SOME BASICS ABOUT THE FUNCTIONS
[Note: Sometimes I refer to the cognitive functions with other words, like “frames” or “modes”.]
The functions are real, but they are not what most people think.
1. WORK IS NOT A FUNCTION.
This is pretty obvious, but I’ve seen a few things out there that seem to indicate that some people think otherwise. All the types do lots of things that could be called “work”. The problem is that the common definition of that word depends on what the system/society considers “valuable”, and that’s another thing entirely. Homework for this point: read this post.
2. ATTENTION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
Some people say that some types get easily distracted, that they have a short attention span, etc. It’s funny because they don’t seem to agree on which ones exactly: the Ss or the Ns. Haha. Either way, that’s totally wrong. It’s pretty clear that anyone can be focused or absent-minded, it all depends on what you consider “the important thing”: Ss are probably more attentive to details, Ns tend to find it easier to follow abstract topics, etc. And you also have other circumstantial factors, for example: who are we with, what’s our relationship with them, what are they doing, etc. Homework for this point: imagine different types being oblivious to different things, and focused on others.
3. MEMORY IS NOT A FUNCTION.
You’ve probably heard that Si is about memory, and/or that SJs remember a lot of things. Well, that’s totally mistaken, and a sure sign of ignorance about the functions. Memory has nothing to do with any particular frame. It depends on the nature (proper/ghost) and the position of the functions (conscious/unconscious), not on one of them. The ghost functions are extremely volatile: you could say memory doesn’t work well with them at all. With the proper ones (the ones we talk about the most, the ones we actually have), the more conscious a frame is, the better your memory about it, especially in the sense of availability, clarity, specifity, etc. You remember the unconscious ones, too, but that’s precisely the thing: they might be forgotten memories. So any type can be forgetful or the opposite, but what they remember and forget is not in the same category of things. Homework for this point: imagine, for example, an ISTJ with very bad memory, and an ENFP that remembers a lot, and try to picture in what sense their memories are different.
4. EMOTION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
You’ve probably read somewhere that Fi and/or Fe are about emotions, that Fs are more emotional than Ts, etc. That’s one of the worst misconceptions about the types, and a sure sign of ignorance about typology. Emotions have nothing to do with the functions. Jung said it himself: “Feeling according to this definition is not an emotion (which, as the word conveys, is involuntary). Feeling as I mean it is (like thinking) a rational (i.e. ordering) function.” In fact, if this has anything to do with the types, it’s clearly with the E/I dichotomy: as you can see here, two of the facets of that dimension are “Expressive (E) - Contained (I)” and “Enthusiastic (E) - Quiet (I)”. That’s essentially the “being emotional” thing. So, part of the task here is to imagine a lot of versions of each type (happy, sad, angry, emotional, cold, etc), and understand it for what it is: a rather superficial thing. For something deeper, we can look at temperament, for example.
5. IMAGINATION IS NOT A FUNCTION.
The MBTI facet “Realistic (S) - Imaginative (N)” is not so much about that capacity but the value we put on things vs ideas. For example: S types usually try to improve and repair things using [the] things [themselves], they work with the physical world, actually doing something, while N types tend to look beyond the immediate for solutions, and that’s why their proposals are usually considered more inventive, fanciful or whimsical than useful or practical. This doesn’t even mean that all Ss are realistic and all Ns are imaginative (for some of them this could be a facet that doesn’t match with their letter), it’s just the general case.
Imagination is, in Jung’s own words, “the reproductive, or creative, activity of the mind generally, though not a special faculty, since it may come into play in all the basic forms of psychic activity, whether thinking, feeling, sensation, or intuition”. So imagination manifests itself in different ways, and we are conscious of its diverse forms in the same degree that we are conscious of our thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition. Apart from that, the intensity and reliability of that imagination varies from one person to another. One way to understand this could be: T types are more or less imaginative about things that work, systems and concepts, Fs’ imagination gets them more or less infatuated with people, ideals and things, S types get more or less moved by sensory experiences, and Ns have a higher or lower ability to invent/infer connections.
6. WILLPOWER IS NOT A FUNCTION.
Both extraverts and introverts, both feelers and thinkers, both sensors and intuitives, and both judgers and perceivers can be “strong[er]” or “weak[er]” in this sense. They can be all more or less enduring and persevering (for or against, doing or not doing, etc), it’s just that the things they are determined about are very different. So, for example, the “weakest” IJs are probably much steadier than the “strongest” EPs when it comes to maintaining introverted judgments, and the “strongest” STs are probably much less resolute than the “weakest” NFs when it comes to the implications of values.
