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Intensity

Poki

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Measurable intensity? This is the problem I'm having, knowing which intensifier to use for intensity: very intense, intensely intense, mildly intense, so minimally intense we might as well call it mild?

Consumed by awareness of?

As opposed to, say, "inspired by some other construction and not paying particular attention"?

If it's a matter of conscious focus, then there's some sense in which... something, dunno. Something like, we're all the same underneath, just focused in different ways, and though focus is crucially important for understanding who the person is, there's still a bunch of other parts to them that are normal enough.

Or not, I dunno. It's a bit weird trying to make all people comparable in this way. Other people are more capable at this facet or that. Thus....

Dunno. Either eugenics or the occasional spurt of personal growth.



Is that the same idea as relative maturity of lower level functions? As in, stuff happens down below the flexible, well-adjusted top level functions and that stuff becomes fixed points in our cognition that we don't often question?

I wonder if there's a way to say that that makes tertiary functioning (and lower) less reprehensible. Less knee-jerky and shadowy somehow.



Ooo, heavens, I wonder if I'm not looking for legitimate rights to intensity. Having relatively immature emotional awareness suggests one might envy intensity but couldn't really, truthfully pull it off. Nuts.

Intensity is a measurement. So "little intense" is a nice way to say not really, but yeah I can see some intensesness. Consider it a "compound" concept.
 

cascadeco

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Measurable intensity? This is the problem I'm having, knowing which intensifier to use for intensity: very intense, intensely intense, mildly intense, so minimally intense we might as well call it mild?

Consumed by awareness of?

As opposed to, say, "inspired by some other construction and not paying particular attention"?

Ah. Yes, I see. Good distinction with the bolded, and I think I agree - at least in the emotional element of intensity, I think it would require an awareness of said emotion as well as paying attention to the point of placing value on that element of yourself. Value because you're devoting Time/focus to making note of it.

As for measurability, it's obviously possible to create a system to measure outward expression of intensity - i.e. your 'very intense'....'minimally intense' scale.

But yeah, without those outward indicators, can't really measure inward intensity of another as an outward observer, or even necessarily be aware of the existence (or not) of any inward intensity of emotion.


If it's a matter of conscious focus, then there's some sense in which... something, dunno. Something like, we're all the same underneath, just focused in different ways, and though focus is crucially important for understanding who the person is, there's still a bunch of other parts to them that are normal enough.

Well yes, I think we all have the same building blocks, if you will, it is simply that we each focus in different ways. I mean, this is rather like what cognitive function theory is trying to get at. We each place greater import on one element over another, and less import on others, and even far less on others such that we might even be disdainful of those elements of perception or our own psychae.

Is that the same idea as relative maturity of lower level functions? As in, stuff happens down below the flexible, well-adjusted top level functions and that stuff becomes fixed points in our cognition that we don't often question?

What I meant by attachment/bias towards an idea, and that leading to intensity, was simply any number of people who are so caught up in their own thought process/view and thus are on a mission to convince others, or express themselves. Their very attachment to whatever idea they hold to leads to an intensity of expression and self. Very solid, unwavering.

Not necessarily having anything to do with maturity of lower level functions, it could in fact be the opposite - excessive reliance on upper-level with blinders on all others.

I wonder if there's a way to say that that makes tertiary functioning (and lower) less reprehensible. Less knee-jerky and shadowy somehow.

See, I've never found my tertiary reprehensible or shadowy. I find it quite adds to myself in a good way and I've never seen it as a bad thing. That's just me though.
 

Kalach

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What I meant by attachment/bias towards an idea, and that leading to intensity, was simply any number of people who are so caught up in their own thought process/view and thus are on a mission to convince others, or express themselves. Their very attachment to whatever idea they hold to leads to an intensity of expression and self. Very solid, unwavering.

Mhm, mhm, mmm, yass.

I have long (well, short) believed (and possibly herewith taking the mickey) that Ti unrestrained leads to solipsism and Fe is present to (at least) reassure Ti users that everything is still okay in the world around them. Thus the attention to praising contributions and checking people when they're being too mean and so on.

Etc and so on for why tertiary Fi is equally not reprehensible.

Intensity of (tertiary) feeling is, prima facie, reprehensible for the basic sense that it isn't real. It isn't how I do things and it isn't the right way. Which is an overstatement. And not really true.

Yeah, I haven't known for some time what's been going on in this thread. I guess I was hoping for someone to explain intensity.
 

Poki

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If you can get someone else succesfully caught up in their own thought you can appear intense. So what is intensity? as it is not solely within the person who appears intense.
 

BlueGray

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Mhm, mhm, mmm, yass.

