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Jung and the attitude of the auxiliary

56K views 96 replies 23 participants last post by  Touno 
#1 ·
I've posted before on Jung's perspective on the attitude of the auxiliary function, but I've been meaning to plant a more longform post on that subject for a while. The issue just got raised here and, rather than derail that thread, I thought it made more sense to reply in a new thread.

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According to Myers, Jung's function model called for the auxiliary function to have the opposite attitude to the dominant (e.g., Ni-Te for INTJs). But Myers acknowledged that the great majority of Jung scholars — all but one, she said — disagreed with that interpretation. I think she was mistaken (assuming she wasn't being disingenuous) although it wasn't a very significant "mistake" from Myers' perspective since, although she gave the functions quite a lot of lip service in the first half of Gifts Differing, she then essentially left them behind in favor of the dichotomies (to her credit, IMHO) — and, for anyone who's interested, I discuss that issue at greater length in the post I link to at the end of this one.

I think the only interpretation that's really consistent with Psychological Types as a whole — as distinguished from Myers' very selective cherry-picking — is that Jung's function model for an Ti-dom with an N auxiliary was really Ti-Ni-Se-Fe, and I think that's how he viewed himself at the time he wrote Psychological Types.

Jung said more people were essentially in the middle on E/I than were significantly extraverted or introverted and, because he viewed his eight function-types as four varieties of extravert and four varieties of introvert, that may mean Jung thought that a plurality of people really didn't have a well-differentiated dominant function. But, setting the typeless folks aside, Jung thought that what you might call the default state of affairs for someone who did have a dominant function was that their dominant (substantially differentiated) function would have what Jung called their "conscious attitude" (i.e., introverted for an introvert), and all three of the other functions would have the opposite attitude and would basically be "fused" with the other undifferentiated functions in the unconscious.

Describing the F, S and N functions of a Ti-dom, Jung explained:

Jung said:
The counterbalancing functions of feeling, intuition, and sensation are comparatively unconscious and inferior, and therefore have a primitive extraverted character that accounts for all the troublesome influences from outside to which the introverted thinker is prone.
But... notwithstanding that I just referred to that as the "default" state of affairs, Jung also said that, in the typical case, a person would also have an auxiliary function that, although it was less differentiated than the dominant, would be sufficiently differentiated to "exert a co-determining influence" in their "consciousness."

I believe Jung's view was that, although the default attitude of the second function was in the opposite direction from the dominant function, that corresponded with the default place for the second function being the unconscious — in an "archaic" state and fused with the other unconscious functions. If and to the extent that the second function was brought up into consciousness and developed ("differentiated") as the auxiliary function (serving the dominant), I think Jung envisioned that it would also, to that extent, take on the same conscious attitude (e.g., introversion for an introvert) as the dominant function.

In the brief section of Psychological Types devoted to the auxiliary function, Jung specifically refers to the tertiary and inferior functions as the "unconscious functions" and the dominant and auxiliary functions as the "conscious ones"; and he notes that "the unconscious functions ... group themselves in patterns correlated with the conscious ones. Thus, the correlative of conscious, practical thinking [— i.e., a T-dom with an S-aux—] may be an unconscious, intuitive-feeling attitude, with feeling under a stronger inhibition than intuition." Thirty years later, in Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy, Jung's model hadn't changed. As he explained:

Jung said:
If we think of the psychological function [sic] as arranged in a circle, then the most differentiated function is usually the carrier of the ego and, equally regularly, has an auxiliary function attached to it. The "inferior" function, on the other hand, is unconscious and for that reason is projected into a non-ego. It too has an auxiliary function. ...

In the psychology of the functions there are two conscious and therefore masculine functions, the differentiated function and its auxiliary, which are represented in dreams by, say, father and son, whereas the unconscious functions appear as mother and daughter. Since the conflict between the two auxiliary functions is not nearly as great as that between the differentiated and the inferior function, it is possible for the third function — that is, the unconscious auxiliary one — to be raised to consciousness and thus made masculine. It will, however, bring with it traces of its contamination with the inferior function, thus acting as a kind of link with the darkness of the unconscious.
As already noted, the majority of Jung scholars believe that Jung viewed the auxiliary function as providing balance between judging and perceiving, but not between introversion and extraversion. Myers largely rested her contrary case on the sentence where Jung says the auxiliary function is "in every respect different" from the dominant function. And I'd agree that her interpretation would appear to be the best one if all you do is look at that one sentence in isolation. But the trouble is, that interpretation seems inconsistent with way too much else in Psychological Types. When Jung wrote about how an introvert's introversion gets balanced (or "compensated," as he more often put it) by extraversion (and vice versa) — and he actually devoted a great deal of Psychological Types to that issue — he consistently envisioned the I/E balance happening by way of the unconscious, and never by way of a differentiated conscious function oriented in the opposite direction.

Jung spent substantially more of Psychological Types talking about extraversion and introversion than he spent talking about all eight of the functions put together. In the Foreword to a 1934 edition of the book, Jung explained that he'd put the eight specific "function-type" descriptions at the end of the book for a reason, and he said, "I would therefore recommend the reader who really wants to understand my book to immerse himself first of all in chapters II and V."

Chapter II is Jung's detailed discussion of Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, and centers around Schiller's insight, as a Ti-dom, into the specific kinds of "barbarism" found in the dominant Christian culture as the result of its one-sidedly extraverted orientation. Jung, as a fellow Ti-dom, concurred with much of Schiller's analysis, and noted that the extraverted one-sidedness of the culture (and its consequential barbarism) had only gotten worse since 1795 (when Schiller wrote).

At 110 pages, Chapter V is the longest chapter in the book, and it centers around a detailed analysis of Spitteler's Prometheus and Epimetheus — which, as Jung notes, very much parallels his interpretation of Schiller. Jung calls Prometheus & Epimetheus "a poetic work based almost entirely on the type problem," and explains that the conflict at the heart of it "is essentially a struggle between the introverted and extraverted lines of development in one and the same individual, though the poet has embodied it in two independent figures and their typical destinies." Epimetheus (embodying the extraverted attitude) represents the established, traditional Church and the (by Spitteler's time, as both he and Jung saw it) barbaric influence of its one-sidedly extraverted attitude on Western culture, while Prometheus tries to bring about a religious reformation/renewal as a result of the introverted orientation that causes him to represent the view that God is to be found within each man rather than outside him.

And the central focus on extraversion/introversion, and the things Jung thought all extraverts and all introverts tend to have in common, runs through every chapter of Psychological Types other than Chapter X — the only part of the book with any substantial description of the eight functions.

As Jung saw it, the dynamics of the human psyche revolved first and foremost around a single great divide, and that divide involved two all-important components — namely, introversion/extraversion and conscious/unconscious.

And for Jung, to a much greater degree than Myers, a person's unconscious played a large role in motivating and influencing their ordinary thoughts, feelings and behavior. Jung thought that, for a typical person on a typical day, something like half of their speech and behavior might well be the product of their unconscious functions, and Jung said it was sometimes hard to tell the consciously-sourced stuff from the unconsciously-sourced stuff. He said one way to figure out which was which was to be on the lookout for the "archaic" (or "primitive") aspects that tended to be charactistic of unconscious-based stuff.

