Type my friend?

[SilkRoad]

I have to start from generalities - they are called tendencies, not absolutes - and work my way back to particulars. This is called "deduction," and it worked for Sherlock Holmes. Otherwise, I would have to keep reinventing the facts of reality to make them fit the generalities, e.g., functions. And that's a huge problem with the thinking on these forums.

Imagining one can type people at first glance is just a trait of the overzealous noob. I don't know anything about the pyjamas book you mentioned. But I can fully understand your brother's ISTJ reaction. If you stop and think about it, those initials really just describe a cognitive style. This type of cognition is very literal, very critical and judgmental possibly to the point of being prejudiced. Si functions in terms of presupposed biases. But these days this attitude is not exactly broadcast to the world. I know an ISTJ who will work side-by-side with Mormons, get along great with them like they're his best buddies, and then later whisper to me that he can't stand their church, their beliefs, their way of life, then go into great detail about why Mormonism is wrong, asking me how intelligent people can believe such tripe, etc.

Hehe, I love Sherlock Holmes.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a bestseller a few years ago and also a film - it is a children's book (but crossover for adults) about a young boy who is the son of a Nazi commander and strikes up a friendship with a Jewish boy across the wire at Auschwitz. It is really more of a parable. There are a lot of unlikely things in it and my brother said he almost stopped reading at the point where the 9 year old Nazi kid didn't know anything about what "Heil Hitler" meant, or something like that. The boy was very naive but I thought for the purposes of the book it worked. I think it's fair to say that my ISTJ brother got bogged down by the failings in the technical details and couldn't appreciate the message of the book so much because that annoyed him. I noticed those discrepancies but wasn't too bothered by them cause I was looking more at what it represented.

I guess the thing is, we both read the book, although we are different types. But we reacted in different ways.

What I don't understand is what kind of evidence I am supposed to consider in making a type call. Let's say that 98% of ESFPs like pop fiction, while 2% of ESFPs enjoy science fiction. I would chance a call based on those kinds of odds. Saying you have found an exception to the rule only proves the rule. After all, you had to start with a rule in order to find an exception.

Hmm...we should do a survey.

Books are a bit chancy anyway. A lot of people of any type don't read much. Even being something predictable like INFJ or INTJ doesn't mean you'll be much of a reader. Then you might get loads of people reading The Da Vinci Code, but their reactions will have much to do with their type (as well as individual taste...and I think that can be quite separate from type.)

 

[Mal12345]

Hmm...we should do a survey.

Books are a bit chancy anyway. A lot of people of any type don't read much. Even being something predictable like INFJ or INTJ doesn't mean you'll be much of a reader. Then you might get loads of people reading The Da Vinci Code, but their reactions will have much to do with their type (as well as individual taste...and I think that can be quite separate from type.)

You mentioned just one book there, but that does not indicate a trend in book preferences. I've read all kinds of books, but there's only a certain kind that I really like above all else. I hardly recognize any kinds of trends or tendencies in your descriptions, and if I try to put a finger on some, you then switch over to the exceptions which are usually very singular. But a single example does not make a trend, and one example does not violate the rule.

Edit: I know what you're trying to say, but it doesn't negate my point that typology looks at trends. The MBTI originally made use of career demographics to help people decide on a career choice. Of course every now and then an ESFP is going to show interest in computer programming. But that is only a deviation from the trend.