# INTJ and INTP epistemology?



## cdeuterian (Apr 28, 2010)

It is said that in functional matters INTJs are much more orderly than INTPs. However from my experience with an INTJ friend and INTP friend it seems INTJs are much less certain about the universal purview of rationality and/or any complete rational order of the universe, and accept limits to the idea that rationality can be used as a tool for completely understanding/characterizing the universe and existence. Kurt Godel being a sort of Ur-INTJ. In contrast, from knowing my INTP friend it seems INTPs though they love philosophical subversion seem much more willing than INTJs to embrace specific, foundational, universal axioms upon which their personal worldviews can be unfolded in a relentlessly deductive, rational, and all-encompassing manner. That is to say the epistemologies of the INTJ and INTP seem to be reversed compared with their daily functional lives. In other words

INTJs' worldviews are, at their root, less "orderly" and more open-ended, than the INTP's.

(INTPs' functional lives are less "orderly" and more open-ended, than the INTJ's.)

Do you think these characterizations are accurate?

I apologize for making sweeping generalizations about the INTJ/P races based on these two datapoints of the two friends. (More information about the two datapoints below)

But this also seems to be a pattern I see on PerC.

Criticism, comments, thoughts on this issue?


*******

*INTJ friend:* He is pessimistic about the ability of rationality to comprehend fully the universe/existence and is open to/interested in supernatural phenomena, mysticism, meditation, spirituality, etc. He identifies pure rationality with nihilism which is distasteful to him. He reads a lot of literature from the Eastern Orthodox Church but has not really made a move to embrace any particular religion.

*INTP friend:* He has constructed an elaborate anarcho-communist worldview based on his interpretation of libertarian nonviolence axioms. His worldview encompasses every aspect of the universe from man, animals, planets, and stars, to love, freedom, slavery, and tyranny. His worldview is all-inclusive and has an undeniable sublime grandeur to it but still relies on a certain set of axioms that are questionable imo. But he accepts them entirely and with massive enthusiasm (after plenty of honest INTP critique)


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## InvisibleJim (Jun 30, 2009)

INTJs are rationally probalistic (Te), we only rule out what we see as being right and wrong (Fi)

INTPs are rationalyl deterministic (Ti) and then from this base use it to influence the world (Fe)

when asked about if either believe in god, my view on a typecast answer to this is

INTJ 'I have insufficient evidence to either believe or disbelieve in god'

INTP 'I see no evidence for god' or 'I see no evidence to invalidate my belief in god'.


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## Lucretius (Sep 10, 2009)

At first glance, it _seems _that I fit into your analysis quite well, cdeuterian.

My worldview is essentially _reasoned _from start to finish, but relies upon certain axioms.
I would like to think that I can defend these axioms _at least_ via process of elimination, but I've never had the opportunity.
I find it profoundly distasteful to "not have an opinion" on important topics, and thus will research and contemplate for hours or days to get one, even if it is tentative.
Though I strive to keep an open mind, I am not in the habit of couching my statements in agnostic verbiage.
I don't consider anything to be _certain _other than formal logic and base mathematics, and so I operate under "knowledge" as a sort of Bayesian inference.
So, statements like "what if you're wrong?" are utterly meaningless to me.


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## NiDBiLD (Apr 1, 2010)

InvisibleJim said:


> INTJs are rationally probalistic (Te), we only rule out what we see as being right and wrong (Fi)
> 
> INTPs are rationalyl deterministic (Ti) and then from this base use it to influence the world (Fe)


I am very much interested in hearing your take on ENTP and ENTJ in this manner.


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## TurranMC (Sep 15, 2009)

NiDBiLD said:


> I am very much interested in hearing your take on ENTP and ENTJ in this manner.


Same functions so the same answer that applies for INTJ goes for ENTJ and INTP goes for ENTP.


Here's a thought. I'd say the major reason Ti-Fe is more deterministic than Te-Fi is because the former spends more time dwelling on what is truth so they may have order within themselves while the latter just needs "enough" truth to bring order to the world. NTP's figure out why something happens, NTJ's figure out why anyone should care to know.


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## dude10000 (Jan 24, 2010)

> INTJ 'I have insufficient evidence to either believe or disbelieve in god'
> 
> INTP 'I see no evidence for god' or 'I see no evidence to invalidate my belief in god'.


ENTP: Why care if God exists or not?

ENTJ: God doesn't exist. Prove me wrong.


