Evolution of typology

[SolitaryWalker]

You people need to start out with your arguments, not conclusions. For now, most of the feedback has been wholly arbitrary or irrelevant to the given text.

I can say all I want how God does not exist, or Darwin's theory is superior to creationism, or whatever point I want to make, but this is all substanceless unless some good reasoning preceeds such claims.

 

[SillySapienne]

The human race could be divided into 2 classes. The passionate and the intellectual.

There are those who are neither passionate nor intellectual, and there are those who happen to be both.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

There are those who are neither passionate nor intellectual, and there are those who happen to be both.

Oh of course. Its not a dichotomy. It is a continuum. Some of us are very passionate and hardly intellectual. Some of us are very intellectual and hardly passionate. Some of us are a lot more passionate than intellectual and vice versa. And some of us are close to being as passionate as intellectual.

 

[SillySapienne]

My existence, alone, disproves the viability of this passionate/intellectual continuum you propose, why? Because, relative to the human population, I happen to be/exhibit extreme characteristics/signs/tendencies of both.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

My existence, alone, disproves the viability of this passionate/intellectual continuum you propose, why? Because, relative to the human population, I happen to be/exhibit extreme characteristics of both.

I am thinking of natural predilections. 'Be/exhibit' is the catch here. That is not relevant enough to the matter.

 

[SillySapienne]

I have a natural predilection for both.

I'm a passionate intellectual, always have been, always will be.

 

[Orangey]

It's classifying ESTJs, ESFJs, ESTPs and ESFPs as the Gammas and Deltas and INTPS as the Alphas in his brave new world that reeks of intellectualized bigotry. BlueWing sounds like those old racists going on about "the Negro", how they're inferior and unfit for all sorts of things. It's all a bunch of self serving bullshit designed to inflate his flaccid little ego.

But wait...if his theory says that in the future the INT's (or INT type traits) will be better equipped for the tasks of the technologically advanced environment, then doesn't that mean that the current environment doesn't favor these same traits? How do you gather that he's being bigoted towards "passionate" ESF types if he has already admitted that the INT traits are relatively unfavored in our present environment? From what I understand, in order to claim that he's being bigoted by simply stating that INT "intellectual" traits would be favored in a technologically advanced environment that's conducive to "dispassionate reflection", you (1) apply a positive value to "intellectual", (2) assume that all technological advancement is "better" or "good", and (3) devalue "passionate". Who's to say that being "passionate" in this techno-future won't be a valuable trait? All BW is saying (or at least this is how I understand him) is that if being intellectual is more conducive to the future environment, then the INT traits must in general be better suited to it since "I" is better for reflection than "E", "N" is more abstract than "S", and "T" lends itself better to detached reflection and analysis than "F". If anything, I might say that the limited number of "passionate" types present in this " intellectual future" scenario in relation to "intellectual" types might cause it to be the more valued because of its rarity.

I would argue (which I think some people have already mentioned) that technological advancement doesn't necessarily lend itself to "reflection". Think of "Idiocracy". Perhaps the ease with which we could occupy ourselves with noise and other distractions caused by the decrease in time spent doing menial things (because the technology does it for us) would lend itself more to indulgence in sensation (not the function, necessarily) than in reflection. And also, maybe if we developed machines that did much of the complicated thinking for us (true AI), the majority of people wouldn't even need to engage much in it unless they were naturally predisposed to it. People already argue that television and portable media devices ruin children's minds. There is no reason to suppose that the increase in reflective abilities since our primitive days will continue.

 

[sassafrassquatch]

Pharyngula: There are no marching morons

Idiocracy shreded by a scientist who understands and teaches evolution. Please stop citing that eugenicist bullshit. It's a freaking movie, not peer reviewed research.

 

[Orangey]

Pharyngula: There are no marching morons

Idiocracy shreded by a scientist who understands and teaches evolution. Please stop citing that eugenicist bullshit. It's a freaking movie, not peer reviewed research.

