I am trying to find out how these functions show up in certain fields as part of their epistemology, reasoning, conventions or biases and having a hard time explaining Introverted Feeling as an epistemological/philosophical stance. Come to think of it, Fe isn't easy either, and don't mention the perceiving functions too, especially Pi.
I also need to seriously understand how Fi/Te differs experientially from Ti/Fe.
All help is welcome.
“If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”
As always, Michael Pierce specializes in capturing the epistemology of the functions so well. He's not a vultologist so he gets celeb types wrong, but his understanding of the functions at the core level is quite astounding. I cannot summarize his video better than he can but I'll add some more notes:
The Ti function seeks at all times to distances itself and its reasonings from itself, oddly enough, even though this is impossible. It's almost as though Ti doesn't want to be responsible for having come to a conclusion 'subjectively' - so it decentralizes matters and wishes to act as an outsider. To wash its hands clean. It wants only to find what is true when they themselves are taken out of the picture entirely. No concept is trusted if its only coming from their own vantage point. Again, this is paradoxical because they are (as all of us) one person and one subject, so the endeavor is in vain.
Inversely, Fi owns up to that subjectivity, and says 'this is how i see things' (re: NeFi Eistein's book The World as I See It) wherein they have no less a desire for truth, but are content with the acknowledgement that it is their truth, and they can't speak for some universal truth -- as if to assume all experience is somehow the same for all people. Decentralizing the matter that way may feel like a violation of the reality of differences, to Fi. We cannot just come up with a Theory of Mind that glosses over everyone's experiences and conforms them to a set of principles.
But that's precisely what Ti wishes to do, often times, especially if paired with Ni. We see many Ni+Ti types (Jelle keeps finding them) like NiFe Franz Hartmann that build such scaffolds. They are attempts to 'capture'/'define' ('snare', depending on your angle) the human soul/essence and universalize it.
"it's true beside me, and that's why i trust it's truth."
Ti (+Fe) spends so much time thinking about Being that they end up often coming to a meticulous articulation of it's constituents, while Fi is better at experiencing the 'being' while less able to describe it verbally. This also explains the high disproportion of Ti/Fe philosophers and metaphysicists. The Fi/Te users are more seen in theoretical physics, etc.
Fi is great buddies with Ti, and the two share a lot in common... and both obsess over "what is the (I)". But Fi tends to never forget the reality of the subject's capacity to understand their own experience. It doesn't forego the authority the individual has in defining the reality of themselves, and doesn't outsource that knowledge to a dispassionate scaffold (Ti's castle).
So for Fi "I believe it's true because this is how it's experienced. It's true that all things experience pain, because i know it firsthand." It may also arrive at universal truths about Being, just the same as Ti, but it's not by abandoning the subjective factor, but instead by directly immersing themselves in it. From the inside-out, Fi learns how all things might share core experiences, but this is also done by years of "stepping-in-their-shoes". The way Fi understands other people is, it evaluates people in a static way by a sort of empathic projection into them. Doing this enough times gives them a sense of what it means to be human, but it's done by embracing subjectivity in an aggregated way and collecting subjectivities, rather than playing a ghost (Ti) outside of humanity and trying to evaluate if from that distance.
Awesome explanation, Auburn as always! Michael Pierce is downright awesome in his own right, and I actually responded to him that a hybrid of that video plus another video (empirical/interpretive theme) would essentially classify the quadras in a purely cognitive and non-behavioral way....which is where I believe that the quadra really need to be more solidly defined as.
Based on your response (in conjunction with the Pierce vid), I have a question:
If Fi does own up to its own subjectivity while Ti really does not wish to own up to that same subjectivity (unless that subjectivity generates a universal principle stemming from it), doesn't that imply in some manner that Fi requires some sort of emotional register as a means to own up to that deep subjectivity? I mean, I find that I pretty much cannot separate from this deep emotional register in terms of accessing the type of subjectivities that I feel. In order to access the subjectivities, I have to go within myself (on often an emotional level) and to access what would trigger my values or identity/passions/likes-hates.
