• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[Ne] Ne? problem solving

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Extraverted iNtuition - Inferring relationships, noticing threads of meaning, and scanning for what could be. Extraverted iNtuiting involves seeing things "as if" with various possible ways of representing reality. Using this process, we can hold many different ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and meanings in our minds at once with the possibility that they are all true. This is like weaving themes and "threads" together. We don't know the weave until a thought thread appears or is drawn out in the interaction with a previous one. Thus there is often an emergent quality to using this process. A strategy or concept emerges based on the here-and-now interactions, not appearing as a whole beforehand. Extraverted iNtuiting involves realizing that there is always another view. An example is when you listen to one friend tell about an argument and understand perfectly and then listen to another friend tell a contradictory story and understand that view also. Then you wonder what the real story is because there are always so many different possible meanings.

Introverted Thinking - Analyzing, categorizing, and figuring out how something works. Introverted Thinking often involves finding just the right word to clearly express an idea concisely, crisply, and to the point. Using introverted Thinking is like having an internal sense of the essential qualities of something, noticing the fine distinctions that make it what it is and then naming it. It also involves an internal reasoning process of deriving subcategories of classes and sub-principles of general principles. These can then be used in problem solving, analysis, and refining of a product or an idea. This process is evidenced in behaviors like taking things or ideas apart to figure out how they work. The analysis involves looking at different sides of an issue and seeing where there is inconsistency. In so doing, there is a search for a "leverage point" that will fix problems with the least amount of effort or damage to the system.

What if the problem cannot be expressed crisply, cleanly, or fine distinctions are not possible? What is sub-catagorization is not possible?

Introverted Feeling - Evaluating importance and maintaining congruence. It is often hard to put words to the values used to make introverted Feeling judgments since they are often associated with images and feeling-tones more than words. As a cognitive process, it often serves as a filter for information that matches what is valued and wanted. We engage in the process of introverted Feeling when a value is compromised and we think, "sometimes, some things just have to be said." On the other hand, most of the time this process works "in private" and is seldom expressed directly. Actions often speak louder than words. This process helps us know when people are being fake or insincere or if they are basically good. It is like having an internal sense of the "essence" of a person or a project, and reading another person or action or project with fine distinctions among feeling-tones. When the other person's values and beliefs are congruent with our own, we are inclined to feel kinship with them and want to connect with them.

What if the thing in value is a logical problem with fuzzy boundaries that are difficult to catagorize cleanly? Could NeFi actually be better that Ne-Ti at these sorts of problems?
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
What if the thing in value is a logical problem with fuzzy boundaries that are difficult to catagorize cleanly? Could NeFi actually be better that Ne-Ti at these sorts of problems?

Neither is 'better' for any situation.

Both are different but one is not 'better' then the other. It is however wrong to try the other if you're not truely that.

If you are Ne-Ti then that is the best method for you, if you are Ne-Fi then that is the best method for you.
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Better as in a more correct solution to the problem at hand.


sorry fluffy I meant as in people. Are there certain types of problems an enfp will be better suited to solve than an entp?

The reason this is of interest to me is that I am superb at troubleshooting problems with scientific instrumentation. The entps should be better at me due to Ti, however it's almost like they are constrained by the boundaries of Ti, logic. They can't see past the connections?

However I cant always solve the problem-I can tell you what is not "right" about the problem-the "lumpy" part. Its like I relax my brain and it just pops out as being incorrect.

However this ties closely with comments thinkers sometimes have about feelers not being able to cleanly trace out the logical path behind decisions and that thus the answers are illogical? However this seems more like a Ti ability (requirement?). So perhaps just because I cannot cleanly delineate each step in the logical process, that doesnt mean the final answer is incorrect?
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I meant as in people as well. And I still say no.

An ENTP would solve the problem his/her way and an ENFP another way. Both should be considered equally as good from an objective point of view.

(This assumes that both the ENTP and ENFP have the same level of maturity and psychological health and education.)


Ofcourse people can direct their education to certain specialisation in which solutions can be found that others can not that are considerably better. But I do not believe this is type related at all.
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Well normally my answer is correct where thiers in wrong-thus the BETTER answer. Or eventually they get to the right answer it just seem to take forvever. So it is pretty objectivly based upon response time and accuracy. This true across all NTs, not just entps. Just trying to be reductionist in this thread.

However the TYPE of problem is what matters. These guys kick my ass in very clean crisp problems with no contest. I'm not bad but they are better.

Its the problems with fuzzier boundaries and many variables. I am better at solving those problems before an NT.

I know this seems simplistic but I think there may be wider implications here.
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Hmm. Give an example then of a problem. I generally don't have much of a problem with any problem. At least with no single problem that has come on my path so far.
 

