# Perception Functions Part 2 of 4 (see judging part one)



## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

Old Intern said:


> The mainstream assumption about type, Jung or otherwise, is that one's dominant function is a primary ego defense or sense of self.
> 
> *My problem, and I still may not know how to word it*, is that a *perceiving type* (leading or axillary Ne or Se) is not actively engaged in Ne or Se (ego investment) the way that, for example, a Te dom says "I am the kind of person who consistently acts on reality". Extroverted perception just is what it is, or else it is no longer perception, it is judgement. But my above theory falls apart when I apply my idea of introverted functions being what you own, if I look at what I've observed with thread participation of ENTJ's (my above Te comment).
> *
> ...



Ok... So... I'm still struggling understanding you, but I think I see now where you might be coming from.

It sounds like you're suggesting a set of related ideas:
1. You seem to think that the dominant function as the source of Ego Investment is problematic for P-doms.
2. Why is this problematic? Your reasoning isn't very clear, but it seems to be that you're saying that you feel like perception is a "passive" process
3. As an EP type, you then think that maybe it's your introverted Auxiliary that lends a sense of ego-investment, since that's where your most conscious judging function resides. 
4. So you categorize it perhaps as "Ego Investment resides in the most conscious introverted function". 
5. But that idea seems problematic for EJ types (??? does it???) since their most conscious introverted function is a perception function, and, well, see item 2 about you feeling like perception is a "passive" process and thus unsuitable for ego investment.
5b. Or perhaps you think the idea of ego investment in an extraverted function is a paradox.

Assuming that my understanding is somewhere near the mark here, I'd suggest that your ego-investment (assuming that I understand what you mean by that phrase as well) is quite firmly in Extraverted Intuition, and I see absolutely no "problem" with extraverted functions (or perception functions) as being suitable for ego-investment.

Remember that there are actually only *4 functions*, but that these 4 functions can take on either an introverted or extraverted attitude. Both an Fe-dom and an Fi-dom (EFJ and IFP) have the *same* ego investment, namely, they are invested in structures and hierarchies of value and worth. The difference is that extraverts, and thus EFJ's, take the world on its own terms. They take the world as it is, and understand themselves to be a part of the world as it is. Their ego investment is one that treats some part of the world as it is, "objective", outside of personal interpretation. I really don't see how that could be problematic at all, nor do I see why Je-dominants would have to "hide" or "defer" their ego investment to their Pi function.

You seem to be suggesting that Fe-dominants are at the whim of the opinions of those around them. How can EFJ's be "full" people if they don't have any opinions of their own? That's an incorrect interpretation of extraverted feeling. EFJ's recognize themselves as *a part of *the world, and thus the structure that they have an ego-investment in is also a *part of *the world. Contrast this with IFP's, who see themselves as *separate* from the world and thus their ego-investment is also *separate* from the world.

What I'm saying, in short, is that it is not a contradiction to both have a sense of self and to recognize that your sense of self is connected to objective reality. At least that's how I see it.

And I hope to god that was what you were getting at, because that took a lot of time and mental energy to type :laughing:


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

idea of ego investment in an extroverted function is a paradox. -correct

it seems to be that you're saying that you feel like perception is a "passive" process - correct to some extent.
Perception doesn't do anything because that becomes judgement. Perception recognizes it's self in contrast to other selves or other perceptions, which can only be guessed at because of what the other person is saying or doing.

*The EJ's* introverted perception is not too problematic with my theory because the subjectivity is inside the person and on-call sort of, for any time they want to consult it. When I have a firehose of ideas, I have to write them down.
What doesn't hold up for what I'm saying is that Te, seems to operate quite strongly without much awareness of other functions.
I don't know how the same could be true for an Fe dom.

*You have been much appreciated for the effort and the insight here . . . but....*
Fe, recognizing itself as part of the world doesn't help me on this? 
It seems to me that Fi and Ti are more on par with each other and Fe, Te are more on par with each other. I don't see how Fe can be a value system really.

I get how an ISFP, and an INTP are the most individualistic and are the only ones in life who are truly doing their own thing.
*Good point about sense of self and reality*. -My understanding of Fe is still troubling me I guess?


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

Ok, round 2 (3? 4?) of deciphering the Ne explosion 



Old Intern said:


> idea of ego investment in an extroverted function is a paradox. -correct


I don't see this as a paradox at all. In fact, when you said that extraverted functions were a "source of pleasure" I laughed a little to myself, since I disagree with that statement on multiple levels.