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## lirulin (Apr 16, 2010)

I read somewhere that Js need more outward order but don't take internal disorder as a threat, while the opposite is true for Ps. I know it's true for me - outward disorder is a threat to my ability to withdraw - I need practical things to be sorted out before I can disappear. They may be valued less, but they feel like higher priorities in terms of consequences. Internal disorder just feels like a process of thinking. Also it feels like Intuition. Ni is much less disorganised than Ne anyway - there is inherant messiness in any intuition but there is always some underlying focus with Ni that I feel as though I can trust, even if I cannot communicate it clearly or see all the details yet. Ni is good for certainty - and a certainty combined with messiness. 

I find universal axioms to be utterly fucking bogus, myself. Lovely perfect systems are pretty but fall apart when you apply them. Anything that isn't as messy and complex as the world onto which we are supposed to apply them I look upon with deep suspicion. I think that's one of the reasons I always hated math. It looked to neat and perfect to be real. I mistrust it. It is also why I hate metaphysics and most philosophy. It's not real. It makes no sense. It's not useful. If you simplify things too much you leave out everything that is important. I tend to make things more and more complex. Or if I simplify, I don't think it tells the whole story. I don't think rationality can fully comprehend anything, at least not in the limited bogus form western philosophy loves, but I think spirituality is even more bogus. I like working with rationality, but with a healthy dose of common sense, awareness of limitations, and not oversimplifying or trying to claim one understands everything. Just being functional. And the knowledge that most things - or everything depending on how you look at it - are subjective, without the stupid contempt that assumes that subjectivity means you can automatically dismiss it.

So far I seem to fit the pattern generally.


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## LeafStew (Oct 17, 2009)

cdeuterian said:


> It is said that in functional matters INTJs are much more orderly than INTPs. However from my experience with an INTJ friend and INTP friend it seems INTJs are much less certain about the universal purview of rationality and/or any complete rational order of the universe, and accept limits to the idea that rationality can be used as a tool for completely understanding/characterizing the universe and existence. Kurt Godel being a sort of Ur-INTJ. In contrast, from knowing my INTP friend it seems INTPs though they love philosophical subversion seem much more willing than INTJs to embrace specific, foundational, universal axioms upon which their personal worldviews can be unfolded in a relentlessly deductive, rational, and all-encompassing manner. That is to say the epistemologies of the INTJ and INTP seem to be reversed compared with their daily functional lives. In other words
> 
> INTJs' worldviews are, at their root, less "orderly" and more open-ended, than the INTP's.
> 
> ...


That fits me pretty well.

I think INTPs have expansionist mind (they seam to take everything in account, or at least try) while INTJs have reductionist mind (they seam to simplify into a model that can be easily applied).

I have theories about a lot of stuff and I make some links between them but not everything I think inter-related. I might even think things on a subject that isn't true for another one. I also, tend to simplify things to be more able to explain them to others and to apply them. Sometimes, it means that I will forget part of theories that I dont view as important. 

Then again, this answer is yet another proof that I oversimplify stuff. Sometimes one liner can be as effective to me as long paragraph, screw you if you dont understand the first time lol


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## Think (Mar 3, 2010)

fits me well too..


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## gnat (Dec 23, 2009)

I suspect it's precisely _because_ INTJs are more ordered. As much as we INTPs value truth, I think an INTP is more likely to think "yep, that sounds about right to me. I'll use that as my working theory until something better comes along." Whereas an INTJ probably wouldn't be happy using or thinking of something as truth until they actually completely knew for certain that it was. To another person, this might appear as if the INTP has their thoughts in order, whereas the INTJ's are in chaos, but I think it's more that INTPs like having working hypotheses, and trust them, more than INTJs do. Their internal system of logic won't allow it as much, because it's so ordered.

I hope that conveys what I'm trying to say, I had trouble finding a good way of phrasing what I meant.


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## thewindlistens (Mar 12, 2009)

cdeuterian said:


> Do you think these characterizations are accurate?


Yes.

......


