Thinking in dichotomies

[r4ch3l]

I am attached to logic and process, but not attached to conclusions.

My personal operating system is very much like the concept of Quine's web of belief; ideas and placement conclusions have a place in a larger structure and some are hierarchically superior, but new information that is analyzed can easily shift nodes within the web. No new or incoming information can ever be banished outside the web though, and so it grows and morphs as time progresses [see also: laser focus as child, debilitating ADHD-Pi as adult]. I also feel fairly neutral in my attachment to anything within the web despite some core pieces being tougher to move because of their placement in the entirety of the structure. AKA: nothing offends me when discussed conceptually (personally is a different matter; I am a human despite appearances to the contrary).

Last weekend I was at a show and when I would describe to my friend what made the DJ's signature (orchestral/bipolar/cheesy/droppy/throwback house that makes people MOVE and basically go nuts) sound so perfect I noticed that I was describing it as a calculated and well-executed balance between dichotomies. This particular DJ has controlling the crowd down to a science and so...being INTPme...I was breaking it all down to apply to my own party-music-strategy. And so I was perceiving and noting the finely-traipsed line between being super sexy/self-aware/in control and then dropping a really goofy sample that drew the crowd out of their former vibe, transitioning from balls-out back to subtle, throwback track vs. hyped new release, noting the timing with breaks and just how interweaving these clashing moods with seamless fluidity made for an experience that transcends what I feel at most shows. So...I guess that my process of categorizing was something akin to how Aristotle defines the good as the mean between two extremes. I saw that my mind predefined the extremes in order to appreciate the skill that it took to walk in the middle while still surprising the audience and blending elements of both defined polarities. I could see and appreciate the beauty of the calculated/pre-determined negotiating this line to create a tension and difference in each moment.

When I sat down to work on a writing project today and was laying down the themes to get into the mood of the writing I noticed that when discussing concepts or trying to describe reality I use "x vs. y" (Leah (action) vs. Rachel (contemplation) in the Divine Comedy, linear vs. holographic, fate vs. free will -- = random examples from today) to describe things. A lot. It seems that this is a fundamental framework that governs or even precedes the gap between observation and categorization for me and maybe explains why I have trouble speaking in a linear way when trying to express things that are not arguments (i.e. statements up for open discussion concerning the inner levels of my aforementioned personal Quinean web).

My INTJ ex used to always accuse me of black-or-white thinking (*cough* projecting *cough* (apparently when the rare moment comes where you have the guts to express feelings to an INTJ you are deemed binary and logically invalid)), but I believe that I actually am a very "grey" person and can find common ground with ANYONE as a starting place for a debate (I like starting at the common ground because otherwise I feel debates are just ideology/pre-decided-on-opinion wars aka boring; I debate to bond, experience within the moment and see what I really think about ___).

So INTPs: does your observation-->mentation-->categorization-->communication tract follow a similar pattern? Anyone else frustrated with the dichotomy (irony = not lost) between calling out a binary difference yet not believing anything observable exists as a binary, ("possible?"/real/measurable), entity? I have a million more things to say/ask on binary logic encompassing modular reality but I'll save the specifics of my schizophrenia for a different thread.

 

[TimeAsylums]

I am attached to logic and process, but not attached to conclusions.

http://personalityjunkie.com/09/infps-intps-infjs-intjs-struggle-to-act/ : very last paragraph

1. On a theoretical note, it is ironic that, as Perceiving types, INPs are wired to feel more comfortable with creation sans action. INPs are designed to bring order to their inner world (Fi or Ti) to a greater extent than the outer world. In spite of this, it is in some ways easier for them to act in the outside world because their N and S do not fall at the extremes of their functional stack. This allows them to be more accepting of something short of the perfect ideal. Taking the irony one step further, INJs, despite being inner perceivers (Ni), seem better at coming to firm conclusions than INPs.