I almost find that it would be essentially impossible to describe Fi in the absence of that emotional register because it is pretty much required (at least I think) in order to access the personal subjectivity that is a core part of how I access Fi.
Is that making sense here? Is there really any way to discuss Fi with a complete abandonment of that emotional register?
Last Edit: Feb 5, 2018 14:04:57 GMT -5 by mikesilb
Yes mikesilb - that's exactly right. ^^ My response was constructed around the idea to: "Pls explain Fi (...) without using emotional register?" But i do think it misses something out to ignore that. Although it's a great exercise to try to describe the metabolism of Fi without it, to isolate a few factors the way Pierce does. But I would say what Pierce doesn't mention is... "where" this subjective vantage point comes from. It comes from the somatic/bodily dimension. Via contact with that motivational nexus.
I just listened, twice, to make sure I got it as I'm on a bus. Interesting! The whole idea of objectivity just got a tad more complicated.
So the thing about Fi...the reason Im asking to explain it without the register, is that we all have deep emotions, no? How could I explain in what sense this gives a particular epistemological stance thats not the same for all? That was my thinking.
I have deep emotions but I have a hard time thinking that in this way I may be very different from others besides excessive sensitivity...dont we all feel the ping of our conscience when we do something awful?
I am looking at some theories and I see plenty of Te empiricism and Ti static/ideal conceptions. I can sort of see Fe conventions but I have a hard time finding Fi besides stuff like activism. That's why I asked. But yeah its hard.
But I would say what Pierce doesn't mention is... "where" this subjective vantage point comes from. It comes from the somatic/bodily dimension. Via contact with that motivational nexus.
I couldn’t agree more with this! Very in line with how my Fi is inspired and triggered!
Post by simonemusic (Joseph) on Feb 5, 2018 17:08:14 GMT -5
Thank you Auburn for that great Ti vs. Fi summary. It's amazing how difficult it is to truly understand the functions you don't use (or perhaps this is a limitation of the functions I do use lol). I find similarly with the enneagram, explaining types like 6 or 2 that I have no influence of in my own psyche is so difficult because I can't "feel" it or experience it. Perhaps the need to "feel and experience" is a product of Se + Fi. Fi is just such a strong influence in my psyche that reading about Ti is like.....HUH??? It's like it just doesn't click haha. I think it's moments like these were I can't ever forget how damn important it is to learn about how other human beings work. Fi especially has a way of seeing others' experiences as their own, or "me in your shoes" sort of thing. Ti-Fe completely confounds me and I love that. It just gives me something exciting to keep learning about.
The Ti function seeks at all times to distances itself and its reasonings from itself, oddly enough, even though this is impossible. It's almost as though Ti doesn't want to be responsible for having come to a conclusion 'subjectively' - so it decentralizes matters and wishes to act as an outsider. To wash its hands clean. It wants only to find what is true when they themselves are taken out of the picture entirely. No concept is trusted if its only coming from their own vantage point. Again, this is paradoxical because they are (as all of us) one person and one subject, so the endeavor is in vain.
Inversely, Fi owns up to that subjectivity, and says 'this is how i see things' (re: NeFi Eistein's book The World as I See It) wherein they have no less a desire for truth, but are content with the acknowledgement that it is their truth, and they can't speak for some universal truth -- as if to assume all experience is somehow the same for all people. Decentralizing the matter that way may feel like a violation of the reality of differences, to Fi. We cannot just come up with a Theory of Mind that glosses over everyone's experiences and conforms them to a set of principles.
But that's precisely what Ti wishes to do, often times, especially if paired with Ni. We see many Ni+Ti types (Jelle keeps finding them) like NiFe Franz Hartmann that build such scaffolds. They are attempts to 'capture'/'define' ('snare', depending on your angle) the human soul/essence and universalize it.
"it's true beside me, and that's why i trust it's truth."
