# Explain to me.... Fi



## FlaviaGemina (May 3, 2012)

I find the socionics descriptions of Fi far more accurate than what you read about Fi on forums (e.g. Fi = selfishness, etc.)

Socionics Information Elements: Fi


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

ConspiracyTheory said:


> Ts have values. The only difference is their perspective.
> 
> Do you see a relevance in judging a value on ants? Whether they use clay or sand to build their houses?
> In the same way, I find what Fs decide to judge irrelevant.
> ...


Well then we seem to have a disagreement on definition.
For me 
T is what something means.
F is the value of something.
S is what is there.
N is where things are coming from or where they are going.
That was also the definition Jung used.
Now I may not have always worded myself totally in accordance with these function rules.
But this is how I view them to be.

Hence T can't value anything, it is not T's job.
Dom T repress valuing of things, it only labels it and works out it's meaning.

F on the other hand don't label things, it is not F's job.
Dom F repress labeling things, it only value things and works out it's worth.

Now when you mention society doesn't recognize them I get what you are meaning.
You as any other dom Ji type is having a standoff between the outer world and inner reality.
There cannot really be any agreement, 
even in this matter, cause there is too much subjective meaning on the line.

Sure you can declare something valueless, but why do you do that?
Are you sure that you did that entirely with T with no interference from F?
T's do repress F, but that doesn't mean that it is absent.
If so then the other side would be just as true, T would be absent for me.
I wouldn't be able to look at an object and say that is a chair and that is a stone.
And logic is the wrong word, cause logic is a skill not a function.
I'm aware that I sometimes use that word wrongly myself, cause I'm totally not following any rules consistency.
Yet I do use T all day long for all sorts of things, just as you use F all day long for all sorts of things.
Yet as dom T or F the other standpoint is always held at bay to a degree.
And it is in the final analysis not very influential in the psyche.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

hornet said:


> I can kinda see what you are pointing at with that analogy.
> Can you give an example how this would play out so I get more specifically what you mean?


Well like Jung or Bruce Lee. They think every student/patient is different. There is no hardened mold for each one. That is what Jung was fighting Freud about. An "objective psychology". You can see Fe in Jung's system. It is fair as hell. It is like every type is equal. It is your mother telling you here is why you are different, your weaknesses, work on them yourselves. Like Bruce Lee said he doesn't teach self defense or to kick somebody's ass. He teaches what a person really shows up at his studio for. Which is much different than working on their body. Jung said an artist, let's a person "realize their purpose though them." So does a good counselor. Lee said a good teacher protects his students from his beliefs. We try to see what you want, and help you become it. We are often very wrong, but still.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

FearAndTrembling said:


> Well like Jung or Bruce Lee. They think every student/patient is different. There is no hardened mold for each one. That is what Jung was fighting Freud about. An "objective psychology". You can see Fe in Jung's system. It is fair as hell. It is like every type is equal. It is your mother telling you here is why you are different, your weaknesses, work on them yourselves. Like Bruce Lee said he doesn't teach self defense or to kick somebody's ass. He teaches what a person really shows up at his studio for. Which is much different than working on their body. Jung said an artist, let's a person "realize their purpose though them." So does a good counselor. Lee said a good teacher protects his students from his beliefs. We try to see what you want, and help you become it. We are often very wrong, but still.


Ah okay I think I understand.

lol it is funny how much I had to resist going down misunderstanding lane here.
Seem like every conversation is like that nowadays and from my other interaction in this thread,
I seldom remember to request the relevant information. :-/


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

Another point on this. This is why Fe has no values or loyalties. Because we have no Fi. Like Lee said he doesn't believe in different styles. He asked if he was American or Chinese. He said he is a human being. He is all people. Just like Jung. They have no beliefs whatsoever. lol. All they do is say each side is equally as bad as the other. Like Jung said when we look at the Iron Curtain, all we see is our shadow reflecting back at us. And Nietzsche. The abyss quote. He is Ni-Fe too. Socionics sites type him as that. It is clear to me. That is what Ni-Fe talks about it.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

hornet said:


> Ah okay I think I understand.
> 
> lol it is funny how much I had to resist going down misunderstanding lane here.
> Seem like every conversation is like that nowadays and from my other interaction in this thread,
> I seldom remember to request the relevant information. :-/


It is also based on the larger Ni concept that opposites must conflict and sharpen each other to a greater creation. lol. So you can see why Ni-Fe can divide people so much. Look at Obama.


