How and Why the Functions Work

[Moocow]

I'm making this thread to give everyone a technical breakdown of what is happening with each function, rather than just a stream of thought, wall-of-text explanation to dig through.

Let's start here by clearly defining the first dichotomy of how we work:

Perception and Direction
Or, Input and Output.
​

To perceive is to simply experience something, be it your senses, your memories, your imagination, words coming from a mouth, or a song from your headphones. Perception interacts with direction by illuminating both the circumstances and the available choices.

To direct is simply to make any form of decision, including the decision of what to perceive.

The feedback loop of perception and direction is what makes us conscious.

Both Direction and Perception are each dichotomized into an introverted and extroverted function.

Extroverted functions are the experience of the present moment. Everything happening right now is a combination of your extroverted direction and your extroverted perception.

Introverted functions occur too quickly to say exactly when they occur. They're only inferred by the impact they have on the external functions.
This means that when you think you are using an introverted function, you are still using the extroverted one to perceive the effects of the introverted function.

One way to think of it is like "energy" which we can only define by observable changes in matter. Extroverted functions are the matter, and introverted functions are the energy.


So now we have the following categories:
Introverted perception
Introverted direction
Extroverted perception
Extroverted direction

Dichotomize all of those again into:

Differential vs Integral​

...and you have the 8 possible functions.

Feeling is integral because impulse desire is the origin of all decisions, starting with the continuous desire to remain alive, at any given moment.

Therefore:
Introverted Feeling means that desires are implicit.
Extroverted Feeling means that desire is dependent on circumstances.


Thinking differentiates desires into momentary contexts (as provided by your perception) for comparison. This gives us the ability to make decisions that benefit us more, and subsequently survive, by accounting for time and context than if we followed our immediate impulse.

Therefore:
Introverted Thinking means that contextual comparison is implicit.
Extroverted thinking means that contextual comparison is dependent on circumstances.


Intuition integrates sensory experience into cognitively-conceived patterns and relationships. It handles our grasp of causality and time.

Therefore:
Introverted Intuition means that relationships of form are implicit. (beliefs, assumptions)
Extroverted Intuition means that relationships of form are constantly observed. (this thread)


Sensing differentiates patterns into forms that can be experienced. A pattern by itself can not be experienced unless it is given a form, such as a language or art. The sensory organs of our body are often included here because you can think of color, taste, and audio as our natural languages for self communication. Color would be as meaningless and arbitrary as our invented symbols if not for the contexts in which it appears to us.

Therefore:
Introverted Sensing applies sensory forms by which Extroverted Intuition can then experience patterns.
Extroverted Sensing receives forms from the world so that Introverted Intuition can infer patterns.


Functions automatically pair between the directive and perceptive axis, and the specific pair we find a preference for becomes the basis of our personality.

My personal theory on how the initial preference is chosen is based in weakness. As a baby, everyone is weak, fragile, and vulnerable. The process of growing and maturing encompasses our attempts to develop whatever lies contrary to that weakness in an effort to protect it and foremost, survive.
We may excel at using our dominant functions, but that which we value most is what we keep safe out of sight. This is why the inferior functions seem to be a consistent root of our struggles, and why we turn to our dominant function to attempt to deal with it. A weakness is essentially the part of ourselves we have the least control over, and are thus most controlled by.

Strengths are developed primarily to compensate for, and mask innate weaknesses. This is the simplest (and possibly most unnerving) explanation for why we are the way we are. Every moment that you are alive, whether you realize it or not, survival is naturally the highest priority. No other priorities can even be considered without first continuing to exist.

That's it all in a nutshell. I might elaborate a bit more later.

 

[Roran]

Interesting.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

At the very least, I like your re-branding of "judging" into "direction". It's a much better way of describing the Judging functions.

(It's also one of the reasons that I got along with my INFP ex-gf so much. We both perceived the same information, so we could empathize with eachother, but we made different choices based on it. We took the information in different directions.)

But I don't know if I buy differential vs. integral. It seems a bit too simple for what's actually going on. Care to elaborate on why they're different and important? (It is interesting, though, that differential/integral match the left/right brain split.)

 

[darude11]

Nice article. I didn't really get the differential/integral. Is "differential" something like "normal" or more "ordered" in your meanings? This one is really only thing that I haven't understood. Everything else is fine

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I like how you group N and F together as both integral. ; D

I had used the terms 'holistic' and 'linear' (not as necessarily in a line but as looking at each point separately and then progressing from that) for that same division in functions. Integral and differential is basically the same. I can't remember if I used this division as well. Either way, I likes it. Interestingly, some types have only integral or only differential extraverted functions, whereas others have a mix. Investigating the effects of such divisions would be interesting.

And also the note about consciousness arising from the constant interplay of perception and judgment is something I agree with, though there may be a different kind of awareness associated with having only one (e.g. the stillness of mind that arises from meditation). Certainly consciousness of time only comes about through their interplay.

The thing about unawareness of introverted functions (only knowing them through the extraverted functions) is very interesting. A deeper analysis into this would prove interesting. This ties into the subjective and objective worlds I think. There may be a deeper significance to the energy mass analogy than there seems.