So, under ordinary circumstances, the one-sidedness of an introvert's conscious side would be "compensated" on a daily basis by extraversion from the unconscious. But Jung noted that, as time passed, there could be a tendency for the introverted one-sidedness to increase — possibly by greater development of the dominant function (potentially a positive thing for some purposes) — which in turn would mean that the unconscious extraverted stuff got repressed to a greater degree and failed to provide adequate "compensation," resulting in a build-up of dammed libido in the unconscious. (Jung's break with Freud was, alas, far from total. :p) This could lead to neurotic symptoms, and maybe things would end up being resolved in a relatively undramatic way or maybe the person would end up needing Jung's professional services.

Jung viewed the conflicting aspects of extraversion and introversion as so fundamentally opposed that it was ultimately impossible to truly reconcile them in terms of anything in the nature of conscious reasoning. Instead, Jung said that extraversion and introversion could only be reconciled in a kind of inchoate and fragile way, by a process he referred to as the "transcendent function," through which a "symbol" would arise from the unconscious that would allow the repressed unconscious libido to surface in a constructive way and unite with the conscious attitude — but only temporarily, because "after a while the opposites recover their strength." Jung explained that "the creation of a symbol is not a rational process, for a rational process could never produce an image that represents a content which is at bottom incomprehensible."

Contrast all that with Myers' notion that everyone's conscious side includes both an introverted and an extraverted function that, in a reasonably well developed person, work together to keep the person balanced both in terms of judgment/perception and extraversion/introversion.

Again, the psychodynamics of the conflict between extraversion and introversion was really Jung's great theme in Psychological Types — as he emphasized in that 1934 foreword. If you asked someone trying to defend Myers' interpretation how an opposite-attitude auxiliary function could have been missing in action through all those chapters where the E/I battles raged, they might point to the fact that the section of Chapter X devoted to the auxiliary function was extremely brief — an afterthought, really — and so the E-vs.-I aspect of the auxiliary's role was just something Jung didn't happen to mention. But I'd argue that, if Jung thought the auxiliary function played any substantial role in terms of a person's E/I psychodynamics, (1) there's no way the auxiliary function would have ended up being a brief afterthought at the end of Chapter X, and (2) there's no way all the many passages in the first nine chapters where extraversion and introversion repress each other and fight each other and compensate each other would have been written in the way they were — i.e., with the E/I psychodyamics consistently and exclusively framed as parallelling the conscious/unconscious divide.

Want more? In 1923 — two years after Psychological Types was published — Jung gave a lecture (separately published in 1925) that's included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types. After some opening remarks on the shortcomings of past approaches to typology, here's how he began his discussion of extraverts and introverts:

Jung said:
f we wish to define the psychological peculiarity of a man in terms that will satisfy not only our own subjective judgment but also the object judged, we must take as our criterion that state or attitude which is felt by the object to be the conscious, normal condition. Accordingly, we shall make his conscious motives our first concern, while eliminating as far as possible our own arbitrary interpretations.

Proceeding thus we shall discover, after a time, that in spite of the great variety of conscious motives and tendencies, certain groups of individuals can be distinguished who are characterized by a striking conformity of motivation. For example, we shall come upon individuals who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force, or who at least give weight to them no matter whether causal or final motives are in question. I will give some examples of what I mean. St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." ... One man finds a piece of modern music beautiful because everybody else pretends it is beautiful. Another marries in order to please his parents but very much against his own interests. ... There are not a few who in everything they do or don't do have but one motive in mind: what will others think of them? "One need not be ashamed of a thing if nobody knows about it."

[The previous examples] point to a psychological peculiarity that can be sharply distinguished from another attitude which, by contrast, is motivated chiefly by internal or subjective factors. A person of this type might say: "I know I could give my father the greatest pleasure if I did so and so, but I don't happen to think that way." Or: "I see that the weather has turned out bad, but in spite of it I shall carry out my plan." This type does not travel for pleasure but to execute a preconceived idea. ... There are some who feel happy only when they are quite sure nobody knows about it, and to them a thing is disagreeable just because it is pleasing to everyone else. They seek the good where no one would think of finding it. ... Such a person would have replied to St. Augustine: "I would believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.

This attitude characterizes a group of individuals whose motivations are derived chiefly from the subject, from inner necessity.


The first thing to note here is that, in the second sentence of that second paragraph, he characterizes extraverts as people "who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force." Judgments and perceptions both. This is clearly inconsistent with the idea that a typical extravert would either be extraverted in their judgments and introverted in their perceptions or vice versa.

And in case you think, well, maybe Jung just slipped up in terms of how he worded that one sentence — although I'd say that would have been a pretty huge slip-up — the second thing to focus on here is the substance of the second and third paragraphs as a whole. They're pretty much all about judgments, right? The second paragraph describes a series of extraverted judgments and the third paragraph describes a series of introverted judgments. And Jung doesn't say those extraverted judgments are characteristic of Je-doms and Pi-doms; he says they're characteristic of all extraverts (Je-doms and Pe-doms alike). And likewise he says the introverted judgments in the third paragraph are characteristic of all introverts (Ji-doms and Pi-doms alike.). And again, there is no way that is how he would have described things if his model said that half of extraverted judgers were introverts (the Pi-doms) and half of introverted judgers were extraverts (the Pe-doms).

Carl Alfred Meier was Jung's longtime assistant and the first president of the Jung Institute in Zürich and, as James Reynierse has noted, Meier's interpretation of Jung (as reflected in his book, Personality: The individation process in light of C.G. Jung's typology) was that the auxiliary function would have the same attitude as the dominant — as a result of which, as Meier wrote, "cooperation with the main function is made easier."

And that's hopefully more than enough for most readers but, for hardcore Jung/MBTI dweebs, I've put a little more ponder-fodder (involving a BBC-TV interview) in the next spoiler.

 
to Part 3 of a BBC interview done with John Freeman when Jung (born in 1875) was 84. Forward to around 8:40 and you can watch this exchange:

JF: Have you concluded what psychological type you are yourself?

Jung: (chuckling) Naturally I have devoted a great deal of attention to that painful question, you know.

JF: And reached a conclusion?

Jung: Well, you see, the type is nothing static. It changes in the course of life. But I most certainly was characterized by thinking. I overthought from early childhood on. And I had a great deal of intuition, too. And I had definite difficulty with feeling. And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant. I was often at variance with the reality of things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for the diagnosis.
Note that Jung both indicates that his thinking and intuition preferences have long been reasonably clear, and that typing himself has been a "painful" process. If you assume that he also considered his introversion reasonably clear — and anyone who's read his autobiography isn't likely to doubt that — then the only issue that seems to be a likely candidate for any kind of "painful" uncertainty is the issue of whether he was a Ti-dom with an N-aux or an Ni-dom with a T-aux. And that conclusion is also consistent with the fact that (1) as described in this Vicky Jo "news flash," Jung reportedly told Stephen Abrams (a Jung scholar) in 1959 that he was an "introverted intuitive"; and (2) as described in this follow-up report, Marie-Louise von Franz (one of Jung's most famous pupils) declared that Jung was an N-dom.