Ti (+Fe) spends so much time thinking about Being that they end up often coming to a meticulous articulation of it's constituents, while Fi is better at experiencing the 'being' while less able to describe it verbally. This also explains the high disproportion of Ti/Fe philosophers and metaphysicists. The Fi/Te users are more seen in theoretical physics, etc.
Fi is great buddies with Ti, and the two share a lot in common... and both obsess over "what is the (I)". But Fi tends to never forget the reality of the subject's capacity to understand their own experience. It doesn't forego the authority the individual has in defining the reality of themselves, and doesn't outsource that knowledge to a dispassionate scaffold (Ti's castle).
So for Fi "I believe it's true because this is how it's experienced. It's true that all things experience pain, because i know it firsthand." It may also arrive at universal truths about Being, just the same as Ti, but it's not by abandoning the subjective factor, but instead by directly immersing themselves in it. From the inside-out, Fi learns how all things might share core experiences, but this is also done by years of "stepping-in-their-shoes". The way Fi understands other people is, it evaluates people in a static way by a sort of empathic projection into them. Doing this enough times gives them a sense of what it means to be human, but it's done by embracing subjectivity in an aggregated way and collecting subjectivities, rather than playing a ghost (Ti) outside of humanity and trying to evaluate if from that distance.
I have read your explanations and I think I can get some. One thing that resonates is "this is how I see it"...I do that all the time. And I feel VERY comfortable saying so because to me, IT IS just TRUE! For me, saying "this is how IT IS" in a way that's not speculative feels a bit too much, like I'm claiming an authority I don't really have, even though for some objectively obvious things accessible by anyone, I can get in the Ben-Shapiro, sorry-but-these-are-the-facts, mode.
So, I guess the Fi epistemological stance/bias is to start on the premise that we can only truly KNOW our own experience. While I'm very attracted to Eastern religions, I always stop short of the idea that deep down we are truly all just one thing. I thought it was my ingrained Christian background, that, but it may be this natural epistemology that one can't really take on another's experience so fully that they could become THEM. That just seems undeniably true to me, I guess why it's my bias. By the way, I actually used to think this was Ni "perspectives" thinking (as personalityhacker calls Ni) back in my deep MBTI days. I do wonder if Fi or bitter nihilistic Fi is responsible for post-modernism, the idea that there really is no truth to speak of.
Another thing resonates with Michael's explanation, 2 things actually:
One is the little fight between Deltas and Betas that he sets up. I do place utmost importance on how someone SEES me/thinks of me, not just what they DO. The behavior reveals the truth but the truth I'm looking for is who I am to them. If someone treats me so well and then it dawns on me that they have a very low/bad opinion of me, I will feel tricked, lied to and manipulated and most likely break off any more emotional bonding to them however difficult. I will be irritated by their good treatment once I know they have unkind thoughts because it's like "Man, you really must think I'm a fool for buying into this act". I guess Fi values being VALUED in a heart sense. It doesn't matter to me how someone treats me if I think it doesn't match how they see me, if they don't really see the good/worth in me in a real sense.
Second, the desire to listen to anyone before passing judgment. I had an incident about a year ago where I thought some of my colleagues were rather evil for not bothering to listen to this guy in a he-said-she-said situation. Which is weird as it is itself passing judgment. I tried to find an explanation that was kind to both because I have no reason to believe anyone of them is malicious or dishonest so I see it more as a matter of misperception/misunderstanding/miscommunication.
But I will say, I do pass judgment based on my own experience of a person. The idea of just going along with a consensus when I know for a fact they weren't even witnesses to the event in question seems so unfair and obviously dangerous and kinda like forming a lynch mob. I don't know how much of that is Te so much as Fi, though. Which is my issue with the metoo movement, how things can be decontextualized and raved up and a person sacrificed in the process of "lets believe anyone who points an accusing finger" or more clearly "lets not listen to the accused people", not so much with the essence of it.
Yes, the more I write and think, the more I think I can explain a uniform Fi stance as (1) this presumption of subjectivity or this inclusion or factoring-in of subjectivity as an indispensable component of one's epistemology, which to the Fi just feels like radical honesty and (2) A simultaneous universalizing of subjective suffering which is kinda contradictory to the first. It's weird because I believe human dignity is universal but I also believe I can only fully know things from my own subjective view-point: its like relativist and universal, which is weird.
