some rather intedependent reasoning, take it or leave it:
types may be "defined" but what about idiot savants, or full blown geniusses?
carl jung describes how ONE function gets slowly developed by the individual.
the other ones may be subconsciously present but must be different by deffintion from defined functions as the latter are only describable by observing people who have those function developed. you can not scientificly define a undifferenciated fucntion if you cannot observe it as such, due tu it beeing subconscious.
you can only assume about it.
you may assign observed symptoms to the assumed model of the subconsciousness, as jung did quite well.
so now we have a lucky owner of ONE function.
say, it's Fi.
evetually that Fi person will differenciate another function.
that would be Ne or Se.
this is what can be obseved. all further things are mainly theories. observations of patterns are cool, but never secure.
some theories of the relations of functioans are based on reasonable sources, like brain anatomy, but still there are so much error sources in those theories.
lane friesen theorizes something loosely like this: when the consciousness starts to conquer all functions (- that is, the subject retreats by transcending consciosness, that is, by objectifiying it -), there will be a closed cirquit and so the whole type, as known, will be transcendet.
this rarely happens if it happens at all.
jung doesnt even describe the sixteen types in his book "typology".
he describes eight types.
Te+Fe+Ne+Se
Ti+Fi+Ni+Se
that is interesting, because it leaves the Fi types who are clearly assigned in his descriptions to the infj archetype (or judger archetype) and traits are not even associoated with intuition, in the way keirsey is generous about doing so. but the Ni types ARE strongly seperated from the Si types. (nevertheless there are similarities in Ni and Si)
i find that way of dividing types into groups more natural.
i can easily jump in my associoations from isfp to infp to intp who all share introverted perceiving functions as first function. (true in context of the former paragraph ! socionics style). it is much harder to jump between all "intuititives".
that suggests, that a "borderline" type between NiFe and SiFe can not exist (though you might easily confuse them when still searching the relevant patterns of Ni and Si) but there can be quite likely be a borderline type between NiFe and NiTe.
that is, if the desicion in which direction our Ni type would develope (Fe or Te) has not jet been "cemented"
translation to the mbti-world:
if you would insist on the mbti function assignment, you would respectively still do good, to learn (try out) the assosiative jumps from type to type based on similarites or quality of the first function. introverteds as an example:
(NiFe + NiTe) + (SiFe + SiTe) .... the capulets
----------------------------------------------
(TiNe + TiSe) + (FiNe + FiSe) .... the montagues
in my personal notes i totally reject the crappy J/P-four letter code, and work only with functions.
the four letter code is like selling cars to aboriginals and claiming cars were moved by the gods.
i kinda lost the read line.
i dont know at which rates people statistically develope their functions, but i think the table above is verry "optimistic". i can see paterns in the table that i know from other stage-systems. thats from where i take my judgement.
most people in the world dont even EVER make it verry much past the developement, that is often assigned to a CLICHEE healthy educated bright western civilisation adolecent between 18 and 22.
young generations in rich countries are often developing faster ....
it is normal for older generations or generations in poorer countries to never enter the stages that are "commonly" assigned to an age of 21 or 28.
if there is a narcistic or similar pathology or if someone is just not strong spirited it is also common to not go over the stages that are asigned to childhod. that is true for all sorts of developemtal lines, not just for e.g morals. it is, because a pathology on the main line (self core) acts like a gravitiy that keeps the potential for most other lines rather low. often, not allways.
so when i look around, what i see are PLENTY of people who have at best two differenciated functions.
but that does not mean, undifferenciated people or borderline type are REALLY "equal" or similar. just look at "physiognomy" (aka VI). even little cognitive differentiation comes with verry strong type patterns, as if the route of developement was determined by birth or early childhood, even if there never was the potential to follow that route to the end. often the oddities/patterns are stronger, the less differenciated someone is.
think of bag in wich a stone rotates all the time in only one way. that bag will clearly display that rotation. add 2 further stones, with additional orbits. the bag no longer reveals so much about its contents. but it might still be quite different from another bag, that started with a rotating hammer inside
(i have not slept this night
)
