[CrudeHypothesis]

	Originally Posted by Autumnleaf To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Scientific efficiency makes killing much easier than prayer most of the time. As for the OP, its insightful of you to notice this. Schools have been around for thousands of years. However, in the dark ages in Europe the Catholic Church sort of took over formal education, except for trade guilds. So much of the way college is today has to do with traditions from church.

If only I could figure out what to do with my intuition, other than sounding like a conspiracy theorist to most people
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[Tactical Panda]

Institutions with legacies and hopes.

A bunch of the older western universities started off with church influences, I think. In terms of the old Oxford and whatnot.

[CrudeHypothesis]

I think shopping centers are like churches too. The big ones with multiple floors and escalators and big big halls. I was sitting in one in the food court some months ago thinking about how because it echoes, a few people talking constituted a murmur that made it seem like the place was packed with a lot of things happening.

[Merle]

	I guess people feel good about being in cities because of the deafening noise and choking pollution then. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

No idea what this is in reference to...

	I guess they build big buildings as a joke to show how much money they can waste. Oh that's why you're bitter. You obviously can't relate to what I'm saying any more than a virgin can relate to me talking about how special sex feels To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

LOL

It's not that I can't relate to what you're saying, but that I think what you're saying is wrong and incredibly reductionist. And, no, that isn't because I haven't been to a university with supposedly church like buildings (I went to what is probably the originator of what you might call 'church' like campuses), but because what you're describing is a subjective experience of place. It's also one seemingly colored by a view of the world that is decidedly contemporary focused- perhaps university buildings look like churches to you because your only frame of reference for 'old' looking 'big' buildings is a church?

Buildings can be 'big' as well as being university buildings and not look or feel (i.e. no sense of awe, no hushed tones) remotely church-like - that was my point, a point that refutes your generalized assertion that the buildings on university campuses are like churches.

Whether you attended or not, they were still run for you to attend if you felt like it, and you still had to pay to be enrolled. That is what I mean by "essentially". It doesn't matter what you're at university for, you still have to pay to be there, and the lecturers still have to teach, and they get paid from the uni, and the uni gets paid by you. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

No, you're not understanding - again with the ethnocentrism - yes, there were lectures available, they were not part of anyone's required course-work, you never needed to go to one to complete your degree. You're drawing an analogy between the reading of the Bible (presumably?) during a church service and lectures that take place in universities. My point is that the reading of the Bible is an integral part of the service, most often, and while certainly you could walk out, it is not optional - to have fully experienced the service, you must listen to the reading. That is absolutely not the case in terms of lectures (at least at my university) - your full university experience happens elsewhere, you are under no obligation to attend lectures and you receive a degree whether you attend them or not. Therefore your comparison fails, in this instance - once again due to your assumption that your experience is identical to that of other students.

And NO, as I said before, I DIDN'T HAVE TO PAY TO BE THERE.

[LadySpock]

College is nothing like church - They don't like people to ask questions in church.

[CrudeHypothesis]

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

It's not that I can't relate to what you're saying, but that I think what you're saying is wrong and incredibly reductionist. And, no, that isn't because I haven't been to a university with supposedly church like buildings (I went to what is probably the originator of what you might call 'church' like campuses), but because what you're describing is a subjective experience of place. It's also one seemingly colored by a view of the world that is decidedly contemporary focused- perhaps university buildings look like churches to you because your only frame of reference for 'old' looking 'big' buildings is a church? Buildings can be 'big' as well as being university buildings and not look or feel (i.e. no sense of awe, no hushed tones) remotely church-like - that was my point, a point that refutes your generalized assertion that the buildings on university campuses are like churches.

Have you been in lecture theaters? They look exactly like the inside of churches. Rows of seats, big room, a lectern at the front...

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

No, you're not understanding - again with the ethnocentrism - yes, there were lectures available, they were not part of anyone's required course-work, you never needed to go to one to complete your degree. You're drawing an analogy between the reading of the Bible (presumably?) during a church service and lectures that take place in universities. My point is that the reading of the Bible is an integral part of the service, most often, and while certainly you could walk out, it is not optional - to have fully experienced the service, you must listen to the reading. That is absolutely not the case in terms of lectures (at least at my university) - your full university experience happens elsewhere, you are under no obligation to attend lectures and you receive a degree whether you attend them or not. Therefore your comparison fails, in this instance - once again due to your assumption that your experience is identical to that of other students.

