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What Is Feeling?

SquirrelTao

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Okay, I know that Feeling and feeling are not the same, and I know that Jung believes that Feeling to be a form of thinking that is focused on other people, especially ethical thinking. But is that all that Feeling is?

I have sometimes wondered if the following kinds of thinking are the kinds engaged in by people who score high in the F category:

1. Non-linear thinking - thinking that is more holistic, that takes into account multiple factors, that pays more attention to interrelationships.

2. Lateral thinking, meaning thinking that is more about changing concepts and perceptions, not obvious step by step thinking (or maybe lateral thinking is more N)

3. Thinking that resembles emergent, self-organizing processes in nature. This type of thinking is iterative and interactive in nature. It is intimate and responsive. It works by just getting a start by getting into contact with something and then from there by responding to each feedback, without being wholly conscious.

4. Thinking that resembles evolution, in that the mind "hunts" for a solution to a problem that involves optimizing multiple factors. And with too many possible solutions for the logical part of the human mind to process. Maybe this is more N as well.
 

entropie

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I like 3, but I havent understand most of the english words.

What I dont get is 4: "And with too many possible solutions for the logical part of the human mind to process"

there is nothing, which can not processed via logic, except not logic :).

Cant say more though, cause I am on the way to find out more about Feeling, myself.
 

Magic Poriferan

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Feeling is one of two ways to analyze the value of of a subject and form rationale. It is specifically a way that assesses things in terms of good or bad.

I mean good or bad in the most general way possible. Everything from "killing children is bad" to "Hamburger Helper is bad".
 

SquirrelTao

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What I dont get is 4: "And with too many possible solutions for the logical part of the human mind to process"

there is nothing, which can not processed via logic, except not logic :).

Well, yes, what I am talking about can be processed with computer logic in genetic algorithms. And I'm not even sure that there is really a similar thought process in the human mind. But I suspect there is, and I think it is not wholly conscious. I'm thinking of when people have Eureka moments and a solution comes to them.
 

entropie

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I do not really see te connections there. Why can a human brain not function like a computer and eureka moments are related to intuition aint they ?

Well ,nevermind the thread is intresting. I think I am getting ill, my tempreature has risen and I got pain in my mouth.

Not relly fit at the moment
 

Magic Poriferan

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1. Non-linear thinking - thinking that is more holistic, that takes into account multiple factors, that pays more attention to interrelationships.

That has everything to do with Intuition and nothing to do with Feeling.

2. Lateral thinking, meaning thinking that is more about changing concepts and perceptions, not obvious step by step thinking (or maybe lateral thinking is more N)

This isn't so much more Intuitive as it is more Perceptive in general. Receiving and refreshing information that is. Still, changing an opinion is obviously going to require Judgement, since that's the source of opinion. Neither F nor T have more of a claim on process of changing opinions, though.

A great example of T changing opinion would be the effects scientific method.

3. Thinking that resembles emergent, self-organizing processes in nature. This type of thinking is iterative and interactive in nature. It is intimate and responsive. It works by just getting a start by getting into contact with something and then from there by responding to each feedback, without being wholly conscious.

That's a very odd description. It has pieces of several processes in there. It sounded the most like some form of Extraverted Perception though, what with responding to information obtained by interaction. Still, no one process really captures that whole paragraph.

4. Thinking that resembles evolution, in that the mind "hunts" for a solution to a problem that involves optimizing multiple factors. And with too many possible solutions for the logical part of the human mind to process. Maybe this is more N as well.

This also sounds like a glut of processes, though oddly, almost nothing to do with Feeling. This covers aspects of both Ni and Ne, and it also covers a little bit of Ti and Te, actually.

The more elaborate your description gets, the more prone it is to actually require several processes, rather than being attributable to one.
 

SquirrelTao

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Feeling is one of two ways to analyze the value of of a subject and form rationale. It is specifically a way that assesses things in terms of good or bad.

I mean good or bad in the most general way possible. Everything from "killing children is bad" to "Hamburger Helper is bad".

But what is involved in arriving at the assessment of good or bad? For me, it involves thinking of multiple factors and interrelationships. It also involves responsiveness to feedback. And I can use these same thought processes for other purposes besides just deciding something is good or bad.

Anyway, from what I recall of what Jung wrote, there are more permutations of F than that. For instance, if your F makes you more people focused but are introverted, you might be a writer. Surely more is involved in writing and psychology than just making judgements about what is good and bad.
 

SquirrelTao

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I do not really see te connections there. Why can a human brain not function like a computer and eureka moments are related to intuition aint they ?

