# Different Ways of Thinking



## dirnthelord (Dec 29, 2010)

nevermore said:


> Maybe she is an N-dom? I don't have the imagination of most ENTP's I know...don't get me wrong it is very good, to the point of astonishing a lot of the Sensors I know, but it isn't as incessant or reliable as an ENTP's. Still, I spend a lot of my time speculating about possibilities. INTP's often do it, but since our N is subordinate to T is does indeed take on a problem solving flavour. But these solutions are still mostly based on new ideas. Not usually on traditional, well-established ways. If you are an INTP you'll probably find it easier to come up with ideas on the fly (Ne) than to follow concrete plans and stick with them (Si), though in either case it will ultimately be for the sake of analysis (Ti).


Yes, I know this. me also hate traditional ways. they are stupid.


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## nevermore (Oct 1, 2010)

dirnthelord said:


> Yes, I know this. me also hate traditional ways. they are stupid.


In which case you're a creative thinker.:wink:

Or perhaps an STP. But I find they often tend to be pretty creative as well.

If you have a poor imagination you'll be more reliant on established methods.


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## dirnthelord (Dec 29, 2010)

nevermore said:


> In which case you're a creative thinker.:wink:
> 
> Or perhaps an STP. But I find they often tend to be pretty creative as well.
> 
> If you have a poor imagination you'll be more reliant on established methods.


Well, I am creative I know that. everyone say that. But as a percentage I am MOST OF THE TIME technical.

And from what I have learned so far no one is 100% INTP or any other personality type. So yeah, may be I do have other types in me as well...Feelings - these are killing me and I just can't find a way to fuck 'em all.

I wouldn't say I have a poor imagination. When I start thinking, there are no bounds but I am most of the time practical. 

Well, I am spinning through personalities... lol 
Whatever I do, they are well planned and I never lose. I do but its also apart of the plan. :wink:


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## NiDBiLD (Apr 1, 2010)

The NTPs I know tend to gravitate towards the mechanical, prickly thinking (although sometimes being prickly in creative ways), while the NTJs gravitate towards the creative, gooey thinking (though they are pragmatically gooey). Especially INTJs are extraordinarily gooey.

For an NTP, a statement, for example, can hold truth value. They are quick to say "that's not valid", "you are contradicting yourself" or "that's true but that's false". They have one singular world view that they base all their thinking on. I think it's the combination of Ti and Si that expresses itself in this manner. Ne is used to expand and connect the Ti-Si worldview, but everything that's integrated into the thought complex will have only one singular, stringent definition, because a clear definition of an idea or an object is the Ti criteria for understanding.

In the mind of a Ti-Si user, that singular definition is the Truth with capital T for all they are concerned, as long as the definition is logically valid and harmonizes with the rest of the thought complex.

An NTJ plays around with different perspectives, viewing everything from different angles. Nothing is ever absolutely true or false - it's just more or less useful. Truth is a question of syntax and perspective - it's evershifting and dependent on the context and the words used to express the question. Te-Ni cares little about "truth".

For the Te-Ni mind it is self evident that "truth" is just a product of the combination of a specific event and a specific tool for measurement. You can't really say "X is true". You can only say "When I conduct test Y on subject A - using apparatus B - the result of my measurement is X." The thought process stops there. Ni does not elaborate further, because accepting a singular definition of anything as True restricts its freedom. Te in turn simply does not care in the slightest if it's findings are true or false. If the result is repeatable, it's good enough to apply in a real world situation, and that's what counts.


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## nevermore (Oct 1, 2010)

NiDBiLD said:


> The NTPs I know tend to gravitate towards the mechanical, prickly thinking (although sometimes being prickly in creative ways), while the NTJs gravitate towards the creative, gooey thinking (though they are pragmatically gooey). Especially INTJs are extraordinarily gooey.
> 
> For an NTP, a statement, for example, can hold truth value. They are quick to say "that's not valid", "you are contradicting yourself" or "that's true but that's false". They have one singular world view that they base all their thinking on. I think it's the combination of Ti and Si that expresses itself in this manner. Ne is used to expand and connect the Ti-Si worldview, but everything that's integrated into the thought complex will have only one singular, stringent definition, because a clear definition of an idea or an object is the Ti criteria for understanding.
> 
> ...


Great overview. However, you do seem to be downplaying the importance of Ne in NTP's and Se in NTJ's. You play up the Si because you notice it, and understandably so. Worldviews are more important for you, and you'd hate to be limited by such a concrete worldview as Si, but you have to remember a worldview is just not as important for us. We are more focused on adaptivity and improvisation and don't care as much about the worldview. It is in a minor position and is mostly used as a store of facts to back up our sense of possibilities. We care more about the outer world and its Ne pliancy when it comes to perception, moreso with ENTP's of course. You also don't bring up the role of Se in NTJ's, and I am also curious why you are not bringing up the lower F functions if you are bringing Si into this.

Most of this rigidity you are witnessing in NTP's comes from Si and not Ti. Ti is very precise in its definitions, no doubt, but that is because definitions are simply necessary for NTP's. We need them to being order to Ne's "anything's possible" ideas, to have a context for them. Ni is different; Ni _is _the context. A changing context, to be sure, but Te's "facts" are not. They are just empirically there. Only there in all practical purposes, yes, but it is not Te that sees that. It is Ni.

