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A CLUE! A CLUE!

Martoon

perdu fleur par bologne
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
1,361
MBTI Type
INTP
When it happens sometimes my first thought is "thank God, I'm not dead inside after all" or something like that. Hmm.
Lol. Been there, done that. :)

To be honest (not that I'm typically dishonest), I'm not into the whole MBTI science enough to be up on all the Fe Fi Fo Fum specifics, so I don't have much insight to offer on what your complete type might be based on what you said. Other people's comments in this thread are more useful. But what you described resonates with me, and I think it has something to do with being disconnected from your feelings in some way.

Love the new avatar, btw.

Oh, Ivy. You're an N, for crying out loud.
Heh heh heh. Rajah made a funny.

But as usual, she's right. Based on your general persona online, and how you describe your life, I see much more N than S.
 

Eileen

New member
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
2,179
MBTI Type
INFJ
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6?
But as usual, she's right. Based on your general persona online, and how you describe your life, I see much more N than S.


Well - for the record, I do agree that Ivy is INFX (and I lean towards INFJ... not because she lacks self-involvement but she lacks a very specific effusiveness that every INFP I know possesses), but I think it would probably be harder to "see" S-ness online.
 

bluebell

New member
Joined
Apr 30, 2007
Messages
1,485
MBTI Type
INTP
What's the opposite of resonate? Because I don't resonate with that much at all.

lol, I didn't think so. You can cross that one off the list - you don't seem anything like my friend (and I think she's a similar age to you).

That's a beautiful avatar, btw.
 
R

RDF

Guest
That's what I'm saying. Put another way, both Si and Se is the experiencing of real stimulation (not abstraction). Se is real-time, the stimulation is direct, and emotions raised come through body responses either inborn involuntary responses or behaviorally modified to respond instinctively a certain way -- but in any case the emotions are spawned right off the sense impression.

(Example: You get hit in the head by a baseball -> It hurts -> You cry or get angry or respond in some other way.)

Si is remembrance of PAST experience and stimulation. This can be just the data itself, as WELL as the person's response at THAT time to the data -- i.e., the emotional and response states also would get stored in the databanks and called up as part of the memory feed.

(Example: You hear the crack of a bat. You recall getting hit in the head with the ball before and reexperience the memory of that emotion... albeit a little "muted" because it's not direct. The current emotion: You become frightened/wary looking for the incoming ball, along with any residual emotion coming from the memory.)

So I don't really equate Se/Si with emotions per se, but they are closely tied because emotional states are perceived right alongside the data causing them.

A couple points, then I really should drop it.

I agree with you and Mempy about sensations being the building blocks of pretty much all thought. I made the same points in my first two posts in this thread: Sensation is one of the first ways we process the world as infants. So Sensation becomes kind of a main highway along which many things travel in our mind. But it doesn't mean that a thought process initially triggered by a sensation or associated with a sensation thereby becomes an Si process.

In its purest form, an Si process is a one-to-one comparison. For example, you're eating in a restaurant and you notice the flavor of an unusual spice in the food. So you run through the memory of similar flavors and foods in your memory until you recall a match for the flavor and can identify the spice. In the example of recalling a spice, Si is a deliberative process, and it reaches into the past in order to compare like to like. But it doesn't involve a lot of introspection and/or exploring of associative "wormholes" leading from one memory to the next. It's just a deliberative one-to-one process. You don't know how to decorate your home? Rummage around in your memory until you can find an appropriate example from your recollections of friends' homes.

To me, the following would not be an Si process:

I'm eating in a restaurant and I notice the flavor of an unusual spice in the food. Suddenly I'm brought back to my childhood when my mother used to serve me the same dish for dinner. And I recall that I would then finish dinner just as dusk was setting in, and my mother would allow me to go play with the other kids until dark. And we would run around and catch fireflies in the summer dusk. And I recall how simple and fun life was back then, and I wonder if I've still managed to retain the fun and magic in my life since then. I recall the simple values I held in common with my childhood friends--our clubs, our loyalties, our common experiences--and I ask myself if they're still at the core of how I conduct myself. And so on and so on.

