Post by jdempcy on May 19, 2018 15:14:08 GMT -5
A little context: I identify as an Ni user, an INTJ in Myers-Briggs, an INTJ-Fi in MBTI64 (or "jumper" in Dave Powers' terminology). Auburn types me as FeSi-Ti based on a fairly extensive analysis of my videos and from our discussions. (Side note: I was incredibly impressed, even if not convinced of the ultimate conclusion, with the cues Auburn picked up on and highlighted.)
I'm starting this thread to discuss CT as a whole and what I consider to be its Ti bias, insofar as it seems to have a blind spot in the form of Te, and perhaps also its Ne bias against Ni. I am framing things in terms of bias as a way of coming over to the Ti side, because I know how much Ti is concerned with truth, accuracy, validation, ensuring correctness, whittling things down to their fundamentals and eliminating opinion, assumption, conjecture, speculation etc. So this is how I am framing it, but to be honest, I could just as easily approach it from the point of saying that I feel misunderstood. The two statements are rather equivalent for me, in that I translate both to mean: I am expressing my opinion that CT does not accurately recognize my use of Ni, or Ni in general, and perhaps Te as well.
However, it's a funny thing because I see two possible scenarios right off the bat: I'm wrong about being NiTe, and I'm wrong about what I've been recognizing as Ni and Te functions in how they work (as metabolic pathways, or information metabolism, to use the seemingly preferred term here), in which case the CT descriptions not fitting with how I understand these processes makes a lot more sense to me (because I'm not using those processes anyway!) -- OR, and this is what I think is happening, CT has a blind spot around Ni and Te, and this is in fact the same stumbling block I have come up against time and time again when engaging with TiNe users on typological theory.
Okay. Here are some related materials I present to get this conversation off the ground. Please, anyone who has any opinion one way or another, or no opinion at all and simply wants to share observations or ask questions, feel free to chime in.
Here goes.
My comment on another thread about the Vin: Myth of the Cosmos description
cognitivetype.com/2017/11/21/vin-the-myth-of-the-cosmos/
I see the kind of obvious truth that we are all one, yada yada, but I didn't see anything about having a moment of epiphany where all the previously-random things coalesce into "totally making sense" as stemming from one singular source, at which point there is something akin to a mental model that can generate new characteristics that "fit" with the essence. It's like, once the essence is grasped, it's this key that allows the Ni-user to test anything against if it is pattern match or not with that essence. "This is the kind of thing this person would say," "That's not the kind of thing they would say/do," etc. And this "kind of thing" type statement seems to go so far against the Ti user and their agnosticism about things that aren't readily apparent as true. But for the Ni user this is their bread and butter.
A video I made airing my grievances about CT with regards to Ti versus Te
A thread with Auburn where I explain my understanding of Ni and Te and Auburn replies with how I am describing Ne and Fe instead
cognitivetype.boards.net/post/20219/thread
Me: [...] the trademark NiTe thing of meandering narration and thinking aloud of the Te, with the Ni "being reminded of something in realtime as you are saying something else." So that's like my main indicator there. Saying things, and processing, or thinking out loud with Te, and then while you are saying something, having it trigger another thought, or memory, or association and you continue going with what was triggered (Ni).
Auburn: Your definition (and Dave's) of Te is nothing like the CT definition. '[Thinking] out loud' is not at all related to Te, and I have a suspicion that this designation may have emerged from a surface correlation via attitudinal-conjunctions (deducing function qualities in reverse, starting from attitudes). For example "extroverted"+"thinking" = "thinking externally" = "thinking aloud". Oppositely, CT frames Te much more like a metabolic pathway that is process-oriented and directed towards the causal relationships between objects (whether mental or literal). Both Fe and Te are "articulator" functions which does also have relationship to oration, however.
Me: My definition of Te is not simply "thinking aloud." That is one particular way I describe Te at one level. I feel it is a Ti thing to be so much about definition, and choosing the most precise words, and boiling things down to what their essence is, but that's not how I function. I make "throwaway definitions" that simply help illustrate a point and can then be freely discarded when they are no longer relevant to that point. I am using definitions as an avenue to get to what I consider to be the ineffable, indescribable, inconceivable essence of a thing which only coincides with what that thing actually is, i.e. the essence of the thing. So Te is an "essence" that is inexhaustible in its potential descriptions, and while some descriptions will be right and others will be wrong, more or less, all descriptions fail to fully encapsulate what Te "really" is, because Te can never "really be" this or that word. It can only be a cognitive process which reveals itself in myriad ways. This, I believe, is a big difference in how NiTe works compared to TiNe. The NiTe does not ultimately arrive at a definition but at an indescribable, inconceivable essence, which is nevertheless revealed to be the source of any number of descriptions, whereas TiNe will arrive at a definition where the word really is the thing. "This is the true meaning of x/y/z." For me, I'm not interested in true meanings, I'm interested in conveying little clues that might lead the other to an intuition of what the thing actually is.