Speaking of von Franz, she also said (citing Jung) that people have the most difficulty understanding not the opposite of their dominant function (i.e., Se for an Ni-dom), but rather their dominant function turned in the opposite direction (i.e., Ne for an Ni-dom). As she put it:

von Franz said:
Jung has said that the hardest thing to understand is not your opposite type — if you have introverted feeling it is very difficult to understand an extraverted thinking type — but the same functional type with the other attitude! It would be most difficult for an introverted feeling type to understand an extraverted feeling type. There one feels that one does not know how the wheels go round in that person's head.
With that as background, and if you assume that the "painful" part of Jung's typing decision was the choice between Ti-dom with an N-aux and Ni-dom with a T-aux, I think it's worth noting that, if you assume Jung viewed the auxiliary function as having the opposite attitude to the dominant, Jung's "painful" dilemma would have involved figuring out whether he was Ti-Ne or Ni-Te, which readers of Psychological Types know Jung viewed as substantially different function pairs. By contrast, if you assume Jung viewed the auxiliary as having the same attitude as the dominant, Jung's "painful" dilemma would have involved figuring out whether he was Ti-Ni or Ni-Ti — the same two functions, and therefore a considerably more understandable source of uncertainty.

As an (almost) final note, Jung said that the auxiliary function, because it "served" the dominant function, wasn't "autonomous" or true "to its own principle" to the same extent as when it was the dominant function and, as I understand it, some theorists have suggested that Jung's view of the functions of a Ti-dom with auxiliary N (assuming the S remained in the unconscious) are better viewed as Ti-N-Se-Fe. I'm maybe very mildly open to that idea, but I think it's more likely Jung would have said (if he'd ever spelled it out clearly) Ti-Ni-Se-Fe.

And I put my final note in the last spoiler.

 
Because I'm a pretty big believer in the MBTI, and because a lot of what ended up in the Myers-Briggs typology had its roots in Jung, and maybe especially because the function-centric MBTI theorists and their internet forum followers are inclined to give Jung's perspective — or at least what they think was Jung's perspective — a lot of weight, I often find myself talking about what Jung's views were on X, Y or Z, and often in cases where my own views are substantially different.

So... as a final note, and to avoid any misunderstanding, Ti-Ni-Se-Fe is not the functions model I subscribe to, because I don't subscribe to any functions model. As I noted at the start of this post, I think Myers was correct to essentially abandon the functions in favor of the dichotomies — and I think the disingenuousness of some of her Jungian lip service was understandable, given her circumstances. As further discussed in the last post linked below, Myers was a nobody who didn't even have a psychology degree — not to mention a woman in mid-20th-century America — and I assume that background had at least something to do with the fact that her writings tend to downplay the extent to which her typology differs from Jung.

One of the most fundamental ways the Myers-Briggs typology differs from Psychological Types is that, when it came to the thoughts and feelings and speech and behavior of a normal person on a typical day, Myers' perspective involved situating a much larger share of the relevant temperament-related causes in the conscious part of the person's psyche. Accordingly, an interpretation of Jung that said that essentially all of an introvert's extraversion was unconscious, and that something like half of that introvert's speech and behavior was the result of unconscious causes, was majorly inconsistent with Myers' perspective. So it's not hard to see how convenient Myers' minority interpretation of Jung's auxiliary function was, since it effectively meant that the lion's share of someone's introverted and extraverted attitudes and activity could be viewed as consciously-sourced.

In any case, regardless of the extent to which Myers really believed her model was true to Jung, my position is (1) that it wasn't true to Jung, but also (2) that its infidelity to Jung was ultimately irrelevant, given that, as I've noted, the Myers-Briggs typology — once you strip away the Jungian lip service — essentially (and rightly, IMHO) represented an abandonment of the functions in favor of the dichotomies.

And anyone who's made it this far and is interested can read more from me about the place of the functions (or lack thereof) in the MBTI's history — and the tremendous gap between the dichotomies and the functions in terms of scientific respectability — in this long INTJforum post.

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Links in INTJforum posts don't work if you're not a member, so here are replacements for two of the links in that long INTJforum post:

McCrae & Costa article (click on the pic on the right to access the full article)
Reynierse article
 
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#5 ·
If you're talking about the study he analyzes in Neuroscience of Personality, my understanding is that even Nardi himself doesn't claim that that study was anything more than a tentative, exploratory one. It involved 60 people and didn't come close to providing sufficient data to respectably validate any of the functions. And it's also been criticized on the grounds that EEGs are too crude a tool for this kind of stuff. Here's most of Wikipedia's list of "disadvantages" of EEG-based research:

Wikipedia said:
Relative disadvantages
  • Low spatial resolution on the scalp. fMRI, for example, can directly display areas of the brain that are active, while EEG requires intense interpretation just to hypothesize what areas are activated by a particular response.
  • EEG determines neural activity that occurs below the upper layers of the brain (the cortex) poorly.
  • Unlike PET and MRS, cannot identify specific locations in the brain at which various neurotransmitters, drugs, etc. can be found.
  • Signal-to-noise ratio is poor, so sophisticated data analysis and relatively large numbers of subjects are needed to extract useful information from EEG.
And if there's been a single review of Neuroscience of Personality in any reasonably well-known psychology periodical, I haven't been able to find it.

More generally, in talking about theorists like Berens and Nardi in the context of Jung/Myers discussions, it's important to keep in mind that they tend to position themselves in terms of a partly mythical "history" of the MBTI (often reflected in forum posts) that says that Jung left us with a set of type descriptions that were pretty much spot on; that Myers didn't do much more than take Jung's brilliant insights and simplify them in a way that made it easier to test people; and that the mainstream MBTI is fine as far as it goes, but its primary (and relatively superficial) focus on the dichotomies causes a lot of people to lose sight of the fact that Jung's "cognitive functions" are what the typology is really about.

But, among the other factually-challenged aspects of that "history," the function descriptions that Thomson, Berens and Nardi use are, to a substantial degree — e.g., Si (as described in this post) and Te (see this post) — non-Jungian descriptions that seem to have been jerry-rigged to match up with the things that Myers described the supposedly corresponding types as having in common. So, for example, the Thomson/Berens/Nardi Si descriptions, unlike Jung's, fit MBTI SJs. And similarly, the particular functions model that Thomson, Berens and Nardi subscribe to (where INTJ = Ni-Te-Fi-Se) matches neither Jung (INTJ = most likely Ti-Ni-Se-Fe, or arguably Ni-Ti-Fe-Se) nor Myers (INTJ = Ni-Te-Fe-Se).

As you know if you read the last spoiler in my OP (and especially the linked INTJforum post), and setting aside the specific differences among Jung's and Myers' and Nardi's four-function models, I think the cognitive functions themselves have been rightly characterized by Reynierse as a "category mistake," and that Myers was right to essentially abandon them (despite some lip service) after many years of analyzing the results of tests and MBTI studies led her to conclude that the four MBTI dichotomies — as she came to conceive them — were what the typology was really about.

So... Nardi's more than welcome to perform some larger studies — although, as I understand it, he's left UCLA, and I don't know if any further studies are in the works — but if I had to bet, I'd bet that he's not going to ultimately end up with a body of respectable data support for his four-function model, because I don't think it's a valid model.

As a final note, and as I've pointed out many times before, and notwithstanding the fact that Nardi's been touting that INTJ=Ni-Te-Fi-Se model for 20 years now, he's never (as far as I know) managed to put together a test that uses function-based items and that ends up doing a respectable job reflecting that model for the majority of takers. As discussed in more detail in the spoiler in this post (reviewing the posted results in a 350-post INTJforum thread), INTJs typically get high Ni scores and high Ne scores (with Ni not substantially favored over Ne), and high Te scores and high Ti scores (with Te not substantially favored over Ti), when they take Nardi's keys2cognition test — which is arguably the most-linked-to function-based test — and the T functions tend to be somewhat favored over the N functions (even though INTJs are supposedly N-doms).

