Personality Models

phoneutria · September 21, 2020, 10:05pm

most people can do very little more than to say i like it and i don’t like it
not because they can’t but because they don’t train for it
that first stage of sensing a thing happens, and then the process sort of ends there for the most part
because one needs not only acute perception but also the ability to speak about it
both of which can be a result of a natural ability or the fruit of diligence
ideally both
which is why to know about human nature you often don’t seek a scientist, but a poet
just as when you want to know what a wine tastes like, you don’t look for its chromatographic report
though knowing the acitidy and alcoholic level do help
but what helps most is if someone who has tasted it can describe it to you
whether it is floral, tanninic, dry, velvety, pruny, chocolaty, nutty, fizzy, etc
some art comes into play to be able to translate those sensations into words

(as an addendum, I’ve noticed personally
that my memory of a sensation is not of the taste and smell of it at all
but of what I’ve described it to myself
thus if I immediately turn an experience into a narration
I am able to remember it much better
than if I try to conjure up the memory itself
as if i’ve written to myself a recipe of a memory
so that my brain can use it to recreate it
so when something is so good that I want to preserve it
i go into a frenzy of trying to quickly describe it as accurately as possible
before it vanishes
thus i am able to relive it
mind tricks i guess
but it goes to show how deeply language is ingrained into our conscious processes
and how not only having experienced a variety of things but also learned a variety of languages
can improve your ability to form a catalog of memories to compare current experiences with
but i digress)

anyway that’s not what you asked
you asked about the processes that are involved in turning a perception into a judgment, I suppose
to use the lingo here
it would definitely look a lot like a mathematical calculation
though the elements of the calculation are not numbers, but words
words tied to experiences
maybe my memory forming example above is a rudimentary attempt to understand that function
maybe not
in any case, i don’t know if you’ve attempted something similar
if not i invite you to try and then to report it
whether this realization of language as the most crucial element of memory
is true or not
i mean
i’m sure someone has already noticed that and written a volume about it
i just haven’t bothered to look it up yet
cuz i gots toys to deliver

the average person would consider a connoisseur of art or wine a “snob”
because they’ve developed through their process of internal “cataloguing”
the different characteristics of a thing in contrast with other things
caring for a subject enough to go through the trouble of developing a way to measure it
is well within the range of ability of the average person
it just happens that most people use it to store such things as sports statistics
or the names of different shades of lipstick

there’s whole bodies of work on the “disinterestedness” of aesthetic
which is another way to say that true aesthetic appreciation does not consider at all it’s use
but simple beauty as an end
I think value goes much deeper than use
because we humans don’t exactly live in a world of objects
we live in a world of meanings

MagsJ · September 23, 2020, 10:45am

Another word that came to mind, was ‘resonance’.

The self-absorbed… in need of something that resonates within, to stir something within their psyche, and so make an immovable object a moveable one… a catalytic converter for the soul, if you will.

SAINT MOTEL My Type …very apt, here.

Edited to add: “yea yea your just my type, oh you got a pulse and you are breathing” he sings, surrounded by beautiful women, but would he say that if they weren’t? He has very specific taste remember… so that of beauty.

MagsJ · September 26, 2020, 3:26pm

Check this out!

How very interesting…

Now it all makes sense… if I look at my formative nurturing influences, I am slap bang in the middle of Germany2/INTJ and India/INTP… so that’s pretty much spot on, as far as my type is concerned. Don’t know about anyone else.

Which MBTI type are modern countries?

Canada- ESFJ
England- ISTJ
USA- ENTJ
Australia- ESTP
Germany- ISTJ
Italy- ESFP
Ireland- ESTP
France- INFP
Germany- INTJ
New Zealand- ESFP
Spain- ESFP
Wales- ISFJ
South Africa- ESTP
Japan- INFP
China- ESTJ
Singapore- ISTP
Sweden- INFJ
Brazil- ESFP
India- INTP
Netherlands- ENFP
Phillipines- ESFP
Finland- INFP
Norway- INFJ
Peru- ENTP
Poland- ISFJ
Czech Republic- ISFJ
Lithuania- ESTP
Indonesia- ENFP
Romania- INFJ
Belgium- ISFP
Hungary- ISTP
Malaysia- ESTP
Switzerland- INFJ
Turkey- ESFJ
Denmark- INFJ
Republic of Korea- INFP
Slovakia- ISTJ
Croatia- ISTP
Mexico- ESFP
Greece- ENFJ
Austria- ISTP
Serbia- ISTP
Russia- ESTJ
Israel- ENTP

Magnus_Anderson · September 26, 2020, 7:15pm

I agree with that.

That could be the case.

Yes. In most cases, people do only two things:

Observe the painting
Emotionally react to it

It’s rare for people to study the relation between the two steps i.e. what they see and how they feel about it.

I think that perceiving the relation between what you see and how you feel about it is much more difficult than finding the right words to express that relation. That’s the stage most people get stuck at.

Let us recall the exact steps:

Observe as many paintings as possible
For each painting, observe how you feel about it
Study the the relation between what you see (paintings) and how you feel about it (your feelings)
Express that relation using some kind of language

Most people get stuck at step number 3.

I can see that being the case.

And that’s where I disagree ): I mean, there is a sense in which I agree with you, but generally speaking, I think we’re disagreeing. (Though it may actually be an issue of misunderstanding.)

That I can agree with it but I’m not sure that’s a good analogy.

