Compound Functions to be renamed Compound Effects

The idea of "Compound Functions" was introduced into the CT community recently, in hopes of seeing whether or not it resolates with the experiences of CT's community members. I was pleasantly surprised to find a great deal of resonance with the psychology of our members, so much so that it is apparent now that the idea constitutes a core element of the overall type phenomenon, and will be explored further as we continue.

However, some found it confusing that the word "Function" was included in the terminology, when they do not actually refer to standalone functions but to the effects of compounding two functions together.  To remedy the confusion, what has been referred to as Compound Functions recently will be more accurately termed Compound Effects. The primary motivation for this shift in terminology is to avoid treatment of these compounds as actual functions, which they were never intended to be. However, the use of the word "function" in the name made the matter unnecessarily confusing. To avoid this confusion, "effects" will be used instead. Thanks are extended to the Discord community for helping with this terminology clarification. These changes will slowly make their way across the resources on the websites.

Why this matters

The introduction of compound effects into the CT model is an unavoidable aspect of its complete description. Since CT operates as a description of information processing cycling rapidly at the millisecond level, it is unavoidable that the theory contend with the effects of functions working in tandem; what we call inter-function dynamics. These can be between, for example, the Fe+Ni functions in an FeNi type to produce "translocal teleologies," but also between the FeNi's own Fe and Ti function poles. The latter is able to cover attitudinal territory (i.e. E+T and I+F) more straightforwardly covered by functions like Te and Fi while never needing to have proper Te and Fi in any genetic or biological sense.

Why "Effects" not just "Functions"

While this might seem like an ad-hoc or convoluted theoretical speculation, I find it to be not only a necessary conclusion but an unavoidable one from a cognitive science point of view of the mind. To imagine otherwise is to assume that a dynamic system of interactions would never have the opportunity to mix together the fruits of its operations into compound emergences, when they have ever possible opportunity to share information in every combination. Such a segmented cognitive view goes against what we know of how the mind shares information with itself.

The CT view considers the obvious and inevitable effect of high-order processing, and how that would create all the unavoidable compound effects between functions that one could imagine, within the span of seconds. It's not just functions compounding with each other, but those compounds also compounding with themselves in the next cycle, and the next, and the next. Every opportunity exists for information to pass on to another process.

There is no need to introduce "proper" Te or Fi into the picture of an Fe-Ti user, to explain why they might be able to perform mechanical tasks or have their own personal values, as these tasks can easily be performed by the pairing of two functions together, and yet the unique way function pairs may address a task can still make one axes distinguishable from another - and help us avoid the rocky realm of theoretical unfalsifiability.

Problems with 8-function hypotheses

Models that require 8 functions often treat cognition very one-dimensionally, as a single layer (rather than infinite) that has to hold everything in that one flat layer or not have it at all. So they give themselves an Se and also an Si function, because they can't imagine a system evolving through time and through abstract layering, and being able to manage any informational situations (N/S/T/F/E/I) through the inevitable collision of all four energetics in the same person's mind.

In so doing, they are the ones that actually create a more theoretically convoluted situation, which requires additional explanations. Why would the brain have a separate Fi and Ti function, when they do 80% the same thing, and what energetic justification could it have for this? The psyche is a very efficient system, continually pruning down resources, forgetting unneeded things, and doing the most it can with as little as possible. Evolution is a conservative enterprise, and neural recycling allows for the re-purposing of existing circuitry to fulfill new tasks. It will do this whenever possible, rather than develop entirely new ones, which is a less parsimonious explanation.

To postulate a whole second set of functions (totaling 8) simply to solve the theoretical problem people may feel when they "relate" to a function they're not supposed to have, is in my view very lazy reasoning. Instead, CT takes the comparatively more challenging effort of investigating how our cognitive processes interact with one another to "cover" all needed grounds for our daily existence, and noting how we leave behind "traces" of how we cover that ground, that still reveals the truth of the functions we used. A more detailed explanation of this will be provided in future resources.

Related reading: forum post, ctwiki page