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MBTI type that gathers information just for one-upmanship?

Swivelinglight

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As for my answer on the type that I believe is most pretentious based off anecdotal evidence, I'd have to agree with many in here and say my own type, ENTP (Ne dom's in general, but I don't think ENFP's are as notorious at this).


I'm not sure if it's more or less worst for me to hear it than others, because I know so well what they're doing (after employing the tactics in my past) and get tired of seeing the same repeated patterns.

I think it may not be as bad for people who don't engage with ENTP's much because it may come across as endearing rather than annoying in small dosages.
 

EntangledLight

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i know one ENTP who's a jackass and sounds a lot like this. on the other hand, the other one i know (a girl from a an art class), this is basically how she learns. to everyone else it appears she's constantly shifting her position or dancing around vague information in an effort to be "right", but when called out on it she seems confused that someone would ever think that.

to her, it's almost like she never really fully "commits" herself to an idea or information. almost like a "let's just say it's 50/50 right and wrong--even if it's proven to be fact--and take it from the right and wrong down each path, and from each path, follow the other paths that spring up". she gets harped on a lot about doing this, but just knowing her type it's probably the most completely natural thing for her to do.

edit: i think it's sometimes easy to misunderstand the process of another.
 

skylights

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I wouldn't say 5s do it for one-up-manship though, or to 'be on top'. They do it just to be able to know they can hold their own and be independent- not to raise themselves 'above' anyone else (I'd guess even that kind of competitive relationship is too 'other dependent' for most e5s, but it's possible that's just me).


As far as feeling the need to 'always be on top', I'd think 3 or 8 might be driven by this the most. But mostly I think it's just a human thing.

True, good point.

I think the 5 I know who is really like this is probably 5-3-8 come to think of it.
 

ChocolateMoose123

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I work with an iNTP who does this. Has to be correct even if it is technically correct. He can't do anything without approval. If he does, he finds a way to be right. He drives me nuts. Just be okay with being wrong once in a while. No one is so smart they can't learn something.
 

Salomé

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I should have been more careful. Although people may favor one way when dealing with particular situations, everyone uses both mapping and packing learning strategies. Mapping is an attempt to understand. Packing is an attempt to memorize. Both ways help you remember.

When you need to remember someone's name, phone number, or birth date, a packing strategy may be appropriate. Unless you have some deep understanding of how these things work, this information is pretty much arbitrary.

This is the fundamental difference. It seems, we have little choice regarding information that seems arbitrary or nonsensical than to "pack" it in your mind. With information that makes sense, mapping out how the new information you come across makes sense, is very effective. For instance, when you learn the periodic trends after you know that oppositely charged bodies attract and that the more charge bodies have, the more they attract, it is really easy to remember that atomic radii decrease as you go across the period (it is a simple consequence of what you already know).

However, people have come up with "artificial mapping" strategies to aid packing. Mnemonic devices, and the tricks that people use in the Memory Olympics and such. These strategies don't map knowledge to new knowledge but rather, nonsense to other things (which may seem like nonsense). It is still relatively effective because the nonsense becomes familiar to those who use it. This involves things like: "SOHCAHTOA", "ROY G. BIV", and "My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas."

But this is the reason I say that those who learn to "not look stupid" or to "impress people" will tend to favor packing over mapping.

Mapping is a personal and idiosyncratic process. It grows from what you know outwards towards what you want to know. It builds-up. It works from thing we understand to things we want to understand. Once you learn something this way, it is difficult to "forget" it. The new knowledge becomes incorporated and built upon.

Packing is just a means to some other ends. Once those ends are achieved, there is no longer any reason to hold on the means.

Asking questions, to me, is the central thinking skill.

Asking the questions out loud is just one method to attempt to find answers.

If you take a course or read an internet article without questions in mind, I believe all you are doing is attempting to "pack" information into your mind. Whereas asking questions and attempting to find answers is a way to "map" your own knowledge to the knowledge of others and there by expand your map.

These are two very different ways to look at knowledge. There are some efficient "packing" techniques, but most of these rely on what I call "artificial mapping" (mnemonic devices, method of loci, ... )

Those who are "mappers" genuinely enjoy learning things, and "looking stupid" is a small price to pay.

Those who are "packers" like to boast and show off their "capacity" (whether it is short term memory or long term). Ironically, when they look at the "capacities" of mappers, they can be taken aback.

