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Comment by wisty | Hacker News Reader

It does describe a few of axes of your personality, but it's not that great. It's not like they are really poles - you don't get many total introverts or extroverts, people sit on a continuum. A normally distributed attribute is a lousy way to categorize people.

Introverts are people who tend to think before acting (which makes them more shy), and extroverts act before thinking (which makes them less shy), but those aren't the only factors in social adeptness. A polite introvert who can make good jokes will have more friends than the extroverted class bully.

The main value of MB is that it's value free. It's easy to talk about introversion-extroversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling or judging-perceiving; it's hard to say people are lazy-hardworking, boring-interesting, smart-dumb, or brave-cowardly.

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Good point that the norm of these axis tend to be on the line.

However, a good M-B test will also provide a degree of strength or clarity of your various dimensions. So it can be useful to see where you deviate from the norm.

Personally, though I'm INTP, the only dimension that is particularly pronounced is the N (88). And that does say something about me. While in all the other dimensions, I can't see a clear preference in myself, I can say that I do live primarily in the world of abstract thought over sensory data.

I know I'm a bit late in replying, I'm guessing this won't be read - but oh well!

Typically, it is assumed that a typing represents the whole of the Self; I tend to use it only as a generalization of the Self.

Coming from a Jungian background, the psyche is composed of multiple (if not many) complexes. Each complex being an autonomous psychic entity but a component of the psychic Self.

Each complex can have its own typing. The Anima (feminine complex) could very well be an ESTJ and the Animus (masculine complex) could be a INSJ. The compound result of all the complexes results in the dynamic and volatile nature of the psyche.

This multi-faceted nature of the psyche produces a (to me) accurate view of the psychic Self; a person can too have a type that generally dominates the whole of the their psychic Self as well (ie: I'm an INTJ, my Animus is more of an ISTP and my Anima is an ENFJ - don't forget there are other complexes).

Also, MB typing is not value free. If something were value free it would not be of value ;) The difference between "introverted" and "boring" isn't in the value of each term, it is in the interpretation of the value of each term.

One could consider boring and introversion to both be an inward psychic motion. Boring - to bore - going within; is uncomfortable for many people because within their psyche they must experience their complexes as opposed to projecting their complexes and experiencing them outside of the psyche (with other people, things, etc...). Hence why "boring" is imbued with bad or un-associative thought.

Introverts tend to be internally focused and rarely engage in the projection atmosphere commonly seen with large groups of familiars or extroverted (to different degrees) people. When a person is not engaging in a projection that another wishes to engage in, the person not engaging is typically considered "boring" or "serious" or "anti-social".

Please note, neither extroversion nor introversion is better or worse than the other. Claiming and accepting the complexes of the psyche within leads to both a happier introvert (that is more extroverted) and a happier extrovert (that is more introverted). Just like claiming and accepting the feminine or masculine self leads to a more balanced individual; it just happens that one is already dominated by the other and finds it to be a natural setting. The above paragraph was using familiar language to convey a point, but was limiting in its scope.

All things have value, even if that value is unit value (or 1). Value is provided by the human mind and subject to valuing meme levels (context dependent).

The majority of Hacker News readers are in a mix of systemic (computers, systems) and entrepreneurial (startups, ambition) valuing memes. The Hacker News reader typically values the experiences they have within their life at this stage based on those memes.

I became aware of MBTI about fifteen years ago and it's been an ongoing fascination. I see it mainly as a useful conceptual framework upon which one may build a set of intuitive tools that enable effective interpersonal understanding. I've always felt it somewhat loose and inexact but unlike many of the posters here (borderline trollers actually) I don't have a problem with that looseness. And it's perhaps unsurprising that the type I seem to prefer to manifest is an extreme minority type both in the context of this site and in the context of the general population.

You seem to have a more rigorous and holistic understanding of the psyche than I do. I have a set of intuitions built from this framework. It seems you have understandings of additional surrounding frameworks, and probably a more clear understanding of MBTI itself than I do.

Do you have a reference (ideally a published book or books) that could help me expand my understanding of MBTI and the enveloping aspects of the psyche?

Learning how the psyche works is crucial, in my opinion, to being able to grow as a person. Intellectual skills increase with the understanding too, hence why I've been adamant about learning what I can.

Read Carl Gustav Jung's work, his psychoanalytic process and framework is very powerful. Particularly his works on the shadow self, symbols and the psyche, and alchemy as a transformative psychic tool.

I also pull quite a bit from Claire Grave's work on Spiral Dynamics. Ken Wilbur is also known for taking his work and expanding upon it (a simple Google search will turn up some good resources). Here's a blurb I've got copied on it:

Here is a link to my present understanding of the spiral dynamics: http://antiquatis.info/tool/vmeme

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