Myers Briggs Explained. Or at least better explain.

So after lots of reading and talking, and reading and talking, and more reading,and then some figuring about Myers Briggs, and then a shower, I think I've made a breakthrough.

Most things you read about Myers-Briggs explain the whole thing wrong. The best websites to actually understand what all the letters mean is Jungian Function Theory.

The basic premise is that there are four functions of your mind.

Intuition = N
Thinking = T
Feeling = F
Sensing = S

And the idea is that any of those four functions can go off in two different direction, either "introverted" or "extroverted".

So in my case I have Ni, Te, Fi, Se.

Now with all of this information you can figure out your Myers-Briggs Type, which is complicated and explained in the link.

So if you understand all of this, the fundamental difference between all people according to this theory is what values the introversion and extroversion are set to. So I started to think how this could be explained by the physical design of the brain.

The brain is a network of neurons that are linked together. I know very little about this subject, but I know a fundamental fact about all networks and circuits. They come in two varieties, Parallel and Series.

What I am proposing is that extroversion of a function suggests a section of the brain that is constructed in a parallel manner, while an introverted function suggests a section of the brain that is constructed in a series manner.

When I say in parallel or in series, I don't mean one or the other. There is a lot of variety. You could have a mix of both, or a ton of one or the other. There is no designated amount, but there are gross tendencies.

I think the strongest example I have discovered is between myself and my friend Stuart. He is an INTP, I am an INTJ.

This means that he has an introverted Thinking function, while I have an extroverted thinking function. Now compare the way that we think of the area in which we live. When I imagine this section of the city, I can thinking of a 3d map of the entire area. In the brain, I supposed this would be a very interconnected mesh of memories that I can access at random and easily navigate my way through. On the other hand, Stuart describes his thinking of the area as more of a set of directions which guide him from location to location. He knows how to get from A to B to C, but does not immediately understand how to get from A to C. His thinking function is designed in a serial sense.


How about another example to explain the Sense function

Stuarts Sense function is Introverted, in serial. When he watches a movie he often hears sound effects that have been used in other movies. This is dues to his memory of the sound being directly linked in a serial manner to the old memories of the other movie. I on the other hand experience the sound in a more fresh manner everytime, and am more inclined to simply listen to the sound and hear it along with everything else that is going on.


How about the Feeling function?

An extroverted feeler will thinking about a wide range of people, and how they all interact and relate to one another. They are making lots of connects that all happen in parallel. An introverted feeler will be set off by an emotion that recalls past events and feelings, they will get into a series of memories by one single event.

And just to complete my descriptions, Intuition.

When I thought of this theory I was in the shower. I had been ingesting ideas and thoughts all day, letting them simmer. And then once I got into the shower all of my thoughts combined into once single strand that held itself together as one cohesive thought. One nice serial idea. As opposed to a whole picture of the world in general, it was one cohesive thought that gelled in the intuitive part of my mind.

So, to be clear Introversion = Serial pathway in the Brain
Extroversion = Parallel Pathway in the Brain

Kyler

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good stuff. I don't know what else you could say to make people realize how crazy a breakthrough that is...

Z

DK said...

It is funny that you are INTJ. 85% of Harvard MBA's are INTJ or ENTJ. I bet it is more like 15% in film school.

I was one of the 2% fast-thinking, fast-talking ENTP's in my MBA class. Pretty sure everyone thought I was weird.

-Uncle D

Kyler said...

I bet INTJs are even less numerous in Film and Art school then that. I don't think some of my art teachers at ACAD had ever taught an INTJ, or at least very few.

Lynette said...

Interested insight. I am an artist and have a mba. My type is INTJ and I teach type workshops to graduate students in CT. In FL I teach art. My son is an INTP, a computer architect and an artist. I think everyone could be an artist but they must be able to take risks and make mistakes. They need to literally relax the mind. Most people are afraid of doing that or have no idea of how to do it.