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## Kalby (May 29, 2010)

lirulin said:


> I read somewhere that Js need more outward order but don't take internal disorder as a threat, while the opposite is true for Ps. I know it's true for me - outward disorder is a threat to my ability to withdraw - I need practical things to be sorted out before I can disappear. They may be valued less, but they feel like higher priorities in terms of consequences. Internal disorder just feels like a process of thinking. Also it feels like Intuition. Ni is much less disorganised than Ne anyway - there is inherant messiness in any intuition but there is always some underlying focus with Ni that I feel as though I can trust, even if I cannot communicate it clearly or see all the details yet. Ni is good for certainty - and a certainty combined with messiness.
> 
> I find universal axioms to be utterly fucking bogus, myself. Lovely perfect systems are pretty but fall apart when you apply them. Anything that isn't as messy and complex as the world onto which we are supposed to apply them I look upon with deep suspicion. I think that's one of the reasons I always hated math. It looked to neat and perfect to be real. I mistrust it. It is also why I hate metaphysics and most philosophy. It's not real. It makes no sense. It's not useful. If you simplify things too much you leave out everything that is important. I tend to make things more and more complex. Or if I simplify, I don't think it tells the whole story. I don't think rationality can fully comprehend anything, at least not in the limited bogus form western philosophy loves, but I think spirituality is even more bogus. I like working with rationality, but with a healthy dose of common sense, awareness of limitations, and not oversimplifying or trying to claim one understands everything. Just being functional. And the knowledge that most things - or everything depending on how you look at it - are subjective, without the stupid contempt that assumes that subjectivity means you can automatically dismiss it.
> 
> So far I seem to fit the pattern generally.


eeewwwww... don't you know that unexpectedly Mathematics DOES work for real life... ask a Physics professor.. I think the reason you don't appreciate it is because you don't understand complex Math that can fit the real life models. It's almost unreasonable that it works, and beautiful.

Also you should try asking the J. Craig Venter Institute, they have created a living cell from 4 chemicals and a cell bag. They literally constructed the DNA piece by piece and assembled it using a computer.

I simply HATE people that claim theories and models aren't sensible or useful, these people don't know jack about inventing anything useful or complex themselves... grrr.

I apologise if I have misunderstood you.


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## cdeuterian (Apr 28, 2010)

Is it possible that, before the 20th century physics and math were fields dominated by INTJs while in the 20th century many INTJs "fled" physics and math and these became INTP-dominated endeavors. I picture the publication of Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorems to be a deeply disillusioning event for INTJs because it convinced them that the application of pure reason would forever fail to perfectly characterize the Absolute Truth, and thus be forever existentially unsatisfying to the INTJs. Godel therefore seemingly invalidated the quest of INTJ thinkers from ancient times to Newton to David Hilbert to decipher the immutable, deistic laws of Absolute Reality that were supposed to exist and were supposed to be accessible. Perhaps scientific INTJs therefore started leaving physics and pure math and gravitating toward the study of chemistry or biology instead, since these endeavors did not get as near to the devastating existential questions of the foundations of mathematics. Meanwhile I picture INTPs _were_ willing to get so close to that fire and people like Ramanujan or Einstein therefore began a new INTP dominated era in physics and math. The new era could perhaps be summarized by two Einstein quotes,

"There is no inductive method which could lead to the fundamental concepts of physics. In error are those theorists who believe that theory comes inductively from experience."

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

I imagine Einstein said these things with a perfectly contented or even indifferent expression on his face.


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## cdeuterian (Apr 28, 2010)

Hmm perhaps Kurt Godel could be called the "Last of the INTJs" in the same way Philopoemon was called the "Last of the Greeks" or Flavius Aetius was called "Last of the Romans" - a definitive but swansong embodiment of an entire worldview, a seal of a past civilization.

Someone should pen a James Fennimore Cooper-esque epic historical yarn based on Godel's life.


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## The Psychonaut (Oct 29, 2009)

Wow..after reading that, i think that I might be that INTP friend your talking about...

It makes sense...

Cept im a Nihilist when you strip everything away.


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## MensSuperMateriam (Jun 2, 2010)

cdeuterian said:


> Perhaps scientific INTJs therefore started leaving physics and pure math and gravitating toward the study of chemistry or biology instead, since these endeavors did not get as near to the devastating existential questions of the foundations of mathematics. Meanwhile I picture INTPs _were_ willing to get so close to that fire and people like Ramanujan or Einstein therefore began a new INTP dominated era in physics and math.


Mmm I'm an INTP and I've studied Chemistry. Maybe I chose the wrong career? No way, Chemistry provides me a lot of information for theorizing about the reality :happy: but I'm always felt attracted by Physics. At least, Chemistry principles are a consequence of Physics...



Kalby said:


> eewwwww... don't you know that unexpectedly Mathematics DOES work for real life... ask a Physics professor.. I think the reason you don't appreciate it is because you don't understand complex Math that can fit the real life models. It's almost unreasonable that it works, and beautiful.


