INTPs are good at math/sciences?

[INTPINFP]

According to a bunch of websites it says INTPs are good at math and sciences. But on this site noone seems to post about it. The only guy who does is coberst and none of his posts get any replies. (no offense)

 

[Claverhouse]

Actually, LaTeX mathematical notation is available in the advanced message box --- the little rectangle with the sign FX.

Knock yourself out with it if you want...


Claverhouse

 

[INTPINFP]

Na I don't like math that much, but according to the mbti personality definitions on many websites, INTP's "should" enjoy it.

 

[ViS]

Your constant attempts at trying to be different leads me to believe that you probably have "daddy" issues.

 

[RubberDucky451]

I enjoy the creative side of math. I spent extra time trying to solve the problem my way instead of how the book wanted me to finish it.

 

[Trebuchet]

I love math and science, and got my degree in Physics. But I don't work in that field, so I don't have much to say about it, except that it is a lot of fun and I still like studying it.

If anyone wanted to discuss parenting, I'd be up for a discussion of early science and math education.

I wouldn't think all INTPs would like math and science. In particular, girls used to be strongly discouraged from it. A math teacher in 8th grade told me girls couldn't do math, and other girls in high school told me I shouldn't sign up for electronics shop because it was a boys' class. I didn't fall for this, but enough pressure could certainly turn people away from the technical subjects. And, of course, not all people like the same things, regardless of their MBTI type.

 

[Ermine]

I enjoy some math concepts pertaining to visual stuff like graphing, fibonacci numbers, golden ratio, fractals, etc. I also am quite entertained by physics. However, they don't inspire me like art does. It's fun, but I wouldn't devote myself to it.

@ Trebuchet, even when I took a robotics class only a year ago, the stigma against girls in such classes was pretty strong. Even though I was fairly decent at it, many of the guys were condescending and made fun of me.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

I like math and science although I am barely past high school level in these subjects. That should change in another few semesters hopefully. I would love to learn as much math as my brain can handle. There's just so much that can be done with it.

 

[Trebuchet]

Well, Ermine, now I am upset. I had it so much better than my mom, in terms of what girls were allowed and expected to do, and I guess I was hoping it was much better now. Maybe it is, but your story is not a comforting one. I do appreciate your comments, of course, since the information is useful, even if it is a bummer.

I have a 5-year-old daughter who looks to be as NT as her parents, and I don't want anyone ever putting doubts into her head about her ability to do math and science, if she wants to do them. Maybe she won't like them, and that would be fine, but it has to come from her, not me or anyone else.

 

[Atriamax]

All I care about is math and science. I COULD NOT care less about english or history or anything. Math just because its used in science though, im good at it, but when its not applied to anything its just annoying. But i live for science and i will die for science. I havent read a book in 4 years!

 

[Toad]

I enjoy every subject except math. I am good at math, but I don't enjoy it.

 

[Cassandra]

SCIENCE.

Yay science.



I also like philosohphy and history and math and chess and tennis, etc, but mostly either through the lens of science, connected to science, or for science.

However, to respond to the OP....This site is where I goof off. The rest of my life is science, so when I goof off, I tend to do something else. If that makes sense.

 

[Toad]

I don't understand how anybody can "enjoy" math. It just seems so dull to me. Maybe it's because I can't see how higher levels of math can really help me understand life.

The most math I ever used outside of a math class was algebra, geometry, and some calc...that's it.

 

[transformers]

INTP's have the potential to be good at maths. It's just that our scatterbrained approach can make it frustrating to learn, so we often don't bother. Maths is one of those subjects where you really have to know the fundamentals before you can understand and appreciate more complex stuff, it's not like History or English where you can start at any point and just branch out. But once you do get the fundamentals down, it becomes a game. Each new concept follows naturally from the last, it's like building a skyscraper, except with no holes, no cracks in the structure. I think INTP's, who naturally see weaknesses in arguments and logic, would appreciate this seamless construct if they ever took the time to properly study it.

 

[Ashenstar]

I love science. It doesn't really matter what kind.

Maths on the other hand. Love/hate. I really wish to like math. It's just so unfriendly towards me. I think if I had some one on one math tutoring with someone with immense patience I could learn to love math again. We were once very close you see.

It's odd because I am great with music, which I was under the impression usually ties into math skills as well.

