Has this been proposed before? Opposite functions being rooted in each other.

[Kurt.Is.God]

Probably. Anyway, here it is:

Any function in the MBTI demands an "equal and opposite reaction". If your first function is extroverted, your last will be introverted. If your second function is feeling, your third will be thinking.

Just earlier today, I think I found the reason for why this is. I really can't explain it in abstract terms at the moment. I'll have to give specific examples of how functions negate each other.

Consider introverted intuition and extroverted sensing. Introverted intuition demands an extroverted sensing counterpart because extroverted sensing is an expression of introverted intuition--to be able to act on the world in a way that brings about immediate results (Se), you need to know how the world works as a process (Ni). And if you know how the world works as a process, your actions will reflect that. At the same time, they're opposite functions--to act on the world is to disrupt the process and prevent yourself from understanding it.

This sort of pattern applies for all of the other functions as well. Extroverted intuition demands an introverted sensing counterpart because introverted sensing roots extroverted intuition. I'm not sure how this one works yet (and it's my own type!)--I'll come back to it. My guess right now is that you need at least a basic understanding of "moments in time" (Si) to be able to build ideas off of them. And if you are trying to understand the "moment in time", then you will need things to relate it to (this would be using Ne). Si and Ne are very obviously opposites--to follow potentials which stem from the moment is to disrupt the stability of the moment.

Introverted feeling demands extroverted thinking because plan-making (Te) is a way of acting out individual truths (Fi). And extroverted thinking demands introverted feeling because its plans need ideals to work toward. These are opposites too--to make plans and act is to disrupt the things affecting you which give you self-understanding.

Finally, extroverted feeling demands introverted thinking because the way you "act on the world emotionally" (terrible way of describing it, I know, but Fe) is informed by the models of reality you hold (Ti). And introverted thinking demands extroverted feeling because your models of reality will affect how you act out toward the world. These are opposites because to interact with the world based on your feelings toward it is to disrupt your understanding of how it works.

In fact, they can't match up in any other way (and this is about as abstract as I've gone so far):

Fi and Ti are two ways of building a personalized model of reality--either based on personalized truths or "objective" reality, and you can only have one. Fe and Te are both ways of acting on the world based on an agenda--either by going into the world of "reactions" or by taking action.

Si and Ni are both ways of understanding your place (another variant on model-building)--either as part of an ever-changing process or as parts of a static system. Se and Ne are both ways of playing with this sense of "place"--either by deriving amusement from possible reactions in this system, or by taking action and directing the course of this evolving system.

I feel these thoughts are incomplete. And possibly wrong. What are your thoughts? Please don't tear this apart--I am staking my ego on things like this.

 

[INTP]

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/mbti-tm-other-personality-matrices/53137-ne-si.html

I dont think it applies to judging functions, but we do need each of the four functions. Thinking itself doesent need feeling or other way around. However if you only decide what something is(T), but wont be able to give an value for it(F), you wont be able to complete anything. Lets say you need to choose between two things, you analyze them, but wont be able to figure out which one is better, you wont be able to make the decision.

 

[Kurt.Is.God]

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/mbti-tm-other-personality-matrices/53137-ne-si.html

I dont think it applies to judging functions, but we do need each of the four functions. Thinking itself doesent need feeling or other way around. However if you only decide what something is(T), but wont be able to give an value for it(F), you wont be able to complete anything. Lets say you need to choose between two things, you analyze them, but wont be able to figure out which one is better, you wont be able to make the decision.

Damn, I feel honored that you came up with this first.

I think what you said is right, though. Fi might be paired up with Te, and Fe with Ti, just because you need one function to express your personal judgments and another to express rational judgments. And their direction (E/I) might just be because you need one function to act out the worldviews the other function makes. But that almost seems arbitrary. Ni and Se/Ne and Si have that going on, but they're also sides of the same coin. These don't seem to be. Maybe there's another sort of deeper logic behind this, though. What are your thoughts?

Edit: Actually, my thoughts (which are still vague at the moment) are that Te's accomplishing goals only works when driven by Fi's internal visions. And Fe's working with group values doesn't work when driven by Fi's internal visions. Fi wants something done about what it thinks is right. In this sense I do think Fi and Te are two sides of the same coin. I don't know how this works for Fe and Ti, though.

Edit 2: Fe and Ti are both objective judgments about things--Fe about a value system, and Ti about principles governing things. Fi and Te are both subjective. They're both very internal.

 

[INTP]

Damn, I feel honored that you came up with this first.