In my experience, even the most devout cognitive function aficionados are usually willing to acknowledge that there isn't any test they can point you to that's particularly likely to give you results that place your dominant function in first place and your auxiliary function in second place — never mind ID-ing your tertiary and inferior functions in any easy-to-spot way. But, as you've probably noticed, they virtually always explain that in terms of all the tests sucking — and/or in terms of the functions being somehow inherently impossible to effectively capture in testable descriptions — rather than in terms of the model being faulty.
 
#3 ·
Since Socionics is also based directly on Jung, I'm curious how they came to the same conclusions as Meyers as regards the function order and orientation, if Meyers clearly misunderstood or set aside Jung's views on the orientations of the functions. Both systems have the aux opposite, both in function and orientation, and the third and fourth in the same way. Since Socionics utilizes all eight functions it tends to come across differently, but essentially, the top four functions are the same as Meyers', but they were developed in isolation from her, so if she did not get her theory from Jung, where did they get them? It seems to me that Jung must have this somewhere, either that, or it was obvious on both sides of the Atlantic that Jung was deficient in his theories... I don't know the answer... This is a genuine question...
 
#6 ·
@reckful

Here is possibly another argument to add:

One cannot be introverted or extraverted without being so in every respect. For example, to be "introverted" means that everything in the psyche that happens as it must happen according to the law of the introvert's nature. Were that not so, the statement that a certain individual is "introverted" would be as irrelevant as the statement that he is six feet tall, or that he has brown hair, or is brachycephalic. These statements contain no more than the facts they express. The term "introverted" is comparably more exacting. It means that the consciousness as well as the unconscious of the introvert must have certain definite qualities, that his general behaviour, his relation to people, and even the course of his life show certain typical characteristics.

Introversion or extraversion, as a typical attitude, means an essential bias which conditions the whole psychic process, establishes the habitual mode of reaction, and thus determine not only the style of behaviour but also the quality of subjective experience. Not only that, it determines the kind of compensation the unconscious will produce.
Par 939-940 pg 534 CW6, 3rd essay, "A Psychological Theory of Types" (1931)

In a way, the first sentence counters the "in every respect" argument that Myers' uses from the Principle and Auxiliary section of PT.
 
#9 ·
I've spent ample time molding myself into a student of human psychology, studying all those around me, and tearing apart biographies. I've never known anyone to display a dominant and auxiliary turned to the same direction. The only apparent sin in using the current function model is that of it not being quintessentially Jungian. I see no need to latch onto his work as if it were the word of god and view the later theorists as being sound in their decisions to turn the auxiliary away from the dominant, and the tertiary to the same direction as it.

You can brilliant, as Jung was, and make critical errors in your theorizing. History has shown that over and over.
 
#10 ·
That you haven't ever known anyone to display a dominant and auxiliary sharing the same attitude brings to mind two prominent possibilities:

1) Most people don't differentiate their conscious auxiliary function very well, and thus it only obtains the conscious attitude infrequently, therefore showing the relatively unconscious attitude of their inferior function most of the time (which would thus lend reliability to Myers' interpretation and subsequent dichotomies, insofar as being more practical for typing the majority of people). Instead, only in a small sample of statistical deviations would we find individuals showing a more pronounced attitudinal similarity between their conscious dominant and auxiliary. But again, those would be special exceptions to what would otherwise be the rule, and so we can set that minority aside and say, you're basically correct in that the MBTI interpretation serves its purpose better (for the majority of cases).

2) Jung was fundamentally and systematically wrong about his entire conception of introversion and extraversion. He was wrong when he conceived of the ego-complex as being the determining force behind the attitude of consciousness (and subsequently the unconscious). And he was wrong when he conceived of the ego-complex as being the determining force behind which functions are allowed into consciousness. Instead, he should have conceived that it was instead the functions behind it all that possess attitudes, and that there is no way to separate a function from an attitude, because there are no definable "functions" at all apart from their attitudes, and that the attitude of the preferred function is the determining force that explains the preference of the ego-complex, not the other way around.


These two explanations are giving your anecdotal personal experience the benefit of the doubt, since I respect you and I think your reputation affords you some measure of credibility, so I don't feel compelled to dispute the reliability of your personal observations. However, setting that aside, I still think the former explanation for the dissonance you've experienced serves better than the latter.
 
#11 ·
To begin with, the 'hysterical' character is an exaggeration of the normal attitude; it is then complicated by compensatory reactions from the side of the unconscious, which manifests its opposition to the extravagant extraversion in the form of physical disorders, whereupon an introversion of psychic energy becomes unavoidable. Through this reaction of the unconscious, another category of symptoms arises which have a more introverted character.
As I have already sufficiently indicated, I regard the relation of the unconscious to the conscious as compensatory.
The attitude of the unconscious as an effective complement to the conscious extraverted attitude has a definitely introverting character. It focusses libido upon the subjective factor, i.e. all those needs and claims which are stifled or repressed by a too extraverted conscious [p. 423] attitude.
For all the types appearing in practice, the principle holds good that besides the conscious main function there is also a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the main function.
I'm not really understanding what's so hard to understand. To Jung there is one conscious main function, not two or three, but simply one. Besides the one conscious main function there lies a relatively unconscious auxilliary. Key word is relative, meaning it is relative to the conscious main function and the even more unconscious inferior function. As quoted above the unconscious functions are a complement to the main function-attitude, and contains a different attitude than the main. For an extravert their unconscious, including their relatively unconscious auxiliary function, must have an introverted attitude.
 
#14 ·
@Shadow Logic,

I have no idea what you're talking about bringing up "battles" and all this.

All I said was, except when it's not unconscious. Meaning, whenever it happens to be conscious. You know, like, from time-to-time.

I'm not saying that when it's unconscious it has the same attitude as my consciousness.

That'd be stupid.

About as stupid as arguing that a conscious function would have the same attitude as my unconscious.

Both cases are making the argument that consciousness has two attitudes, which is putting the cart before the horse.

The functions have attitudes that they inherit from the general attitude of consciousness and the general attitude of the unconscious.

Not the other way around.
 
#15 ·
@Shadow Logic,

I have no idea what you're talking about bringing up "battles" and all this.

All I said was, except when it's not unconscious. Meaning, whenever it happens to be conscious. You know, like, from time-to-time.

I'm not saying that when it's unconscious it has the same attitude as my consciousness.

That'd be stupid.

About as stupid as arguing that a conscious function would have the same attitude as my unconscious.

Both cases are making the argument that consciousness has two attitudes.

Which is like saying, "hey guys. I'm up, but I'm also down!"
You are stating that in an extravert their auxiliary would be introverteintroverted but once it gains consciousness it would be extraverted, am I right?

If so then I'm stating that the unconscious auxiliary can not take on a conscious differentiation or else it would suppress the conscious main function in order for the auxiliary to gain the conscious place holder. So if an extravert's auxiliary function is introverted, the moment it starts to become conscious it takes on a an extraverted attitude which contradicts the conscious main function and then starts to suppress it, hence why the auxiliary can only serve the conscious main function and not contradict it or else sup press ion if the conscious main function starts to occur.

I could be misunderstanding your position, if so can you please explain it me better so I can better understand it.
 
