Thanks for posting this, [MENTION=8074]Seymour[/MENTION], I caught the google lecture today and read the presentations, but the book doesn't appear to be available outside the US. I'm not sure it's worth the shipping costs - Nardi strikes me as a bit of an intellectual lightweight.
His presentation and methodology seem amateurish. Is the book stronger on theory/presentation? His conclusions seem superficial, vague and speculative.
He claims that it provides "deep" support for Jungian functions, yet I see no evidence of this.
Also, it seems to contradict some of the established facts about brain lateralisation (as conveyed in the excellent,
The Master and his Emissary, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, the culmination of 20 yrs of research. Highly recommended, best book I've read this year.)
I'm surprised at the amount of weight you give to brain lateralization. Nardi's brief comments appear to conform to the wiki article on the topic (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function). Basically, yeah, it's there, but it's way more complicated than just "left/right". The key correlation is that all the judging dominants primarily use FP1 (front left) and the perceiving dominants use FP2 (front right). After that, it's kind of a grab bag.
As for his observations supporting Jungian functions, rewatch that section including the context that he's mentioning MBTI: his observations don't really correlate with the MBTI dichotomies, but they
do strongly correlate with the Jungian functions. Looking at EEG vs MBTI, the Ns all look different, the Ss all look different, the Ps look different, and so on. But looking at Jungian functions, Ni doms are similar, Fi doms are similar, Si doms are similar, Te doms are similar, and so on, in both terms of the dynamic EEG patterns and the frequency of use of brain regions. There is some correlation with the auxiliary function, but it appears to be more in the dynamic EEG patterns associated with the functions, not the overall usage of brain regions.
What was interesting (do correct me if I've picked this up wrongly):
ESTJ = classic "left-brain" thinking
Yeah, pretty much.
ETJs (very efficient but often wrong)
Not an inaccurate assumption, but keep in mind that the Te mantra is "good enough for now", not ultimate universal truth.
ENJs (like being stuck on a highway with no off-ramp) lol
Yeah, I found that amusing for both types (T/F).
Te= the lying function (!)
I'm not sure where you get this (what time segment of the video?).
Ti users are the most objective. (I guess that settles that argument.
Heheh.
Note that the real observation is the emotional dissociation. In Ti mode, Ti types go into that "green" dissociative state, which pushes aside all emotionality. If you think about it, "objective" != "lack/disregard of emotion". Prejudices remain, they just aren't "emotional" ones. One of these prejudices is an instinctive distrust of emotion, which may very well still represent truth, even if it isn't derived logically.
NPs consistently the most creative.
That isn't really what he said. The Ne "Christmas tree" pattern is very useful for creativity. It is a particular version of creativity, qualitatively different from other kinds.
Support for Thomson CF order (inferior =least-used).
Yes.
Ti doms make better use of Fi than Fe.
Um, no. He doesn't say this anywhere. Rather, he discusses the dynamic nature of the inferior with his INTP embarrassment example. The Fe is still there as "embarrassment", but it doesn't trigger without a lot of stimulation.
The INTP who makes pays no attention to T5 (Fe?) and then all of a sudden experiences this intense over-stimulation which floods the other regions is a fantastic metaphor for inferior Fe (and it's not even a metaphor!).
Yes.
Similarly, Te users struggle more with Fi. (And it takes on the characteristic "negative" quality of the inferior when expressed).
Yes, though he doesn't explicitly say this.
Ti supposedly engages 6 regions (more than any other function other than Ne) F3, F4, FP1,FP2 also P3&4 - is this just sensors or all Ti users?
INTPs predominate with F3, F4 and C3. ISTPs use P3 and P4. ENTPs use C4 and P4. ESTPs use F3, F4, P3 and P4.
Is this an argument for SeTi as an indivisible quantity?
I wouldn't think so.
But then, it can't be because ESTPs 'look like' INTPs. How to reconcile with function theory?
Note that the correlation isn't just the use of regions, but also the dynamic patterns. The Ti types typically go into the green dissociative state. Also, I strongly suspect that the "frequency of use" of regions, while a useful metric, only "sort of" correlates with type: if one were to try to derive type from the frequency of use, one would often misread type, because the regions are also strongly associated with individual skill. Someone practiced in rote math or languages or sports will use P3 a lot, no matter the type. But only the Ti types will go green when they start thinking hard, and only the Fi types will go "blue" when they listen.
I would have expected INTPs to show greater use of O1 - we are supposed to be model builders and "architects". We tend to do well with visual spatial tasks like mental rotation. So where is this activity?
INTPs do indeed use O1, it just isn't
primary. One way of looking at this is perhaps INTPs start from symbolic logic (F3), a strong sense of categorization (F4), and a mastery of facts (C3), and from that are able to visualize (O1) an overall model. Conversely, an INTJ would start from the visualization (O1) and sense of dynamics (T6, Purposeful Futurist), and gradually develop a model from that.