Me (again): [...] when I say I think it is a Ti thing to boil things down to their essence, I actually meant, to find words which (to them) are descriptive of the essential qualities of a thing. So there's a lot of discarding words which don't quite fit, or are inaccurate in some way. Whereas for me, I am trying to find words that work, that are effective and practical in communicating my ideas, and if some words don't work I just throw them away and say, "OK, we are obviously misunderstanding each other when I use those words because those words don't mean the same thing to both of us, so let's use different words!" I'm always willing to abdicate, to give up whatever words I happen to be using and to switch to another vocabulary that might better help me get my point across.
So when you are saying that Te is a "metabolic pathway," those are words that you have found to be better descriptions of what Te is, but there is also an idiosyncratic, personal thing where those words are highly significant to you, and you're trying to get anyone who talks with you about Te to come over to your territory, to your side, to use your vocabulary. And I'm willing to do that! I mean, Te is willing to use whatever vocabulary is presented to them, in an effort for practical communication. It's using whatever is around to get the point across. So I'm like, okay, let me adopt your vocabulary then, because I'm not attached to any particular vocabulary or keywords to describe a given type. What I am highly attached to is my set of opinions, or worldview, which I have carefully built up, such that I have my own inner mental models of various things which I am always trying to pattern match against: "Does this seem like a Ti kind of thing?" And this "kind of thing" is so ambiguous, and vague, and I know it drives INTPs crazy, because it's totally subjective and based on my own opinion about if it's a "Ti kind of thing" or a "Te kind of thing," etc, which is not objective, falsifiable, etc etc. I'm more doing some pattern matching thing against my own inner mental model of the "essence" of something and basically subjectively getting a hit or a miss.
I read you're TiNe and I'm like, "of course, that's what I thought Auburn was from the 3rd sentence I ever read of his," which is true, that was immediately what I got from you. (I'm not always so lucky, and I do mistype people, but sometimes I instantly get it right away—like I got Dave Powers within maybe 20 seconds of hearing him, I knew he was an INTJ, and I got Dario Nardi right away as an INTJ also.)
So, OK, how did I know you're TiNe (and INTP)? And only from text? Only from the way you wrote, without seeing any facial expressions or anything? Lucky guess? Well, maybe, and I can't prove to you it wasn't, or even that I'm not lying to you, so in that sense my self-reporting is not objective or falsifiable. However, I am sharing this not in order to prove a point, but to better explain my understanding—when I read you're TiNe, I immediately accepted it as fact without needing anything to convince me, because I was already convinced.
Auburn: You're correct in that your approach seems awfully flimsy to me, you remind me so much of The Doctor ! he has a thread here where he code-switches that way too (in order to triangulate the reality via multiple labels intersecting). For the record, I'm quite persuaded that this is Fe+Ne... and not at all how Ni works in CT. ^^ But I find I don't have the time to explain beyond saying that it's a hybridization of:
Ne Potentiality: From this angle, the information looks one way. From another, it looks differently, even if it's the same idea. The idea that the essence of a concept is not defined by the details, but by the overall pattern (which any details can momentarily fit beneath) is not exclusive to Ni. Ne does the same. Your quote from Bergson sounds like the general attitude of "N" to me (symbol > specific instances) and leaning towards Ne, not Ni.
Fe Adaptation: Fe's rhetorical proclivity merged with a need for a socially agreed upon lexicon that can make sense of the information frameworks being used, and a willingness (if Fe is adaptive) to alter them for the sake of looking at things from a mutual angle.
But even Ne and Fe are ill defined in our discourse, thus this feels like the sort of situation where we may carry on for pages about the differences in the details of our exhaustive but diverse interpretive frameworks. Your paradigm is far too vast and intertwined for me to untangle. I am trying to approach you through a desire for convergent truth, like a vacuum that is trying to simplify chaos into order. And in that my Ti tells me we cannot make any headway before all is destroyed... and we can start by agreeing on one or two starting premises, then building up an understanding that way. Else no term is sound, no agreement is really agreement.