The Ti function seeks at all times to distances itself and its reasonings from itself, oddly enough, even though this is impossible. It's almost as though Ti doesn't want to be responsible for having come to a conclusion 'subjectively' - so it decentralizes matters and wishes to act as an outsider. To wash its hands clean. It wants only to find what is true when they themselves are taken out of the picture entirely. No concept is trusted if its only coming from their own vantage point. Again, this is paradoxical because they are (as all of us) one person and one subject, so the endeavor is in vain.
Inversely, Fi owns up to that subjectivity, and says 'this is how i see things' (re: NeFi Eistein's book The World as I See It) wherein they have no less a desire for truth, but are content with the acknowledgement that it is their truth, and they can't speak for some universal truth -- as if to assume all experience is somehow the same for all people. Decentralizing the matter that way may feel like a violation of the reality of differences, to Fi. We cannot just come up with a Theory of Mind that glosses over everyone's experiences and conforms them to a set of principles.
But that's precisely what Ti wishes to do, often times, especially if paired with Ni. We see many Ni+Ti types (Jelle keeps finding them) like NiFe Franz Hartmann that build such scaffolds. They are attempts to 'capture'/'define' ('snare', depending on your angle) the human soul/essence and universalize it.
"it's true beside me, and that's why i trust it's truth."
Ti (+Fe) spends so much time thinking about Being that they end up often coming to a meticulous articulation of it's constituents, while Fi is better at experiencing the 'being' while less able to describe it verbally. This also explains the high disproportion of Ti/Fe philosophers and metaphysicists. The Fi/Te users are more seen in theoretical physics, etc.
Fi is great buddies with Ti, and the two share a lot in common... and both obsess over "what is the (I)". But Fi tends to never forget the reality of the subject's capacity to understand their own experience. It doesn't forego the authority the individual has in defining the reality of themselves, and doesn't outsource that knowledge to a dispassionate scaffold (Ti's castle).
So for Fi "I believe it's true because this is how it's experienced. It's true that all things experience pain, because i know it firsthand." It may also arrive at universal truths about Being, just the same as Ti, but it's not by abandoning the subjective factor, but instead by directly immersing themselves in it. From the inside-out, Fi learns how all things might share core experiences, but this is also done by years of "stepping-in-their-shoes". The way Fi understands other people is, it evaluates people in a static way by a sort of empathic projection into them. Doing this enough times gives them a sense of what it means to be human, but it's done by embracing subjectivity in an aggregated way and collecting subjectivities, rather than playing a ghost (Ti) outside of humanity and trying to evaluate if from that distance.
To be honest, the specific way in which I approach my Ti seems very different from the one described here. In fact, if the only thing I knew about typology was this description above, I would surely conclude I were an Fi type (this is probably why I was pretty convinced I was one for a while and why I generally typed as INFP on the MBTI system). I’m curious if there are other Ti types who’ve had similar experiences. (Hopefully I'm not too much repeating stuff I've already written in other threads).
Essentially, my problem with the approach outlined above is this: if I allowed Ti to build its “crystal palace” in isolation from my personal needs & desires, it might build an unlivable palace, or one that would make me deeply unhappy.
For instance, let’s suppose Ti led me inescapably into dark/nihilistic beliefs. Would this make me instantly stop caring about everyone and everything that was dear to me? No, of course not. Nihilism goes completely against all my personal instincts. Even if I were abstractly nihilistic, I would still act out of a sense of purpose. I would still feel the desire for companionship, food, survival, etc. Instead, the conceptualization of nihilism would probably make me feel torn apart: torn between what my intellect dreamed up and what my being actually feels. Torn between what I’ve convinced myself is true and what my actions actually demonstrate. In other words, it would make me miserable, and would surely have a negative effect on my mental health.