That’s because one is a study of what any given physical object (such as wine) is in itself (i.e. what any given physical object is independently from what anyone thinks or feels about it) and the other is a study of what wine-in-itself means to people i.e. what value it holds for people. Both are scientific endeavours, they are merely different kinds of scientific endeavour.

The kind of language you use is in most cases a reflection of the degree to which you understand the subject. For example, the more superficial your understanding, the more poetic your descriptions will have to be. (Though there are other reasons people might want to use poetic descriptions. One is that melody and rhythm make such descriptions more entertaining, easier and less strenuous to read. But in general, I would say, it has to do with lack of understanding.)

Figuring out the answer to the question “Why do I like this?” is an intellectual and not an artistic endeavour – even if the person answering the question ends up using poetic descriptions. That’s not art, that’s science.

In most cases, the point of art isn’t to describe a portion of reality; and in pretty much every case, the point isn’t to describe why people like what they like and dislike what they dislike. That said, that sort of knowledge can at best be a means to an end but the question is to what extent is it useful to artists.

I have a penchant for composition, choreography, dancing and acting. I am also interested in writing and poetry but to a much lesser extent. So I am aware of what it takes to make a work of art. And from my experience, knowing the reasons behind my preferences isn’t particularly useful; in fact, trying to figure that out seems detrimental as it slows down the entire process without providing benefits of any kind. When I’m composing, or choosing the right set of moves to accompany certain piece of music, all I care about is how I feel about those choices. My goal is to make those choices that lead to the most pristine kind of feeling there is. How I make my choices as well as how I judge them is almost completely outside of my consciousness. (I suspect that MBTI practitioners would call this “introverted feeling”.)

Right, so it’s not a memory of a sensation itself but a memory of a verbal representation of that sensation. I suppose this means your verbal memory is stronger than your non-verbal memory. You remember words better than sensations.

I have the same problem with compositions. I have zero memory of all the pieces I’ve composed in my mind. On the other hand, my memory is better when it comes to improving other people’s existing compositions (I guess that’s because such results are tied to a specific external stimulus.)

I don’t have the musical education necessary to write my compositions down on a piece of paper and I am pretty bad at playing instruments (I find it hard to learn to play them.) So unless I record myself singing, my original compositions are forever lost. (An option is to learn how to retrieve them from my long-term memory, as I believe they are stored there just difficult to retrieve, but that appears to be quite a difficult task.)

(Just the other day I heard some random piece of music – I don’t know exactly where I heard it and the piece itself was not familiar to me – that instantly gave me an idea of a melody loop that sounded so pleasant I wish I recorded it.)

On the other hand, I don’t find this troubling, as I believe that ideas come and go. There are so many of them, it’s no big deal.

Let’s recall that the object of study is the mathematical function that you use to judge paintings. The domain of that function is the set of all paintings and its codomain is the set of all value judgments. Paintings are neither numbers nor words – they are physical objects – but you can use numbers and/or words to represent paintings. You can represent paintings any way you want though I am sure we will all agree that the most desirable representation is the simplest one.

in any case, i don’t know if you’ve attempted something similar
if not i invite you to try and then to report it
whether this realization of language as the most crucial element of memory
is true or not
i mean
i’m sure someone has already noticed that and written a volume about it
i just haven’t bothered to look it up yet
cuz i gots toys to deliver

the average person would consider a connoisseur of art or wine a “snob”
because they’ve developed through their process of internal “cataloguing”
the different characteristics of a thing in contrast with other things
caring for a subject enough to go through the trouble of developing a way to measure it
is well within the range of ability of the average person
it just happens that most people use it to store such things as sports statistics
or the names of different shades of lipstick

It seems plausible.

MagsJ · September 26, 2020, 7:40pm

I think I’m in the wrong thread… I think I’m in the cheap thread.

Magnus_Anderson · September 27, 2020, 2:36am

Here are some excerpts from Jung’s Psychological Types:

There are in nature two fundamentally different modes of adaptation which ensure the continued existence of the living organism. The one consists in a high rate of fertility, with low powers of defence and short duration of life for the single individual; the other consists in equipping the individual with numerous means of self-preservation plus a low fertility rate. This biological difference, it seems to me, is not merely analogous to, but the actual foundation of, our two psychological modes of adaptation. I must content myself with this broad hint. It is sufficient to note that the peculiar nature of the extravert constantly urges him to expend and propagate himself in every way, while the tendency of the introvert is to defend himself against all demands from outside, to conserve his energy by withdrawing it from objects, thereby consolidating his own position. Blake’s intuition did not err when he described the two classes of men as “prolific” and “devouring.” Just as, biologically, the two modes of adaptation work equally well and are successful in their own way, so too with the typical attitudes. The one achieves its end by a multiplicity of relationships, the other by monopoly.

EXTRAVERSION is an outward-turning of libido (q.v.). I use this concept to denote a manifest relation of subject to object, a positive movement of subjective interest towards the object. Everyone in the extraverted state thinks, feels, and acts in relation to the object, and moreover in a direct and clearly observable fashion, so that no doubt can remain about his positive dependence on the object. In a sense, therefore, extraversion is a transfer of interest from subject to object. If it is an extraversion of thinking, the subject thinks himself into the object; if an extraversion of feeling, he feels himself into it. In extraversion there is a strong, if not exclusive, determination by the object. Extraversion is active when it is intentional, and passive when the object compels it, i.e., when the object attracts the subject’s interest of its own accord, even against his will. When extraversion is habitual, we speak of the extraverted type (q.v.).

