# Has thinking more purposes than feeling?



## kitsu (Feb 13, 2013)

Dastan said:


> Ah yes, I was waiting for this kind of answer, not for a feeler/thinker battle (thank you). So you say that feeling cannot always be narrowed down to a variant of agreement or rejection (or good/bad etc.)? How would you define other basical forms of it then? Maybe that feeling is able to attribute any kind of "feeling attributes" which are just another sort of information than thought concepts?


Well I would say it really depends on the maturity of a feeler. I definitely don't use my feelings to agree or reject, I just see them as indications of deeper human motives, always looking to see where they come from and how they simultaneously affect and are affected by society, culture, economy, "the system", all human projections really. The fact that mine are dominant allows me to feel what most have repressed, and therefore be aware of what's at work in others unconsciously, and to look at how it's deformed in its encrypting from that unconscious state to the conscious projection of the impulse (if you ever manage to analyze a few of your dreams you'll likely be slightly worried about the forces that _really_ control you). Evidently I understand that not all minds work alike, therefore that my functioning might not be true for others. Which is another part where feelings come into play: the capacity to empathize with others can give me as much insight into them as into myself. I can see where they're stuck, and where it comes from in their life history, and again, how it inscribes into a general pattern of human repression/overcompensation (this is all very abstract in my mind so feel free to ask me to clarify anything)

So far I haven't met anyone else who uses their feelings in this way so it's possible that I'm crazy, but it goes to show that just because people use feelings in a limited way doesn't mean they are inherently limited.



Dastan said:


> I wonder if this kind of understanding, the "stems from..." maybe is already complicated with some thinking. And the depth of healthy and unhealthy? This is as "dualistic" as good vs. bad is. And this "dualistic form" is what I mean by being "less varied" concerning the basical purposes. Because thinking is more general, it is not always "dualistic" (really don't know if this is the right word here ).
> 
> Maybe my idea is just a conceptual/terminilogical problem... because "being varied" or "having more purposes" maybe is only relevant for a certain perspective that concerns something like _basical form or structure_.


Well, just like reason can ascribe many qualifications to something outside of the true/false duality, feelings can assert if something inspires love, fear, mystery, contemplation... It's just as varied, and each one contains an incredible amount of meaning and information. About what you said about it being "complicated with some thinking", this is as you said a terminological issue: it isn't thinking, it's iNtuition, which works as a form of logic in itself just because it doesn't look at occurrences (or in this case feelings), but at how they fit into a bigger framework. Te is still my tertiary function though, so you could say there's a bit of that.

I really don't think there's a better or more useful function really, it's just a manner of what use you put it to. I've seen a lot of idiotic T's just think in terms of black and white, only looking at facts and not how they relate to each other just like I've seen feelers go crazy because their irrational conception of the world doesn't ever correspond to reality. A question of plain old common sense has to come into play here ;-)


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Good evaluation is definitely underrated imo. I swear, too much time around rough evaluation without standing up to it (how rough is another thing - you may get inferior feeling types who are far superior to others - sort of depends more on how they're avoiding it than anything) and you start getting some strange ideas you would rather not have (not about the other person, but about stuff that concerns you and your own freedom of expression). I don't think this is necessarily an inferior F thing either (you might get other types like this as well who are not thinking dominants). Inferior thinking sort of produces the opposite issue, with logical thoughts being "taboo," or seen as a way to disrespect the other person's authority.


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> I swear, too much time around rough evaluation without standing up to it (how rough is another thing - you may get inferior feeling types who are far superior to others - sort of depends more on how they're avoiding it than anything)




Sigh. Constructing potential assumptions behind potential systematizations leading to a decision undertaken from a T lens under the influence of F is what I tend to do to avoid it. I think there are 2-3 things where I find I can really evaluate and even there I tend to do a bit of the above.


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## Sixty Nein (Feb 13, 2011)

I have no idea what the hell "Good evaluations" are supposed to mean. That seems like an extremely subjective ideal, and not really something that really exists. If you mean evaluating without generally having an outburst of negative emotions entangled in it, or one without artificial sentimentality attached to it, then I generally understand what you are talking about. I can't even say that I am disappointed by those who aren't good with actually good evaluations, because my own personal evaluations are generally tinged with negative emotions, or simply a put on mask without actually giving a fuck about the situation, but still feeling the need to fake empathy for some reason.


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## Dastan (Sep 28, 2011)

St Vual said:


> I have no idea what the hell "Good evaluations" are supposed to mean.