Another way of saying this is that because “void” is lifeless but I'm alive, void is an unnatural idea toward which my relationship is negative, rather than truly dispassionate. Because of this, the natural flow of my psychology involves keeping Ti on a pretty short leash. In my youth, this meant trying to repress Ti’s ideas when I didn’t like them, which wasn’t the healthiest or most effective approach.
Similarly, I’ve found that even where Ti isn't nihilistically inclined per se, it has occasionally led me into some pretty absurdist or crazy beliefs.
At one point a number of years ago I became deeply upset about what was happening to the world, while at the same time I'd been puzzling over a classic anthropological study of scientific knowledge as a social construct. All of a sudden, I had a wild epiphany: I "realized" that trying to understand problems in the modern world (e.g. war, famine, climate change) was precisely what was creating them, that modern technology & infrastructure was an evil form of sorcery, and that all life sciences/social sciences were cruel (in that they are based on the idea of dissecting or deconstructing living things--if not literally, then figuratively). These beliefs were part of a whole interconnected Ti castle of outlandish beliefs that all congealed together into a grand, radical, faux-prophetic worldview. Needless to say my mental health at the time wasn’t the best it had ever been. (I’m pretty sure this was an example of Si+Ti overmodulation). This web of beliefs was unstable & under constant revision, and after a month or two I simply began believing that “everything is true." But the contradiction in this eventually led me to feel like reality could not possibly exist. Yet plainly it was existing--I was experiencing it. At one point, I had an agonizing somatic experience/visualization in which I felt like I was being sucked through a giant vortex. Fortunately, I eventually came out the other side, and this period of my life has had a constructive influence on the way I continue see the world. Yet it was a period of danger, in that Ti got off its leash and lulled me into a rather delusional pattern of thinking. Awareness of my own personal needs—of my physical and emotional state, and how it was being affected by things like winter darkness, mental overstimulation, physical understimulation—was what got me through this time of my life.
As I’ve gotten older, my approach toward Ti has trended more toward what I might call “acknowledgment and reconciliation.” Essentially, this involves acknowledging both Ti’s proclivities and my own emotional needs, and trying to balance the two. I don’t strive to build a “castle” but a “home,” by which I mean a set of ideas and beliefs that is personally guiding and motivating. In general, I'm not overly concerned with whether my worldview is universally true or not, as long as it leads me toward beliefs & actions that are healthy, fulfilling & moral. I would say my Ti has become more focused on discerning truth in the context of specific issues that actually relevant to my life and those of others around me. Similarly, I've never been as much interested in an abstract conceptualization of human nature as I have been in the particulars of what are some of the different varieties of people, what are some of their different lifepaths, what their experiences feel like, how they come to certain beliefs & actions, etc. In this way, I see some things in common between the role of Ti-Fe in my psyche and what’s described above of Fi-Te, even if I took a different cognitive path to get there.
There are other likely reasons why the relationship I have with Ti is different than the general pattern described here. I've discussed some of these elsewhere: the heavy somatic presence of Si, a personal myth is rooted in Min but also influenced by Edin, and maybe also the fact that my tritype has a 7 rather than a 5 in it. I acknowledge that a lot of CT descriptions are aimed at describing general trends, and I recognize that I have a tendency to take them a bit too literally/personally (e.g. “I don’t like/relate to this quality: I must not be that type.”) My wish/hope is that as CT grows (great job on the new website, by the way!!), it will spend some time on these sort of outliers, which I personally find just as interesting and worth discussing as the general trends.
