The judging functions represent two forms of communication, the thinking and feeling forms of communication. Neither sensation nor intuition is a form of communication. They are irrational functions and are effectively unintelligible to anyone but the perceiver of their phenomena.
A person utilizing the thinking function can talk in the terms of a language that is agreed upon by all. This is why thinking types insist on such rigorous definition of terms to know that all participants in the communication are taking the same meaning. The thinking function is concerned with objective communication. The feeling function, by contrast, communicates subjectively.
The sensation function is not communicative because its phenomena have to be experienced rather than discussed. If you have had the experience then you will know, like knowing what it is like to have sex for the first time or to be on an acid trip. Neither of these can be adequately explained to someone that has not experienced them for themselves.
The perceptive processes are a direct apprehension of either the subject or the object.
Essentially, feeling and thinking are two different ways to communicate the experiences of the perceptive processes. Thinking communicates in a more scientific mode and feeling in a more artistic mode. All the rules of language, such as grammar and syntax, fall within the purview of the thinking function.
A pure introverted intuitive type is unintelligible in ordinary terms. He has a language but it is very subjective and personal to him. He may create symbols but they aren’t standardized. Standardization requires either extraverted thinking or feeling, the two forms of extraverted judgment. Extraverted thinking and feeling communicate in the terms of the culture that they belong to. Introverted thinking and feeling are speaking in the terms of logic and morality respectively. Though they are referenced to the subject, they are formed in the concepts of rational terms.
For example, ENTPs are great explainers of scientific concepts that might otherwise be difficult for the layperson to understand. This is because they have introverted thinking as their primary producing function. They receive extraverted intuitive perceptions, which give them a simplified concept of the energy behind physical processes, such that they make great physicists that understand the essence of the material world.
INTPs, by contrast, are usually horrible explainers of introverted thinking concepts. This is because they have a perceptive process of extraverted intuition as their primary producing function. They don’t apprehend the kernel of insight, yet they try to communicate it. Everything is broken up into desiccated formulas, theorems, facts, jargon, and concepts. INTPs do not have good perception. It seems they should provide perception as a product but it is unclear how this manifests.
It is clear the way an ENFJ or ENTJ does this. They project a strong sense of persona and presence. They provide the visceral aura of perceptive experience much as when you are watching a movie and you are drawn into a character that is issuing a strong projection for you hook into. This is mostly an introverted intuitive thing where it functions as a transmitting function rather than a receiving function.
INFJ and INTJ experience introverted intuition as a receiving function, which means they receive all these nebulous perceptions and then translate them into communication via their respective extraverted judging functions in the transmitting mode.
Words can fail to capture an experience or perception and you can sift through the verbiage over and over but essentially be lost to the perception. Friedrich Nietzsche discusses this very phenomenon in his essay Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense.
You see the dichotomy between the perceptive and the judging functions in visual art. The book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards really points this out as being the obstacle to drawing. It seems many people regard objects by their names rather than their forms. These names are the conclusion that judgment has arrived at, replacing the original perception of what the objects really look like. In general, this is a developmental phenomenon that occurs as we acquire the capacity for language.
Language shuts off perception to such a large extent that many people cease to look at the world in imagistic terms, instead seeing objects as discrete sets of words. This ties in with Harold Speed’s commentary in his book The Practice and Science of Drawing on the tendency of the mind to see demarcations in line that don’t actually exist in nature. Speed says that the technique of Impressionism in painting is more accurate to the actual image the retina receives and the way nature really is. The concept of line is an artifact of the thinking function, thus a form of judgment, rather than an actual correspondence to reality. In the natural world there are no lines that make objects discrete. Everything is all mixed up with everything else.
Extraverted sensation sees this reality more than any other psychological function, the perception of the world as it is, without names or judgments. Introverted intuition, the direct corollary of extraverted sensation, attempts to interpret the meaning of extraverted sensation experience. It clearly sees the world as it is and ask what the meaning of it is. Adumbrations, echoes, and resonances are the perceptive mechanisms of the introverted intuitive.