I mentioned the movie to lend an image to the speculative "future" I was describing. I never cited it as evidence or tried to present it as credible research. Anyway, I'm not seeing how the article you posted is even relevant to anything I was saying (if you are in fact responding to my post, which I assume since you mentioned my use of "Idiocracy".) It seems to be attacking the idea that some populations (a lot of the time based on an idea of race or class) are genetically 'dumber' than others and will therefore continue to produce 'dumb' offspring well into the future. I never said or suggested such a thing. What I said was that IF we say that INT traits are better suited for "reflection", and reflection lends itself to being "intellectual", then a future environment that makes it more likely for people with a high capacity for "intellectual reflection" to reproduce will produce more INT types (not that I accept these premises, but that's what BW presented). What on Earth does that have to do with eugenics or the idea that certain subpopulations are and always will be genetically inferior to others?

When I cited "Idiocracy", I was doing so in order to lend a mental image to the argument I was presenting. And the argument I was presenting was absolutely unrelated to eugenics, as that would suggest some sort of purposeful genetic manipulation by people. The argument was meant to go against the idea that the end of menial labor due to technological advancement would result in an environment more suitable to reflection. Or, to partially-quote BW, an environment that would create circumstances under which "their [people's] survival were truly contingent upon" the ability to competently undertake intellectual endeavors such as theoretical physics. I was going completely off of the arguments presented in the OP (or at least what I understood them to be).

 

[Gabe]

You people need to start out with your arguments, not conclusions. For now, most of the feedback has been wholly arbitrary or irrelevant to the given text.

I can say all I want how God does not exist, or Darwin's theory is superior to creationism, or whatever point I want to make, but this is all substanceless unless some good reasoning preceeds such claims.

in other words, you want people to engage in your If-then-therefor nonsense (extraverted thinking), because you are a __TJ type.

 

[Haphazard]

I don't get this whole thing with Blue being a TJ type...

But the point is that the original premise, that ES types would not be able to handle an extremely technologically advanced society, is absolutely flawed, never mind the nonsense about evolution. It is quite possible to be a soccer star and be computer savvy -- I've seen it happen over and over. If a kid grows up surrounded by technology, they're going to be curious as to how to use it, no matter what type, and therefore learn how to use it proficiently.

I imagine the ES types would do quite well -- I mean, seeing as we'll need ESJs to program the bureaucracy-bots and the ESPs will still be drag racing, only now in their hover-cars.

You can't proceed to build on a flawed premise. Doing so would build a house of cards.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Okay, my problems with your argument, BlueWing.

You created an artificial divide between passionate and intellectual, then attempted to organize a continuum of the types (actually, a hierarchy thinly disguised as a continuum). Yet I'm confused about how you think this works. How on earth can you assign levels of passion to type? And why are you putting that much faith in MBTI?

In fact, why do you always put this much faith in MBTI?

In any event, a bigger, glaring problem is equivocation. "Passionate" is not the same as "dumb," which is what your theory requires to survive. You can't have "passionate" on one side and "intellectual" on the other - the continuum doesn't work logically. You can't have two utterly incomparable things - passion and intellect - and pit them against one another in this continuum.

As my special friend noted, you started with a really shaky foundation and built a skyscraper on it.

A total INTJ thing to do.

Summary of your argument.

1)There is no reason to think of passion and intellect as antithetical.
2)MBTI 'types' do not adequately correspond with the problem of supposed antithesis of passion and intellect.
3)In light of point one, passion is irrelevant to intelligence. In short, this is only an explanation of point one.

Thus your argument is as follows.

1)Passionate and intellect are not relevant.
2)Even if they were relevant, MBTI labels have little to do with them.

As I have stated in my OP. Passion and intelligence are not directly antithetical. However passion robs us of the inner peace that we need in order to allow our mind to work. We do not easily think on our feet at least most of us. Consider this. When we are up and running our bodies are full of physical energy. Full of passion. When we are deep in thought, we do not feel like running around, and we do not feel much physical energy. When we are most reflective we tend to be least passionate.