I have long (well, short) believed (and possibly herewith taking the mickey) that Ti unrestrained leads to solipsism and Fe is present to (at least) reassure Ti users that everything is still okay in the world around them. Thus the attention to praising contributions and checking people when they're being too mean and so on.
I've noticed that it appears to be an Ne/Te mix that stops the train of thought. Kind of look at all the possibilities that can be had and does it really matter if it doesn't change anything with the world I see.
 

Salomé

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If I knew what I was talking about when I said "feeling", I'd probably already know the answers to these questions.

I recognise "feeling" as affect and as judgment. Sometimes I'll get a strong, immediate reaction to something and I'll recognise it as feeling. Negative feeling is usually easier to recognise, but being content or pleased is also recognisable. This I count as affective feeling. Feeling judgment, it seems to me, is more mysterious. I know I mix, um, something in with perception when considering what to do. Part of it is significance drawn from prior events, and normally I'd call that (one part of) Ni, but it fairly obviously isn't pure. "Significance" will be a connected thing, a web of meanings, and that'll be the Ni stuff, but some of those meanings will be, I assume, emo significance.

I am unclear, however, how such significance is generated. I would normally say it includes objective elements drawn from thinking, but while it's true that thinking will have been involved, one needs also to consider that the thinking process is more conscious than the feeling process so I'll naturally tag more or less everything as "thinking", or at least subject to and properly judged by thinking.

Actually, since I'm using "objective" to mean "accords with or conforms to the outside world", having particularly ones own introverted feelings be adequately thought about is problematic. They're not (directly) in the outside world to be thought about. Possibly ones own Fe/Ti combo has a similar constructive difficulty: the feelings are in some sense "out there" while the thinking is supposed to address inner material.

(So, as a tangent: Morgan, it was interesting you used "expression" and "impression" as the two choices, although it may not be telling of anything in particular, but "impression" suggests feelings come from "out there"... maybe?)

Anyway... adequate feeling judgment...from whence does it arrive?
I'm not sure I really understand what you're driving at in this thread, you seem to be conflating Feeling with emotion, which is muddying things somewhat...

Impression = internal affect
Expression = extent to which affect is expressed to others.

Those two things are not necessarily correlated. Extraverted feelers are much more likely to express flamboyance/emotional volatility, but I really don’t see how we can measure how deeply people feel relative to others. One can only offer a subjective assessment of one’s own emotional climate, and not necessarily an honest one. I do not believe that Feelers “feel” more intensely than Thinkers. There is no reason to suppose that they do.

How can you justify saying that thinking is more conscious than feeling? They are both rational processes. They are both higher order functions. Both unconnected with the primitive limbic brain that handles emotion. The only difference is that Feeling values emotional input, whereas Thinking tends to devalue it. Feeling consults emotion to steer decision making – it’s a self-reinforcing system. Fi says: What are my values? What happens when I violate one of those values? How does it make me feel? Fe says: What are the groups values? What happens if someone violates those values? What is the impact on the group? Entirely rational.
Ti says: Ignore feeling, it’s too inconsistent to model effectively. Te says: Fuck feeling, just give me the facts.
Just a different focus. Personal vs. impersonal. Subject vs. Object.
 

Kalach

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I'm not sure I really understand what you're driving at in this thread, you seem to be conflating Feeling with emotion, which is muddying things somewhat...

Inquiring into the difference. Even perhaps into the mechanics of the construction of one from the other, assuming there is such a construction.

Impression = internal affect
Expression = extent to which affect is expressed to others.

That's what you say now. But when I think "feeling" I don't think expression at all. So I wondered. (I also don't think "impression" much either, and I'm aware, I guess, of choosing introverted feeling and accepting that it's introverted, un-joined to outside influences, etc and so on.)

Those two things are not necessarily correlated. Extraverted feelers are much more likely to express flamboyance/emotional volatility, but I really don’t see how we can measure how deeply people feel relative to others. One can only offer a subjective assessment of one’s own emotional climate, and not necessarily an honest one. I do not believe that Feelers “feel” more intensely than Thinkers. There is no reason to suppose that they do.

There isn't? They make a lot more noise about it. (Just between you and me, this thread was originally started to deflate this word "intensity", it seeming to be somewhat overblown.)

How can you justify saying that thinking is more conscious than feeling?

Function order? Personal maturity?

They are both rational processes. They are both higher order functions. Both unconnected with the primitive limbic brain that handles emotion.

There's another mechanism now?

The only difference is that Feeling values emotional input, whereas Thinking tends to devalue it.

