[MENTION=16456]theWurdsmith[/MENTION]
The Greenlight wiki is a great resource for understanding the various functions. They have a variety of explanations of Ne that you might check out
here.
Ne always ranks fairly highly on my function preferences, and I frequently typed ENTP when I was younger. I've always visualized Ne/Si in Ne-doms as something like a web. Si supplies the nodes (data) in the network, and Ne works on formulating the connections between these nodes.
ENPs that I know are fairly high bandwith--they collect large volumes of information--and use intuition to identify analogous constructs across the information that they have. So to an outside observer the connections they form may seem random, but it may be simply because that observer lacks the data to understand the parallel that's being formed.
The lateral movement across their info grid seems to be what really drives Ne/Si. They want to have as complete a picture of the "terrain" as possible, and find a great deal of joy in expanding their map through exploration and inquiry. It can be frustrating for other types dealing with Ne-doms because the mapping process is a project without any real edges to it, it's a process of collection that can potentially go on forever without conclusion or commitment. Everything leads to something else, which leads to another thing, without the necessary information of
all things to be able to definitely say anything is really, well,
anything. Everything is just a whirl of potentials in need of greater context.
The last observation I have of the ENP crowd is a strong bent towards perfectionism. While the Pe dominance can make them seem a bit all over the place, Ji seems to give them an inner rigidity that you have to pay attention to catch. The mapping process always seems to be with the end of finding The Ultimate, and they can be fairly uncompromising about settling for anything else. This quest for perfection couples with the need for maximum autonomy for movement across their grid to create a dynamic where they are constantly generating new possibilities while comparing old ones. I think this expand and review process creates the "pinging" effect that others in this thread have described. Ji also contributes to the "ping" effect because it causes them to observe the nuances of each data point, and want to maintain each one's integrity (as compared to JePi/PiJe which seeks optimization through more of a stripping and melding process). Ji's attention to these fine distinctions between points aids in Ne's development of novel parallels.
Anyways. That's my understanding of how ENPs function. As someone with a preference for Ni, I can say that what I appreciate the most about ENPs is that they're capable of showing you the side exit when you're too deep down the rabbit hole.
