• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

What about Extrospection?

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
ZiL - truly awesome post. you came closer to describing intuition based extrospection than I could!! +3!!
 

proteanmix

Plumage and Moult
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
5,514
Enneagram
1w2
Yeah, Zil great post. :) I don't think that only goes for intuition based extrospection either I identified as well.
 

ZiL

New member
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
511
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
567?
I'm glad it turned out clear enough. I was half trying to convince myself of what I was talking about as I was writing, lol. There's another "extrospection" thing I've noticed - formulating an idea for yourself right as you're trying to explain it to someone else.
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
I'm glad it turned out clear enough. I was half trying to convince myself of what I was talking about as I was writing, lol. There's another "extrospection" thing I've noticed - formulating an idea for yourself right as you're trying to explain it to someone else.

Absofuckinglutely. Get out of my head!!

this does tend to result in my ISTJ friend being convinced that I base my life and decisions on 'a pile of crap'. He thinks when I say something that it's as thought-out and premeditated as when he does, try as I might to remind him that I'm a compulsive brainstormer :laugh:
 

LostInNerSpace

New member
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
Messages
1,027
MBTI Type
INTP
I would argue that introspection is not possible without some extrospection. Our internal worlds are comprised of external experiences. We see everything internally in terms of what we have experienced externally. Introspection is about looking at how we relate to the outside world. How did this or that affect me?
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Intuitive extrospection is obviously what I'm doing most of the time but it's quite different from the sensory version you describe Proteanmix.

In fact I was talking to my friend (ISTP) last night about this, we were comparing our different experiences of a trip we took to the beach yesterday morning. It was interesting that when he described the *main* part of his experience, I found that it was only the secondary part of my experience and that I was mainly focusing on 'something else'.

He talked about being acutely aware of the colour of the sky, the shapes of the clouds, the sound of the sea and watching the shapes of the waves as they formed and crashed, the sounds of the gulls and the smell and tang of the salty air, and this constituted the main enjoyment of the landscape for him. I on the other hand was only vaguely aware of those things, not tuned into them and enjoying them - they were more in the background for me. And yet I was extrospecting too - I wasn't focused on my inner thoughts or feelings of the place, I was checking out the external world and plugged into it too.

I wonder how much of your friend's sensory experience comes from his S vs his I. I relate a lot to what he saw there, though I really don't do that as much. Someone was posting earlier on a different thread about how ESTJs have a hard time putting what things are like into words, and that's true for me, too. If someone were to ask me what a trip to the beach was like, I'd probably say something along the lines of "Um... good. I liked it. I took a walk, and it was nice. I found some shells." While at the beach, I would focus on unusual things that some Ns probably wouldn't (like your friend focused on the shapes of the waves), but they'd be passing moments that I'll forget about, or just won't seem as important (or as worth talking about) later on as the basic events that happened there.

For instance, I was at an event the other day, and my attention kept coming back to the hairdo of this woman in front of me. That image is still like a photo in my head. But it's not like if someone asked me what was really interesting there, I would say "This lady's hair". (I do this with the way clothing wrinkles all the time. I'll just be fascinated by it.) Does anyone see what I'm getting at? (This is a really N-tastic thread, so I'm not sure.)
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Absofuckinglutely. Get out of my head!!

this does tend to result in my ISTJ friend being convinced that I base my life and decisions on 'a pile of crap'. He thinks when I say something that it's as thought-out and premeditated as when he does, try as I might to remind him that I'm a compulsive brainstormer :laugh:

Word. Almost every time I ask someone for help with an idea, they don't even need to say anything! I'll just talk at them until I come up with something. (I don't mean to... it just happens.) Then, if they're Is, they'll just shake their heads and walk away...
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
Reading this lot has confirmed one thing.. I'm more ENTP like than I thought... subject to definitions being somewhere close of course....
 

ZiL

New member
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
511
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
567?
Absofuckinglutely. Get out of my head!!

this does tend to result in my ISTJ friend being convinced that I base my life and decisions on 'a pile of crap'. He thinks when I say something that it's as thought-out and premeditated as when he does, try as I might to remind him that I'm a compulsive brainstormer :laugh:


Yeah, the trait causes me a lot of problems sometimes. I can change my opinions about things so fast based on new knowledge - one time I see a friend I'll be saying one thing, the next time something else, sometimes it'll change within the same conversation - I think some folks stop listening halfway through, lol. Nothing is more frustrating than getting pigeonholed by one idea you mentioned in passing.
 
Top