I think what you said is right, though. Fi might be paired up with Te, and Fe with Ti, just because you need one function to express your personal judgments and another to express rational judgments. And their direction (E/I) might just be because you need one function to act out the worldviews the other function makes. But that almost seems arbitrary. Ni and Se/Ne and Si have that going on, but they're also sides of the same coin. These don't seem to be. Maybe there's another sort of deeper logic behind this, though. What are your thoughts?

Edit: Actually, my thoughts (which are still vague at the moment) are that Te's accomplishing goals only works when driven by Fi's internal visions. And Fe's working with group values doesn't work when driven by Fi's internal visions. Fi wants something done about what it thinks is right. In this sense I do think Fi and Te are two sides of the same coin. I don't know how this works for Fe and Ti, though.

Edit 2: Fe and Ti are both objective judgments about things--Fe about a value system, and Ti about principles governing things. Fi and Te are both subjective. They're both very internal.

I think your function definitions are bit off, alot of what you say is about what the usage of these functions lead to, not the function itself. Like this Te being goal orientated, its not that Te is goal orientated, but its objective(in line with external world, or tries to be) logic judgment. Now when you see the world in terms of logic, its easier for the person to act goal orientated. But the goal oriented attitude isnt Te, it needs N with it to see connections and possibilities between these facts that are seen in external world.

Jung described the functions as follow:
S tells you that something is
T tells you what it is
F tells you what it is worth
N tells you where it came from and where its going to

The extraversion and introversion of function is about whether the objective or subjective point of view is more trusted one and determining one.
Objective point of view is simply things that are in line with the external world and internalized things that came from the external world.
Subjective point of view is the things like deductions made from something, personal judgments of worth etc.
It might sound like Ne would be subjective, since it is a perceptions of possibility over time, however, Ne starts from the objective point of view(sensory perception(not talking about S), and is then compared unconsciously to internal facts and how this type of things tend to go), while Ni starts from the subjective point of view/idea. Ti is also subjective even tho it may try to make deductions that could be applied to external reality, but it does the deductions/analysis by seeing the internal logic to be more trusted than what seems to be correct in external world. This seems thing is crucial here imo, because Te sees the logic that can be inserted onto external world the ultimate truth, while Ti has sceptical view on logic being displayed on external world.

Same could be said about Fi and Fe, Fe sees the values displayed by the external world to be the determining one(naturally it can be overridden by Ti, but for Fe dom its not an easy thing to do usually), it can be about what his girlfriend sees as being valuable, or the values told by religion
Fi can also act like Fe in the real world, but these things like pleasing your partner comes from tye feelings you get from doing so, not because "this is what i am supposed to do".

 

[Kurt.Is.God]

Wow. Gotcha. So Te is about "logic that can be inserted into the external world." It's logic applied toward accomplishing very definite ends. And it doesn't NEED feeling (not in the sense of them being two sides of the same coin), but introverted feeling gives it an agenda. Likewise with Ti and Fe. Got it.

Thinking and feeling are completely independent of each other, then, right? Are Fe and Ti opposites, then, and are Fi and Te opposites, in the way that Ne and Si are? Does too much of one necessarily cancel the other out? Or is it just a matter of how much priority you give to logic and how much you give to your values? Or do I have something wrong again?

 

[INTP]

Wow. Gotcha. So Te is about "logic that can be inserted into the external world." It's logic applied toward accomplishing very definite ends. And it doesn't NEED feeling (not in the sense of them being two sides of the same coin), but introverted feeling gives it an agenda. Likewise with Ti and Fe. Got it.

Thinking and feeling are completely independent of each other, then, right? Are Fe and Ti opposites, then, and are Fi and Te opposites, in the way that Ne and Si are? Does too much of one necessarily cancel the other out? Or is it just a matter of how much priority you give to logic and how much you give to your values? Or do I have something wrong again?

Ti can also be inserted to external world, that is if it doesent fail. Its just that Te starts from external world and leads back to it. Ti starts from subjective deductions, may be compared to external world, but leads back to shape the subjective ideas. But yea, analysis of an item doesent mean much if you wont be judging the worth of it. Often in Ti doms(for example) the worth of the item is rather unconscious and often is dependant on the analysis of it. The idea of developing functions is to consciously handle this opposite(of dominant attitude) point of view(in this Ti example the Fe), so that the value judgment isnt only an some afterthought. Same couod be said on Fi doms, Te being usually just some afterthought and working below the surface of consciousness during the analysis itself.

Its the undeveloped functions that merge themselves to other functions and might unconsciously guide what you process or how you process it. Also unlike people often refer these undeveloped functions being unconscious, its just the process of using the function that is often unconscious, but the product of the function often is conscious, but then its just mere afterthought like i mentioned earlier.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Wow. Gotcha. So Te is about "logic that can be inserted into the external world." It's logic applied toward accomplishing very definite ends. And it doesn't NEED feeling (not in the sense of them being two sides of the same coin), but introverted feeling gives it an agenda. Likewise with Ti and Fe. Got it.

