@AlephScorp

Your frustration makes a lot of sense. There are two things I have learned after thinking about all this:

- one, people are / always will be a little too eager to claim things can't be a certain way in the system

- two, while I am not the above, and encourage one to figure out what really is going on rather than assuming the rules must hold on some level, there are definitely rules of thumb you have to explain to yourself, or you won't get what you could out of the system (i.e. part of the whole power of a system's explanatory power is telling you what you cannot do, so this forces you to explain what you are really doing rather than some roundabout side-version)


First of all: functions tests are not a way I'd go except to start to see certain trends -- definitely not to determine type. The reason is they ask some questions as to common outward signs of a cognitive function being accessed, and you can do what they purport you to do in ways aside from through the function they test for.
Your general disposition as a human being outside of the functions really figures far too much into the answers you give.

A big issue is also that you score higher at a certain function on functions tests if you answer more questions with a higher indicated preference in favor of that function. What if some of the things used to test for that function don't apply to you or do apply to you for extraneous reasons? Then you would score inordinately high or low. You have to really get inside when you are processing things through what each of these functions and their introverted/extroverted attitudes tell you.

A simple example of where the qualitative nature of the questioning is not sufficient: someone who is of a theoretical penchant may score high on Ti, whereas Ti is not inherently just a theorizing function, in fact Te can be equally so. Even those who will point to Jung distinguishing these on this basis cannot deny that he speaks of the extremes, i.e. a Te type who is attuned only to the facts and cannot appreciate the subjective idea, and a Ti type who cannot in any meaningful shape attune to the facts.





It is not likely you prefer all the functions, and why that is would be that if you start to prefer dealing with your rationalizing and perceptive processes one way, and it tends to work a lot for you both on the level of resonating with your conscious knowledge of yourself and in terms of the outcomes it produces, you'll probably approach processing a similar way often.

For instance the more you prefer to Se, the less you will prefer to Ne. That is, the more your outlook to engaging oncoming objective data is to absorb its contents as seen by the senses, the more you will no longer be concerned about intuitive information you could absorb, such as perceived directions the object could move within objective reality.

As a rule of thumb, if one of your N's, say Ni, scores highest, and Ni+Ne score combined higher than all other Ji+Je and Pi+Pe combinations, to produce an order N>F>T>S, probably if you see a clearer relation to Ni than Ne, you're looking to be INFJ-like in the sense of the Ni-Fe-etc model.

@phoenixpinion yes in a sense but not QUITE perhaps -- more like, if the functions test has to be used the way I think it makes most sense to use then sure. I think it is better at screening for functions than function-attitudes.

I wonder if what @hornet is pointing to could happen in an extreme case of an inferior function grip - a sort of thing where "I know I can't live without it, so I WILL JUST OVERDO IT LIKE HELL" could start resembling one of the rejected, shadowy, more demonic perspectives. Like an inferior Te starting to resemble Ti, but not quite Ti in the sense of a valid type, more like an extreme possessed delusion of an Fi-dominant.

Didn't mean you were suggesting it directly or even indirectly so much as I was thinking of a case where someone might approach the rejected and/or blind spot area despite it normally just seeming like no point to go said direction...just to be clear!