Finally, one more comment. I personally find a bit of the language used to describe Ti slightly offputting: lifeless, robotic, sterile, mechanical. Along with this I occasionally feel like there's an implication that Ti leads have a ghostlike inability to truly feel emotions or experience things in life the same way that Fi users can (e.g. “Fi is better at experiencing the 'being'”). I guess all this feels a bit dehumanizing to me, and to be perfectly honest this sort of language was probably part of what made me eager to disassociate myself from Ti in the past. Obviously Ti users are every bit as human as Fi users, and I guess my point is I feel like there’s a risk in trying to create too strong of an association between the specific qualities of peoples' subjective experiences and objectively quantifiable/observable/verifiable phenomena. Or at least, that it should be very carefully considered and conservatively employed. The particular qualities of any mental event depend not only on which cognitive functions are operating, but also on the personal, historical and environmental context. For instance, I imagine the same region of the brain could light up on two different people of the same CT, yet have a vastly different impact/significance depending on what the mental event meant at that time vis a vis their life experiences, moods, etc. (I have some related thoughts on emic vs. etic self-knowledge that I'll eventually try to write another thread about). And obviously when it comes to the human sciences, truth and ethics cannot--or should not--be altogether separated. I feel like some of my concerns here could be addressed simply through use of slightly different language, as there are plenty of terms that convey the “feel” of Ti but that don’t have the dehumanizing quality: austere, calm, serene, particular, monastic, temperate, idealistic, stubborn, etc. Anyway, just a thought, and I hope I'm not coming off as overly critical. Overall I appreciate everything you guys are doing and am super stoked about all the new material!
Ty for the input Hrafn , I recognize the view of Ti as being ghost-like, lifeless or nihilistic can be unpopular for many people with Ti in the hierarchy. And the visceral reaction you're explaining is one people with Ti can indeed have, depending on many things like where in the hierarchy it is, whether or not it's ego-fixed, etc.
Unfortunately, I don't think I am describing Ti incorrectly, and I don't necessarily say that with joy. I think all those things *are* true of Ti so far as i can tell - if we are turning our focal lens into this one process and not thinking in terms of the whole person. (I'm not being 'holistic' in my posts here - but instead deliberately narrowing the focus in order to differentiate) And what you say about your own dip into the dark side of Ti is actually precisely an example of these "Ti proclivities". If that wasn't really a truth of Ti, that "void" sense wouldn't be something Ti users had a tendency to fall into, or had to wrestle with. Different people are oriented differently toward the void (i.e. TiNe-Fe Bella also resists it adamantly, but she is no less aware of its existential presence, looming over her psyche always)
So we know that, at the 'atomic' level, it is true that Ti is void-of-self, or tries to vanish the self out of the equation {with varying levels of success}. I think the discrepancy here between my definition and application is:
- 1: My descriptions of Ti shouldn't be taken as the 1:1 experience of the Ti user in every hierarchy or modality, but only as a sterile look at the function, as attempting to differentiate it from its counterpart. - 2: Ti is but one component in the metabolic hierarchy of all people, with the other three being more than capable of reeling it in (i.e. a short leash, i like that!) and providing meaning, emotion, passion and instinct. Ti is subtractive rather than additive. Other functions do the adding.
It's difficult to describe one function at a certain level of magnification while also doing justice to the many ways it ends up manifesting in the combined hierarchy/development/life-path/narrative of every individual. We have to switch lenses to do this; we have to make a distinction between what the function is "in itself" and how it may participate in the wider psychic economy and take its place within the group of characters that make us up.
I acknowledge that a lot of CT descriptions are aimed at describing general trends, and I recognize that I have a tendency to take them a bit too literally/personally (e.g. “I don’t like/relate to this quality: I must not be that type.”)
Oh man, I started congealing my reply before re-reading this bit. Whoops, it seems you're aware of what I just mentioned! But yes... I do think people ought to be able to feel "thats just like me" - although I think that "me"-ness feeling has to be felt at the subtype level. Not necessarily at the metabolic level.
Even within the same type, there is so much variation that outliers come up who don't relate much to the dominant function ego definition. I'm hoping to address this issue with the subtype profiles, because when they are built they'll provide precisely that sort of experiential description and people will be able to see not just their functions but how the functions are coming together to produce their specific psychology.