Evaluaception!


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

bearotter said:


> Sigh. Constructing potential assumptions behind potential systematizations leading to a decision undertaken from a T lens under the influence of F is what I tend to do to avoid it. I think there are 2-3 things where I find I can really evaluate and even there I tend to do a bit of the above.


I actually know some totally wonderful tertiary evaluators (like, you might think they lead with it, but I frankly get the idea that they don't take it that seriously - they sound more like they're speaking to their unconscious when they evaluate, which is interesting, unlike the almost "put-on" dominants, who appeal to the more "obligatory" aspects of things) - I think it's some inferior Fe types who can really knock the socks off of me in their pitiful ability to evaluate other people's reactions in a proper context (like, they misjudge all of your responses or do not think you're serious when you are - pretty much read cliches into your responses and make obnoxious assumptions about your feelings, like "isn't that narcissistic?" or what have you - I have met some tert. F types who are bad as well, but that's an exception, not a rule).


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

The truth:
Te>
Ti>
Ne>
Ni>
Si>
Se>
Fe>
Fi>
:crazy:
Ok sorry but it's the first thing that comes to mind when I see people ask about function weight


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> I actually know some totally wonderful tertiary evaluators (like, you might think they lead with it, but I frankly get the idea that they don't take it that seriously - they sound more like they're speaking to their unconscious when they evaluate, which is interesting, unlike the almost "put-on" dominants, who appeal to the more "obligatory" aspects of things)




Strange, I actually feel I fit this very well, especially the speaking to unconscious part. I'm a Ti-dominant though.




> I think it's some inferior Fe types who can really knock the socks off of me in their pitiful ability to evaluate other people's reactions in a proper context (like, they misjudge all of your responses or do not think you're serious when you are - pretty much read cliches into your responses and make obnoxious assumptions about your feelings, like "isn't that narcissistic?" or what have you - I have met some tert. F types who are bad as well, but that's an exception, not a rule).




For whatever reason, I never had this sort of issue in practice, but probably have greatly suppressed consciousness of the process. I'm sort of a mega introverted perceiver, so the limited time I engage (by inference) Fe, I think introverted perceiving colors my evaluations strongly and somehow or another, this leads to effective use for my life at least, so that even feeler types tend to trust me. 

The main thing I do though which gives me away is that I'm clearly barely conscious of objective F, it's like I know vaguely it's going on, but almost the full time I'm isolating some sort of introverted archetype evoked in me by whatever they're telling me.

Subjective evaluation is especially impossible for me though. With objective, well let's just say a properly typed well-informed auxiliary Fe user is likely to figure out I'm not really like them, but naively one may think I'm actually pretty in control of that side of me.

I guess I can read what would work for people well, but barely can perform evaluative reasoning on other counts. 

Have you considered how enneagram type might correlate with development of F in a T-dominant?


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## The Wanderering ______ (Jul 17, 2012)

Nah. They both have their place.


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## LostFavor (Aug 18, 2011)

In terms of the functions, I find that over time, I've started thinking of them less in terms of words like "feeling" and "thinking" and more in terms of words like "interpersonal" and "detached."

I mean, if you think about how most Fe users act around other people, you usually see an orientation toward the interpersonal. If you look at Te users, you see more of an orientation toward the technical. It can even be the interpersonal aspects of the technical, or vice-versa.

This doesn't mean, of course, that people must choose one and go with it - I'm talking only about tendencies. And it's easier to see the value in both when you look at them in a way that sidesteps the literal meanings of "feeling" and "thinking."


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## Bardo (Dec 4, 2012)

INTJane said:


> *Has thinking more purposes than feeling?*
> 
> Yes
> You cannot decide a feeling without thought. Ask my ISFJ sister





Perhaps an engine of thought cannot be ignited without feeling. Neither of these things are actually true.


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## Bardo (Dec 4, 2012)

To a human, the universe only exists so far as it's mind can perceive it. Your experience of the universe only exists in your mind. 

Nothing that can be said to exist in the universe, on any level of complexity or subtlety, can without a psychological effect and orientation.
As the feeling function unquestionably gives greater orientation in psychological pursuits, in turn the universe is penetrated by the feeling function.


I find the suggestion that thinking somehow is more multifaceted than feeling to be baffling. Clearly thinking would be the faster, the more efficient, the harder, more resilient, more direct and therefore more straightforward.
The yes or no format would be found here, if it is to be found. 
Logical or no, good or bad, allowing forward/good/logical or backward/bad/stupid movement through life based on this dichotomy.

