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Is MBTI imaginary?

Mole

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Mar 20, 2008
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If MBTI were objective, there would be experimental evidence. But over seventy years, there is no experimental evidence. So we can conclude, MBTI is subjective.

And being subjective, MBTI is imaginary. And so MBTI should be judged against other imaginary works.

So, does MBTI suspend disbelief?

Is MBTI moral?

Is MBTI beautiful?

Is MBTI subjectively true?

What is the history of MBTI? And how is MBTI used today. And who uses MBTI, and for what purposes?

And what is the income generated by MBTI and where does it go?

And what are the demographics of MBTI?

So is MBTI a great work of the imagination?
 
T

ThatGirl

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Well, doesn't that kind of mental corruption exist in everything? I see MBTI as a simplified model for referencing specific traits.
 

Thalassa

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Is Victor imaginary?
 

lunalum

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^ I think so ;)


Also, numbers are imaginary but how many complaints are there around about the "validity" of numbers?
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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Intangible, but not imaginary. It is a theory that is supposed to describe reality and as long as it does so it seems real enough. The imaginary cannot describe the real.
 

Xyk

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There was some limited experimental evidence a while back that cropped up on one of these threads, but I don't remember where it was. Something about different brain activity happening in different types based on the same stimuli.

Ignoring that, I'm forced to agree with ReflecttcelfeR.
 

Mole

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The real me

Is Victor imaginary?

I certainly hope so. I reach out every day with my imagination to you and I throw myself into my imagined future.

I imagine I am the hero of every movie I see.

Every work of art suspends my disbelief and throws me into my imagination.

I imagine God loves me and my life is moving to the divine music.

I imagine I know you and I imagine you know me.

And yet how tempted we are to test all our imaginings against reality. And we do this through the scientific method.

Play, they say, is the work of children, and the purpose of play is to learn to distinguish between imagination and reality.

And here we are, playing together, and your task is to distinguish between the imaginary Victor and the real Victor.

If you can't stand too much of the real Victor, there is always the imaginary Victor. And if you become suspicious of the imaginary me, you can find respite in the real me.
 

InTheFlesh

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It could be societal power enforcing norms in an objective way under a subjective guise.
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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Albert imagined riding on a beam of sunlight and his imagination gave birth to Special Relativity, an exquisite description of the real.

There is a difference between describing and inspiring.
 

INTP

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do you mean things like finding type differences with eeg or stuff like that? if so there has been studies, use google..
 

entropie

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You are what I imagine to be a poet Victor, I like reading you :)

I am wondering if the belief in mbti isnt some form of modern iconoclasm or idolatry. It is in my opinion 100% imaginary, but so is everything manmade, cause we imagined it.
 

spirilis

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It posits a measurement system for defining personality traits, and TBH the concepts behind the functions have given me a useful (IMO) insight into how and why some people are the way they are, so at the very least I don't think it's useless. Comparing it to such abstract organizational imaginary constructions such as Mathematics is something that makes sense to me. I think some facets of the organizational system are superfluous (like the 4-letter types), but that is purely opinion; I personally find the concept of the functions the most interesting.

Yet while I find the 4-letter types superfluous I do find the concept of the temperaments to be mildly relevant to reality, so I think the most superfluous part of the 4-letter type isn't the type itself so much as the perceived "function order" that it resolves into. So if I were to modify the system, I would do away with the 4-letter types and define temperaments in terms of preferential groups of functions.
 

wolfy

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If MBTI were objective, there would be experimental evidence. But over seventy years, there is no experimental evidence. So we can conclude, MBTI is subjective.

And being subjective, MBTI is imaginary. And so MBTI should be judged against other imaginary works.

But the subjective is real! At least it is to me. Real, I say!

I am struck that some think that MBTI gives them, for the first time in their lives, an objective view of themselves and others.

The objective measures some come up with are funny. Porridge in the morning, isfp.
 

Bamboo

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If you focus all your energy into your left foot, the question that may arise is: Am I my left foot?

How does it feel to dance with just one foot?

And if you really start to believe that you are your left foot, I wonder what it's like to imagine you are the rest of you.
 
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