To me, the latter experience is more of a state of "flow," perhaps Ni or Ne in nature. It goes far beyond the process of rummaging around in one's memory in order to compare an experience in the present to one in the past. In Ivy's case, she pursues a number of associations like thought wormholes. When one wormhole turns into a dead end, she returns to the song on the radio and it launches her down a new wormhole (she provides a bulleted list of four separate trains of thought or wormholes initiated by the song).

Also, there's associative theme linking Ivy's thoughts, some sort of mother-daughter conflict. She is driving to her mother, with her kids in the car. A song comes on the radio: it's a lullaby her mother once sang to her as a child, and that Ivy now sings to her own children. It makes her think of her mother's mortality in the first train of thought or wormhole, and maybe gets her feeling vulnerable that she will one day be an orphan. So in the subsequent wormholes she revisits her childhood and finds reassurance by remembering the Quaker school where she was accorded a new adult-like independence and respect (i.e., ability to grow into adult roles); she thinks of the lyrics of the song and uses them to revisit her own ideals--and she finds them strong and steady enough to sustain her (presumably when her mother passes on). Finally she recalls that she has her own unique connection to the lullaby via a class at UNC--in essence she claims the lullaby as fully her own (presumably a symbolic reassurance that she can survive the death of her own mother and be a mother herself).

Naturally I'm guessing at her associative thought processes. To get a firm read-out on what she was actually thinking, I would need to know her general relations with her mother, her mood that day, what she was thinking before the song came on the radio, etc. But it's all typical of an associative moment: Ivy's driving in a car to her mother's house with her kids in the car, perhaps thinking about her relations with her mother, then a song comes on the radio that has special meaning to Ivy, both as a vulnerable child being tended by her mother and as a mother tending her own children. So she goes into a series of associations about her dichotomous roles as child and mother and how they relate to her identity and values.

But given this state of "flow," these freewheeling associations, and the Ni or Ne problem-solving quality of the associative process (using associations to reassure herself over some conflict in her relationship with her mother), it's hard to equate all this to a mere Si process--hearing the crack of a baseball bat and cringing because you were once hit on the head with a baseball. The associative process is not a one-to-one process. The associative process is about bringing an unconscious conflict to the surface, establishing some creative flow, and then massaging the problem with seemingly unrelated thoughts until the conflict is addressed in some manner.

Okay, now that I've gone Freudian on you, I'll drop it. I'm really putting too much time and effort into this. :doh:

(Ivy: My apologies for dissecting your thought processes. The scenario I described is all quite hypothetical. I'm just trying to demonstrate that there's more going on there than just a garden-variety Si process.)
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
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FineLine, your insight is pretty freaking amazing.

BTW I just totally cried again! :D
 

Seanan

Procrastinating
Joined
Feb 18, 2008
Messages
954
MBTI Type
INTJ
FineLine, your insight is pretty freaking amazing.

BTW I just totally cried again! :D

Yeh, and tells me I might as well just give up on trying to communicate effectively with my "S" hubby.... sheesh. :party2:
 
R

RDF

Guest
Ivy:

By the way, I've often wondered about your type myself. I figure I might as well go on record with a guess: ISFP or INFP, with a bias to ISFP.

First off, I don't get much INFJ or ISFJ vibe from you. Also, your OP in this thread is written for aesthetic accuracy and completeness rather than organization and consciseness. IOW, I don't think a J would present the experience in that style. Sometimes it's tough to get a candid description of a deeply personal experience from a J because they seem to want to groom the presentation to keep it from being too awkward/revealing or too sloppy. In a sense, they "play it safe."

In your OP, I can see some S influence in the accuracy and depth of detail. (INFPs tend toward hyperbole and fuzziness on the details--they are not great recorders of subjective experiences.)

ISFPs have a very well-developed aesthetic sense, and I get that kind of vibe from the OP. You obviously have some love for the arts, and I believe you work with literature and editing, which would be a decent match.