Take a simple genetic algorithm. Say that there is a hole in a football field, and you don't know where it is. You have ten marbles. You drop them at random. Every time they land, somebody watches from above in a helicopter and tells you which of the ten marbles is the closest. You then pick them up and drop them by where the closest marble fell the last time. You keep repeating this until finally a marble falls into the hole. What if you needed to do this one million times? It would take you forever. A computer can do it a lot faster.

But maybe the human mind can do it somehow on a subconscious basis.
 

SquirrelTao

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That's a very odd description. It has pieces of several processes in there. It sounded the most like some form of Extraverted Perception though, what with responding to information obtained by interaction. Still, no one process really captures that whole paragraph.

Say that you are walking around carrying groceries, and your cat is underfoot. You can't see where you are stepping because the grocery bag is in your way. As you put your feet down, you feel your foot start to come down on the cat. You do not put your full weight down, and the cat gets his paw or tail out from under your foot before getting hurt. This is simple enough. You have just easily altered your behavior in response to feedback, mid-goal, the goal being to put your feet down and walk. The effect of your behavior was that you did not hurt the cat. You care about the cat. You used your responsiveness to feedback to avoid hurting the cat. Because you think causing unnecessary pain to cats is bad. So the only part of this that is F is the part where you care about the cat? It's starting to seem to me to be a very inaccurate picture of functions to see them in an isolated way. I doubt if they can really function in isolation at all. EDIT: Which you just got done saying, of course! But do you just think my descriptions happen to be a mixture of processes, or do you think that everybody's mental processes are always a mixture of processes?
 

entropie

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Take a simple genetic algorithm. Say that there is a hole in a football field, and you don't know where it is. You have ten marbles. You drop them at random. Every time they land, somebody watches from above in a helicopter and tells you which of the ten marbles is the closest. You then pick them up and drop them by where the closest marble fell the last time. You keep repeating this until finally a marble falls into the hole. What if you needed to do this one million times? It would take you forever. A computer can do it a lot faster.

But maybe the human mind can do it somehow on a subconscious basis.

Ahhh, no I get your point. Wow that surely is innovative
 

entropie

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That would then mean that feeling operates through this subconcious basis, wow that would make a lot of Thinkers envy them xDD.

"It is that in your face" situations, when you realize that all the thinking one does, was already done by someone via eureka and if you present him your result, the feeler just replies: and, what's new to it ? xDDD

Guess I need to motivate then some feelers about my ideas about the warp drive, maybe then I get it finally laied down xD
 

SquirrelTao

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That would then mean that feeling operates through this subconcious basis, wow that would make a lot of Thinkers envy them xDD.

Well, that would be nice to believe, but... :) Maybe it's a whole other area of psychology that intersects with or overlaps MBTI but is not really described by any of the MBTI functions.

"It is that in your face" situations, when you realize that all the thinking one does, was already done by someone via eureka and if you present him your result, the feeler just replies: and, what's new to it ? xDDD

Guess I need to motivate then some feelers about my ideas about the warp drive, maybe then I get it finally laied down xD

Ha ha, dangle a carrot in front of the feeler to get them to care about the warp drive, and you never know what might happen! Tell the feeler that if they build you a warp drive, you'll watch their favorite Chick Flick with her over and over and over and over and over and over...
 

Magic Poriferan

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But what is involved in arriving at the assessment of good or bad? For me, it involves thinking of multiple factors and interrelationships. It also involves responsiveness to feedback. And I can use these same thought processes for other purposes besides just deciding something is good or bad.

Intuition is how this imaginative information is being brought about. Every non-analytical idea you run through was the product of Intuition in this secnario. All of your "feedback" is Inuition or Sensation. That's why the information you get from it can be used for more than good and bad, and can also be subjected to Thinking.

If you're talking about defining and structuring your morals, then you're throwing in some Ti to work them out in a logical manner. It says you're an INXP, so I imagine you mediate the two a lot.

What you've described could potentaill be all forms of Perception and all forms of Judgement. Needless to say, that's a very wide net.

Anyway, from what I recall of what Jung wrote, there are more permutations of F than that. For instance, if your F makes you more people focused but are introverted, you might be a writer. Surely more is involved in writing and psychology than just making judgements about what is good and bad.

I'm not even sure what he meant by that, and I don't know what to make of it.

Say that you are walking around carrying groceries, and your cat is underfoot. You can't see where you are stepping because the grocery bag is in your way. As you put your feet down, you feel your foot start to come down on the cat. You do not put your full weight down, and the cat gets his paw or tail out from under your foot before getting hurt. This is simple enough. You have just easily altered your behavior in response to feedback, mid-goal, the goal being to put your feet down and walk. The effect of your behavior was that you did not hurt the cat. You care about the cat. You used your responsiveness to feedback to avoid hurting the cat. Because you think causing unnecessary pain to cats is bad. So the only part of this that is F is the part where you care about the cat?

