napping and otherwise doing nothing besides thinking.

 

[loveofreason]

School, homework and TV are recent inventions, and no doubt have a lot to do with the general lack of imagination I'm seeing here .

Come on - more designers of alphabets and fewer couch potatoes!

I bet we made damn good Egyptologists and decipherers of ancient scripts.

 

[Jesin]

Yeah, we were the ones who did all the interesting but pointless (or seemingly pointless) stuff.

What did we do before computers? Invent computers!

 

[Ogion]

Hmm, i can agree with the book-thing. (Actually in my school time, when i didn't really had much 'computer+internet' i really read tons and tons of books. Every week i read some ten books or so from the public library. In school, i mean in the building, i really was nearly the only person who would willingly read. I sat in front of the room for the next class in the breaks and was reading. I never saw someone else do this.)

But yes. Most of the times i love the internet. It is just such a big source of information of any kind. But sometimes i ask myself if the internet really is just hindering me and wasting my time. Like someone above said: the biggest source of procrastination

Ogion

 

[Wisp]

The interweb is like a giant ocean of procrastination to drown in.

 

[icywindow]

At first, I read your statement, Wisp, as "giant ocean of prostitution" and found a second meaning hidden twixt.

 

[Kidege]

I read a lot. I drew and wrote a bit. I fantasized like crazy.
I draw less now, but all else hasn't changed much.

 

[Jordan~]

I can't draw for toffee. If I could choose one skill to have, it would be art.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Before computers?

There never was such a time.

For shame that you folks dare to speak of such blasphemy!

Dave

 

[Decaf]

I think INTPs used to do things like write the Declaration of Independence or the Origin of Species. Maybe get executed with hemlock.

I assume that INTPs born to a family with low resources probably had a hard time. Without information readily available, it would all be 'doing'. They were still probably valuable in their communities as long term thinkers and being willing to 'buck the trend'. If they were born to high resource families they probably became philosophers like Sir Francis Bacon or Rene Descartes.

My role model has always been Thomas Jefferson...

"A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.""

-Wikipedia entry on Thomas Jefferson


​

If he'd had the internet I shudder to think how he might have wasted his time.

​

 

[Wisp]

Thomas Jefferson -- Reduced to Internet junkie.

 

[Agent Intellect]

as much as i definitely use the internet to waste time and procrastinate, i'd also say that it has been a very useful tool in my self education. forum discussions have helped me to learn about a wider array of subjects, and to really have to think critically about the things i already believe. i've read and watched a lot of videos about philosophy and science over the internet (although i guess i could have gotten that from books and science magazines if there was no internet). and, ultimately, if it wasn't for the internet (and online video games) i'd probably be an even bigger recluse then i already am.

 

[grey matters]

Back in the days before internet and and video games we had these things that had covers front and back and pages in between. On those pages were words that we would spend hours reading. We would regularly go to the holy sanctuary of knowledge (the library) and look up stuff in the most sacred repositories of all knowledge and wisdom (the encyclopedias) or,with reverence, flip through the pages of the golden magazine with really cool pictures (the National Geographic magazine).
We would seek out others like ourselves and have intellectual debates, sometimes just for the sake of debating, and play games using solid objects. Television only had 3 channels of nothing to watch so we fed our heads with our imagination and knowledge.
We thank thee O god of the internet (not Al Gore) for providing us with a faster way to seek out and acquire knowledge for now we no longer have to wait anxiously for our sacred books to come in via inter library loan.

 

[Decaf]

So what about INTPs born before the printing press? It seems to be that Medieval Europe would be a horrible place for someone like us. What do you think?

 

[grey matters]

INTP's would get burned at the stake for heresy.

 

[Jordan~]

So what about INTPs born before the printing press? It seems to be that Medieval Europe would be a horrible place for someone like us. What do you think?

Did INTPs even exist back then? They probably became somewhat unorthodox priests.

 

[severus]

Off topic, can't find relevant thread:
Why did you (and you and you) change your avatars? Jesus, I leave you alone for two days, and I come back to this?
It did make me realize that I dislike change. At least at first.

 

[loveofreason]

Hoorah!

I was beginning to despair that fellow INTPs hadn't understood the question.

Mind you... because we're dealing with the cognitive functions, it wouldn't be wise to assume that every MBTI type has an equally long history.

It may well be that the most prevalent types represent the earliest functions required in evolutionary terms. The scarcity of NTs could indicate that they are relative newcomers to the type-pool, so to speak. In fact we could construct a phylogenetic tree based on the frequency of each type.