FUNCTION (v. also INFERIOR FUNCTION ). By a psychological function I mean a particular form of psychic activity that remains the same in principle under varying conditions. From the energic standpoint a function is a manifestation of libido (q.v.), which likewise remains constant in principle, in much the same way as a physical force can be considered a specific form or manifestation of physical energy. I distinguish four basic functions in all, two rational and two irrational (qq.v.): thinking and feeling, sensation and intuition (qq.v.). I can give no a priori reason for selecting these four as basic functions, and can only point out that this conception has shaped itself out of many years’ experience. I distinguish these functions from one another because they cannot be related or reduced to one another. The principle of thinking, for instance, is absolutely different from the principle of feeling, and so forth. I make a cardinal distinction between these functions and fantasies (q.v.), because fantasy is a characteristic form of activity that can manifest itself in all four functions. Volition or will (q.v.) seems to me an entirely secondary phenomenon, and so does attention.

INFERIOR FUNCTION . This term is used to denote the function that lags behind in the process of differentiation (q.v.). Experience shows that it is practically impossible, owing to adverse circumstances in general, for anyone to develop all his psychological functions simultaneously. The demands of society compel a man to apply himself first and foremost to the differentiation of the function with which he is best equipped by nature, or which will secure him the greatest social success. Very frequently, indeed as a general rule, a man identifies more or less completely with the most favoured and hence the most developed function. It is this that gives rise to the various psychological types (q.v.). As a consequence of this one-sided development, one or more functions are necessarily retarded. These functions may properly be called inferior in a psychological but not psychopathological sense, since they are in no way morbid but merely backward as compared with the favoured function. Although the inferior function may be conscious as a phenomenon, its true significance nevertheless remains unrecognized. It behaves like many repressed or insufficiently appreciated contents, which are partly conscious and partly unconscious, just as, very often, one knows a certain person from his outward appearance but does not know him as he really is. Thus in normal cases the inferior function remains conscious, at least in its effects; but in a neurosis it sinks wholly or in part into the unconscious. For, to the degree that the greater share of libido (q.v.) is taken up by the favoured function, the inferior function undergoes a regressive development; it reverts to the archaic (q.v.) stage and becomes incompatible with the conscious, favoured function. When a function that should normally be conscious lapses into the unconscious, its specific energy passes into the unconscious too. A function such as feeling possesses the energy with which it is endowed by nature; it is a well-organized living system that cannot under any circumstances be wholly deprived of its energy. So with the inferior function: the energy left to it passes into the unconscious and activates it in an unnatural way, giving rise to fantasies (q.v.) on a level with the archaicized function. In order to extricate the inferior function from the unconscious by analysis, the unconscious fantasy formations that have now been activated must be brought to the surface. The conscious realization of these fantasies brings the inferior function to consciousness and makes further development possible.

IRRATIONAL. I use this term not as denoting something contrary to reason, but something beyond reason, something, therefore, not grounded on reason. Elementary facts come into this category; the fact, for example, that the earth has a moon, that chlorine is an element, that water reaches its greatest density at four degrees centigrade, etc. Another irrational fact is chance, even though it may be possible to demonstrate a rational causation after the event.69

The irrational is an existential factor which, though it may be pushed further and further out of sight by an increasingly elaborate rational explanation, finally makes the explanation so complicated that it passes our powers of comprehension, the limits of rational thought being reached long before the whole of the world could be encompassed by the laws of reason. A completely rational explanation of an object that actually exists (not one that is merely posited) is a Utopian ideal. Only an object that is posited can be completely explained on rational grounds, since it does not contain anything beyond what has been posited by rational thinking. Empirical science, too, posits objects that are confined within rational bounds, because by deliberately excluding the accidental it does not consider the actual object as a whole, but only that part of it which has been singled out for rational observation.

In this sense thinking is a directed function, and so is feeling (qq.v.). When these functions are concerned not with a rational choice of objects, or with the qualities and interrelations of objects, but with the perception of accidentals which the actual object never lacks, they at once lose the attribute of directedness and, with it, something of their rational character, because they then accept the accidental. They begin to be irrational. The kind of thinking or feeling that is directed to the perception of accidentals, and is therefore irrational, is either intuitive or sensational. Both intuition and sensation (qq.v.) are functions that find fulfilment in the absolute perception of the flux of events. Hence, by their very nature, they will react to every possible occurrence and be attuned to the absolutely contingent, and must therefore lack all rational direction. For this reason I call them irrational functions, as opposed to thinking and feeling, which find fulfilment only when they are in complete harmony with the laws of reason.

Although the irrational as such can never become the object of science, it is of the greatest importance for a practical psychology that the irrational factor should be correctly appraised. Practical psychology stirs up many problems that are not susceptible of a rational solution, but can only be settled irrationally, in a way not in accord with the laws of reason. The expectation or exclusive conviction that there must be a rational way of settling every conflict can be an insurmountable obstacle to finding a solution of an irrational nature.