Ah. But, what? Feeling has this extra mechanism? Does Thinking have some backroom antechamber too? So even if Jungian typology starts making it look like there's some kind of isometry between Fi and Ti and between Fe and Te.... wait, what, no, jumping the gun in conclusions.... there may remain that isometry, as in the structure of the function is formally the same or similar, but the origin of the content is different. Or something.

Feeling consults emotion to steer decision making – it’s a self-reinforcing system. Fi says: What are my values? What happens when I violate one of those values? How does it make me feel? Fe says: What are the groups values? What happens if someone violates those values? What is the impact on the group? Entirely rational.

Emotion as premise, feeling as conclusion?

Or better: a range of emotions in a variety of circumstances as a set of premises, feeling as conclusion?

Or emotions gave rise to some feeling system and whatever logic that goes on is entirely inside that system, feeling as premise and then feeling as conclusion.

Or, space monkeys. i dunno.


I wonder a couple of things. First, if one goes ahead and suggests some isometry between feeling and thinking, is it true or is it an attempt to move feeling understanding into the realm of thinking to make it more recognisable to thinkers. Second, if feeling actually is rational, which one does one attend to, feeling or emotion?

And a couple of other things but I don't know what they are because this is weird and unsettling territory.
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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The only difference is that Feeling values emotional input, whereas Thinking tends to devalue it.

The emotional input I think fuels the intensity. It's the communal belief behind the idea that charges it even more making it seem more intense, whether both express the value, or one simply speaks for both. The latter could appear quite 'intense'. This is what I see as an intensified means. It's the the fusing of two dominant/auxillary functions that are identical in both function Fi-Fi and aim i.e. animal rights.

In the end syncronisity defines a great deal of intensity.
 

Poki

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I'm not sure I really understand what you're driving at in this thread, you seem to be conflating Feeling with emotion, which is muddying things somewhat...

Impression = internal affect
Expression = extent to which affect is expressed to others.

Those two things are not necessarily correlated. Extraverted feelers are much more likely to express flamboyance/emotional volatility, but I really don’t see how we can measure how deeply people feel relative to others. One can only offer a subjective assessment of one’s own emotional climate, and not necessarily an honest one. I do not believe that Feelers “feel” more intensely than Thinkers. There is no reason to suppose that they do.

How can you justify saying that thinking is more conscious than feeling? They are both rational processes. They are both higher order functions. Both unconnected with the primitive limbic brain that handles emotion. The only difference is that Feeling values emotional input, whereas Thinking tends to devalue it. Feeling consults emotion to steer decision making – it’s a self-reinforcing system. Fi says: What are my values? What happens when I violate one of those values? How does it make me feel? Fe says: What are the groups values? What happens if someone violates those values? What is the impact on the group? Entirely rational.
Ti says: Ignore feeling, it’s too inconsistent to model effectively. Te says: Fuck feeling, just give me the facts.
Just a different focus. Personal vs. impersonal. Subject vs. Object.

Thats not what Ti says. Ti says "my subjective feelings are to inconsistant to model effectively" It also says "others have there own feelings and I cant possibly model it internally since I cant model my feelings" Ti says "thoughts are consistant to a degree, but they are subjective" it says "I can model thoughts" Therefore "I can internalize thoughts from others and model it so I can follow it."

Te and Fe have an external model.

If one is "high" cant they also have intense thoughts? Is intensity only tied to feelings?
 

Coriolis

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I had an idea recently that public INTJ feeling has a more black and white quality not because it is more black and white but just because only the starker, more intense "decisions" make it to the surface. Or perhaps just because it gets filtered through thinking.
Perhaps. At the point of action, nearly all choices are binary. If INTJ feeling is presented only at the point of decision or its expression, I can see where it would have a more black and white quality. All the shades of gray will already have been considered and processed.

The idea has already been raised that emotion is not the same as feeling judgment, or the feeling function. It is important to remember also that one's functions work in concert, not each in isolation. In analyzing my own decision making process, for instance, I see an iterative and sometimes complex interplay of at least Ni, Te, and Fi. My feeling judgment sometimes manifests by giving me a strong reaction that something is just RIGHT or WRONG. This is an automatic, almost visceral feeling. It can make me feel warm and content all over if the observed event seems right; or almost sick inside if it seems wrong. Somehow, I have automatically assessed what is happening against some internal value system, and judged it so.

I almost always react by stepping back and analyzing (Te) to determine exactly what about the situation violates or affirms my values, which values, in which way. Sometimes I uncover inconsistencies in values this way, or even values I didn't realize I had (i.e. didn't realize something was important to me). I will then go on to decide (more Te, some Ni input) whether any action on my part is warranted. The initial emotion is thus a red flag that something noteworthy is going on and needs evaluation. The thinking aspect of this is probably more conscious in thinkers, just because we prefer it and tend to rely upon it more. The reverse might be true of feelers.