NTP's need to find out what all those "if's" are and what they could possibly do. So we define abstractions to see how we can weave them into systems (or whatever we are weaving together). It's all about balance. But this hypothetical (playful, creative) bent you describe NTJ's having in my mind is actually stronger with NTP's since we are not as concerned with practicality. But that could just be my bias.

This being said, I don't think the NTJ is any more technical in the sense you mean either (ie. rigid, things just are the way they are). Actually, the NTP is a technical thinker and the NTJ an empirical thinker, so by the OP's definition (even though I know you hate definitions) you're a "technical thinker". But neither way of thinking is any less rigid. One is based on axioms and the other on empirical facts. Thinking still wants something that is demonstrable either way, and I'd argue Te is more demonstrable because it cannot be changed as quickly as Ti changes when Ne gives it new information; Te just finds a new way to interpret the "facts". But since T is being fed by N, even in INTP's and ENTJ's, the whole thing becomes extremely theoretical and the whole NT world is rife with creative thought experiments (though, to be sure, ENTP's and INTJ's are almost certainly less "rigid" than ENTJ's and INTP's no matter how you slice it).

As far as I'm concerned, NT's as a whole do gravitate towards creative thinking.

EDIT: Gah, this is a whopper and I edited it a bit. Anyway, if you disagree or think I don't understand Te-Ni well enough (and that could be the case, I don't have them) I'd love some friendly debate.


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## NiDBiLD (Apr 1, 2010)

nevermore said:


> Great overview. However, you do seem to be downplaying the importance of Ne in NTP's and Se in NTJ's. You play up the Si because you notice it, and understandably so. Worldviews are more important for you, and you'd hate to be limited by such a concrete worldview as Si, but you have to remember a worldview is just not as important for us. We are more focused on adaptivity and improvisation and don't care as much about the worldview. It is in a minor position and is mostly used as a store of facts to back up our sense of possibilities. We care more about the outer world and its Ne pliancy when it comes to perception, moreso with ENTP's of course. You also don't bring up the role of Se in NTJ's, and I am also curious why you are not bringing up the lower F functions if you are bringing Si into this.
> 
> Most of this rigidity you are witnessing in NTP's comes from Si and not Ti. Ti is very precise in its definitions, no doubt, but that is because definitions are simply not limiting for NTP's. We need them to being order to Ne's "anything's possible" ideas, to have a context for them. We need to find out what all those "if's" are and what they could possibly do. So we define abstractions to see how we can weave them into systems (or whatever we are weaving together). But this hypothetical (playful, creative) bent you describe NTJ's having in my mind is actually stronger with NTP's since we are not as concerned with practicality.
> 
> ...


I left feeling out of the picture because it's off topic. I'll pull Se into the game, though, since you asked why I didn't include it when I included Si in my argument.

For NTJs, Se experience constitutes reality or fact. It's there and it's outside, and one can't deny it. Regardless of which worldview you choose from moment to moment, there has to be a world to view, and facts to interpret. To compare it with INTPs tertiary Si, you could say that physical reality in the current moment constitutes the "axiom" of an NTJ. External reality is the basis for thought, and that which every theory is checked against to ensure validity.

If you can't demonstrate your principles in the real world, they are not good principles. In subjective headspace, one can think about anything. There are no restraints for what you can do inside your own head. You can make any connections you wish, but a hypothesis is only valuable as long as it gives you a way to handle some situation or solve some problem. For me, creativity isn't about daydreaming. It's about taking novelty from inside of your own head, and applying it to external reality in a functional way. That's pretty much the definition of creativity, right?


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## nevermore (Oct 1, 2010)

NiDBiLD said:


> If you can't demonstrate your principles in the real world, they are not good principles.


NTP's and NTJ's have a different style of thinking. The principles of an NTP are a guide for making snap judgments in real time. They are meant to underscore spontaneous actions by giving you a guide as to whether they make sense or not (Ti) or whether they are valuable or not (Fi). If you principles do ultimately benefit the real world, they are not good principles is what I'd say, and the principles/values of all people do exactly this if they are mentally healthy. The NTP isn't after empirical truth but an absolute hypothetical truth to help make sense of their outer world of pliant possibility.



> In subjective headspace, one can think about anything. There are no restraints for what you can do inside your own head. You can make any connections you wish, but a hypothesis is only valuable as long as it gives you a way to handle some situation or solve some problem. For me, creativity isn't about daydreaming. It's about taking novelty from inside of your own head, and applying it to external reality in a functional way. That's pretty much the definition of creativity, right?


Absolutely, but that's exactly what Ne does. N is associated with imagination and E with functionality. Hence ENTP Walt Disney: "if you can dream it, you can do it". The two are linked in NP's. Ti helps calibrate and refine those spontaneous ideas, or Fi (in the case of NFP's) gives them value. For an NTJ the principles themselves must be objective because their inward focused Ni is the space for imagination and planning. That subjective perception is given objectivity by meting it out in the real world within the limits of objective principles. For an NTP the perception is already objective.


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## Ti Dominant (Sep 25, 2010)

Overall, it doesn't seem at all clear how this notion of "technical" and "artistic" thinkers truly relates to any current methods of understanding the cognitive differences found in people. For instance, with Jungian functions, it's not at all clear how this distinction truly relates to the two different types of thinking, or the two different types of feeling, for that matter. Or, how it relates to sensing and intuition. Instead, like the Enneagram, it seems to go beyond these functions somehow.


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