It's not compulsory to attend churches either, for one can sit and home and read their bible and still follow god. They still run the services and read from the book whether you're there to listen or home reading the book yourself.

	Originally Posted by LadySpock To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	College is nothing like church - They don't like people to ask questions in church.

Depends on the questions. If you ask about what it says in the book, they'll have something to tell you about it. If you ask about why you have to pay money to listen to them read the book, and question whether you're getting anything of value for your money, then they don't like it.

[Merle]

	Have you been in lecture theaters? They look exactly like the inside of churches. Rows of seats, big room, a lectern at the front...

To be honest, I haven't really been inside many - you know why?(I'll give you a hint - I've already told you) Because my education has been arranged around other ways of learning and they weren't really a part of my university experience (at three universities now!).

But anyway...if I were you, I might want to think about what the name "Lecture Theatre" implied, and what else they resemble...

	It's not compulsory to attend churches either, for one can sit and home and read their bible and still follow god. They still run the services and read from the book whether you're there to listen or home reading the book yourself.

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Right... and that relates to your supposition in what way, exactly? If (in your formulation) a university is like church because a lecture is like attending a church service, how can being at a university where you don't have to attend lectures also be like a church?

[CrudeHypothesis]

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	if I were you, I might want to think about what the name "Lecture Theatre" implied, and what else they resemble...

Yeah, churches.

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Right... and that relates to your supposition in what way, exactly? If (in your formulation) a university is like church because a lecture is like attending a church service, how can being at a university where you don't have to attend lectures also be like a church?

I just explained it.

I have a hypothesis: You're debating that my analogy doesn't work because a church isn't 100% identical to a university. Look, I noticed they were similar, and then noticed that a lot of things about them were also similar. They may not be exactly like each other, but that doesn't mean that from some perspective they don't look similar. You don't see it, because your mind is more geared towards discerning the differences between the two, to prove that one is fundamentally different from the other. That's what your brain is good at, assuming you actually are INTP, which your posts suggest there is little reason to doubt that. I notice connections, that's just what Ni does. It's confusing as fuck, but it's interesting and fun. If I could be absolutely logical I would be, but that's not my forte, my forte is being able to interact with systems based on my conceptual understandings of them.

[Merle]

Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I have a hypothesis: You're debating that my analogy doesn't work because a church isn't 100% identical to a university. Look, I noticed they were similar, and then noticed that a lot of things about them were also similar. They may not be exactly like each other, but that doesn't mean that from some perspective they don't look similar. You don't see it, because your mind is more geared towards discerning the differences between the two, to prove that one is fundamentally different from the other. That's what your brain is good at, assuming you actually are INTP, which your posts suggest there is little reason to doubt that. I notice connections, that's just what Ni does. It's confusing as fuck, but it's interesting and fun. If I could be absolutely logical I would be, but that's not my forte, my forte is being able to interact with systems based on my conceptual understandings of them.

And my point is simply that leaping, without caution into accepting such intuitive conceptions is both a lazy, and potentially dangerous way of dealing with the world. You re-enforce your own personal perceptions, flattening the complexities of a given situation to fit your own worldview. It would be wise, in my opinion, to take those intuitive understandings and interrogate them, by considering them from various vantage points and with knowledge of some specifics, rather than INCREDIBLY LOOSE categories that can contain practically anything ("big buildings"), if you do that you can figure out yourself whether what you have intuited has any foundation in truth or is nothing but sophistry.

It's pretty simple. If you can't be bothered to do it, then you are just being a lazy thinker and someone with whom it becomes impossible to have an interesting discussion.

[CrudeHypothesis]

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

And my point is simply that leaping, without caution into accepting such intuitive conceptions is both a lazy, and potentially dangerous way of dealing with the world. You re-enforce your own personal perceptions, flattening the complexities of a given situation to fit your own worldview. It would be wise, in my opinion, to take those intuitive understandings and interrogate them, by considering them from various vantage points and with knowledge of some specifics, rather than INCREDIBLY LOOSE categories that can contain practically anything ("big buildings"), if you do that you can figure out yourself whether what you have intuited has any foundation in truth or is nothing but sophistry. It's pretty simple. If you can't be bothered to do it, then you are just being a lazy thinker and someone with whom it becomes impossible to have an interesting discussion.

