Just to reply to this quickly: you're missing out on a huge component when you try to tell me that everybody's expressions would come directly from sensory observation, indicating Se-dominance would then be universal. Did you deliberately ignore or are you ignorant?
Just as the perception functions (N , S) represent different ways of perceiving data cognitively, they could also represent different ways of perceiving data physiologically.
The cranial nerves of which I speak, the ones "everybody has" (of course ... everybody has a brain too but some use theirs differently right?), are likely responsible for generating the responses that Auburn studies. I stand behind this, because it is probably true.
Tell me why, though, does it automatically mean that facial observations come directly from sensory observation? This is a highly inaccurate if>then relationship.
Because you wrote "prior to cortical processing". How would you know which nerves get the signal first?
Ne points out to me, that it is easy to observe, that under situations of stress and danger, people react "without thinking". Now, obviously, this isn't perfectly accurate in terms of brain processing. All your retinal eye cones detect, are levels of RGB and brightness, pure electrical signals. Something HAS to do the processing to convert that into an understandable image. With modern software, that requires huge amounts of CPU processing. Something else, has to process what those objects can do, and are known to do, via experience and knowledge in the memory banks, and by that, work out what is a danger. Something else, has to process what one can do to avoid those threats. All that, and more, has to happen, for a simple reaction "without thinking".
But it's quite clear that INTPs and INTJs see clearly that most are acting "without thinking" very often, and we find that odd, because we like to think before acting. So we can see a big difference.
So there must be some pretty major cognitive processing, that is a massive addition to the already huge "without-thinking" processing that goes on in less than a second.
What we see instead is a two-way feedback loop between the thalamus (which receives all preliminary perceptions, prior to accessing the cortex), and the cortex itself. There are also connections to many other areas (areas I have previously identified and presently find myself unable to) - though the ventral tegmental area and amygdala come to mind - regions which are associated with reward systems, emotional responses to the environment, anger and fear conditioning.
Great use of Ti.
Not enough Ne. If you notice, humans use 2-way feedback loops all the time. Incidentally, the term for 2-way in a feedback loop, is "duplex". To post messages like this on a forum, it's layered, first in the basic hardware protocol for the network port, then the network device protocol, then the TCP/IP protocol, then the XHTML protocol, and finally the client/server protocol, and sitting on all that, is you, pressing the button. Why so many layers? Because you're sending all sorts of different types of messages all over the place, and you need to SYNCHRONISE them, and make sure that they all match up to their corresponding senders and listeners. So to ensure that this all happens smoothly, each type of message, is standardised in a protocol, and protocols are layered on each other, to keep them separate.
It's not just in the internet. There are protocol layers in the OS itself, in the application framework, and in every part of society that is somewhat organised. We call it "red tape". It's real function is to ensure that the majority of messages get delivered to the right people, in the appropriate time-frame, in a way they will be able to recognise.
Organising feedback loops into a set of layered protocols, is a natural evolutionary step, because it really does work much more efficiently and effectively.
The brain has 10 billion neurons, each with the capabilities of a small city, transmitting data at least several times a second, and in reality, probably way quicker than that. The brain tends to strengthen whatever is used more, which gives it a selection process, that would be perfect for evolution, and with an evolutionary time-scale easily enough to develop complex structures. Even if the brain didn't have those protocol layers in its biological design, it would have evolved them as neural connections.
Your next argument is that the judging functions must occur in the cortex (basically).
If you'll notice, I wrote that the frontal lobe makes predictions about the future. Stop a moment. Plan out a route in your mind. Doing it? You're imagining the scenario, aren't you? What's more, you're imagining the scenario changing as you move through it, and reacting to your actions, aren't you? That's called a simulation, which is a visual form of
perception. Judgement is also involved. But it's a perceiving process that is the simulator, to work out what might happen, to make a judgement on it.
You state that these regions operate too slowly to respond in emergency situations (which basically goes with the flow that Se is best adapted to this from a Darwinian perspective). However, let me steer you in a different direction ...
Although it is these regions of the cortex that can be readily identified as the areas for "thinking and planning", they are not solely responsible for these functions and their effective operation relies on learned responses to external/internal stimuli. The regions that mediate this learning (we're talking Skinner here) include the same regions I just mentioned - these areas maintain connections to all areas of the brain, frontal cortex and thalamus alike.
The frontal cortex doesn't act alone whenever a judging function is engaged. Actually, by some people's definition, consciousness absolutely requires an adaptive and directive function to be employed simultaneously amrite? The frontal cortex is controlling the voluntary aspects of thought and planning but is still connected and in control, even when reflexes take precedence to consciousness.
