Are You Depressed?

[phoneutria]

Why do you think Ludwig was a choleric?

He looks like a regular melancholic to me.

I think the key component of choleric temperament is speed. If you do not think and act fast, you're not a choleric. Even if you are assertive and ill tempered, if you're not a fast paced thinker, you are not a choleric. And since the mind of an introvert is constantly processing huge amounts of information, the introvert is necessarily a slow paced thinker, and thus, something other than a choleric. (Putin is an example of an assertive melancholic and Hitler is an example of an ill tempered melancholic.)

the whole hitting kids in the head with a cane thing and threatening peers with a red-hot fire poker

yours is definitely not an orthodox definition
as by the word's very definition and etymological heritage it means anger and bile
but like I said
I don't engage in discussions about meanings of words
precisely because you can take a word and say that to you it means this or that
or whatever you want
and I will not convince you of otherwise because I can't
and also because I don't care

It applies wherever words are used. And they are used in both geometry and psychology. The fact that psychologists are less rigorous doesn't mean they are free to contradict themselves.

a square and a circle are very simple geometric shapes with clearly defined formulas
which is allowed by their simplicity
evidently by cutting out the corners of a square repeatedly
you change that shape from square to octagon, to hexadecagon, etc etc
and you can continue to section of edges infinitely
until from a macro perspective the shape is indistinguishable from a circle
but it is still not a circle
thus the shape is at any given point moving closer to being a circle and having as its ascendant a square
though by definition it is neither
even if it looks just like one
and that is just a 2D shape

a human being's emotions, behaviors, propensities
are a "shape" of multiple axis and infinite graduations from one side of each spectrum to another
you could hardly know enough about that shape to even consider naming it
this is a subject in which words fail
you give me a word such as cholera, which to you has a topographic coordinate determined by your personality
and it arrives to me in a completely different coordinate
and yet we will talk about it with the assumption that we both mean the same thing
cuz it's the best we've got
words are unfortunately our only vehicle for making magic brain stuff come out

the role of the statistical analysis provided by psychometric
is to minimize the role of the ambiguity of language
from the study of personality traits

A much better defense of your position would be to claim that the word "choleric" does not mean what I think it means and that the term "choleric introvert" is not a contradiction in terms.

i did make that argument
i guess it was too subtle
it was here

at the risk of starting a conversation about meanings of words
which i will not engage in

[Karpel Tunnel]

Choleric intoverts are more rare, but they exist.

Processing huge amounts of information, as Magnus claims introverts do, does not entail thinking slowly. Mull that over for a moment and that should be obvious. You might be processing a small percentage of that information at a certain time, but there is no reason it has to go slower. The focus is different than the extroverts. And then, well, if you are processing huge amounts of information, it is more likely that you will be processing fast sometimes, to keep up.

[Magnus Anderson]

the whole hitting kids in the head with a cane thing and threatening peers with a red-hot fire poker
yours is definitely not an orthodox definition
as by the word's very definition and etymological heritage it means anger and bile

He also suffered from depression and had suicidal tendencies beside being interested in a very narrow set of subjects that typically appeal to melancholics.

His anger does indicate choleric temperament but I don't think it indicates that his primary temperament is choleric. (Keep in mind that when we say that someone is "choleric" we mean that his PRIMARY temperament is choleric.)

but like I said
I don't engage in discussions about meanings of words
precisely because you can take a word and say that to you it means this or that
or whatever you want
and I will not convince you of otherwise because I can't
and also because I don't care

That's not the right thing to do but it's your choice.

a square and a circle are very simple geometric shapes with clearly defined formulas
which is allowed by their simplicity
evidently by cutting out the corners of a square repeatedly
you change that shape from square to octagon, to hexadecagon, etc etc
and you can continue to section of edges infinitely
until from a macro perspective the shape is indistinguishable from a circle
but it is still not a circle
thus the shape is at any given point moving closer to being a circle and having as its ascendant a square
though by definition it is neither
even if it looks just like one
and that is just a 2D shape

Alright.

a human being's emotions, behaviors, propensities
are a "shape" of multiple axis and infinite graduations from one side of each spectrum to another
you could hardly know enough about that shape to even consider naming it
this is a subject in which words fail

That's a rather poetic way of saying that the concepts that we use to describe human behavior are so complex it's difficult for us to verbally describe them.

you give me a word such as cholera, which to you has a topographic coordinate determined by your personality
and it arrives to me in a completely different coordinate
and yet we will talk about it with the assumption that we both mean the same thing
cuz it's the best we've got
words are unfortunately our only vehicle for making magic brain stuff come out

THat's cool.