To extraverted sensation there is no inherent meaning in an experience, it just is. The extraverted sensor might say, “Isn’t it cool?” or “Wow!” or “Sensational!” or some utterance like that. Extraverted sensation might feel the weight of an object in their bones or be energized by experiencing the ampleness of the plains. Objects might jut out from the landscape that excite sensation, granting a feeling of bliss in the world, its colors and shapes, the “one time only” images that could never be put into words. You would just have to be there and be on the same wavelength.
Perceptive functions seem to have something to do with energy.
Judging functions are systematic, forming a hierarchy of feeling values or thought concepts. With perception, there is a primacy and a one-off quality that may never occur the same way again. There is no inherent order or structure to it. But, judgment says, “This is a chair” or “That is a table.” The judging function’s mode is to close off any further perception to come to a conclusion. It looks for the consensus judgment of what that object out there in the world is. Judgment says “It has four legs, a seat, and a back rest. It meets all the criteria for a chair.”
However, the particular chair might be like no other chair ever made and be in a particular esthetic relationship to other objects around it. The perceptive functions, by contrast, might not perceive the chair as a chair but rather as a continuous element of an overall scenery.
Why aren’t feelings perceptual? Perhaps, because feelings can fit into general categories that indicate the general level of the subject, either towards themselves or the object. Extraverted Feeling would constantly be taking things from outside and applying a feeling value toward them for how they make the person feel. This could be hierarchized and standardized into a table of values.
For example, I might notice that a person I know seems sad by his low affect and energy level. They display a downcast facial expression, slumped posture, trembling tone of voice and refusal to make eye contact. But instead of dwelling on how they looked and sounded, much like an artist would if they were about to make a drawing of that person, staying in the purely esthetic presentation, Extraverted Feeling draws conclusions from the presenting image about how this person might feel and what there mood is. This is useful information because it might tell the extraverted feeler how to best approach this person so as not to be out of accord with where they’re at. An extraverted feeler might try to be diplomatic by matching another’s energy level and making them feel sympathized with and understood.
Extraverted Sensation, for example, wouldn’t do this. It might just notice the way a person looks against the background of the room they’re in, what color clothes they are wearing and if that looks good on them esthetically speaking. In the case of a woman, an extraverted sensation man might evaluate her from an attractiveness standpoint. “Does she excite or arouse me?” In the case of a man being evaluated, the Extraverted sensor would ask, “Does he have a power and virility about him? Does he threaten me? Am I in competition with him?”
It might be helpful to picture extraverted sensation as a strong feeling of animal instinct, of being in the moment, where there might be some danger in the environment that you have to be constantly aware of, such that you can’t pause to reflect for too long. Like those guys who are good trackers and can read the brush and the signs of forest material that has been trampled upon to find where someone is. You need to have good perception for that, the extraverted sensation kind of perception.
Similarly, with athletes of any kind, you need the extraverted sensation function. In reality, the judging and perceptive functions exist in tandem. But, the judgers would be more like the commentators on the game who would say whether a particular play made by the athletes was good or bad regarding the overall strategy being employed for the game. This commentary would be an example of the extraverted thinking function in particular.
Extraverted sensors just take action in the moment. They might not remember what happened, what the value judgments are or even how good they are at a given sport. They wouldn’t necessarily be aware of this until a recruiter comes along and makes a judgment, seeing their potential and skill relative to everyone else. A perceiver might not know their worth in the social sense of extraverted judgment, whereas the extraverted judging types are particularly good at evaluating and capitalizing on the perceiver’s brand of talent.
A value judgment is an interesting thing. An artist might make a piece of art that is valueless to them but then an extraverted judger will come along and say, “Hey that is good”, whereas the artist might say “Huh? It is neither good nor bad but that thinking makes it so.” Judgers have a table of values where they reference all perception from. Extraverted judgers are articulate because they have the social table of values down and can gauge what other people would think about this piece of art. This is a process of ascribing a value or a utility to something. Similarly, good writers can write in the terms of their language with all its idioms, usages, and conventions. They don’t necessarily have any new ideas or perceptions but they can prattle on about nothing, but using the conventions of the language in a balanced way, thus giving an impression of something being communicated.