I would interrogate those intuitions, but it doesn't seem as important when I could be interrogating intuitions about my budget or something that actually can benefit my life directly. I'm aware my Te isn't as developed as I'd like it to be, and I'm working on it. For now, all I can do is present some Ni meanderings, and see if other people with Ni can follow it. Since you can analyse things so critically, do you have any thoughts of your own about churches and universities? Thoughts you came up with yourself?

By the way, our definitions of interesting conversations probably differ.

[Merle]

Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I would interrogate those intuitions, but it doesn't seem as important when I could be interrogating intuitions about my budget or something that actually can benefit my life directly. I'm aware my Te isn't as developed as I'd like it to be, and I'm working on it. For now, all I can do is present some Ni meanderings, and see if other people with Ni can follow it. Since you can analyse things so critically, do you have any thoughts of your own about churches and universities? Thoughts you came up with yourself? By the way, our definitions of interesting conversations probably differ.

Probably. Your deployment of MBTI functions as an excuse for your difficulties communicating with people is tiresome. Any person can engage critically with a topic, you would rather not bother to try, is basically what you're saying.

My own thoughts on universities and churches are below:

	Originally Posted by Autumnleaf To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	As for the OP, its insightful of you to notice this. Schools have been around for thousands of years. However, in the dark ages in Europe the Catholic Church sort of took over formal education, except for trade guilds. So much of the way college is today has to do with traditions from church.

Autumnleaf has this kind of the wrong way around: universities emerged out of monastic schools, to become guilds of scholars (somewhat like a trade guild), as they did so their curricula became less church-centered and branched out into philosophy, logic etc; certainly, though, the relationship between universities and churches in continental Europe was integral to their continued existence (they provided priests for the church), however this was true of ALL institutions, the church pervaded every stratum of life in Europe at that time. I don't see that as a compelling reason for universities today being apparently church-like.

It might be successfully argued that Continental European Universities continue to exhibit a close resemblance to the religiously flavoured medieval universities they originated in, although with the Bologna Process even that has shifted considerably.

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Institutions with legacies and hopes. A bunch of the older western universities started off with church influences, I think. In terms of the old Oxford and whatnot.

Oxford and Cambridge were, in fact, mostly supported by the crown. That is why they survived the dissolution of the monasteries (Oxford was never granted a Papal Bull, either, in its early days).


What I believe is this: in the evolution of modern English-speaking universities the church was important in the beginning, certainly; later, during the Renaissance, the classical world had a huge influence on the development of scientific enquiry - their system of Socratic learning, Greek theatre, Aristotle's Academy, the Agora - all these influenced the development of the modern university both physically and academically. It would be fairly difficult to establish categorically whether a lecture theatre drew its shape and learning format from a church service of from the Athenaeum, I would suggest that both were important, there are probably plenty of other influences too, and I think it would be a false certainty to claim that it is obviously just like a church.

The university systems of almost all English-speaking countries took the majority of their influence from Oxford and Cambridge, the majority of whose buildings were built in the late medieval to Early Modern period. As such, like pretty much ALL public/institutional buildings built at that time, their design was religiously inflected. When other countries looked at establishing their own universities, they borrowed from the design of medieval universities, probably thinking that these designs conferred a sense of scholarly tradition, history and respectability. The designers of these universities were not looking to create a sense of awe in the religious manner, I would suggest, but to manufacture a simulacrum of scholarly seriousness in a way that would be instantly recognisable to their fellow countrymen and so encourage them to attend THIS new university (which, look is just as old and serious-looking as the real Oxford!) in their probably fairly recently established colony, rather than travel to England for their education (and possibly be indoctrinated by the evil colonists).

Any resemblance between a portion of the current English speaking universities in the world and churches, then, is just a somewhat random outcome of this evolution and not an integral part of their design. The campuses of British universities built after the medieval period/Early Modern period tend mix some buildings of quite different styles, that reflect architecturally the social concerns of their day, with those that ape the Oxford/Cambridge style. For instance, at Liverpool, a Victorian university, the main building has a civic/government building feel. Moreover, most twentieth century institutions in the U.K. do away completely with the no-longer relevant medieval design, often replacing that with a modernist, functionalist design which really DOESN'T even approach an aesthetic that might invoke religious authority and feelings of awe (except maybe in Mies van der Rohe fanboys). Funnily enough, it is in places like America that the 'Oxford model' type universities have continued to be built... something that might support my hypothesis above (even in a post-colonial age).