A thread from Facebook where I was talking about this with other typology folks
Here is something written by the Cognitive Type folks, presumably written by an INTP, about "the myth of the void" which is listed as a foundational myth for the Ti "metabolic pathway":
The Buddhist concept of Sunyata essentially captures the hyper-deconstructive expression of Ti; with Alin being the nature of Ti taken to its utmost extreme and eliminating all contradiction until nothing remains. First it starts by questioning society, one’s behavior, one’s job, one’s aspirations, one’s purpose. Along the way, more and more things are found to be rationally unjustifiable. Based on something else; something other than truth. In the search for the kernel of truth beneath all things, Alin pushes the person into a disassembly of all constructs and concepts.
It may seem bizarre for a judgment process to produce an apparent “cessation of striving” or what seems like a lack-of-trying. But in fact, Alin is very much still striving; striving to remain away from the corrupt. It is hyper-aware of logical fallacies of every sort; of asymmetries. Of flaws. What lies at the root of the myth of Alin is the desire not to self-identify with imperfection or untruth. It is a type of cleansing exercise. And so while it is not a function that affirms a positive direction or ordering… it doesn’t want disorder, and as such is an ordering process in the double-negative.
As untruth is eliminated with such fervor, all that’s left is absence. And in this nothingness there is perfection. In non-assertion, one cannot be flawed. In defeat, there is no chance of being wrong. Impermeability. And so there is a bittersweet comfort felt in this hollowness; Alin considers this ignorance the true condition of our being and what lies behind all our attempts at greatness and personal delusions of purpose. The agnostic mind is the only one that is right and pure. All who claim wisdom are false; I know only that I know nothing. And Alin, as Prince, retains his integrity and purity by staying away from err.
From the neutrality and dispassion of Alin, there is also a life-denying quality. This life-denying quality can become excessive and lead to nihilism in some cases, and more than a few existential questions.
All is a facade; all our knowledge is self-delusion.
All our interactions with one another are charades.
All is noise atop of the singular truth of the universe;
the void that is eternal and impeccable
So this is interesting. I love seeing into the INTP imagination. That excerpt above about "the myth of the void," and "Alin" (a Godhead figure who exemplifies this theme), seems to really get at the Ti process. But then they have one for Ni which seems to really miss the mark, in my opinion.
The Ni myth they call "Ver, the Myth of the Cosmos." And the author says:
Okay. I kind of see where this is going, but I think what is being missed here is that Ni is not about obliterating all difference into homogenized chaos, or sameness, but about actually experiencing direct coincidence with another thing so that you exist as that thing, and grasp what is completely singular, incomparable, ineffable, indescribable about that thing (or person, or place, etc). It's getting to the "essence" which is the haecceity of the thing. Totally unique. It's not discrediting the concept of individuality, it's actually directly apprehending what makes something singular and understanding that thing in a way that does not rely on similarity, homeomorphism, isomorphism, etc, of that thing with anything else. It's experiencing something in its aspect of utterly lacking commonality with any other thing. I believe Henri Bergson, the INFJ, nails it here:
"Consider, again, a character whose adventures are related to me in a novel. The author may multiply the traits of his hero's character, may make him speak and act as much as he pleases, but all this can never be equivalent to the simple and indivisible feeling which I should experience if I were able for an instant to identify myself with the person of the hero himself. Out of that indivisible feeling, as from a spring, all the words, gestures, and actions of the man would appear to me to flow naturally. They would no longer be accidents which, added to the idea I had already formed of the character, continually enriched that idea, without ever completing it. The character would be given to me all at once, in its entirety, and the thousand incidents which manifest it, instead of adding themselves to the idea and so enriching it, would seem to me, on the contrary, to detach themselves from it, without, however, exhausting it or impoverishing its essence. All the things I am told about the man provide me with so many points of view from which I can observe him. All the traits which describe him and which can make him known to me only by so many comparisons with persons or things I know already, are signs by which he is expressed more or less symbolically. Symbols and points of view, therefore, place me outside him; they give me only what he has in common with others, and not what belongs to him and to him alone. But that which is properly himself, that which constitutes his essence, cannot be perceived from without, being internal by definition, nor be expressed by symbols, being incommensurable with everything else. Description, history, and analysis leave me here in the relative. Coincidence with the person himself would alone give me the absolute."
