• 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.

[Se] Se in the eyes of Si

olias

New member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INTJ
This description is misleading and almost entirely incorrect.

Si is not really physical. I would never say that Si means being in tune with your body. Si is only "physical" in the sense that it is based on sensory memory, and not on intuition and connecting dots (the dot-connecting is Ne). Sometimes it is like a gut feeling, but it's a gut feeling based on prior experience -- you may not remember that experience right away, but that precedent is constantly being referenced. The experience could have happened to someone else, in which case the experience is only sensory because you heard (with your ears) or read (with your eyes) someone discussing it.

Si is like being chained to an encyclopedia, or a filing cabinet full of documents. Before you can act on anything, or come to any conclusions, you have to reference those documents. All of your internal definitions are based on those documents. If one of them is rendered invalid, you have to put a replacement document into the same slot. Every single event that has ever happened to you, that you've ever read about, that ever registered with you in passing, is present in those documents -- and you may not even realize that you're referencing them, when you're referencing them. Only sometimes will an Si-user consciously think "What did others do in this situation, that I can learn from?" The rest of the time, it may, as you said, be a "gut feeling" -- thinking "that's unusual", because you've never seen anything done like that before, but not consciously going through every contrasting experience before thinking that.

The hammer is Te or Fe, not Si. Si is not about action. Si is about collecting and referencing data. Your "bull in a china shop" metaphor is much more about extroverted functions being backed by Si, than it is about Si itself.

Here's my favorite explanation of Si (in contrast with Ni):

As in the other thread, great clarifications. Thanks! So, following on from your thoughts . . .

One might expect people with strong Si to be much more interested in knowing things for the sake of knowing it, but I find it's the introverted intuitive types who seem to be most interested in in an idea or a fact simply for the pleasure it brings. How would you describe that process of taking in and cataloging all that data? Is it largely automatic and unconscious? If it's conscious, is it completely neutral, mechanical?

I don't know if I'm quite ready to acquit Si for it's role in the ESTJ's force of will just yet though ;-) You are correct that it's more precise to point out that the action part of that archetype is Te; Si is only responsible for the warehousing. I have had conversations with ESTJ's about painful past experiences, however, and I was struck by how nakedly painful it was to revisit those memories. The familiarity, I think, is key. I can see how a determined Te being multiplied by the visceral immediacy of Si would give the ESTJ more spit and vinegar than the average person.

Mind you, I'm also relying a bit on some logical leaps, perhaps. I find it really pretty easy to forgive past hurts, and I don't spend really any time dwelling on the past. 8th position Si has got to be good for something. lol

Have you done much with shadow functions and projection? I know how an ESTJ's 7th function Ni came across to me, a Ni dom. I'd be curious to hear from you (or any other ESTJ) what 8th position Si provokes in you as a reaction.
 

KellBell

New member
Joined
Jul 17, 2014
Messages
17
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
3w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I'll take you all one step further . . . zen is the result of a well balanced, individuated, smoothly functioning stack. Doesn't matter what the type happens to be. Zen is about being balanced, not being impassive or stoic, or even particularly meditative.

Si, I think, is easy. Think of Si as really, really, REALLY strongly felt hunches or gut feelings about things (as dom or aux). It's a huge capacity to remember things with a level of detail you and I cannot imagine. It's loyalty, integrity, and a very solid inner moral compass. Si is being so in tune with how your body feels that you know something's wrong long before any symptoms start showing overtly. Si is also stubborness, closed mindedness, bigoted attitudes, jumping to conclusions, and generally acting like a bull in a china shop ALL THE TIME. Si is having nothing but a hammer and treating the whole world like a nail, and still thinking you're right for doing it.