#24 ·
I'm stating that the auxiliary can not contain conscious threshold without suppressing the conscious main function, even for short periods of time. I am not stating that the auxilary can not attain consciousness, but instead thatw when it does it will always suppress the conscious main function. Suppressing the main function will causes psychological disturbances (stress, anxiety etc.)
 
#30 ·
To me it seems that all this has a really simple explaination.
In the beginning there is only one set up. IEEE or EIII.
Then if a person starts to grow a lil bit we get IIEE or EEII.
The most differentiated flip would be IIIE or EEEI,
most likely taking a somewhat superhuman effort.

If not there is no reason to try to put in any effort to differentiate yourself
you aren't going anywhere substantial with your intro vs extro imbalance anyway.

You could then argue that the IIEE is more balanced than IIIE and IEEE
making both too little and too much differentiation undesirable.
After all how mentally developed was the average person living in Jungs day and age?
It makes sense that in this more "enlightened" day and age the IIEE or EEII is the norm.
 
#33 ·
^ For the last time (then I'm giving up), unconsciousness and inferiority went hand in hand for Jung. The "less conscious" functions in that last quote of yours are "inferior" to precisely the extent that they're "unconscious." And although Jung thought the auxiliary function — once it was properly differentiated and put to service as the auxiliary (which he thought was the typical case) — remained partly unconscious, he repeatedly referred to it as one of the two "conscious functions" (and the tert and inf as the "unconscious functions") because he viewed the auxiliary function (in its typical form) as significantly more conscious than unconscious.

Whether he was right about any of this is something you're free to have your own views on, but that he viewed the auxiliary as one of two "conscious functions" in the typical case is just a fact, Jack.
 
#34 ·
It's like you are persistent in discounting facts that don't fit your agenda. The inferior functions by Jung were all functions inferior to the conscious main function. There is no way around this, that is what he directly states and is what he meant. Due to them bein inferior to the conscious main they are also partly unconscious. Them being partly unconscious makes them partly conscious. So to state that only two out of 4 functions are conscious while the other 2 are unconscious is misleading and a misconstruction of factS when it is that all functions are either partly conscious or fully conscious (conscious main function). You can state a million times there are 2 conscious and 2 unconscious but the fact stands that after the conscious main function, every other function is inferior to it and is a degree more unconscious due to its placement holder. The auxiliary is more unconscious than the main, the tertiary is more unconscious than the auxiliary, and the inferior is more unconscious than the tertiary. All three inferior functions are partly unconscious, meaning they have slight degree of consciousness instilled in them. Since all three are inferior and uncon scions to the main function then the quote:
In such a case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion
applies to it. You keep trying to work around that but it was clearly stated and you're purposefully ignoring it.

Seriously your conclusion that there are two conscious functions goes directly against the fact that all unconscious inferior functions are not only partly unconscious but also partly conscious that revolves around degrees. Just to help you read his writings, when Jung says their are two conscious functions and two unconscious functions, he is stating that the first two functions are more conscious/less unconscious than the last two. Nevertheless the auxiliary is still partially unconscious and inferior, because of that the rule that the inferior functions are found in the service of an attitude that is different from the main function applies to it.
 
#35 ·
@Shadow Logic
Just wondering, do you think that the 3 vs 1 constellation is static and can't move over to a more balanced state?
What was Jung babbling about when he talked about making the darkness concious?
Was it something else or was it the differentiation of these unconcious functions?
I'm curious if your stance allows for movement to a more balanced state or not.
 
#36 ·
I know I havent stated my position on this clearly but I think the tertiary function has the same attitude as the main function due to the nature of being an auxiliary to the inferior. If I was to make the inferior the dominant function and I was to apply to it all the rules of the auxiliary than the attitude of the inferior auxiliary must be opposite of the attitude of the inferior itself. In other words if you were to treat the inferior and the dominant both as main functions in their own regard then, their auxiliary would have to contain an attitude opposite of theirs. The dom and auxilary would the more conscious functions while the inferior and tert would be the more unconscious functions.

If you use the inverse law also, the least differentiated function would have to be one attitude while the other superior functions would have to be another attitude. This presents a problem, how could the auxilary of the dom be an attitude that is the same as the inferior when the inverse law is applied? My answer is to balance it out by applying the relationship of the aux with the dom to the aux with the tertiary, and making that the first most important aspect to abide by. As in see both of these sets of functions (dom/aux, inferior/tert) as separate systems intertwined into one and then apply all other rules to them separately. Also if you were to take the two auxiliary functions and look at them as a separate system and apply the same rules then they too should contain different attitudes. So not only does the dom/aux have different attitudes along with the Tert/Inferior functions but so does the Aux/Tert. In this way all functions are completely balanced out and consistent with the theory and itself.

This is just my thought, it's not fully fleshed out though but it's how I reason the IEIE/EIEI format.

When Jung talks about making the darkness conscious I think he is referring to the archetypal monsters within our unconscious that we have to deal with by delving into the more unconscious functions. In other words he is stating that we should take the journey into the depths of our unconscious by way of the more unconscious functions in order to deal with these archetypal monsters that we repress.
 
#37 ·
@Shadow Logic
I see so back to the standard format that we all love and know so well.
I guess that provides the balance.
It does however leave a lot of issues hanging in my mind.
But I guess I'm too tired to delve into that right now.
Maybe later when I have the energy.
 
#38 · (Edited)
@Shadow Logic

In such a case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion
In such a case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion, i.e. the more valued function, because the more conscious, is more completely subordinated to conscious control and purpose, whilst the less conscious, in other words, the partly unconscious inferior functions are subjected to conscious free choice in a much smaller degree.

The problem I have with these statements is the same counterpoint I had when arguing Myers' reasoning for the XYYY model:

Missed point


The relatively unconscious functions of feeling, intuition and sensation, which counterbalance introverted thinking, are inferior in quality and have a primitive, extraverted character. (1923, p. 489)
When the mechanism of extraversion predominates... the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion. (1923, p. 426)
A more subtle kind of evidence lies in the "extraverted character" of the introvert's auxiliary process. For example, in a well-balanced ISTJ the observable auxiliary process, thinking can be seen to resemble the thinking of the extraverted thinker more than that of the introverted thinker. This point can be tested with any introvert by comparing the axuiliary process with Chapter 8, Figures 28-31, where the differences between extraverted and introverted thinking, extraverted and introverted feeling, etc., are shown.


This argument is easily refuted in Jung's introduction to the Principal an Auxiliary Functions section of the book:

In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire to give my readers the impression that these types occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life. They are, as it were, only Galtonesque family portraits, which single out the common and therefore typical features, stressing them disproportionately, while the individual features are just as disproportionately effaced.
Psychological Types, CW6, p666, pg 405​

Given that Jung is stating here that he deliberately and disproportionately singled out the types so as to emphasize their specific characteristics, then the preceding two quotes Myers offered, taken from the "foregoing descriptions," are equally disproportionate and singled out.

Furthermore, looking at the quotes Myers' grabbed, and considering the other half of Jung's introduction to the Principal and Auxiliary:

Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence.
One could logically surmise that if the functions of feeling, sensation, and intuition had an extraverted character due to their relative unconsciousness, then it would stand to reason that the conscious auxiliary function would share the same Introverted attitude as the conscious dominant Thinking function. It wouldn't make sense for the auxiliary function to have the opposite attitude if the whole reason for that attitude was that the function, in this example, is unconscious. This same logic can be applied to the second quote about the Extraverted type.
Essentially, in the type descriptions, he was emphasizing idealized types that were deliberately and disproportionately skewed. The XYYY types that he described earlier in the chapter do not "occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life."
 