I would compare thinking to digital and feeling to analog perhaps. This is a very simple comparison.

Feeling as the analog judges the world as if listening to it's sounds, perceiving it's colors and singing answers back to it.
This is a matter of taste, composition and harmony. This by far more spontaneous, more disordered, more unpredictable and delicate. More 'scenic route'. It's strength is in it's complexity and multifaceted operation, like a musical instrument.


The T and F functions sit on an axis, it is merely preference for one or the other that directs us. F is the fire that powers the T engine and T is the genius that invented that fire and so on forever, like the turning of the yin and yang in the Taijitu symbol.


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

Dastan said:


> Feeling is always an evaluation involving a positiv-negativ scale (agreement and rejection). Of course these evaluations are very diverse among themselves, having many tones or different objects to evaluate





> Of course thinking sometimes classifies things into true and untrue, but this is not the whole definition of thinking. It actually attributes any kinds of attributes to the things, not just two sided ones like true-false.


Hopefully I make some sense here, but here goes nothing.


I think honestly, if we're to say thinking does not have to "merely" classify into true and false, neither does feeling have to "merely" classify into good/bad or any such evaluative scale. The analogy here is that thinking is based on a reasoning style that sorts truths and falsehoods, whether it be by forming subjective systems or by reasoning about objective ones. When you say thinking can assign attributes beyond truth and falsehood, this is true, yet the key thing is that reasoning is reasoning, and there's such a thing as rejecting or accepting it -- in T, it sorts towards that which is acceptable in terms of (whether subjective or objective) truth/falsehood, in the former case falsehood being a completely internal thing, in the latter case it being decidable externally.

Similarly, feeling reasoning can also assign attributes, but en route to rejecting or accepting what attributes to assign, the focus is not on strict truth/falsehood but on evaluation to get from point A to point B, which is to say, asking things like "is this agreeable" rather than "is it internally true" or "does it objectively work".


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## Dastan (Sep 28, 2011)

Well I just thought that the conscious core of thinking is more about conditions, deductions, classifications, relations and conceptualization than about sorting things into true and untrue. But maybe this true/untrue thing is the immanent condition of all conceptualization.

And I thought that the conscious core of feeling actually is very much about some variant of agreement and rejection. But as some people here stated, there are also many feeling attributes that are not that "judgemental" and two-sided/dualistic, but rather some special attributes. Examples are maybe mysterious, secretive, funny, interesting, incredible, crazy... and yes, now I would also sort them as feeling attributes more than thinking ones or mere perceptions.

But I see there is the well-known dilemma of DESCRIBING and DEFINING feeling by thinking about it.


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

Dastan said:


> Well I just thought that the conscious core of thinking is more about conditions, deductions, classifications, relations and conceptualization than about sorting things into true and untrue. But maybe this true/untrue thing is the immanent condition of all conceptualization




That's right - I don't think the _goal_ is to expressly sort into true and untrue, so much as that is the most basic term of accepting or rejecting. Similarly I don't think the _goal _of feeling is always to determine what is good and bad in such black and white terms, but evaluating things en route to one's reasoning as some scale of "good/bad" can serve to make other decisions. 




> Examples are maybe mysterious, secretive, funny, interesting, incredible, crazy... and yes, now I would also sort them as feeling attributes more than thinking ones or mere perceptions.




Right. They could probably be reasoned about either way, but most certainly would admit some feeling component. I could see one approaching even these things entirely as ideas, with no feelings attached to them, but the feelings could serve as a strong guide in reasoning about them. For instance, in a psychological exposition of what it means to be secretive, someone may not present it much from the standpoint of feeling reasoning, yet evaluating abstract feelings towards scenarios involving secrecy could have played strongly into their conceptualization of it. 


For instance Ti can subjectively classify things, and so can Fi, but their standards for reasoning will be distinct.




> xamples are maybe mysterious, secretive, funny, interesting, incredible, crazy... and yes, now I would also sort them as feeling attributes more than thinking ones or mere perceptions.




Exactly, the more of a feeler you are, I think the less likely you'll stick to the most basic kinds of feeling.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

*Everyone thinks their own system is complex*. I can't imagine how other people live without Ti at least as a well developed tertiary. I mean I just can't imagine how I would get anything done. But that doesn't say that an Fe dom might actually be managing their life with more of things being the way they want in their own life, than what I'm experiencing this moment or this year.