Winds of Thor

New member
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
Messages
1,842
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
3w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Well normally my answer is correct where thiers in wrong-thus the BETTER answer. Or eventually they get to the right answer it just seem to take forvever. So it is pretty objectivly based upon response time and accuracy. This true across all NTs, not just entps. Just trying to be reductionist in this thread.

However the TYPE of problem is what matters. These guys kick my ass in very clean crisp problems with no contest. I'm not bad but they are better.

Its the problems with fuzzier boundaries and many variables. I am better at solving those problems before an NT.

I know this seems simplistic but I think there may be wider implications here.


Intelligence would be a factor, as well as how well one thinks through problems. ENTPs may not have as well-developed internal thinking and that may be one reason they seem to take 'forever'...You may be good at what you do and have done that type of problem solving for some time...this practice may give you the edge. In the very crisp, clean problems it may be that this is easy deductive logic for them, as I could imagine that would be a cinch being an (ENTP) and just knowing how I can do this. But I don't know the types of problem..whether it's a physical one or intellectual or what...so really can't say with 100% confidence either.
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
1) you are working with a customer. The instrument has a problem. based upon the problem, it could be five different technical issues plus the human element or not following directions, not reading the manual, a new user, not enough coffee leading to mixing up of reagents, or the ac in the room getting turned up too high by the janitor.

In my mind I just scan through the whole mess, assign unconcious probabilities, and reach for the "bump". Typically there will be one or two "bumps" that knot the problem up. I dont have to go down troubleshooting trees or ask the user lots of questions. It's like have crazy ass psychic troubleshooting powers.

That was the one thing my PhD advisor said-"you have an amzing ability to reach into the middle of a complex problem and fish out the right answer" he was an intp.

2) There is repeated bacterial contamination in a protein purification column. Working in a lab with twenty other people you have to identify who did it, how it happened, and how to prevent again. I can sort of "touch" each person in the group with my brain and very quickly estimate chance of them being the issue, vs the glassware claner, vs a problem with a reagent, vs a filet needing to be replaced.

3) solving a protein structure. The published lit says the protein should be in one confirmation. Yet data pointed otherwise for six other structures, and the mechanisms and enzymology wre not coorespondent. The data was mixed but did not support the lit. I could "feel" the bump but I failed here as I didnt have enough Ti to sort out the detailed reason why.

sorry this is the fuzzy type of problem I am thinking of at the moment.
 

BlueScreen

Fail 2.0
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
2,668
MBTI Type
YMCA
Intelligence would be a factor, as well as how well one thinks through problems. ENTPs may not have as well-developed internal thinking and that may be one reason they seem to take 'forever'...You may be good at what you do and have done that type of problem solving for some time...this practice may give you the edge. In the very crisp, clean problems it may be that this is easy deductive logic for them, as I could imagine that would be a cinch being an (ENTP) and just knowing how I can do this. But I don't know the types of problem..whether it's a physical one or intellectual or what...so really can't say with 100% confidence either.

As an ENFP I`ve found the biggest limitation is whether I can visualise the system. If I can`t, I need to define the problem until I can. Ti types more readily take a structured approach in these situations, and go ground up. When in the zone ENFP approach is insanely fast. When stuck, can stare at roof for ages trying to find a thread.
 

thisGuy

New member
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
Messages
1,187
MBTI Type
entp
1) you are working with a customer. The instrument has a problem. based upon the problem, it could be five different technical issues plus the human element or not following directions, not reading the manual, a new user, not enough coffee leading to mixing up of reagents, or the ac in the room getting turned up too high by the janitor.

In my mind I just scan through the whole mess, assign unconcious probabilities, and reach for the "bump". Typically there will be one or two "bumps" that knot the problem up. I dont have to go down troubleshooting trees or ask the user lots of questions. It's like have crazy ass psychic troubleshooting powers.

That was the one thing my PhD advisor said-"you have an amzing ability to reach into the middle of a complex problem and fish out the right answer" he was an intp.

2) There is repeated bacterial contamination in a protein purification column. Working in a lab with twenty other people you have to identify who did it, how it happened, and how to prevent again. I can sort of "touch" each person in the group with my brain and very quickly estimate chance of them being the issue, vs the glassware claner, vs a problem with a reagent, vs a filet needing to be replaced.