Again, let's look at Ne. In any city, every professional company is linked to every other professional company, via other companies, in an interconnected network, which we can call an "internet". Just as with the computerised internet, to keep communication lines working effectively and efficiently, you need protocol layers, which, as I've explained, exist in real life. Can you guess what comes next? The brain has the same setup.
Actually, by some people's definition, consciousness absolutely requires an adaptive and directive function to be employed simultaneously amrite?
Consciousness requires some level of self-awareness, a hook that allows one to analyse one's own programs. In other words, a
debugger.
Cognitive functions are more about neural circuits than specific areas. The feedback system is what is important. I feel I must summarize:
The thalamus receives all sensory information prior to cortical processing. This information is transmitted directly to the thalamus from the sensory organs. When you think of the optic nerve, or the auditory nerve, for example, they transmit directly to the thalamus first.
From here, the information is sent to the cortex for perception processing. There is visual cortex, auditory cortex, somatosensory, motor, et cetera. Each one of these areas performs an integration of the data packets it receives to build a larger, whole picture of the external environment.
What happens is the cortical regions send information back to the thalamus, which is also in a perpetual send/receive state with the frontal cortex (thinking/judging/planning regions), the amygdala (emotional response, fear and anger, responsible for the most primitive learning there is), the ventral tegmental area (highly implicated in reward circuitry) - leading to the cause that some circuits are used more than others.
Some circuits are used more than others. It's a response to a lifetime of reward conditioning in the brain. We observe them as cognitive functions.
You seem to be treating the brain as though it is hard-wired, or in programming terms, hard-coded. Again, not enough Ne.
In IT, there is a wide level of variety between hard-coding, and soft-coding, setting up epigenetic and epimemetic switches, to control which circuits switch on and off, and that can be changed as requirements change. As a rule, the more hard-coded something is, the quicker it runs, and the more soft-coded something is, the more flexible it runs. Maybe an exceptionally rigid SP could claim he was hard-wired. But never an INTP. His mind is way too flexible. But no-one seems to be reporting that INTPs have bigger heads or something. So, as Architect points out, we ALL have ALL the circuits. We have ALL the programs. It's a preference, which functions we choose to use over others, and that makes one's individual choice of MBTI functions into soft-coded epimemetic switches.
There is another problem. Each cognitive function can be compared to a type of algorithm, or a type of design pattern, reductionist Ti for one, holistic Fi for another. But there are way more than 16 algorithms and design patterns, and they are each suited for different purposes. Jung provides only categories of algorithms and design patterns.
This hints at a very unnoticed aspect of evolutionary processes. Evolutionary processes don't just cause a single species to thrive, but many species at the same time, for the same reasons. Evolutionary processes work, because they have a constant supply of changes via mutations, creating steady state systems with punctuated equilibrium. At the same time, the changes happen because of a particular bias in an evolutionary pressure, that works stronger one way than the other, according to the conditions of the environment and the conditions of the species involved. By calculating the conditions of the environment and the biases of the evolutionary pressures, we can arrive at a general formula for each moment, that tells us the conditions that will predict which species will thrive, and which will lose numbers and eventually go extinct. It doesn't matter if the distinction physically exists. The distinction exists, as a logical construct, that is true for the situation, which gives us equivalence classes of species in the current time. All of the species in the same equivalence class, will show the same behaviours, that are different from the others, which allows for a taxonomical categorisation. If we didn't pay attention to the individual species themselves, then we could only judge the categories as if they were all the same species.
Same thing for any evolutionary process. We're not analysing each algorithm and design pattern individually. That only leaves us the categories, which would be the equivalence classes of the algorithms and design patterns of the brain. The categories only LOOK like cognitive functions themselves, because they show the logical similarities in the behaviours of different algorithms and design patterns.
There may not be even any physical neural circuitry or soft-coding at all in the brain, that might correspond to Ti or Ne, and the same would still be true.
Have you considered an over-reliance on Si established scientific consensus knowledge, of currently popular theories about the brain?
As Auburn said, scientists admit to not understanding the brain very well at all. Doesn't that suggest, that there is the smallest smidgeon of doubt, and maybe, their current ideas might also contain misunderstandings?
Why would they think that their ideas are questionable? Scientists are normally very over-confident about stuff they make claims about. BSE, eggs changing from healthy to dangerous to healthy again, climate change. Perhaps, it is because they have noticed that their theories are contradicted by other experimental results, that have been repeated many times? Then why not go back to the experimental results, and develop your own theory, that is consistent with all the consistent experimental results? Why not just let go, and expand your mind to whatever makes most sense, even if scientists don't say it?
on Ink's posts and eye.