RATIONAL. The rational is the reasonable, that which accords with reason. I conceive reason as an attitude (q.v.) whose principle it is to conform thought, feeling, and action to objective values. Objective values are established by the everyday experience of external facts on the one hand, and of inner, psychological facts on the other. Such experiences, however, could not represent objective “values” if they were “valued” as such by the subject, for that would already amount to an act of reason. The rational attitude which permits us to declare objective values as valid at all is not the work of the individual subject, but the product of human history. Most objective values—and reason itself—are firmly established complexes of ideas handed down through the ages. Countless generations have laboured at their organization with the same necessity with which the living organism reacts to the average, constantly recurring environmental conditions, confronting them with corresponding functional complexes, as the eye, for instance, perfectly corresponds to the nature of light. One might, therefore, speak of a pre-existent, metaphysical, universal “Reason” were it not that the adapted reaction of the living organism to average environmental influences is the necessary condition of its existence—a thought already expressed by Schopenhauer. Human reason, accordingly, is nothing other than the expression of man’s adaptability to average occurrences, which have gradually become deposited in firmly established complexes of ideas that constitute our objective values. Thus the laws of reason are the laws that designate and govern the average, “correct,” adapted attitude (q.v.). Everything is “rational” that accords with these laws, everything that contravenes them is “irrational” (q.v.). Thinking and feeling (qq.v.) are rational functions in so far as they are decisively influenced by reflection. They function most perfectly when they are in the fullest possible accord with the laws of reason. The irrational functions, sensation and intuition (qq.v.), are those whose aim is pure perception; for, as far as possible, they are forced to dispense with the rational (which presupposes the exclusion of everything that is outside reason) in order to attain the most complete perception of the general flux of events.

SENSATION. I regard sensation as one of the basic psychological functions (q.v.). Wundt likewise reckons it among the elementary psychic phenomena.77 Sensation is the psychological function that mediates the perception of a physical stimulus. It is, therefore, identical with perception. Sensation must be strictly distinguished from feeling (q.v.), since the latter is an entirely different process, although it may associate itself with sensation as “feelingtone.” Sensation is related not only to external stimuli but to inner ones, i.e., to changes in the internal organic processes.

Primarily, therefore, sensation is sense perception—perception mediated by the sense organs and “body-senses” (kinaesthetic, vasomotor sensation, etc.). It is, on the one hand, an element of ideation, since it conveys to the mind the perceptual image of the external object; and on the other hand, it is an element of feeling, since through the perception of bodily changes it gives feeling the character of an affect (q.v.). Because sensation conveys bodily changes to consciousness, it is also a representative of physiological impulses. It is not identical with them, being merely a perceptive function.

A distinction must be made between sensuous or concrete (q.v.) sensation and abstract (q.v.) sensation. The first includes all the above-mentioned forms of sensation, whereas the second is a sensation that is abstracted or separated from the other psychic elements. Concrete sensation never appears in “pure” form, but is always mixed up with ideas, feelings, thoughts. Abstract sensation is a differentiated kind of perception, which might be termed “aesthetic” in so far as, obeying its own principle, it detaches itself from all contamination with the different elements in the perceived object and from all admixtures of thought and feeling, and thus attains a degree of purity beyond the reach of concrete sensation. The concrete sensation of a flower, on the other hand, conveys a perception not only of the flower as such, but also of the stem, leaves, habitat, and so on. It is also instantly mingled with feelings of pleasure or dislike which the sight of the flower evokes, or with simultaneous olfactory perceptions, or with thoughts about its botanical classification, etc. But abstract sensation immediately picks out the most salient sensuous attribute of the flower, its brilliant redness, for instance, and makes this the sole or at least the principal content of consciousness, entirely detached from all other admixtures. Abstract sensation is found chiefly among artists. Like every abstraction, it is a product of functional differentiation (q.v.), and there is nothing primitive about it. The primitive form of a function is always concrete, i.e., contaminated (v. Archaism; Concretism). Concrete sensation is a reactive phenomenon, while abstract sensation, like every abstraction, is always associated with the will (q.v.), i.e., with a sense of direction. The will that is directed to abstract sensation is an expression and application of the aesthetic sensation attitude.

Sensation is strongly developed in children and primitives, since in both cases it predominates over thinking and feeling, though not necessarily over intuition (q.v.). I regard sensation as conscious, and intuition as unconscious, perception. For me sensation and intuition represent a pair of opposites, or two mutually compensating functions, like thinking and feeling. Thinking and feeling as independent functions are developed, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, from sensation (and equally, of course, from intuition as the necessary counterpart of sensation). A person whose whole attitude (q.v.) is oriented by sensation belongs to the sensation type (q.v.).

Since sensation is an elementary phenomenon, it is given a priori, and, unlike thinking and feeling, is not subject to rational laws. I therefore call it an irrational (q.v.) function, although reason contrives to assimilate a great many sensations into a rational context. Normal sensations are proportionate, i.e., they correspond approximately to the intensity of the physical stimulus. Pathological sensations are disproportionate, i.e., either abnormally weak or abnormally strong. In the former case they are inhibited, in the latter exaggerated. The inhibition is due to the predominance of another function; the exaggeration is the result of an abnormal fusion with another function, for instance with undifferentiated thinking or feeling. It ceases as soon as the function with which sensation is fused is differentiated in its own right. The psychology of the neuroses affords instructive examples of this, since we often find a strong sexualization (Freud) of other functions, i.e., their fusion with sexual sensations.

INTUITION (L. intueri, ‘to look at or into’). I regard intuition as a basic psychological function (q.v.). It is the function that mediates perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer or inner objects or their relationships, can be the focus of this perception. The peculiarity of intuition is that it is neither sense perception, nor feeling, nor intellectual inference, although it may also appear in these forms. In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents. Like sensation (q.v.), it is an irrational (q.v.) function of perception. As with sensation, its contents have the character of being “given,” in contrast to the “derived” or “produced” character of thinking and feeling (qq.v.) contents. Intuitive knowledge possesses an intrinsic certainty and conviction, which enabled Spinoza (and Bergson) to uphold the scientia intuitiva as the highest form of knowledge. Intuition shares this quality with sensation (q.v.), whose certainty rests on its physical foundation. The certainty of intuition rests equally on a definite state of psychic “alertness” of whose origin the subject is unconscious.