Yes. The information you got that allowed you to avoid hurting the cat was most likely obtained via Extraverted Sensation. Then it was some kind of Feeling that made you decide hurting the cat would be bad.


It's starting to seem to me to be a very inaccurate picture of functions to see them in an isolated way. I doubt if they can really function in isolation at all.

EDIT: Which you just got done saying, of course! But do you just think my descriptions happen to be a mixture of processes, or do you think that everybody's mental processes are always a mixture of processes?

Everybody's mind uses a mixture. They cannot ever work alone. You need at least two function to interact to even have a sensible example of an action. Jung explained that we all run through a certain sequence of processes. Differing levels of a process simply effects how good you are at using it, how aware you are of it, etc... The sequence is still the same for everyone, however.
 

redacted

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Fi - "good" or "bad" based on personal opinion
Fe - "good" or "bad" based on external evidence

every time someone says "good" or "bad" or "evil" or "chill" or "sweet" or "lame" or anything like that, they're using a feeling function.

all the rest of the hypotheses listed in the OP actually refer to intuition.

also, feeling is by definition a conscious function. if it's unconscious, it's S or N.
 

wildcat

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Okay, I know that Feeling and feeling are not the same, and I know that Jung believes that Feeling to be a form of thinking that is focused on other people, especially ethical thinking. But is that all that Feeling is?

I have sometimes wondered if the following kinds of thinking are the kinds engaged in by people who score high in the F category:

1. Non-linear thinking - thinking that is more holistic, that takes into account multiple factors, that pays more attention to interrelationships.

2. Lateral thinking, meaning thinking that is more about changing concepts and perceptions, not obvious step by step thinking (or maybe lateral thinking is more N)

3. Thinking that resembles emergent, self-organizing processes in nature. This type of thinking is iterative and interactive in nature. It is intimate and responsive. It works by just getting a start by getting into contact with something and then from there by responding to each feedback, without being wholly conscious.

4. Thinking that resembles evolution, in that the mind "hunts" for a solution to a problem that involves optimizing multiple factors. And with too many possible solutions for the logical part of the human mind to process. Maybe this is more N as well.
Feeling is a rational function.
 

SquirrelTao

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Okay, so now I have a better sense of what separates N from F and how functions work together. Yet I still don't think I understand the Feeling function.

First, why should it be opposed to T, so that the higher you score in F, the lower you score in T?

Second, if Feeling is only the making of value judgments, while all the input to the value judgments comes from other functions, then how is Feeling a form of thinking? There is no thinking involved in "I like that, I don't like that. I feel that's bad, I feel that's good."

So that if I'm ethically reasoning, say I'm taking an ethics class and trying to apply some of it to decisions in my own life, then I'm using T more than F. So then how does that work, anyway, so that T and F don't cancel each other out, given that they're opposed in the MBTI theory?

I thought I might understand the Feeling function better when I encountered emotional decision-making in AI programming. Emotional decision-making is different than boolean logic and in fact more flexible. Rather than dealing with true or false, it deals with weights that are given to multiple factors. Some of these factors are "emotional states" of the intelligent agent. Some are external.

So for example, say that Joe the intelligent agent is trying to decide what to do. He will pay attention to what mood he is in, what the weather is like outside, whether his dog is getting restless to go out, whether he needs to buy groceries, and other factors before finally making his decision. As opposed to Joe a decision where Joe will simply go outside if it it is true that the weather is sunny and warm outside. Nothing in this necessarily involves ethical value judgments, though it does involve judgments about what Joe feels like doing, balanced against other more objective factors.

So, is this description of emotional decision-making a potential candidate for what a simple rendition of the Feeling function might look like? Or is it once again a combination of various functions? But if it is a combination, then once again that returns me to my original question, and I don't understand at all how the Feeling function is a form of thinking or decision-making.
 

Magic Poriferan

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First, why should it be opposed to T, so that the higher you score in F, the lower you score in T?

They absolutely shouldn't. It's a flaw of the system. Thinking and Feeling work in conjunction, and they work best when they work together.

Second, if Feeling is only the making of value judgments, while all the input to the value judgments comes from other functions, then how is Feeling a form of thinking? There is no thinking involved in "I like that, I don't like that. I feel that's bad, I feel that's good."

What do you mean? If Feeling isn't "thinking" for that reason, than Thinking isn't "thinking" either. Both Feeling and Thinking simply make value judgements based on received information. It's the nature of Judgement.

I would say that there absolutely is thinking in the process of deciding "I don't like that". I don't understand what your definition of thinking is.

So that if I'm ethically reasoning, say I'm taking an ethics class and trying to apply some of it to decisions in my own life, then I'm using T more than F. So then how does that work, anyway, so that T and F don't cancel each other out, given that they're opposed in the MBTI theory?