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## Ixim (Jun 19, 2013)

I'll be short:

Fi is a personal and ethical evaluation of something. "Attraction and repulsion" based on relations to those personal ethical constructs. If Ti constantly measures descriptions, definitions and sizes of things, Fi does that to relations, ethical actions and feelings.

example: Fi is "I HATE YOU!" as much as "this is AWESOME" and "I love you". All of them being evaluation of feelings and relations towards something based on personal ethics.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

FearAndTrembling said:


> Another point on this. This is why Fe has no values or loyalties. Because we have no Fi. Like Lee said he doesn't believe in different styles. He asked if he was American or Chinese. He said he is a human being. He is all people. Just like Jung. They have no beliefs whatsoever. lol. All they do is say each side is equally as bad as the other. Like Jung said when we look at the Iron Curtain, all we see is our shadow reflecting back at us. And Nietzsche. The abyss quote. He is Ni-Fe too. Socionics sites type him as that. It is clear to me. That is what Ni-Fe talks about it.


Of course with Lee you also had aux Se.
I've read some of his writings and I can relate to the part of no style as style from the Se angle.
Every martial art is just moving the body in different patterns.
From a Se POV it makes little sense labeling them.
Yet I often fall in the Te trap of doing so anyway. xD
It is hard to go outside the scope of your cognitive biases.
And once I've started to value a style for Fi reasons it can be real hard to let go.
There is also the part where I just don't have the mental surplus to pick everything apart Ti style.
I also struggle to see the point valuing Te, it just don't strike me as meaningful.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

hornet said:


> Of course with Lee you also had aux Se.
> I've read some of his writings and I can relate to the part of no style as style from the Se angle.
> Every martial art is just moving the body in different patterns.
> From a Se POV it makes little sense labeling them.
> ...


Se is the most rigid function. Lee is all about possibilities. Intuitive dom.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

FearAndTrembling said:


> Se is the most rigid function. Lee is all about possibilities. Intuitive dom.


Yeah right you have typed him as INFJ.
I havn't tried typing him, just saw him typed by others as ISTP so many times.
Still that was the idea I got from him, Se and Ni are linked, 
so patterns of movement still holds true, that was sort of my point anyway.
I could relate to his interpretation of the reality of martial art.
I can agree on him being beta at least, 
I don't really have the surplus to sit down and test your typing of him.
And as far as I've concerned it doesn't really matter all that much to me what type he was.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

hornet said:


> Yeah right you have typed him as INFJ.
> I havn't tried typing him, just saw him typed by others as ISTP so many times.
> Still that was the idea I got from him, Se and Ni are linked,
> so patterns of movement still holds true, that was sort of my point anyway.
> ...


ISxP is the most stubborn type imo. That isn't an insult. You guys stick to your guns. Lee is the opposite of that. Nothing is fixed. Ni about being dynamic. Flexible. Fluid. He is whatever the situation needs him to be.


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## ConspiracyTheory (Apr 13, 2014)

FearAndTrembling said:


> Another point on this. This is why Fe has no values or loyalties. Because we have no Fi. Like Lee said he doesn't believe in different styles. He asked if he was American or Chinese. He said he is a human being. He is all people. Just like Jung. They have no beliefs whatsoever. lol. All they do is say each side is equally as bad as the other. Like Jung said when we look at the Iron Curtain, all we see is our shadow reflecting back at us. And Nietzsche. The abyss quote. He is Ni-Fe too. Socionics sites type him as that. It is clear to me. That is what Ni-Fe talks about it.


Fe does values and loyalties. It just functions in a different pattern.

we as an MBTI community are looking at the functions wrong. 

A metaphor: They are like wavelengths of the same thing.

A low sound has long wavelengths.
A high sound has short wavelengths.

We could say Fi has short wavelengths and Ti has long wavelengths. But they are both the exact same thing: wavelengths. We can't say Ti doesn't have wavelengths, we an only say they are a different pattern of the same thing as Fi.

Some people use Firefox and some use safari.
Ti and Fi both make judgements and have values, but the input they consider relevant is what's different. We are confusing this as meaning they aren't both browsers. It's like we are saying only Fi is a browser, and Ti is something else.

That's why people are confused as to what type they are. A lot of people are Ts, but because they know they are using a browser they think they're an F. We're perpetuating the myth that only F is a browser so they think they can't be a T then. In reality, Ts are browsers too. And vice versa.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

ConspiracyTheory said:


> Fe does values and loyalties. It just functions in a different pattern.
> 
> we as an MBTI community are looking at the functions wrong.
> 
> ...





