[NightGeist]

Over the couple of days I've learned more about the cognitive functions and MBTI than I have over the last year of surfing other sites. For the first time in a long time, I've stayed up and studied something that wasn't fiction. Thanks to this forums articles, posts, and direct help I believe I've narrowed down how I use the eight cognitive functions, which are dominate in me, ect.

The question I must ask now is to what effect? Its all very interesting to read about, but I mean what is the purpose and application? You could say 'to understand yourself and your thinking processes better' but that doesn't help. Its like figuring out how which number you think of the most, or that you have a tendency to eat bacon more than sausage. Interesting, but ultimately useless information. At least on the personal level.
I would like to know how this knowledge is advantageous. A person has a good idea of their cognitive functions, and MBTI type, how is this used to improve themselves.

 

[MrShatter]

Well you can understand how your views on the world are different to others' more accurately (Attaining value internally or externally). You can identify your weaknesses - and not let them debilitate you. You can use it to dissect your relationships with others. There's a lot you can do.

 

[LiquidLight]

To piggyback on @MrShatter, this is a journey you sort of have to undertake. All knowledge of any kinda is only as good as what you do with it or want to do with it. You could simply dismiss it as hocus pocus and go on about their life (a great many people do this) or you could use it as a heuristic model for evaluating the people in your life. You can use it as a metric for self-evaluation, to see where your strengths and weaknesses truly lie, what is your persona, what are your predilections, what you dislike in people. The point, to me, of learning type is not to stop there, but rather to use it as a starting point for self-understanding, self-actualization and not simply being a passive observer of the world around you. But I can understand people who don't care about any of that and would rather just experience things as they come, pressed up against the window of their lives staring at their own lives voyeuristically as if it was all happenstance. That's fine too. It's a ll up to you.

 

[NightGeist]

All right, yeah. In retrospect this was kind of a stupid question. You can chalk it up to the fear that I've been wasting my time. I've covered a lot of ground in the last few days and its a little overwhelming. Not emotionally overwhelming, but mentally. Suddenly I have all this information a data I've been trying off and on to mine out of the internet and I'm happy. Then the wind suddenly goes out of my sails when I realize that I have no idea how to use this information.
Thanks for both of your responses. Sometimes I need to hear common sense before I realize the answer is right there. Seems to me that the best thing to do at the moment is to compile everything relevant I've learned and then look at that to see what to do.

 

[Jewl]

All right, yeah. In retrospect this was kind of a stupid question. You can chalk it up to the fear that I've been wasting my time. I've covered a lot of ground in the last few days and its a little overwhelming. Not emotionally overwhelming, but mentally. Suddenly I have all this information a data I've been trying off and on to mine out of the internet and I'm happy. Then the wind suddenly goes out of my sails when I realize that I have no idea how to use this information.
Thanks for both of your responses. Sometimes I need to hear common sense before I realize the answer is right there. Seems to me that the best thing to do at the moment is to compile everything relevant I've learned and then look at that to see what to do.

Haha. ^_^ Well, that's all right. I'm sure we can all relate to that feeling at least on some level. One time after hunting down all this information (I'm serious, I've learned more about personality theory in my free time than about biology in school) I stopped and thought, "Why am I doing this? What can I do with it?" I essentially shoved the thought away. I like learning about people. I like learning about myself. So I'm just going to do that. This has always been an interest of mine.

What is really cool is if you start connecting it with other things. For instance, I am also extremely passionate about education (basically why it fails miserably at actually educating people) and learning types, and I realize how that can connect to personality type. I've always wondered if learning type correlates with personality type. I'm still working on that one. XD

Anyway, if you're having a fun time learning about it, I wouldn't worry too much about, "Now what?" Because you'll find that will come naturally.

 

[Vermillion]

Well, you can begin to identify which functions you need to improve on, so any potential weaknesses of your type are taken care of. Sometimes taking personality tests, finding out about yourself...they might seem to lead nowhere, merely confirming things you already knew about yourself. But they help you spot your strengths and weaknesses, and they give you a reason as to why you may behave in a certain way. Knowing the cause of the problem helps in solving it faster.

