Originally Posted by
silke
Eight Elements as Leading Functions
Black (Extraverted) Intuition
shorthand designation: Ne
Perceives information about objects' potential energy — for example, information about the physical and mental abilities and potential of a person. This perception implies the ability to understand the structure of objects and phenomena and grasp their inner substance. This element determines a person's ability or inability to see the real potential energy of one's surroundings.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual has pronounced cognitive interests. He is constantly studying underlying phenomena, which he is able to communicate to others quite successfully by making complicated things simple [!! not all are able to explain things well]. Likes to explain to others his understanding of things. In favorable conditions becomes a scientist or writer [!! not necessarily true]. Is able to find optimal ways of increasing objects' potential energy. "Energizes" others with his understanding of the potential energy of surrounding objects.
Black (Extraverted) Ethics
shorthand designation: Fe
Perceives information about processes taking place in objects — first of all, emotional processes that are taking place in people, their excitation or subduedness, and their moods. This perceptual element implies the ability to know what excites people, and what suppresses them. It defines a person's ability or inability to control his emotional state, and also the emotional states of other people.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual has the innate ability to induce or convey his moods to others and energize people with his emotions. He is able to activate the psychological/spiritual lives of other people and their emotional readiness for action. You might say that such a person has the ability to infect others with his moods and tends to impose on others the emotional states that he considers beneficial for their life activities.
What people usually call emotions or a person's display of emotions is neither more nor less than a form of letting out this internal excitation directly, almost without expending it in muscle activity. A cheerful person who laughs releases an emotional charge and inner excitation through certain movements of the muscles of the face and body. This might be a means for reducing overexcitement, when inner exertion cannot be used for the activity it was intended for. But it can also be a conscious method of conveying one's excitement/agitation to others — inducing one's internal excitement/agitation in the psyches of other people. Anger, for example, is also a way of reducing overexcitement, but it is usually directed not at arousing others emotionally, but at emotionally suppressing and depleting them, at lowering their activity level, or at strictly channeling their activity.
Black (Extraverted) Sensing
shorthand designation: Se
Perceives information about what might be called objects' "kinetic energy" — for example, information about how organized/mobilized a person is, his physical energy and power, and his ability to make use of his willpower or position and exercise his will in opposition to others'. This perception implies the ability to tell what reserves of "kinetic energy" people have and how useful they can be in getting things done. It defines the individual's ability or inability to exercise his willpower and energy in opposition to the will and energy of other people.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual possesses exceptional personal force/will. He is a born organizer of anything. He has the ability to mobilize people to achieve a goal and is able to make use of and manage animate and inanimate objects. Is able to work with things (objects) and reproduce almost any objects based on available samples. This is a reflection of his ability to organize material. These people are known for their striving to materialize their will, energy, and power, and for their desire to impose their will on others.
Black (Extraverted) Logic
shorthand designation: Te
Perceives information about animate and inanimate objects' physical activity, deeds, and actions/activities. This perception provides the ability to make sense of what is going on. It defines the awareness of and ability or inability to think up ways of doing things, distinguish rational actions from irrational ones, and the ability or inability to direct others' work.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual has the ability to plan his and others' work, understand the logicalness and illogicalness of processes, and correct the work activities of other people in accordance with this understanding. And the ability to apply personally and convey to others the most rational ways of doing things. [!! emphasis on 'work' here may be inadequate, especially when you consider people of these types who are scientists, artists, and musicions]
White (Introverted) Intuition
shorthand designation: Ni
All processes take place in time; they have their roots in the past and their continuation in the future. Time is the correlation between events that follow each other. This perceptual element provides information about the sequence of events and people's deeds, about their cause and effect relationship, and about participants' attitudes towards this — that is, about people's feelings that these relationships engender.
Such an individual perceives information from without as feelings about the future, past, and present. For example, a sense of hurriedness, calmness, or heatedness, a sense of timeliness or prematureness, a sense of proper or improper life rhythm, a sense of impending danger or safety, anticipation, fear of being late, a sense of seeing the future, anxiety about what lies ahead, and so forth. At any given moment of one's life one has such a sense of time. One cannot live outside of time or be indifferent toward it. Thus, a certain sense of time is an integral part of the individual's psychological state at any given moment. This perceptual element defines a person's ability or inability to forecast and plan for the future, evade all sorts of troubles, avoid taking wrong actions, and learn from past experience.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual possesses innate strategic abilities and is able to choose the most optimal moments for different activities: when to give battle, if necessary, and when to avoid battle, when that would be more appropriate. Interaction in time might be interpreted as the ability to avoid collisions with objects and hence avoid objects' reflection within oneself.