In any case, you went on to make a statement about ego control. I don't think that's a very well defined term or concept, or at the very least I don't see that you've defined it. In any case, who says that something has to be "controlled" (whatever that means) to be a suitable target for ego investment? As a P-dom, my ego investment lies quite firmly in my perceptions. I don't control them, but I'm firmly invested in them. Lenore Thomson (I know, I refer to her too much, but she's a fellow Ni-dom, and what she writes makes so much sense to me!) said about introverted intuition that it was like a train on the edge of comprehension. You don't direct the train, but you can grab on and see where it takes you. Ni-dominants can't tell you where that train is going, but they will insist very strongly that they need to take it.

Now, of course, we're bumping into the "degrees of freedom" problem. I'm an introvert, you might say, so it makes sense for you to have ego-investment in your dominant, introverted function. But if we consult a Je-Pi type (EJ) instead of a Pi-Je type (IJ), we have the problem that they are extraverted. It's confounded!

The point being, I can't pretend to know how other people derive their sense of self. I can make guesses based on my own personal ideas and based on what other people have said, but to *know* is outside of my grasp. So I'm open to you suggesting otherwise. At the same time, I frankly don't see what the problem is with having an ego investment in extraversion, and with all due respect, you haven't articulated very well why you see it as a problem.



> it seems to be that you're saying that you feel like perception is a "passive" process - correct to some extent.
> Perception doesn't do anything because that becomes judgement. Perception recognizes it's self in contrast to other selves or other perceptions, which can only be guessed at because of what the other person is saying or doing.


See above. Also, I don't think what you're saying about the contrast thing makes sense.


> *The EJ's* introverted perception is not too problematic with my theory because the subjectivity is inside the person and on-call sort of, for any time they want to consult it. When I have a firehose of ideas, I have to write them down.


Help me understand the contrast you're drawing here. It sounds like you're just describing your experience with Ne. You experience of your perceptions is that they are actually part of the world (that's extraversion!) and so they don't seem to be "on call" to you. You feel like you have to write them down or they slip away from you. Is that right?

I see this as neither surprising nor problematic to the idea that your ego-investment is with Ne.



> What doesn't hold up for what I'm saying is that Te, seems to operate quite strongly without much awareness of other functions.
> I don't know how the same could be true for an Fe dom.


Huh?



> *You have been much appreciated for the effort and the insight here . . . but....*
> Fe, recognizing itself as part of the world doesn't help me on this?
> It seems to me that Fi and Ti are more on par with each other and Fe, Te are more on par with each other. I don't see how Fe can be a value system really.
> 
> ...


What part of Fe is troubling you?

I'm really trying to decipher your stream of consciousness here, but a little structure would help!


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

Working backwards, First, I really appreciate your time with me and feel free to quote or refer to anyone you want to.

Contrast
I always knew something was different about me as in contrast to people who refer to themselves as practical (My N factor) My Dad is Se dom, we have occasional clashes of how to do things, and yet have been perceived as similar according to some relative's viewpoints; this seems to me like an introversion extroversion thing. BUT - until getting into this stuff and studying it, I'm aware of something by contrast; I don't actually know what it is like to be any other way than being me! So even though I'm pretty sure of my own type, If I want to type myself, the whole idea of ego and identity being a useful concept seems vague to me.

I can often tell when talking to people, what is important to their ego, in the sense of how do they want to be perceived and what do they think is a compliment. That being a different thing than a psychological term of ego might be part of what I'm struggling with here in terms of ending up with a useable system of management out of all this.

So I guess I'm saying yeah I can relate to being Ne dom, but it's not the same thing as Te being able to make a statement of self hood like "hey I'm the guy who believes in pragmatism".

*What I'm going for here, and I suppose it does look scattered,*  
but I want, and believe there is a management system in all this. Something with meat on it, working from the inside out of a person but useable for my target market. I'm still seeing loose ends. Socionomics may be trying to deal with the loopholes of MBTI, and maybe I am down a rabbit hole. I'm pretty sure the Ti-Fe thing has something important in it and I don't know what. We shall see If I get any input from an ENFJ thread where I ask them to explain Fe from their perspective.

Your comment about extroverted functions from an introverts non enjoyment perspective is actually pretty funny.
Thanks, again


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

Old Intern said:


> So I guess I'm saying yeah I can relate to being Ne dom, but it's not the same thing as Te being able to make a statement of self hood like "hey I'm the guy who believes in pragmatism".


Why is it not valid for you to say "I'm the gal who believes in exploring the interplay between context and meaning"?