Demonic Si (which you and I have) . . . I'm not sure. I know when I feel very hurt or betrayed, I have a habit I have to fight against. I find myself constantly nursing fantasies of revenge and retribution against whoever it is I felt betrayed me. They are convincing, they are nasty, they are graphic, and I don't feel good about it. Si allows a person to obsess over past wounds, and to experience the hurt of that past wound like it had just happened mere seconds ago. In the 8th function, combined with 7th function Fi, it makes the INTJ absolutely certain that they're not just resentful and vengeful, but justified in feeling that way as well as being on the side of light and goodness. Maybe even that everyone will cheer if I took that revenge I've been day dreaming about.

For an INFJ, 7th Te/8th Si is the viseral, raw, intense, bodily experience of negative memories coupled with the belief that if you really wanted to, you could totally ruin that person. And by god, you're actually going to do it this time. So you take your tertiary Ti, go charging into some public space, full of self righteous vigor, and proceed to absolutely make a fool of yourself. (Just a guess).

Te, as my trickster function, gets me into trouble a lot by leading me astray, so let's clean my bedroom and not do my homework. Te problems, grrr. I never would allow myself to go charging into a public place and make a fool of myself unless I believed I was doing the right thing, meaning if someone had to hear something before they left I would disregard onlookers at the airport for example. I have had my moments of being crazy but I would attribute that to the fact that I'm an enneagram type 3, vengeance is a bit of a downfall of ours. However even with that being true, my Ni/Fe abilities usually lead me to be very fair. Think of the song Better than Revenge by Taylor Swift, she's an enneagram type 3w4 sx/sp INFJ just like me.

The thing that I am most startled by is your description of the Si demon, I can completely relate to that, the horrible and all to real flashbacks that seem to wash over me and seize my emotions. Interesting that there is so much truth to that, but yes, I find myself absolutely haunted by things that I would be better off forgetting and instead am gripped by the memory constantly and relive the pain like it's new. It is a very gloomy source of frustration and it is not appreciated one bit. Sometimes I am able to relive things I miss rather than things I hate but that's a rather bittersweet ability.
 

tinker683

Whackus Bonkus
Joined
Nov 8, 2009
Messages
2,882
MBTI Type
ISFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I do not, no.

Most of the time I just imagine it as kind of like Si but living in the moment instead of the past. But I imagine that's all wrong so......no.
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
As in the other thread, great clarifications. Thanks! So, following on from your thoughts . . .

One might expect people with strong Si to be much more interested in knowing things for the sake of knowing it, but I find it's the introverted intuitive types who seem to be most interested in in an idea or a fact simply for the pleasure it brings. How would you describe that process of taking in and cataloging all that data? Is it largely automatic and unconscious? If it's conscious, is it completely neutral, mechanical?
Not sure how it's experienced for Si-doms, but for me it's usually unconscious. I don't have to work at absorbing data the way I do -- it just happens.

I asked my supervisor, at my previous job, how she had learned to teach me. (She was talking to the staff about how she tried to adapt her teaching style to each of us individually.) She told me that once I had seen someone do something, and had done it myself, I could be relied upon to keep doing it correctly. Relating this to your later question about how Si-users see people with poor Si, I can get frustrated that they can repeat something so many times and somehow STILL not know how to do it. I end up at a loss as to how to help them, because it seems so basic to me.

I don't know if I'm quite ready to acquit Si for it's role in the ESTJ's force of will just yet though ;-) You are correct that it's more precise to point out that the action part of that archetype is Te; Si is only responsible for the warehousing. I have had conversations with ESTJ's about painful past experiences, however, and I was struck by how nakedly painful it was to revisit those memories. The familiarity, I think, is key. I can see how a determined Te being multiplied by the visceral immediacy of Si would give the ESTJ more spit and vinegar than the average person.
I posted about this elsewhere on the forum, a while ago:

