Ne/Ni Conflicts

[sculpting]

Ok. But what is the point of brainstorming if you don't shift contexts ?

Hello antisocial!!! I have missed you and your delightful rocks!!! (PS Does gold actually exhibit facets like iron pyrite?)

So Ne doms dont shift facets, but more link patterns when we brainstorm I suspect. We can identify many different paths forward and link many new ideas to old ideas. So we are looking to link what we know to other things we know, thus finding whole new areas of knowledge upon the connection being completed....not see things in different contexts.

So for instance, i am buidling a knowledge management process to transfer knowledge from our Marketing group to our Sales group. At first I was willing to entertain almost any idea and was very careful to probe the suggestions others put forth in depth. However after talking to the tenth person, I had built a consensus model about 6-8 people deep at each stage of the process. Thus I have a pretty good idea of what each stage needs to look like, so each subsequent opinion is listened to, but I spend less time listening and digging-as i already know what the answer needs to be. I started off with Ne linking all of the opinions and ideas of each person together to build an Si consensus solution. Now I am just bouncing the Si consensus model off of additional people to fine tune it and verify it doesnt have any major flaws. I'll chat with another ten folks or so and with each person the model will get little tweaks, little modifications, but mostly just verification.

Now funny thing-if you bring me information that seems valuable I would totally rebuild the model...I want the solution to be the best possible...but it isnt about brainstorming, but instead results at this point? Yeah it seems boring to me too to be honest. Ne is for fun, so this part of projects is actually pretty boring. However the motivations is that the results will make all the folks lives a lot easier, so with an Fi motivator, I will get the job done.

 

[Fidelia]

just a Ni user being able to forsee where i can't, and treating me like i'm an idiot because i don't have the same facility with understanding likelihood. i feel like, if only because introverted functions are so hard to explain, Ni users share their understandings less. and i guess because i'm a general skeptic i don't tend to trust what they say unless there's a good T reason for it. happens more with NFJs because NTJs tend to just be like "because Te 1, 2, 3."

incidentally -- any recommendations on how to support an NFJ when they're really worried about something? i feel like my usual Fi strategies are less effective here

Hmm, that must be frustrating. I think you are right that it's a little harder to see where Ni users are coming from if they don't outline it. Fe may make them feel like they need interest and invitation to do so, rather than doing it spontaneously and Ti may make it difficult to delineate their thoughts right away. I think because I'm a Ni dom, I'm not even aware of using Ni. I used to assume that everyone prefers to look down the road and rule out options that don't look like they will turn out well based on observation, past experience and deduction. It seems so real to me that I almost sometimes feel like I would be insulting someone by pointing it out, or else I feel that they would not be receptive to hearing it (I think Ni tends to focus on obstacles and negative rather than possibilities and positives because it rules things out first). Many people see this preventative tendancy to look at possible areas of concern rather than areas of possibility first as being negative, cynical, over-cautious or crackpot-y. It's kind of putting yourself out there to tell someone about what you see, particularly if the person may not like to hear it, so I check and double check that the person is open to hearing it before preceding. Usually my ENFJ mother tends to be over vocal about those kinds of things and then feels badly after, while I tend to be under vocal about it and wish I had said more.

Ni likes to apply a particular concept to as many different contexts as possible and see if it still holds true. To me it appears that Ne does just the opposite. It tries to build a context and then gathers possible information. Therefore it's very frustrating when the context keeps shifting.

Supporting an NFJ when they're really worried about something? Listen to them till they are done venting, even if it is ridiculous. Know that you are helping them wade through all the emotional debris around them so that they can sort out what is useful and what is not. Them talking will help them start sorting, so the more questions you can ask to gain context will make them feel like they are on more solid footing and can see what they are working with. It also helps them to feel that you really want to understand the situation and makes them more receptive to input later on. Help them identify what it really is that's bothering them by asking questions rather than only offering sympathy or trying to help them work through emotions. Emotions are not particularly important to them, other than being signposts that something is not well right now and needs attending to. Try to avoid being the devil's advocate at all during the venting/worried stage. Just ask questions about what they are talking about. They will likely shift energy after a bit after they feel they have identified what's really bothering them and then are more likely to get whatever help from you they may need in solving it, or they may feel you have already done them a great service just by listening.

