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Phrenology

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Do you think phrenology is accurate? Is it possible to determine things about someone's personality by the shape of their skull? Can you, for instance, determine if someone likes apples by the shape of their jawbone?
 

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Sounds pretty accurate
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I think we need craniometric readings of all the people on the board to replace the inferior MBTI indicators of personality.
 

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Yes, it is accurate in a broad/general sense if done correctly, and in fact people do this all the time subconsciously with a great degree of accuracy. The problem is when it is discussed in a manner in which people are not at all willing to be open to the fact that some correlations do in fact indicate causations (a great majority of the Ti using population, especially when backed by Fe SJW emotionality aka adherence to the church of peer review).
Even if they do agree that there is in fact some fundamental psychological or personality trait correlated with a particular physical feature, since they are so strongly opposed to the possibility of phrenology existing (due to the fact that if phrenology does exist, it would decimate the framework their entire worldview is precariously sitting on, backed by group consensus), it would be impossible for them to connect the dots as to what the correlation actually indicates.
Another factor is, in my opinion, only a minority of the population actually catalogues facial recognition data to the degree that phrenologists do which enables them to draw any sort of constructive possibilities with the data (a lot of the time, they do, subconsciously, but are unable to demonstrate exactly what it is their brain is informing them of in the personality of the subject they are observing consciously, based only on facial features and expression alone). I would also argue that those who excel at phrenology are frequently phrenological outsiders themselves, for a myriad of reasons which would be a little too tiresome to expand on this post.
I think a better question would be...would you be comfortable if phrenology was real, and there were phrenologists that existed right now that in fact could tell if you liked apples simply from the shape of your jaw?
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I think a better question would be...would you be comfortable if phrenology was real, and there were phrenologists that existed right now that in fact could tell if you liked apples simply from the shape of your jaw?

It would depend on what people did with it, if it was accurate. That would be a very big if. As far as I know, phrenology has been discredited.

I challenge you to perform a phrenological reading based on my avatar, for what it's worth.
 

Xann

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It would depend on what people did with it, if it was accurate. That would be a very big if. As far as I know, phrenology has been discredited.

I challenge you to perform a phrenological reading based on my avatar, for what it's worth.

Hmm, well, if you somewhat identify with that bird enough to use it as your avatar....I'd say it's likely your eyes are similarly large in comparison to the face, but close together, which would likely indicate a propensity to avoid overt aggression and a rather sensitive nature with low emotional shielding when it comes to in-group conflict (family members, close friends), but a locus of ego that is nonetheless rather self-interested. Of course any charlatan could tell you the same based on talking to you for 60 seconds or so, and I'm guessing the difference wouldn't really matter to you too much (due to the fact that phrenology has been "discredited", and also that you have taken me seriously enough to be the judge of phrenologically typing a bird rather than a face).
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Hmm, well, if you somewhat identify with that bird enough to use it as your avatar....I'd say it's likely your eyes are similarly large in comparison to the face, but close together, which would likely indicate a propensity to avoid overt aggression and a rather sensitive nature with low emotional shielding when it comes to in-group conflict (family members, close friends), but a locus of ego that is nonetheless rather self-interested. Of course any charlatan could tell you the same based on talking to you for 60 seconds or so, and I'm guessing the difference wouldn't really matter to you too much (due to the fact that phrenology has been "discredited", and also that you have taken me seriously enough to be the judge of phrenologically typing a bird rather than a face).

My theory is that you didn't use the bird at all, and used my posting habits (the equivalent of talking to me for 60 seconds). :) Of course, what you say makes some amount of sense.
 

Xann

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My theory is that you didn't use the bird at all, and used my posting habits (the equivalent of talking to me for 60 seconds). Of course, what you say makes some amount of sense.

Well, there are all sorts of theories that one could ultimately employ to explain personality in lieu of phrenology, so I would encourage you to exhaust those before returning to generally discredited theories as it appears the subject doesn't hold too much authentic interest to you. The triviality of the sample question from the original post "liking apples" combined with an automatic closed-off nature of your response to my analysis confirms my first post in this thread. I imagine the seemingly subjective nature of phrenology throws most Ti users for a loop and renders them nearly completely unable to see any sort of potential value in a field that doesn't sit on fundamental principles but rather its own sporadic protuberances of applicability.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Well, there are all sorts of theories that one could ultimately employ to explain personality in lieu of phrenology, so I would encourage you to exhaust those before returning to generally discredited theories as it appears the subject doesn't hold too much authentic interest to you. The triviality of the sample question from the original post "liking apples" combined with an automatic closed-off nature of your response to my analysis confirms my first post in this thread. I imagine the seemingly subjective nature of phrenology throws most Ti users for a loop and renders them nearly completely unable to see any sort of potential value in a field that doesn't sit on fundamental principles but rather its own sporadic protuberances of applicability.

Right, but you aren't really talking about phrenology... that is, the art of determining personality from skull shape. How did the close set eyes on the avatar tell you that? I think that something else told you that, and you just didn't realize it. Maybe your brain didn't process it consciously, so it all came out intuitively. I think your brain could have crunched all the information based on my posting habits without you realizing it.
 

Xann

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Right, but you aren't really talking about phrenology... that is, the art of determining personality from skull shape. How did the close set eyes on the avatar tell you that? I think that something else told you that, and you just didn't realize it. Maybe your brain didn't process it consciously, so it all came out intuitively. I think your brain could have crunched all the information based on my posting habits without you realizing it.

Well, the eye sockets are part and parcel of the skull, and the size and location are one of the most outwardly indicative ways of taking a peek as to what is inside, to phrenologists. The close set eyes on the avatar simply indicated that it is likely you have at least slightly close set eyes yourself, which is correlated with many personality traits in and of itself, despite whatever I may have already gleaned from your posts that I've read. And what you said is definitely possible as well.
 
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