Intuition may be subjective or objective: the first is a perception of unconscious psychic data originating in the subject, the second is a perception of data dependent on subliminal perceptions of the object and on the feelings and thoughts they evoke. We may also distinguish concrete and abstract forms of intuition, according to the degree of participation on the part of sensation. Concrete intuition mediates perceptions concerned with the actuality of things, abstract intuition mediates perceptions of ideational connections. Concrete intuition is a reactive process, since it responds directly to the given facts; abstract intuition, like abstract sensation, needs a certain element of direction, an act of the will, or an aim.

Like sensation, intuition is a characteristic of infantile and primitive psychology. It counterbalances the powerful sense impressions of the child and the primitive by mediating perceptions of mythological images, the precursors of ideas (q.v.). It stands in a compensatory relationship to sensation and, like it, is the matrix out of which thinking and feeling develop as rational functions. Although intuition is an irrational function, many intuitions can afterwards be broken down into their component elements and their origin thus brought into harmony with the laws of reason.

Everyone whose general attitude (q.v.) is oriented by intuition belongs to the intuitive type (q.v.).68 Introverted and extraverted intuitives may be distinguished according to whether intuition is directed inwards, to the inner vision, or outwards, to action and achievement. In abnormal cases intuition is in large measure fused together with the contents of the collective unconscious (q.v.) and determined by them, and this may make the intuitive type appear extremely irrational and beyond comprehension.

FEELING. 46 I count feeling among the four basic psychological functions (q.v.). I am unable to support the psychological school that considers feeling a secondary phenomenon dependent on “representations” or sensations, but in company with Höffding, Wundt, Lehmann, Külpe, Baldwin, and others, I regard it as an independent function sui generis. 47

Feeling is primarily a process that takes place between the ego (q.v.) and a given content, a process, moreover, that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection (“like” or “dislike”). The process can also appear isolated, as it were, in the form of a “mood,” regardless of the momentary contents of consciousness or momentary sensations. The mood may be causally related to earlier conscious contents, though not necessarily so, since, as psychopathology amply proves, it may equally well arise from unconscious contents. But even a mood, whether it be a general or only a partial feeling, implies a valuation; not of one definite, individual conscious content, but of the whole conscious situation at the moment, and, once again, with special reference to the question of acceptance or rejection.

Feeling, therefore, is an entirely subjective process, which may be in every respect independent of external stimuli, though it allies itself with every sensation.48 Even an “indifferent” sensation possesses a feeling-tone, namely that of indifference, which again expresses some sort of valuation. Hence feeling is a kind of judgment, differing from intellectual judgment in that its aim is not to establish conceptual relations but to set up a subjective criterion of acceptance or rejection. Valuation by feeling extends to every content of
consciousness, of whatever kind it may be. When the intensity of feeling increases, it turns into an affect (q.v.), i.e., a feeling-state accompanied by marked physical innervations. Feeling is distinguished from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innervations, i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process.

Ordinary, “simple” feeling is concrete (q.v.), that is, it is mixed up with other functional elements, more particularly with sensations. In this case we can call it affective or, as I have done in this book, feeling-sensation, by which I mean an almost inseparable amalgam of feeling and sensation elements. This characteristic amalgamation is found wherever feeling is still an undifferentiated function, and is most evident in the psyche of a neurotic with differentiated thinking. Although feeling is, in itself, an independent function, it can easily become dependent on another function—thinking, for instance; it is then a mere concomitant of thinking, and is not repressed only in so far as it accommodates itself to the thinking processes.

It is important to distinguish abstract feeling from ordinary concrete feeling. Just as the abstract concept (v. Thinking) abolishes the differences between things it apprehends, abstract feeling rises above the differences of the individual contents it evaluates, and produces a “mood” or feeling-state which embraces the different individual valuations and thereby abolishes them. In the same way that thinking organizes the contents of consciousness under concepts, feeling arranges them according to their value. The more concrete it is, the more subjective and personal is the value conferred upon them; but the more abstract it is, the more universal and objective the value will be. Just as a completely abstract concept no longer coincides with the singularity and discreteness of things, but only with their universality and non-differentiation, so completely abstract feeling no longer coincides with a particular content and its feeling-value, but with the undifferentiated totality of all contents. Feeling, like thinking, is a rational (q.v.) function, since values in general are assigned according to the laws of reason, just as concepts in general are formed according to these laws.

Naturally the above definitions do not give the essence of feeling—they only describe it from outside. The intellect proves incapable of formulating the real nature of feeling in conceptual terms, since thinking belongs to a category incommensurable with feeling; in fact, no basic psychological function can ever be completely expressed by another. That being so, it is impossible for an intellectual definition to reproduce the specific character of feeling at all adequately. The mere classification of feelings adds nothing to an understanding of their nature, because even the most exact classification will be able to indicate only the content of feeling which the intellect can apprehend, without grasping its specific nature. Only as many classes of feelings can be discriminated as there are classes of contents that can be intellectually apprehended, but feeling per se can never be exhaustively classified because, beyond every possible class of contents accessible to the intellect, there still exist feelings which resist intellectual classification. The very notion of classification is intellectual and therefore incompatible with the nature of feeling. We must therefore be content to indicate the limits of the concept.

