[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Ni - What the hell is it?

[highlander]

Sitting in front of someone and looking at them, along with all the smiling and nodding and interacting, I actually tend to end up having heard less of what they were saying, most particularly if I'm supposed to be interviewing them. It seems to me in such moments that the limited sensing resource is being used up in spotting, mimicking and maintaining conventional interaction cues and isn't serving as a source of input for the higher function. I actually don't get a chance to "think". Can't find the novelty and build on it.

This'll sound weird, I guess, but it is easier to hear an SP speak.

I just conducted a bunch of campus interviews today. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Ni, but I definitely have always experienced what you describe above. I can pay better attention to what someone is saying if I'm not looking at them, nodding, etc. It sounds counterintuitive. Instead of doodling, I've developed a practice of taking very detailed notes. It helps to focus my attention on listening to them and what they are saying. I'm not sure how people perceive this, but it might be better than them seeing you doodling

So, I experienced this exact thing today - looking at someone and nodding, etc. and what them telling me going in one ear and out the other, while paying much better attention if I'm not doing those things.

 

[uumlau]

I just conducted a bunch of campus interviews today. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Ni, but I definitely have always experienced what you describe above. I can pay better attention to what someone is saying if I'm not looking at them, nodding, etc. It sounds counterintuitive. Instead of doodling, I've developed a practice of taking very detailed notes. It helps to focus my attention on listening to them and what they are saying. I'm not sure how people perceive this, but it might be better than them seeing you doodling

So, I experienced this exact thing today - looking at someone and nodding, etc. and what them telling me going in one ear and out the other, while paying much better attention if I'm not doing those things.

Yeah, I totally get this, too.

If I have to make eye contact and all that kind of crap, especially for an interview (whether I'm the interviewer or interviewee), I'm focusing more on making a good impression and pretending to pay attention, than I am actually listening. If I can stare into space as I listen, I can visualize what is being discussed, rather than focus on how their left eyebrow is moving. There's definitely an Se/Ni antithesis going on in such cases.

 

[Zarathustra]

Yeah, I totally get this, too.

If I have to make eye contact and all that kind of crap, especially for an interview (whether I'm the interviewer or interviewee), I'm focusing more on making a good impression and pretending to pay attention, than I am actually listening. If I can stare into space as I listen, I can visualize what is being discussed, rather than focus on how their left eyebrow is moving. There's definitely an Se/Ni antithesis going on in such cases.

Me four...

Similar thing also happens when I meet someone for the first time.

Something happens whereby I focus intensely on their face as to get a read on them, and, when I do, everything else goes completely out the window.

For the most part, I won't remember a person's name immediately after I first meet them, if I even hear it at all...

I think it has something to do with the effort required to focus on what's there right in front of us (inferior Se) -- it seems to require enough of our bandwidth that we just lose out on other things.

That's one of the weirdest things about Ni: the fact that you need to kinda zone out, in order to actually focus on what's right there.

***

Somewhat interesting Ne sidenote: A funny thing I remember hearing about Bill Clinton is that he supposedly has an amazing ability to remember peoples' names after meeting them just one time.

I can't remember whether this method was directly tied to him or not when I first heard it, but I hear a great way to remember people's names is to connect them with somebody else you know or a celebrity.

It would probably be really natural and easy for an ENP to be able to do this, due to dominant Ne; hence, his natural skill.

Ne doms? Any thoughts?

 

[Zarathustra]

Another question:

So, Mr. Holmes, do you feel this thread's helped you figure out what Ni is?

 

[Kalach]

I just conducted a bunch of campus interviews today. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Ni, but I definitely have always experienced what you describe above. I can pay better attention to what someone is saying if I'm not looking at them, nodding, etc. It sounds counterintuitive. Instead of doodling, I've developed a practice of taking very detailed notes. It helps to focus my attention on listening to them and what they are saying. I'm not sure how people perceive this, but it might be better than them seeing you doodling