#39 ·
@Shadow Logic. This argument is easily refuted in Jung's introduction to the Principal an Auxiliary Functions section of the book:

In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire to give my readers the impression that these types occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life. They are, as it were, only Galtonesque family portraits, which single out the common and therefore typical features, stressing them disproportionately, while the individual features are just as disproportionately effaced.
Psychological Types, CW6, p666, pg 405
A few problems with your argument:

1. That quote only states he exaggrated the typed, not the order of functions. Actually there is no place in that quote where it even implies that he is talking about the function order.

2. But let's say I let you use the argument (hypothetically speaking), and if that's the case then that argument can apply to discounting anything Jung has ever said about functions, attitudes, or types. There is no limit to what you could discount when reading Jung if that's the case.

3. He states he exaggrated the typical and common features, and then the individual features. So these features do exist according to Jung, they're just exaggerated. Since that's the case you can still read the types and pull out what is the typical and most common features. So if it was talking about functions he is stating the typical and common features are therects just exaggerated. He is not saying that the order of attitudes he defines is wrong or even could be wrong.

4. It really doesn't refute anything, it doesn't prove that what myers noticed was wrong, just that the features she noticed (that's even if he's talking about attitude order in that quote) are there but exaggerated.
 
#44 ·
@Shadow Logic,

In this quote there is ambiguity present,

In such a case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion
You have inferred that Jung is saying a single individual has multiple inferior functions.

Another inference is that Jung is saying that the inferior function of a person whose most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application is introverted.

Another inference is that he may have simply contradicted himself, and that we can regard that statement as being unintentionally in error.


Also, please stop being condescending, it is very disagreeable and offensive. You are being condescending when you try to imply that everyone besides yourself is ignoring facts and making exceptions. It places your ego on a pedestal; you are lifting yourself up, as if to say, "look at me, I'm doing it right and you're all doing it wrong!" If that is true, then it does not need to be said; it is just a fact, and if you are right, then you are right, and that's the end of it.

This is not a debate or a battle of wits. Everyone has come out to try to listen to you and hear what you have had to say and considered it and decided they think differently. That you disagree, that you believe you are being "more reasonable" or whatever, is neither here nor there, and is called "ad hominem" because it does not address the subject we are discussing, it is a personal attack against the participants. We are not discussing the quality of @reckful, or @PaladinX, or my reasoning skills, we are discussing the attitude of the auxiliary function.

I stated in my last post that I anticipated further discussion was unnecessary, since you one-sidedly hold fast without accepting that there are multiple points of view, and you took it upon yourself to quote me and prove me right, so now I have nothing further to add.
 
#45 ·
@Shadow Logic,

In this quote there is ambiguity present,



You have inferred that Jung is saying a single individual has multiple inferior functions.

Another inference is that Jung is saying that the inferior function of a person whose most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application is introverted.

Another inference is that he may have simply contradicted himself, and that we can regard that statement as being unintentionally in error.


Also, please stop being condescending, it is very disagreeable and offensive. You are being condescending when you try to imply that everyone besides yourself is ignoring facts and making exceptions. It places your ego on a pedestal; you are lifting yourself up, as if to say, "look at me, I'm doing it right and you're all doing it wrong!" If that is true, then it does not need to be said; it is just a fact, and if you are right, then you are right, and that's the end of it.

This is not a debate or a battle of wits. Everyone has come out to try to listen to you and hear what you have had to say and considered it and decided they think differently. That you disagree, that you believe you are being "more reasonable" or whatever, is neither here nor there, and is called "ad hominem" because it does not address the subject we are discussing, it is a personal attack against the participants. We are not discussing the quality of @reckful, or @PaladinX, or my reasoning skills, we are discussing the attitude of the auxiliary function.

I stated in my last post that I anticipated further discussion was unnecessary, since you one-sidedly hold fast without accepting that there are multiple points of view, and you took it upon yourself to quote me and prove me right, so now I have nothing further to add.
An ad hominem is attacking your person, not your argument. When I say you are discounting facts, I am talking about your argument, not you as a person. sayingnyou are discounting facts is not an ad hominem. Second this quote when taking into consideration plural and singular terms is pretty telling:

In such a case the most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application, while the inferior functions are found in the service of introversion
Now let's compare this quote with your inferences:

Another inference is that Jung is saying that the inferior function of a person whose most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application is introverted.
The reason why it's clear Jung doesn't mean this is his use of inferior functions, this is a plural term. Plural meaning more than one function. He doesn't say the inferior function (singular) of person whoSe most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application is introverted. Instead he says, using his exact words, that the inferior functions (plural) of a person whose most highly differentiated function has a constantly extraverted application is introverted. This states that there are more than one singular inferior function and that they as a whole are introverted. But hey this may not be enough for you to understand so I'll present this to you:

the more valued function, because the more conscious, is more completely subordinated to conscious control and purpose, whilst the less conscious, in other words, the partly unconscious inferior functions are subjected to conscious free choice in a much smaller degree.
The more valued function is the more conscious function. Pay attention how he uses the singular term function instead of the plural term functions, thisbis stating the it's one function that is more valued than the rest. Then he states that the less conscious are the unconscious inferior functions, this time he uses the plural term "functions", implying that the less conscious functions are a group of functions less valued than the most valued, and all of them are the unconscious inferior function. So your inference is wrong in every possible way when you actually read the statement while taking into consideration plural and singular terms, which he purposefully and blantantly used.

Your second inference:

Another inference is that he may have simply contradicted himself, and that we can regard that statement as being unintentionally in error.
This can not be proven, all we can know is that what he wrote is what he meant to write. Even if you used this argument then you can say maybe he contradicted everything he said, and if that's the case then anything he said must be ignored and discounted. This is a fallacious argument that tries to get rid of facts in favor for other ones, which I already said I have a problem with.

Now just so I'm clear, I've never once stated I'm more reasonable, what I did state is that you and others have been discounting facts which is attributed directly to the subject. To be quite frank, I suggest you stop assuming motives and focus on the subject at hand because nobody until this moment has brought up who is more reasonable or not, and your use of it is a straw man.

I've taken all of your points and found flaws in all of them, this mean I did take in you multiple points of view. Not only did I understand them, I understood them so well that I found how they contradicted exactly what Jung said. Shit I even pointed out how all three of you are discounting facts, which you all three have already admitted too many times alone in this thread. So it's funny how you accuse me of being one sided when I'm the only one taking all his statements into consside ration as a whole, while you three are discounting facts after facts just to fit your agenda. Seriously though, your post has been an attack on my character with your assumptions on things I never personally stated, you say I'm one sided, you say I can't take multiple points of view and then you accuse me of ad hominem when this whole post is nothing but ad hominem. How is that even possible that you couled ignore your ad hominem attacks and accuse me of them when I'm blantantly talking abut the subject and only about the subject?

Last point, avoiding discussion is a cop out, it doesn't address the problem and only shows that you have nothing further to argue to prove your point. If you have a point on the subject then lets discuss it but don't stastart accusing others of one sidedNess when you have to leave a discussion because it goes against what you believe. I may come off condescending but at least I stay consistent with arguing the subject at hand, and not your character.
 
