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[NT] INT Child's Exploration

Cimarron

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To the INTs out there:

When you were a child (before puberty), and you were in that phase of exploring and learning so much about the world and its ideas (I assume such a phase exists for you), how did you go about it?

In what ways did you explore new ideas on your own? It's kind of a general question.
 
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The Ü™

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I never really explored others' ideas, I came up with my own.

I did conceptualizing of my own worlds and only used external stimuli as a jumping off point.
 

nightning

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I play with ideas and put things together. I remember I took my lego and railroad track set together and used it to make a transport system for marbles. Then I made up stories of how there's emergencies that destroyed half the system and ways to fix it up. I also love to read (still do). Sometimes I spent hours on end in my room reading and imagining myself within the plot.
 

Cimarron

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Hey, there you go. :) That's the kind of stuff I was wondering about.

We could talk about more academic exploration, but not just that.
 

The Ü™

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I'm not the academic type. It's everything but free-thinking.
 

Grungemouse

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When it came to exploring ideas, I always waited for other peoples first and intentionally sought a completely different one. I loved being original; I still feel compromised as a person if my ideas are the same as others.

This isn't really an academic example, but in year 5 English, we had to write a short story on how "the x animal came to be." As in, how the zebra got its stripes. Despite being told to either write about how the hedgehog got its spikes or the leopard got its spots, I wanted to be different and write about "how the bat got its echolocation." So I did. The teacher told me off for not obeying instructions, but commended me for my "enthusiasm."

I honestly can't remember how I went about learning. I recall being told off for not paying attention, or something like that.
 

INTJMom

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To the INTs out there:

When you were a child (before puberty), and you were in that phase of exploring and learning so much about the world and its ideas (I assume such a phase exists for you), how did you go about it?

In what ways did you explore new ideas on your own? It's kind of a general question.
Why are you asking?
 

Cimarron

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Why are you asking?
I guess to contrast it with my own stage of development back then. INT vs. IST.

But I didn't want to hear predictions of how that might look, I wanted to hear it straight from the source how INTs learned about the world, and developed their early base of knowledge. I'm not explaining it very well...
 

INTJMom

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I guess to contrast it with my own stage of development back then. INT vs. IST.

But I didn't want to hear predictions of how that might look, I wanted to hear it straight from the source how INTs learned about the world, and developed their early base of knowledge. I'm not explaining it very well...
I watched tv mostly and played games with kids in the neighborhood.
 

Bugs701

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I remember pondering a lot of small philosophical points when I was very young, such as:
The color I see in the sky is blue and I call it blue because everyone says that color of the sky is blue. But when someone else looks at the sky, do they see, say, red and call it blue because everyone says that the color of the sky is blue?
I remember, years later, hearing about how Descartes arrived at his "I think, therefore I am" conclusion and remembered that I had pondered the same kind of thing as a child.

I also couldn't wait to learn how to read. I knew that all of mankind's accumulated knowledge was written down, most of it in English, and I wanted access. Once I could read, I spent countless hours with encyclopedia volumes spread across the floor around me, as the answer to one question raised another question, which raised another, and so on.

So, that's my INTP childhood (and it's not over).
 

bluebell

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I remember pondering a lot of small philosophical points when I was very young, such as:
The color I see in the sky is blue and I call it blue because everyone says that color of the sky is blue. But when someone else looks at the sky, do they see, say, red and call it blue because everyone says that the color of the sky is blue?


Yep, that sort of thing. I wasn't allowed to have much access to non-fiction books like encyclopedias till my mid-teens, so I had to glean what I could from all the novels I read plus bits and pieces I picked up from school or conversations.

A little while ago, I found a notebook that I started when I was 12. An example of some of the stuff that I wrote about at age 11 or 12 (I posted this in my blog on INTPc a while back):

I wonder what fire actually is and is it made of. Is it a gas or liquid? Why does it only burn some things? Why is it hot? Why does water make it disappear?

How can the universe have existed forever but if it didn't what was there before it? Why is there a sun? How did scientists work out that the universe goes on forever? ... It is very difficult to imagine the universe without anything visible in it because I always imagine it having a top and a bottom. Obeying all rules there is no such thing as top and bottom [of the universe].

...Why are there suns? What is gravity? Why do we have stronger gravity than the moon? ... What is energy? If you let out some air on the moon what would happen to it?