I would recommend reading Z Buck's blog on this stuff.

 

[Elfboy]

The only problem I could see is that INxJs might see ENxPs as crazy, and ENxPs might see INxJs as overly cautious, paranoid, or uptight.

But overall I get along with other Ns, not matter if they have Ne or Ni...I don't see this as a conflict. I tend to have more little stupid conflicts with NTPs than NTJs, even though I'm probably an ENFP.

Ne and Ni don't make much of a difference to me, and that might be because I usually score both in my top three functions.

I'm the same. NTPs confuse the hell out of me. I think it's more an Fe/Fi conflict than gets me into trouble (although MUCH more with FJs, ugh I don't like them). Fi is all about integrity, personal values and individuality. Fe is all about selflessness, community, getting along and other people in general. so I think they're shallow and fake and they think I'm a selfish bastard.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

Antisocial: We don't shift contexts, we shift direction. (We attack from a more unrelated angle). Or that's what you meant? Context seems more like we're changing our view on the object, which we don't we just try to find a different direction to attack the object in question. The object is always what it is, when we're connecting. We just have an idea of where we want it to be when we're done analyzing.

 

[PeaceBaby]

This forum has made me so acutely aware that I (perhaps overly) use metaphors to try to explain my thinking.

If we were crafting a pearl necklace, Ni would orient more to each pearl, and Ne would orient more to the string connecting them.

Ni sees each pearl as individual and thus unique, while Ne is more interested in how to connect them to make the necklace.

Ne would focus on the size and color and quality of each pearl to make them fit together in a pleasing pattern on the string based on similar qualitative attributes.

Ni would focus on each pearl and decide that half of them would look better as a bracelet, and the remaining in a lovely ring with matching earrings.

Ne would say, "We were making a necklace!" and Ni would say, "I looked at each pearl and saw a different way of using them."

If the point was to make a necklace, Ni fails. If the point was to make the best use of the pearls, Ne fails. So each has a purpose.

 

[uumlau]

This forum has made me so acutely aware that I (perhaps overly) use metaphors to try to explain my thinking.

If we were crafting a pearl necklace, Ni would orient more to each pearl, and Ne would orient more to the string connecting them.

Ni sees each pearl as individual and thus unique, while Ne is more interested in how to connect them to make the necklace.

Ne would focus on the size and color and quality of each pearl to make them fit together in a pleasing pattern on the string based on similar qualitative attributes.

Ni would focus on each pearl and decide that half of them would look better as a bracelet, and the remaining in a lovely ring with matching earrings.

Ne would say, "We were making a necklace!" and Ni would say, "I looked at each pearl and saw a different way of using them."

If the point was to make a necklace, Ni fails. If the point was to make the best use of the pearls, Ne fails. So each has a purpose.

I heartily endorse this metaphor!

 

[Kalach]

the outer world is our ocean. i like uumlau's usage of "waves" because i very much see what i perceive as Ne usage as looking through an ocean full of concepts: different particles and colors and shapes and objects and tones and nuances and sounds and ways and all of that. the objective part is that those things are tangible - all are possible. all have the potential to exist, thus all exist in the Ne-scape - that's the objective part, as i understand it. everything exists. all connections between things, therefore, also exist. all paths can theoretically be followed. the subjective part is which patterns and paths present themselves most readily - and also the fact that these things only really exist in our minds.

The objective part would be that there appears to be an ocean at all. Concepts already formed. Which is what you said, but I wanted to place more emphasis on the "looking through" aspect because it doesn't seem to me as if I do that kind of thing when conceptualising. Whether I do or don't do what I do by looking through alternatives, looking through alternatives is not how I'd prefer to describe my process. For better or worse I view what I do as sui generis construction. Information is sometimes required from outside, and actually it is that point particularly that tells me I am mostly dealing with inner stuff that I mold as I choose to build up a conception, which conception I will from time to time launch applications of into the world and see if they will float.

NB all: any time you use a physical metaphor for describing intuition, you're introducing unconcious bias that undermines your message. None of the physical metaphors so far presented and supposed to describe the extent and limitation of the various brands of intuition speak to me. Intuition is intuition. WHY DO ANY OF YOUR METAPHORS INFORM?


EDIT: besides, "pearl necklace", really? People still do that outside of porn?

 

[Kalach]

Okay, fine.