A perception is not balanced or measured. It is what it is on its own terms. Perception can never be wrong. Only judgments can.
Judgers are usually right in form while perceivers are usually right in content. However, oftentimes it is the form of an argument that is valued rather than the content or substance of its claims. If you put it in the right form you will be the one considered right a good deal of the time. If you are either more persuasive or more logical you will be able to make a case for matters on that basis.
A pure perceiver would really depend on others who had the same experience as them because perception is inarticulate in and of itself. Judgment is needed to render perceptions communicable to those that haven’t had the experience. Judgments are approximations of an experience that are communicated through language, math, music, or any other medium for that matter.
haha, why are you so nasty to the INTPs? 🙂 … it seems that only ENTPs and other INTPs can truly appreciate the genius of INTPs (and what they are actually trying to say :))
O, I can appreciate what INTPs are trying to say, I was merely pointing out the difference between having Ti as a dominant versus as an auxiliary. INTPs explain Ti things in an Ne way, which basically complicates and compounds the possiblities of things that are simple formulations in nature. ENTPs, on the other hand, are usually noticeable (and distinguishable from INTPs) for their gift of being able to explain in concise formulations all the crazy shit they are receiving via their dominant Ne.
So, the primary difference is that an INTP will take a relatively simple and concise thing and make it endlessly complex and an ENTP will take complex things and make them refreshingly simple. Yes, I can’t hide the fact that I prefer the latter. Sorry INTPs.
But, that is just my preference. Some people really appreciate the ability of an INTP to say things that are beyond the ability of a normal human to decipher. In my opinion, INTPs tend to be poor communicators of what they know. This is probaly due to having inferior extraverted feeling and not having the human touch and sympathy in their communication. However, they, more than any type have the ability to think like a computer, and this is a domain where they really excel, in programming computers. A computer can’t understand anything except what you literally tell it. It doesn’t take inference, allusions, or allegories into consideration. 1+1 ALWAYS equals 2. And if it doesn’t, then an INTP can’t operate.
Also, you talk about Paul Feyerabend as being your ultimate ENTP. Well, let me tell you, no INTP is going to be trucking with the concepts he presents in his books, Against Method and Farewell To Reason. A farewell to reason might as well just be saying a farewell to the INTP. Only an ENTP can afford to have that kind of outlook because they treat reason and logic as playthings rather than as a dominant ego-orientating function. Feyerabend’s advocation of a theoretical anarchism in the realm of science would be anathema to an INTP. They simply couldn’t operate on that basis. INTPs live in a world of strict mathematical precision and definition. Any deviation from that leads them into uncertainty and the prospect of error. And so, they ain’t too comfortable with that.
I hope I haven’t offended any INTPs. They have a tough gig in many ways. It ain’t easy being an INTP. While those ENTPs are busy flagrantly throwing to and fro your precious and rigorously defined logics, you have your nose to the grindstone in the search for what is true under all conditions. Gives me a headache just thinking about it. But, much of material scientific progress is due to this INTP rigorousness and discipline.
The scientific method will not admit of anything as real unless it can be proven to be so under very strict conditions. This is the INTP integrity. But, in my opinion, it is also where their tediousness wears on me. I appreciate it in its proper place. I mean, you can pretty much thank INTPs for computers. Only the INTP temperament could have brought computers as far as they have come. And the basic tenets of mathematics, which enable computers to be programmed to do what we want, as one instance.
O, what am I saying? INTPs rule! I just wish they would ease down a little bit in their rigorous logical insistence in many situations that don’t call for it. Like normal human communication! Please? Just a little bit? You are not talking to a scanner, you know.
