[Non-Se doms] How do you have an experience without having an experience?

[recreationalwreck]

So, it seems that Se is the function responsible for the unmediated experience of the thing. As an Se-dom I'm having trouble getting my head around what it's like to experience consciousness without the perceptual field first funnelling through the function responsible for experiencing consciousness. I know that other people have experiences...I mean, they must! They walk, they talk, they chew. They speak of themselves with the confidence of sentient meat and appear to express personal accounts. For all intents and purposes they pass the Turing test. But is the earnest usage of the 'I' an accurate litmus test for subjectivity in the way that I conceive of it? I'm thinking now of Douglas Hofstadter and his fascination with the paradoxes of self-referential Gödel numbers.

When self-reference (in other words, when anything identical to or netting the effect of the 'I') is used, mysterious emergent properties follow. This reminds me of how CT, as far as I know, characterizes type-bound consciousness itself as some kind of emergent property. We are all using the 'I' by custom, but do we each mean the same thing? This is the basis of solipsism. I think that type diversity might be a big source of solipsistic or semi-solipsistic hunches among the non-CT initiated. There has always been a sense that many others aren't dealing the same aces in some kind of fundamental phenomenological capacity, despite the fact that we blink and we itch and we give our names when asked. Is each function a different kind of emergent property so distinct from the others that the catch-all term of "consciousness" is not even fitting?

What I'm having difficulty conceiving of is what it's like, moment-to-moment, to experience reality through the lens of another function. Would I even consider the experiences that others have to be experiences, or are they better classified, given my stance, as something else entirely? For example, moment to moment, is a Ti dom manifesting an experience, or rather something more like logic itself? I'm not even trying to be full of it. Te, function itself? The others, perhaps:

Fi: essence

Fe: complementariness (role-bound proportional relationality)

Ni: perception (not equal to sentience/consciousness)

Ne: abstraction

Si: reference

Maybe that's ridic, idk idk. I apprehend all these constituents of reality directly, but where do they derive from? It seems to be the activity of the other functions, which populate reality. It appears that much of what I apprehend is contained concentratedly within others, and must be drawn out of them in order for a direct perceiver to then "mark" it into the register of objective reality, like the cat in Schrödinger's box attaining a truth condition as soon as someone opens it, or the von Neumann chain acquiring a measurement.

It can be manifested by them, perhaps, in a way that's rewarding and self-affirming without a direct experience of that manifestation being available at all times. So it seems more apt to think of them not really even as other perceivers, but other constituents of reality, which may have access to modes of non-experiential consciousness which may loop over itself any number of times, granting a non-experiential awareness that could in fact be even richer, denser, or otherwise more containing of substance than my own direct awareness. Is this what N is, an additional looping over or abstraction, such that "I" for an N refers to something having two layers, but "I" for an S refers to something having one? Or might this looping over spontaneously occur irrespective of type?

In short it would be interesting to know what it's actually like, second to second, to experience reality as one of the 14 types not leading with Se. Can you even do so if you're not at least an aux, or is it more like the timescales are always doing weird shit and playing hard to get so that you spend your whole life finding yourself in the middle of something? Is it possible to be like, a pure embodiment of logic or emotion so that you're not even having an experience of yourself being xyz, but being xyz? Are your memories just memories of memories of memories? Visions visions of yourself having visions of visions? There's this guy I know who published a metaphysical account that was very very tasty [https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/572/940]- he speaks of the glimpsing of reality's properties "out of the corner of one's eye".

However I can see it going the other way just as easily, where everyone is able to directly perceive and/or interact with content from present reality through the extroverted functions in some baseline capacity that yields the ability to construct a personal account and have what's colloquially considered an experience, while alternative timescales (past/future/extratemporal) superimpose themselves on the awareness and direct the perception away from what's directly inherent in immediate reality. The net effect is a bunch of memories (S) that end up being kind of pleromatic or kaleidoscopic, as they encode approximations or translations.

 

 

 

• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.

[Azenta]

From what I've read, I'll be assuming your question is: how do other non-Se lead experience reality?

When it comes to consciousness, there is not one function more responsible of it than another. Our consciousness is the result of all the functions simply existing and working together. You are aware both thanks to extroversion and introversion. Your lead function is the prioritized lens through which you will interpret reality. Pe is focused on the real-time, Pi on the process, Je on the causation and Ji on the core(/essence).

I would reflect that your initial questioning is very "Se/Pe-centric" in itself. Assuming consciousness is about the real-time events occuring is pretty much a Pe Ontology. It made it hard for me at first to get what you really want me to answer, since I am a non-Se lead with Se unconscious. Reality and the consciousness of it, for me, is not just about what is happening in the now, in the real-time, and assuming it is sounds like denying part of this reality.

As a Pi lead, the way I conceive is that how everything is as of now is born from something that was, and will transform into something partly predictable (and sometimes, unpredictable). So, what is is greater than what I can see, feel, experience now. It is the endless culmination of something. However, what I experience now is also very unique and I have learned to accept the importance of not loosing sight of this now because "something was" and "something will" become from it.