I have re-defined MBTI 'labels'. Thinking is simply a process of impersonal analysis or logic. (Irrespectively of what superstitions MBTI theorists harbor under that name). Feeling is an intepersonal judging perspective, or value judgment. Intuition is synonymous with imagination, or conception of abstract images. Sensing is to be interpreted in its standard definition, or a use of our five senses. This is what these elements are in isolated form. To find out how type works, we need to examine how these elements interplay with one another.

Hence my response is. All things concerning passion preclude us from reflecting properly because passions engage our wholy being to a great extent and in effect rob us of the calm that we need to concern ourselves with intellectual matters.

Concering the inadequacy of MBTI, my definition of thinking and intuition are clearly more in line with reflection, yet sensation and feeling clearly more in line with action.

 

[Haphazard]

As I have stated in my OP. Passion and intelligence are not directly antithetical. However passion robs us of the inner peace that we need in order to allow our mind to work. We do not easily think on our feet at least most of us. Consider this. When we are up and running our bodies are full of physical energy. Full of passion. When we are deep in thought, we do not feel like running around, and we do not feel much physical energy. When we are most reflective we tend to be least passionate.

This just plain isn't true. Many, many people run in order to think. Many people get their best ideas while running. However, this would not apply to someone who is out of shape or has breathing problems or whatever because they would be too overcome with aches to think of anything good. When I am deep in thought, I pace holes in the rug, and I am sure I am not the only one. There is a difference between a sport that requires your full attention, like soccer, and a physical task that focuses you, like running or taking showers.

I don't think passionate and intellectual can be mutually exclusive. I see more of a triad -- passionate, intellectual, and meditative, which I guess would correspond to the traditional physical, mental, and spiritual. While the INTP would be purely intellectual, the ESFP purely passionate, the INFP would be purely meditative, in theory. However, most people would fall somewhere in between, like the ENTP being intellectual-passionate, the ISTP being passionate-intellectual, the INFJ being meditative-intellectual, the INTJ being intellectual-meditative, the ENFP being meditative-passionate, and the ISFP being passionate-meditative.

Will being meditative become more useful in the future? You know, considering, it really hasn't been very useful, and we certainly haven't seen them die out.

 

[SillySapienne]

ISTP ~ passionate-intellectual?

ENFP ~ meditative-passionate?

Huzzahellno they're not!!!

ENFP= passionate intellectual

Fo' shizzle

 

[Didums]

You people need to start out with your arguments, not conclusions. For now, most of the feedback has been wholly arbitrary or irrelevant to the given text.

I can say all I want how God does not exist, or Darwin's theory is superior to creationism, or whatever point I want to make, but this is all substanceless unless some good reasoning preceeds such claims.

Yea, I realize that I started offtopic but what got me there was that your arguement was made via proof of assertion, I didn't feel anchored down to the subject because there was no evidence presented. When you go on about cognitive processes it seems that you're knowledgable but you've stated before that you don't use the classic typology (I think you said this somewhere), which throws some of us offguard. Right now, you have an Idea, that you need to find evidence for, even if the idea seems like it makes sense to you it has 0 merit.

For example: "It is clear that among us, some are more like the evolved species, and some are more reminiscent of our predecessors. Some of us are 'better made' for action like apes and other animals out of which we have evolved, yet others are better made for contemplation and more intellectual endeavors."

In an argument you Never say "it is clear", you need to Prove Why "it is clear". You stated that some people are more physically adapted and others are more mentally adapted but there is no reason to believe that someone can't be both.

Also: "The human race could be divided into 2 classes."

That sentence utterly confused be because of the word Classes which inferes a choice between "you're either in this class or the other", atleast to me this is how it comes off.

Here is also what confused me: "At this point man's environment is much conducive to reflection..."

