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INTP and INFP differences

Wiley45

New member
Joined
Mar 3, 2009
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669
MBTI Type
INFP
Same with my INFP roommate from college. He'd often "yes" people to make them go away. We'd all be going out on a Friday night, and we'd practically beg him to come, and he'd always just say "ok, I'll catch up with you guys in 20 minutes" and then just never show up. Most of the time, INTPs would keep a deal like that, or just not make it in the first place.

I find this idea to be true with the INFP's and the INTP's I know.

The difference between Ti and Fi is also quite apparent. Fi folks are big into expression of their emotions, and often like to write poetry or music or something of the sort. INFPs are also always nice to people both to their face and behind their back. INTPs are gossip queens by any means, but they have no problem talking shit about someone if it's on their mind.

Most of my INTP friends enjoy writing poetry and playing instruments, and a lot of my INFP friends are gossips about people they don't like.
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
7,626
MBTI Type
INFP
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4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
it means you have extremely strong resonating emotional tones to different experiences that you use to organize and prepare your Judgment System internally. you use subjective experiences and their affective colour more than you use abstracted systems of representation (ie logic, language, theoretical systems, typology, etc) to understand situations, weigh them out, and make decisions.

Yes, we use our subjective feeling, which can come from experience, but it doesn't have to be personal experience. Often we will have theories on things we have never dealt with, which is why we can give great relationship advice when never having been in a relationship ourselves. Sooo many INFPs report this.

What I do is observe the outside world, and my feeling tells me what is true and what is not, and then I use my imagination to come up with possibilities of why it is true. Basically, I make something agree with the feeling. It's like going backwards...prove yourself right, and if you cannot, then your feeling is wrong and you adjust it :D.

It seems to me Ti does the opposite...takes in outside info and compares it to his thought to see if the thought is wrong. If his thought is wrong, then he adjusts it. It's a system of checking and building with outside materials, whereas an INFP sculpts out of this shapeless lump of clay we already had until it forms something of value. Both the system and the sculpture will be refined with age & knowledge & experience.

Regarding Ti:
"He tries to arrange the opinions which he takes over from others in a system of his own."

Okay, I will stop the rambling now :blush: :cheese:
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
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Messages
7,626
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sp/sx
This just seems so non-specific. This is basically saying that INFPs will be good at whatever it is that they value, even if what they value is something like math or science. So is this to say that other types will pursue "with great care and precision" things that they don't value?

Edit: I'm talking about the latter part of the post...I didn't bother editing out the parts of the quote that I wasn't talking about.

Edit Edit: Actually, that was a kneejerk post. My frustration with such descriptions isn't the bit about pursuing what they care about...it's just the lack of specificity regarding "the emotional life." What sorts of things are problems of the emotional life? As a physicist, for instance, what would differentiate the INFPs motivation (or aim towards "the emotional life") from that of other types? Because it sounds like it's primarily a difference in motivation.

I don't like the term "emotional life" either. I would say INFPs are attracted to problems concerning their inner values which come from their feelings. Again, feelings not always being emotions as most people think of emotions, but our system of clarifying what is valuable and true.

It's hard for me to explain what an INFPs motivation to go into physics would be since it is not a personal value of mine, haha :D. I think an INFP ultimately would have to value physics as something more significant than it being fascinating in itself. How do physics relate to that INFP's values for their vision of the world? How do physics help that INFP realize their ideals? Can physics do that? I would say yes....an INFP may see physics as a valuable tool for making the world into what they believe it should be.

I lied about the rambling.... :tongue:
 

Azseroffs

New member
Joined
Feb 23, 2009
Messages
417
MBTI Type
ENTj
Enneagram
5w4
This is just speculation, but I think a major difference in the way INTPs use Ti and INFPs use Fi is something like this.

Ti takes ideas and look at in an objective way, in that they take a step back and see it from a non-personal way to see what fits in the bigger picture of things.
We look at problem as if it were a puzzle. We zoom in on a missing piece and fit in whichever has outcomes that work with the rest of the puzzle.

Fi is similar except that it's like fitting the self into the hole to see how it might work. They put themselves in a problem to figure it out, and then they analyze all the outcomes of it(all the feelings they know).

Ti: What would happen if I did this?
Fi: How would I feel if I did this?

both are perfectly capable and often quite good at doing the other's work, they just don't prefer to go that route.
 

the state i am in

Active member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,475
MBTI Type
infj
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5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Yes, we use our subjective feeling, which can come from experience, but it doesn't have to be personal experience. Often we will have theories on things we have never dealt with, which is why we can give great relationship advice when never having been in a relationship ourselves. Sooo many INFPs report this.

to me it has to be based on personal experience. it has to be subjective experience as it relates to you (vs absorbing the subjective experience of others which is Fe). your depth is bc you explore your own vast network of meaning, personally subjective value, bc you relate yourself to each and every new thing you encounter. i think the theories part and the advice part you mention is bc with such a finely and delicately shaded complex of feeling-tones, values, etc, you are able to use Ne to extrapolate very effectively and make connections between your experiences, values, beliefs, and the situations of others. that's why Fi is a great empathic function, it works inside out of Fe which is also a great empathic function, but it does so in a way that extrapolates from its own highly advanced feeling framework to understand and relate and connect to new things outside of itself. whereas we Fe types recognize the externalities, we understand and imagine what, if we held the values of others given the landmarks they have shown us, what it would feel like to be in their situation inside the cockpit in the particular story/character situation they are in. we imagine otherness while leaving as much of our own feelings behind, out of the picture, listening to them and not hearing ourselves. they wash over us and then disappear in the night.
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
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to me it has to be based on personal experience. it has to be subjective experience as it relates to you (vs absorbing the subjective experience of others which is Fe). your depth is bc you explore your own vast network of meaning, personally subjective value, bc you relate yourself to each and every new thing you encounter. i think the theories part and the advice part you mention is bc with such a finely and delicately shaded complex of feeling-tones, values, etc, you are able to use Ne to extrapolate very effectively and make connections between your experiences, values, beliefs, and the situations of others. that's why Fi is a great empathic function, it works inside out of Fe which is also a great empathic function, but it does so in a way that extrapolates from its own highly advanced feeling framework to understand and relate and connect to new things outside of itself.

When I said not having to be a personal experience, I mean we don't actually go through that exact situation ourselves. I agree we are relating it to our own feelings as opposed to stepping in another's shoes, and in that sense everything is from personal experience. And yes, Ne makes the abstract connections necessary to do so.

When someone is upset over something I have never experienced, I may relate to it by making some connection to something that upsets me. For many people, it would seem like two very unrelated things though.

On a side note, someone I work with loves to say, "It's not personal, it's business" and I always respond, "Everything is personal!!!" because for me it is. In that way, INFPs can seem self-absorbed to others.
 

the state i am in

Active member
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Messages
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On a side note, someone I work with loves to say, "It's not personal, it's business" and I always respond, "Everything is personal!!!" because for me it is. In that way, INFPs can seem self-absorbed to others.

yeah, that active Ne really finds every possible personal relation to what is going on around it. Ti Ne makes sense in this light too, albeit more of a conceptual detached technologically metaphoric bent.

Fi without Ne is REALLY puzzling to me, that is my next attempted discovery. thanks for the clarifications.
 
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