I'm also great with new languages, though horrible at my own. That is a different part of the brain I believe.

 

[Toad]

How does math and music relate? I never understood that.

 

[transformers]

How does math and music relate? I never understood that.

it's all patterns. the rhythm of a song is a lot like the logic needed to get from A to B

 

[Tunesimah]

How does math and music relate? I never understood that.

Both math and music are very pattern based. And there are a ton of numbers in music, more so than many other art forms.

I'm really into Math, I have a BS degree in it.

Science is okay, but I'm much more drawn to the purity of math. I sometimes don't like science when I can't follow the lines of reasoning, like when they throw in a constant into an equation just to make it all work out... it seems like thats just a kludge... and there's something fundamentally missing from their model. When my conceptual model breaks down, I find science very challenging.

I like math because it is, in a certain sense, simpler than other fields. There's much less brute force memorization, just pure understanding of ideas which appeals to me. It also appeals to my lazy side, because a clever solution will always go over better than a brute force approach.

High school mathematics is pretty dry compared to the advanced stuff. If you have ever systematized a system to it's core ideas, you'll find math down there somewhere. It has a way of creeping in... and really this is how you start whole new fields of mathematics... solve interesting problems and be break it down to the core ideas.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

In 6th grade I was in math class for kids accelerated two years in math. There were 15 of us, out of 50 sixth graders at the school. I was also in band that year, a small group of us did band before school, about half of the people in the math class were in band. (And all of the clarinets were. )

I think a lot of us take our interesting in math/science for granted.

ViS, you might be jumping too quickly to conclusions.

I also don't really think that coberst posts about math or science... he just posts ramblings. And they always seem to be tied to his personal philosophical objective.

 

[Adymus]

I'd probably kick ass at math if I actually gave a shit about it.

 

[SEPKA]

I don't like Maths subject in school, it is all calculator-smashing, practice-make-perfect-machine. Yet I still like Maths though. I think because everyone here are so good at solving Maths problem and also because they like to do it alone so people don't post it on forum.
I also posted something related to Maths awhile ago, I know about the Latex thingy but cannot figure it out yet.

 

[Toad]

Both math and music are very pattern based. And there are a ton of numbers in music, more so than many other art forms.

I'm really into Math, I have a BS degree in it.

Science is okay, but I'm much more drawn to the purity of math. I sometimes don't like science when I can't follow the lines of reasoning, like when they throw in a constant into an equation just to make it all work out... it seems like thats just a kludge... and there's something fundamentally missing from their model. When my conceptual model breaks down, I find science very challenging.

I like math because it is, in a certain sense, simpler than other fields. There's much less brute force memorization, just pure understanding of ideas which appeals to me. It also appeals to my lazy side, because a clever solution will always go over better than a brute force approach.

High school mathematics is pretty dry compared to the advanced stuff. If you have ever systematized a system to it's core ideas, you'll find math down there somewhere. It has a way of creeping in... and really this is how you start whole new fields of mathematics... solve interesting problems and be break it down to the core ideas.

You make math sound interesting.

 

[Rhys]

I am naturally talented at Math and English, though I don't perform as well as I should due to my organization and laziness. I'm a pretty big fan of science, especially when new discoveries are made. When my science teacher stumbled upon the conversation of cryogenic freezing in an astronomy class I was mind blown.

 

[SEPKA]

@Tunesimah: have you tried Physics? It is not a lot of memorization, very conceptual based, and although they don't use Maths as accurately as a mathematician, it is still quite accurate.

 

[jsibley1]

Both math and music are very pattern based. And there are a ton of numbers in music, more so than many other art forms.

I'm really into Math, I have a BS degree in it.

Science is okay, but I'm much more drawn to the purity of math. I sometimes don't like science when I can't follow the lines of reasoning, like when they throw in a constant into an equation just to make it all work out... it seems like thats just a kludge... and there's something fundamentally missing from their model. When my conceptual model breaks down, I find science very challenging.

I like math because it is, in a certain sense, simpler than other fields. There's much less brute force memorization, just pure understanding of ideas which appeals to me. It also appeals to my lazy side, because a clever solution will always go over better than a brute force approach.