Response from Sam Schneider: But endgame function development as laid down by the founder of types says the void is the point. To be devoid of function dichotomy, not to type, or identify type, but to become de”void” of type.
Jonah (me): See, I think you're a Ti dominant, Sam (we've talked a little about this before). And so I feel like with Ti versus Ni, we both have our interpretation of that statement, the point of types is to be devoid of function dichotomy and so on.
For me as Ni user I see it the way Bergson says above about getting to that indivisible, where all characteristics flow naturally from the indivisible thing that is the singular essence of that person. So the goal is for us to become more fully ourselves, the essence of what it is to be us, which involves disidentifying from particular modes of being (i.e. types). So my "void" is the void of who I really am, as incomparable to anything else.
The Ti void as detailed in the myth above seems to be about getting to a place without blame, without reproach, without making any positive statement because all such positive statements will ultimately be untrue, so the Ti void is a place of ultimate truth in radical negativity. But for me (as Ni user) the true/false divide is still about comparison, about symbol, logic, mentation, Logos, it's getting to the reality of the mind, whereas the Ni is getting to the reality of the spirit as something beyond true/false dichotomy. In other words, the Ti is getting to the truth, while the Ni is getting to the aporia beyond truth. So for Ti the void is the truth of reality while for Ni the same idea of "void" could be interpreted as the reality of what is beyond true and false, the ineffable, the aporia. "The great outdoors" as Meillassoux puts it, perhaps.
Looking forward to others' thoughts
I'll be on vacation for the next 3 weeks and may not be able to follow up in that time, but I do hope this is an interesting topic and that over time we can continue these discussions. So glad to have found such a vital group of theorists. Typology folks, don't hesitate to add me on Facebook or contact me if you ever find yourself in Seattle, or want to collaborate on podcasts, YouTube videos, anything at all. Would be pretty dang cool to get these conversations out to a wider audience, or be part of typology conferences, journals etc. Just brainstorming. In any case, a sincere thank you to Auburn and the CT folks for all your hard work, and willingness to engage with contrary opinions, as well as share the fruits of your labors. Best wishes from Seattle, all!
-Jonah
I'm starting this thread to discuss CT as a whole and what I consider to be its Ti bias, insofar as it seems to have a blind spot in the form of Te, and perhaps also its Ne bias against Ni. I am framing things in terms of bias as a way of coming over to the Ti side, because I know how much Ti is concerned with truth, accuracy, validation, ensuring correctness, whittling things down to their fundamentals and eliminating opinion, assumption, conjecture, speculation etc. So this is how I am framing it, but to be honest, I could just as easily approach it from the point of saying that I feel misunderstood. The two statements are rather equivalent for me, in that I translate both to mean: I am expressing my opinion that CT does not accurately recognize my use of Ni, or Ni in general, and perhaps Te as well.
However, it's a funny thing because I see two possible scenarios right off the bat: I'm wrong about being NiTe, and I'm wrong about what I've been recognizing as Ni and Te functions in how they work (as metabolic pathways, or information metabolism, to use the seemingly preferred term here), in which case the CT descriptions not fitting with how I understand these processes makes a lot more sense to me (because I'm not using those processes anyway!) -- OR, and this is what I think is happening, CT has a blind spot around Ni and Te, and this is in fact the same stumbling block I have come up against time and time again when engaging with TiNe users on typological theory.
Okay. Here are some related materials I present to get this conversation off the ground. Please, anyone who has any opinion one way or another, or no opinion at all and simply wants to share observations or ask questions, feel free to chime in.
Here goes.
My comment on another thread about the Vin: Myth of the Cosmos description
cognitivetype.com/2017/11/21/vin-the-myth-of-the-cosmos/
I see the kind of obvious truth that we are all one, yada yada, but I didn't see anything about having a moment of epiphany where all the previously-random things coalesce into "totally making sense" as stemming from one singular source, at which point there is something akin to a mental model that can generate new characteristics that "fit" with the essence. It's like, once the essence is grasped, it's this key that allows the Ni-user to test anything against if it is pattern match or not with that essence. "This is the kind of thing this person would say," "That's not the kind of thing they would say/do," etc. And this "kind of thing" type statement seems to go so far against the Ti user and their agnosticism about things that aren't readily apparent as true. But for the Ni user this is their bread and butter.