EJCC said:
My theory is that it's because STJs often find themselves more invested in the details of things than NTJs do. I've seen the Ni vs. Si difference with regard to those two sets of types as a matter of strategy vs. tactics. STJs, considering their natural tactical abilities, find themselves much more involved in details, on the ground level. NTJs, on the other hand, handle the general strategy, without needing to get quite so immersed in the entire enterprise. Both STJs and NTJs are frustrated by things being done wrong, and may be offended by things being done wrong, but when STJs are so much more invested in the details, they naturally see a lot more that's wrong with everything on a daily basis, and are required, in a sense, to invest themselves in it -- with that investment being, among other things, an emotional one. Also, if ESTJs have more of a reputation for this sort of hair-trigger offendedness than their introverted cousins, it's because being Te-dominant makes them more likely to barge into things and try to fix them when they're broken -- meaning, even more situations come up on a regular basis that would make them invested in issues, emotionally tied to their inevitable success or failure, etc.

So it's not that Si makes ESTJs a bull in a china shop, although it can help with some of them. What it really does, is give us more to focus on, and therefore more to act on.

(I was tempted to say "more to be pissed off about" -- but that's more ESTJs who are 8 or 1. For ESTJ 6 it would probably be "more to be concerned with".)

Mind you, I'm also relying a bit on some logical leaps, perhaps. I find it really pretty easy to forgive past hurts, and I don't spend really any time dwelling on the past. 8th position Si has got to be good for something. lol
:laugh: Yeah, I can be pretty unforgiving. It's tough, because I don't WANT to be that way. But Si is a big part of it. People prove to me repeatedly that they aren't to be trusted -- so why would I give them another chance? I only end up "forgiving" them if there's evidence that they aren't the same person that they used to be.
 

SD45T-2

Senior Jr.
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
4,229
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w2
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
This description is misleading and almost entirely incorrect.

Si is not really physical. I would never say that Si means being in tune with your body. Si is only "physical" in the sense that it is based on sensory memory, and not on intuition and connecting dots (the dot-connecting is Ne). Sometimes it is like a gut feeling, but it's a gut feeling based on prior experience -- you may not remember that experience right away, but that precedent is constantly being referenced. The experience could have happened to someone else, in which case the experience is only sensory because you heard (with your ears) or read (with your eyes) someone discussing it.
I occasionally have deja vu-ish experiences. And they drive me nuts because I can't think of what is specifically that I'm being reminded of.

Si is like being chained to an encyclopedia, or a filing cabinet full of documents. Before you can act on anything, or come to any conclusions, you have to reference those documents. All of your internal definitions are based on those documents. If one of them is rendered invalid, you have to put a replacement document into the same slot. Every single event that has ever happened to you, that you've ever read about, that ever registered with you in passing, is present in those documents -- and you may not even realize that you're referencing them, when you're referencing them. Only sometimes will an Si-user consciously think "What did others do in this situation, that I can learn from?" The rest of the time, it may, as you said, be a "gut feeling" -- thinking "that's unusual", because you've never seen anything done like that before, but not consciously going through every contrasting experience before thinking that.
I would just like to clarify that there are a lot of things that don't get filed because we're either not paying attention to them due to being preoccupied with something else or they don't strike us as relevant at the time so they don't stick.

As in the other thread, great clarifications. Thanks! So, following on from your thoughts . . .

One might expect people with strong Si to be much more interested in knowing things for the sake of knowing it, but I find it's the introverted intuitive types who seem to be most interested in in an idea or a fact simply for the pleasure it brings. How would you describe that process of taking in and cataloging all that data? Is it largely automatic and unconscious? If it's conscious, is it completely neutral, mechanical?
A lot of it just sort of happens, although there are certain things that we have to deliberately work on.

X-Men First Class had anachronisms that drove me nuts. The Soviets did not even start building the Kirov class until 10+ years later. And the USN did not have any Iowa class battleships in service then either. They were all mothballed after the Korean War, and the New Jersey wasn't brought back until '68 to provide fire support in Vietnam. The the USN also didn't have M16s. Pretty much nobody did. Even the M14 would have been pretty new at the time and they probably would have still been using a lot of Garands and M1 Carbines. This is something that just comes naturally for me. :D
 

olias

New member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INTJ
Relating this to your later question about how Si-users see people with poor Si, I can get frustrated that they can repeat something so many times and somehow STILL not know how to do it. I end up at a loss as to how to help them, because it seems so basic to me.