The nature of valuation by feeling may be compared with intellectual apperception (q.v.) as an apperception of value. We can distinguish active and passive apperception by feeling. Passive feeling allows itself to be attracted or excited by a particular content, which then forces the feelings of the subject to participate. Active feeling is a transfer of value from the subject; it is an intentional valuation of the content in accordance with feeling and not in accordance with the intellect. Hence active feeling is a directed function, an act of the will (q.v.), as for instance loving as opposed to being in love. The latter would be undirected, passive feeling, as these expressions themselves show: the one is an activity, the other a passive state. Undirected feeling is feeling-intuition. Strictly speaking, therefore, only active, directed feeling should be termed rational, whereas passive feeling is irrational (q.v.) in so far as it confers values without the participation or even against the intentions of the subject. When the subject’s attitude as a whole is oriented by the feeling function, we speak of a feeling type (v. Type).

THINKING. This I regard as one of the four basic psychological functions (q.v.). Thinking is the psychological function which, following its own laws, brings the contents of ideation into conceptual connection with one another. It is an apperceptive (q.v.) activity, and as such may be divided into active and passive thinking. Active thinking is an act of the will (q.v.), passive thinking is a mere occurrence. In the former case, I submit the contents of ideation to a voluntary act of judgment; in the latter, conceptual connections establish themselves of their own accord, and judgments are formed that may even contradict my intention. They are not consonant with my aim and therefore, for me, lack any sense of direction, although I may afterwards recognize their directedness through an act of active apperception. Active thinking, accordingly, would correspond to my concept of directed thinking. 85 Passive thinking was inadequately described in my previous work as “fantasy thinking.”86 Today I would call it intuitive thinking.

To my mind, a mere stringing together of ideas, such as is described by certain psychologists as associative thinking, 87 is not thinking at all, but mere ideation. The term “thinking” should, in my view, be confined to the linking up of ideas by means of a concept, in other words, to an act of judgment, no matter whether this act is intentional or not.

The capacity for directed thinking I call intellect; the capacity for passive or undirected thinking I call intellectual intuition. Further, I call directed thinking a rational (q.v.) function, because it arranges the contents of ideation under concepts in accordance with a rational norm of which I am conscious. Undirected thinking is in my view an irrational (q.v.) function, because it arranges and judges the contents of ideation by norms of which I am not conscious and therefore cannot recognize as being in accord with reason. Subsequently I may be able to recognize that the intuitive act of judgment accorded with reason, although it came about in a way that appears to me irrational.

Thinking that is governed by feeling (q.v.) I do not regard as intuitive thinking, but as a thinking dependent on feeling; it does not follow its own logical principle but is subordinated to the principle of feeling. In such thinking the laws of logic are only ostensibly present; in reality they are suspended in favour of the aims of feeling.

TYPE. A type is a specimen or example which reproduces in a characteristic way the character of a species or class. In the narrower sense used in this particular work, a type is a characteristic specimen of a general attitude (q.v.) occurring in many individual forms. From a great number of existing or possible attitudes I have singled out four; those, namely, that are primarily oriented by the four basic psychological functions (q.v.): thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition (qq.v.). When any of these attitudes is habitual, thus setting a definite stamp on the character of an individual (q.v.), I speak of a psychol - ogical type. These function-types, which one can call the thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive types, may be divided into two classes according to the quality of the basic function, i.e., into the rational and the irrational (qq.v.). The thinking and feeling types belong to the former class, the sensation and intuitive types to the latter. A further division into two classes is permitted by the predominant trend of the movement of libido (q.v.), namely introversion and extraversion (qq.v.). All the basic types can belong equally well to one or the other of these classes, according to the predominance of the introverted or extraverted attitude.88 A thinking type may belong either to the introverted or to the extraverted class, and the same holds good for the other types. The distinction between rational and irrational types is simply another point of view and has nothing to do with introversion and extraversion.

In my previous contributions to typology89 I did not differentiate the thinking and feeling types from the introverted and extraverted types, but identified the thinking type with the introverted, and the feeling type with the extraverted. But a more thorough investigation of the material has shown me that we must treat the introverted and extraverted types as categories over and above the function-types. This differentiation, moreover, fully accords with experience, since, for example, there are undoubtedly two kinds of feeling types, the attitude of the one being oriented more by his feeling-experience [= introverted feeling type], the other more by the
object [= extraverted feeling type].

It may perhaps seem superfluous that I should add to my text a chapter dealing solely with definitions. But ample experience has taught me that, in psychological works particularly, one cannot proceed too cautiously in regard to the concepts and terms one uses: for nowhere do such wide divergences of meaning occur as in the domain of psychology, creating only too frequently the most obstinate misunderstandings. This drawback is due not only to the fact that the science of psychology is still in its infancy; there is the further difficulty that the empirical material, the object of scientific investigation, cannot be displayed in concrete form, as it were, before the eyes of the reader. The psychological investigator is always finding himself obliged to make extensive use of an indirect method of description in order to present the reality he has observed. Only in so far as elementary facts are communicated which are amenable to quantitative measurement can there be any question of a direct presentation. But how much of the actual psychology of man can be experienced and observed as quantitatively measurable facts? Such facts do exist, and I believe I have shown in my association studies1 that extremely complicated psychological facts are accessible to quantitative measurement. But anyone who has probed more deeply into the nature of psychology, demanding something more of it as a science than that it should confine itself within the narrow limits of the scientific method, will also have realized that an experimental method will never succeed in doing justice to the nature of the human psyche, nor will it ever project anything like a true picture of the more complex psychic phenomena.