A video I made airing my grievances about CT with regards to Ti versus Te
A thread with Auburn where I explain my understanding of Ni and Te and Auburn replies with how I am describing Ne and Fe instead
cognitivetype.boards.net/post/20219/thread
Me: [...] the trademark NiTe thing of meandering narration and thinking aloud of the Te, with the Ni "being reminded of something in realtime as you are saying something else." So that's like my main indicator there. Saying things, and processing, or thinking out loud with Te, and then while you are saying something, having it trigger another thought, or memory, or association and you continue going with what was triggered (Ni).
Auburn: Your definition (and Dave's) of Te is nothing like the CT definition. '[Thinking] out loud' is not at all related to Te, and I have a suspicion that this designation may have emerged from a surface correlation via attitudinal-conjunctions (deducing function qualities in reverse, starting from attitudes). For example "extroverted"+"thinking" = "thinking externally" = "thinking aloud". Oppositely, CT frames Te much more like a metabolic pathway that is process-oriented and directed towards the causal relationships between objects (whether mental or literal). Both Fe and Te are "articulator" functions which does also have relationship to oration, however.
Me: My definition of Te is not simply "thinking aloud." That is one particular way I describe Te at one level. I feel it is a Ti thing to be so much about definition, and choosing the most precise words, and boiling things down to what their essence is, but that's not how I function. I make "throwaway definitions" that simply help illustrate a point and can then be freely discarded when they are no longer relevant to that point. I am using definitions as an avenue to get to what I consider to be the ineffable, indescribable, inconceivable essence of a thing which only coincides with what that thing actually is, i.e. the essence of the thing. So Te is an "essence" that is inexhaustible in its potential descriptions, and while some descriptions will be right and others will be wrong, more or less, all descriptions fail to fully encapsulate what Te "really" is, because Te can never "really be" this or that word. It can only be a cognitive process which reveals itself in myriad ways. This, I believe, is a big difference in how NiTe works compared to TiNe. The NiTe does not ultimately arrive at a definition but at an indescribable, inconceivable essence, which is nevertheless revealed to be the source of any number of descriptions, whereas TiNe will arrive at a definition where the word really is the thing. "This is the true meaning of x/y/z." For me, I'm not interested in true meanings, I'm interested in conveying little clues that might lead the other to an intuition of what the thing actually is.
Me (again): [...] when I say I think it is a Ti thing to boil things down to their essence, I actually meant, to find words which (to them) are descriptive of the essential qualities of a thing. So there's a lot of discarding words which don't quite fit, or are inaccurate in some way. Whereas for me, I am trying to find words that work, that are effective and practical in communicating my ideas, and if some words don't work I just throw them away and say, "OK, we are obviously misunderstanding each other when I use those words because those words don't mean the same thing to both of us, so let's use different words!" I'm always willing to abdicate, to give up whatever words I happen to be using and to switch to another vocabulary that might better help me get my point across.
So when you are saying that Te is a "metabolic pathway," those are words that you have found to be better descriptions of what Te is, but there is also an idiosyncratic, personal thing where those words are highly significant to you, and you're trying to get anyone who talks with you about Te to come over to your territory, to your side, to use your vocabulary. And I'm willing to do that! I mean, Te is willing to use whatever vocabulary is presented to them, in an effort for practical communication. It's using whatever is around to get the point across. So I'm like, okay, let me adopt your vocabulary then, because I'm not attached to any particular vocabulary or keywords to describe a given type. What I am highly attached to is my set of opinions, or worldview, which I have carefully built up, such that I have my own inner mental models of various things which I am always trying to pattern match against: "Does this seem like a Ti kind of thing?" And this "kind of thing" is so ambiguous, and vague, and I know it drives INTPs crazy, because it's totally subjective and based on my own opinion about if it's a "Ti kind of thing" or a "Te kind of thing," etc, which is not objective, falsifiable, etc etc. I'm more doing some pattern matching thing against my own inner mental model of the "essence" of something and basically subjectively getting a hit or a miss.
I read you're TiNe and I'm like, "of course, that's what I thought Auburn was from the 3rd sentence I ever read of his," which is true, that was immediately what I got from you. (I'm not always so lucky, and I do mistype people, but sometimes I instantly get it right away—like I got Dave Powers within maybe 20 seconds of hearing him, I knew he was an INTJ, and I got Dario Nardi right away as an INTJ also.)