7. INTROVERSION IS NOT SUBJECTIVITY. EXTRAVERSION IS NOT OBJECTIVITY.
Some people seem to think that introversion means “personal opinions”, “made up things” or something like that. They think it means “arbitrary” or even “unreal”. Well, those people have no idea what they are talking about.
This is what Jung said about the introverted attitude: “I consider that point of view which inclines, with Weininger, to describe this attitude as philautic, or with other writers, as autoerotic, egocentric, subjective, or egoistic, to be both misleading in principle and definitely depreciatory. It corresponds with the normal bias of the extraverted attitude against the nature of the introvert.” And also: “The subjective factor is something that is just as much a fact as the extent of the sea and the radius of the earth. Thus far, also, the subjective factor claims the whole value of a world-determining power which can never, under any circumstances, be excluded from our calculations. It is the other world-law, and the man who is based upon it has a foundation just as secure, permanent, and valid, as the man who relies upon the object”.
Now let’s remember what he said about extraversion: “In the extraverted attitude the inferior functions always reveal a highly subjective determination with pronounced egocentricity and personal bias”. That is: the unconscious of extraverted people brings subjectivity into their work, making it actually not that objective. The things they work with are objective (observable, tangible), but there is no human[-derived] work that doesn’t go through a subject at some point (usually at both the start and end points), because that’s what we are: subjects.
“Only a sick mind could forget that cognition must have a subject”. There is no reality without a subject, the subject is reality. You can’t analyze anything from any supposed “perfectly objective external standpoint”, because the analysis is always made by a subject. And if you start talking about machines and how “neutral” they are you are being twice as subjective: the machine is made by subjects, and the output of the machine is also interpreted by subjects. You can’t escape the subject. You just can’t. In fact, the subject is everything. And the most “neutral” and “objective” you can get will always be from some internal standpoint. You just have to accept that. There’s nobody out there. This is only you.
Both “objectivity” and “subjectivity” (or truth and lies) include extraverted and introverted “components” or “points”. Just as the frames imply each other in pairs (Te-Fi, Ti-Fe, Se-Ni, Si-Ne), so the workings of the mind, and everything we do, contain both extraverted and introverted “elements”, and there is no way to separate them. The ultimate principles behind the frames can be understood as “independent” (that’s what we try to do every time we talk about Te, or about Se, etc), but in reality they are always, at the very least, paired with their corresponding opposites. So, the very existence of the extraverted factor implies the introverted one, and vice versa. You can’t have one without the other. So the truth and the lies must all be distinguished and found in that “dual” reality. You can’t look [or pretend/fool yourself thinking that you look] only to one “side”, in search of the truth. You are always on both sides at the same time.
8. THE REAL FUNCTIONS ARE NOT THE ONES FROM THE FAMOUS “STACK” (OR SOCIONICS).
I have already explained this in earlier posts. In order to begin with a solid foundation for a true understanding of the functions, the first thing you need to do is forget everything you might have heard or learned about the “function stack”, Socionics, or any other model that says the dominant and the auxiliary have different directions, or that assigns a perceiving dominant to J types and/or a judging dominant to P types, because that’s simply wrong. From now on, every time you see someone talking about “Ne”, “Fi”, “extraverted sensing”, “introverted thinking” or whatever, you need to know where that person got that term from: if it was from the function stack, Socionics, etc, it’s not reliable.
9. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT TOOLS.
You’ve probably read a lot of expressions like “Te-user”, “Ni-user”, “using Ti”, “use your Ne”, etc. Well, all that comes from people who don’t really [want to] get what the functions actually are. The functions are not objects for you to employ. They are not even apart from you. They are not “selectable” or “applicable”, like tools are. You can’t catch a person in the precise moment [s]he’s “using Fi”, or whatever. The functions are always working. They are not different “alternatives” for you to choose from, and you definitely don’t “use” them.
Sometimes behind this misleading comparison lies the idea of developing some kind of “skill” with the functions, the idea of “using them better”, but only if you follow someone’s “advice”, of course. Here we have again a way of taking advantage of your supposed “weaknesses”, and sell you some kind of “training”. Not helpful at all.
10. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT PREFERENCES.
The letters of someone’s MBTI are not preferences. The functions are not preferences. The order of the functions is not a preference. The word preference implies choice, and you can’t choose anything about your type. Anything. Your type is not determined by the things you “find more interesting”. This whole distorted understanding is, together with the function stack disaster, among the worst of Myers’ deeds: saying and spreading the idea that you can choose what you are.