I think that if you experience your university as specifically church-like it might tell you more about your own feelings towards university rather than anything particular about the institution itself. I don't know how you feel about religion, but maybe you're conflating the two things as a convenient way of classifying your university as, for instance: authoritarian(?), didactic(?), unwelcoming of alternate lifestyles (?), feels that is has all the answers(?) etc.

[CrudeHypothesis]

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

What I believe is this: in the evolution of modern English-speaking universities the church was important in the beginning, certainly; later, during the Renaissance, the classical world had a huge influence on the development of scientific enquiry - their system of Socratic learning, Greek theatre, Aristotle's Academy, the Agora - all these influenced the development of the modern university both physically and academically. It would be fairly difficult to establish categorically whether a lecture theatre drew its shape and learning format from a church service of from the Athenaeum, I would suggest that both were important, there are probably plenty of other influences too, and I think it would be a false certainty to claim that it is obviously just like a church.

This sentence says it all. I'm not trying to establish categorically whether lecture theaters drew their shape and learning format from churches, I simply "noticed College is like Church", which is the title of the thread. Anyway, you've pretty much proved that spending a long time reading history is a better way to understand things than inferring it in a few minutes. I still think when you consider that there is more knowledge in existence than one can possibly learn, at best all one can work with is probability, and Ni is better at that. But anyway, that's outside the scope of this thread.

The rest you wrote was a good read, and you know a lot about the subject matter. You left out dates though, so I may as well go learn the whole thing by myself or I can't place the events accurately in history.

[Merle]

Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Anyway, you've pretty much proved that spending a long time reading history is a better way to understand things than inferring it in a few minutes. I still think when you consider that there is more knowledge in existence than one can possibly learn, at best all one can work with is probability, and Ni is better at that. But anyway, that's outside the scope of this thread. The rest you wrote was a good read, and you know a lot about the subject matter. You left out dates though, so I may as well go learn the whole thing by myself or I can't place the events accurately in history.

Thanks (I mean that), but I didn't spend a long time reading history - I know some, I checked a few facts... mostly I relied on my intuition (like you), but instead of ending at the many universities look like Oxford and Cambridge part, I actually thought about why, specifically, that might be. What I've written above isn't historical fact, it's my considered opinion on the topic. You're perfectly free to argue that, actually, many universities are designed and administered in a way that is intended to provoke religious feelings in students... just, please, be prepared to offer more than 'gut feeling' as a reason why. Otherwise there's pretty much no point in starting a thread about it.

[CrudeHypothesis]

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Thanks (I mean that), but I didn't spend a long time reading history - I know some, I checked a few facts... mostly I relied on my intuition (like you), but instead of ending at the many universities look like Oxford and Cambridge part, I actually thought about why, specifically, that might be. What I've written above isn't historical fact, it's my considered opinion on the topic. You're perfectly free to argue that, actually, many universities are designed and administered in a way that is intended to provoke religious feelings in students... just, please, be prepared to offer more than 'gut feeling' as a reason why. Otherwise there's pretty much no point in starting a thread about it.

Why sure there's a point. I offer a 'gut feeling' intuition, and then an INTP comes along and does all the manual labor providing a research backed explanation
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[scorpiomover]

	Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	We'll you'd have to not be attracted by those things if they aren't there. That's like how I'm not attracted to the girl that doesn't exist in this room right now To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Is she single? If you aren't attracted to her, then can you get her number for me?

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	Originally Posted by LadySpock To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	College is nothing like church - They don't like people to ask questions in church.

They don't like people to ask questions in college either, not unless it's a question that the lecturers actually want you to ask, like questions that the lecturer already knows the answer to, and the answer is something he wanted to say anyway.

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Autumnleaf has this kind of the wrong way around: universities emerged out of monastic schools, to become guilds of scholars (somewhat like a trade guild), as they did so their curricula became less church-centered and branched out into philosophy, logic etc; certainly, though, the relationship between universities and churches in continental Europe was integral to their continued existence (they provided priests for the church), however this was true of ALL institutions, the church pervaded every stratum of life in Europe at that time. I don't see that as a compelling reason for universities today being apparently church-like.

