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Ni and detail orientedness

King sns

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They say that N's aren't interested in details. From what I've suspected, Ni seems to have a very keen interest in them, they bring all the details together to reach the one "true answer." No detail is unimportant- everything like goes into their reservoir of information. It seems like people who I suspect are Ni doms and auxs couldn't do what they do without some level of focus on the small things.

True or false? Elaborate.
 

Mal12345

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I wouldn't call it being detail oriented, but digging deeper into a subject.
 

Mal12345

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Example - a recent quote from [MENTION=1456]Domino[/MENTION] (XNFJ): "I will absolutely dissect, pull apart, sift, pick, string, separate and explode something/someone that has drawn my attention. My perhaps obsessive drive to get at the pith of any object - the etymology of it, the genesis moment - extends to a great many things, like words, or feelings, or colors."
 

INTP

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Its not Ni thats interested in details, its the Se of Ni user. And its more about fact vs made up. If you look at details, the details are facts. When you start to form an larger scale understanding of these facts/details, then its about made up big picture and possibilities. The fact/details are building blocks for made up big picture. This naturally is about S being the building block for N.

If you look at Ni dom, their Se is rather unconscious, meaning that they mostly(depending on the level of differentation of Se) see the details in external world that are used to build an big picture image inside and even sometimes failing to see the details that they use to form the Ni view.

For Ne users its the opposite, what is inside is seen as facts and these facts can be used to made up possibilities and big picture view on external world. Again the inferior is usually quite unconscious, so Ne doms might not be too conscious of the facts that are inside, nevertheless, those facts are projected onto the possibilities in external world.
 

highlander

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They say that N's aren't interested in details. From what I've suspected, Ni seems to have a very keen interest in them, they bring all the details together to reach the one "true answer." No detail is unimportant- everything like goes into their reservoir of information. It seems like people who I suspect are Ni doms and auxs couldn't do what they do without some level of focus on the small things.

True or false? Elaborate.

For me, it's a bit of a perplexing combination and I don't know how much of it is Ni or something else. I can and often do want to pull in lots of information, including lots of details. At the end, it's about connecting those dots, focusing on the big picture and what's really important. A lot of time, I just don't want to be bothered with any of the details and just quickly decide. I can get annoyed and frustrated with too much detail - especially when someone is explaining something to me and I perceive they are irrelevant details. I want to get to the bottom line. On the other hand, I can be very perfectionistic and detail oriented when I'm creating or producing something. I can be quite anal and little mistakes, especially repeated ones, can bother the heck out of me.
 

INTP

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I can get annoyed and frustrated with too much detail - especially when someone is explaining something to me and I perceive they are irrelevant details. I want to get to the bottom line.

Oh god this is annoying with my INTJ friend.

Basic setting is that im trying to explain something to him, since he is quite lost with the real world, usually i need to explain quite a bit in order him to understand. At some point he simply stops listening, since explanations bore him and sees what i say as irrelevant(but he makes that judgment usually before i get to finish my first sentence), but keeps pretending as if he were listening, just waiting that i stop speaking. But if i go straight to the bottom line, he just denies that what i say is true, so i ask him reasons, he is unable to give any, so i explain to him why im right and he stops listening and acts as if he were listening. Wtf
 

Beargryllz

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For me, it's a bit of a perplexing combination and I don't know how much of it is Ni or something else. I can and often do want to pull in lots of information, including lots of details. At the end, it's about connecting those dots, focusing on the big picture and what's really important. A lot of time, I just don't want to be bothered with any of the details and just quickly decide. I can get annoyed and frustrated with too much detail - especially when someone is explaining something to me and I perceive they are irrelevant details. I want to get to the bottom line. On the other hand, I can be very perfectionistic and detail oriented when I'm creating or producing something. I can be quite anal and little mistakes, especially repeated ones, can bother the heck out of me.

Details are tools to get the bottom line, but there are almost always more details that exist than are applicable. Detail is an investment of thought and time.

Oh god this is annoying with my INTJ friend.

But if i go straight to the bottom line, he just denies that what i say is true, so i ask him reasons, he is unable to give any, so i explain to him why im right and he stops listening and acts as if he were listening. Wtf

If you go straight to the bottom line, you are going out of order. This can be uncomfortable.
 

highlander

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Oh god this is annoying with my INTJ friend.

Basic setting is that im trying to explain something to him, since he is quite lost with the real world, usually i need to explain quite a bit in order him to understand. At some point he simply stops listening, since explanations bore him and sees what i say as irrelevant(but he makes that judgment usually before i get to finish my first sentence), but keeps pretending as if he were listening, just waiting that i stop speaking. But if i go straight to the bottom line, he just denies that what i say is true, so i ask him reasons, he is unable to give any, so i explain to him why im right and he stops listening and acts as if he were listening. Wtf

One of the biggest challenges an INTJ has is explaining why they have come to a conclusion. It's one of the most important things - to develop a means of expression. It is particularly difficult for younger INTJs to do this.