High school mathematics is pretty dry compared to the advanced stuff. If you have ever systematized a system to it's core ideas, you'll find math down there somewhere. It has a way of creeping in... and really this is how you start whole new fields of mathematics... solve interesting problems and be break it down to the core ideas.

I assume you seen this comic:

I, too, earned a BS in mathematics. The deal with science, or at least in physics, is that they use mathematics but they butcher it sometimes. For example... I was reading a book on space dynamics and they acted as if infinitesimals (like dx) were actual numbers to describe rotating coordinate systems. Ugh. In addition, they do whatever they can to create equations that best model whatever phenomenon they are studying.

Mathematics is easier because we are unrestricted when it comes to exploration of the possibilities. In physics, you are stuck in the real world.

 

[Atriamax]

What appeals to you english lovers? I cant think of a single thing ive learned in english besides "vocab" words. I just cant understand the point of it, why fictional stories should have any impact on me whatsoever.

 

[jsibley1]

What appeals to you english lovers? I cant think of a single thing ive learned in english besides "vocab" words. I just cant understand the point of it, why fictional stories should have any impact on me whatsoever.

I kind of have the same opinion as you. Fictional stories never appealed to me... ever. I never got it and I probably never will. In fact, I don't even like reading biographies or autobiographies. The only stuff I care to read are non-fiction technical stuff or things on philosophy.

But, I do see where fiction has it's place... it exercises the imagination muscles and brings variety to a world that can be dulled by reality. Basically it's mind candy.

But, I rarely eat real candy in real life.

 

[Anthile]

I assume you seen this comic:

I always think it would have been funnier if they had designed it like a Möbius strip with a philosopher at the beginning and the end. But hey, it's just xkcd.

 

[Tunesimah]

What appeals to you english lovers? I cant think of a single thing ive learned in english besides "vocab" words. I just cant understand the point of it, why fictional stories should have any impact on me whatsoever.

English and Literature are good subjects, because some ideas just can't be conveyed in any other way. I'm not one to read fiction and find much of it boring, but some of it is truly thought provoking.

English classes, much like high school math classes, seem to constrain and tarnish the true beauty of the subject. So much time is spent learning grammar and learning how to write drivel.

I've taken a couple of Physics courses, SEPKA. I enjoy the field, but some concepts are difficult to wrap my head around... like Energy and electromagnetism. When the subject is just differential equations, I don't have too much trouble.

That comic sums up my point of view exactly... good stuff.

 

[jsibley1]

I always think it would have been funnier if they had designed it like a Möbius strip with a philosopher at the beginning and the end. But hey, it's just xkcd.

Philosophy? I don't think so. While I love to read philosophy... I know for a fact that physicists and mathematicians have problems with philosophy because too many in the latter field don't understand the two former fields of study. And, some of them are too vague in their word use.

 

[Aiss]

Well, Ermine, now I am upset. I had it so much better than my mom, in terms of what girls were allowed and expected to do, and I guess I was hoping it was much better now. Maybe it is, but your story is not a comforting one. I do appreciate your comments, of course, since the information is useful, even if it is a bummer.

On the positive note, being a girl and studying with many intelligent people, ~90% of whom are male, does have its advantages. I don't know about other universities of course, but where I'm studying guys are usually willing to help the girl with almost anything.

Maths on the other hand. Love/hate. I really wish to like math. It's just so unfriendly towards me. I think if I had some one on one math tutoring with someone with immense patience I could learn to love math again. We were once very close you see.

It's odd because I am great with music, which I was under the impression usually ties into math skills as well.

That's because universe has Balance, and we're each part of it. And since I'm not musical at all, but enjoy math... you see how it works?

 

[Atriamax]

Im not saying anything about literature, just english class. The main point of english for years has always been to read some "Classic" novel, and completely over analyze the motif, symbols, theme, etc etc. Not once in my english class have we picked up a nonfiction book. What I don't understand is why finding the motif of the grapes of wrath and finding the symbols of the jungle and finding the recurring theme of the great gatsby has any importance whatsoever to any occupation other than an author!

 

[nickgray]

has any importance whatsoever to any occupation other than an author!