So, OK, how did I know you're TiNe (and INTP)? And only from text? Only from the way you wrote, without seeing any facial expressions or anything? Lucky guess? Well, maybe, and I can't prove to you it wasn't, or even that I'm not lying to you, so in that sense my self-reporting is not objective or falsifiable. However, I am sharing this not in order to prove a point, but to better explain my understanding—when I read you're TiNe, I immediately accepted it as fact without needing anything to convince me, because I was already convinced.
Auburn: You're correct in that your approach seems awfully flimsy to me, you remind me so much of The Doctor ! he has a thread here where he code-switches that way too (in order to triangulate the reality via multiple labels intersecting). For the record, I'm quite persuaded that this is Fe+Ne... and not at all how Ni works in CT. ^^ But I find I don't have the time to explain beyond saying that it's a hybridization of:
Ne Potentiality: From this angle, the information looks one way. From another, it looks differently, even if it's the same idea. The idea that the essence of a concept is not defined by the details, but by the overall pattern (which any details can momentarily fit beneath) is not exclusive to Ni. Ne does the same. Your quote from Bergson sounds like the general attitude of "N" to me (symbol > specific instances) and leaning towards Ne, not Ni.
Fe Adaptation: Fe's rhetorical proclivity merged with a need for a socially agreed upon lexicon that can make sense of the information frameworks being used, and a willingness (if Fe is adaptive) to alter them for the sake of looking at things from a mutual angle.
But even Ne and Fe are ill defined in our discourse, thus this feels like the sort of situation where we may carry on for pages about the differences in the details of our exhaustive but diverse interpretive frameworks. Your paradigm is far too vast and intertwined for me to untangle. I am trying to approach you through a desire for convergent truth, like a vacuum that is trying to simplify chaos into order. And in that my Ti tells me we cannot make any headway before all is destroyed... and we can start by agreeing on one or two starting premises, then building up an understanding that way. Else no term is sound, no agreement is really agreement.
A thread from Facebook where I was talking about this with other typology folks
Here is something written by the Cognitive Type folks, presumably written by an INTP, about "the myth of the void" which is listed as a foundational myth for the Ti "metabolic pathway":
The Buddhist concept of Sunyata essentially captures the hyper-deconstructive expression of Ti; with Alin being the nature of Ti taken to its utmost extreme and eliminating all contradiction until nothing remains. First it starts by questioning society, one’s behavior, one’s job, one’s aspirations, one’s purpose. Along the way, more and more things are found to be rationally unjustifiable. Based on something else; something other than truth. In the search for the kernel of truth beneath all things, Alin pushes the person into a disassembly of all constructs and concepts.
It may seem bizarre for a judgment process to produce an apparent “cessation of striving” or what seems like a lack-of-trying. But in fact, Alin is very much still striving; striving to remain away from the corrupt. It is hyper-aware of logical fallacies of every sort; of asymmetries. Of flaws. What lies at the root of the myth of Alin is the desire not to self-identify with imperfection or untruth. It is a type of cleansing exercise. And so while it is not a function that affirms a positive direction or ordering… it doesn’t want disorder, and as such is an ordering process in the double-negative.
As untruth is eliminated with such fervor, all that’s left is absence. And in this nothingness there is perfection. In non-assertion, one cannot be flawed. In defeat, there is no chance of being wrong. Impermeability. And so there is a bittersweet comfort felt in this hollowness; Alin considers this ignorance the true condition of our being and what lies behind all our attempts at greatness and personal delusions of purpose. The agnostic mind is the only one that is right and pure. All who claim wisdom are false; I know only that I know nothing. And Alin, as Prince, retains his integrity and purity by staying away from err.
From the neutrality and dispassion of Alin, there is also a life-denying quality. This life-denying quality can become excessive and lead to nihilism in some cases, and more than a few existential questions.
All is a facade; all our knowledge is self-delusion.
All our interactions with one another are charades.
All is noise atop of the singular truth of the universe;
the void that is eternal and impeccable
So this is interesting. I love seeing into the INTP imagination. That excerpt above about "the myth of the void," and "Alin" (a Godhead figure who exemplifies this theme), seems to really get at the Ti process. But then they have one for Ni which seems to really miss the mark, in my opinion.