Note: I believe the first time I came across the words "mapper" and "packer" was in a really old version of the Programmer's Stone. But I had noticed this same pattern before myself. Some people say that mappers are iNtuitives, and that packers are Sensors. I believe this is B.S. I have come across more iNtuitive packers than Sensor packers. "Packing" as a form of "learning", I believe, comes about due to not leaving enough time to learn. Ironically, it takes longer to pack knowledge into your mind than to map knowledge into it.
While I wouldn't go so far as to say "mappers are iNtuitives, and packers are Sensors"' packing does look like it requires "Sensing" type skills - rote learning of facts and figures without exploring the underlying principles. Mapping is pretty much Ne personified, no?
I'm not interested in mapping to types, but mapping to functions is useful, perhaps..
This reminds me of Jeff Hawkins ideas in On Intelligence (which I know you've read). The whole pattern-searching cortical hierarchy thing?

It irritates me when MBTI theorists claim that Sensing and intuition are alternate ways of "taking in" information. The 5 senses are our only window on the world. Sensing is essential to navigate one's way through an environment. Intuition is the filter we apply to data we have already taken in through the senses. Some call it a sixth sense, but it is really an entirely new step in the evolution of thought. Once a person has developed adequate intuitive facility, they will become impatient with (packing) mere details and repetitive facts, because intuition gives us short-cuts and efficiencies when processing data and allows us to "see" further into its implications.
 

Cellmold

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While I wouldn't go so far as to say "mappers are iNtuitives, and packers are Sensors"' packing does look like it requires "Sensing" type skills - rote learning of facts and figures without exploring the underlying principles. Mapping is pretty much Ne personified, no?
I'm not interested in mapping to types, but mapping to functions is useful, perhaps..
This reminds me of Jeff Hawkins ideas in On Intelligence (which I know you've read). The whole pattern-searching cortical hierarchy thing?

It irritates me when MBTI theorists claim that Sensing and intuition are alternate ways of "taking in" information. The 5 senses are our only window on the world. Sensing is essential to navigate one's way through an environment. Intuition is the filter we apply to data we have already taken in through the senses. Some call it a sixth sense, but it is really an entirely new step in the evolution of thought. Once a person has developed adequate intuitive facility, they will become impatient with (packing) mere details and repetitive facts, because intuition gives us short-cuts and efficiencies when processing data and allows us to "see" further into its implications.

Interesting point.

Could someone say that sensing is in fact an evolutionary dead end when it comes to the processing of perceived information? I say this on the assumption that were this theory to be valid beyond a shadow of a doubt I would probably be a sensing type.

Yknow...otherwise I would be picking on sensors.....:shrug:
 

zelo1954

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It irritates me when MBTI theorists claim that Sensing and intuition are alternate ways of "taking in" information. The 5 senses are our only window on the world. Sensing is essential to navigate one's way through an environment. Intuition is the filter we apply to data we have already taken in through the senses. Some call it a sixth sense, but it is really an entirely new step in the evolution of thought. Once a person has developed adequate intuitive facility, they will become impatient with (packing) mere details and repetitive facts, because intuition gives us short-cuts and efficiencies when processing data and allows us to "see" further into its implications.

I really like this. In the past I've tended to see N as a preference for certain types of information - especially abstract rather than concrete - but what it really is is broader than that. It's about seeing more depth in ANY information already taken in. Something possibly to do with asking the question why rather than what when we sense anything. Only trouble is we seem to be blurring the difference between information gathering and judgement. Give us some thoughts as to why your second level step is still information gathering and not judgement?
 

Salomé

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I really like this. In the past I've tended to see N as a preference for certain types of information - especially abstract rather than concrete - but what it really is is broader than that. It's about seeing more depth in ANY information already taken in. Something possibly to do with asking the question why rather than what when we sense anything. Only trouble is we seem to be blurring the difference between information gathering and judgement. Give us some thoughts as to why your second level step is still information gathering and not judgement?
Judging is a convergent process, focused on outcomes. Intuition is divergent, exploratory, focus-free. It does not ask "is this correct?" "Is it sensible?" It asks "what if?" and "where might this lead?" It extrapolates, but not in a straight line. It joins invisible dots, with impermanent ink . It breaks bonds with the known to fly into uncharted, strange and sometimes wondrous territory. It defies context-bound rules, like gravity. It flirts with anarchy.
It waffles...
Judging requires you to come back down to earth, to compare flights of fancy with what's tried and true. To evaluate. To choose. To be consistent, closed, resolved.