When I was younger, I was stuck in the experience of the process and ended up as a passive observer, as if afraid of the interference I could be to what I was observing. This was a Pi centric concern, but at some degree I believe Ji (Fi) became concerned in that passivity as well and still sometimes refrain me from actions, as if I was scared of affecting the core of things on-going. Like if I was scared of creating a stain on the tapestry (analogy used with Pi) I'm contemplating. It's not yet integrated, but I know it's affecting my focus on that process quite some bit. It makes me concerned about the unicity of the "experience", what makes it so unique that despite similar occurrences, it makes it undeniably its own.

Luckily, Je (Te) integration helped me regain power over myself and over how I could play out on life, literally, without loosing sight of the process. I gained perspective on causation, the practicality behind all what I could see/perceive and ways to maneuver around anything, really. I don't think I can't separate anymore my experience of life with the lens of practicality and causation. Like if my focus has now irrevocably add this lens to the ones of the "process of time" itself. Perceiving this process implies looking at how things affect each other and how this was necessary, good, bad, correct, better, worse, etc. It has literally gained a judgment on it, on which I can decide to act or not.

Also, integrating partially Se to a stage of neutral-admiration helped accept that the real-time should be savored, and so not keep myself stuck as an observer. Though, I still have work to do on this one, since it's the one part I neglect the most still, sadly.

In the end, despite mentioning all function, you can see they are all subordinate to the Pi view and are all targeted to enhance my experience of the process. They are all important in their own right, far more than just to savor a process of time, but my Self, or Ego, has evolved to be fascinated and ever concerned for this process. Basically, I prefer looking at the ripples on the water and wonder what caused them and how they might affect its surrounding.

I hope it answered the question you had in mind. As I mentioned above, I wasn't too sure of what you were really asking for, so if it's not answering fully the question, you can precise and I will likely have more to say. Pi lead is the power of rambling as much as I like lmao

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Azenta.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Azenta.

[Wolf00]

I've seen a video with women reporting getting orgasms just by  thinking, without sex or masturbation, so it seems possible to have some sort of sensory experience without doing a physical action.

[Lapis Lazuli]

recreationalwreck,

It sounds like you're conceiving of certain relationships as being linear, or at least close to linear, when in reality they may be far from linear.  If so, that's understandable, because our brains seem to default to assuming linear relationships until confronted with evidence that suggests otherwise.

For example, CT appears to posit that types (and sub-types) emerge from the "distribution of libido" among the four energetics (Pe, Pi, Je, Ji).  Assume, for the sake of argument, that a "baseline" distribution among these would be 25%, 25%, 25% and 25%, such that if a person's libido were distributed over the energetics in these proportions, then no discernible type would exist--they would appear to have "----" development in vultology, and their psychological profile would appear extremely balanced.  A vultology report on such a person would almost always be inconclusive.

But, what if it takes only a small change in this libidinal distribution to produce large differences in both vultology and psychological profile when considered on time frames much larger than microseconds, seconds or even minutes?  For example, what if all it takes for a person to be clearly Pe lead is for their distribution to look something like 26%, 24%, 25%, 25%, and all it takes for a person to be clearly Pi lead is for the distribution to look something like 24%, 26%, 25%, 25%?  On a moment-to-moment basis, the phenomenologies of these two people, if it were possible to experience and compare both in parallel, might be almost indistinguishable, and yet these small differences in distribution might be enough for large differences in psychological profile to accrue over time, and for very observable differences in vultology to manifest over, say, periods of a few seconds or longer?

And of course, the "baseline" distribution might not be uniform.  E.g., it might be 50%, 10%, 30%, 10% (skewed heavily toward extraversion and more toward Pe than Je), which would lead to even more possibility for small difference in distribution to produce enormous psychological and vultological differences.  E.g., taking 5% from Pe and giving it to Pi would reduce Pe by only 10% (45/50 = 0.9) while increasing Pi by 50% (15/10 = 1.5).  These changes might be enough to transform the person's vultology from indeterminate to extreme "Pi potato", while their "sentience" (if we're going to define that in terms of Pe functioning, which as Azenta pointed out, is another false premise) isn't significantly compromised.

Of course, none of the above is meant to be taken at all literally (especially the numbers)--my purpose is merely to highlight the possibility that your questions may arise from false assumptions about linear relationships and uniformity.  And that's only a possibility.  In spite of everything I wrote, your question is a good one for which there may be no clear answers anytime soon.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.

[recreationalwreck]

@Azenta Yes now that I've come across a comment addressing this, I think that it was mentioned in a revision of the working theory that all the functions we have are equally present at all times, but not equally operable per se- there's an imbalanced relationship between them which yields still-ambiguous phenomenological effects mimicking genuine hierarchy.

The motivation of my post was a comment I read by a FiSe (@Alice) talking to an Se dom, which said:

"For you, an Se dom, your point of reference for this kind of energetic exercise is your environment. For you, it is your environment or reality that quickens or slacks, depending on your relationship to it. If you become more energetic, it slows down, and vice versa. This makes total sense, as your default experience IS Experience (Se).