Social Darwinism, Not actual evolution. The intellectual is more fit for the business world, I Agree with that. However, throw an Intellectual in the forest, with no clothes, food, water, or shelter, and he's likely not going to survive, this "evolution" into "intellectual" can only make sense in modern business society.

Oh of course. Its not a dichotomy. It is a continuum. Some of us are very passionate and hardly intellectual. Some of us are very intellectual and hardly passionate. Some of us are a lot more passionate than intellectual and vice versa. And some of us are close to being as passionate as intellectual.

Your continuum can use alot of improvement, if you added a Y axis with a given trait to the X axis of Passionate-Intellectual you'll find youself with a much more accurate grid. I can't think of a good thing to place at the Y axis at the moment but hey its your continuum. I think that is constructive criticism at least.


I think you'll find this post much easier to read and much more enlightening than my former posts,

Didums

 

[Orangey]

Here is also what confused me: "At this point man's environment is much conducive to reflection..."

Social Darwinism, Not actual evolution. The intellectual is more fit for the business world, I Agree with that. However, throw an Intellectual in the forest, with no clothes, food, water, or shelter, and he's likely not going to survive, this "evolution" into "intellectual" can only make sense in modern business society.

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining a potential environment that would make survival contingent upon the ability to pursue "intellectual" endeavors.

 

[Rajah]

Summary of your argument.

1)There is no reason to think of passion and intellect as antithetical.
2)MBTI 'types' do not adequately correspond with the problem of supposed antithesis of passion and intellect.
3)In light of point one, passion is irrelevant to intelligence. In short, this is only an explanation of point one.

Thus your argument is as follows.

1)Passionate and intellect are not relevant.
2)Even if they were relevant, MBTI labels have little to do with them.

As I have stated in my OP. Passion and intelligence are not directly antithetical. However passion robs us of the inner peace that we need in order to allow our mind to work. We do not easily think on our feet at least most of us. Consider this. When we are up and running our bodies are full of physical energy. Full of passion. When we are deep in thought, we do not feel like running around, and we do not feel much physical energy. When we are most reflective we tend to be least passionate.

I have re-defined MBTI 'labels'. Thinking is simply a process of impersonal analysis or logic. (Irrespectively of what superstitions MBTI theorists harbor under that name). Feeling is an intepersonal judging perspective, or value judgment. Intuition is synonymous with imagination, or conception of abstract images. Sensing is to be interpreted in its standard definition, or a use of our five senses. This is what these elements are in isolated form. To find out how type works, we need to examine how these elements interplay with one another.

Hence my response is. All things concerning passion preclude us from reflecting properly because passions engage our wholy being to a great extent and in effect rob us of the calm that we need to concern ourselves with intellectual matters.

Concering the inadequacy of MBTI, my definition of thinking and intuition are clearly more in line with reflection, yet sensation and feeling clearly more in line with action.

Your response doesn't change anything. You're creating a false dichotomy.

And you've misread what I'm saying. I think passion and intellect are extremely tied to one another; I don't think you can put passion and intellect at each end of a continuum like you did.

Your examples don't make much sense to me. I'm extraordinarily passionate about learning. I throw myself into my work. And I can be extremely reflective when working out. So, personally, I don't get what you're saying.

Perhaps it's just that you need to better define the terms you're employing. Because using the commonly understood definitions of "passion" and "intellect" isn't driving your argument very far.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Your response doesn't change anything. You're creating a false dichotomy.

And you've misread what I'm saying. I think passion and intellect are extremely tied to one another; I don't think you can put passion and intellect at each end of a continuum like you did.

Perhaps it's just that you need to better define the terms you're employing. Because using the commonly understood definitions of "passion" and "intellect" isn't driving your argument very far.

The point was, passion hinders intellectual pursuits.

 

[Rajah]

The point was, passion hinders intellectual pursuits.

I understood your claim. I don't think it was well-supported.

 

[pure_mercury]

This thread is laughable. Passion helps to make someone human, and not an animal.