# Problems with the cognitive functions that must be resolved.



## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Meadow said:


> These are the characteristics that define me, and have since I left home and fell in with "N-type" people who taught me about life (I didn't get much in the way of teaching at home): very strong need for freedom (in thought and action), spontaneity and change; fun loving; curiosity; love of learning; philosophical; critic of society; need to discuss everything; straightforward; alternative thinking; disinterest in material belongings unless they forward my learning or fun objectives; not always accepting of others and picky who I spend time with.


N values perhaps, but not indicative of intuition as a cognitive perspective.


> Whether the definitions are from Keirsey, MBTI or Jung, few of those characteristics are those of SJ. I have many SJ relatives and am at odds in various ways with each one. I don't rebel and never have, I just do what I do and guilt or disapproval can sometimes make me feel bad or irritate me but doesn't work to change who I am or what I do. If people won't accept me, I find others who do and hang out with them.


So you aren't that receptive to feeling guilt tripping, especially Fe. See, I have Fe PoLR, I hate when people do this to me. I find the behavior manipulative.


> These two articles, ENFP and ENTP, come close to who I am:
> 
> IEE - WSWiki
> 
> ...


This suggests Ni to me with Je, not Si or Ne. I do the same thing. I take in a lot of information from various sources and distill that into my own understanding that I think is the essential nature of this subject.


> Jung's explanation of Se portrays them in a superficial manner, and I've read probably a hundred definitions of functions, to the point where I'm totally confused. Many explanations directly contradict each other and no two people seem to see functions the same way, so rather than trying to figure out my functions, I've been approaching it from an MBTI/dichotomy perspective for the moment.


Again, seeking a Pi perspective, especially Ni in my opinion.

Did you ever look at the socionics SLE portrait? I would in particular chat to @_itsme45_ a little about it because I think the beta ST portraits can be a little uncharming if you just read it at face value. You need to dig deeper and look into Model A. An ESTP for example has Fi PoLR. An ENTP Fi PoLR, an ENFP Ti PoLR. Knowing two IEEs and one ILE I think I can safely say you are neither.


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## Meadow (Sep 11, 2012)

I removed ENFP since it's seeming less likely that's my type. A friend of mine is ENFP and he's truly a fountain of creative possibilities. I can also come up with creative possibilities but it seems to take less energy to distill than brainstorm, though I've never been sure if it's in a T/analysis or Ni/essence sense. I'll respond more fully in PM later today.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

LeaT said:


> Why must associative thinking be limited to Ne? This is exactly why I mistyped as an Ne type for so long because I didn't realize Ni can also be associative. In think the fact that my thinking seems to jump between points but it is not obvious where it's coming from is much more indicative of Ni than Ne. The way Ne operates makes the flow much clearer since it is after all, extroverted.


It has nothing to do with being associative or not. This is a perfect demonstration of a problem with the cognitive functions that needs to be fixed. Look at it this way - your enneagram MBTI combination is exactly the same as mine, but with the third tritype core different. What you say in a post and what I say in a post here is completely different. 

There are not 87,000 kinds of Ni and Ne. There is *one *Ni, *one *Ne, and one of the other 6. I call BS on Ne being "clearer" too. Have you ever spoken to an ENFP while drinking coffee?


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Figure said:


> It has nothing to do with being associative or not. This is a perfect demonstration of a problem with the cognitive functions that needs to be fixed. Look at it this way - your enneagram MBTI combination is exactly the same as mine, but with the third tritype core different. What you say in a post and what I say in a post here is completely different.
> 
> There are not 87,000 kinds of Ni and Ne. There is *one *Ni, *one *Ne, and one of the other 6. I call BS on Ne being "clearer" too. Have you ever spoken to an ENFP while drinking coffee?


And when did I ever imply that there are 87.000 different versions of Ne and Ni? I have one understanding of them all right. They may not fit _your _understanding though, but that's more your problem if you do not wish to define how you define them so I can understand how it matches my _one _understanding of them. 