Ah well, no, the doodling is exceptionally useful, necessary even, for being part of some group listening to some speaker. For one on one interviewing... actually, I've done both. For my sins I sometimes work as a language examiner. Back when it was informal and arranged by me, I'd set up students in pairs to talk to each other and I'd sit back with a notebook. I used to find I could concentrate very well for as long as I was watching the notebook and listening for language cues. If I looked up and become somehow engaged in the talk, thoughts of appropriate gradings would slip away like so much smoke in the wind. These days I have to follow a standard set by the British Council, and that forbids note taking completely. (Note taking is understood to unnerve candidates--they make improper associations between having just uttered language and you having just taken a note). It's also supposed to mimic an actual conversation, so one has to at times, generate appropriate questions. In other words, one is supposed to have listened. Since the scores I give the candidates are to standard, the interviews are going as they should (which is nice because the job pays well), but it is taxing. I'm constantly aware of how difficult it is to take detailed notice of language forms and purposeful usage of language forms, and at the same time attempt to assess. Which must sound strange--what is an appropriate assessment in that circumstance if not detailed notice of forms and forms used?

I haven't asked other examiners if they find the work tiring in the same way, so it might not be an N vs S thing, but one interesting point re typology and interacting with people.... since I have to mimic actual present interest in what the candidates say, I smile and nod, and it's occurred to me to notice when I smile and nod. What content cues prompt a smile and a nod? Descriptions of things that happened in the world, emphasizing turning points in the mechanisms of what happened. Which I assume is me picking up on, or making the conversation into, Te signals. I started thinking about it just because I recognised that I wasn't reflecting feeling cues, not mimicking or mirroring feeling content, but was reflecting something. I have sometimes wondered if it's not impossible to come up with a menu of mimicked actions and brute-force model the deployment of other people's cognitive functions, if only to make candidates more comfortable and me less rigid of face.


Whatami, an F now?

 

[Zarathustra]

I have sometimes wondered if it's not impossible to come up with a menu of mimicked actions and brute-force model the deployment of other people's cognitive functions, if only to make candidates more comfortable and me less rigid of face.

It is possible.

Whatami, an F now?

You are human.

 

[Nicodemus]

Or is he dancer?

 

[Zarathustra]

Or is he dancer?

God I hate them...

 

[Kalach]

It is possible.

But, I submit, wholly undesirable. To do it well, it seems one must turn off normal functioning and deploy non-normal functioning. I can see it being an okay or even desirable thing if it were just a matter of deploying the non-normal. If it were that, you could learn it as a skill. But it seems to me that mimicking the functioning of other people's functions is a non-functional deployment of your real functions, especially if we're talking pretending to an e function of which you prefer the i.

Then again, I wonder if this is a generally applicable point or if it's not just tertiary Fi making noise. "It will mar my soul!"

 

[uumlau]

Or is he dancer?

No. *I* am dancer.

God I hate them...

Thanks a bunch.

 

[Zarathustra]

[YOUTUBE="RIZdjT1472Y"][/YOUTUBE]

 

[JocktheMotie]

When I think of Ni, I think of the the Detective's monologue in V for Vendetta. I think it's a good example of how it can manifest.

I don't know if that helps anybody.

 

[TacEight]

When I think of Ni, I think of the the Detective's monologue in V for Vendetta. I think it's a good example of how it can manifest.

I don't know if that helps anybody.

I concur, this is an excellent example. Amplified when combined with Te or Fe (in social situations).

 

[Neutralpov]

The clip didn't resonate Ni with me but it could be because it was expansive planning and impersonal (I can't understand enough to picture the mental framework literally). Maybe Te and not Fe. I can spot relational, personal or value related Ni real easy. I also know that some counseling students are INFJ around me so I hear them a lot (the isfjs and isfps are social work which I thought fit type actually)

 

[Craft]

Anyone know about Gundam Wing's cockpit system? It's not the average Ni, but you know... if you want to simplify and all.

 

[stormyapril]

When I think of Ni, I think of the the Detective's monologue in V for Vendetta. I think it's a good example of how it can manifest.

I don't know if that helps anybody.

The quote strikes me as more NeTeFi style. It took a starting point of people, branched out from it in a series of increasingly generalized statements with pivot points that would determine what and how the events would unfold based upon a pattern, based upon Fi observations. A flow chart of human behavior.

However the pictures and symbolism, the masks, the "V", isnt Ne-ish, and the best I can guess might be NiFe imagery as it is not something I am familiar on a routine basis.