But once we leave the domain of measurable facts we are dependent on concepts, which have now to take over the role of measure and number. The precision which measure and number lend to the observed fact can be replaced only by the precision of the concept. Unfortunately, as every investigator and worker in this field knows only too well, current psychological concepts are so imprecise and so ambiguous that mutual understanding is practically impossible. One has only to take the concept “feeling,” for instance, and try to visualize everything this concept comprises, to get some sort of notion of the variability and ambiguity of psychological concepts in general. And yet the concept of feeling does express something characteristic that, though not susceptible of quantitative measurement, nevertheless palpably exists. One simply cannot resign oneself, as Wundt does in his physiological psychology, to a mere denial of such essential and fundamental phenomena, and seek to replace them by elementary facts or to resolve them into such. In this way an essential part of psychology is thrown overboard.

In order to escape the ill consequences of this overvaluation of the scientific method, one is obliged to have recourse to well-defined concepts. But in order to arrive at such concepts, the collaboration of many workers would be needed, a sort of consensus gentium. Since this is not within the bounds of possibility at present, the individual investigator must at least try to give his concepts some fixity and precision, and this can best be done by discussing the meaning of the concepts he employs so that everyone is in a position to see what in fact he means by them.

Magnus_Anderson · September 28, 2020, 2:15am

Note that when Jung speaks of sensation, he’s mostly speaking of what people nowadays refer to as perception.

And perception isn’t merely influenced by light that hits one’s eyes, it’s also influenced by such things as one’s goals, expectations, memories, etc.

Whether this is a duck or a rabbit isn’t merely decided by what’s presented to your senses but also by a process of thinking (call it primitive and unconscious, if you will) that involves your memory and your goals.

When you perceive, you DECIDE that what’s presented to your senses is this (e.g. a duck) or that (e.g. a rabbit.) That’s a kind of judgment, decision, choice, selection, closure . . . Your brain settles on a single possibility and refuses to entertain any other – and it does so almost instantly. That’s a criterious process, isn’t it? When you see an apple on your table, you see an actual physical apple, you don’t see a flat piece of paper with a picture of an apple printed on it that someone put there in order to deceive you. Furthermore, this process can be made more rigorous by acquiring more experience, so it’s not completely fixed.

Intuition is even worse because unlike perception it is not limited to figuring out what kind of physical objects are indirectly stimulating our senses.

In this case, the product of one’s intuition is a statement on what its user should do – brake sharply. (The second quote I consider to be a product of introspection.)

Magnus_Anderson · September 29, 2020, 12:57am

Wesley Virgin is his name.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiyYIlfCmMg[/youtube]

I knew he was selling some kind of meditation to get rich. He has a bunch of different ads he’s using but the above is the first one I saw.

phoneutria · October 1, 2020, 9:16pm

i haven’t abandoned the thread
i’m just doing other stuff
I’ll be back for it

Silhouette · November 27, 2020, 11:17pm

That’s why The Big Five is better than the Myers-Briggs - as is the academic consensus.

Orderliness is a subset of conscientiousness, one of the big 5. It’s not necessarily an aspect of introversion.
The Big Five has been arrived upon due to the fact that it describes the breadth of trait personality far better than the MBTI, and much less overlapping categories. e.g. introversion doesn’t strongly correlate with orderliness.

For some reason the MBTI gets far more attention and sees a lot more use in popular culture and even in the world of work - presumably because its categories appeal much more to the layman in terms of commonly attributed meaning and a consequential sense of increased understanding of what the results mean, regardless of the fact that it does less to classify personality than the Big 5.

I felt like keeping this thread alive, partly because I seem to remember someone inaccurately disparaging the Big 5 on some related thread - possibly the one linked in the OP - but also partly because I’m beginning to find it heavily applicable to this forum, and also the political sphere. And as a bonus, I seem to even be providing phon with a nudge to give her a chance to make good on her promise in her latest post on the thread, but that’s an aside.

Although the introversion/extraversion scale features in both models, it’s the agreeableness/hostility scale, the openness to experience/closed to experience scale and the conscientiousness/easy-going scale that really seem to distinguish the right from the left. The left seem to be a lot more agreeable and the right a lot more hostile in their approach. The right are closed to experience when they are averse to change and support the status quo of neo-liberal economics, where the left are open to experience when they show interest in attempts to advance such an economic model. To namedrop the fairly contemporary and public figure Jordan Peterson, he openly speaks of the left as tending to be high in openness on this scale. By contrast, he notes the right tend to place highly on the conscientiousness scale. His conclusion is that the right make the best managers and people who run things as they are, and the left make the best innovators and entrepreneurs.

I can imagine this would shock most of the right, that such a famous psychologist - commonly associated with the alt-right for better or worse - would select the left as the creative ones, when it is the supporters of the right who so often praise Capitalism as a means to innovation.

Notably though, this evaluation restricts the left to a placement within the contemporary neo-liberal economic framework of being the innovators within Capitalism, but it’s obvious to me that the same qualifications extend beyond this rather restricted scope to other potential models. Such describes the leftist desire to progress, and the rightist desire to conserve.
This pretty much sums up the entire political exchange of this forum.
We have the left showing interest in change, and the right denying validity on the grounds of keeping order and maintaining what provably works well enough, or at least the best we seem to have collectively managed so far.
I would also note the relative agreeableness of the left to discuss openly relative to the relative hostility of the right to dismiss more open possibilities. Obviously this ties together the traits, when the traits were distinguished in order to avoid statistical overlap at a wide scale. I wonder then, if the correlation that I see here is tied to the common interest in philosophy - or perhaps it’s my own bias in perception.