An analogy might be, where an INTP would use "A=B and B=C, therefore A=C", an INTJ would instinctively use Venn diagrams, determine the intersection of A, B and C, and if they all coincide, then A = B = C. The INTJ logical fuzziness that INTPs detect is that because INTJs start with O1, there's a strong sense of "mostly equal" or an overall degree of equality. The INTJ keeps track of whether one is well within the boundaries of the A/B/C intersection, or if one is close to a boundary condition and must exert more rigor. A lot of INTP/INTJ crosstalk occurs when the topics of conversation are in this "mostly equal" state, with the INTP insisting that they just aren't at all the same, and the INTJ noting that it all works just fine as long as one ensures certain conditions are satisfied (without having to worry about what happens when the conditions aren't satisfied).
Or are we just so accomplished that it doesn't require enough mental effort to "light up"? Which observation (Nardi makes in one of his presentations) throws all his findings into question. He suggests that low level activation could be expertise - so how does he distinguish between weak use and mastery?
Low level activation is more of a casual or instinctive expertise. For instance, I'm sure that all my work spent moving my fingers to type this uses no real brain power - it's all "muscle memory". The brain power is being spent forming the thoughts and words, not typing them.
Also surprised at the low T3 use. Precision in the use of language is supposed to be an INTP characteristic/preoccupation...
There is an interesting distinction to be made here. The INTP equivalent is over in F4, the categorization. INTJs (and INFJs) use T3. This should give a clue as to what is really being discussed. Note that INTPs are "definition nazis", while INTJs are "grammar nazis". INTPs care about the "atomic" meaning of a word, i.e., a word should mean one thing, and only that one thing, and if the meaning is vague it should be specified. INTJs and INFJs instead care about the meaning of a sentence, how the words "dynamically" relate to each other.
For example:
Only he drove the car. [no one else drove]
He only drove the car. [that's all he did]
He drove only the car. [he didn't drive anything else]
He drove the only car. [there was only one car, and he drove it]
This suggests that T3 is about grammatical precision, not definitional precision, which appears to be the province of F4.
Fixed.
It's true that it's hard for us to listen to nonsense or redundant info. (Which made watching the video to the end a trial). Interesting to see that the listening regions literally shutdown. It's an involuntary response. I think it's related to being more visual (not auditory) learners. I can't take much spoken information in, even when motivated to do so. I need to see it written down / sketched out.
Interesting to know.
I have the opposite perspective: I don't know whether it's nonsense or redundant until I hear it and process it. Yes, when listening, one mostly pulls in useless data, but if one is really listening, one is listening FOR the USEFUL data. I put myself in a state where I'm keeping aware, but not consciously processing. Recently I was learning a dance move that had to be executed at one particular passage of music. A dance class is relatively short (50 minutes total), and so there isn't enough time to analyze the music to the degree I would want to. Instead, I had to listen. If I listened, then I could immediately transition and take my follower into a dip at the exact right moment, without thinking hard about it. If I tried to think about it, I'd miss the cue. (This would be an Fi/Se version of listening, something I can do, but it's not my usual approach.)
Unsurprising. I've noticed INTJs seem challenged when it comes to logic.
I've noticed INTPs seem challenged when it comes to meaning.
To quote Heinlein:
Beware of the “Black Swan†fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you--with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the “Gigo Law,†i.e., “Garbage in, garbage out.â€
And Nardi doesn't exhibit decent critical reasoning skills at all. I'm not sure if he just really dumbs everything down (for a wider audience) or if he's just really dumb. Having read some of his academic papers and the "books" he has co-authored, I lean towards the latter interpretation.
I suspect he mostly dumbs things down. Also, the topics he pursues don't readily yield themselves to logical analysis.
Regarding this observation that only Ti users seem to have facility with this region (and not even all Ti users at that - which in itself, is an inconsistent finding) it seems odd to me that evolution would give us all much the same brain, and yet only a small % of the population actually get to use decent sized chunks of it without specialist training. Doesn't that seem odd to you? I also don't see which of the tasks were designed to stretch the "logic" centres. And if it is the case that INTPs resort to logic where logic is not required, how does that make them more efficient thinkers?
( I think the main criticism here is that the number of subjects (3-4) is simply too small to draw general conclusions. )
Yes, I think the number of subjects strongly affects the observations. I suspect you'd see higher usage among INTJs doing math/physics, where the intellectual rigor is required.
Can you elaborate on this? How does it match up well?
It doesn't make sense to me, nor is it consistent with what is presented above for INTPs (closest to ESTPs, not ISFJs).
Or is it that opposite types are using the same brain regions, but very differently? This would make some sense, yet is inconsistent with his finding that we all use the same brain regions in the same way (which is not true, btw).
From the data, it looks like INTJ/ISFP is one of the closer match-ups, while INTP/ISFJ is one of the worst. I suspect it has to do with how skills affect brain usage. Only the most technically adept of people have any call to use F3 and F4. It would be interesting to take a bunch of scientists, type them, and see how much they use F3 and F4.