No, Liz, sorry. Again. Your type, and everything that constitutes it, is not being decided every time you take a moment and put your hand on your chin, considering your “options”. “Hmmm… What psychological dimension can I use here? Do I go with feeling or with thinking…? Do I introvert them now, or maybe later?“ Hahaha. No. Stop it. That’s completely wrong. And you know it, Liz. I think you know it but you are, let’s say… a bit stubborn, and you want to make people feel bad for what they are, hoping that your approach will make them “behave”. That’s why you lie to them saying that they choose what they are. They don’t, Liz. They don’t.
The only choice you have here is what you do with the knowledge of this reality, the reality of everyone having a definite type, forever: do you actually care? Do you try to identify which type you are? Why? What are you going to do after that? Do you want to know other people’s types? Why? Do you want to admire the flowers, or do you want to cut them and put them in pots?
11. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT PIECES.
The idea of pieces implies the concepts of isolated parts and building, but the mind is not a construction set. You can’t build anything with the functions, because you can’t separate or rearrange them. That would be like changing your type consciously, and that’s fantasy-land. Or should I say science-fiction-land, because what’s usually behind this misconception is the absurd (and harmful) “futuristic” view that looks at human beings as if we were some kind of machine. Sorry, but that’s just pathetic.
All those who just can’t stop making comparisons and “analogies” about how our perceptions, thoughts and feelings are just a question of “processing information” are completely untrustworthy and useless as sources of real insight about the mind, because they just can’t see it like it is.
The brain is not a computer, no matter how many times you hear that. And it’s both amazingly ignorant and incredibly insulting to advertise and promote our self-understanding from such a limited and short-sighted perspective. There’s no “hardware” or “software” because you can’t separate body and mind. We are not pieces of equipment. We are not data processors. We are not mere carriers and transmitters of ones and zeros, we are not [re]programmable, and we are not machines. You can’t replicate us.
12. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT INGREDIENTS.
A lot of people seem to “understand” the “functions” as if they were drugs or some kind of ingredients or chemical elements in our blood: they use expressions like “high Fe”, “low Ti”, “strong Te”, “weak Ne”, etc. Well, that’s all nonsense, and a sure sign that those people don’t know what they are talking about. The frames are not “high” or “low”. They are not different quantities, they don’t “pile up” and they don’t “add up”.
The concept of ingredient implies the idea of some kind of recipe. And a “model”, of course. Again. Just like in the previous points, there’s always in the background of these descriptions the implication that we can do something to change the composition, like getting a Fe-injection in the morning, or some Ti-pills with every meal. “Man, I was really low on Te yesterday, but I just thought about bulldozers for a minute and a half, and my Te was high again”. Now guess who is the merciful soul that’s going to tell sell you how to change those levels…
Anyway. This misinterpretation is too linear and crude. On top of other things, it’s unaware of the conscious-unconscious division and of the way each auxiliary is conditioned by each dominant, so it doesn’t refer to the real functions. It’s more like a superficial analysis of a person’s internal dialogue, or its composition, with the assumption that you need to take into account a predetermined set of concepts or ideas in order to make the “optimal decision”, or something like that.
13. THE FUNCTIONS ARE NOT HAPPENINGS.
Some people go looking for the functions as if they were paparazzi: “How can I recognize Ne?”, and “Quick! Take a picture of that Ti!”. Haha. Yes, that’s a bit silly. The functions don’t “happen”. The functions are not like a laugh, a cough, a cold or a sneeze. They are not ocurrences. This is a very extraverted point of view, that only seems to notice what’s tangible/measurable, and then makes lots of external → internal assumptions. Well, the functions are not out there, sorry.
In fact, the “functions” are not functions, at all. They are internal frames. Reality is the function. *record scratch* Whoa. What? Yes. I repeat: *clears throat* *microphone feedback*
14. REALITY IS THE FUNCTION. THE “FUNCTIONS” ARE THE COORDINATE AXES.
Reality (both internal and external) is, in the mathematical analogy, the true “function”, and what’s called “the functions” is actually the psychological coordinate axes that receive and interpret that big and complex and messy and strange and moving function (that’s why I call them frames). You have 2 main axes/frames: one of perception and one of judgment. Half of each axis is conscious, and the other half is unconscious. They get what’s there, anywhere, and arrange or extract some kind of information/sense from it. For you.
The way Jung described the functions was with the phrase “X tells you this about things”, “Y tells you that about the same things”, etc. So both you and the things are already there, and the functions go in between, and they give you some kind of information about the world. So, in reality, if you think about it, all the functions are perceiving functions: they bring/show you something.
The functions are the senses of your mind.