I take this to mean that you are not willing to define your words and that you prefer to remain vague.

[Magnus Anderson]

Processing huge amounts of information, as Magnus claims introverts do, does not entail thinking slowly. Mull that over for a moment and that should be obvious.

Introverts spend a lot more time figuring out what's the right thing to do than extraverts do. Do you disagree?

[Magnus Anderson]

i did make that argument
i guess it was too subtle
it was here

You actually made a claim that psychological concepts are different from geometric ones and that logic does not apply to them i.e. that there is no such thing as contradiction in terms when it comes to psychological concepts. But logic applies to all concepts -- psychological concepts including.

By saying "I am a choleric introvert", you are assigning certain meaning to the word "choleric" and certain meaning to the word "introvert". From this, it automatically follows that the term "choleric introvert" is possibly, but not necessarily, a contradiction in terms. The complexity of the terms "choleric" and "introvert" as well as whether or not you can verbally describe them is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether or not you are using them consistently.

Of course, a personality test might tell you you're both introverted and choleric but only due to the fact that these tests are designed by taking a group of people who self-identify as certain psychological type and asking them to rate a number of statements on a scale from 1 to 5 based on how applicable they are to them. This is an inferior approach to designing personality tests, for obvious reasons, and the extent to which you can use such tests against what I'm saying is limited.

And here's the clinch: even if "choleric introvert" is not a contradiction in terms, one can still wonder what kind of results FC would get by taking widely accepted personality tests in a honest manner.

[MagsJ]

-
A person could alternatively decide to choose
their type, by look. I think I’ll pass..

6FAC1D46-EEE1-42CF-BAF8-B86B972C3670.jpeg (51.61 KiB) Viewed 384 times

A different take, on the look of each type.. I’d say,
that I exhibit traits from each of those, so not any
one type or thing..

35D7C891-6C3F-4214-9B32-493D21A7A528.jpeg (55.43 KiB) Viewed 384 times

A case of being what you eat..

Wikipedia: Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types where an individual's personality types overlap and they share two or more temperaments (i.e. chemical systems regulating human behaviour). Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) described the four temperaments as part of the ancient medical concept of humourism, that four bodily fluids affect human personality traits and behaviours. Modern medical science does not define a fixed relationship between internal secretions and personality, although some psychological personality type systems use categories similar to the Greek temperaments.

[phoneutria]

It comes down to what one needs. I have no idea what the authors of the OCEAN model wanted to do with it, but given its public availability, one can ask how useful it is from the POV of general public. And if you ask me, it's completely useless. It says absolutely nothing that might be of use to me. The same applies to all other popular personality models -- completely useless piece of shit models. To make it worse, you can't even figure out what is it that they are saying because the authors didn't bother to define the terms clearly. And that's despite the fact I can think of a number of ways in which a personality model can be more than useful.

my advise for people who don't like personality models is to not use them
granted that it's difficult to sift through psychology literature and find something of use
most of it is downright unscientific
they are available though
if you want to have an idea of what the authors wanted to do with it
you can just read what they wrote

[phoneutria]

I take this to mean that you are not willing to define your words and that you prefer to remain vague.

i'm not at all vague
I use common language
the common usage of words has already been defined by dictionaries and etymological studies
anything outside of that is contentious, unfundamented, and an exercise of futility
arguing for the sake of arguing
there are many things i'd rather do with my time before that
like getting a root canal

[phoneutria]

Introverts spend a lot more time figuring out what's the right thing to do than extraverts do. Do you disagree?

i realize that question wasn't directed at me
but i think the affirmation is grossly simplistic
there may be a correlation between those two things
but there are more factors at play than introversion/extraversion
such as a person's interest in engaging in "figuring out" type of activities
which is not determined by their level of extraversion
but with their intuitiveness, intelligence(IQ), level of flexibility toward their own standards (or openess), etc
evidently a person who spends a lot of time alone has a lot more thinking time
but some types of extroverted intellectuals do some very impressive thinking as a group
like when you get a few of them into a brainstorm meeting of sorts
i know it's annoying but the answers in this field tend to be "it's not that simple"

[phoneutria]

You actually made a claim that psychological concepts are different from geometric ones and that logic does not apply to them i.e. that there is no such thing as contradiction in terms when it comes to psychological concepts. But logic applies to all concepts -- psychological concepts including.

did I say that logic does not apply to them?
where?
don't bother looking, i'd never say such a thing
one thing i could have said is that their logic is not binary