Accept the fact that he thinks differently than you do and that your way is no better - just different. Make it interactive so that you do not bore him. Ask him what he thinks. Tell him what you think. Get to the point quickly. If he disagrees, explain your reasons in a concise way. Let's say, you have 5 reasons. Tell him there are 5 and then go through a couple. Ask what he thinks. He will try and poke holes. You can go back and forth on this elaborating your point of view, listening to his and revising. You can acknowledge his points. He will want to complete all 5, so you should not have a problem redirecting to get back to the other ones. If he still disagrees, ask him to think about it. Go back several days later and ask him what he thinks. Good chance you may have influenced his thinking. Maybe he won't ever agree because you have different opinions or you are wrong though. At the end, he will decide on his opinion. That can always change with new information though. He will readily recognize that he is wrong provided there is enough of the right information or evidence.
 

CuriousFeeling

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Noticing aesthetic details and how it fits into the whole picture is where I tend to be detail oriented. When it comes to receiving instructions, I prefer a general guide to what needs to be done and how. If I get too much information piled at me all at once without ample time to digest it, I feel overwhelmed. I'm quite meticulous when doing things, but I'm not exactly the best at maintaining my focus on the present moment and noticing details in front of me.

I find it particularly overwhelming taking notes in class when I am bombarded with so many details that I can't keep up with the professor... I feel like I have to write everything down, and then my hands feel like they're cramping up, my handwriting becomes illegible because I'm stressed out about the details, and then I get frustrated and frantic that I'm missing out on important information.

But when it comes to explaining something, I tend to put in a great deal of information that I feel is relevant to explain a general concept.
 

FDG

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Its not Ni thats interested in details, its the Se of Ni user. And its more about fact vs made up. If you look at details, the details are facts. When you start to form an larger scale understanding of these facts/details, then its about made up big picture and possibilities. The fact/details are building blocks for made up big picture. This naturally is about S being the building block for N.

If you look at Ni dom, their Se is rather unconscious, meaning that they mostly(depending on the level of differentation of Se) see the details in external world that are used to build an big picture image inside and even sometimes failing to see the details that they use to form the Ni view.

For Ne users its the opposite, what is inside is seen as facts and these facts can be used to made up possibilities and big picture view on external world. Again the inferior is usually quite unconscious, so Ne doms might not be too conscious of the facts that are inside, nevertheless, those facts are projected onto the possibilities in external world.

Yes. Great post.
 

CuriousFeeling

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Its not Ni thats interested in details, its the Se of Ni user. And its more about fact vs made up. If you look at details, the details are facts. When you start to form an larger scale understanding of these facts/details, then its about made up big picture and possibilities. The fact/details are building blocks for made up big picture. This naturally is about S being the building block for N.

If you look at Ni dom, their Se is rather unconscious, meaning that they mostly(depending on the level of differentation of Se) see the details in external world that are used to build an big picture image inside and even sometimes failing to see the details that they use to form the Ni view.

Yep, this is true. Especially with complex theories... taking in what I observe and relating it to science, for instance. Or with listening to music and finding it as a symbolic expression of my inner world. I tend to feel as if the details I see in front of me collect into my mind and then get rewired into a concept map.
 

mujigay

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From xNxJs that I've observed, it's not detail orientation overall so much as noticing a single detail, zeroing in on it, and picking it to death, forming five billion different conclusions and paths and relationships from that little speck. Ask about anything outside that speck of attention, and they're likely to give you a blank stare.
 

uumlau

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They say that N's aren't interested in details. From what I've suspected, Ni seems to have a very keen interest in them, they bring all the details together to reach the one "true answer." No detail is unimportant- everything like goes into their reservoir of information. It seems like people who I suspect are Ni doms and auxs couldn't do what they do without some level of focus on the small things.

True or false? Elaborate.

It's totally true. It's one of the reasons INTJs can be typed by test as ISTJs. A theory without grounding in detail is useless.

The difference from other S-type detail orientedness is that Ni notices very different details.

For me, it's a bit of a perplexing combination and I don't know how much of it is Ni or something else. I can and often do want to pull in lots of information, including lots of details. At the end, it's about connecting those dots, focusing on the big picture and what's really important. A lot of time, I just don't want to be bothered with any of the details and just quickly decide. I can get annoyed and frustrated with too much detail - especially when someone is explaining something to me and I perceive they are irrelevant details. I want to get to the bottom line. On the other hand, I can be very perfectionistic and detail oriented when I'm creating or producing something. I can be quite anal and little mistakes, especially repeated ones, can bother the heck out of me.

See? Some details are really important. Others are superfluous. We totally miss the "superfluous" details.

We notice the "important" details because we have a very definite understanding of how something "works." If we see evidence that would confirm or deny that "working", prove or disprove that internal Ni model of the Se world, those details pop out almost magically. We pay very close attention to those details without even realizing we are doing so.
 

