What is a real Ni dom like?

[Society]

I had my standard.That's all.

missing the point,

if you don't trust people's typing ability to be applicable to your standards, then how can you trust that people type the NJs they think they know according to your standards, so everything they will tell you about NJs to have any more value than the self-typed NJs who don't qualify as NJs by your standards? either way you depend entirely on other people's typing ability.

No poll link,no evidence...

meh, it's somewhere around, keep on bringing it up and at some point one of the older members who remember all the thread names (because they were there) will link it.

 

[uumlau]

Ni is a concept and Ni doms are conceptual people. Whether they have any other mode of existence is quite debatable. So the only reasonable way to answer the thread question is to state what the theory says about Ni doms.

We can talk about what people who think themselves Ni doms are like, but that is really just talking about what people who think themselves Ni doms are like. You know, the difference between a circle and a donut...

This is like saying that the only "reasonable" answer to the question of "What is a real circle like?" is the the technical, mathematical definition of a circle. That would appear to me to be the opposite of what the question is asking. The question implies at least some knowledge of the "theory" of a circle, and what is being asked is how do circles manifest in the real world.

The technical definition of a circle never manifests in the real world: the "set of all points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point" is inherently abstract.

Thus answering the question by saying "It's like a donut," is a perfectly reasonable answer to the question. "It's like a wheel," or "it's like the moon," and any other number of answers is also perfectly reasonable. After enough different answers, one can build a better understanding of the abstract definition from the specific examples. The things that are different aren't a part of being a circle (the moon is not a donut), but that which is held in common is part of being a circle.

 

[Nicodemus]

This is like saying that the only "reasonable" answer to the question of "What is a real circle like?" is the the technical, mathematical definition of a circle. That would appear to me to be the opposite of what the question is asking. The question implies at least some knowledge of the "theory" of a circle, and what is being asked is how do circles manifest in the real world.

The technical definition of a circle never manifests in the real world: the "set of all points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point" is inherently abstract.

Thus answering the question by saying "It's like a donut," is a perfectly reasonable answer to the question. "It's like a wheel," or "it's like the moon," and any other number of answers is also perfectly reasonable. After enough different answers, one can build a better understanding of the abstract definition from the specific examples. The things that are different aren't a part of being a circle (the moon is not a donut), but that which is held in common is part of being a circle.

It is as if you are deliberately missing the point.

I have no way of knowing whether there is any circleness in the donuts here presented. Neither, I take it, do you. What is a real enlightened being like? I am sure there are some who think they are enlightened or thought of by other as such. Will lining them up and see what they have in common answer the question? I think it will not. I think the concept of enlightenment is far too woolly for that.

So, if someone asks, my awareness of the problem and the questioner's apparent lack thereof leads me to refer them to a definition of enlightenment rather than to my personal gallery of allegedly wise people.

 

[Mal12345]

I think the number of Ni dom seems much lower than claimed INXJ I met.

It depends on how well they have adjusted to society, versus trying to adjust society to themselves.

 

[uumlau]

It is as if you are deliberately missing the point.

It's called "disagreement."

<Tongue in cheek>
You Ni types always seem to think that if only the other person truly understood what you said, there would be no room for disagreement, because the truth would be obvious to you both!
</Tongue in cheek>

I have no way of knowing whether there is any circleness in the donuts here presented. Neither, I take it, do you. What is a real enlightened being like? I am sure there are some who think they are enlightened or thought of by other as such. Will lining them up and see what they have in common answer the question? I think it will not. I think the concept of enlightenment is far too woolly for that.

So, if someone asks, my awareness of the problem and the questioner's apparent lack thereof leads me to refer them to a definition of enlightenment rather than to my personal gallery of allegedly wise people.

So your problem is that the concept of "Ni" is far too wooly to demonstrate by example? I disagree. "Enlightenment," however, is, if only because there's a significant value judgment involved.

Also keep in mind that Ni is an attempt to describe something Jung saw, but for which he had no vocabulary to describe explicitly. In the case of a circle, we have an entire framework of vocabulary. In the case of enlightenment, we have perhaps too much contradictory vocabulary.