By saying "I am a choleric introvert", you are assigning certain meaning to the word "choleric" and certain meaning to the word "introvert". From this, it automatically follows that the term "choleric introvert" is possibly, but not necessarily, a contradiction in terms. The complexity of the terms "choleric" and "introvert" as well as whether or not you can verbally describe them is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether or not you are using them consistently.

the only way you could consider these two terms to be logically contradictory
is if the only possible meaning of the word "introvert" was "not-choleric"
that is not the case

Of course, a personality test might tell you you're both introverted and choleric but only due to the fact that these tests are designed by taking a group of people who self-identify as certain psychological type and asking them to rate a number of statements on a scale from 1 to 5 based on how applicable they are to them. This is an inferior approach to designing personality tests, for obvious reasons, and the extent to which you can use such tests against what I'm saying is limited.

again
that is not only due to the fact that people are self-reporting
but due to the fuzzy nature of the logical set
and that one trait is not defined by the lack of another
each of them have their own scale
and at times influence one-another

it's a lot more like chemistry than any other science imo
where you can have seemingly infinite variations of properties
with the added complication that what you're trying to measure is not a physical property
you can't just take a blood sample and put it on a HPLC to measure the serial concentration of angries in a person
so yea any attempt to be scientific has to be statistical
it is limited but it is damn useful
ask all fortune 500 companies and the US military

And here's the clinch: even if "choleric introvert" is not a contradiction in terms, one can still wonder what kind of results FC would get by taking widely accepted personality tests in a honest manner.

care to make predictions?

[iambiguous]

Start here:

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp ... ent=psy-ab

Way back when there came to be this great debate about depression. Some insisted it came about as a result of "clinical" misfirings in the brain. Others like Norman O. Brown intertwined psychoanalysis with Marxism and focused instead on the manner in which the dog eat dog alienation and exploitation inherent to capitalism creates any number of contexts that precipitate depression.

Then the "anti-psychiatry" proponents like R. D. Laing and Thomas Szasz.

The idea was to change "society" into one or another more perfect union and depression would disappear.

And then of course William Styron's Darkness Visible, which from my own reading of it, took depression back to the brain itself.

Me, here and now? Fractured and fragmented as usual.

[promethean75]

there are many things i'd rather do with my time before that
like getting a root canal

Getting a root canal is one of the most critically important things a country can do when at war over seas. For example, panama. It was the root canal for transporting ships during ww2. If it weren't for that canal, them muhfuckas woulda had to sail them ships all the fuck the way around sowf America.

[Magnus Anderson]

did I say that logic does not apply to them?
where?
don't bother looking, i'd never say such a thing
one thing i could have said is that their logic is not binary

Let's see.

Definitions alone can restrict certain combinations.
For example, there is no shape that is at the same time a square and a circle (the so-called square-circle.) This is entirely due to the manner in which we define "square" and "circle".

Basically, what I said is that a combination of terms can be a logical contradiction and that this also applies to psychological terms.

this is truer in geometry than it is in psychology
which is why one is an exact science
and the other sits on the line of science and humanities
therefore your example does not apply
unlike a square which cannot be a circle
a person can be both happy and sad

But then, you disagreed with me. Why?

I expect anyone who agrees with what I said in the above to respond with a simple "Yes, that is true" and anyone who wants to add that they do not think that "choleric introvert" is an instance of a logical contradiction to respond with a simple "But I don't think this particular combination of terms is a contradiction."

But did I get that? I don't think so.

Instead, I get to hear about how what I say is "truer in geometry than it is in psychology". So what am I to think other than that you think that contradictions are "truer in geometry than they are in psychology"? I have no choice but to assume that you think that logic does not apply to psychological terms.

the only way you could consider these two terms to be logically contradictory
is if the only possible meaning of the word "introvert" was "not-choleric"
that is not the case

The word "introvert" does not mean "not choleric". That's not my position. I don't know who told you that, but trust me, it is not my position (:

The word "square" does not mean "not circle" since there are things (such as hexagons) that are "not circles" and at the same time "not squares".

My position is that the two concepts, "choleric" and "introvert", do not overlap in the same exact way that the concept of "square" and the concept of "circle" do not overlap.

Binary classification, you may say. Well, when it comes to temparements, it is actually a quaternary classification. Without such a classification, it is impossible to put people in one of the four groups. How many classes do you want? An infinite number of them? What's the point of having so many of them? But then, this isn't about MY method of classification. It's actually Greeks who came up with it and they just happened to settle for four classes in total -- no more and no less.

