Ne and science

[substitute]

I guess it depends on how you approach it too... I know for example an ENTP who works as an inventor of sorts for a construction materials company, not sure what to call it but basically he comes up with better mixtures and stuff for things like cement and other building materials. He says he hated science at school but passionately loved studying in his spare time - his way - and that doing it his way he figured out way more and was way ahead of how things were at school and college.

I find a similar thing with languages - lots of people tell me they don't like studying languages or find it difficult because of all the grammatical details and stuff - I completely relate to that but here I am, a polyglot and linguist by trade. But I never studied languages in colleges and stuff, and if I had only had that as my choice I'd have hated them and never taken to them.

It's from taking my own approach to it, a naturalistic approach that has little to do with books and no need for obscure grammatical terms and details (though I know these too, now). I found that I achieved more by doing it the Ne way: starting with the big picture and exploring that, zipping around from part to part of it as the fancy took me, and then gradually working down to the more detailed stuff. I could never do that detailed stuff, never would be able to stick with it, without first knowing the point of it, where it fits into the bigger picture.

[CaptainChick]

Intelligent design x_x

[substitute]

Oh, I also suppose it might be that there are two separate issues here and it's not just whether or not you find science (or 'learning how things work') interesting, cos pretty much anyone with an ounce of intellectual curiosity would enjoy that to at least some extent.

It's more a question of whether other Ne types find studying science in the formal, academic kind of way particularly gratifying, or whether they find, like me, that doing it that way actually feels like the method is getting in the way of or stifling the curiosity, rather than satisfying it.

[nemo]

Originally Posted by substitute

It's from taking my own approach to it, a naturalistic approach that has little to do with books and no need for obscure grammatical terms and details (though I know these too, now). I found that I achieved more by doing it the Ne way: starting with the big picture and exploring that, zipping around from part to part of it as the fancy took me, and then gradually working down to the more detailed stuff. I could never do that detailed stuff, never would be able to stick with it, without first knowing the point of it, where it fits into the bigger picture.

Exactly!!

I learn best and keep the most inspired when I have the freedom to design, invent, discover, experiment, experience, and figure stuff out on my own.

Details come later -- they never come at the beginning.

This does clash with conventional pedagogy a lot, so I totally relate.

[CaptainChick]

Me no likey microscope.

Me likey macroscope.

[LucrativeSid]

A passionate painter doesn't get excited about coloring books.

[JustDave]

True. I love computer science but find my school work to be unimaginative, very limiting and therefore booooring. However, I love my job as my boss will give me a goal (i.e.: figure out how to aggregate the log files) and then allow me to use whatever logistics and tactics I think are necessary.

[Santtu]

I guess the learning phase of a science uses Si and Ti extensively, as in memorizing, understanding and analyzing the science in question. Ti works better on internally consistent and logical systems, and Si for irrational and random pieces of data. All sciences are slightly different combinations of the two. Psychology probably benefits from high Fi, Fe, and political science from Fe.

When the science and it's methods have been learned, I guess Ne might come handy in making the innovations, although the strict standards of scientific conduct must still be maintained (Ti and Si, for example). Ne seems to give the best heuristic to avoid dead ends with minimal effort and to be productive in a complex area of interest. Still, I think Ne provides the worst side-tracking from the studies in the learning phase, making it less likely for an Ne to earn a diploma Ni I think comes handy in maintaining the interest long enough to finish the studies.

Te I think is very useful for both studying and practicing a science.

So I think it depends on those functions whether it's easy for person to earn the diploma and hard to make scientific discoveries after graduation, or vice versa.

Most types would find both tasks difficult.

[ygolo]

I like some sciences (I have secondary Ne, so hopefully I can give an Ne perspective also).

For me, I usually could see when the "divide-and-analyze" phase was happening, that it was for the purpose of reconstructing it with a deeper understanding.

I loved taking things apart and putting things back together (cameras, phones, locks, toys, whatever). Sometimes it got me in trouble when people realized that I actually took something of theirs appart (which was surprizingly infrequent).

As an adult, I usually ask permission before I take things apart (although I still, hack and disassmble code, if I believe I am not breaking the law).

So when analysis was being done, I thought of it the same way. To me all science can be (intellectually speaking, not practically) be derived from mechanics (quantum mechanics). Usually, we don't really need to bring in the quantum aspects. We simply work off of conservation of mass-energy (mass-energy flow for open systems), momemtum change equalling the sum of external forces, the change in entropy being proportional to to the change in heat, entropy being proportional to the log of the number of micro-states for a macro-state, etc.....

There are all incredibly overarching things that "put together" things that at first seem to have nothing in common. Why for instance would you believe that the same sort of rules govern the movement of planets, as those that govern molecules in a gas?

We have to unlink, the basic peices from where the happen to be to get an idea of all the places they could be. That is why we "analyse" and take apart. So that we can put back together in brand new more useful ways.

I was breathing a big sigh of relief when we finally got to Shrodinger's schrodinger's equation in modern physics class, because I was going nuts with the lack of coherence of the phenomenon were studying. That class, held off the "putting back together" longer to give us a taste of what the scientists at the time was going through.

I find this coherence fairly absent in the social sciences, where things like "traits" or "factors" or "indeces" have little (if anything) to do with the original people/things that was bing studies. Maybe, I just have poor vission in this area.

[JustDave]

Ti is essential when trying to discover the truth as it is Ti one would use to distill a subject to its essence.