Because the concept of Ni is originally based on observation, the purpose of the OP is to determine what it was, exactly, that Jung was observing. We cannot rely upon Jung's words alone. It would have been helpful if he had videos of his sessions, and when he saw Ni, he could say, "There, see that? That's Ni," the same way one might say, "See this? This is an apple." The next best thing is to do that for ourselves. Of course, the results of such discussion aren't definitive, and that's kind of the point: it's not to refine the definition, but to collect observations with the aim of discerning what it is we're observing. If the definition were enough, we'd just point at the definition and say, "Next question." The definition isn't enough, which is why the question is apropos.

Even in the case of an apple, there are very many varieties of apple that don't look or taste exactly the same, but if you can show them to someone else and let them see and taste each variety, we can agree based upon mutual observations that they're all this abstract concept of "apple." The primary difference between "apple" and "Ni" is that "apple" is a representation of a concrete object that we can directly sense, while Ni is more of a behavior, a phenomenon, like electrical charge ... invisible, but definitely there.

It also helps to note that while perhaps more easily understood than Ni, the definitions of the other functions are just as difficult to pin down. We can explain what they "look like" (in terms of personality), but because the instantiation of a function is what it "thinks like", we can't explicitly define it in a concrete way, because the topic of how we think is so very subjective.

 

[Mal12345]

It's called "disagreement."

<Tongue in cheek>
You Ni types always seem to think that if only the other person truly understood what you said, there would be no room for disagreement, because the truth would be obvious to you both!
</Tongue in cheek>

I don't see anything tongue in cheek about that statement.

 

[Nicodemus]

It's called "disagreement."

It looked different.

You Ni types always seem to think that if only the other person truly understood what you said, there would be no room for disagreement, because the truth would be obvious to you both!

That is probably true for all types of people.

So your problem is that the concept of "Ni" is far too wooly to demonstrate by example?

Not only that; I think it is too woolly to be used for anything but metaphors.

Also keep in mind that Ni is an attempt to describe something Jung saw, but for which he had no vocabulary to describe explicitly.

Not really. He did not see Ni or that of which Ni is an attempted description. He saw people's behavior and therein believed to see certain trends and tendencies, which he then attempted to explain by conceiving of Ni.

[...] the purpose of the OP is to determine what it was, exactly, that Jung was observing.

I wonder if it is. To me, it seems to be yet another attempt to figure out what really is the core feature that makes one an Ni dom. Hence my initial post.

We cannot rely upon Jung's words alone. It would have been helpful if he had videos of his sessions, and when he saw Ni, he could say, "There, see that? That's Ni," the same way one might say, "See this? This is an apple."

Given that only Jung knows what it was that Jung was observing, I think we can rely only upon his words.

The next best thing is to do that for ourselves. Of course, the results of such discussion aren't definitive, and that's kind of the point: it's not to refine the definition, but to collect observations with the aim of discerning what it is we're observing. If the definition were enough, we'd just point at the definition and say, "Next question." The definition isn't enough, which is why the question is apropos.

That is what I said: We can talk about what people who think themselves Ni doms are like.

Even in the case of an apple, there are very many varieties of apple that don't look or taste exactly the same, but if you can show them to someone else and let them see and taste each variety, we can agree based upon mutual observations that they're all this abstract concept of "apple." The primary difference between "apple" and "Ni" is that "apple" is a representation of a concrete object that we can directly sense, while Ni is more of a behavior, a phenomenon, like electrical charge ... invisible, but definitely there.

How do you know it is definitely there? Jung's vocabulary is not apt to describe explicitly what Ni is; we cannot rely on Jung's words; we do not know exactly what Jung observed that led him to invent functions.

You are trying to blow empirical sense into these concepts to keep them alive. Fine. I would rather get rid of all the clutter and mysticism, of the old, greasy scaffold.

 

[unnamed]

Ni is a concept and Ni doms are conceptual people. Whether they have any other mode of existence is quite debatable. So the only reasonable way to answer the thread question is to state what the theory says about Ni doms.

We can talk about what people who think themselves Ni doms are like, but that is really just talking about what people who think themselves Ni doms are like. You know, the difference between a circle and a donut...

Ontology...Any INFJs here?

 

[Nicodemus]

Ontology...

Yes. But only for the record. You can pass over the doubts and keep on swimming; just watch out for cascadeco, bologna and, as of recently, Ivy. They might carry stones.

Any INFJs here?

There are, but in the backroom, whispering among themselves about the moral implications of nuclear war. One of them laughed.