#47 ·
@PaladinX

I'll answer all of your questons but before we continue I need you to make something clear to me. Are you trying to, have you tried to, or will you at any point try to refute any part of Jung in favor for another part of Jung? I didn't think I was making assumptions when I stated you were, but maybe I misunderstood your position, so can you please be clear with me on this point, then we can continue our discussion. I'll try to keep my condescending nature down to a minimum also.

Also I'm pretty sure you have noticed that my spelling is off at times, that's due to me being on my phone and not wanting to waste energy going back and correcting spelling mistakes. If at anytime that becomes an issue then feel free to let me know so I can correct it in order to be more clear.
 
#48 ·
@PaladinX

I'll answer all of your questons but before we continue I need you to make something clear to me. Are you trying to, have you tried to, or will you at any point try to refute any part of Jung in favor for another part of Jung? I didn't think I was making assumptions when I stated you were, but maybe I misunderstood your position, so can you please be clear with me on this point, then we can continue our discussion. I'll try to keep my condescending nature down to a minimum also.

Also I'm pretty sure you have noticed that my spelling is off at times, that's due to me being on my phone and not wanting to waste energy going back and correcting spelling mistakes. If at anytime that becomes an issue then feel free to let me know so I can correct it in order to be more clear.
Lol I was going to ask if you were typing on your phone. The spelling errors have not been an issue for me unless of course you mispelled "sometimes" as "always" and "never." ;P

Can you please be more specific with your question? I could potentially refute Jung with Jung depending on what that means. So far in this thread I have not.

I can argue from the perspective that XYYY is correct, I can argue from the perspective that XXYY is correct, I can argue from the perspective that XYXY is correct and I can argue from the perspective that X xy xy Y is correct. The point is that I can switch perspectives and argue from each. The goal is not which one is necessarily and ultimately correct but what possibilities can I run with from a given position. Though you might disagree, in my personal opinion there isn't anything that clearly and conclusively states that either position is necessarily true, which makes it more fun. And XXYY is the most fun perspective to argue from for me because it is contrary to most common opinions here and yields the most potential to explore.

To summarize, I think "devil's advocate" is the best way to describe my position. :kitteh:

(There is no devil icon, so apparently I'm a kitty instead. Yeah that's it, I'm playing devil's kitty. Meow!)
 
#50 ·
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#55 ·
Man, if you think this is bad, try reading some of his more esoteric stuff where he does comparative studies of world religion and his own work on the unconscious of the psyche, and his spiritual beliefs about the soul. It gets really hairy. There's some pretty pictures of angels though. Reminds me of Dante's Inferno.

And then he says in his BBC interview c. 1959 that he parted ways with Freud because he thought Freud took a narrow view by projecting his own personality into his research.

With all due respect to Jung - kettle, meet pot.
 
#58 ·
I decided to ask a friend in neuroscience to explain the conscious and unconscious, although not in the context of this thread. I found it enlightening all the same.

From a (social) psychological perspective, the human mind is conceptualized in a more abstract manner, considering consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness. Consciousness is focalized awareness, and subconsciousness is non-focalized awareness.

Unconsciousness consists of all the processes that happen automatically, outside of conscious awareness or reach. It includes subliminal perceptions, repressed feelings, hidden desires and phobias, as well as automatic skills/reactions/habits etc.

You can think of all the contacts on your iPhone as being the unconsciousness, the most recent dialed numbers that you can easily access represent the subconsciousness, and the number you're calling right now and attending to represents the consciousness.

The terms became highly popular because of Freud and over the years have been given different definitions and have caused a lot of confusions, making people debate on the accuracy of their meaning and what not.

Freud used the terms "unconscious" and "subconscious" interchangeably and later stuck with the former, to avoid confusions, saying "If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically – to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness – or qualitatively – to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious".

His theory proposed dividing the human mind into three parts: id, ego, super-ego... respectively representing the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.

The brain is not that simple, and much of the brain processing is unconscious.

"The [neuron] cells are connected to one another in a network of such staggering complexity that it bankrupts human language and necessitates new strains of mathematics. A typical neuron makes about ten thousand connections to neighboring neurons. Given the billions of neurons, this means there are as many connections in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy." - David Eagleman

"[Neuroscientist] Eagleman explained that consciousness exists to control and coordinate neural networks that unconsciously perform a wide variety of functions. Eagleman called these neural networks that operate outside of conscious awareness "zombie systems". He asserted that consciousness comes online when events violate expectations generated by our internal working models. Eagleman argued that consciousness enables flexible intelligence because it allows for creative recombination of brain resources that in lower life forms would always take place in a fixated sequence. The ability to recombine brain resources is the essence of intelligence for Eagleman.

Explanations of consciousness are currently left to neuroscientists, even though consciousness provides the cornerstone of contemporary cognitive psychology. [...]

Network theories make no special claim to consciousness or to unconsciousness. The seemingly qualitative difference between consciousness and unconsciousness does not directly impact network principles. One might say that the conscious-unconscious distinction is a non-issue for network theories. Much of brain processing is clearly unconscious. Take vision for example. We do not have to think our way from sensation to perception. We look at something and perceive it. Many complex neural networks are involved but the process of seeing is transparent to us; it just happens automatically and unconsciously. Artificial neural network models of perception can therefore be characterized as involving unconscious processes."

It has been less than 15 years since neuroimaging reached the stage where practical applications of functional brain imaging have become easier to conduct, so there is still a lot of research needed to be done to properly define and explain complex systems like consciousness or lack of consciousness.

There are theories and models that involve a lot of neurophilosophy, and that do not tap into the neural correlates of the subjective phenomena they're presenting. So far no theory has been finalized nor does any theory encompass all the elements needed to be considered to define how our brain fully works in terms of levels of awareness. We're nowhere near clearly explaining or defining such mental states.
 
#64 · (Edited)
One of the canards that pops up from time to time in internet forum posts is the one that says that Jung's type descriptions in Chapter 10 of Psychological Types were "extreme" (or otherwise unusual) portraits that wouldn't much resemble typical people of the applicable type. And really, when you think about it, WTF sense would that have made? Jung spent most of Psychological Types talking about the things he saw as common to all introverts and all extraverts. Chapter 10 is the only place where he gave us anything like in-depth descriptions of his eight functions. Why on earth would he not have described what he viewed as the more or less typical characteristics of his types?

And he did. There's certainly some inconsistency among the portraits in terms of the ratio of the more ordinary stuff and the here's-what-happens-when-they-get-neurotic stuff. But his general approach in those eight portraits is to first describe the more-or-less ordinary version of the type — which means what the type is like when the unconscious is supplying enough ordinary day-to-day "compensation" to prevent the person from becoming too "one-sided" — and then to go on to describe the neurotic version of the type that results if the unconscious functions are overly suppressed and end up wreaking havoc.

In my experience, the notion that Chapter 10 only described extreme (or otherwise unusual) versions of the types is most often encountered in the posts of Jung defenders who don't want to own up to the fact that Jung actually got quite a bit wrong in coming up with his typological concepts — and who therefore brush off some of the more cartoonish stuff in Chapter 10 by saying, oh, well, you know, Chapter 10 isn't really about what the functions are like in normal people.