 

[JungyesMBTIno]

@MrShatter and @LiquidLight are DEADDDDDD right imo! This stuff has worked wonders for my abstract thinking and even logical reasoning, and most importantly, it has been personally helpful and EXTREMELY helpful in allowing me to see the merits in the different ways that people think and see the world (my dominant Ni mentality CRAVES gaining new mental perspective - most fields out there don't cater to Ni types at all in this world, very unfortunately) - it makes you so much less egotistical for the better if you really care to see through the eyes of others, rather than typecast them with behavioristic crap via bias. It's absolutely eye-opening. I mean, I was aware before getting into this stuff that people thought differently, but seeing isn't enough to me - at all - it's torture for me to accept this at face value without exploring more. I couldn't quite put my finger on the nuance behind these observations at all though. Also, this stuff has seriously made a difference in my personal life in allowing me to see that the way I think is valid. It's extremely refreshing to me to study a technical theory about people that isn't rife with mindless emotionalism (e.g. Everyone is a speshul snowflake bullcrap that doesn't tell you WHY) and shallow classification techniques (e.g. The Big 5, such as, "Oh, you're neurotic...that's the end of it" - Who in their right mind even WANTS to be told such a thing?). Most personality research has pretty much become pop psychology lacking in depth these days that focuses not on personality, but mainly persona. I'm an extremely curious individual and always have been, and I want to wretch at things that tell you something without giving the "why" behind them. Like, who the fuck cares about the "what" when there's the "why" at stake. It's all very very deep stuff - one of the deepest theories I've ever come across, at least the original one by Jung and his predecessors (not MBTI, LOL (although I get that that wasn't the intention of Briggs/Myers to begin with)). It's what you make of it and do with it that matters most, like with everything else. Honestly, I never planned on doing anything with it at first, which I think worked in my favor later, because to begin with, I wasn't approaching this stuff under any stiff routine - I just followed my curiosity and gut and just trusted my obsessions to learn from this stuff - after all, there is no end goal to self exploration - you're yourself until the day you die - you're not going anywhere otherwise.

 

[NightGeist]

Haha. ^_^ Well, that's all right. I'm sure we can all relate to that feeling at least on some level. One time after hunting down all this information (I'm serious, I've learned more about personality theory in my free time than about biology in school) I stopped and thought, "Why am I doing this? What can I do with it?" I essentially shoved the thought away. I like learning about people. I like learning about myself. So I'm just going to do that. This has always been an interest of mine.

What is really cool is if you start connecting it with other things. For instance, I am also extremely passionate about education (basically why it fails miserably at actually educating people) and learning types, and I realize how that can connect to personality type. I've always wondered if learning type correlates with personality type. I'm still working on that one. XD

Anyway, if you're having a fun time learning about it, I wouldn't worry too much about, "Now what?" Because you'll find that will come naturally.

I agree with you that the more will come to me if I just look at the information, its just very hard for me to adopt the more patient attitude towards personality study. To me, studying this is a form of progress. I despise stagnation. I've been in a state of stagnation for most of my life, so everything I do with this sort of information feels urgent, and dire. I want and need to see where my flaws and strengths are. To wake up one day at the age of twenty-seven and realize you know nothing about yourself, and do not trust your own thoughts about yourself, is a depressing feeling.

But as I said, I should put everything I have together and look at it as one large piece.

 

[Owfin]

I find it absolutely fascinating seeing how functions work other than how they interact with your dominant. On my own trying to imagine something outside of that... it's very hard and riddled with biases I'm not even aware of. This system allows me to grasp something really outside of my own thought by creating a patterned system where I can find out these things by examining arrangements of framework; there's always something I can relate it to. Even here the insights of others (like this forum) add to my ability to visualize radically different processes. It's one of the reasons why I stay here. I understand a single dynamic in (basically) full, and that is the Si - T (leaning to Te) - F (leaning a little to Fi) - Ne of myself. A limited one, for sure; I do not have a complete understanding of even all types who are Si dominant and Ne inferior! Sometimes I am referred to as a guru but in truth I know very little.

 

[NightGeist]

I find it absolutely fascinating seeing how functions work other than how they interact with your dominant. On my own trying to imagine something outside of that... it's very hard and riddled with biases I'm not even aware of. This system allows me to grasp something really outside of my own thought by creating a patterned system where I can find out these things by examining arrangements of framework; there's always something I can relate it to. Even here the insights of others (like this forum) add to my ability to visualize radically different processes. It's one of the reasons why I stay here. I understand a single dynamic in (basically) full, and that is the Si - T (leaning to Te) - F (leaning a little to Fi) - Ne of myself. A limited one, for sure; I do not have a complete understanding of even all types who are Si dominant and Ne inferior! Sometimes I am referred to as a guru but in truth I know very little.

If you know any good sources for understanding how the four dominate functions work with each other let me know. I have the least understanding of this. From what understanding I have it seems to go like this;

Ni: sees underlying pattern and how this pattern can be changed to bring about the desired state/outcome.
Then
Te: Goes about the logical process of affecting said pattern. Perhaps finding consensus or validation of ideas from other sources.
Then
Tertiary
Then
Inferior
Repeat

This seems a little pat and too simple for how a mind actually works, so yes I'm aware that I'm saying something stupid. However, this is how I'm seeing it when I read these articles. But if I'm not corrected I'm not going to learn.

 

[firedell]

Dance. 'Cause now you are in your way to using this forum even more!

Understanding cognitive functions helped me a lot more than understanding the four letters. I think the reasons have all been mentioned.