My point of reference is always myself, or another individual person. I am always thinking about how the world is relating to a specific person from the person's point of view, usually myself (because I'm the most readily available individual to think about). If my environment suddenly becomes more frantic, I can either stay on top of it, leave, or kind of shut down. If my environment becomes still, I finally have a place I can be calm. I almost feel helpless to affect its energetic level."

This made me think- are there some for whom the default experience is not experience, but something else? Who feel unable to impose a direct effect on reality because they aren't merely deprioritizing it, at a psychological remove from it, or energy scarce, but constituted in such a way that there is no direct moment to moment experience offered that they could use as a basis to interact in real-time?

I'm wondering if your Pi priority causes the present feed offered by Se to merely be overlooked, or if the nature of this feed itself is altered by it. My TeNi mother continuously has an awareness of what needs to be done and what's likely to follow from the present situation. Until all the things in her physical environment have been properly arranged and all near-term obligations have been satisfied, she can't attend to the present. But when she does (usually after a long and productive day of harassing me), is she getting what I'm getting out of the room, or is something sutured by virtue of her metabolic anatomy?  I'm also wondering whether Pe functions as they get higher grant an increased depth or density of real-time feed, a breadth/multiplicity of real-time percepts, or both, and if Ne differs from Se in this regard.

You've pointed out some Pe myopia- I do look at experience granularly in terms of moment-to-moment units and conflate it with direct apprehension. There is certainly more to reality than what's happening right at the moment, but the apprehension of it, to me, fits more with the flavor of "perception" than "experience". There can be an experience of the perception of what's not happening in real-time, but I always imagine this experience to still be in real-time while its objects (which, populating it and being wholly superimposed on it, would be nearly indistinguishable from it), are not. For example, I can imagine continuously being aware of the causal chains and potentialities inherent in each percept as well as my own embodied self, granting an experience imbued with a degree of abstraction, removal, and the impermanence of the now, but I'm not sure if this is merely a default lens on top of the same substrate or something that actually imposes a translation on the experience of time such that each atomistic chunk of subjective time is stretched out.

A second is a second, but is a moment a moment? I have a hunch that due to the "refresh factor", one moment for someone with high Pe and especially Se is actually quicker than one moment for someone with high Pi. I haven't made up my mind as to whether Se moments are the quickest. As things instantaneously change, the connections between them change as well, which allows for the possibility that Ne-doms are tracking reality's movements abstractedly at the same rate. But can the connections between things change as fast as their properties themselves, or are some connections static, making Se-doms have the shortest moments and the greatest accumulation of life units within any given number of years?

This is why, I think, we have the greatest ability both to unexpectedly reverse our fortunes and unexpectedly burn out by means of addiction or mental breakdown. The refresh factor allows for a quicker psychological-distancing from any given past condition due to a faster accumulation of moments separating, but also causes ongoing bad situations to last much longer in subjective time units, ceterus paribus. I'm getting the uncanny feeling that both of us have "moments" and reasonably-direct continuous experiences, but as my moments are sliced thinner I'm asking "what is it like for you Here specifically" and you can't answer as you only get 10 of my Heres at a time. And now it like, almost gets quantum. This bowl of spinach I'm eating...maybe it's you! In 10 moments you will be gone, never to remember you were very nutritious!

@Wolf00 I can definitely get at the idea of an experience that's disembodied. It's the lack of something directly available/immediate and temporally unitized that's weird to think about. Perhaps I'm giving typological diversity more credit than it's due, however. There may be conditions of experiential coherence that don't allow for something truly indirect and recursive.

@lapislazuli One of the comments I read echoed this idea. I think it makes sense that as an experiential feed is produced, all four functions are contributing at the same time, allowing the Pe function to construct units of moment-to-moment experience that may be distorted by the content of the other three. The usage of the Je functions also seems to require real-time interaction, but it seems that this interaction must be refiltered through Pe for any experience to be had.  I'm undecided as to whether Pi functions merely distract from the feed of the present or can in fact bend it, especially in higher positions.

And I'm now thinking about what single-function entities would be like...if perhaps they've even been existing under our noses. The spirit of the trees- Fi with nothing else? Cogs turning in a factory machine- Te with nothing else? A camera- Se with nothing else? When metaphysical things like the afterlife (F + N?), the teleological workings of evolution (T + N?), or the Kantian things-in-themselves (S?) are spoken of, it's often in the context of a four-function split- the one thing we can't imagine.

 

 

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by recreationalwreck.

[Lapis Lazuli]

I'm having trouble finding what I've read on this in the past, but as I recall, the differences in "brain activity", whatever that was exactly (as shown in ECGs), between hemispherically left-dominant and right-dominant people was quite small, e.g., something like 51% in one hemisphere and 49% in the other hemisphere, and yet these small difference can sometimes result in significant differences in cognitive skills and psychological profiles.  It might have been in presentations by Dario Nardi on YouTube where I saw this.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.

[Author]

Posts