The hierarchy, the economics, the politics, even the attitude to learning and teaching is a parallel of how the churches ran in the Middle Ages. Consequently, the same relationships exist, and they both match the same model. So the problems that one has/had, are the problems of the other.

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Any resemblance between a portion of the current English speaking universities in the world and churches, then, is just a somewhat random outcome of this evolution and not an integral part of their design. The campuses of British universities built after the medieval period/Early Modern period tend mix some buildings of quite different styles, that reflect architecturally the social concerns of their day, with those that ape the Oxford/Cambridge style. For instance, at Liverpool, a Victorian university, the main building has a civic/government building feel. Moreover, most twentieth century institutions in the U.K. do away completely with the no-longer relevant medieval design, often replacing that with a modernist, functionalist design which really DOESN'T even approach an aesthetic that might invoke religious authority and feelings of awe (except maybe in Mies van der Rohe fanboys).

I went to Manchester University. I was in the maths department. The whole building was modern. I think it was built in the 60s.

Giving different opinions, and even using different methods to the same answers, were discouraged, and what mattered was following what you were told. As an intuitive, I had a serious disadvantage to all the Sensors.

The degree presentations were run in the old hall, which was way too small, and totally impractical. Quite frankly, the whole ceremony was run just like a traditional religious service.

The faculty members who were the smartest, were on the bottom of the faculty. The higher up someone was in the faculty hierarchy, the worse a lecturer they were, the less they seemed to understand their own subject, and the more they had admin skills and academic-political skills.

The whole thing was run as if the university took its public image very seriously, and presented a completely different image to the public, than what actually went on.

[AlfredSchnittke]

Originally Posted by scorpiomover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I went to Manchester University. I was in the maths department. The whole building was modern. I think it was built in the 60s. Giving different opinions, and even using different methods to the same answers, were discouraged, and what mattered was following what you were told. As an intuitive, I had a serious disadvantage to all the Sensors. The degree presentations were run in the old hall, which was way too small, and totally impractical. Quite frankly, the whole ceremony was run just like a traditional religious service. The faculty members who were the smartest, were on the bottom of the faculty. The higher up someone was in the faculty hierarchy, the worse a lecturer they were, the less they seemed to understand their own subject, and the more they had admin skills and academic-political skills. The whole thing was run as if the university took its public image very seriously, and presented a completely different image to the public, than what actually went on.

I can assure you that nothing has changed.

[darniem]

I guess I lucked out.

My college had a basilica on campus and monks walking about. Students slept in class, monks slept at mass. The parallels were quite amusing. In both instances, the professor pretended not to notice the sleeping students any more than the Abbot noticed his monks nodding off. But many monks had the excuse of being geriatric while the students were mostly just hungover.

[Merle]

	Why sure there's a point. I offer a 'gut feeling' intuition, and then an INTP comes along and does all the manual labor

Touché

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	Originally Posted by scorpiomover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The hierarchy, the economics, the politics, even the attitude to learning and teaching is a parallel of how the churches ran in the Middle Ages. Consequently, the same relationships exist, and they both match the same model. So the problems that one has/had, are the problems of the other.

How, exactly? Examples, please.

I can say that about anything: The hierarchy, economics, politics and system of learning in the ice-cream trade is a parallel of how medieval churches were run. See? Stating it doesn't make it a convincing argument.

They don't like people to ask questions in college either, not unless it's a question that the lecturers actually want you to ask, like questions that the lecturer already knows the answer to, and the answer is something he wanted to say anyway. I went to Manchester University. I was in the maths department. The whole building was modern. I think it was built in the 60s. Giving different opinions, and even using different methods to the same answers, were discouraged, and what mattered was following what you were told. As an intuitive, I had a serious disadvantage to all the Sensors.

Oh, poor little intuitive... what is with this thread and people leaning on their MBTI type to excuse their personal failings.

Perhaps your experience in a Maths department is different to mine in various humanities departments? Which should prompt you to consider that it might be difficult or illogical, even, to extrapolate from your experience a categorical description of universities as a whole. As an aside: maybe, particularly in Maths, a university might want to equip its undergraduates with a knowable set of knowledge, there is certainty in Maths that there isn't in History, for example, and so that might be reflected in an undergraduate curriculum that is more rigid. If you do not have the basics down, it is harder to ask the difficult questions later on.