As for your original question regarding intensity, Poki is correct that intensity does not only apply to feelings (or the expression thereof). Thoughts can be intense, as can physical sensations. I see intensity as almost synonymous with concentration: how much of a given attribute is conveyed per unit time/space? I also like what what Casadeco says here:
What I meant by attachment/bias towards an idea, and that leading to intensity, was simply any number of people who are so caught up in their own thought process/view and thus are on a mission to convince others, or express themselves. Their very attachment to whatever idea they hold to leads to an intensity of expression and self. Very solid, unwavering.
This last especially I would suspect describes many INTJs. I have at times been described as intense, even scary, and this type of unwavering certainty is probably part of it. I also tend to manifest significant momentum toward progress. By this I mean that, once I have researched something and determined a course of action, I don't waste any time or spare much effort in implementing it. Again, concentration of energy/attention/resources; what others have called focus.
 

Serendipity

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Somehow, I feel I'm going to answer straight off topic and yet not:

Intense is trying to push something that won't fit the bottleneck. Simple.
It is probably different for us all, because it is dependant on the receiver rather than the sender.
Also, you may experience being both the sender and the receiver - which can give cause for abnormality but usually is a misconception as the sender is something other than the necessary you. Even if it comes from the inside.

Just because it comes from the inside, doesn't mean it comes from you.
And if it does come from You, your conception of You is different from what is.
 

five sounds

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sx is intense

EXXJ is intense

enneagram 8, 7, 1, 4 can be intense in their own ways.
 

Serendipity

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sx is intense

EXXJ is intense

enneagram 8, 7, 1, 4 can be intense in their own ways.

Personally, I think everyone are capable of intensity.
Whether dominant this or dominant that.

You don't agree?

Also, concerning the OP's post; Thinking can cause wall of text. Feeling a wall of text. Just looking for different receivers. Take a pill that inhibits either and you'll find intensity begins to lack. I'd like a cup of tea and a theory-cookie to dip with.

Now that I think about it, it could be on the verge of understanding but not comprehending.
 

five sounds

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Personally, I think everyone are capable of intensity.
Whether dominant this or dominant that.

You don't agree?

i absolutely do, but those are some personality traits that lend themselves to expressed intensity as i experience it. this is based on my own experiences with people. don't you know some individuals you'd describe as 'intense' while others are meeker or have a calmer more mild demeanor?
 

Serendipity

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i absolutely do, but those are some personality traits that lend themselves to expressed intensity as i experience it. this is based on my own experiences with people. don't you know some individuals you'd describe as 'intense' while others are meeker or have a calmer more mild demeanor?

On first impression, I would say yes.
On second, I realize the ones who keep a less intense demeanor nonetheless has been giving me rather intense experiences.
On day to day, not necessarily speaking to anyone and just meeting people, is that really taking part of each other? And how much of that could I consider being normal? How can I taste the intensity in people if I don't strike up conversations of their interest, or however their intensity brightens? Personally, There's this "umph" with introverted types. A kind of intensity that is below the surface. Extroverted types end up with the intensity in my face. Not always like this of course. Often it is completely opposite.

Life's an onion, just like Shrek and like Shrek, it has many layers and all of those layers makes you cry. <--- That was clearly OOT.

I think I know what you mean but that is surface living. Not something I particularily enjoy doing. Everyone turn into this grey mish-mash. A porridge of no taste.


What is intensity to you?



Ps. I am in the wrong part of the forum. Sorry.
 

five sounds

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On first impression, I would say yes.
On second, I realize the ones who keep a less intense demeanor nonetheless has been giving me rather intense experiences.
On day to day, not necessarily speaking to anyone and just meeting people, is that really taking part of each other? And how much of that could I consider being normal? How can I taste the intensity in people if I don't strike up conversations of their interest, or however their intensity brightens? Personally, There's this "umph" with introverted types. A kind of intensity that is below the surface. Extroverted types end up with the intensity in my face. Not always like this of course. Often it is completely opposite.

Life's an onion, just like Shrek and like Shrek, it has many layers and all of those layers makes you cry. <--- That was clearly OOT.

I think I know what you mean but that is surface living. Not something I particularily enjoy doing. Everyone turn into this grey mish-mash. A porridge of no taste.


What is intensity to you?



Ps. I am in the wrong part of the forum. Sorry.
I wasn't thinking that deeply about it. Knowing someone intimately can be the most intense, and in that regard I think it takes on a different kind of thing. That wins for sure. I was thinking of types that come off as intense to me upon meeting them. Like their energy is overwhelming or just noticeably foreceful.
 
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