Take a situation. Any situation. There's a setting, there's things, there's people and artifacts of people. Draw from it a conception. The form of the situation. What form? It's up to you. But lets imagine the crafting of a pearl necklace. Thus we see a large Japanese man grunting over a squealing schoolgirl with her top open. The form of the situation includes: "Japanese have strange gender roles that influence sex", "schoolgirls are hot", "tatami mats are really comfortable in summer".

Later there is another situation. Somewhat more personal this time. But still there is a pearl necklace involved. "Here," says a somewhat unwanted boyfriend, and he's given you a box with a far too expensive gift inside, a string of oyster spit baubles, a pearl necklace. And now you're uncomfortable, and you tell him so, lashing out angrily at the wildly inappropriate message of domination he has presented you. "What!" you demand. "Do you think I'm some school girl you can boss around!?"

Ne.

Yes or no?

Objectively the two situations are different. But objectively they contain conjoinable referents. Connecting content abstracted from both situations informs one of higher content. One does NOT think one is an abused schoolgirl, but one does see a wider image, perhaps a third image of roles and expectations and consequences and thus one can refuse the boyfriend in the second scenario.

Yes or No?

 

[skylights]

Hmm, that must be frustrating. I think you are right that it's a little harder to see where Ni users are coming from if they don't outline it. Fe may make them feel like they need interest and invitation to do so, rather than doing it spontaneously and Ti may make it difficult to delineate their thoughts right away. I think because I'm a Ni dom, I'm not even aware of using Ni. I used to assume that everyone prefers to look down the road and rule out options that don't look like they will turn out well based on observation, past experience and deduction. It seems so real to me that I almost sometimes feel like I would be insulting someone by pointing it out, or else I feel that they would not be receptive to hearing it (I think Ni tends to focus on obstacles and negative rather than possibilities and positives because it rules things out first). Many people see this preventative tendancy to look at possible areas of concern rather than areas of possibility first as being negative, cynical, over-cautious or crackpot-y. It's kind of putting yourself out there to tell someone about what you see, particularly if the person may not like to hear it, so I check and double check that the person is open to hearing it before preceding. Usually my ENFJ mother tends to be over vocal about those kinds of things and then feels badly after, while I tend to be under vocal about it and wish I had said more.

ahhh. that makes a lot of sense, thank you. i like how you phrased what i italicized... that helps me understand Ni better. sometimes it seems like such a confusing thing, but that is clear. so what i'm interpreting as haughtiness may really even be a reluctance to insult by stating the obvious?

of all the things i would not have thought of! pleasant to hear, though.

Ni likes to apply a particular concept to as many different contexts as possible and see if it still holds true. To me it appears that Ne does just the opposite. It tries to build a context and then gathers possible information. Therefore it's very frustrating when the context keeps shifting.

yes... i almost want to say we build... like... sets? we collect micro-systems? and then we connect them? if you pictured a set of systems - say the enneagram, MBTI, OCEAN, and socionics, all as planes stacked like a set of plates, with "points" at certain types, then what Ne (at least, inasmuch as i understand it) does is run a string through certain points, aligning the chosen systems with one another. i pull in 7, Se, Openess, and Si (possibly a bad example) in to all align with one another and create a new "paradigm", or total alignment of sets. a vertical or diagonal plane running through the plates, if you will. it's changing content, instead of context. and while i'm doing that the Ni user is sitting over here flipping the MBTI on its head and asking if its rules still apply. but i don't really have a problem with that... i've never really been opposed to Ni itself, just to my own lack of understanding. i know something brilliant is going on in there and it frustrates me to not know what it is! and the other person's reluctance to share is like insult to ineptitude...

Supporting an NFJ when they're really worried about something? Listen to them till they are done venting, even if it is ridiculous. Know that you are helping them wade through all the emotional debris around them so that they can sort out what is useful and what is not. Them talking will help them start sorting, so the more questions you can ask to gain context will make them feel like they are on more solid footing and can see what they are working with. It also helps them to feel that you really want to understand the situation and makes them more receptive to input later on. Help them identify what it really is that's bothering them by asking questions rather than only offering sympathy or trying to help them work through emotions. Emotions are not particularly important to them, other than being signposts that something is not well right now and needs attending to. Try to avoid being the devil's advocate at all during the venting/worried stage. Just ask questions about what they are talking about. They will likely shift energy after a bit after they feel they have identified what's really bothering them and then are more likely to get whatever help from you they may need in solving it, or they may feel you have already done them a great service just by listening.