“INTPs explain Ti things in an Ne way, which basically complicates and compounds the possiblities of things that are simple formulations in nature. ”
haha, so true 🙂
“so, the primary difference is that an INTP will take a relatively simple and concise thing and make it endlessly complex and an ENTP will take complex things and make them refreshingly simple.”
true, but see, we love the endlessly complex INTP stuff 🙂
“Some people really appreciate the ability of an INTP to say things that are beyond the ability of a normal human to decipher”
ok, let me tell you a secret now: from our own perspective, we ENTPs are extremely sloppy thinkers and we’re acutely aware of it (you say Einstein was an ENTP … if so, think of his famous complaints “if only I was good at maths” etc.). we see all the depths we leave behind when we move to another subject or aspect. INTPs have this ability to think things through, but not in this INTJ tunnel vision which is ultimately unscientific cause it rarely questions its own presuppositions, but in a broad fashion, through sceptic enquiry, yet in an extremely methodical way
ENTPs are not really original thinkers: they’re rather innovative thinkers. we bring bits and pieces from disparate sources and create something new, which may be fun and insightful, but we’re the first ones to see that it’s just an approximation of what it could be.
now, it’s not that I’m deploring that, but I find it extremely liberating that there are actually INTP thinkers out there who bothered to think something through.
have you watched the movie Hannah Arendt? or read her biography by Elisabeth Young-Bruehel? she was a great (and probably rare) example of a great INTP woman (I think you can find the issue of inferior Fe well exposed in the movie)
btw, I think you underestimate the INTP ability to appreciate and even understand the non-logical aspects of life: Kant wrote about aesthetics and a whole book on Judgement (which is precisely this pragmatic aspect of reason, which cannot be simply inferred from logical propositions), Arendt also insisted on this point (and on the importance of friendship, love etc.), Adam Smith (if he’s truly an INTP) wrote on moral sentiments … they often come across as these logical bulldozers, but they’re really not, they have a great sense for nuance and humanity
btw, what do you make Jane Austen? INTP, as well?
ok … I’ll leave you now, you’re doing a great job, I’ll surely help you with something more tangible / worldly than an endless stream of comments 🙂
somewhere you write that the dominant function is serious, while the secondary (auxiliary, not sure what the right terminology is) is playful … well, that’s it 🙂 that’s the whole difference, INTPs take Ti very seriously, while we take it in a more relaxed way, while they take Ne more relaxingly (and hence, from our perspective, often just wrongly), while we take it seriously … which is something that all other types (except ENFPs) can’t understand … I think Don Draper (who is not any type cause he’s not human … he’s a completely inconsistent arrangement of multiple types) has this dominant Ne attitude: possibilities are objective, not subjective, possibilities are vast and immense but that doesn’t mean we can’t clearly and unambiguously differentiate between a bullshit crazy idea and a great crazy idea … INTPs seem to take the world of possibilities less seriously, you can often see when you discuss with them a future project – they’re often much less realistic in assessing what may work and what may not work, it’s much more of a subjective matter to them: that’s why it’s so fucking tough to debate these things with them, because they can come up with very convincing arguments in defence of an idea that clearly won’t work 🙂
or humor … I think that’s why ENTPs make among the best comedians: they treat humor as a very serious entreprise: something’s objectively funnier than something else. a joke is anything but the expression of good mood, it’s an intellectual enterprise of spotting out and conveying paradoxes / disentangling cognitive dissonances that are likely to resonate with a certain audience
Hi Lukas, how do you experience INTPs? Please share:)
I think this statement about intps is especially true when they are communicating orally. They keep generating layers. I think this is one of their products of Ne. Nothing comes out definitely. It is a brainstorm on tne idea being communicated OFTEN before the actual idea has been communicated. Qualifications come before the statement for ex. Ouch.
“I think this statement about intps is especially true when they are communicating orally.”
What statement are you referencing?
The statement that they are horrible explainers. I think it’s a bit exaggerated, because I’ve seen them do a really good job explaining what they are most invested in. But it’s still true that they can sound confusing. So many qualifications so much abstraction. Strength and weakness. Context matters.
No, no, no. INTPs in writing is much, much worse. At least verbally, they have the benefit of being shy and taciturn. But, when they start writing -holy shit – me wanna die. I think they defined the phrase “turgid prose”. Dense, murky, indecipherable. Aspinirating!
Try reading Being and Nothingness sometime. See how far you get into that number.