How does Fi express itself? Can Fi talk? How can Fi talk? What language would it use? Ti can justify itself. With logic. Thinking has a language. Feeling does not. Fi and Ti are quite different in this regard. As Fi is the only function that cannot "show its work". The only judging function anyway. Fe can explain itself in relation to the environment. How can Fi?


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## ConspiracyTheory (Apr 13, 2014)

FearAndTrembling said:


> How does Fi express itself? Can Fi talk? How can Fi talk? What language would it use? Ti can justify itself. With logic. Thinking has a language. Feeling does not. Fi and Ti are quite different in this regard. As Fi is the only function that cannot "show its work". The only judging function anyway. Fe can explain itself in relation to the environment. How can Fi?


How can Ti justify itself without first having an idea to justify? Where does that idea come from?

The universe allows the possibility of killing people. How do we know it's wrong? Who are we to say "We can't kill people." When actually, we can. So what is the initial thought in our minds, which we use words to defend?

I'm a Ti and I beleive it's wrong. What makes me believe that? I could justify it either way, yet something in me tells me it's wrong regardless of rationales.. But you're telling me that's not a feeling? I beleieve Ti does have feelings, but they are capable of dismissing them. My problem as a Ti is I have to do the piñata process. I can't just beleive something, I have to determine whether it holds up. 

The initial belief that falls into a Ti's mind is strung up like a piñata, and inside our mind we hit it with as many flaws as we can, trying to see if it holds up. If it does, we verbalize it.

Fi has an initial belief, maybe the same one as Ti, but it doesn't bother going through the piñata process. Fi trusts the source where the idea came from as truth. They verbalize it and can see the rationales that support it. They don't dismiss it, not because they can't or don't have the intellect to do that,, but because they think dismissing it is an inaccurate thing to do.

I would like to know how I think something is wrong. Logically I could argue either way and the scale could be balanced, so what is in me that inherently puts weight on the side of good?
I don't know. I'm trying to figure out where that slant comes from.
I can't rest saying "It's simply wrong." I have to conclude some reason to support it. Right now I say "not murdering people is valuable to the species" but in reality I think that is flawed and I really can't figure out what inside people makes us slant towards good.



An example.
My friend is a Fi. He thinks people should wait til marriage to have sex. Why? He feels that it's right. Why? He logically defends by saying it creates a reward, it shows an exercise of discipline, and it adds to the principle of commitment. So he is actually defending the ideas of commitment and discipline. I think his belief that these things will occur by waiting til marriage doesn't hold up in the pinata process,, so I don't beleive it.

Why does my brain go through the piñata process while his brain tells him it's unnecessary? That process setting being turned on or off in someone is the difference between Fi and Ti cognition.

Why is his a feeling but mine isn't? Mine is the same initial perception, but goes through a different process.


As to whether Fi can talk, I think that premise is flawed so I can't debate on it, as I've explained above. But the reason it's flawed is because we are all physiological molecules. Language and logic aren't corporeal, the same way emotions and feelings aren't. Langauge is a display of concepts and emotions so Fi's Langauge is the same one Ti uses.


P.s I want to add in case I come off wrong: As an NT I feel like this debate about what is and what's not is fun and I enjoy it. I would buy you a piece of cake if I knew you. Debating is my version of laughing with friends.


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## ConspiracyTheory (Apr 13, 2014)

Fi auto defends truths like commitment and discipline.. Why does it feel this bias?

Ti agrees with those as truths, but needs a reason. Ti is like the critical rebel child.

Notice in any discussion or debate, people always defend some idea of goodness. They never question why we all assume that is correct. Where does this bias come from, and why is it inside us inherently?

I think this natural slant towards defending good beyond reason proves the existence of God. 
I can't find any other reason why people are born defending concepts of goodness, unless there is an inherence to the universe, a backbone of compassion, beyond any rationality.
Some people choose to do evil, I guess that is freewill. Giving the freedom to choose is an act of compassion itself, congruent to there being an inherence of kindness to the universe.

I think that's the source of all of our thoughts. The cognitive functions are different interpretations of the same information.


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## ConspiracyTheory (Apr 13, 2014)

And that idea is a possible explanation of the meaning for "turn the other cheek." Allowing someone to exercise their freewill, even if evil, is compassion to others, mimicking god.