I repeat that they don't cancel each other out, and the MBTI's notation is misleading. When studdying ethics, you are using both T and F. I wouldn't necessarily say you are using more T, since the entire pretense of the concept depends on Feeling.

I thought I might understand the Feeling function better when I encountered emotional decision-making in AI programming. Emotional decision-making is different than boolean logic and in fact more flexible. Rather than dealing with true or false, it deals with weights that are given to multiple factors. Some of these factors are "emotional states" of the intelligent agent. Some are external.

That's a very different field and a very different approach, and I think it might do more to confuse you about the cognitive processes than inform you.

So for example, say that Joe the intelligent agent is trying to decide what to do. He will pay attention to what mood he is in, what the weather is like outside, whether his dog is getting restless to go out, whether he needs to buy groceries, and other factors before finally making his decision. As opposed to Joe a decision where Joe will simply go outside if it it is true that the weather is sunny and warm outside. Nothing in this necessarily involves ethical value judgments, though it does involve judgments about what Joe feels like doing, balanced against other more objective factors.

Anything that has anything to do with what Joe "feels like doing" is in the realm of Feeling and not Thinking. Thinking can never, ever, decide if something is agreeable or not agreeable. Some sort of Perception is necessary to retrieve the information about the weather. Then, a very primitive, simple level of Thinking would be necessary to draw a factual conclusion from it, "it is true that the sun is out". It requires Feeling for Joe to decide that the sun being out is a good thing.

So, is this description of emotional decision-making a potential candidate for what a simple rendition of the Feeling function might look like? Or is it once again a combination of various functions? But if it is a combination, then once again that returns me to my original question, and I don't understand at all how the Feeling function is a form of thinking or decision-making.

See my previous statement.
 

SquirrelTao

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They absolutely shouldn't. It's a flaw of the system. Thinking and Feeling work in conjunction, and they work best when they work together.

I think there is empirical evidence for this from neuroscience. I agree with you. I was trying to understand the MBTI theory.


What do you mean? If Feeling isn't "thinking" for that reason, than Thinking isn't "thinking" either. Both Feeling and Thinking simply make value judgements based on received information. It's the nature of Judgement.

I would say that there absolutely is thinking in the process of deciding "I don't like that". I don't understand what your definition of thinking is.

It's the process that I want to understand, not just the end result of the process. To simplify, let's say the end result of T is true/false judgment, while the end result of F is good/bad judgment. But there is a process that leads to the end result. The T process is often called logic. We know we don't think in syllogisms, but we can still use logic as a way critique thinking processes, and we also have philosophy. Okay, so this is where the symmetry ends. The process of Feeling that leads to the good/bad judgment has no corrollary to logic or philosophy. (I'm leaving out science because I see it as more complex, involving generous amounts of both S and T, as well as some N.)

That's a very different field and a very different approach, and I think it might do more to confuse you about the cognitive processes than inform you.

The thing is I could see how my own thinking processes sometimes resemble Joe the intelligent agent's if I slow them down and observe them. And I was thinking that the emotional decision-making process is the process that leads to the end result of the "good/bad" judgment. The analogy with AI interested me because it had the potential to be a bridge to understanding, allowing T to analyze F processes, at least to an extent. I wasn't intending to jump to conclusions or to run around proclaiming that Feeling = AI emotional decision-making. I'm just grasping for anything that might help me begin to understand, any sort of mental model. I think I will start some threads asking Feelers to describe their streams of consciousness in certain situations, and I will try to describe my own as well.
 

Eric B

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Fi - "good" or "bad" based on personal opinion
Fe - "good" or "bad" based on external evidence

every time someone says "good" or "bad" or "evil" or "chill" or "sweet" or "lame" or anything like that, they're using a feeling function.

Anything that has anything to do with what Joe "feels like doing" is in the realm of Feeling and not Thinking. Thinking can never, ever, decide if something is agreeable or not agreeable.
Well, thinking types do seem to view logic (and logical things) as agreeable, and illogic as disagreeable.
Some sort of Perception is necessary to retrieve the information about the weather. Then, a very primitive, simple level of Thinking would be necessary to draw a factual conclusion from it, "it is true that the sun is out". It requires Feeling for Joe to decide that the sun being out is a good thing.
It seem to get more tricky when we add the two attitudes to the Thinking and Feeling judgments. Does a person who prefers Ti-Fe ("true or false" based on personal opinion; "good or bad" based on external evidence) never have personal preferences like enjoying a sunny day? (and the "factual conclusion" would be more Te). This is why I think there is a realm of "basic survival instinct" that is universal to everyone, and separate from T/F-e/i preference.
 
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