I guess ISFPs tend to be viewed by others as kind of light and fluffy and avoidant. But they can be as solipsist and individualistic and have as strong core values as all the other IxxPs. I have an ISFP stepsister who is an artist. She's easy-going and fun in many ways, but she can also be tough-minded when it's time to get down to business. She has some very strong core values where she simply won't brook opposition. Also, my sister could have written your statement of ideals: "Simplicity, earnestness, and no-bullshit. These are ideals I try to live by."

Also, ISFPs genuinely enjoy emotional experiences (you said: "I crave that deep, physical experience of feeling emotion, and it's one reason I love music."), but they aren't actually big emoters most of the time (you said: "I spend a lot of time in a pretty sterile state of mind, punctuated with these outpourings of emotion and sensation. When it happens sometimes my first thought is "thank God, I'm not dead inside after all" or something like that. Hmm." ISFPs can come across as kind of cyclothymic--flattened emotional affect a lot of the time, punctuated by shorter periods of strong emotion.

Also, ISFPs have a "still waters run deep" style about them. They'll keep up a conventional front much of the time and don't go out of their way too much to impact the people around them in a big way; but when they have something important to express, it can be quite stunning because of their aesthetic sensibility. Hence their facility for art. This is also kind of why I'm basing much of my evaluation of you on your OP. It seems to me that many of your posts are short and conventional: good-natured and easy in tone, but not particularly self-revealing. But the OP was something you wanted to express, so it came out in a different tone--deep and colorful, yet detailed and focused, and unafraid to put yourself on the line. Again, that seems kind of ISFP.

As for the emotional experience described in the OP, I don't think it has much bearing on your personality type. I tend to think all personality types resolve deep personal conflicts in this manner (use of associations) when the time is right. Like I said in another post, I see the mechanism as Freudian and universal rather than Jungian/MBTI. The associative experience is almost like a waking version of dreaming--just going with the flow and seeing where the associations lead. And all personality types dream.

On the other hand your description of the experience and your subsequent comments about the experience and about emotion in general sound pretty ISFP.

I don't insist strongly on ISFP; I only know one ISFP really well--my stepsister. (I know a couple others casually, but it's hard to know them well from that distance.) And I can see why others prefer to designate you an N. But I figure I would put the idea out there: ISFP or INFP, with a bias to ISFP.
 

Delilah

We all got it comin' kid
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
1,044
MBTI Type
INTP
After purposefully skipping all the posts but the OP, with what I have seen of you here and the other place you strike me as INxp with a very strongly developed S and J and almost perfectly balanced on the F/T depending on the context.

Just MHO though.
 

Tigerlily

unscannable
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Jun 21, 2007
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3w4
That's a lot for me to read through given how impatient I am but I will say this. The OP was one of the most profound posts I have ever read. One because I can relate to it and two because I know you and catching a glimpse of you opening up was touching. :hug:

I haven't read all of fineline's replies, but if he's still on top form then I'm quite sure his words are dead on. I mean come on how could anyone not have a crush on him? :rolleyes:

Your type is difficult for me to nail down but I would agree what Noah said and say it fluctuates possibly depending on who you're with. The hat thing again? If I had to choose I say IsfJ. Keeping in mind that you are intelligent and very well read.

And fwiw I start things and don't always finish them. I also detest deadlines and more often times than not hate having my time reserved but I am also very J. Again as Noah said if not finishing things or not getting to things bothers you then you're likely J. P's aren't usually bothered by those things.
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
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INFP
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FineLine, you're actually not the first person to say ISFP- ApeTheDog said it once but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. I just re-read the ISFP profile and, like the ISFJ, INFP, and INFJ (and even the INTP) profiles, some of it really hits home while other parts feel completely alien.

So basically there's still no strong opinion in any particular direction and nearly everyone says that I'm on the borderline in at least two dichotomies. I can live with being unclassifiable. :)
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
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Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
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So Jen, when will I get my ticket for the Slow Boat to Sensor Island, to take me and my rules and small-mindedness away? ;)
 

Night

Boring old fossil
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
4,755
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INTJ
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5/8
I can live with being unclassifiable. :)

I think most likely fall within this distinction; the MBTI is a narrow-handed legislative body.

