Are you implying that I was/am in a loop? Because I'm not. You were insulting me as some sort of inferior 'thinking type.' But insults don't go too deeply with me when I'm mired in Ti land, which is good for you.
Just responding to your "part and parcel" comment about EP types.
This is really the only substantive thing we are talking about in all this mash. Do I understand functions? I realize I am a new student to typology, and would never want to assume I know more than I do in that regard. However, I simply have not seen much thus far that has challenged my thinking or intuition? in that regard very much. I suspect, like Nightning says (and perhaps Kalach), that we really just don't know much about how our brains work at all, so everything I read about functions is floating around and within, the context of a big soupy mess of undiscovered patterns and cognition.
You've mostly just ignored the numerous challenges people have offered. Agreed that we don't know that much about cognition in general from a biological standpoint, though.
You must understand that you will appear condescending to me until you truly respect that I have a different focus than you; that I am not all about knowing everything ever written about functions. Perhaps that is a weakness, perhaps not, because it allows me to open up my energy and psyche to new thoughts, my preferred way of being. I respect that you are more thinking-oriented to facts and existing theories, and understanding all. That's great. I admire that in Ne/Ti users. But it does not seem that I get the same respect in this regard. The fact that I feel condescended to means that I am being condescended to, because until you grasp the valid differences in us, you will not fully appreciate, nor understand, my way of thinking or being; and I consequently will not derive any/much benefit from these discourses, because the way I learn is by asking questions and brainstorming solutions.
I'm actually more interested in what we don't know than what we know. That might not be your perspective as much as an Ne dom. That's what could potentially be interesting with having Ni/Ne discussions. But to constantly point out that I don't understand something is sort of a mute point with me. If I need to understand it, I will learn it, and I will learn it well. Otherwise, I don't have the energy to divert to it. It is a fundamental and interesting (to me) difference in how you and I are. Additonally, however, I think I understand more than you realize (and you probably as well), but the gaps in our ways of being are so great that we cannot see that. So, to move on, I will quote Jung from p495:
Oy vey. Ne doms are among the most interested in the unknown. Being more concerned with facts and what's already established has nothing to do with Ne at all.
The focus on what's already known is just the launchpad from which we blast off into the unknown. If NT is repeatedly correcting you on known, basic facts, it just means s/he thinks you haven't even built the launchpad yet, not that s/he is uninterested in exploring the unknown!
Indeed, exploring the unknown is the whole point; we just generally consider it necessary to possess basic competence before drifting out into space. If we don't, we tend to waste a lot of time "solving" problems that have already been solved instead of just listening to what other, more experienced people have already figured out and then trying to build on it.
There's no sense in reinventing the wheel when you could be using that wheel to build better cars.
I consider cognitive functions, as identified by Jung, to be unconscious processes that we use to perceive and process data to help us be in the world. And that we have definite preferences for certain functions, including attitudes of those functions; but that we can utilize, as our life experience allows, all functions accordingly. I suspect that there are more than 8 cognitive functions, just that those were the easiest to see by Jung in his professional career.
That's a pretty good definition. It just flies in the face of some other statements you've made, such as, "I know I use Ne frequently because I can see patterns in the way people post." You sometimes just focus a little too much on
what is happening instead of
why when you define and observe functions.
So, rather than think of Ne as "the processes of seeing external patterns", you could try thinking of it as "an attitude that encourages us to connect new information to larger external patterns that will ultimately change the original meaning once viewed in a larger context."
Just because you can see patterns between things doesn't mean Ne is the attitude that caused you to do it. To assess functions you need to understand someone's value system and what beliefs/attitudes led to the way s/he is behaving...not just observe what s/he is doing.
Your mistake (from the perspective of the Jungian model!) is that you think you're observing people "changing between all the functions all the time" because you seem to think every time a person performs an action that people strong in function x tend to be good at, that person is necessarily "using" function x. Like when you told me, "I know I use Ne because I observe patterns in the way people post." You can observe patterns without the "use" of any particular function. It's not
what you're doing that implies Ne use; it's
why you did it, that is, what part of your overall attitude and orientation toward life motivated you to approach considering information this way.
But frequently they're not using function x, because "using function x" implies subscribing to a much broader and more inclusive set of values and tendencies in a variety of situations--not just performing one single action that people who orient by that function are usually proficient in.
[On another note, this same page yields an interesting context for my earlier arguements about how we can use two preferences with ease, depending on our genetic predisposition.....but depending on how this 'discussion' goes, I may or may not be expounding on that.......]
Doesn't this directly contradict the Jung quote you provided?
So, anyway, I don't know why I appear so ignorant to you. I don't feel ignorant, but perhaps I am. Who knows? I feel strongly I'm speaking more about functions and trying to define them, than anyone on this board, except perhaps Kalach and nightning, as of late anyway; I realize many are interested in functions but we don't collectively ever get very far because you NTs seem to constantly want to pose and defend and cut down our knowledge base through hostility and condescension instead of build it up through more appropriate communication and fair arguing.
I'm just confused because the Jungian model (combined with some more recent authors) already has a pretty clear and consistent definition of what functions are. If you don't like the Jungian model that's fine, but it seems curious that you would use Jung's terms and then try to twist the definitions into something they're not.
If you want to invent your own typology system, have at it, but why bother starting with already defined pieces of another one and then force the terms to mean something other than what they've already been designated as? Just invent your own terms and your own system and go from there.