Also, the thing I'm beginning to think we genuinely got in common cognitively is Te-Fi, but we disagree too much to make me think this may be true for perception as well. By this I just don't mean disagreement in that we disagree over definitions or anything of the sort; but simply disagreement of how to view the world itself which has to do with cognition and how it shapes our reality which we perceive. 

With that said, I know I got my axes right even if you may imply that you think otherwise.

On a sidenote because I forgot, I've spoken to Ne doms on coffee (and other things). ENFP 847 sx/sp. I've also spoken to an ENTP 154 sx/sp when she's high on weed. I do think I've seen quite a few ways Ne can manifest by now.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

LeaT said:


> And when did I ever imply that there are 87.000 different versions of Ne and Ni? I have one understanding of them all right. They may not fit _your _understanding though, but that's more your problem if you do not wish to define how you define them so I can understand how it matches my _one _understanding of them.
> 
> Also, the thing I'm beginning to think we genuinely got in common cognitively is Te-Fi, but we disagree too much to make me think this may be true for perception as well. By this I just don't mean disagreement in that we disagree over definitions or anything of the sort; but simply disagreement of how to view the world itself which has to do with cognition and how it shapes our reality which we perceive.
> 
> With that said, I know I got my axes right even if you may imply that you think otherwise.


My definition is not important. This one is: http://personalitycafe.com/infj-art...on-introverted-intuitve-type-ni-dominant.html

Answer the question as to how two people who have the same MBTI type and first two enneagram cores yet write totally different kinds of posts, and we have a game.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Figure said:


> My definition is not important. This one is: http://personalitycafe.com/infj-art...on-introverted-intuitve-type-ni-dominant.html


Yep, and if you weren't aware, I'm operating more on Jung's definition than I am any other definition which is why by some I'm actually considered purist, because he, just like I, like to describe the essential quality of things. I just don't do it in a textbook manner because I don't think I have to. If you operate by textbook you miss out what the quality of the function really is.


> Answer the question as to how two people who have the same MBTI type and first two enneagram cores yet write totally different kinds of posts, and we have a game.


Well, let's see... Maybe because of different enneagram core and you are in fact not a 5w4 at all? Or maybe because you are not an INTJ? I think more than anything, I'd guess on lacking the motivations of 5 core.

For good measure I might also add that most of our recent conflicts have been around the fact my ego is clearly oriented introversion and yours seems to be around extroversion. That alone is going to make a significant cognitive difference regardless of function preference.


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

LeaT said:


> Yep, and if you weren't aware, I'm operating more on Jung's definition than I am any other definition which is why by some I'm actually considered purist, because he, just like I, like to describe the essential quality of things. I just don't do it in a textbook manner because I don't think I have to. If you operate by textbook you miss out what the quality of the function really is.
> 
> Well, let's see... Maybe because of different enneagram core and you are in fact not a 5w4 at all? Or maybe because you are not an INTJ? I think more than anything, I'd core lacking motivations of 5 core.
> 
> For good measure I might also add that most of our recent conflicts have been around the fact my ego is clearly oriented introversion and yours seems to be around extroversion. That alone is going to make a significant cognitive difference regardless of function preference.


Given Jung's description of the rational/irrational dichotomy, it's likely that he would've been inclined to associate Ni with INP's, so it's interesting to hear that you feel you are "operating more on Jung's definition" while identifying as an Ni type and as an INJ.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Teybo said:


> Given Jung's description of the rational/irrational dichotomy, it's likely that he would've been inclined to associate Ni with INP's, so it's interesting to hear that you feel you are "operating more on Jung's definition" while identifying as an Ni type and as an INJ.


You read the MBTI letter code right? What functions each letter represents? INP is:

Ji
*Ne*
Si
Je

This is not how Myers understood type in my opinion. Not at all. Not how Jung understood type either. He resisted labeling type more than necessary to begin with. Now please go read _Gifts Differing_ again and understand how the J/P letter operates in the MBTI code and maybe we can have a discussion.