The Jung passage that such defenders most often point to is this one:

Jung said:
In the foregoing descriptions I have no desire to give my readers the impression that these types occur at all frequently in such pure form in actual life. They are, as it were, only Galtonesque family portraits, which single out the common and therefore typical features, stressing them disproportionately, while the individual features are just as disproportionately effaced. Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance [— i.e., the auxiliary function —] is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence.
What Jung is saying in this passage is that his eight portraits are artificially "pure" portraits in the sense of leaving out the "individual features" that tend to distinguish, say, one Ni-dom from another Ni-dom —and, most notably, an Ni-dom with a T-aux from an Ni-dom with an F-aux. (Don't forget that the sentence about the "pure form" was at the start of the paragraph where Jung introduces the reader to the auxiliary function.)

When it comes to the characteristics that derive from Ni (for example), and will therefore tend to found in Ni-doms generally, Jung says that his portraits concentrate on "the common and therefore typical features" of the type. So it makes no sense to claim that the features Jung described as "common" and "typical" were features he thought would only show up in rare cases.

The term "Galtonesque family portraits" is a reference to Francis Galton, often referred to as the "father of psychometrics," and that's consistent with the idea that Jung's portraits were primarily intended to reflect the personality characteristics that were statistically the most likely to be found in people with that type.

As a final (maybe) clarification with respect to the relationship between the "purity" Jung is referring to and the auxiliary function, please note that there's a big difference between saying (1) that Jung's portraits are artificially "pure" in the sense of omitting the features that would vary depending on which auxiliary function someone had, and (2) that the people Jung is describing are the "pure" people who don't have an auxiliary function. Jung makes it clear that he thought it was overwhelmingly typical to have an auxiliary function — and in fact, he went so far as to say that an auxiliary function is "invariably present in consciousness." So... there's no way Jung would have described characteristics that were only present in some rare no-auxiliary-function subset of each type as the characteristics that were the "common and therefore typical" features of the types.
 
#69 ·
No I was exploring @PaladinX argument that Jung meant XYYY when he talked about the commoney and typical features of the descriptions. I in no way think or believe that Jung was referring to the XYYY format when he talked about the common and typical features of the descriptions. If he was though, which is now me exploring the argument, then that still doesn't prove that XYYY is wrong or flawed, it would only prove that jung referred to the XYYY as common and typical feature, but the common and typical features as Jung states are still there, they are the common and typical featurrs, the features that the whole type share. Them being the main focus of discussion or study doesn't mean they are wrong or flawed, but that there is more to the descriptions than the common and typical featuree. The common and typical features are still there, they still exist, they don't lose their format or place but they aren't the only aspects of the type. Instead there are lesser common and lesser typical features which can be applied to the types, but not as a "whole" since they are less common and less typical.

My argument is that the Auxiliary is considered an unconscious inferior function, that has the highest consciousness of the three inferior functions, making it the 2nd most conscious function, but by definition of being an unconscious inferior function it is bound by the statements presented on them, which is that they share the opposing attitude in relation to the dominant function.
 
#70 ·
@Shadow Logic

I'm not talking about the conscious/unconscious issue at this point. I'm talking about the attitude-of-the-auxiliary issue.

Here's a partial rerun from late in the OP. Maybe I'd put you to sleep by then. :tongue:

----------------------------------------------------------------

In 1923 — two years after Psychological Types was published — Jung gave a lecture (separately published in 1925) that's included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types. After some opening remarks on the shortcomings of past approaches to typology, here's how he began his discussion of extraverts and introverts:

f we wish to define the psychological peculiarity of a man in terms that will satisfy not only our own subjective judgment but also the object judged, we must take as our criterion that state or attitude which is felt by the object to be the conscious, normal condition. Accordingly, we shall make his conscious motives our first concern, while eliminating as far as possible our own arbitrary interpretations.

Proceeding thus we shall discover, after a time, that in spite of the great variety of conscious motives and tendencies, certain groups of individuals can be distinguished who are characterized by a striking conformity of motivation. For example, we shall come upon individuals who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force, or who at least give weight to them no matter whether causal or final motives are in question. I will give some examples of what I mean. St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." ... One man finds a piece of modern music beautiful because everybody else pretends it is beautiful. Another marries in order to please his parents but very much against his own interests. ... There are not a few who in everything they do or don't do have but one motive in mind: what will others think of them? "One need not be ashamed of a thing if nobody knows about it."

[The previous examples] point to a psychological peculiarity that can be sharply distinguished from another attitude which, by contrast, is motivated chiefly by internal or subjective factors. A person of this type might say: "I know I could give my father the greatest pleasure if I did so and so, but I don't happen to think that way." Or: "I see that the weather has turned out bad, but in spite of it I shall carry out my plan." This type does not travel for pleasure but to execute a preconceived idea. ... There are some who feel happy only when they are quite sure nobody knows about it, and to them a thing is disagreeable just because it is pleasing to everyone else. They seek the good where no one would think of finding it. ... Such a person would have replied to St. Augustine: "I would believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.

This attitude characterizes a group of individuals whose motivations are derived chiefly from the subject, from inner necessity.


The first thing to note here is that, in the second sentence of that second paragraph, he characterizes extraverts as people "who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force." Judgments and perceptions both. This is clearly inconsistent with the idea that a typical extravert would either be extraverted in their judgments and introverted in their perceptions or vice versa.

And in case you think, well, maybe Jung just slipped up in terms of how he worded that one sentence — although I'd say that would have been a pretty huge slip-up — the second thing to focus on here is the substance of the second and third paragraphs as a whole. They're pretty much all about judgments, right? The second paragraph describes a series of extraverted judgments and the third paragraph describes a series of introverted judgments. And Jung doesn't say those extraverted judgments are characteristic of Je-doms and Pi-doms; he says they're characteristic of all extraverts (Je-doms and Pe-doms alike). And likewise he says the introverted judgments in the third paragraph are characteristic of all introverts (Ji-doms and Pi-doms alike.). And again, there is no way that is how he would have described things if his model said that half of extraverted judgers were introverts (the Pi-doms) and half of introverted judgers were extraverts (the Pe-doms).

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So, Shadow Logic...

You keep saying that the proper interpretation of Jung should be the one that takes all the relevant passages into consideration and does the best possible job of being at least arguably consistent with all of them.

How can you possibly reconcile those just-quoted paragraphs with the notion that Jung thought that half of extraverts (i.e., the Pe-doms) would be introverted in their judgments and that half of introverts (i.e., the Pi-doms) would be extraverted in their judgments?

(And if you already addressed those paragraphs earlier in the thread and I've forgotten, feel free to just link me to that post.)
 
#72 ·
This is something I myself have suspected for a while. I think Myers was guilty of reading only the parts of Psychological Types that she though was relevant to her mission of finding a way to legitimize her temperament theory by tacking an existing typology onto it, hence her taking Jung's line about the Auxiliary in chapter 10 out of context, because she didn't read the rest of the context!

I think the best way to think of the psychological types is to take the E or I attitude as outside of and encompassing both the Primary and Auxiliary functions.

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So "Introverted Feeling with Intuition" would NOT be:

[Introverted Feeling] [with Intuition]

but instead be:

[Introverted [Feeling with Intuition]]

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Or to put it in a kind of mathematical notation, an INFJ would be:

I-(F/n)|E-(s/T)
 
#73 ·
This is something I myself have suspected for a while. I think Myers was guilty of reading only the parts of Psychological Types that she though was relevant to her mission of finding a way to legitimize her temperament theory by tacking an existing typology onto it, hence her taking Jung's line about the Auxiliary in chapter 10 out of context, because she didn't read the rest of the context!
So, how do you explain Socionics coming up with essentially the same model as Myers, then? Did they do the same thing?
 
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