White (Introverted) Sensing
shorthand designation: Si
An object's internal state we view as the relationship between events that cause each other [!! unclear description]. This element perceives information about how processes are reflected in one's internal state — people's sense of health and sensations that are caused by processes taking place. Interaction in space is essentially the response of one object to another. Objects respond to other objects, creating certain sensations in each other. Such an individual perceives information from without as sensations related to what is happening. For example, the sensation of pain is essentially the reflection in a person's brain of a relationship between his functioning body and a process occurring in some part of the body that impedes this functioning.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual has the ability to change the qualities of the surrounding space and the sensations of people who are located within it. He is able to avoid physical discomfort and protect others from discomfort. This element determines the ability to recreate previously experienced aesthetic sensations — to recreate an object that provides one with aesthetic sensations that the author chooses. These people are able to distinguish previously experienced aesthetic sensations from new ones and are able to "collect" and remember them. This also implies the ability to set one's aesthetic and sensory needs in opposition to others' and demand their gratification, the ability to mould and perfect not only one's own aesthetic tastes and habits, but also those of other people. We might say that such individuals have the ability to impose their understanding of aesthetics and comfortable living on other people. [!! emphasis on 'aesthetics' here is inadequate]
White (Introverted) Logic
shorthand designation: Ti
We shall call 'logical' those feelings that arise in the process of comparing one object to another on the basis of any objective parameter — for example, a feeling of distance, weight, volume, worth, strength, quality, etc. These are feelings of objective evaluation that in certain situations help activate or passivate the person experiencing them. Such an individual perceives information from without as a sense of objects' proper or improper correlation/proportion, a sense of balance or imbalance between them, or an awareness or unawareness of the advantages of one object over another. This also includes all feelings that results from knowing or not knowing objects and phenomena — curiosity, respect, fear, and a sense of the logicalness or illogicalness of things, as well as a sense of one's own power or powerlessness before different objects.
All these feelings we shall call logical. Their sum is a person's sense of logic. People have differently developed senses of logic. We might say that logical feelings convey information about the knowledge or lack of knowledge of objects, their comparability or incomparability, and the balance or lack of balance between them, as well as about space and objects' position in space. They are objective because they do not take into consideration the interests and needs of people, but only correlations of objective qualities. This perceptual element determines a person's ability or inability to see the objective, logical relations between objects or their components.
When this element is in the leading position, the individual has the ability to logically evaluate interrelations of objective static reality, or the world of objects. He also the ability to change according to his desires the interrelations between the characteristics of various objects and hence influence the objects themselves that carry these characteristics. Correct evaluation of one's interrelations with other objects helps the individual know which objects should be avoided, and which can be "hunted." Such an individual is able to set his logic — or his knowledge of objectifiable reality, patterns, laws, and correlations of the objective world — in opposition to others' knowledge. He has the ability to mould and perfect not only his own knowledge of objectifiable reality, but also that of other people. This creates a feeling of power when clashing with other people's logic or lack thereof.
White (Introverted) Ethics
shorthand designation: Fi
This is the subjective relationship between two carriers of potential or kinetic energy that shows the level of attraction (or repulsion) between one object or subject and another object or subject. Thanks to this IM element a person feels which objects attract him and which repel him. You might say that this perceptual element conveys information about objects' need or lack of need of each other and about the presence or absence of mutual or one-way needs.
Such an individual perceives information about this facet of objective reality the individual perceives as a need for certain objects that satisfy physical wishes/desires, psychological or spiritual desires, and a need for other people — in other words, a person's wishes/desires and interests that are directed toward animate and inanimate objects. This includes feelings of like and dislike, love and hatred, the desire to obtain some thing/object, etc., and greed or the absense of greed. The higher feelings of this kind can be called ethical, because relationships between people's needs are mainly regulated by ethical normals.
When this perceptual element is in the leading position, the individual possesses the innate ability to perceive and evaluate wishes/desires — both his own and others'. He always knows who wants what from whom. He is able to set his awareness of subjective reality and his wishes in opposition to those of others. He has the ability to mould and perfect both his own and others' wishes. He possesses both the ability to provide himself with necessary relationships with others and confidence in his capacity to influence other people. His correct perception of human needs allows him to avoid risky collisions when satisfying his own needs. This engenders the ability to manipulate people's attachments, and the ability and desire to influence people's ethical feelings and bring these feelings closer to societal ideals.