If it makes you feel any better, I routinely seem to splatter somewhere between INTP; INFJ and ENTJ.
 

Tigerlily

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So Jen, when will I get my ticket for the Slow Boat to Sensor Island, to take me and my rules and small-mindedness away? ;)
Like the NT's I can make an exception, but just this one time! :alttongue:
 
R

RDF

Guest
I haven't read all of fineline's replies, but if he's still on top form then I'm quite sure his words are dead on. I mean come on how could anyone not have a crush on him? :rolleyes:

LOL! Thanks, Jen! At least I can handle jokes and compliments better than weeping :peepwall:

FineLine, you're actually not the first person to say ISFP- ApeTheDog said it once but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. I just re-read the ISFP profile and, like the ISFJ, INFP, and INFJ (and even the INTP) profiles, some of it really hits home while other parts feel completely alien.

So basically there's still no strong opinion in any particular direction and nearly everyone says that I'm on the borderline in at least two dichotomies. I can live with being unclassifiable. :)

Suits me, Ivy. I'm content to continue thinking of you as the Magical Enigmatic Unclassifiable Madmin. :party2:
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
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INFP
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6
Suits me, Ivy. I'm content to continue thinking of you as the Magical Enigmatic Unclassifiable Madmin. :party2:

New signature time!

So beautiful I almost wept. :wubbie:
 

Martoon

perdu fleur par bologne
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
1,361
MBTI Type
INTP
FineLine, your insight is pretty freaking amazing.

BTW I just totally cried again! :D
That's awesome! I'm so happy for you. Dammit, now I'm gonna cry.

I think we should all show our support and start a "Make Ivy cry" thread. We'll need to get our time zones synchronized for the group hug, though.

the MBTI is a narrow-handed legislative body.
Beautifully put, and very apt. People love pigeonholes (well, mostly the SJ's do). But very few people actually fall neatly into one of the discrete 16 types. We need to see it as more of a general guide, where the 16 types are actually sort of archetypes.

I think I'm actually a bit unusual in how well I fit into the INTP type. In most of the INTP profile descriptions, I find about 85% to be dead on, about 10% to be meh, and about 5% to be utterly wrong (mostly the really negative stuff, obviously).
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
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INFP
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6
That's awesome! I'm so happy for you. Dammit, now I'm gonna cry.

I think we should all show our support and start a "Make Ivy cry" thread. We'll need to get our time zones synchronized for the group hug, though.

I'd be down with that! It would be fun to see who can identify and properly push the sentimental button. :yes:

Beautifully put, and very apt. People love pigeonholes (well, mostly the SJ's do). But very few people actually fall neatly into one of the discrete 16 types. We need to see it as more of a general guide, where the 16 types are actually sort of archetypes.

I think I'm actually a bit unusual in how well I fit into the INTP type. In most of the INTP profile descriptions, I find about 85% to be dead on, about 10% to be meh, and about 5% to be utterly wrong (mostly the really negative stuff, obviously).

YES. I often do think of the 16 types as caricatures, and that some people are pretty congruous with one of them, but that most of us have aspects of at least a few types. Part of me really wishes that I did fit a type better, so I could feel that camaraderie that I see between INTPs on INTP Central and between other types on other single-type forums and mailing lists. But I think identifying with several types in some ways is more realistic- people just don't neatly sort out into 16 types. Humanity is messier than that.
 

Martoon

perdu fleur par bologne
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
1,361
MBTI Type
INTP
I'd be down with that! It would be fun to see who can identify and properly push the sentimental button. :yes:
Done.

so I could feel that camaraderie that I see between INTPs on INTP Central
Ironically, I don't feel a lot of camaraderie on INTPC. But a lot of it is that I get tired of me, and I like to consort with not-me's (which is why I generally post here, and not there).

Though I have been thinking of getting over there more often lately.
 
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