In sum, INPs are frustrated by their habitual indecisiveness, while INJs are frustrated by their intractable idealism and perfectionism. This is not to say, however, that INPs don’t struggle with idealism or that INJs don’t struggle with indecision. I should also add that most INs struggle with some level of anxiety when it comes to acting in an extraverted fashion.

getting to the rest slowly through edits,
When you say

but new information that is analyzed can easily shift nodes within the web

sounds like Ne.

I also feel fairly neutral in my attachment to anything within the web despite some core pieces being tougher to move because of their placement in the entirety of the structure. AKA: nothing offends me when discussed conceptually (personally is a different matter; I am a human despite appearances to the contrary).

The beauty of Ti-dom and Fe-Inf.

laser focus as child, debilitating ADHD-Pi as adult]

Laser focus = Ti dom, ADHD = Ne aux (and a little of tert Si)

All I've got in terms of that anyway unless you were looking for something more specific.


And yes, your train of thought seems to be similar to other INTPs:

We might summarize IPs’ process in the following way:
J Starting point: Ti or Fi (“I should or want to do…”)
Move into auxiliary (P): Ne or Se (may get sidetracked or distracted here)
Desired J Endpoint: Fe or Te closure
Visually, this process resembles a diamond. IPs start with a specific objective (Ti or Fi), diverge outwardly (Se or Ne), then work to reign in this expansion and bring it toward a point of closure (Fe or Te).

I debate to bond, experience within the moment and see what I really think about.

Ne again:

To outsiders, it can often seem random, since NPs see connections or associations between things that others may not. The open-endedness of Ne is also what allows NPs to entertain a broad spectrum of outside viewpoints. NPs may find themselves thoroughly convinced by one argument, only to feel similarly entranced with an alternative. In its pure form, Ne ideation is highly fluid.

schizophrenia for a different thread.

http://www.uccs.edu/Documents/dsega...igation-Jungs-types-and-PD-features-JPT-2.pdf

Welcome to the NTP club, r4ch3l

 

[Absurdity]

So INTPs: does your observation-->mentation-->categorization-->communication tract follow a similar pattern? Anyone else frustrated with the dichotomy (irony = not lost) between calling out a binary difference yet not believing anything observable exists as a binary, ("possible?"/real/measurable), entity? I have a million more things to say/ask on binary logic encompassing modular reality but I'll save the specifics of my schizophrenia for a different thread.

Binary logic seems to me to be the conceptual tool to bring a sense of order to reality (there it is again, order and chaos), with ground zero being the Law of Noncontradiction. It is a Procrustean bed though, as things rarely (never?) fit in two neat categories. Reductionism also has its own dangers, as Douglas Adams says:

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.

Tolerance for ambiguity seems to be a matter of degree but at the extreme it seems to reach total Zen non-thought. Rejecting the binary ends at the destruction of any distinction between self and other, or that which is outside.

I guess there is more than one way to reject it though. You could say that rather than being binary, everything is a unified whole (Spinoza? Modes of a single substance?). Or even further Balkanize the analysis into trichotomies, quadchotomies, etc. ... but then where does that leave you? In a universe with only particulars? Again, non-thought.

Then of course there's the blasphemy of zero. Total epistemic nihilism.

I can rarely remain in strict binary analysis of an issue before I start pulling at the loose threads. Your Quinean web sounds all too familiar though.

 

[SpaceYeti]

What you're talking about isn't so much thinking in dichotomies as it is making comparisons. Since we place our knowledge in a hierarchical web, we make our points by comparing things that are similar except in the ways we want to point out differences. It's not a dichotomy, merely analogy.

 

[TimeAsylums]

What you're talking about isn't so much thinking in dichotomies as it is making comparisons. Since we place our knowledge in a hierarchical web, we make our points by comparing things that are similar except in the ways we want to point out differences. It's not a dichotomy, merely analogy.

Agreed, which made me question why the OP was written in that way, so I just decided to describe it in terms of the functions, closest I could get to the dichotomies anyway.

 

[scorpiomover]

I am attached to logic and process, but not attached to conclusions.