On the other hand, someone is either choleric or they are not. That's binary classification. You can also say, binary membership. A thing either belongs to a set or it does not. Without it, you can't say someone is choleric. Instead, you are forced to be verbose, in many cases unnecessarily, by making statements such as "John is 89% choleric". Nothing wrong with that sort of thing, it's just that it's not useful in every situation. Binary classification isn't evil. (And a method of classification cannot be true or false, it can only be useful or useless in relation to a goal.)

again
that is not only due to the fact that people are self-reporting
but due to the fuzzy nature of the logical set
and that one trait is not defined by the lack of another
each of them have their own scale
and at times influence one-another

You are merely reasserting your opinion that the concept of "choleric" and the concept of "introvert" overlap. But do they? How are we going to resolve this without studying definitions? (Obviously, you don't want to bother with definitions. Nothing wrong with that per se, each one of us chooses how they are going to spend their time, but then, there can be no further discussion between the two of us on this particular subject.)

care to make predictions?

I already did. He's a Phlegmatic / Choleric and an INTP. As Biguous likes to say, I might be wrong. But he's most definitely not a choleric.

[MagsJ]

there are many things i'd rather do with my time before that
like getting a root canal

Getting a root canal is one of the most critically important things a country can do when at war over seas. For example, panama. It was the root canal for transporting ships during ww2. If it weren't for that canal, them muhfuckas woulda had to sail them ships all the fuck the way around sowf America.

Ha ha ha! Yeah..

[MagsJ]

If a person is subjected to spontaneous occurrences due to imminent commitments and so forth, would that make them a spontaneous person?

Same question.. regarding all the other traits, in that having to be something in one situation wouldn’t necessarily be applicable in another, so it becomes somewhat difficult to separate the learned from the innate.

“Someone with a pure choleric temperament is usually a goal-oriented person. Choleric people are very savvy, analytical, and logical. Extremely practical and straightforward, they aren't necessarily good companions or particularly friendly.“ -does that sound like FC? I think so..

[Magnus Anderson]

Introverts spend a lot more time figuring out what's the right thing to do than extraverts do. Do you disagree?

there may be a correlation between those two things
but there are more factors at play than introversion/extraversion
such as a person's interest in engaging in "figuring out" type of activities
which is not determined by their level of extraversion
but with their intuitiveness, intelligence(IQ), level of flexibility toward their own standards (or openess), etc
evidently a person who spends a lot of time alone has a lot more thinking time
but some types of extroverted intellectuals do some very impressive thinking as a group
like when you get a few of them into a brainstorm meeting of sorts
i know it's annoying but the answers in this field tend to be "it's not that simple"

It was Jung who coined the terms. And what he meant by them, as I interpret it, is that introversion refers to preoccupation with what's inside one's mind (memories, imagination, thoughts, etc) and extraversion refers to preoccupation with what's outside of one's mind (sensations, body movements, etc.)

Thus, an extreme introvert would be someone who is completely oriented towards what's inside one's mind i.e. a man who, literally or figuratively, has no body and who has no experience with the external world; similarly, an extreme extravert would be someone who is completely oriented towards what's outside of one's mind i.e. a man who, literally or figuratively, has no brain and who lives completely in the present.

An average introvert would be someone who spends less time experiencing the external world and more time thinking about it (e.g. building a model of it or figuring out the most efficient way to attain a goal given a model and a starting point.) Thus, an average introvert has short periods of interaction with the external world (observation and action) and long periods of reflection. An average extravert would be precisely the opposite -- someone who has short periods of reflection and long periods of interaction with the world. (And ambiverts would be people who think as they act and act as they think.)

So it is not that extraverts do not think, it's just that they spend less time thinking than some introverts. (Obviously, by definition alone, not all introverts are thinkers. To be an introvert simply means to spend most of one's time inside one's head -- thinking isn't the only process that can take place inside one's head.)

Brainstorming sessions typically consist of people who, extraverted or not, think in an extraverted manner during those sessions i.e. who think for a very short period of time before coming up with an idea. The average generated idea is most likely to be of low quality but since there's a lot of them the probability that at least one of them is of decent quality is high.

So my point that introverts spend more time "figuring out what's right and what's wrong" than extraverts do remains unaddressed.

By the way, notice that nothing about the definition of the words "introvert" prohibits introverts from exhibiting any degree of anger. In theory, an introvert can exhibit the highest degree of anger conceivable at every point during his life. And yet, even such an introvert would fail to qualify as a choleric. Why? Because the word "choleric" means more than "someone who is very angry". It refers to specific kind of anger. It's a specific expression of anger -- exclusive to extraverts -- that one can call "outwardly expressed anger" or quite simply "extraverted anger". "Yellow bile" is related to this type of anger. "Black bile" (or "melan chole") is related to inwardly expressed anger. Make a choleric become introverted and you get a melancholic.