INTP

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One of the biggest challenges an INTJ has is explaining why they have come to a conclusion. It's one of the most important things - to develop a means of expression. It is particularly difficult for younger INTJs to do this.

Accept the fact that he thinks differently than you do and that your way is no better - just different. Make it interactive so that you do not bore him. Ask him what he thinks. Tell him what you think. Get to the point quickly. If he disagrees, explain your reasons in a concise way. Let's say, you have 5 reasons. Tell him there are 5 and then go through a couple. Ask what he thinks. He will try and poke holes. You can go back and forth on this elaborating your point of view, listening to his and revising. You can acknowledge his points. He will want to complete all 5, so you should not have a problem redirecting to get back to the other ones. If he still disagrees, ask him to think about it. Go back several days later and ask him what he thinks. Good chance you may have influenced his thinking. Maybe he won't ever agree because you have different opinions or you are wrong though. At the end, he will decide on his opinion. That can always change with new information though. He will readily recognize that he is wrong provided there is enough of the right information or evidence.

:yim_rolling_on_the_

Few days ago he was trying to tune his guitar the wrong way. He was trying to tune A string by holding it on the 5th fret and trying to get it match the E string. I told him that he needs to hold E string on fifth fret and explained why. Well he just said that he knows what he is doing. I picked up a tuner and tried to show him, that he wasnt going anywhere, he refused to look at the tuner and said that he knows what he is doing. I tried to show him the tuner several times and ended up just looking at the tuner and watchinh him fail. At times i just told him that he isnt going anywhere with his tuning, because he is holding the 5th fret on wrong string. Well after a while i got bored with this and went to another room to tune another guitar, so that i could show him that he is wrong. When i came back to him, he finally understood what i had been telling him all along..
 

Domino

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The bottom line, yes, absolutely, but through exacting methods.
 

highlander

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:yim_rolling_on_the_

Few days ago he was trying to tune his guitar the wrong way. He was trying to tune A string by holding it on the 5th fret and trying to get it match the E string. I told him that he needs to hold E string on fifth fret and explained why. Well he just said that he knows what he is doing. I picked up a tuner and tried to show him, that he wasnt going anywhere, he refused to look at the tuner and said that he knows what he is doing. I tried to show him the tuner several times and ended up just looking at the tuner and watchinh him fail. At times i just told him that he isnt going anywhere with his tuning, because he is holding the 5th fret on wrong string. Well after a while i got bored with this and went to another room to tune another guitar, so that i could show him that he is wrong. When i came back to him, he finally understood what i had been telling him all along..

Well, that was hardly worth an argument. Sometimes, it just pays to let people fail.
 

INTP

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Well, that was hardly worth an argument. Sometimes, it just pays to let people fail.

The point was to show how impossible what you suggested is, because even simple thing like this doesent work and only ends up him not taking info in..
 

highlander

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The point was to show how impossible what you suggested is, because even simple thing like this doesent work and only ends up him not taking info in..

Sure - I can see in that situation where it wouldn't work. People are different too. Not to go off on a tangent, but I have worked with a lot of INTPs over the years. All of them have been successful in influencing my thinking. In fact, I rely on and seek out their perspectives. They bring up points and options that I wouldn't consider. It doesn't happen much but I get annoyed when they make me feel like I'm engaging in sloppy thinking in front of others. Also, some of them (not all) seem to have a hard time making decisions, which can drive me a little nuts. The biggest thing is when they 1) critique of my ideas in front of others, 2) don't provide support for that critique when pressed for examples or facts to back it up and 3) don't offer a solution. It feels like they are just making potshots. That only happens once in a while though. I wonder if some of what you might be dealing with is your friend doing the same thing as you can do, which might be some sort of projection. This could be completely wrong though. Maybe your friend is not representative of INTJs as a whole based on some of the things you have said about him in your posts over time.
 

Z Buck McFate

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I think ‘detail’ is too generic a word to give a definitive answer. It’s important to establish what kind of detail you’re talking about. If you hold out an apple and ask someone to describe it: some people will give very literal and concrete details about that single apple; others might tell you the specific type of apple it is (e.g. Granny Smith) and which characteristics make it different from other types; still others might instead notice ‘details’ that have nothing to do with the question (e.g. possible motivations on the questioner’s behalf for asking in the first place). Every type is interested in details, it’s just a matter of which kind.

I’m really not sure how I’d specify which kind of detail Ni is most interested in. I think there is a tendency to zone in on a few 'details' from the external environment in order to examine/reflect on all the possible meanings of it. [edit:] In other words, we add several 'details' of our own- which we can focus on for a long time- when we make connections about things.
 

Tiltyred

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I think ‘detail’ is too generic a word to give a definitive answer. It’s important to establish what kind of detail you’re talking about. \

This made me laugh. Yes! We need to go into detail about exactly what kind of detail! That is INFJ thinking.
 
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