But anyway, taking your statements as fact, for the moment, let's consider them in relation to the OP: the OP's claims about university being like church are dependent on multiple similarities for the whole analogy to work. If one of the similarities isn't present, the whole analogy begins to look pretty shaky. In your example, for instance, a university is a) somewhere where questioning authority and taking an independent route are not encouraged, and b )somewhere where, at the end of your time there, there is a single presentation ceremony which resembles a religious service. The buildings are modern and so don't really inspire awe and/or prompt you to think about God. In this case, can you say that your university resembled a church.... if you were looking for a fitting analogy, something like Basic Training for the Army seems to fit this particular situation better.

	The faculty members who were the smartest, were on the bottom of the faculty. The higher up someone was in the faculty hierarchy, the worse a lecturer they were, the less they seemed to understand their own subject, and the more they had admin skills and academic-political skills.

.

Most of this is disgruntled conspiracy, I hear it all the time in universities... mostly from a small group of people - almost always guys - who arrogantly think that they know more about a subject than their teachers... they're almost always wrong about who are the smartest members of faculty, and whether or not a lecturer understands their subject or not. What does any of it have to do with universities being like churches?...Are you implying that you've done an empirical survey of clergy from a variety of religions and found that the more senior members actually have little knowledge of religion, are bad public speakers but are good at administrative work. And an equal survey of university faculty and found that they were similar? If you have, then I would certainly grant you that universities are like churches in this way....if not, then it's just baseless opinion.

	The whole thing was run as if the university took its public image very seriously, and presented a completely different image to the public, than what actually went on

Of course they do! What kind of world do you think we live in?! The same happens in pretty much every corporation/institution that I can think of...again, I don't see that as compelling evidence that a university is like a church - all it proves is that most universities employ the corporate capitalist structure of business which is commonplace in the Western world.


Edit- I also wanted to add this: the university I attend currently, is actually a religious university; even so, the only one of CrudeHypothesis' points of similarity that it meets is the 'big buildings,' which are kind of hilariously faux-old - they are also easily understood in the context that I outlined above, in fact my university master plan was called 'Oxford in America'. Those buildings in themselves (even with their faux medieval look and religiously flavoured iconography) are not enough to make the experience of university here 'like church.' Economically and politically the university is run as a business. In terms of learning styles and the spaces where learning takes place, there are some undergraduate lectures, I think, but the vast majority of teaching is socratic/seminar style and even at the couple of lectures I attended questions, dissension and general openness to multiple viewpoints were a staple. The only place I see a remotely religious-like attitude to the school within the student body is at football games!

[CrudeHypothesis]

	Originally Posted by scorpiomover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I went to Manchester University. I was in the maths department. The whole building was modern. I think it was built in the 60s. Giving different opinions, and even using different methods to the same answers, were discouraged, and what mattered was following what you were told. As an intuitive, I had a serious disadvantage to all the Sensors.

I noticed the same things, and independently arrived at the same conclusions.

	Originally Posted by scorpiomover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The faculty members who were the smartest, were on the bottom of the faculty. The higher up someone was in the faculty hierarchy, the worse a lecturer they were, the less they seemed to understand their own subject, and the more they had admin skills and academic-political skills.

I have noticed this too. There are more explanations for it besides dementia with age.

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Oh, poor little intuitive... what is with this thread and people leaning on their MBTI type to excuse their personal failings.

As opposed to you, who is completely oblivious of your 'personal failings', quod erat demonstrandum via our interaction during this thread. 'Personal failings' sounds pretty harsh, but regardless, a more accurate term would be 'limitations of ones preferential functions'. It is a mark of maturity to recognize the limitations of ones preferential functions. Scorpiomover was using the recognizable MBTI terms to say with brevity that a system that discourages problem solving via understanding and encourages problem solving by memorizing methods favors those who are better at wrote memory and is disadvantageous to those who aren't. Why am I even explaining this. I'm sure Scorpiomover knows this too. Hey, he's an INTP too. There is a reason for the difference and I implore you to look into it.

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In this case, can you say that your university resembled a church.... if you were looking for a fitting analogy, something like Basic Training for the Army seems to fit this particular situation better.

Stop and just analyse what you just said. We both know there is many examples of how the analogy you propose fails to qualify. If you analysed it, you will have a list of examples. Now you can see that if a university is analogous to basic training, it would only hold true in a lose sense, and that is exactly what analogies are meant to be.

