A Beautiful Mind

Ni: John Nash was a bit of a workaholic. He was so focused on his vision of what he wanted to accomplish that he had difficulty refraining from that focus to attend lectures, socialise, or date (until compelled). He had an incredibly big picture view of things, to the point that he saw little value in attending classes while in college. He saw fitting into the system as a waste of time, and valued innovation and original thinking instead. Nash’s hallucinations presented themselves in such a way that he believed himself to be a code-breaker, a man paid to recognize patterns. With Nash, everything was patterns. He studied them everywhere, and it was this obsession that eventually led him to his “original discovery.” At the same time, Nash was very intuitive, and his intuitive beliefs frequently preceded his need for evidence.

Te: Nash was quite direct and blunt in his communication style. He didn’t lie about things, and if he didn’t want to explain himself, he simply informed people that he couldn’t tell them. He often needed evidence to support any belief he wanted to adopt, and even went so far as to ask for verifiable data of his wife’s love before he agreed to marry her. Nash was very indifferent to other’s skeptic beliefs about him, and he didn’t particularly care what anyone thought of him. Ridicule simply bounced off of him.

Fi: Nash identified closely with people who were most like him, making his idols introverted thinkers such as Newton and Nietzsche. He valued “authentic creativity” above tradition and refused to attend classes for this reason. He was reluctant to talk about his feelings, to the point that he even locks his wife out of the bedroom so that she can’t question him. He was willing to accept the reality that his schizophrenia made him a danger to his wife and to send her away to protect her. Nash didn’t look to popular opinion to tell him what was right or wrong, and frequently went against the norm and even authority when he saw good cause to do so.

Se: Under stress (or on meds) Nash lost interest in many of the things that were once very important to him. Nash was trusting of his senses, and had a difficult time overcoming the reality that he couldn’t value them as verifiable sources of knowledge. When focused on a project, he often zoomed in so closely on it that he forgot to take care of himself, eat or even interact with people.

---

There are a few existing arguments for Nash being an INTP, but they all come from people who don’t understand the functions and claim that he’s too “spontaneous” and uncommitted to classes to be a J-type.

Hmm…very funny. I bet those people don’t know any INTJs, because many of us are very poor students, but excellent scholars outside of class.