Strangely though, I see nothing of the conscientiousness trait in the right-leaning contributors here. There is much less adherence to overtly structured argument, and a lot more emotionality instead. The more conscientious of the ILP population seem to be more centrist and non-partisan. The lowest in conscientiousness seem to be the most partisan here, and thye seem to judge others in the most extreme ways as well. This is another tie to the hostility trait that I’m noting - the hostile seem to be the more partisan, and the agreeable more middling in their convictions.

Just some casual observations, with no real study behind it.

phoneutria · November 27, 2020, 11:34pm

I’ll reply in detail later
but i just wanted to say bias definitely
the way you depict the left wing
as non hostile creatives
makes me think you’ve never seen a social justice warrior
or a feminazi
or a workers party dude setting a bus on fire
also worth pointing out
that jordan p himself
probably has a trait openess score through the roof
as do i

Silhouette · November 28, 2020, 12:20am

I can tell he would test high on that measure because he is overtly capable of appropriately evaluating positions that he does not hold.
That’s the dead giveaway of an academic.

I intuitively detect some openness to you from somewhere - I can’t pinpoint where, though I haven’t seen it philosophically so far - but maybe that’s unfair due to the specific topic that we happen to have mostly been discussing together to this point.

Okay to bias - I’m more than willing to admit that.
However I think you’ve somewhat given away your reasoning in the above teaser, and in kind I prematurely have issues with it already.

Yes I’ve seen SJWs and worker party dudes setting shit on fire.

With the emphasis on the last four letters of feminazi, and like everyone, being witness to the loudest of SJWs embarrassing themselves and their alleged cause, I struggle to accept their self-identification with the left wing.
It’s not a new sentiment to refer to the “full cycle” view of “so left it’s right”, and I judge that to be fair on application to these types. They’re OVERTLY authoritarian. In my understanding of the left wing, the onus has always been against that kind of oppression. Okay, at least in terms of “social justice” - lefties have always traditionally wanted freedom in the social sphere. “Social Justice” sounds like social oppression to me - and it presents itself in that way as far as I’ve seen, and as far as I think you’re referring to. Leftism has traditionally only been in favour of force economically - with taxation to the centrist degree, and in more elaborate ways the more left you go.

That said - I suspect the leftist extremism that we’re seeing today is still a symptom of openness to experience.

The left that I grew into - being older than you I guess - is one of workers’ rights and liberating society. The contemporary left now is increasingly alien to me. It’s also not a new sentiment for “leftists” to observe this same behaviour and switch to the “right” as a result. I’m a little more stubborn than that - feminazis may be “open” to a new tyranny, but I am “closed” to the experience of Authoritarianism (i.e. closedness to experience).

I’ve probably overly complicated the terminology already, but hopefully I can retain my own leftism whilst also opposing Authoritarianism, yet simultaneously leaving the JP analysis of “openness” open to the left either way. Though I admit, by the logic of that last step, even the Nazis would be “open” to the new authoritarian oppression of the “aryan race”. Perhaps that’s the gymnastic justification necassary to qualify it as National “Socialism”. I don’t see much of a divide between the Feminazi and the Nazi.

My apologies - I’m exploiting the free time I finally have to swamp this place with posts. I eagerly await your detail.

Zeroeth_Nature · November 28, 2020, 1:49am

EDIT: Excuse me, wrong thread…

Gloominary · December 2, 2020, 3:30pm

Why would INTJs’ dominant function be extroverted thinking if they’re introverts?

I’m sure there’s a totally bogus and convoluted explanation.

Sounds like whoever came up with this wasn’t extrovertly or introvertly thinking clearly.

phoneutria · December 2, 2020, 4:12pm

nah it just sounds like you’ve never read Jung’s theory of personality

it’s related to whether the thinking is outwards or inwards
INTJs thinking extrovertedly means that their thinking involves the world
a perspective of the whole
as opposed to introverted thinking which does the reverse
and brings the world into the frame of the self, how the world fits into that person

Gloominary · December 2, 2020, 4:40pm

Yup, a bogus and convoluted explanation, or series of illogical assertions, just as I suspected.
‘The listener’s dominant function is talking, but talking doesn’t mean talking, it means responding in a dynamic way, the talker’s dominant function is listening, but listening doesn’t mean listening, it means reacting in a static way’.
Sure…
How bout instead, X = X.
Furthermore, all this sounds more like perception models, how we process information, than personality models.
You may try to infer personality from perception, or perception from personality, but fundamentally perception is what you’re dealing with.

phoneutria · December 2, 2020, 7:47pm

why don’t you just read the theory and try to understand it, dude
you sound like an idiot calling something bogus that you’ve never read

Gloominary · December 2, 2020, 7:49pm

I’ve already studied some of it, both online and from a book.

I think you’re just blindly following it, you’ve never critically given it much thought.

phoneutria · December 2, 2020, 7:55pm

so bOgUs aNd cOnVolUtEd
like evolution theory is so stupid man
like how come there’s still monkeys if we evolved from them
how about x = x
monkeys are monkeys and humans are humans alright

Gloominary · December 2, 2020, 8:10pm

Evolutionary theory: x evolved into y over time.
MBTI: X is Y.
See the difference?

Evolutionary theory is not hotly contested in academia, MBTI is.