Predictability as INTP

[Ostap Bender]

I am new to the forum and only learned recently about my membership of INTP tribe. I've seen strange 4 letter acronyms thrown before but never paid any attention to them as I had other things going on. One day my curiosity took me on route to INTP discovery.

I want to ask a question to like minded people. Within last few years I started noticing that I see predictability in things very easily. I very often see it when watching TV shows & movies. I can notice small piece of information, that can be fairly obscure, and know the outcome sometimes 2-3 mins before it is revealed. The same applies to my less frequent occurrences during regular day to day life. I can talk to someone about something random and instantly predict the outcome. Usually this is when I know the person will not follow thru.

As a rational person I always hope for the best but often prepare myself for the worst. There is a difference between expecting the worst or knowing when to prepare for it. This has saved me on numerous occasions from incurring financial hardship.

Is anyone else out there that can relate?

 

[Brontosaurie]

i expect Ni or Se types to be better at that type of thing than Ne or Si types.

 

[Doktorin Zylinder]

I can relate quite well to what you've said. One of the reasons I don't watch television is because it's so boring and predictable, but I've also found this with people, too. I've had people close to me tell me I'm creepy because it's as if I can read their minds, which I can't. I can even answer some acquaintances question just as they open their mouths or with a small utterance just because I know them, their behavior, and minds so well. People are just incredibly predictable to me. For some reason, I'm not, though, or at least that's what I've been told. I think it has to do with how I make conceptual models of people in my mind and everything just fits and clicks.

I'm also really good at predicting financial markets and some other things.

 

[Yellow]

I may notice a pattern, and I may say with some degree of certainty what comes next, but I can always explain exactly why I'm making my claims. My INTJ partner and my INFJ mother do the whole "predicting" thing, but they can't defend their prediction with anything but "I just know" (at least not then and there). They know first and understand later. I understand first and know later.

 

[Ostap Bender]

i expect Ni or Se types to be better at that type of thing than Ne or Si types.

Sorry I just learned about INTP within the month and get very lost with double letters thrown in. I've purchased a book on INTP and understood everything and can relate to most but double letter things got me confused without some sort of chart or description breaking it down to me.

With my thirst for knowledge on all subjects sometimes I get overwhelmed on some things.

 

[Ostap Bender]

@Dok

I stopped hanging out with A LOT of people because of them being too predictable & boring.

@ Yellow (I've read some of previous replies to other posts too)

I always defend my point of view when I feel / know I am right.

 

[Latte]

I always defend my point of view when I feel / know I am right.

Doesn't that land you in a lot of trouble and social quagmire situations?

Is it worth it?

Do you want to keep doing it or is it more something you do automatically?

 

[Spirit]

SeNi

Any type with this combination in their function stack will have preferences that may make them recognize but not be able to explain how they saw some pattern.

Unexplained Pattern recognition.

Usually that will happen when I have unexpectedly learned a move when I was never taught it. I just sort of picked it up because it seemed like my body recognized it in the rhythm.

 

[Spirit]

Ni in the tertiary can make make the person see conspiracy in everything. It is not a nice Ni when you are down in the dumps.

 

[_whispers_]

I do that as well. It happens in real life, I do it for movies and books. It's the main reason why I've stopped reading books. I read the summary and everything is so predictable I don't want to invest in it.

From what I've read INTPs are good at seeing patterns, even in big data sets. My best guess is a combination of Ti, Si, Ne. Si meaning that we are somewhat past orientated in our decision making, so the Ti has already broken down those past experiences, learned from them and built a scenario. And when we see some of the components of this scenario Ne jumps in to fill the gaps with what might happen. Then Ti makes a decision on the most likely scenario, based on past experience. I might be wrong, I've read a lot about the functions online, but haven't read any oficial literature (it's on my to-do list), so my knowledge is inconplete.

 

[Hadoblado]

Make an effort to record predictions before seeing them come true. If you do in fact have this level of predictive ability it could be of great use to you.

However, it is very easy for people to get sucked into thinking they can predict things when all they ever pay attention to is the times that they are right. Lots of people do it, myself included.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Isn't the apparent predictability a confirmation/positive bias?
I would deem television shows and daily conversations (which point is to remain routine and simple) to be part of common sense rather than a challenge to predict in a manner that requires careful research, information recollection and proper assumptions.

 

[Ostap Bender]

Doesn't that land you in a lot of trouble and social quagmire situations?

Is it worth it?

Do you want to keep doing it or is it more something you do automatically?

I do it automatically and some might think I'm stubborn but I'm not.

 

[Oddity]

It just means you're an intuitive.

 

[Sinny91]

I can relate to the OP, the abstract random references that can set of a premonition are absolutley bizarre and obscure sometimes.

 

[StevenM]

I pretty well just dumb it down to "history repeats itself".

Extrapolate the sine wave. Sounds catchier.

 

[TheManBeyond]

if you mean knowing how a movie is going to end before anyone or seeing the plot twist before it happens i'm pretty good at that lol, i remember sessions of movies with my ex in where she always got starring at me when the point i had predicted happened, like ok... hahah, cool times.

 

[Ocofan]

This is why I don't watch sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory etc. Way too predictable.

Most of the time given the context of a situation I can predict people's questions just after they open their mouths; nothing is more annoying to me when I answer a question just as the person is about to ask it, and the person continues to finish the whole question 10 seconds later and they expect you to answer it again. It's why I get so frustrated with my parents; most of the time it feels like speech for the sake of speech.

 

[Grayman]

Movies and television are easier to predict than real life. They are setup under certain guidelines and are made with certain 'procedures' in mind. One example is that there is commonly a single head bad guy who is to fight the hero near the end of the show. The fight is to be drawn out and a good match for the hero. Often this theme is played out on action movies. I find it rather stupid considering that the villain may have no history that explains his amazing fighting abilities and yet he is suddenly a fighting professional.

People are predictable because of their routines and habits. Even thoughts can be habitual.

I am more interested in whether your ability to predict people is a product of pattern recognition or a fundamental understanding of them. In the first it is simply 'it happened before and it will happen again' while the second is determining something entirely new would happen that never happened before.

I would also argue that a fundamental understanding can come up with many more results of how a situation might affect a person because they recognize the complexity of an individual. Having more results means you should feel like you 'cannot' predict the persons action but you might still feel later that 'I had considered that eventuality' so in a way had predicted it's possibility.

I don't feel a person 'is' going to do this or 'will' do this but I do consider that this person could do this or this or this but probably will do this unless this or this changes this to cause this....so I'll just go with this.

 

[DIALECTIC]

As a rational person I always hope for the best but often prepare myself for the worst. There is a difference between expecting the worst or knowing when to prepare for it. This has saved me on numerous occasions from incurring financial hardship.

Is anyone else out there that can relate?

In any situation i currently am or will / could be related to i always imagine (NOT predict) the worst possibility, then i start panicking / stressing about it just like it will happen beyond reasonable doubt (i just can't help it !) which in turn forces me to make immediate changes in a way that those changes will stop that possibility to happen.

Many of the terrible things i have anticipated in my life and acted upon never happened but a lot of them never happened because i had anticipated them and had taken drastic actions way ahead of this potential future.

I think P's are totally unpredictable since we used favour tactics vs strategy... J's on the other hand are totally predictable : they will either reach their dream or fail and their dream will become a nightmare like financial meltdown for example...