 

[Moocow]

At the very least, I like your re-branding of "judging" into "direction". It's a much better way of describing the Judging functions.

(It's also one of the reasons that I got along with my INFP ex-gf so much. We both perceived the same information, so we could empathize with eachother, but we made different choices based on it. We took the information in different directions.)

But I don't know if I buy differential vs. integral. It seems a bit too simple for what's actually going on. Care to elaborate on why they're different and important? (It is interesting, though, that differential/integral match the left/right brain split.)

Nice article. I didn't really get the differential/integral. Is "differential" something like "normal" or more "ordered" in your meanings? This one is really only thing that I haven't understood. Everything else is fine

With perception, differential means creating a particular, sub-context and integral means envisioning an absolute, whole context. These are the actions required in order to think.

With direction, I am hypothesizing that feelings are the holistic side and that decisions are all encompassed by a primal motivation, while thinking is about making decisions by deriving sub-contexts from an otherwise vague notion of what we have to do.

Basically, perception differentiates and integrates information, while direction differentiates and integrates action.

I specifically chose those words because "ordered" is too vague, but you're on the right track. Our sense of order comes from how we differentiate.

 

[Moocow]

I like how you group N and F together as both integral. ; D

I had used the terms 'holistic' and 'linear' (not as necessarily in a line but as looking at each point separately and then progressing from that) for that same division in functions. Integral and differential is basically the same. I can't remember if I used this division as well. Either way, I likes it. Interestingly, some types have only integral or only differential extraverted functions, whereas others have a mix. Investigating the effects of such divisions would be interesting.

And also the note about consciousness arising from the constant interplay of perception and judgment is something I agree with, though there may be a different kind of awareness associated with having only one (e.g. the stillness of mind that arises from meditation). Certainly consciousness of time only comes about through their interplay.

In meditation, one may achieve a "slow vibration" of a sort by focusing for as long as possible on mostly perception. After simply perceiving for an hour or more, I find that extraordinary clarity of direction follows for a similar amount of time. Having absorbed all the information I can, both the holistic and partial contexts of what I must do with myself become perfectly clear.
They alternate automatically but we have the ability to change its rate with our focus. Focusing, though, is a directive act, and whether or not we do that to begin with requires having perceived something like this sentence to queue in that it's what has to be done.

I was stuck on the line vs plane, point vs. line thing until I realized it's the relationship between a point and a line that I'm looking for. A line is the integral of a point, and an area is the integral of a line. Si is the derivative of Ne, and Ni is the derivative of Se.

The thing about unawareness of introverted functions (only knowing them through the extraverted functions) is very interesting. A deeper analysis into this would prove interesting. This ties into the subjective and objective worlds I think. There may be a deeper significance to the energy mass analogy than there seems.

I don't know if I can explain it without seeming too esoteric and ambitious, but the metaphor isn't entirely a metaphor. I'm inclined to think that the introverted functions, and subsequently the self as a whole literally falls under "energy." What something is actually is defined at the base by what it is doing, and all things are fundamentally processes. The "object" quality we give our world is the act of our imaginations deriving, so ironically the world of substance and form is... formless and insubstantial, or imagined.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I am at odds with your choice of words to explain concepts, except for perception(which is unchanged), but the descriptions provided for each function is on the right track, in my opinion.

 

[Black Rose]

If it energy that directs my outward as an extrovert feeler than only be action can I come to being self fulfilled. Doing ethic not contemplation of it is satisfying. But then Ni comes along and I know instantly If I am in the right or wrong when patterns are absorbed instantly Se.

If my Ti is implicitness but week, I had difficulty when reading this thread.

I am saying this correctly I need more simplified example?

 

[SkyWalker]

I totally agree with perception=input, and judgement=direction=output. Thats why I said in a thread before that there is a certain free will involved for output, but for input it is constantly bombarding you, you cannot choose there.

But I dont agree with your introverted/extraverted explanantion of "when" things happen, this is totally weird to me.

this is my take on it:
extraverted functions pursue (whats objectively right)
introverted functions avoid (whats subjectively wrong)

 

[Moocow]

I totally agree with perception=input, and judgement=direction=output. Thats why I said in a thread before that there is a certain free will involved for output, but for input it is constantly bombarding you, you cannot choose there.

But I dont agree with your introverted/extraverted explanantion of "when" things happen, this is totally weird to me.

this is my take on it:
extraverted functions pursue (whats objectively right)
introverted functions avoid (whats subjectively wrong)

I think your take on it is too specific to be true in all cases and I'm not sure I understand your reasoning behind it. Introverted functions determine both what to pursue and avoid because they are the background data used to make those distinctions.
"Right" and "wrong" are just a specific kind of dichotomy that can be used, forgotten, replaced with a different one, turned into more categories, etc. I'm saying that the action of distinguishing right from wrong is what the introverted functions do (or refuse to do, depending) while the actions associated with having made that judgement are carried out by extroverted direction, and the information currently being judged is being read through by extroverted perception.

If you are going by how extroverts behave versus how introverts behave, I think there are varying degrees to how much time we put into cycling over the functions of our preference, but not all introverts are avoidant and not all extroverts are extremely pursuant.