Memorizing a quadratic equation solution formula is the same deal. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything - you don't achieve any kind of understanding by simply memorizing it, so you're not actually learning anything, and it has no value for everyday life. Most of what's being taught at school have no value at all. It's all about bureaucracy and keeping the kids off the streets, nobody gives a damn if you understood a concept, the grade is what matters.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Analyzing literature serves the purpose of teaching one how to comprehend what they are reading. It's easy to read words, but to derive meaning from them is something else. Some literature is very subtle and difficult to understand, so learning how to make sense of it will better equip one for difficult reading in the future - I can see this every time I go to my English class, because a lot of the people in there don't seem to have a very high reading comprehension (just today someone asked me what the word 'conducive' means).

 

[bovinity]

I hate math for math's sake. I failed 2 years of math in high school because I slept/doodled through them.

If I'm learning formulas in order to apply them to something pertinent to a specific task or subject matter, I can do it quite well, though.

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

I had thought INTPs were generally uninterested in the application of their ideas. I know I'm not; I do enjoy pure mathematics a good deal, even if it doesn't come as naturally to me as some other fields of inquiry. It does come a little naturally to me, though.

 

[del]

The INTPs I've known in real life are more the "philosopher" types. And by that I mean that whatever they study -- be it literature, physics, mathematics, chemistry, art, philosophy, history, psychology, or what have you -- it seems to be more a vehicle for them to grapple with ideas that enhance their understanding of life and the universe than about making technical discoveries, having an impact on the world, etc.

 

[shoeless]

i only enjoy math if i understand it properly. my last couple years of high school, i had absolute fail teachers, and therefore my understanding of the subject has dropped considerably; the only way i got through my tenth grade precal class was because i had a very generous friend.

i always had an aptitude for math... i enjoyed how linear it was. it was like a break from the unnecessary complications and random branches of my internal world.

but now, math is just a bother. though i'm in a discrete class this year, which is all about real-world applications... it's much more enjoyable to me than precal ever could have been.

however, my main focus of interest is and always has been in literature and the arts. and philosophy. and shit.

anyway.

 

[Dormouse]

Math is love. I actually adore it. Though the school system is messing it up for me by forcing us to 'show work'. I mean, sure, it's great to make certain we're using the right processes, but when the answer is common sense and we're forced to write a paragraph explaining it...

Anyhow. I love math because there will always be right and wrong answers. At least at the level I'm in currently. I don't mind the lack of creativity so long as there's a bit of a challenge to understanding it and applying it.

For similar reasons I like physics, but only the stuff I've learned on my own time. What the teacher is showing us just doesn't make sense to me. It's all seemingly random formulas.

I love all sciences, basically. This doesn't stop me from appreciating art, though. Or philosophy, or literature. I'm kindoff interested in everything, though I don't really have any particular talent.

 

[Latro]

I hate math for math's sake. I failed 2 years of math in high school because I slept/doodled through them.

If I'm learning formulas in order to apply them to something pertinent to a specific task or subject matter, I can do it quite well, though.

A lot of the application requires the learning of theory. Really getting into any kind of advanced math, applied or otherwise, requires you to finish the calculus sequence; people I know in more advanced math than I'm in call the first few semesters of calculus "the price of admission." But even past that a lot of what pure math majors study overlaps with what applied math majors study.

 

[Jordan~]

I'm very good at maths, but it's boooooooo-

-oooooring. Dull as sin. Grinding numbers is stupidly easy and repetitive. I should clarify, I'm really talking about maths classes. I'd usually ignore the teacher and start working on some problem I'd notice, that would entertain me a lot. I never got any work done all year, then worked out everything I needed to know for the exam from the basics while I was doing it. Difficult equations are pretty fun to solve, especially when you have no idea how to solve them. "I'd probably kick ass at math if I actually gave a shit about it" sounds about right.

Science is quite dull to me, as well. That is, the actual practice of science. I couldn't care less about control groups and all that tedious, pedantic and painfully necessary nonsense; it's the most servile, frustrating and practical rubbish in the world. What's interesting is the products of science. I'm glad there are people who actually enjoy performing experiments - let's call them masochists - since without them, I wouldn't be able to philosophise about what they find out. Or imagine its implications, which leads on to...