I don’t know how to reply to specific comments so this may be coming in out of order. Most intp writing I’ve seen is in math, so maybe because that is why I have the impression they are good communicators in writing. But I do know what you speak of. I’ve seen some that don’t care so much about the reader so to speak (almost like they forgot a human being is gonna read it). I know one intp writer whose math texts are almost like insulting monologues. I’ve seen both. I’ve seen really really good writing. Good clarity, truly aesthetically presented and original content. And then this other insulting stuff:)
“I don’t know how to reply to specific comments so this may be coming in out of order.”
The way to reply to a specific comment is to find the original commenter of any particular thread and find the reply button if you want to comment on something either they or someone on that particular thread said. Otherwise, I don’t know what you are referring to. When you quote something I said in a comment, do it on the particular thread that I said it on. You can tell the original commenter by the fact there is a reply button at the bottom (bottom-left?) of their comment and all the following replies to that (if any) will be slightly indented to the right to distinguish those comments as being in response to the original comment.
You are just making a general comment on an article when you want to find the reply button to a thread that I replied to someone on. Find the original commenter of the thread I am responding to someone on and if you want to address something I said in that particular comment thread, reply by hitting the reply button of the original commenter of the thread and that comment will be added to the comments in that thread. That way, your comment will be in context and I will know what you are referring to. When you comment on a particular thread I am notified as to what thread you are responding to. But, if you don’t, many of the articles have too many comments on them for me to remember what I said at what place in response to whom. And I ain’t gonna go looking for it either. Thus, the beauty of responding to a particular thread. Well, if you want clarification, that is.
“Most intp writing I’ve seen is in math, so maybe because that is why I have the impression they are good communicators in writing.”
Yes, if INTPs could communicate in math, then, they would be great communicators. INTPs are the natural mathematicians, logicians, and computer language experts. If they were communicating to a computer, the computer would say that INTP communicators are the best communicators around. But, if the INTP is communicating in a natural language (English, French, Russian etc.), they are at a decided deficit precisely for the reason that natural languages all lack mathematical precision. No natural language has only one way to say something. In math and computer language (which is math) it is a necessity that there is only one way to say something and it is always true. For example, the statement 2 + 2 = 4. That is always true. Basically, INTPs attempt to get this precision in natural language and it ain’t designed for that. Math and computer language is Ti. Natural language is largely Fe. Fe is inferior of INTP. Ti is dominant. Well, do the math.
“A farewell to reason might as well just be saying a farewell to the INTP. ”
Lol thank you so much for all these hilarious comments sprinkled throughout stellar maze. Your particular sense of humor does have me wondering… if you might be a Ti user. I usually crack up at INTJs and Ti/Fe users.
So much INTP hate. You’re saying most INTPs are ok because they we shut it. Good job invalidating an entire segment of people who usually have pretty earnest intentions. Yeah, we’re bad explainers, but we do have souls and are not all walking computers or mathematicians. We have beautiful inner lives just like the INFP and INFJ, but we can have a much harder time accessing and communicating them. INTPs can have a devil of a time developing touch with our, and others’, emotions, and we can be constantly hounded by Ni in the id making us unsure of our identity or direction and making us feel a bit hollow inside. We tend to reach for the handholds of the logical as a result, as well as tending toward enneagram 6. At this point in my life, I am learning to reject excess logic and rationality, reject concerns about establishing a consistent identity, and identify much more with the musical, visual-artistic, and poetic expression of the moment than I do with concrete verbal expression. That’s because the artistic outlets are areas where Ne can paint with its broad brush. As for a practical, reasonable-paying job, well, let’s not talk about that.
Jonathan,
I think Blake and many of us “hate” on everyone a little around here, but with respect and appreciation in the introverted position. It’s implied. 😉 On the ESFJ thread there is some INTP appreciation.
We all suck, but not too much unless you are an ESFJ or ISFJ – well, then it really isn’t pretty. 🙂 ISFJ is responsible for the fall of western civilization 😉 and ESFJs are fat and dumb, but hey, they give good head! Sadly, they’ll never ever receive it themselves. I feel better now at least, unless I have nightmares that I wake up an Oompa Loompa like in that cartoon and can’t roll myself over when I fall out of my cart.
I love these articles!