The Ni myth they call "Ver, the Myth of the Cosmos." And the author says:
"The myth of Ni is so well known that it hardly deserves introduction. As such I will focus instead more on keenly defining this myth and hopefully removing some of the basic misconceptions surrounding it. The myth of Vin makes no distinction between matter and spirit, because to it, all is part of an unbroken chain [...] . Some with this myth may come to discredit the concept of Individuality altogether, and come to see all things and people as patterns and iterations. [...] The shaman brings awareness of our interconnectedness to everything into consciousness for the entire race — often through ritual. With emotional inhibitions out of the way, the ego disassembles and allows merging into bliss and cosmic wholeness."
Okay. I kind of see where this is going, but I think what is being missed here is that Ni is not about obliterating all difference into homogenized chaos, or sameness, but about actually experiencing direct coincidence with another thing so that you exist as that thing, and grasp what is completely singular, incomparable, ineffable, indescribable about that thing (or person, or place, etc). It's getting to the "essence" which is the haecceity of the thing. Totally unique. It's not discrediting the concept of individuality, it's actually directly apprehending what makes something singular and understanding that thing in a way that does not rely on similarity, homeomorphism, isomorphism, etc, of that thing with anything else. It's experiencing something in its aspect of utterly lacking commonality with any other thing. I believe Henri Bergson, the INFJ, nails it here:
"Consider, again, a character whose adventures are related to me in a novel. The author may multiply the traits of his hero's character, may make him speak and act as much as he pleases, but all this can never be equivalent to the simple and indivisible feeling which I should experience if I were able for an instant to identify myself with the person of the hero himself. Out of that indivisible feeling, as from a spring, all the words, gestures, and actions of the man would appear to me to flow naturally. They would no longer be accidents which, added to the idea I had already formed of the character, continually enriched that idea, without ever completing it. The character would be given to me all at once, in its entirety, and the thousand incidents which manifest it, instead of adding themselves to the idea and so enriching it, would seem to me, on the contrary, to detach themselves from it, without, however, exhausting it or impoverishing its essence. All the things I am told about the man provide me with so many points of view from which I can observe him. All the traits which describe him and which can make him known to me only by so many comparisons with persons or things I know already, are signs by which he is expressed more or less symbolically. Symbols and points of view, therefore, place me outside him; they give me only what he has in common with others, and not what belongs to him and to him alone. But that which is properly himself, that which constitutes his essence, cannot be perceived from without, being internal by definition, nor be expressed by symbols, being incommensurable with everything else. Description, history, and analysis leave me here in the relative. Coincidence with the person himself would alone give me the absolute."
Response from Sam Schneider: But endgame function development as laid down by the founder of types says the void is the point. To be devoid of function dichotomy, not to type, or identify type, but to become de”void” of type.
Jonah (me): See, I think you're a Ti dominant, Sam (we've talked a little about this before). And so I feel like with Ti versus Ni, we both have our interpretation of that statement, the point of types is to be devoid of function dichotomy and so on.
For me as Ni user I see it the way Bergson says above about getting to that indivisible, where all characteristics flow naturally from the indivisible thing that is the singular essence of that person. So the goal is for us to become more fully ourselves, the essence of what it is to be us, which involves disidentifying from particular modes of being (i.e. types). So my "void" is the void of who I really am, as incomparable to anything else.
The Ti void as detailed in the myth above seems to be about getting to a place without blame, without reproach, without making any positive statement because all such positive statements will ultimately be untrue, so the Ti void is a place of ultimate truth in radical negativity. But for me (as Ni user) the true/false divide is still about comparison, about symbol, logic, mentation, Logos, it's getting to the reality of the mind, whereas the Ni is getting to the reality of the spirit as something beyond true/false dichotomy. In other words, the Ti is getting to the truth, while the Ni is getting to the aporia beyond truth. So for Ti the void is the truth of reality while for Ni the same idea of "void" could be interpreted as the reality of what is beyond true and false, the ineffable, the aporia. "The great outdoors" as Meillassoux puts it, perhaps.
Looking forward to others' thoughts
I'll be on vacation for the next 3 weeks and may not be able to follow up in that time, but I do hope this is an interesting topic and that over time we can continue these discussions. So glad to have found such a vital group of theorists. Typology folks, don't hesitate to add me on Facebook or contact me if you ever find yourself in Seattle, or want to collaborate on podcasts, YouTube videos, anything at all. Would be pretty dang cool to get these conversations out to a wider audience, or be part of typology conferences, journals etc. Just brainstorming. In any case, a sincere thank you to Auburn and the CT folks for all your hard work, and willingness to engage with contrary opinions, as well as share the fruits of your labors. Best wishes from Seattle, all!
-Jonah