I understood the concept of infinity from around age 11 or 12 but had trouble picturing an infinite universe in 3D, although I spent a lot of time trying.​
 

pippi

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Books, books, and more books. I read everything I could get my hands on.
 

Totenkindly

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Books, books, and more books. I read everything I could get my hands on.

That.
Literally.

My parents would take me to the library once a week in town, and I'd come home with a grocery bag full of books. I had read through the entire kids section before fifth grade and graduated to the adult part of the library. (That was also when I read Lord of the Rings for the first time.)

I'd go through the school library as well and read whatever I could find.
When I went to people's houses, I'd always look over their bookshelves and ask about borrowing books.

The other thing I did was explore. I had no real friends living near me, so I would wander by myself all over the corn fields and meadows and hills in the area, and I would ride my bike (a little five-speed) for miles during the summer, getting off to explore whatever I saw that looked interesting.

The third thing -- I was heavily involved in the church and Christian camping programs, so I'd constantly be either reading all the materials there I could find, taking what courses I could, or asking adults lots of questions.

If I had had the Internet when I was growing up, I am sure I would have been a total wastoid. :)
 

ajblaise

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I asked a lot of questions, and my dad would always take the time to explain things to me. I could keep on asking "why?" .."why?..... for as long as I wanted.

My mom took me to the library a lot, and I would spend my time running around peaking inside the different books, reading a little bit, then going to the next book.

When I was like 6 or 7 I had a mini-existential crisis about how horrifying the concept of "forever" was to me. Sometimes I would freak out in the middle of the night while picturing myself existing up in space for ever and ever.
 

The Ü™

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I didn't read much as a child. I never had the attention span for it. If I was feeling inquisitive, which was quite often, I picked at other people's brains, which really annoyed people. And I found it easier to listen to stories rather than read them.
 

Salomé

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A little while ago, I found a notebook that I started when I was 12. An example of some of the stuff that I wrote about (I posted this in my blog on INTPc a while back):

Heh. That journal sounds like me. I used to drive folk crazy asking questions like that. I could read early, but I don't remember doing so excessively - teachers were always giving me extra stuff to read and I got fed up with it. It felt like punishment for being smart. I took stuff apart quite a bit. I ran wild with the boys from the neighborhood. School was boring. Most kids couldn't understand what I was on about. I was in my head a lot of the time, trying to figure stuff out.
Not much has changed.
 

bluebell

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Heh. That journal sounds like me. I used to drive folk crazy asking questions like that.

I stopped asking after a while and just thought or wrote about it.

I could read early, but I don't remember doing so excessively - teachers were always giving me extra stuff to read and I got fed up with it. It felt like punishment for being smart.

I *loved* reading, to the point where I was occasionally bribed/rewarded with books. It never ever felt like punishment, although I did sometimes get told off for reading too much.
 

Cimarron

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Heh. That journal sounds like me. I used to drive folk crazy asking questions like that. I could read early, but I don't remember doing so excessively - teachers were always giving me extra stuff to read and I got fed up with it. It felt like punishment for being smart. I took stuff apart quite a bit. I ran wild with the boys from the neighborhood. School was boring. Most kids couldn't understand what I was on about. I was in my head a lot of the time, trying to figure stuff out.
Not much has changed.
I had a cousin I used to visit when we were younger, and he was always--always--taking things apart. Like there was a toy pig (Babe, from the movie), with some place on its stomach that repeated phrases when you pressed it. He ripped the fluffy outside "skin" off, I think with scissors and a knife, then used a screwdriver and other things to take the plastic pieces apart, and in the end we had a metal-skeleton robot that walked around, repeating Babe phrases.

Don't know if he was INT, but that was fun to watch. :D

So there was a whole lot of reading going on, in general. It's uncommon in the overall public, so it's funny to find a group where it's really common.

What about working out models/systems, whether physically or mentally? Kind of like Nightning's story about the Legos...
 
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Anonymous

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I can't really remember ever experiencing a phase of more intense questioning than normal. Maybe I did and forgot about it, I'm not sure. But what I knew of reality was very small growing up, and I took most things for granted (like most kids do, I guess). I don't think I ever really grasped the extent of things until I got into my later teens. I suppose I've just never had much of an imagination. I know, I make a poor INT.
 

01011010

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I asked many questions. Read lots of books. I spent time alone with my thoughts. My parents made me do enrichment learning outside of school.
 
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