NTs are not trying to cut down your knowledge base. You don't seem to read our motivations very well (which is in itself the crux of functional analysis.) We're trying to correct your misapplications of the already existing model. If you don't like the already existing model, that's fine, but what are you doing on a forum dedicated to studying from the perspective of that model?
Isn't this kind of like going to a physics message board to argue that the particles inside atoms shouldn't be called protons/neutrons/electrons? I mean, if that's your opinion, we can't really say that you're wrong; it's just that if you're going to reject the current model and invent your own, it would seem to make more sense to invent your own terminology so as to avoid confusion.
Who are you to move me past A? Did I say I wanted to move past A? Do I need to move past A? Amazing. Do you want to save me from myself? I kinda like how I think and how I am.
I don't have any idea why you've taken this personally. By "move you past A" I meant try to help you get a grasp on the basic ideas of the Jungian model so that you can apply it to more things.
Of course, if you choose to reject the Jungian model and try to develop your own, go for it...but using Jung's terms to describe your new and totally different model seems awfully strange.
Isn't this what you accuse me of when you say I don't understand the functions?
No, when I say you don't understand the functions, I mean you're missing the basic point of the definition of a function. For instance, when you say something like, "I observe my daughter using Si"--in order to observe your daughter using Si, you would need to recognize a certain type of fundamental belief system in your daughter representative of the Si worldview.
You cannot "observe her using Si" simply because you saw her do something that Si people are commonly good at.
That's like saying, "I observe my son using Catholicism when he drinks the Communion wine." Well, he may be doing something that Catholics do often, but you don't really "use" Catholicism unless you subscribe to the belief system it entails and apply it to all areas of your life.
The boy can't be described as "using Catholicism" based on one isolated instance of doing something that Catholics commonly do. Calling him Catholic implies an entire set of beliefs and tendencies that cover a lot more ground than this one instance of drinking Communion wine.
So if your daughter frequently behaves, speaks and thinks in ways that are representative of the Si value system, maybe she's using Si...but observing one isolated instance of remembering something from the past doesn't make her an Si user because it's not enough to establish that she adheres to the Si orientation to cognition.
Hey, I don't think being ENTP necessarily means you need to be condescending or to discount others' viewpoints. Many ENTPs on here can debate well, are very smart, and can still entertain other viewpoints in a nonhostile way. I think it just comes down to maturity and consideration. And perhaps individual egos as well.
If you have a completely different, non-Jungian viewpoint on how we should view cognition, I would be glad to hear that. The reason NTs are taking issue with you is that you're taking the terms from an already existing model and insisting that they mean something else, which creates a lot of confusion.
I know. I know. You still don't get it. You weren't even responding
in a mocking way the way an Si-er would respond, imo. I am only remarking on this triviality to point out that I get sarcasm, so you can save your 'you don't understand anything' comments for more substantive issues.
I'm afraid your opinion on the intended meaning of my words is less significant than mine, given that I wrote the words in the first place.
Absolutely agree. I never made claims about the potential validity or problems with this 'test,' I only said using pictures was a good, unexplored, way to reach the way people think. If you still disagree, awesome, I'll not talk anymore about it with you.
I don't disagree with that at all. But that's not at all how the OP presented it. If she had just said, "Everybody look at this picture and tell me your first reaction because I'm curious how people will respond", there'd be no issue whatsoever.
For the record, I don't think you're dumb at all. You're just young....and cocky. :chicken: But if you catch it now, you might be able to remain, or learn, a more open-minded approach to interacting, whether for your online persona or not. I am a real person, whether I'm behind a computer screen or in front of your face; I deserve respect and your best effort at communication.
And I've been trying very hard to communicate with you, but you still just dismiss everything I say as trivial nitpicking for the sake of pedantry.
If I didn't truly believe these distinctions were meaningful in the framework of Jungian typology I wouldn't continue trying to explain them so many times.
The problem that many NTs run into is with people who claim to be operating within a given model, then break the basic definition of that model. This is what you're doing. If you don't want to operate within the Jungian model, then fine, don't--but it doesn't make sense to continue using Jung's terms for your own ideas if you reject his model.
Furthermore, my impetus here is learning and growing. I am naturally interested in psychology and how the mind works, with an emphasis in genetics. If you guys can offer some fun and rewarding convos in that, that would be awesome. But I don't really care if you think I'm smart or not; I just don't like the ad hominem attacks on my intelligence. I will actually entertain them from people who I feel have earned that right, and who I respect, more than those who just sit back and criticize without offering any real material or debate, like Jaguar. Despite repeated attemtps by me to ellicit his knowledge-base and ideas, he has refused, which is well within his right, but I will not then turn around and accept his disavowal of my adequacies regarding typology, and I resent that you do, because I have not personally seen anything that warrants his superiority in this. So the fact that you defend him, in the wake of our arguements, makes me think you are copping a power play.
Until later.
I have never attacked your intelligence. In fact I've made a point of complimenting it several times. All I have attacked is your understanding of this particular model.
Jaguar isn't bothering with you because NTJs usually don't bother entertaining the ideas of people who haven't shown enough understanding of the ideas they're interested in to warrant the effort.
I think your ideas would meet with a much more welcome reception if you'd drop the pretense that you're operating within the Jungian model and just tell everyone you're inventing an entirely new approach to conceptualizing cognition, and stop using Jungian terms to designate non-Jungian concepts.
to this. 
