Epistemology in one Venn Diagram

 Assume people have valid experiences of God, at least from their point of view.

This was drawn before COVID. Where does COVID fear live?

Sorry, had to go there.

Comments and questions welcome.

Jungian psychology, MBTI and me

Part of my recovery is doing a moral inventory. There is a nasty impression that these things are all about sin and resentment. That is not necessarily the case. Self-discovery is the reason and, of late, I have been watching YouTube videos on personality typing. There is a lot to it

Looking on a surface level and using prior tools, being extroverted (how I always test), intuitive, thinking and perceiving seemed to fit. Then I came across the concept of "peacocking" and the danger of self-typing at surface levels. I recommend the Objective Personality System. Their videos on YouTube will introduce you to the concepts behind type and their method of doing so. Many of the people who use their system, which is closer to Jung than MBTI, have added to my understanding of who I am.

It turns out that behaving as an extrovert does not mean one is cognitively extroverted. Indeed, I am the opposite. I tried on several cognitive functions out for size. They key to finding your "hero" or "savior" function is to find what you are the worst at and what makes you proud of doing. 

That Thinking was a major function was also obvious. I was not sure whether I had introverted thinking (going in to detail) or extroverted (thinking for the group). Feeling, however, can include finding one's values in the tribe or one's own. Since I definitely make my own moral choices. I had done psycho-linguistics (again, Jung) in Spanish class in high school and my past and present (feeling and thinking) functions were found to be prominent.

There is no doubt I am an intuitive. If a plan is needed, I have it. Indeed, I have an integrated plan for tax, social and business reform - so I not only have it, I dominated by it.  I also have issues with following through on well-planned projects, which is a mark of extroverted sensing.   Being an INTJ sounded correct - certainly better than being an INFJ. I found an INFJ You Tube channel and could related to what the host was saying, except that she had few memories from childhood. I have all of mine. Well, almost all. 

Being INTJ, INTP and INFJ have a lot of similarity in terms of intuition and introversion. A lot of questions come down to comparing one thing to another cognitively. Between introverted sensing and extroverted sensing, the difference for me was night and day. The opposite function, therefore, had to be extroverted intuition. That fit as well - and it is the intuition that feeds the past based thinking or me (for some, it is the fact that feed the intuition). 

This forced me to chose which function was really dominant. After taking another look, especially at my recent activities in a fellowship committee I belonged to, as well as my history in being the smartest kid in class (whether I was or not - in essence, monopolizing classroom discussions), intuitive thinking looked clearer all the time. You can judge your hero function based on what you are worst at - at what you are proud of making accomplishments in.

Leadership seminars in my Master's program, almost a decade of work at Landmark Education, plus a few decades of sobriety made that an easy call - dealing with feeling as part of the tribe is that "demon" function where I am proud of taking ground. Recent experience reinforced that my ideas made sense to me and, while being interested in serving the group and getting their buy-in and validation, I am not so concerned with finding their consensus rather than my own.

Over the years, while my tax plan is consistent, I have no qualms on changing the details when facts come up. That is extroverted intuition - given my OCD level memory it could only be that way. There is also no discomfort for me on the intuitive side, so that while being an intuitive, neither it nor sensing could be either hero or demon. Looking at the functions - and how I use them - introverted thinking, extroverted intuition (thinking outside the box), introverted sensing (thanks for the memories) and extroverted feeling (but do you really love me?) were the correct functions in the correct order.

One fly in the ointment. I do not get my values from the tribe. For me, it is a strength to make up my own mind on things. I have written more than one book about my moral humanism (it sounds ironic, b but work with me on this). This is what is called a peacock function. For me, making up my own mind on everything is strong and I see myself that way morally. It is my shadow fourth function. 

As an intuitive, especially one with introverted thinking (the really smart ones), I have no qualms about bending theory to what I consider useful. (again, extroverted intuition) I am not one to respect orthodoxy (with apologies to the folks at OP whose system I am modifying). While the truth of my fourth function is seeking tribe validation on values, my self-perception is individual ethics. The extroverted function I show to the world is my creativity - or intuition - which is my second function. In my perception, I have 3 introverted function. 

Other people have an extroverted hero and likely peacock their fourth function. They have on additional extroverted function - so their second function is introverted. This is not what they express, but it is what they use to manage their two extroverted and one peacock function. This realization may contribute an explanation as to why self-typing is a dangerous thing (unless you are the smartest kid in the class). It takes time to learn about one's own cognitive functioning and learning what the 8 basic cognitive functions are and how they work. Also, the descriptions OP uses for the observer (rather than decider) functions is a bit jargony. New theory applications get that way. Here is my take on the eight:

Fi (introverted feeling) - individual ethics (the word values as used by OP is too ambiguous)

Fe (extroverted feeling) - group harmony on beliefs

Ti (introverted thinking) - smartest kid in class

Te (extroverted thinking) - group agreement on facts

Si (introverted sensing) - remembers everything (rather than simply organizing fact)

Se (extroverted sensing) - organizes everything - from things to concepts to parties

Ni (introverted intuition) - commitment to your vision of reality

Ne (extroverted intuition) - thinks outside the box and fixes other people's problems.

I am working on my own self-survey instrument. OP teaches people typing to type others by interaction, not some 20 question quiz. I took yet another one of those at Personality Hacker. It was wrong. Their descriptions of the cognitive functions are grounded in Jung, but their tools are the same old MBTI test, which is invalid because it is gamed based on your mood that day or what you want to be.

I have created a different table to help me visualize the functions with personality on one access and the functions on the other. I believe it is similar to the usual arrangement found in the MBTI table.

The same functions can be expressed in four ways. Personality (IP, EP, IJ, EJ) determines which cognitive function is on top, which support and which is the demon. The top can be an introverted intuitive and extroverted intuitive (same two top functions - but which one is dominant changes) or introverted and extroverted sensing (same four functions, but flipped over). I hope students, teachers and clients will find it useful in better understanding how types relate to each other.

One thing I have found in doing this exercise in self-discovery is sympathy for everyone in every type. As the folks at OP say, everyone can do everything, but exploring the types of others is a good way to accept them and ultimately oneself. This is a key part of anyone's spiritual journey. Too bad Bill W. (who was a Jungian - everyone in recovery is) did not see how this technology shook out. He would be the first to sign up to be typed and learn how to do it.