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

LeaT said:


> You read the MBTI letter code right? What functions each letter represents? INP is:
> 
> Ji
> *Ne*
> ...


Your condescension is delicious, thank you, but I wasn't talking about Myers. I was talking about Jung, who had established a rational/irrational dichotomy that is, arguably, similar to the J/P dichotomy described by Myers and Briggs, and I was making the connection that Jung himself probably would have been more inclined to label an Ni-dominant as a "Perceiving type" than he would to label them as a "Judging type", all things considered. And, here you are, a "Jung Purist" who identifies as an Ni-dominant and as an INJ (at least now).


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Teybo said:


> Your condescension is delicious, thank you, but I wasn't talking about Myers. I was talking about Jung, who had established a rational/irrational dichotomy that is, arguably, similar to the J/P dichotomy described by Myers and Briggs, and I was making the connection that Jung himself probably would have been more inclined to label an Ni-dominant as a "Perceiving type" than he would to label them as a "Judging type", all things considered. And, here you are, a "Jung Purist" who identifies as an Ni-dominant and as an INJ (at least now).


I know a perfect system for you if that's how you think -- it's called socionics. And indeed, what do I type in socionics? INTp or ILI-Te. Who would have thought of that?

And I'm not in the mood to play nice. Stupid logic receives stupid answers, seriously. Jung would have nothing to do with the MBTI system and it doesn't even match with how Myers herself understood the letter code. 

In MBTI Ni dominant types are INxJs. Indeed, I too type as an INTJ in the MBTI since it best represents my cognition leading with Ni, having auxiliary Te, tertiary Fi and inferior Se instead of leading with dominant Ji and inferior Je.


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

And much lulz were had!

You missed my earlier point (maybe read my words too literally, hmm) that Jung would probably see people with traits corresponding to typical "J" (including EJ) traits on the MBTI as people who are Thinking-dominant or Feeling-dominant, or "J-dom" in internet slang, and that includes "Ji-doms". He would likely see the _traits_ of a J as being indicative of dominance of a Judging function. That's not how Myers saw it. Myers associated the _traits_ of a J as being indicative of the extraversion of a Judging function, not necessarily it's dominance. Jung likely saw people with "INTJ" _traits_, for example, as having Ti-dominance followed by intuition, which, if differentiated, would be introverted as well. Likewise, someone with the traits or qualities of an "INTP" he would likely say had Ni-dominance followed by Thinking, which, if differentiated, would be introverted as well.

It's interesting that your results on various inventories consistently show a preference for Perceiving over Judging, AND you now identify as an INTJ, but only because of Myers' hypothesis that INJ's were Ni-dominants, not Ji-dominants. Yet, all the while, you're "operating more on Jung's definition".


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

@_Teybo_

It depends on what definition you accept the J/P MBTI code under: preference order of functions, behavioral indicators, judging or perceiving dominance, etc. It's got nothing to do with Jung himself, as Jung didn't directly have anything to do with creating MBTI, so as concerns the behavioral J/P code, you can only correlate it to what Jungian types might have tested into it and you're limited to speculation on how Jung would have thought of it.

Anyway, going by J/P indicating function order as appears somewhat typical these days, it is fine to say you adhere to Jungian definitions in typing yet apply an MBTI type code for yourself. What MBTI J/P type code symbolizes is, with the structural definition, rendered relatively discrete from Jung's work - but does, as a simple construct, create a structure within which you can place his ideas meaningfully. An ideal code may not even bother with J/P, which can end up confounding factors, but that's a different issue entirely.


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## Briguy (Nov 20, 2011)

I must apologize to all of you who have taken the time to respond to my post. I posted this thread a while ago and through the first couple of days no one had responded so I assumed that the thread was destined to remain dominant, never to be seen again. I just now logged in and discovered that there has been a tremendous amount of discussion and I will attempt to read it all when I have time. Thank you, Briguy.


