Tyler Herrin

I’m an INTP (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving). Only 3-4% of Americans have the same personality type as me.

Written By Joe Butt:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to almost anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one’s conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems–potentially any complex system. INTPs thrive on systems. Understanding, exploring, mastering, and manipulating systems can overtake the INTP’s conscious thought. This fascination for logical wholes and their inner workings is often expressed in a detachment from the environment, a concentration where time is forgotten and extraneous stimuli are held at bay. Accomplishing a task or goal with this knowledge is secondary.

INTPs and Logic — One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic — apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context.

Games NTs seem to especially enjoy include Risk, Bridge, Stratego, Chess, Go, and word games of all sorts. (I have an ENTP friend that loves Boggle and its variations. We’ve been known to sit in public places and pick a word off a menu or mayonnaise jar to see who can make the most words from its letters on a napkin in two minutes.) The INTP mailing list has enjoyed a round of Metaphore, virtual volleyball, and a few ‘finish the series’ brain teasers.

INTPs in the main are not clannish. The INTP mailing list, with a readership now in triple figures, was in its incipience fraught with all the difficulties of the Panama canal: we had trouble deciding on:

1) whether or not there should be such a group,
2) exactly what such a group should be called, and
3) which of us would have to take the responsibility for organization and maintenance of the aforesaid group/club/whatever.

A Functional Analysis — by Joe Butt

Introverted Thinking

Introverted Thinking strives to extract the essence of the Idea from various externals that express it. In the extreme, this conceptual essence wants no form or substance to verify its reality. Knowing the Truth is enough for INTPs; the knowledge that this truth can (or could) be demonstrated is sufficient to satisfy the knower. “Cogito, ergo sum” expresses this prime directive quite succinctly.

In seasons of low energy level, or moments of single-minded concentration, the INTP is aloof and detached in a way that might even offend more relational or extraverted individuals.

Extraverted iNtuition

Intuition softens and socializes Thinking, fleshing out the brittle bones of truths formed in the dominant inner world. That which is is not negotiable; yet actual application diffuses knowledge to the extent that knowledge needs qualification and context to be of any consequence in this foreign world of substance.

If Thinking can desist, the INTP is free to brainstorm, calling up the perceptions of the unconscious (i.e., intuition) which are mirrored in patterns in the realm of matter, time and space. These perceptions, in the form of theories or hunches, must ultimately defer to the inner principles, or at least they must not negate them.

Intuition unchained gives birth to play. INTPs enjoy games, formal or impromptu, which coax analogies, patterns and theories from the unseen into spontaneous expression in a way that defies their own comprehension.

Introverted Sensing

Sensing is of a subjective, inner nature similar to that of the SJs. It supplies awareness of the forms of senses rather than the raw, analogic stimuli. Facts and figures seek to be cleaned up for comparison with an ever growing range of previously experienced input. Sensing assists intuition in sorting out and arranging information into the building blocks for Thinking’s elaborate systems.

The internalizing nature of the INTP’s Sensing function leaves a relative absence of environmental awareness (i.e., Extraverted Sensing), except when the environment is the current focus. Consciousness of such conditions is at best a sometime thing.

Extraverted Feeling

Feeling tends to be all or none. When present, the INTP’s concern for others is intense, albeit naive. In a crisis, this feeling judgement is often silenced by the emergence of Thinking, who rushes in to avert chaos and destruction. In the absence of a clear principle, however, INTPs have been known to defer judgement and to allow decisions about interpersonal matters to be left hanging lest someone be offended or somehow injured. INTPs are at risk of being swept away by the shadow in the form of their own strong emotional impulses.

Famous INTPs:

Socrates
Rene Descartes
Blaise Pascal
Sir Isaac Newton

U.S. Presidents:
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
John Tyler
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Gerald Ford
William Harvey (pioneer in human physiology)
C. G. Jung, (Freudian defector, author of Psychological Types, etc.)
William James
Albert Einstein
Tom Foley (Speaker of the House–U.S. House of Representatives)
Henri Mancini
Bob Newhart
Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator (D.–NM)
Rick Moranis (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids)
Midori Ito (ice skater, Olympic silver medalist)
Tiger Woods

Fictional INTPs

Tom and Fiona (Four Weddings and a Funeral)
Dr. Susan Lewis (ER)
Filburt (Rocko’s Modern Life)

Let’s start a meme!

Haven’t updated in forever. My bad

I’m not gonna tell you guys why, but I need to learn to play the Jazz Sax. lol

Hopefully to stop the massive horde of spamming bots I have put in a captcha for the comments. And if your registered you don’t have to go through it. =D So register.

Just realized I should probably throw in a link: Click Me!

Hi

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

“The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. stone crumbles. wood rots. people, well, they die. but things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.” -Chuck Palahniuk

“I laugh, I love, I hope, I try, I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same things too, So we’re really not that different, me and you.” – Colin Raye

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character…Would you slow down? Or speed up?” – Chuck Palahniuk

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

“Life’s disappointments are harder to take when you don’t know any swear words.” – Calvin & Hobbes

“No man is worth your tears, but once you find one that is, he won’t make you cry”

“You can’t stop loving or wanting to love because when its right, it’s the best thing in the world. When you’re in a relationship and it’s good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.” – Keith Sweat

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.” – Oscar Wilde

“I don’t pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.”

“Every man is afraid of something. That’s how you know he’s in love with you; when he is afraid of losing you.”

“Well, it seems to me that the best relationships – the ones that last – are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is… suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with” – Gillian Anderson

“Relationships-of all kinds-are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.”

“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.”

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.” – William Arthur Ward

“Men are all alike–except the one you’ve met who’s different.” – Mae West

“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with.” – Kathleen Mifsud

“There are two things no man will admit he cannot do well: drive and make love”

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” – Billy Crystal

“When I say, “I love you,” it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a hell of a woman.”

“You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her”

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.” – Oscar Wilde

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure” -Peter Marshall

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

“The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we’re afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we’ll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.”