I would recommend reading Z Buck's blog on this stuff.

excellent. thank you. and yeah, sometimes it feels a little ridiculous/fatalistic, but i know it's just part and parcel to the positive side of Ni. it must be an uncomfortable place... sort of the counterpart of Ne users getting lost in too many possibilities.

The objective part would be that there appears to be an ocean at all. Concepts already formed. Which is what you said, but I wanted to place more emphasis on the "looking through" aspect because it doesn't seem to me as if I do that kind of thing when conceptualising. Whether I do or don't do what I do by looking through alternatives, looking through alternatives is not how I'd prefer to describe my process. For better or worse I view what I do as sui generis construction. Information is sometimes required from outside, and actually it is that point particularly that tells me I am mostly dealing with inner stuff that I mold as I choose to build up a conception, which conception I will from time to time launch applications of into the world and see if they will float.

NB all: any time you use a physical metaphor for describing intuition, you're introducing unconcious bias that undermines your message. None of the physical metaphors so far presented and supposed to describe the extent and limitation of the various brands of intuition speak to me. Intuition is intuition. WHY DO ANY OF YOUR METAPHORS INFORM?


EDIT: besides, "pearl necklace", really? People still do that outside of porn?

interesting, what you said about your Ni process being sui generis. i know what you mean about not choosing to word it that way. that kept happening in the Fi/Fe threads... we would have similar concepts, but different wordings felt right to us.

anyway Ne draws parallels... metaphors are a fast way to set up two complex structures and jump similarity to similarity, instead of having to start at the beginning and construct a whole picture... any words you choose to use will necessarily introduce bias too, though, because of their connotations. so might as well start with an easily-understandable metaphor, and then begin tailoring it more and more to the real thing...

Ne.

Yes or no?

edit - i've analyzed this too much. i don't know.

 

[InvisibleJim]

Are you sure you didnt shift context? (especially on an Fi topic....) Often you guys are spinning through contexts very quickly. It's fun....but it doesnt generate results for me if I try and think in that way. Once I have understood a subject well enough to define a single context, to release it is to destroy everything built. This seems weird to you guys I suppose, but the context is built out of repeated observations-layers and layers and layers of them. Unless you can identify a flaw in the way the observations were conducted or give me a brand new compelling way to view the situation, then I can roam into your context, but I have to maintain my foundation. The real fun is to link across topics....I suppose that is layers of contexts all linked together via Ne paths. That's super Ne and is where the most beautiful thoughts are found.

But I find if i try and do this with anybody but another Ne dom, the connections cannot be seen. The pattern is so blatant, so obvious. You guys may "observe" my commentary on the surface pattern once I explain it, but then after that you discard it as trivial...like you can't see the depth behind it, how very encompassing it is....I suspect an Ne dom does the same thing to an Ni dom's ideas....we dont see the depth, only the surface conclusion.

*prys brain away from forum and back into reality where I can actually contribute things of value*

Basically we agree on a Te-Fi frame of context which is a middle ground. Once I have Te agreement you won't find me shift that ever in a set situation. Given time the Ne user will spontaneously flick back to their original 'Intuition is defined by its extroverted sense checks!' they reset the Fi-Te switches to their own rather than what was agreed and I fall of the radar; then they complain that my context is irrelevant even though earlier we had agreed that a more convergent position was the best available.

This is distasteful because I will then feel that I have to negotiate from a middle ground that was already established as quite clearly the middle ground did not give the Ne user what they required after all. After this happens a few times I view the Ne user as a waste of time because they continue to break these seemingly improved positions in favour of their own individualist mindset at my cost and they will refuse to consider my context.

I will view them as people who's words and actions are inconsistent and trust them less each time this occurs.

I have no clearer way of stating that.

 

[Craft]

Yep, in poetry, the trick is that the meaning gets overlapped, just as in the Schrodinger's Cat analogy. Poetry is "more" meaningful when it says something in a particular way such that it really does mean A and B and C, whether by pun or homonym or synonym or other word play. All the meanings are "true," or close enough to "truth," like words that almost but don't quite rhyme.