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## Briguy (Nov 20, 2011)

@LeaT My initial post was one of the most difficult things I have written in a while because I had to continue to weed out ideas and stay on task (Philosophy major). You're impression of me being an Si dom would be off, I could be a Te user but I would guess ENFP do to my scattered thoughts. In between these scattered thoughts is analysis, which is what I am doing most of the time. Here is a very good example of what I was attempting to explain in my post earlier and I just noticed you're an INTJ so perhaps you can clear this up for me. INTPs lead with Ti, as a result INTPs analyze because Ti ask that you look deeper and deeper into your personal understanding. INTJs lead with Ni, as a result INTJs analyze because Ni ask that you look deeper into your personal understanding of the subject at hand. My question, what is the difference between the two? That is one of the issues I was attempting to bring up in my initial post. The lines are blurred and as a result the theory cannot hold up to the rigors of academia that I face in cognitive science. I only ask that we establish a more accurate description of the MBTI cognitive functions. For decades the MBTI has been used purely as a form of utility (think Six Sigma, and Big 5) for universities and private companies that wish to utilize certain groups of people (team building). It has been to psychology what Newton was to Calculus, it needs a Leibniz to clean it up and make sure the system has established axioms that can be used to perfect our collective understanding of the functions. On another note, I am lazy and I just want some kind of concept that can fix the initial problem, even if I must be the one to write it. *BUT *I require constant feedback on all of my ideas so this brings us back to my initial post which was an effort to find some kind of feedback. Its the same reason I spend so much time with the PhD candidates at my University, constantly attempting to figure out which of my ideas are actually worthwhile (read: sane) and which have already been done (I invented M-theory while walking down the street at age 11, I didn't realize that it already existed until I looked it up at my library, I just assumed that the universe must contain multiple dimensions)(I also invented gravity at age 4 by dropping things and thinking that something was keeping them down)(sadly most of my ideas have already been invented).


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## Meadow (Sep 11, 2012)

Briguy said:


> INTPs lead with Ti, as a result INTPs analyze because Ti ask that you look deeper and deeper into your personal understanding. INTJs lead with Ni, as a result INTJs analyze because Ni ask that you look deeper into your personal understanding of the subject at hand. My question, what is the difference between the two?


I brought up something similar in an earlier post and meant to address it via PM, but forgot, so I'd also like to understand the difference. Is Ti more analysis based, where a physical or conceptual structure can be built, with one item logically tied to the next, where Ni starts with possibly disparate pieces of a puzzle and ends with a leap of insight that ties everything together into an understandable pattern?


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

LeaT said:


> I know a perfect system for you if that's how you think -- it's called socionics. And indeed, what do I type in socionics? INTp or ILI-Te. Who would have thought of that?
> 
> And I'm not in the mood to play nice. Stupid logic receives stupid answers, seriously. Jung would have nothing to do with the MBTI system and it doesn't even match with how Myers herself understood the letter code.
> 
> In MBTI Ni dominant types are INxJs. Indeed, I too type as an INTJ in the MBTI since it best represents my cognition leading with Ni, having auxiliary Te, tertiary Fi and inferior Se instead of leading with dominant Ji and inferior Je.


All right, I'm done walking around in circles. I see Ni easily, and do not see you defaulting to it. You are not an Ni dominant, and if you see similarity, it's idealization, or that you are trying to practice using Ni. If you don't accept that, then that's the way it is. If you can't accept it, shower with a brick.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Figure said:


> All right, I'm done walking around in circles. I see Ni easily, and do not see you defaulting to it. You are not an Ni dominant, and if you see similarity, it's idealization, or that you are trying to practice using Ni. If you don't accept that, then that's the way it is. If you can't accept it, shower with a brick.


Or maybe the problem is that you don't know what Ni is so you what you think is Ni is in fact something else entirely, say, Si or Ne? See, Iv'e been there and done that. Not sure about you though. I am not idealizing. If I was, then how come I still feel inclined to type as INP? No, I don't because I know that's not my type. I cannot lie to myself anymore.