I totally get what you're saying, e.g. that one function doesn't equal the whole person. And of course it’s obvious the idea of void is quite relevant to my experience as something I tend to react against. Perhaps one of my main concerns with the “language of lifelessness” has to do with how CT might applied/constructed in popular culture going into the future. I know perfectly well that I'm just as fully human as everyone else, that my experiences, emotions, etc. are just as real and profound. I also see just as much humanity in the other Ti users in my life. But I also feel like there are people (nobody here on the forum, but certainly in the world at large) who have the tendency to seize on ideas like this in order to value their own subjectivities and/or devalue those of others. (e.g. "She couldn't possibly feel this in the same way that we do: she's a Ti lead.")
Similarly, it’s well-known that the sort of algorthims that corporations like Amazon use to "predict" consumer behavior are actually designed not only to predict it, but also to manipulate peoples' behavior patterns so that they conforms to these alogrithms' predictions. So in part, I think my reaction has to do with a (perhaps irrational) fear that myself and others will somehow have our individual identities devalued & subsumed by probabilities, stereotypes and altogrithms.
Actually, even in other typology stuff I've seen strains of this sort of valuing/devaluing, which it seems like CT has pretty much avoided from what I've seen. The most blatant example is how the S/N dichotomy is sometimes presented (in MBTI-based materials) with a not-so-hidden subtext that high-N users are somehow "smarter" than high-S users. When this gets applied prescriptively, there's sometimes disturbing implications like that high N types are the only ones truly suited to "intellectual" professions, whereas high S types ought to be doing things like blue-collar work. (This, of course, also has implications for social class). I remember you specifically debunked this in the thread about the S/N dichotomy. But I'm digressing I suppose.
And the visceral reaction you're explaining is one people with Ti can indeed have, depending on many things like where in the hierarchy it is, whether or not it's ego-fixed, etc.
In the book somewhere it said that the primary oscillation is the main drama of the psyche, yet in a lot of ways Fe and Ti seem to have a more tempestuous relationship in my psyche than Ne and Si. Of course, it’s always possible I’m actually a TiNe. But I've noticed instances of other P-leads on this forum talking about having a war between their T and F functions. Which makes me think that perhaps by their very nature, J-functions in an individual tend to have a more militant/conflicted relationship with eachother than P-functions do. When J-functions struggle against each other, it feels more like an armed conflict. With P functions it’s more like they’re merely trying to divert attention or siphon energy away from each other. I experience conflict between my P-functions more as two clouds colliding than as two trains colliding.
Hrafn et al, how emotionally attached would you say you are to your interior castles? Do you feel a 'pinch' if they are challenged? What if they are disproved (even by yourself): what happens to you then? And how far wide or high do they go, these castles? Would you say you have one for everything/life (a theory of everything)? Or would you say you have a castle per major topic; for example, CT can be one and there could be another one to explain other interests/concerns... This void seems from descriptions like a very detached thing, yet Ti leads or possibly even PeTi's make lots of investments in these castles, so I wonder if self-worth is attached to the integrity of the castle you've built? And the void...do you mean calm/peace? Or is it something negative/unpleasant?
“If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”
I've been thinking of the description of Ji as static. Makes sense as far as Ti goes, but I haven't understood it wrt Fi so far. I think I have found something that is an element of this static structure. I was thinking of Michael Pierce's video above, that Delta-Beta fight. I said I did care a lot how people see me (what kind of person they think I am, what motivations they see me as having, how worthy I am): Now, I think that may be an element of the static nature of Fi.
Movements and behaviors are not seen to be important in themselves but as revelations of another's presumed static value system. So one's "place" in another's eyes/heart/systems of value, is supremely important. I don't have good language for this, but I think the Fi mind assumes a static system of values in the other and is dismayed when they find that "worthy" things are devalued in the other? Being static means that worthy things (in themselves) remain valuable despite the prevailing circumstances because their value is intrinsic and does not come from circumstances but is contained in things as part of their nature. So, while it may respect the individual perspective, it will believe in this unchanging value (inherent value) of things despite prevailing social realities (Fe issues) or practical realities (Te/Pe issues). This is why they tend towards activism. Usually, activism is because something is devalued in a Je system and correcting it is impractical or inconvenient, a tall order. I hope I'm not totally butchering Fi here.
“If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”