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## Meadow (Sep 11, 2012)

I'm going to jump in here and risk making a fool of myself since I haven't read most of the posts for a day or two and don't remember if this was covered and discarded. My theory is that the judging function would typically be where people's egos are invested. Without a judging function, there is no limit to what is perceived -- we'd just be perceiving machines. With judgment, we're saying, "This is who I am, the parts of perceiving that I choose as being most important to life." As much as I love Ne, and it brings me a lot of pleasure, it's the judging function that decides what I choose to focus on and that most makes me who I am. And actually, my ego is invested in logic and has been since I reached adulthood, which I guess is outside functions. 

This is just off the top of my head, so feel free to shoot it down.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

Teybo said:


> Why is it not valid for you to say "I'm the gal who believes in exploring the interplay between context and meaning"?


(chuckle) I suppose I could (not bad description actually). What I guess I'm looking at is that I don't feel the need to define myself that much, and I wonder if what I hear so much about Dom, and ego defense, is that it is more of an issue for people who operate with Te-Fi. ? I might be pulling this out of my ass but it seems to be a pattern - maybe. ?

That Te- Fi needs to represent their standards or identity and Ti - Fe just wants to do what it wants to do, maybe support other people on their own path too but not "convert" them or anything. ?

Started to get a little feed back from ENFJ's, we will see if helpful patterns emerge or if what I'm going towards gets debunked.

*Meadow* *yes! I think this is an Ne thing,* we are rudderless if we were to just drift with Ne.
My first poster to reply in my ENFJ research seemed to indicate that Fe needs to work with a support function too, in this case Ni, but too early to surmise anything on that yet.


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

Ok, throwing stuff out there:

Your discussion of the similarity between Fi/Ti in terms of the "job" they have reminds me of something. One interpretation of the function-attitudes is that they play specific psychological roles according to the J/P I/E nature. This is put forth in a memorable way by the InterPersonality people here:






They lay it out thusly:
Je (Fe/Te): organize and evaluate info in the outer world
Ji (Ti/Fe): organize and evaluate info in the inner world
Pe (Se/Ne): Gather and absorb info in the outer world
Pi (Ni/Se): Condense and contextualize info in the inner world

(I have some nit picks with InterPersonality, but let's move on) As put forth in this interpretation, Fi/Ti would have more in common than Fe and Fi do. The ordering of functions reflects the "importance" of the activity associated with the role of each function. So IJ's are going to spend the most time condensing and contextualizing information in their inner world, while EJ's are going to be structuring their outer world.

So, following this line of thought, to the extent that the inner world is where the self resides, then introverted functions are going to be the seat of the self. Since it seems easier to do so, given my life experience as an introvert, and given that we're discussing introverted funtions, let's look at the two "ends" of the introvert spectrum: IJ (Pi-dominant) types and IP (Ji dominant) types. Pi-dominants will tend to have inner worlds that are less structured than Ji-dominants, whereas Ji-dominants will spend a much greater amount of time structuring and organizing their inner experiences. 

It makes sense to me to think of Pi-dominants as "observers" of the inner world. I can certainly identify with it, anyway. I feel like my own inner world is pretty turbulent and chaotic, and it's only with focused effort that I uncover the structure in my experiences.

It also makes sense to me to think of Ji-dominants as "categorizers" of the inner world. In that other thread, the INFP's were discussing that it felt like they spend a lot of time "calibrating" their inner scales and measures, matching up their experiences with their internal categories.

This analysis doesn't imply that the Ji function would be preferred over the Pi function as the "seat" of self, but it does seem to imply that the sense of self is most strongly rooted in the "most conscious" introverted function, which is what you @Old Intern were saying earlier.

So in application to extraverts, I don't know, maybe extraverts don't prioritize their sense of self as much as introverts do? Like, extraverts are literally more comfortable not with themselves but beside themselves? I guess it makes sense. It makes me kind of sad for extraverts though, almost like they're disembodied or even just uncomfortable being themselves, and that makes me question this interpretation a bit. Maybe the analysis is fine but I'm putting a judgment on it where none should be made.

Ok, well, I'm going to end this post here. I didn't get to the Ti-Fe vs Fi-Te thing specifically just yet, but I thought it would be good to address the "seat of self" idea we've been discussing.

Also, I'm not really going to proof read this post, so... uh... sorry.


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## Old Intern (Nov 20, 2012)

@*Teybo *soooooo cool. Thanks!



Teybo said:


> They lay it out thusly:
> Je (Fe/Te): organize and evaluate info in the outer world
> Ji (Ti/Fi): organize and evaluate info in the inner world
> Pe (Se/Ne): Gather and absorb info in the outer world
> ...


I so "get" what you are referring to here and I'm going to chew on the rest of it . . . . Good stuff!


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