Yeah, I don't understand what is "poetry" and how this is any "poetic."

Context shifting is most especially frustrating in the social sciences where people are always arguing about semantics. "Come on, can't we just have an objective definition(e.g. X is democracy) so we can move on please?" Besides, how can you argue about meaning when meaning itself isn't established? It. does. not. make. sense.

I wonder if you're seeing other meanings and related ideas that contradict the "clearly intended" multiple meanings of the word-plays?

Contradictions. I mostly see contradictions. In everything. But they make it sound like contradictions are acceptable.

"Plato's Republic". Either it's written by an Ni-dom or my teacher is crazy.

 

[Kalach]

yes... i almost want to say we build... like... sets? we collect micro-systems? and then we connect them? if you pictured a set of systems - say the enneagram, MBTI, OCEAN, and socionics, all as planes stacked like a set of plates, with "points" at certain types, then what Ne (at least, inasmuch as i understand it) does is run a string through certain points, aligning the chosen systems with one another. i pull in 7, Se, Openess, and Si (possibly a bad example) in to all align with one another and create a new "paradigm", or total alignment of sets. a vertical or diagonal plane running through the plates, if you will. it's changing content, instead of context.

What lets you draw the string? Glossing over the possibility that it's a bad example, the string can be drawn because "7, Se, Openess, and Si" are all "the same" kind of thing in some way? Or because the system they make is the "the same" kind of system as the other systems--enneagram, MBTI, OCEAN, socionics--in the stack? You're making a new system or identifying how all the systems interrelate? And the interest in doing any of this is... well, novelty obviously, but novelty of conception of what?

interesting, what you said about your Ni process being sui generis.

Which of course it isn't. I don't get anywhere without seed information from outside to start the process. But I conceive of the process as removed from the outside world so I am free to make whatever I want. Naturally I will end up making something that has some relationship to the outside world, but that stuff is applications of what I've made inside. There's a sense that the engine inside is far bigger than the products tossed out the factory front door.

i know what you mean about not choosing to word it that way. that kept happening in the Fi/Fe threads... we would have similar concepts, but different wordings felt right to us.

A minor miscommunication there. I emphasized the differing wording as a flag that it seems to me there are different processes at work.

anyway Ne draws parallels...

Is that the primary activity of the function?


Whatever Ne does, it does it on abstractions. However concrete it may seem, the external world is viewed in terms of abstractions. And while it is the person who makes these abstractions, these abstractions are deemed to inhere in the parts of the world where they were found. Thus two things happen at the same time: these abstractions are patterned after the parts of the world where they were found and they are patterned after the particular interests and awarenesses the observer brings with her. But formal separation from the person is uppermost so if the observer wants to know more, she has to introduce her observations to the world and see what comes of that event. The observations are then refined according to the results in the part of the world where they were introduced. This increases the objectivity of the results: the results don't come just from the observer, but from the environment itself. But what are these results? What were the observations? What's the purpose of refining the observations?

Pfft.

 

[Kalach]

:workout:


Whatever Ne does, it does it on abstractions. However concrete it may seem, the external world is viewed in terms of abstractions. When these abstractions are being made, two things are happening at the same time: these abstractions are patterned after the parts of the world where they were found and they are patterned after the particular interests and awarenesses the observer brings with her. But formal separation from the person is uppermost and the abstractions are deemed to inhere in the part of the world where they were found. So if the observer wants to know more, she has to introduce her observations to the world and see what comes of that event. The observations are then refined according to the results in the perhaps new but seemingly similar part of the world where they were introduced. This increases the objectivity of the results: the results don't come just from the observer, but from the environment itself. But what are these results? What were the observations? What's the purpose of refining the observations? What, even, were the abstractions?

Theory tells us the abstractions were potentials. "What this could become?" The refinement is aimed at finding what it will become. If it will become something even more stupendous than it already is, interest is piqued and maintained. If eventually it is discovered that the thing, though undoubtedly awesome, is a familiar kind of awesome, interest wanes.


^ Behold, mortals! I, Ni! Some small amount of input data was used to create that post-pfft account, and little of that input data came from this thread itself. Yet I have created a conception. And now I toss that conception out among the earthlings and allow them to express awe and fawn. The conception is without particular objective root. It isn't linked to any one account, nor any personal example. It just is, arriving seemingly sui generis, or at least presented that way.