Agree. Saying Maths are unreal is absurd. Science/Technique creation uses Maths as a first tool, a language for principles description. Without them, there would be no progress. If it works (and it do), reality must be in some way based in Maths.

"Mathematics is the language with which god wrote the Universe" (Galileo).


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## lirulin (Apr 16, 2010)

Kalby said:


> eeewwwww... don't you know that unexpectedly Mathematics DOES work for real life... ask a Physics professor.. I think the reason you don't appreciate it is because you don't understand complex Math that can fit the real life models. It's almost unreasonable that it works, and beautiful.
> 
> Also you should try asking the J. Craig Venter Institute, they have created a living cell from 4 chemicals and a cell bag. They literally constructed the DNA piece by piece and assembled it using a computer.
> 
> ...


You _have _misunderstood me. Quite completely, in fact.

What I am talking about is more a _visceral_ disctrust. So, not a statement that I was applying to reality but, very clearly from the context, a statement about how my mind interprets reality. The distrust comes primarily from my study where clearly all attempts at Absolute Truth from Inductive Reason are imposed bullshit that self-righteous dickweeds tried to impose over everything and then had to warp (or omit) the data to make it work. That gaves me a distrust of perfection, albeit occasionally coupled with an uholy fascination. A distrust that in nearly all disciplines is always justified. In the purest, almost always --- or always when one includes the necessary caveats that are more intuitive than otherwise, and thus are difficult to communicate.

That is not to say no perfect model ever works anywhere. Some do, but usually in limited scope, specific ways, at a certain scale, etc. Perfect for a certain definition of perfect kind of thing. Any grandiose claims are nearly always crap. It is an Abstract Perfection that I rebel against, not competence or usefulness or systems generally. I believe simply in complexity rather than simplicity, limiting things to reality and leaving grey areas, margin for error, qualifying statements. That the world where things work "perfectly" is a small one, and largely theoretical. Hardly revolutionary.

Others are more comfortable focussing on the systems themselves, glossing over the pesky little errors, or believing that the System itself is real and that the details that are in fact reality are somehow less important. Getting so caught up in the pattern that not only it is their memory, it becomes their reality. Forgeting that they deal with a simplified version that that what it represents will not go according to exactly the same rules, only bigger. This is the kind of thinking I am opposed to. I don't think in details, but I think that they're what's real, and the pattern is just a means of perception, not reality itself.


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## Antithesis (May 10, 2010)

JHBowden said:


> ENTJ: God doesn't exist. Prove me wrong.


Totally me!


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## Nitou (Feb 3, 2010)

I have found this thread immensely helpful. Thank you. A dominant Ti implies internal order the way a dominant Te implies functional order. But understanding often comes from comparison, and like the proverbial fish that doesn't know the water I could not understand internal order nor the absence of it. Indeed, I need to have some internal framework on which to hang my thoughts. It may be a generalization, a system, or a model and it's hard to think clearly if I don't have it. Like a living skeleton, it is solid yet dynamic. It responds to its environment (ie., evidence that I need to alter the framework), but slowly. If I don't have that internal order, I get confused and at worst I am unable to function normally. 

For example, MBTI is a framework I use to understand personality. It is one of many possible frameworks and isn't necessarily The Truth, but I like how elegantly systematic it is and that it seems to be a good working theory. Another example is that I identify myself as a scientific materialist, although I used to be very interested in spirituality stuff. I chose to stop entertaining thoughts of supernatural things that would take my mind into chaos. As a result, my thinking is clearer and I function better. 

To compare the NT types, Ti>Ne would theoretically have a greater need for order than Ne>Ti. Likewise, Te>Ni would have a greater need for order than Ni>Te. I think I know one reason why it seems that I can understand and identify with ENTJ's better than I can with INTJ's. INTP and ENTJ both have a great need for order, albeit expressed differently. This same reasoning could be applied to any shadow pair in the MBTI. 

Thoughts?


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## AirMarionette (Mar 13, 2010)

cdeuterian said:


> *INTP friend:* He has constructed an elaborate anarcho-communist worldview based on his interpretation of libertarian nonviolence axioms. His worldview encompasses every aspect of the universe from man, animals, planets, and stars, to love, freedom, slavery, and tyranny. His worldview is all-inclusive and has an undeniable sublime grandeur to it but still relies on a certain set of axioms that are questionable imo. But he accepts them entirely and with massive enthusiasm (after plenty of honest INTP critique)


Brain = on the open.


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