(I'm also aware that the percentages of each type could reflect the proportion of each type required for a functioning society, but what is this "functioning society" without historical context? We can't see the big picture without context, in this case the natural history of the brain. Given our purported big picture focus I'm surprised at the volume of small picture answers in this thread.)

Still, INTPs can't be so recent that they only emerged with the computer age. Not if we want to claim Socrates in our ranks.

So, what role(s) did we serve in ancient societies?

Philosopher? interpreter of divine will (prophet)? explorer? wise wo/man ('witch')?

The mythologised role of Merlin is surely an INTP kind of thing, how many Kings and kingdoms relied on a figure of such immense knowledge advising from behind the throne?

 

[grey matters]

Lets assume that that INTP's and for that matter all NT's existed at the dawn of human kind. In our minds, lets go back to the time of Og the caveman. While all the other cavemen and women were banging the rocks together Og studied the rocks with facination and experimented with them to see if they had other uses. One day he even tasted a rock to see what a rock would taste like. He learned that when he banged different rocks together they made different sounds. Now, I could interject here that this is how Og made the first rock band but I think I would get booted off this forum for making a joke that stupid so I think I will just slip it in in a very subtle manor just to irritate people. Og learned that if he put one of these rocks in the front of his loin cloth (the front not the back) that he could attract the attention of the cave women. Og invented spearheads and discovered fire and many other things. His intellegence further attracted the attention of the cave women. But alas due to his social awkwardness he could not convince the female cave women to mate with him (dispite his intellegence and the rock in the front of his loin cloth) so human kind took a few million more years to evolve then was necessary.

Sorry about the sillyness.

Anyway there is a point to this tirade which is that INTP's, and for that matter all NT's, are paradoxes. The vary thing that helps us survive is also our dimise, and the very thing that society admires in us often is the very thing that makes society want to kill us. Discovering fire and inventing spear points are a good thing for survival but the brain that can do this has difficulty with the skills necessary to pass on ones genetics so our numbers are few. Being smart enough to be considered valuable to society is a good thing, but be too smart and you will threaten people and they will want to kill you. In medievel Europe the sharp eyes and tallons of the INTP would pick out inconsistancies of church doctrine and tradition which would get us burned at the stake. Jordan(I can't find the little squiggly mark on my keyboard) this would mean you.
Mating (not the actual skill of copulation, just all the stuff involved in convinceing the other party involved that copulation is a good idea) and the avoidance of pissing people off so much that they want to kill us and are survival skills. INTP's and the IN types are somewhat lacking in these skills.

 

[Decaf]

So thats an interesting question to explore. Aside from many modern cultures today, were INTPs traditionally ostracized through human history? Outside of the modern Anglo culture are there places where INTPs grow up feeling proud of their nonconformity, rather than attached in spite?

Its also interesting to note that if INTPs take a longer time to mature than other personalities, it would mesh interestingly with the pattern of long childhoods = more advanced brain functioning. Just an observation

 

[Agent Intellect]

its also possible that people that were outcasts back then ended up becoming INTP. maybe INTP's didn't become outcasts, but outcasts, left to their own devices, became INTPs.

 

[Ogion]

I dunno. I have very little idea of the theories about wether MBTI-types are genetic and/or/besides whatever ancestry.
So i can only imagine how an INTP could have lived in ancient times, actually regardless of INTP-ness history.
I think there is always a niche for an INTP to fill. So long as he or she is born to low classes (like peasants) and is 'love'/accepted by family, there shouldn't be much of a problem, and nobody cares about peasants anyway. If (s)he is born to aristocracy, then there should be litle problem either, since they are bound to have there strange ways and hobbies, don't they? So i think, actually they may have an equal stance like we today.
On the question of how (s)he could entertain himself (ok, i'm going to ignore political correctness from here on), i think that there still may be enough things to explore and learn, but the supply was probably smaller. Monasteries could be good places, in medieval, christan Europe anyways. They probably had the easiest access to nowledge.
I think these surroundings, being devoid of much stimuli and access to knowledge could lead to INTPs to focus more on a small number of things. I mean, if i have only access to little knowledge or 'entertainment' (which is the same for us, isn't it? ) i will at some time sigh and dig deeper in that knowledge than usual, because that is still better than to bore oneself.

Ogion

 

[Wisp]

Ummm... medieval monks weren't very pious, at least a lot of them weren't, anyway...

 

[Ogion]

Yes, and they mostly had libraries and such...

Ogion

 

[Waterstiller]

Thomas Jefferson -- Reduced to Internet junkie.