3) solving a protein structure. The published lit says the protein should be in one confirmation. Yet data pointed otherwise for six other structures, and the mechanisms and enzymology wre not coorespondent. The data was mixed but did not support the lit. I could "feel" the bump but I failed here as I didnt have enough Ti to sort out the detailed reason why.

sorry this is the fuzzy type of problem I am thinking of at the moment.



thats interesting...so first two problems, the ones with an added human element are more readily solved by you and your ENTP counterparts while the very last problem is handled by ENTPs in a much better way

i think thats where 'honing' your intuition comes in...if thats even possible. you understand people more readily and so are better at solving those problems. ENTPs would come to that possibility but depending on their past experience, might disregard it...that would only happen once or twice though. once they caught on, they would be able to nitpick through it very easily....kinda like House when hes dealing with his staff and patients
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
thats interesting...so first two problems, the ones with an added human element are more readily solved by you and your ENTP counterparts while the very last problem is handled by ENTPs in a much better way

i think thats where 'honing' your intuition comes in...if thats even possible. you understand people more readily and so are better at solving those problems. ENTPs would come to that possibility but depending on their past experience, might disregard it...that would only happen once or twice though. once they caught on, they would be able to nitpick through it very easily....kinda like House when hes dealing with his staff and patients

But i think the trick is that each time a problem presents with the human contamination, it varies. It is never the exact same problem so it is always muddy and fuzzy. So the logical connections are never the same, and i always do better on them.

Another example:

can I run two different software packages on the same instrument with the same pc, on different assays without violating fda guidelines for a given assay in different labs?

This should be a really straightforward answer but there a whole bunch of complicating issues that muddy the waters and it is highly dependent upon who is interpreting what information. So I do better than an NT at sorting through the mess, identifying the pivitol issues, then finding the best sources/key individuals to get answers from to find a final solution
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Hmm, I think your concern is with the difference between Ti and Te, and not NF and NT?

As a Ti myself, I deal with problems similarly to you. I can easily see patterns and the big picture. Whilest a Te person is more focused and might need a bit more time to grasp the entirety of the problem.

That said, Te has very strong positives as well in turn that us Ti people might have trouble with.
 

EcK

The Memes Justify the End
Joined
Nov 21, 2008
Messages
7,708
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
738
1) you are working with a customer. The instrument has a problem. based upon the problem, it could be five different technical issues plus the human element or not following directions, not reading the manual, a new user, not enough coffee leading to mixing up of reagents, or the ac in the room getting turned up too high by the janitor.

In my mind I just scan through the whole mess, assign unconcious probabilities, and reach for the "bump". Typically there will be one or two "bumps" that knot the problem up. I dont have to go down troubleshooting trees or ask the user lots of questions. It's like have crazy ass psychic troubleshooting powers.

That was the one thing my PhD advisor said-"you have an amzing ability to reach into the middle of a complex problem and fish out the right answer" he was an intp.

2) There is repeated bacterial contamination in a protein purification column. Working in a lab with twenty other people you have to identify who did it, how it happened, and how to prevent again. I can sort of "touch" each person in the group with my brain and very quickly estimate chance of them being the issue, vs the glassware claner, vs a problem with a reagent, vs a filet needing to be replaced.

3) solving a protein structure. The published lit says the protein should be in one confirmation. Yet data pointed otherwise for six other structures, and the mechanisms and enzymology wre not coorespondent. The data was mixed but did not support the lit. I could "feel" the bump but I failed here as I didnt have enough Ti to sort out the detailed reason why.

sorry this is the fuzzy type of problem I am thinking of at the moment.
Thanks for describing Ne to us. I pretty much live my life this way.

ps: yeah Ne gives me informations about structures in that sensation-like way too, in my case it's a kinetic\geometric thing.

What's ur point ?

It's all about the right brain cortex vs left brain cortex dychotomy and how the bandwidth limit of the corpus collussum + genes 've built up the structure for a better response time vs accuracy efficiency.

Neurons activations levels and the whole neural network thingie going on in the brain make a quasi behavioristic (reinforcement) building up of problem solving kind of natural.
 

EcK

The Memes Justify the End
Joined
Nov 21, 2008
Messages
7,708
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
738
if i needed to be clearer I mean the left brain's objetive analysis (and by that i do mean the creation of mental objects) vs and with the right brain's holistic approach.
 

thisGuy

New member
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
Messages
1,187
MBTI Type
entp
But i think the trick is that each time a problem presents with the human contamination, it varies. It is never the exact same problem so it is always muddy and fuzzy. So the logical connections are never the same, and i always do better on them.

Another example:

well if life were that linear, we'd no better than computers

thats where the infinite number of possibilities come in
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Thanks for describing Ne to us. I pretty much live my life this way.

ps: yeah Ne gives me informations about structures in that sensation-like way too, in my case it's a kinetic\geometric thing.

What's ur point ?

