Cognitive Functions

(Finally)
     My interest in this subject just hasn't died yet. About four or five months ago I told a new friend how I was a bit disappointed that I knew his type and had memorized his functions because there were little things that he'd do or say that would cause me to think things like, "Oh, that's his extroverted feeling." I thought maybe my natural perceptions of him might somehow change negatively because I consciously labeled him in these ways as I was getting to know him. There's a balance to be found between structured analysis and simple, intuitive experience.
     Continuing from my first post, there are 8 cognitive functions that make up the 16 MBTI types. Of these functions, there are four ...functions, and two "attitudes". Attitude is the -version of a function, introversion or extroversion. I haven't found a term for "function" (the one with attitude, there are 8 of them) that would differentiate it from "function" (without attitude, there are 4) yet, so please bear with me. It should make sense anyway. The four functions (sans attitude) are Feeling, Intuition, Sensing, and Thinking.
Here are the eight functions:
     Extroverted Feeling (Fe)
     "seeks social connections and creates harmonious interactions through considerate, enthusiastic, and charming behavior... responds to the explicit (and implicit) wants of others, and may even create an internal conflict between ... own needs and the desire to meet the needs of others"
     Introverted Feeling (Fi)
     "filters information based on interpretations of worth, forming judgments according to criteria that are often intangible... constantly balances an internal set of values such as harmony and authenticity... attuned to subtle distinctions... innately senses what is true and what is false in a situation"
     Extroverted Intuition (Ne)
     "finds and interprets hidden meanings, using “what if” questions to explore alternatives, allowing multiple possibilities to coexist... weaves together insights and experiences from various sources to form a new whole, which can then become a catalyst to action"
     Introverted Intuition (Ni)
     "attracted to symbolic actions or devices... synthesizes seeming paradoxes to create the previously unimagined... realizations come with a certainty that demands action to fulfill a new vision of the future, solutions that may include complex systems or universal truths"
     Extroverted Sensing (Se)
     "focuses on the experiences and sensations of the immediate, physical world... with an acute awareness of the present surroundings... brings relevant facts and details to the forefront and may lead to spontaneous action"
     Introverted Sensing (Si)
     "collects data in the present moment and compares it with past experiences, a process that sometimes evokes the feelings associated with memory... seeking to protect what is familiar, draws upon history to form goals and expectations about what will happen in the future"
     Extroverted Thinking (Te)
     "organizes and schedules ideas and the environment to ensure the efficient, productive pursuit of objectives... seeks logical explanations for actions, events, and conclusions, looking for faulty reasoning and lapses in sequence"
     Introverted Thinking (Ti)
     "seeks precision, such as the exact word to express an idea... notices the minute distinctions that define the essence of things, then analyzes and classifies them... examines all sides of an issue, looking to solve problems while minimizing effort and risk... uses models to root out logical inconsistency"

I'm sure it's a lot to take in if you're new to all this. Another way of looking at this is that if a function's attitude is extroverted, it's focused externally and if it's introverted, it's focused internally. To my understanding,
     introverted feeling focuses on values whereas extroverted feeling focuses on harmony,
     introverted intuition accumulates ideas to snap into a whole while extroverted intuition gathers ideas to weave into one
     introverted sensing focuses on finding patterns between experiences while extroverted sensing focuses on molding present ones,
     and introverted thinking focuses on collecting information while extroverted thinking focuses on organizing it.

     After my initial discomfort with it, I've come to really enjoy trying to figure out which functions people in my life use most, and through that, their type. It's difficult sometimes though because, really, none of us only use four. We use all eight. Order is what determines type. The first four functions cover all the bases non-attitude function-wise, but after that come shadow functions. I've read that these often come out under stress, perhaps as a last-ditch attempt to deal with life when the first four don't seem to be working well enough. Their appearances are often temporary and sometimes very negative, but occasionally they stay long enough to be learned and move into daily life, displacing another function. I have a friend who says his type changed when his dad came down with a serious illness.
     Shadow functions appear in the same order as the others. So say you intuit, think, feel, then sense, in that order, your shadow functions will follow that order. If your first (dominant) function is Introverted Sensing, your fifth is Extroverted Sensing.

There's so much to this system, I'm still not particularly well-versed in it. For further reading, here's a good site I found recently: www.cognitiveprocesses.com
And this YouTube channel I just found a few minutes ago: www.youtube.com/channel/UCWWwQlDFnYbX_dgDP8lJ09A
Wikipedia has decent pages for this too, with lots of sources listed.