Inferior Se is so obvious if you just know where to look. The problem is that you don't know where to look when it comes to my type. After speaking to @Flatliner for many months now whose type is probably not something anyone would contest, there are just a few too many similarities in our cognition for that to just be mere coincidence. DA cognitive style preference doesn't lie.


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

Briguy said:


> INTPs lead with Ti, as a result INTPs analyze because Ti ask that you look deeper and deeper into your personal understanding. INTJs lead with Ni, as a result INTJs analyze because Ni ask that you look deeper into your personal understanding of the subject at hand. My question, what is the difference between the two?




Those two functions are really not that similar, so it's more like, what's the similarity? "Personal understanding" could apply to Fi just as well. Have you tried taking apart how a T with auxiliary N and N with auxiliary T user differ in their approach to such personal understanding? Is part of your concern that you'd prefer there to be a more algorithm-based means of determining the difference?

When you speak to having self-observed extensively, did you have any clear defining features in your mind which would distinguish these? If the assumption is they're muddled at the start, then certainly the observations cannot go very far.


You spoke of "measuring" in relation to strings, and since this lack of measurement in some versions of cognitive functions you're studying is a concern, let me comment here on this subject, and offer a slightly parallel account of what I see happening in the (informal) cognitive function enthusiast community subsequently.... You of course bring up a shadow of what many scholars do. The thing, however, is to remember that a lot of things that seem hard to measure started off describing phenomena that were observed, measured, and explained systematically to the extent possible, and then the ideas deemed to explain them were extended in the direction of various questions, which they attempt to build theory to account for. Some such material does go out of the "measurable" realm at least initially (although initially can become indefinitely) but conceptually needn't have had its birth outside that realm. Understanding where this disconnect happens in various aspects of the subject {rather than pointing to the whole thing} is crucial for us to know what we can accept and what we don't find worth pursuing.

My understanding is that when Jung tried to get at _what the functions are_, his ideas were not at all grounded in some floaty realm outside empirical data. Some like to take those ideas and adapt them as they observe people to get at more functional versions of type, based on personal reflection and mutual discussion for philosophical clarity. I imagine there definitely are those who cannot take the ideas and roll, so to speak, and want them grounded in a more "direct" measurement scheme before any philosophizing occurs. Perhaps someone can reference you to efforts made in this direction, if they exist. 


Further, it's good to keep in mind there are various writings based on "the" functions. As has been suggested, modern theories keep cropping up, fixing some problems with clarity on "the" functions, introducing new ideas, etc. Whether any of them would satisfy your need for cleaning up is up to you of course.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

LeaT said:


> Or maybe the problem is that you don't know what Ni is so you what you think is Ni is in fact something else entirely, say, Si or Ne? See, Iv'e been there and done that. Not sure about you though. I am not idealizing. If I was, then how come I still feel inclined to type as INP? No, I don't because I know that's not my type. I cannot lie to myself anymore.


You're still inclined to type as INP because *YOU ARE!!!
*


> Inferior Se is so obvious if you just know where to look. The problem is that you don't know where to look when it comes to my type. After speaking to @_Flatliner__for many months now whose type is probably not something anyone would contest, there are just a few too many similarities in our cognition for that to just be mere coincidence. DA cognitive style preference doesn't lie__._


You make it sound like IN_P types are strong in Se. They aren't. 

I call @_Flatliner _in, since this is an important discussion as to how a cognitive function as an inferior varies with a cognitive function that is #7 in Beebe. Which, by the way, makes things a little trickier since it's no longer just "this is my dominant" as you'd say with Jung alone - with Beebe, it's about complexes as well. But if we're talking about typing people by an *inferior *function, we are talking about more than Jung alone.

Problem number one with the cognitive functions (don't you love how we're actually still on topic? HA!) - how the heck do we use them across multiple theories?!!


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

Figure said:


> You're still inclined to type as INP because *YOU ARE!!!
> *
> 
> You make it sound like IN_P types are strong in Se. They aren't.
> ...


What do you want to know?


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