I have never fully understood why anyone would take the MBTI as law, rather than a loose, fun guideline for finding out about themselves and how they interact with others and their environment. It's not neuroscience, nor has it ever claimed to be.
Nevertheless, I see many people taking it very seriously, applying it methodically and obsessively, and seemingly advocating it as factual. Why? When I first learned about it, I thought it was tons of fun and useful, and certainly a good tool to get to know people and connect to others such as myself.
The problem is, if you're seeking ultimate truths or digging for scientific theories, I think it's fairly obvious that MBTI isn't going to hold up under a lot of pressure. Hell, best I can tell, it was never supposed to. As I said, it's not neuroscience -- it's four letters that stand for the behavioural functions you use regularly.
It would be interesting to see how they correlate with actual brain functions, however. If there's anything that's been done on that, I'd love to see.
I have more to say, but no time. I'd love to see where this thread goes. What I will say is that Victor's original posts were pretty out-there themselves, filled with logical fallacies, and did seem troll like (and not in the fun way, either :(). At least it fired up a good argument.
|