English and the arts. I love these. Metaphor is multi-layered language, and language is multi-layered maths. Take maths beyond its most complex point, to a place where numbers are abstract and meaningless and axioms barely seem to apply, and you have the arts. The analysis of a text and the intuitive intelligence required therefor is far more advanced than simple number crunching. Two numbers interacting in a certain way will always produce identical results, whereas the same two words appearing next to eachother on a page can mean more things than one could count in a lifetime. Analysing the products of the arts is like looking at a blackboard covered in numbers and intuitively understanding, if not 'knowing' definitively, the result. While maths may be the most pure field (it's not, philosophy is), its most advanced and beautiful application is art.

 

[Agent Intellect]

I have discovered that I am not as terrible at maths as I lead myself to believe in high school. Unfortunately, because of my hasty acceptance of defeat early on in life, I'm incredibly far behind in math.

I'm similar to Jordan in that I often find the ideas and concepts of science much more interesting than the actual grinding out of experiments. I often find that my knowledge of much more complex and abstract concepts and ideas is much greater then a lot of the details and fundamentals, but I'm slowly trying to fix that.

 

[shoeless]

basically, what jordan said.

 

[Tunesimah]

I'm very good at maths, but it's boooooooo-

-oooooring. Dull as sin. Grinding numbers is stupidly easy and repetitive. I should clarify, I'm really talking about maths classes. I'd usually ignore the teacher and start working on some problem I'd notice, that would entertain me a lot. I never got any work done all year, then worked out everything I needed to know for the exam from the basics while I was doing it. Difficult equations are pretty fun to solve, especially when you have no idea how to solve them. "I'd probably kick ass at math if I actually gave a shit about it" sounds about right.

Science is quite dull to me, as well. That is, the actual practice of science. I couldn't care less about control groups and all that tedious, pedantic and painfully necessary nonsense; it's the most servile, frustrating and practical rubbish in the world. What's interesting is the products of science. I'm glad there are people who actually enjoy performing experiments - let's call them masochists - since without them, I wouldn't be able to philosophise about what they find out. Or imagine its implications, which leads on to...

English and the arts. I love these. Metaphor is multi-layered language, and language is multi-layered maths. Take maths beyond its most complex point, to a place where numbers are abstract and meaningless and axioms barely seem to apply, and you have the arts. The analysis of a text and the intuitive intelligence required therefor is far more advanced than simple number crunching. Two numbers interacting in a certain way will always produce identical results, whereas the same two words appearing next to eachother on a page can mean more things than one could count in a lifetime. Analysing the products of the arts is like looking at a blackboard covered in numbers and intuitively understanding, if not 'knowing' definitively, the result. While maths may be the most pure field (it's not, philosophy is), its most advanced and beautiful application is art.

Have you done any math beyond 'number crunching'? Solving equations and the rules are boring, at that level its basically learning how to use a tool. Statistics and accounting... that sort of boring stuff... not so great...

There's math of much more significant interest. Gödel's incompleteness theorem comes to mind, along with Cellular Automata... simple rules that produce stunning complexity.

Its not really about complexity with math either. It's about taking simple basic ideas to their logic conclusion, finding connections where you don't suspect there to be any. Using a creative insight to look at something in a different way.

Math loses its luster when interesting developments have already been developed. The arts keep on changing and coming up with new means of expression. You need to actually do Math that's challenging, difficult and undiscovered to get what's really great about it, I think. At the fringes of understanding is when Math comes alive, the unanswered questions in math have a quality that's different than anything else. They have a mysterious quality, like they transcend everything... and yet when they are proven they must be true. No other field really gets results that must be true like math does.

How interesting would the arts be if you spent all day learning grammar rules, the color wheel and music theory while never writing, reading, painting, viewing art, playing music, or listening to music?

I agree with you on Science though, running experiments is very boring. Too much detail muddles the fun...

 

[Jordan~]

Of course, like I said, when you get to the fringes of your own understanding, even, maths becomes engaging. The problem is, getting the fringes of human understanding takes years of the boring number crunching. There's not really any element of intuition involved in maths. You can't just look at an equation and understand its answer, you need to work through it and define the answer before you have anything useful. For that reason, the most advanced - and therefore most interesting - mathematics is inaccessible. As with science, I like hearing about these problems. I like considering their philosophical implications. However, I lack the expertise to comment on them. With science, at least, it's easy to extrapolate from what the physicists or any of those practicing the descendents of physics are telling you. You don't need to understand the intricacies of a theory to understand it, only to prove it - and usually an intuition of logical consistency with the rest of what one knows is adequate proof. It's that kind of shortcut that makes science more enjoyable than maths, or the arts more enjoyable than science. An untrained layman could read a great novel and get a lot out of it, or be moved by a poem and come to understand some truth hitherto unknown to him from it; but, confronted with a complex theory of cosmology or a treatise on set theory, he would be incapable of deriving any kind of enrichment from it whatsoever.