 

[uumlau]

When I think of Ni, I think of the the Detective's monologue in V for Vendetta. I think it's a good example of how it can manifest.

I don't know if that helps anybody.

Personally, I get a very "Ne" feel, from all of the "connections". It suggests an Ni perspective with the symbology (dominoes all falling in an orderly fashion, etc.).

I see Ne as being more of a "connect connect connect" seeing common objective/extroverted patterns that all relate to each other, suggesting an underlying order. Ni, on the other hand will just think, "Oh, it's this," and draw a conclusion, and Fe/Te will come along in a second pass and prove/disprove it.

Perhaps the clip can be regarded as Ne seeing the overall patterns of a partially-executed Ni/Te plan?

 

[stormyapril]

Interesting too ... I need eye breaks, or I get too much feeling input from the other person and can't forge a path forward naturally. Fi needs a moment or two to process, and process my own output related to conversational input. It's a reason why I use pauses, rephrase what the person said back to them to get a few seconds of rest, make sweeping hand gestures at times to force an eye contact break. I need eye space too.

Again, this may be an introverted thing, required by us each for different reasons?

I also feel this-it would be of interest to understand how differences in the perceiving functions might influence how we perceive the Fi of the other.

Doodling is also widespread in Ni/Ne doms and even the Se doms will do it. In sales training with ESTPs, you give them toys to play with and make it okay for them not to look at you while the class is going on. It maybe that it keeps those annoying dominant perceiving functions chewing on useless bubble gum, to give the other functions a chance to play. I listen far better and am far more empathic, if I can be doing something with my hands while I listen and only make occasional eye contact.

Ni doms....

Ni always strikes me as pouring deeper and deeper into a given (internalized, subjective) object. A microcosm. Then the Ni flows around and you scoop stuff out. The Ni is the flowing? What if instead of flowing or waiting and catching things out of the "stream", you ignore the stream and just keep going deeper into the internalized object? You just dismiss the movement of the stream altogether? how deep can you go, and what do you find there?

 

[Kalach]

Then Ni always strikes you wrong.

Who goes deeper into an internalised object? Deeper and deeper into the microcosm? How big is a microcosm, anyway? It wouldn't take that much going deeper to burst out the other side like some haemorrhoid of consciousness.

One prefers not internalised objects but clearer, purer internal representations. What comes before that image, on what core is that content founded, from where does this or that originate...




Just as zero is the number that is no number, so is Ni the understanding of all things. Oom.

 

[stormyapril]

Then Ni always strikes you wrong.

Who goes deeper into an internalised object? Deeper and deeper into the microcosm? How big is a microcosm, anyway? It wouldn't take that much going deeper to burst out the other side like some haemorrhoid of consciousness.

One prefers not internalised objects but clearer, purer internal representations. What comes before that image, on what core is that content founded, from where does this or that originate...




Just as zero is the number that is no number, so is Ni the understanding of all things. Oom.

The particular context/problem is the one of meditation and reaching of "spiritual enlightenment" and how this relates to jungian notions of the self, the ego and the jungian cognitive functions. A link which does a good job of outlining the stages, disregard the spiritual stuff :http://www.swamij.com/types-stages-meditation.htm

There are several stages in meditation which seem to be reaching for an Ni-ish perspective of the world. A single point focus on one object, an emotional detachment from the external world/past in order to study the object, perceiving the object in many ways-without words, an internalization of the object, a becoming of one with the object, rendering the object a "purer internal representation". Once there internal thoughts are regarding as passing things and disregarded-seemingly a bit like the stream analogy...

Sitting still in the midst of the thoughts that pass by? In Jungs' Pschcology and the East he mentions a man who looked deeper and deeper into that empty quiet space, peeling back layers and layers, going deeper and deeper to come face to face with the jungian "self"-which might be comparable to your "haemorrhoid of consciousness". Sounds painful.

i am interested in understanding if the quiet place of silence is actually Ni or if it is a place where external perception has stopped or been disregarded altogether-thus is a no man's land of jungian functions where no perception or judging occurs.

Id also argue that Ni (infinte) might be a universal rule, but to form an Ni (infinite) you must first define many, many Ni (Sen) and combine them together, otherwise you conclude incorrectly that Ni (Se1)= Ni (infinite) and everyone else doesnt quite see the *universal magic*.