What might be starting to get old to me, is the idea that it is worth anything to pit one function against another, or that we should think of functions like a buffet; pick a new function to develop, and that will help your life.
*
People need to use the type they have already acquired, with functions they know how to use!* People can have tactics for things that don't come easy to them, if they need to do that. ENFJ is it's own system. ENTP is something else, INTJ could never operate like an ESFP. My ESFP Dad enjoys life on his terms. I'm not saying anything here to be nice though. Anyone who wants to complain about typism better not read Jung's psychological stereotypes types (he has bad things to say about all of us).


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## Bricolage (Jul 29, 2012)

I have always been disturbed by the dichotomous, and contrived, battle between thinking and feeling. I happen to employ thinking more, but feeling is perfectly valid, in spite of society's appraising. Personal meaning in life, in fact, is primarily a feeling. Without feeling, even in an elevated state of rational awareness, life feels empty. It seems empty. It is empty, according to one's consciousness and limited ontological perspective. A union between thinking and feeling is the ideal recipe for a satisfying life.


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## SherlyDEDUCE (Jul 25, 2012)

This question has no real answer.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Yea, feeling removes a lot of doubt that thinking leaves in its wake (like, getting "lost in your thoughts").


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

'Thinking,' as Jung used it, was a label for a form of judgment. General thinking or ruminations are something else.

Just like 'Feeling' is different from experiencing emotions.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

*One of my observations - in the process of being fine tuned,*
with some credit to *@The Madman *for some wording in another thread, from discussion about tertiary, or dichotomies and theories. -BTW If my following definitions below seem biased or worded fairly I would like to know; it's not intended to be self serving.

*A basic pattern, observation of an Axis:*

*Te/Fi* = *efficiency judgements* *are* *objective -* *harmony judgements* *are* *subjective*
*Ti/Fe* = *efficiency judgements are* *subjective *- *harmony judgements* *are* *objective,*
Efficiency, as used here, meaning from an adaptive or survival view, how we manage energy falls into categories of efficiency and harmony even though we may not think about it in directly that way in daily life. 

*Judging Function definitions:*

*Fi* is judgement based on internalized standards that stem from an idealized ego image. The image or collection of intrinsically esteemed priorities has been abstracted or extrapolated from a variety of possibly untraceable sources. Nature, nurture and life lessons that have been absorbed into the unconscious make Fi highly personal and at the same time connected to a common human nature or physiology.
*Te *is judgement based on logical structures and truth that can be confirmed from sources outside the self (objective).
*Ti *is judgement based on experience, or conceptual understanding, and model making. Ti logic is concerned with cohesiveness, consistency, and framed by desired outcomes. Ti is capable of collecting facts, but purposes of Ti involve an internal sense of order and understanding. Where Te is valued as means to an end, Ti is sometimes valued for itself or how it offers competence, control, and clarity as it's own reward.
*Fe* is judgement based on awareness of specific human relationship dynamics, social context in general, and specific contextual social implications.

*Te-Fi **works on more of a premise of absolutes, and **Ti-Fe **operates on the premise that at some critical point, everything is somebody's perception.* My suggestion is that either axis operates as a set. In order to function in life and not be arbitrarily flung between being frantic or frozen we must choose a judgement default setting or preference. To be able to function with internal management capability, with needs met from environment, each person negotiates life, from a particular perspective. Could any specific function be able to exist to the self, if it's opposite doesn't exist as a comparison? Even when the opposite is largely unconscious or inferior we need it as a reference point or a method to orient ourselves with ourselves and whatever is not self. ?


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## Bricolage (Jul 29, 2012)

A more useful dichotomy is viewing Jung's functions as rational or irrational, as Jung did. Fe and Ti are rational functions whereas intuition and sensing are irrational. A lead intuitive might be unable to explain how something adds up - because the intuitive process is prominently entwined with the unconscious - but even a lead Fi user will be able to pronounce and extemporaneously articulate her values.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

*@unctuousbutler* Percieving functions, I thought I would leave to some other thread later when I have more clarity myself for the wording.

Could be that my use of the word perception was misleading so to clarify, perception, as a function was not intended to be addressed in my last post.

My point about Fi is that it is what it is, why is not needed for the self when using Fi.
Why is needed for Ti or it would not be Ti. Also, a persons values are not the same thing as Fi and my main interest in re-wording things is to avoid those kinds of assumptions that seem to often happen.


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