My personal operating system is very much like the concept of Quine's web of belief; ideas and placement conclusions have a place in a larger structure and some are hierarchically superior, but new information that is analyzed can easily shift nodes within the web. No new or incoming information can ever be banished outside the web though, and so it grows and morphs as time progresses [see also: laser focus as child, debilitating ADHD-Pi as adult]. I also feel fairly neutral in my attachment to anything within the web despite some core pieces being tougher to move because of their placement in the entirety of the structure. AKA: nothing offends me when discussed conceptually (personally is a different matter; I am a human despite appearances to the contrary).

Kind of. I used to be very addicted to logic. Then I got into set theory and higher-order logic, and found that when you get to the higher orders of logic, logic becomes irrational. Like the square root of 2. It's irrational. But it makes sense.

laser focus as child, debilitating ADHD-Pi as adult

Know watcha mean.

My INTJ ex used to always accuse me of black-or-white thinking (*cough* projecting *cough* (apparently when the rare moment comes where you have the guts to express feelings to an INTJ you are deemed binary and logically invalid)), but I believe that I actually am a very "grey" person and can find common ground with ANYONE as a starting place for a debate (I like starting at the common ground because otherwise I feel debates are just ideology/pre-decided-on-opinion wars aka boring; I debate to bond, experience within the moment and see what I really think about ___).

I grew up with an INTJ who used to really say the most insulting things to me. He still seems to put me on a pedestal as some kind of ultra-genius.

So INTPs: does your observation-->mentation-->categorization-->communication tract follow a similar pattern? Anyone else frustrated with the dichotomy (irony = not lost) between calling out a binary difference yet not believing anything observable exists as a binary, ("possible?"/real/measurable), entity? I have a million more things to say/ask on binary logic encompassing modular reality but I'll save the specifics of my schizophrenia for a different thread.

Yah. But then, after I read Gödel's incompleteness theorems, I realised that probably most things contain inherent contradictions. Just a case of living with it.

 

[r4ch3l]

Kind of. I used to be very addicted to logic. Then I got into set theory and higher-order logic, and found that when you get to the higher orders of logic, logic becomes irrational. Like the square root of 2. It's irrational. But it makes sense.

Yeah, it's a tool. Logic as we know it exists only because there is an observer/are observers to cause distinction (this or not this; XOR) and then categorize through self-reference .Duality is illusory and self-generated through observation and distinction (G Spencer Brown's laws of form). With the increase in self-reference and distinction (creating sets) there is an increase in complexity and possibility that is correlated with the flow of time. Because distinction is a property of consciousness I also believe that time is exclusively related to mind (as argued by William Rowan Hamilton; he gave a lecture way back in the early 1800s titled "The Metaphysics of Mathematics -- Algebra as Pure Time).

My personal opinions on logic are most aligned with these guys (uni-log.org), who have been doing work on the logical hexagon (revival of the square of opposition, but...different). I also am a huge fan of Shea Zellweger's Logic Alphabet (correlates with boolean operations, emphasis on symmetry and structure).

Yah. But then, after I read Gödel's incompleteness theorems, I realised that probably most things contain inherent contradictions. Just a case of living with it.

Contradictions are a property of living within time/experiencing thoughts one at a time, I think. But I am a lame hopeless Platonist and on board with Leibniz' dialectial monism, transcendental phenomenology (Husserl), informational realism/structuralism. If you're interested in a new take on Godel and exploring ideas on where to go/what we may be able to conclude from the incompleteness theorems I highly recommend a book my Godel seminar + logic professor wrote: "After Godel" by Richard Tieszen.

 

[r4ch3l]

Kind of. I used to be very addicted to logic. Then I got into set theory and higher-order logic, and found that when you get to the higher orders of logic, logic becomes irrational. Like the square root of 2. It's irrational. But it makes sense.

also re: that
Logic is Not Logic by JYB

 

[~~~]

Russellian-like heaven. The dynamics are like wffs. Though the trained senses will not be easily led. They are probably more likely to appreciate much less resolvable paradoxes.