Thinking and feeling are completely independent of each other, then, right? Are Fe and Ti opposites, then, and are Fi and Te opposites, in the way that Ne and Si are? Does too much of one necessarily cancel the other out? Or is it just a matter of how much priority you give to logic and how much you give to your values? Or do I have something wrong again?

Logic and feeling/emotion are neurologically linked and inseperable for decision making. Read Descartes' Error or The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_Damásio

 

[UniqueMixture]

Also, I think some functions are more opposite than others and some functions are more likely to be picked up on than others. As a general rule of thumb I'd say introverts are more prone to seeking integration than extraverts. Also, as a practical example I'd say exfps are more likely to develop traits like responsibility or business acumen than extjs are to pick up on exfp social skills

 

[Eric B]

What the OP is asking about is called compensation. The function and its orientation are compensated by the opposite; what the ego tends to ignore in favor of its preferred perspective. That's why opposite function-attitudes work in "tandem" like that.

 

[Kurt.Is.God]

Logic and feeling/emotion are neurologically linked and inseperable for decision making. Read Descartes' Error or The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_Damásio

I've read this, actually. I think the MBTI's definition of these is different from the somatic marker hypothesis. In the hypothesis, feeling encompasses our intuitive feeling of what the right answer is from previous experiences with problem-solving, and not our value-system.

But then I think we do need values to work toward when we solve problems (or do anything).

I was actually thinking of this last night as I was trying to fall asleep. Do you think it's related to what we're talking about?

What the OP is asking about is called compensation. The function and its orientation are compensated by the opposite; what the ego tends to ignore in favor of its preferred perspective. That's why opposite function-attitudes work in "tandem" like that.

I think these opposite functions are working in tandem, but INTP has explained that the F and T functions aren't two sides of the same coin like the S and N functions are, which was what I was trying to say.

 

[Eric B]

I think these opposite functions are working in tandem, but INTP has explained that the F and T functions aren't two sides of the same coin like the S and N functions are, which was what I was trying to say.

But he did say (in the linked post) they were still needed, because "if you only decide what something is(T), but wont be able to give an value for it(F), you wont be able to complete anything". That's the point I was making. It's just that one of those functions will be more preferred, yet it will be compensated int he unconscious by its opposite.

(The way I take the "coin" analogy, you start with a thick coin representing all of reality. It has two sides, a-rational (taking in information) and rational (making decisions about it). You split them down the middle into two coins. Both of these coins now have two sides. For the a-rational coin, one side is S and the other is N. For the rational coin, one side is T and the other is F. You split these coins down the middle, and you have four coins representing each of the functions. Each side of these coins is the i or e attitude. (Afterwards, they're too thin to go any further).
You can loosely think of the tandems in that if you were to let's say put the rational coin back together; assuming the i/e sides of the final coins were on the same side (let's say, e is left and i is right), you would see that the "i" side of T was actually adjacent to the "e" side of F. If we reversed it so that i is left and e is right, then the "e" side of T would be adjacent to the "i" side of F.
This is a loose analogy, but it shows the symmetry of the whole thing).

 

[Kurt.Is.God]

Sorry for the late response. I get that these functions are like two halves of a whole. But I think what INTP's saying is that F and T aren't halves of each other in the SAME sense that S and N are (expressions of each other). I agree with everything you're saying, by the way.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I've read this, actually. I think the MBTI's definition of these is different from the somatic marker hypothesis. In the hypothesis, feeling encompasses our intuitive feeling of what the right answer is from previous experiences with problem-solving, and not our value-system.
But then I think we do need values to work toward when we solve problems (or do anything).

It is related, because Damasio's work is a hypotheis based on neurological evidence, and typology is based on an archaic hunch. Discussing the minutia of an inaccurate system is a waste of time and effort.

 

[Kurt.Is.God]

I've read this, actually. I think the MBTI's definition of these is different from the somatic marker hypothesis. In the hypothesis, feeling encompasses our intuitive feeling of what the right answer is from previous experiences with problem-solving, and not our value-system.
But then I think we do need values to work toward when we solve problems (or do anything).

It is related, because Damasio's work is a hypotheis based on neurological evidence, and typology is based on an archaic hunch. Discussing the minutia of an inaccurate system is a waste of time and effort.

Fine, then. Don't tell me. I'll live.

 

[INTP]

It is related, because Damasio's work is a hypotheis based on neurological evidence, and typology is based on an archaic hunch. Discussing the minutia of an inaccurate system is a waste of time and effort.

But his definitions are different, he isnt talking about feeling and thinking functions