And I tell you this not so that you may express undying gratitude for the illumination you receive. No, I tell you this so that YOU may illuminate everyone else. A simple unanswerable question should suffice.


"IS THAT YOU..."


John Wayne?

 

[InvisibleJim]

Wow, I don't know how many times I can state in one day that the function is the same it's merely the attitude that is different (adds another chalk mark to wall on his prison cell).

 

[Amargith]

Does that mean you agree with my 'plz identify the rabbit hole you wanna explore so we can start burrowing together' request?

 

[Kalach]

Wow, I don't know how many times I can state in one day that the function is the same it's merely the attitude that is different (adds another chalk mark to wall on his prison cell).

That's quite a merely there though. It makes introverts of some and extroverts of others. How can it not alter what they think about and how they think about it?


This is the dark side, Jim. Identification with The Other. Next one of us'll be accepting metaphors in place of actual reinventions of the world.

 

[InvisibleJim]

Does that mean you agree with my 'plz identify the rabbit hole you wanna explore so we can start burrowing together' request?

I try, it's just that you sometimes don't see me putting out my T breadcrumbs because you are looking for N breadcrumbs. It's the same when you guys go all introverted F on us. Although we do try to be understanding enough of the bat signals to hug at the appropriate time.

That's quite a merely there though. It makes introverts of some and extroverts of others. How can it not alter what they think about and how they think about it?

This is the dark side, Jim. Identification with The Other. Next one of us'll be accepting metaphors in place of actual reinventions of the world.

Attitude is important regarding how we sense check. For an ENxP, they sense check their intuitions against reality frequently as it is extroverted. For us we don't really leave as many of our intuitions free to be observed by others; instead we through our T out and go: look at the T, work out where N is because it's hiding!!

Heresy? Perhaps, but only for your own good(s).

ornstar:

 

[Athenian200]

Wow, I don't know how many times I can state in one day that the function is the same it's merely the attitude that is different (adds another chalk mark to wall on his prison cell).

Well, definitely. I have a lot more in common with all N-dominant types than I do with all F-dominant types.

The catch is that having a different attitude changes how the function naturally tends to work. Like typology itself, it represents tendencies. Thus, both Ni and Ne users CAN operate in the way that the other normally does, but it takes more effort and doesn't feel as natural. They each have a preference to use Intuition in their preferred world, and that tendency shapes how they use that Intuition.

If you ignore Introversion/Extraversion of functions, IJs and EPs are all the same, as are IPs and EJs. So, it's possible that it tells less about the function, and more about the person's attitude towards the world. Their energy levels, Introversion/Extraversion, and assertiveness.

 

[Kalach]

Attitude is important regarding how we sense check. For an ENxP, they sense check their intuitions against reality frequently as it is extroverted. For us we don't really leave as many of our intuitions free to be observed by others; instead we through our T out and go: look at the T, work out where N is because it's hiding!!

Heresy? Perhaps, but only for your own good(s).

While it is true that every person will always seek an impossible balance, that seeking exists because there is and must be unbalance. WE MUST NOT DIMINISH THE IMPORTANCE OF INTROVERSION, Jim! That we naturally seek out extroversion as a completion of our purposes, so too do the extroverts (eventually) seek out introversion. If for no other reason than "they want us too", introversion and extroversion are of fundamentally equal metaphysical standing.

Ergo, there is purpose to attitude. And the reasons for which it is meaningful to the individual are different to the reasons for which it is meaningful to the group. Thus...

"[PLACEHOLDER]"


--presently drawing a blank.

 

[Kalach]

There's a time and a place for type-eugenics, I guess, but there's a problem with type-miscegenation: translation. I am for example frustrated with Ne type people's apparent inability to describe their functions in terms that I value. How is that gap bridged? By understanding what the terms are that I do value. But this is a half-bridge at best. I'll also require the other team to try doing it my way for a bit.

Now, I assume all people think a bit this way. Certainly they may think that way if given Jungian terms to play with. But it's a failing plan and always will be. It actually masks a complete unwillingness to ever accept the terms of the other side. Whatever comes my way will always be translated into and assessed in terms of my terms.

Are there people who don't function this way? Would they even be people if they didn't?