 

[jsibley1]

I
-oooooring. Dull as sin. Grinding numbers is stupidly easy and repetitive. I should clarify, I'm really talking about maths classes. I'd usually ignore the teacher and start working on some problem I'd notice, that would entertain me a lot. I never got any work done all year, then worked out everything I needed to know for the exam from the basics while I was doing it. Difficult equations are pretty fun to solve, especially when you have no idea how to solve them. "I'd probably kick ass at math if I actually gave a shit about it" sounds about right.

Have you done any math beyond 'number crunching'? Solving equations and the rules are boring, at that level its basically learning how to use a tool. Statistics and accounting... that sort of boring stuff... not so great...

There's math of much more significant interest. Gödel's incompleteness theorem comes to mind, along with Cellular Automata... simple rules that produce stunning complexity.

Its not really about complexity with math either. It's about taking simple basic ideas to their logic conclusion, finding connections where you don't suspect there to be any. Using a creative insight to look at something in a different way.

Math loses its luster when interesting developments have already been developed. The arts keep on changing and coming up with new means of expression. You need to actually do Math that's challenging, difficult and undiscovered to get what's really great about it, I think. At the fringes of understanding is when Math comes alive, the unanswered questions in math have a quality that's different than anything else. They have a mysterious quality, like they transcend everything... and yet when they are proven they must be true. No other field really gets results that must be true like math does.

How interesting would the arts be if you spent all day learning grammar rules, the color wheel and music theory while never writing, reading, painting, viewing art, playing music, or listening to music?

I agree with you on Science though, running experiments is very boring. Too much detail muddles the fun...

The last time I did any real number crunching was combinatorics class my freshman year of college. After that, a lot of the math I did towards my degree in said subject was proof writing.

And, in graph theory, I got to draw. heh.

 

[420MuNkEy]

I loooove math, but I'm embarrassingly bad at doing it in my head. What I like about math is the fact that it's logic in it's purist form. An equation is a statement that each side is equal. That statement can be one of two things, true or false. There is no room for speculation or opinion.

Personally, I haven't memorized much of anything of math that's not a concept. I'm not sure why, but my mind just doesn't do it. Like give me 12-8 and I'd have to think about it (sad, I know), but give me that or a complex algebraic equation on something I can interact with (like on paper) and they are both equally easy. My slowness in mathematics often gets mistaken with ignorance, which I have a hard time explaining isn't the case.

Science is just a systematic method for testing ideas/claims. In the sense that it is used to seek out truth, I love it, but in it's boring monotonous process I hate it. I like the beginning and the end of science, the Hypothesis and the Results, but I'm not the type of person who would go out and run a bunch of tests to collect and analyze data. If I am skeptical about a conclusion on a given hypothesis, I love the fact that one can find all the data and the methodology of testing and criticize it.

 

[Scourgexlvii]

I'm awesome at math, but I've been turned off it, as most of my math work now is just busy work. I enjoyed it back a while back, when we proved the mathmatical formulas, such as the quadratic formula and such, where I actually learned why it works, not the stupid precalc work that simply requires the same old work with simple variations on what numbers are. I think I'll like calculus better though... Also, I like science, but annoyingly so, as I am ahead of my class, simply because I apply the concepts from previous classes before the next one, when the class goes over it. I've got in trouble a couple times for going ahead, and arguing that point... (I think it had something to do with ionization in radioactive decay...)

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

At least with my high school curriculum, precalculus is an enormous waste of time that should be skipped. There's only about a month of new material spread out over 10.

 

[Scourgexlvii]

At least with my high school curriculum, precalculus is an enormous waste of time that should be skipped. There's only about a month of new material spread out over 10.

I only have to take it for 5 months (only 2.6 months left!) The downside is that my teacher gives soooo much busywork as homework, and I lack motivation to do it, since I'm not learning anything.