[Actually, I have no idea if these are different steps or all part of the same process. ]

In Hawkins book he proposes a memory-prediction framework for intelligence and makes some suggestions about the actual physical implementation in terms of cortical circuitry. One which ties pure sense perception (images / image fragments captured by visual circuitry) at the lowest level of the (6-level) cortical hierarchy, through pattern-recognition (e.g. facial-recognition) to the capacity for anticipatory action /neuronal firing and theory of mind (which even predatory animals have).
The next level is the capacity to "see" abstract patterns and make predictions from those (intuition). Same principle, increasingly complex patterns / metapatterns at each level, all built from essentially the same circuitry. Brain as "feed-forward hierarchical state machine."
You can see how this fits within an evolutionary perspective.

Could someone say that sensing is in fact an evolutionary dead end when it comes to the processing of perceived information?
In what sense?
 

Cellmold

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In what sense?

Well a while back I remember coming across a blog where this man attempted to explain why he throught intuition was superior to sensing in regards to MBTI.

It was mainly drivel but I wondered what others would think of his premise. Basically he tried to claim that sensing had the limitations of a beast, only able to comprehend what was in front of it right now, because that is all the senses tell us. Whereas intuition was a higher method of cognition, allowing us to comprehend and understand complex frameworks and ideas, all for the purpose of furthering the species. And from this he proclaimed that intuition was the next step in human evolution.

Essentially he was a bit of a dick and I think his understanding was grossly skewed. But, I did think it was an interesting idea nonetheless, even if I couldn't see any real reasoning to it, given that this theory is a shakey bundle of heuristic evidence, wrapped up with internet group archetypes.

So I wondered what you or others might think of such an idea.
 

Salomé

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So I wondered what you or others might think of such an idea.

Yeah...I think maybe you're a bit confused and defensive. Which is not a great place to be in when you're trying to make yourself understood.
 

Cellmold

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Yeah...I think maybe you're a bit confused and defensive. Which is not a great place to be in when you're trying to make yourself understood.

Can you expand on that?

Is it about consistancy?
 

Salomé

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Can you expand on that?

Is it about consistancy?
1. I'm not sure that you understand what an "evolutionary dead end" is.

2. It seems to me that your "Sensor-bias Alert!" knee-jerk reaction means you're at risk of throwing out both baby and bath water.
 

Cellmold

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1. I'm not sure that you understand what an "evolutionary dead end" is.

I dont understand most things. But ive always thought it was to do with progress. Even though I paraphrased that person's theory it is actually close to what he said, he did use the term afterall.

That's why if we assume this theory to be proven and factual rather than merely heurestic, then his idea might have a point, because of the idea of innovation and striding forward with intuition rather than being held back by the senses.

2. It seems to me that your "Sensor-bias Alert!" knee-jerk reaction means you're at risk of throwing out both baby and bath water.

I think I already did a long time ago.

There is afterall a rather unspoken rule in many peoples minds that

intuition = intelligence

and

sensing = stupidity.

I suppose im just a bit thick. But please dont mistake my intentions or motives, im not fighting against some uncomfortable truth, nor am I bothered or upset by the idea of being a sensing type and therefore less intelligent or perceptive to those things outside the sphere of the 5 senses of a human being.

I really was genuinely interested in what others thought of that idea. I suppose I should not have denigrated the character of the man whose idea it was. But...he really is a dick...ad hominem's be damned.

As for sensor-bias....couldnt give a fuck. I hated the PC nature of sites such as Perc where everything was perceived as an attack on sensors, just as much as any 'sensor-bias'.
 

Salomé

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Then I'd agree with you. If he said that he is an idiot.
 

zelo1954

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Judging is a convergent process, focused on outcomes. Intuition is divergent, exploratory, focus-free. It does not ask "is this correct?" "Is it sensible?" It asks "what if?" and "where might this lead?"

Well - I DID ask you to comment. What I didn't expect was that your comment would finally make me understand what intuition really was.

If I'm understanding you correctly there is a process whereby we make a decision. The process involves Sensing -> Intuition -> Judging. Maybe we can replace the word "intuition" with "deepening"? Our intuition can lead us to do many more iterations of sensing -> deepening because the deepening part of the process makes us realise we don't have enough information. Seems to me the judging process must be 2-step: 1) deciding that we are ready to decide :) then, 2) Making a decision according to how we feel about things, or according to pure logic, *** or most likely some combination of the two ***

But whatever importance we attach to the deepening part of the process, we cannot assimilate information from outside with anything other than our 5 senses. NOW I understand why N types need S far more than S types need N. That particular insight becomes a kind of redundant tautology using the S -> D -> J model.

There's one further comment to make. There's something a little wrong with the MBTI model. S & N are not equivalent. The model works of course but the N/S dimension needs a few terminology tweaks.

Thank you Salome. Excellent stuff.
 
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