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Of course they do! What kind of world do you think we live in?! The same happens in pretty much every corporation/institution that I can think of...again, I don't see that as compelling evidence that a university is like a church - all it proves is that most universities employ the corporate capitalist structure of business which is commonplace in the Western world.

Analyse what you just said. You claimed that 'the same' happens in many cases, when you know that each case is an individual case that needs to be thoroughly analysed before you can come to any conclusion on each. To apply a universal affirmative here without sufficient evidence is making a logical fallacy and you know it. But don't worry, you are not being hypocritical or contradictory, because you haven't done 'exactly' what you told us not to do, and to think that you did contradict yourself would be making another logical fallacy
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[Merle]

Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

As opposed to you, who is completely oblivious of your 'personal failings', quod erat demonstrandum via our interaction during this thread. 'Personal failings' sounds pretty harsh, but regardless, a more accurate term would be 'limitations of ones preferential functions'. It is a mark of maturity to recognize the limitations of ones preferential functions. Scorpiomover was using the recognizable MBTI terms to say with brevity that a system that discourages problem solving via understanding and encourages problem solving by memorizing methods favors those who are better at wrote memory and is disadvantageous to those who aren't. Why am I even explaining this. I'm sure Scorpiomover knows this too. Hey, he's an INTP too. There is a reason for the difference and I implore you to look into it.

You've misunderstood me once again, I'm honestly not not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse...


Both you and Scorpiomover repeatedly fall back on the 'limitations of your preferential functions' to explain away why you were unsuccessful at something, or didn't fit in somewhere. It is absolutely a mark of maturity to be able to recognize your personal weaknesses, I don't think it is a mark of maturity if, instead of confronting them and working on a way to overcome them, you look for a convenient way of labelling those weaknesses that then allows you to blame your lack of success on an apparently instrinsic (and very difficult to change) quality - it's a displacement exercise, not a genuine confrontation of weakness.

My department in undergrad valued analytical, critical thinking that went right outside the box; should an ISTJ student in such a department chalk up their difficulties to provide this to an inherent personality issue and so continue to offer up the traditional, canonical answer each time? They'd probably get average marks and never feel that they learned very much (as scorpionmover seems to feel). Shouldn't they, instead, try and stretch their brain and find ways to try and offer less traditional answers? That's certainly what I would advocate. If it is right for an ISTJ to try and be more NT-ish, shouldn't it also be right for an INTP/INTJ to learn to be ISTJ-ish, rather than chalking up their mediocre performance to their personality type and leaving it at that.

	Stop and just analyse what you just said. We both know there is many examples of how the analogy you propose fails to qualify. If you analysed it, you will have a list of examples. Now you can see that if a university is analogous to basic training, it would only hold true in a lose sense, and that is exactly what analogies are meant to be.

I don't know if I have the patience for this anymore... yes, the analogy doesn't stand up to more detailed analysis. That was my point about broad-strokes analogies....they're useful primarily as a starting point, not as universalizing claims. But, yay, you went further, and realized that beyond the MOST BASIC level they really aren't much alike at all - progress!!!

My point in proposing a different analogy, though, was to show that scorpiomover's example was actually a very bad fit for your original analogy (therefore not really supporting it at all), and if he wanted to reduce his experience to a generalized approximation a different analogy would have to be chosen. That was more implied than explained in my post, though, sorry.

Analyse what you just said. You claimed that 'the same' happens in many cases, when you know that each case is an individual case that needs to be thoroughly analysed before you can come to any conclusion on each. To apply a universal affirmative here without sufficient evidence is making a logical fallacy and you know it. But don't worry, you are not being hypocritical or contradictory, because you haven't done 'exactly' what you told us not to do, and to think that you did contradict yourself would be making another logical fallacy To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Yes, you two are aggravating me... as a result, my use of language is less precise than it ought to be. I have tried to be very careful to use qualifying terms throughout this discussion, I slipped up here - apologies.