[MagsJ]

As for me, I've done personality tests (a number of them, in fact) several times in a number of different ways and each time I got the same results. So I have no doubts about myself.

Big Five / OCEAN: O+, C+, E-, A+, N+
HEXACO: H+, E-, X-, A-, C+, O+
Holland: AISREC
Myers-Briggs: INFJ
Four temperaments: Melancholic / Phlegmatic

All of the results agree with each other (except for HEXACO result which suggests I'm an INTJ but this is because I'm T almost as much as I am F.)

(Know who else was an INFJ? Adolph Hitler.)

I think I’ll take some of those above tests that I haven’t taken before, and see how they tally-up with those I have.

Aren’t cats said to be INFJs too? Do you get on with cats, Magnus?

Having taken the above tests, they all seem to suggest that I’m Saguine, Choleric/Melancholic, and Phlegmatic, in that order, but my Myers-Briggs deems me INTJ/P, with my J and P being very very close, and my F.. undisclosed.
Ahhh, so this is why.. “INTPs aren't intentionally rude, it's just that because they're so truth, fact and logic focused, they tend to appear cold and aloof, but they really are one of the most sociable of all the introverts, only not when they need their periods of time alone to re-charge”.

“So no, the stereotypical female INTJ in real life probably won't be that attractive personality wise. And usually the ones that are attracted to them tend to be XNFPs who seem to be strongly disliked by INTJs, ENFPs more than ENFJs in general, and if it's not dislike it's mostly annoyance that are felt by INTJs”.

Lol

[phoneutria]

the 2 or 3 chicks at a philosophy place are always intj

[phoneutria]

ill reply andy
ive been busy having beers and whatnot

[MagsJ]

..or slight variations, there-of.

[Magnus Anderson]

Having taken the above tests, they all seem to suggest that I’m Saguine, Choleric/Melancholic, and Phlegmatic, in that order, but my Myers-Briggs deems me INTJ/P, with my J and P being very very close, and my F.. undisclosed.

You are most definitely not an INTJ or any other "T" type. You are not particularly interested in analytical thought, aren't you? (I'd say you are an ISFJ and a phlegmatic / melancholic.)

As far as depression is concerned, it goes without saying that it is melancholic temperament that is associated with it. So if you have regular bouts of sadness or depression, that indicates strong melancholic tendencies.

Depression is no more than paralysis brought on by excessive mental activity. If you're excessively motivated, you have no choice but to appear completely unmotivated, since no drive gets the chance to be expressed for longer than a split of a second. It's an extreme sort of multi-tasking.

Typically, when a drive is denied expression, it isn't completely removed from the system; it persists but its expression is limited. When you get angry at someone and want to hit them, but at the same time feel it's not the right thing to do, the automatically initiated process of you making an effort to hit the other person is typically not completely cut off. Its external expression is denied (hitting the person) but its internal expression is not (the need to hit them.) The limited expression is felt as some sort of tension within the body that persists, and being a motivation to act in a certain way, that consumes your resources thereby draining your energy. It's like having a person inside yourself constantly nagging you for attention so that they can tell you that they want to hit that other person (but you know you shouldn't, so they should just shut the fuck up, right?) If you don't make an extra effort to silence that voice or otherwise make a deal with it, your resources become limited, making you tired and less efficient at accomplishing your tasks. And the more you accumulate such annoying voices, the more tired you become, eventually reaching the point where you no longer feel like doing anything -- depression. That's the point at which you have no choice but to address the internal rebellion.

[MagsJ]

You are most definitely not an INTJ or any other "T" type. You are not particularly interested in analytical thought, aren't you? (I'd say you are an ISFJ and a phlegmatic / melancholic.)

Sure.. go with that option, but seeing that you had to question an aspect of my being, that you are uncertain about, then you are obviously unsure of your analysis.

You act like you know me so well.. anyone would think we’d been talking on Skype.

[Magnus Anderson]

Well, I am sure you're not a "T" type. As for what type you are, that's just a guess.

[phoneutria]

i wouldnt have guessed mags as INTX either
just cuz you're not the type to be hanging out in the math threads
or relentlessly arguing the logic of some point
that is usually the give away for those types
like our boy andy here
totes intj

i used to get intp in my 20s
now i get intj
been hardened by life n all

[MagsJ]

Well, I am sure you're not a "T" type. As for what type you are, that's just a guess.

Perhaps.. I’m simply fluid, like water.

Perhaps.. I am all of them, or none of them.

Perhaps.. I became none of them, and so was flooded and intoxicated by them, when they all came back to me.

Perhaps.. it’s best that you remain unsure..