God isn't a person, it's the backbone of the universe. The idea of God is the personification of kindness.

I notice animals have a positivity in them too. My pet enjoys being petted and receiving positive attention.. He doesn't like to be alone. He rubs against me and when I give him food or water he doesn't eat it, which means he desires something else from me, which I assume is caring. So this all permits a belief that there is something inherent to the universe that causes living things to naturally feel a sort of love.

I don't know how atheists explain how every debate automatically relies on a common premise of goodness. Any tangent away from the principles of goodness is regarded as a challenge to an established standard. How is the standard already established without need for explanation, unless kindness is a truth? So if it's a truth, it alludes to something in existence compatible to the idea of God.


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## Peter (Feb 27, 2010)

Finaille said:


> Fi. Beloved and hated introverted feeling.
> 
> I feel like nearly every other function (with the exception of Ni) has good definition, practical application, easy to find traits and models to describe the function in detail.
> 
> But what is Fi? Every single webpage that tries to describe Fi comes across as flowery gushy mush that leaves me feeling more ambiguous as before. Is Fi just not an easily defined function? Is it so internal, with self definition and emotion, that the experience varies per user? Tests seem to indicate INFP in me, but I would love to understand the function if it's theoretically my most defined function.


It's not difficult. Just means building an internal framework of what things should be like. And when they´re not, you'll experience this as a feeling. Mostly this is associated with moral and ethical values. (so in it's simplest form: Right and Wrong stuff.)


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## ConspiracyTheory (Apr 13, 2014)

Peter said:


> It's not difficult. Just means building an internal framework of what things should be like. And when they´re not, you'll experience this as a feeling. Mostly this is associated with moral and ethical values. (so in it's simplest form: Right and Wrong stuff.)


Let's use a good term like commitment.
Would you say Fi is comfortable accepting commitment as simply "right".. It accepts this concept as truth, trusting it to be so.

And other functions like Ti or Te may have the same feeling towards it, but being a feeling, when they are thinkers, means they are mistrustful of it, and need to search for a rationality first in order to trust it?


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## Peter (Feb 27, 2010)

ConspiracyTheory said:


> Let's use a good term like commitment.
> Would you say Fi is comfortable accepting commitment as simply "right".. It accepts this concept as truth, trusting it to be so.
> 
> And other functions like Ti or Te may have the same feeling towards it, but being a feeling, when they are thinkers, means they are mistrustful of it, and need to search for a rationality first in order to trust it?


Ti and Te don't feel. The whole point of the cognitive functions is that Feeling,Thinking,Sensing and Intuiting get separated. The brain doesn't do these things separatly of course. But we describe the different aspects of what is going on in the brain as functions.

Commitment, as any other thing, can be considered good by some and bad by others. This is very much the result of previous experiences. People who have had a lot of bad luck with commitment may consider it a bad thing.

How a T deals with good and bad depends a lot on whether or not Fi is in their first 3 functions. In INTJ's right and wrong are important but as it combines with Te and Ni it's a very certain thing. Things are right or wrong and there isn't much of a grey area in between. In an INFP, Fi combines with Ne and a bit with Si,.... Here the grey area is huge and the often can't really get on either side of these 2 extremes.

When Fi is not available, in other words, Fe is preferred, you get completely different results in relation to right or wrong. Now it depends on the situation and/or people around and their opinions. Here people can have the opposite idea of what's right and what's wrong depending on the situation or who they´re talking to. To Fi this is pretty much unacceptable.


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## Hitway (Jan 21, 2014)

Ksara said:


> Ok so feeling is that sense of attraction/repulsion or like/dislike. It evaluates things by a sense of worth.
> 
> What makes Fi introverted is that this evaluation of worth is within the self directed towards the object. That is, it realises what it feels towards the object. Your example: "I don't like this movie"
> This could be expanded to: "I believe that person did a good thing, I don't feel that was right, I find that guy attractive."
> ...


Well, above examples of Fe could probably meant "(I feel that) this movie sucks.",etc.

By "objectively", Fe users evaluate things, subject or object, based on universally/largely agreed-upon judgement.
for example, a large group of people believe that (insert movie name) is great, based on that judgement, a Fe user will believe that movie is great. Doesn't mean that Fe users are "blindly crowd-following", they still have other functions to judge and perceive, Remember that functions came in tandems (Ni-Se, Fe-Ti, Fi-Te, Si-Ne) and not "standing on its own"

Sorry for this badly worded explanation, English is not my first language.


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