This made me laugh. A lot.

how many Kings and kingdoms relied on a figure of such immense knowledge advising from behind the throne?

I was thinking something along the lines involving the relationship between INTP's and megalomania. With a lack of information I'd imagine that the INTP would focus on trying to bypass the whole 'doing' thing that they were forced into. However they could. Their methods would vary greatly by class, gender, time period, and resources.

As for me? I just read and daydreamed before the internet. I am forever grateful to stumbleupon. I will forever despise my past addiction to forums.

 

[Jesin]

A related question: What about in very poor countries, like in Africa?

 

[ChaosTheory]

I read and played video games a lot more. I still want to read more, I just lose the motivation to very easily and go back to the internet.

 

[Chronomar]

Join the hermit club. Isn't it obvious?

The hermit club (as featured in a quote from Doctor Who) is an idea that had my sister and I laughing for ages. A club, of hermits (who, by definition, do not like social interaction, much less a club). We are part of our own hermit club. Every so often, we think about calling a meeting, and then think of how many people we would have to see, and forget it.

 

[FusionKnight]

I think fortunate INTPs would have prospered under some kind of generous benefactor arrangement. You know, someone wealthy paying your way through life just so you could have the time to think. And write. Being tolerated in polite society because you were that eccentric who was writing a book and you were somehow a favourite of the social patron.

Another reason to spur on the "New Renaissance". I wouldn't mind having a rich benefactor, even if I had to produce the occasional book or painting or piece of music for his entertainment. I think that's probably the ideal life for the INTP.

So INTPs are data junkies, and books were the vector of choice before the internet. But once books were scarce. There was a time before paper. A time before the printing press. My god, did INTPs even exist before writing was invented?!

Yes! Books used to be the repository of knowledge, but they're slow, bulky, impossibly difficult to cross-reference, and cost a ton of money. Now with the internet, and wonderful Wikipedia, instant cross-referenced knowledge is at our fingertips in a vast array of disciplines.

So what about INTPs born before the printing press? It seems to be that Medieval Europe would be a horrible place for someone like us. What do you think?

What do you think Merlin was?

The mythologised role of Merlin is surely an INTP kind of thing, how many Kings and kingdoms relied on a figure of such immense knowledge advising from behind the throne?

Aww... you got there first...

 

[loveofreason]

Yeah. I say we claim Merlin as our patron INTP.

 

[Jordan~]

I think Hadrian might have been INTP. He thought big (major construction projects like the wall), he was a creative genius (an architect himself), he didn't appear to care much for social convention, and he wasn't the most outgoing of emperors. What I know of him suggests INTP.

 

[Gorgrim]

Hadrian? I ain't so great with roman emperors, but I seem to remember Hadrian as one of the only ones. He's my favourite of the roman emps.

 

[grey matters]

Join the hermit club. Isn't it obvious?

. Every so often, we think about calling a meeting, and then think of how many people we would have to see, and forget it.

You are on to something there. Perhaps I'll suggest this at my next meeting.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

This is gonna sound like blasphemy around here but I think I'd be happier without my computer and it's devilish lures. While I would probably spend too much time staring at blank walls, at least to the outside observer, I can't help but think that eventually I might actually get more accomplished.

 

[Ermine]

A bigger question is what poor INTPs would do. If they're lucky, they'd be a "Merlin" of sorts or be rich enough to have a library and have the time to indulge in many disciplines. Artisans maybe?

 

[EloquentBohemian]

A related question: What about in very poor countries, like in Africa?

An excellent question which I have pondered recently.
Often I will punch in an arbitrary word into Google (where would we be w/o Google) and see what comes up.
Words I have used lately are: poverty, homeless, homeless children, and the like. This was prompted by one of my walks downtown in the early hours before dawn and coming across a homeless man sleeping on church steps. (...of which I thought:"why wasn't he let in the church instead of outside in the cold?")
I was appalled at the number of sites talking about the homeless and the accompanying images, especially of the children living on the streets in poorer countries and here in North America. Not that I haven't known this before, but with the state of national economies over the last few years (Canada is not much better off), more and more children live in cars, in motels and on the street.

What happens to a child, whether in N. America, Africa or wherever, who is INTx and who needs books and intellectual stimulation in order to grow and discover her/his own potentials?
How torturous is their life when it concerns mere survival only?

I would not be where I am and who I am today without the access to libraries, bookstores and teachers I had when growing up. These are what I occupied and challenged my mind with before the Internet and I still do.
Are these children no better off than our pre-civilization ancestors?