Visual Identification in Typing

[Expat]

1) It's a superficial means of typing someone. For example, I have a friend who has a similar appearence to me. He is tall, thin, wears glasses, keeps his hair neat, and isn't much of a dresser. I could see how people would type us the same way; we both look like nerds. The problem is that we are two very different people. He's very stubborn, "correct", regimented, and could live without any comfort. I am none of these things. I am very disorderly, flexible, and much more focused on coming up with ideas than him. I think it would be unlikely that we're the same type.

Well, anyone who'd type people based on their height, or on wearing glasses or not, would not be using VI properly. "Thin" is not quite as bad but it brings us to the issue of body type which is anyway more complex than just whether you are thin or not.

The point I'm making is that what you are illustrating is a case of incompetent VI, not a demonstration of the weakness of VI as such.

2) As far as I know, there is no evidence that demonstrates that it's true. Fantastic claims require evidence to show that they're true. Otherwise, what reason is there to believe them? If you don't have any evidence as to why it's true, then there should at least be some theory as to what causes the relationship. Either there is something which causes both characteristics (personality and appearence), or one characteristic somehow causes the other. This should be explained.

VI from videos - where you can see and hear the person talking and moving - has as much evidence as anything in socionics, imo.

As to VI from pictures: precisely in order to check its validity, now and then I post here (or to some people in private) pictures of people I have known for a very long time and whom I have typed through other methods, and ask them to VI them. Not everybody gets the correct type, but the percentage of correct or near-correct answers is far higher than mere chance would account for.

Now, it's not "exact science". Personally I see VI from pictures as a sort of educated guess. But, in the absence of any other evidence, it's correct often enough to be useful.

3) Different people have proposed different methods of visual identification. If no one can agree on how the types look, then there is less reason to believe that it's true.

The best thing to do is perhaps to leave VI alone for a while, and concentrate on typing people you know through other methods. After you have typed enough people, your own VI method will emerge. Or not.