[CrudeHypothesis]

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

You've misunderstood me once again, I'm honestly not not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse... Both you and Scorpiomover repeatedly fall back on the 'limitations of your preferential functions' to explain away why you were unsuccessful at something, or didn't fit in somewhere. It is absolutely a mark of maturity to be able to recognize your personal weaknesses, I don't think it is a mark of maturity if, instead of confronting them and working on a way to overcome them, you look for a convenient way of labelling those weaknesses that then allows you to blame your lack of success on an apparently instrinsic (and very difficult to change) quality - it's a displacement exercise, not a genuine confrontation of weakness. My department in undergrad valued analytical, critical thinking that went right outside the box; should an ISTJ student in such a department chalk up their difficulties to provide this to an inherent personality issue and so continue to offer up the traditional, canonical answer each time? They'd probably get average marks and never feel that they learned very much (as scorpionmover seems to feel). Shouldn't they, instead, try and stretch their brain and find ways to try and offer less traditional answers? That's certainly what I would advocate. If it is right for an ISTJ to try and be more NT-ish, shouldn't it also be right for an INTP/INTJ to learn to be ISTJ-ish, rather than chalking up their mediocre performance to their personality type and leaving it at that.

You're making a valid point, and I understand that, but that poses a problem. When does recognizing and labeling ones incompatibility become justifying why one has difficulty with something? The answer, it's always justifying. Pointing out the fact that someone is justifying their difficulties is stating the obvious. The real question is the meaning of the justification. If one is justifying why they are having difficulty as a means to not address the problem, that's probably a psychological defense mechanism, and it's worth trying to make them see that so they can rise to the challenge of overcoming their problem. If someone is justifying their difficulty as a means of understanding where the incompatibility is, so that they can circumvent it and still solve the problem, that's simply someone using their head. You are not in a position to judge whether someone is justifying to avoid or to circumvent, if you have incomplete information about what they are doing with their justification. NTs may find an education system based mostly on wrote memory difficult, and in those cases it's recommended to rely on ones strengths.

Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I don't know if I have the patience for this anymore... yes, the analogy doesn't stand up to more detailed analysis. That was my point about broad-strokes analogies....they're useful primarily as a starting point, not as universalizing claims. But, yay, you went further, and realized that beyond the MOST BASIC level they really aren't much alike at all - progress!!! My point in proposing a different analogy, though, was to show that scorpiomover's example was actually a very bad fit for your original analogy (therefore not really supporting it at all), and if he wanted to reduce his experience to a generalized approximation a different analogy would have to be chosen. That was more implied than explained in my post, though, sorry.

Thank you for finally revealing your point. I agree with your point. Attempting to convey that point by showing that analogies fail to identify correlations if analysed critically is an ineffective method of communication, as seen by how long it took to arrive at the point. Were you hoping that we would infer your point if you implied it? I speculate that a likely explanation is that you didn't know what point you were making, at least not in a form you could initially put into words, and had to discover it through interaction that would place demands upon you to explain your logic. However, I have insufficient evidence for that speculation, and it's only a hypothesis. I'd tell you about more effective methods of communication, but I have no evidence those methods would work for communicating with anyone else but me
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	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Yes, you two are aggravating me... as a result, my use of language is less precise than it ought to be. I have tried to be very careful to use qualifying terms throughout this discussion, I slipped up here - apologies.

I could make a joke that you're justifying your 'personal failings' blaming others to avoid responsibility, but I won't
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I have insufficient evidence to judge, but it's likely you're recognizing your 'slip up' as a means to being less aggravated and more objective, which is exemplification of what I just said in the first paragraph of this post.

[The Dan Keizer]

I only went to community college, which was much more like high school than church.

[Merle]

Originally Posted by CrudeHypothesis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Thank you for finally revealing your point. I agree with your point. Attempting to convey that point by showing that analogies fail to identify correlations if analysed critically is an ineffective method of communication, as seen by how long it took to arrive at the point. Were you hoping that we would infer your point if you implied it? I speculate that a likely explanation is that you didn't know what point you were making, at least not in a form you could initially put into words, and had to discover it through interaction that would place demands upon you to explain your logic.

See the last sentence of my first post in this thread.

[Axion004]

I have noticed that the students group together in the lecture halls the same way in which masses come together in Sunday church service.

[CrudeHypothesis]

	Originally Posted by Merle To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	See the last sentence of my first post in this thread.

It's only conclusive in isolation. When taken as part of the whole it comes across as more of an afterthought.

---------- Post added 06-23-2012 at 01:02 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by Axion004 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I have noticed that the students group together in the lecture halls the same way in which masses come together in Sunday church service.

What, with the talking and laughing and then getting quiet when it starts? Now I see it. I usually come in on time and sit down without talking. I also stay quiet all the way through while others get bored and start chatting.