It's all about the right brain cortex vs left brain cortex dychotomy and how the bandwidth limit of the corpus collussum + genes 've built up the structure for a better response time vs accuracy efficiency.

Neurons activations levels and the whole neural network thingie going on in the brain make a quasi behavioristic (reinforcement) building up of problem solving kind of natural.

Do you have some refs I can read for all the brain stuff maybe? sounds interesting and I am not quite following you but would be glad to go read up. Ooo I am glad I am not the only sensationy like person. It's so wierd-odd-fun.

The point is as an enfp I can do a better job solving these fuzzy problems than an NT. I can do it faster and get to a correct answer more often. I think Ti may actually be a limitation not an asset in a problem with fuzzy, people, human boundaries that vary situationally. I think Fi may be an asset here.

In the big picture, extending the question up another level, I question the assertion that I have seen made in other threads that a solution has to be "logical" in that you have to be able to explain each step of rational analysis for it to be correct. Sometimes I just "feel" a certain solution is correct. I cant delineate certain cognitive steps from A to B, but that does not mean the answer is incorrect, as often it may be more correct, .


EDIT: However this does not apply to clean, crisp problems, only muddy screwed up people contaminated problems.

This troubleshooting is just a particular, practical aspect of the more global question. I think once I get this part straightened out the argumane tcan be reasserted in the larger frame.
 

thisGuy

New member
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
Messages
1,187
MBTI Type
entp
I think Ti may actually be a limitation not an asset in a problem with fuzzy, people, human boundaries that vary situationally.


ive often thought that...but then i just let go and stop directing my thoughts. let whatever will, come to my head...and then i feel like myself again



if that made sense to anyone at all, you deserve a beer. one pint, no more; you ARE at work you slacker
 

EcK

The Memes Justify the End
Joined
Nov 21, 2008
Messages
7,708
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
738
Do you have some refs I can read for all the brain stuff maybe? sounds interesting and I am not quite following you but would be glad to go read up. Ooo I am glad I am not the only sensationy like person. It's so wierd-odd-fun.


I think I have just the book for ya.
It's short and good, one of my favorite authors.

The Language of Change by Paul Watzlawick

My favorite anthropologist by far. Well in fact he's more of a psychiatrist but he has a very social approach to his works, which makes sense in social animals with 2 brains and metacognition (last two are all basically 'social' processes in their internal structure)

I also have my own notes on the topic, 'm trying to write things down. (and then forgot I ever wrote xx pages on whatever topic i was thinking about)
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
ive often thought that...but then i just let go and stop directing my thoughts. let whatever will, come to my head...and then i feel like myself again

if that made sense to anyone at all, you deserve a beer. one pint, no more; you ARE at work you slacker

THAT'S when the magic happens!!!!!! I totally get that. stuff just bubbles up. I have learned when I dont know and answer, to just stop, feel the problem with my brain-squishies and let my brain bubble, and all types of crap pops up!! Thats when I find the bumps.

sorry no beer, I have scientifically determined through repeated, long term studies that a pint of gunniess turns me into a total lush. No lushiness in the workplace.
 

professor goodstain

New member
Joined
Feb 14, 2009
Messages
1,785
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
7~7
i enter this qwagmire every day since becoming more educated on function. Imo. Ne will put some kind of temporary label/definition on a symbol/idea/noun. These temporary labels/definitions literaly always remain temporary even when they are confirmed solid. Imagine Ne to be its own language. The Ne language will have symbols/nouns that will constantly evolve to have different meanings to those symbols, yet those meanings are still similar. Even verbs employed with which to manipulate the symbols use will evolve to better fit that overall meaning. Think of Ne as greatly inflective. The symbols within it are understood to a degree just by nature alone due to every possible meaning being somewhat similar no matter how the past or future tweeks it. Where Ne tries to refine the meaning of an idea or symbol is found within connecting and overlapping though morphology and a false syntax (false syntax being from any angle, like solving a maze by starting at the finnish even if it's an assumed finnishing point). Not custom standards and a concluded organization. This morphology found in the Ne language can also be altered (faked) to try to fit external dialects. And even altered (faked) within itself to fit a newly generated temporary change within its own morphology that was pressured by external forces to remain (stable<if you will) to conform to an environment of status quo habit. But we all know that status quo always changes and our language has to keep exploring to stay ahead of these changes due to what we are sure of from overlapping the past, present, and future. We're always finding our path through the maze by assuming where the finnish is. Problem is, that Known finnish point keeps changing. Probably because it's not known where the finnish is because the stasus quo only allows us to experience the maze from ground level. It's nice to have the ability to see it from the top to some extent though:)
 
Top