OH. MY. GOD. I get this ALL the time from my ESTJ girlfriend. Between her aux Si and my 8th position Si, it takes me a lot of practice and re-explaining and reminding from her before something she tells me "sinks in". She wants to have the conversation once, and then she expects me to have it mastered.

I am so bringing her over here right now to read your description. ;-)

Speaking of type dynamics, can you speak to your Trickster Ni? What does that look like, in practicality? For me, with 7th position Fe, it's a total social tone deafness, an ability to to have no idea how I'm coming across to others. I am not having much luck trying to imagine trickster Ni though.

I've found my ESTJ girlfriend *completely* aggravated when she catches me analyzing and generally being dom Ni. I've learned now that when she asks me what I'm thinking, and I'm being dom Ni, I just look at her and tell her I'm glad to talk about it, but she probably won't like the answer.

Honestly, the more I look at the INTJ/ESTJ interaction, I don't see why it would ever work. But it does, for us. It's not without issues, but it works. In the end I think it comes down to the fact that we both are working towards the same goals, we just take opposite paths to get there. I read somewhere that ESTJ/INTJ is a great pair, as long as they don't talk to each other *lol*
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
OH. MY. GOD. I get this ALL the time from my ESTJ girlfriend. Between her aux Si and my 8th position Si, it takes me a lot of practice and re-explaining and reminding from her before something she tells me "sinks in". She wants to have the conversation once, and then she expects me to have it mastered.

I am so bringing her over here right now to read your description. ;-)
:laugh: Awesome. Let me know what she says!

Speaking of type dynamics, can you speak to your Trickster Ni? What does that look like, in practicality? For me, with 7th position Fe, it's a total social tone deafness, an ability to to have no idea how I'm coming across to others. I am not having much luck trying to imagine trickster Ni though.
It pretty much means I'm awful at seeing potential long-term consequences of things. My foresight is not good at all. The only time I'm any good at predicting anything, it's with Si, not Ni. Deciding a most likely scenario based on precedent.

I've found my ESTJ girlfriend *completely* aggravated when she catches me analyzing and generally being dom Ni. I've learned now that when she asks me what I'm thinking, and I'm being dom Ni, I just look at her and tell her I'm glad to talk about it, but she probably won't like the answer.
I'm sure it doesn't help that Ni stuff is notoriously hard to put into words, and that a lot of it seems very basic to you as well.

Honestly, the more I look at the INTJ/ESTJ interaction, I don't see why it would ever work. But it does, for us. It's not without issues, but it works. In the end I think it comes down to the fact that we both are working towards the same goals, we just take opposite paths to get there. I read somewhere that ESTJ/INTJ is a great pair, as long as they don't talk to each other *lol*
As long as both parties are committed to understanding where the other is coming from, ready to make personal sacrifices for the other, and willing to be emotionally open with each other, I could see the INTJ/ESTJ pairing working out just fine. :)
 

olias

New member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INTJ
I'm sure it doesn't help that Ni stuff is notoriously hard to put into words, and that a lot of it seems very basic to you as well.

It's hard to put into words, absolutely.
INTJ's aren't great at expressing themselves on the fly (6th position Ti?)
INTJ's can't predict for shit how their words are going to be received (7th Fe)
ESTJ doesn't really trust anything Ni on top of it all (7th Ni)

Makes for a fun conversation when I see something she's doing that's CLEARLY not productive, but I end up feeling powerless to do anything about it. Which aggravates the hell out of aux Te.

Just out of curiosity, since I've totally hijacked the thread by now. It's my understanding that speaking about any one function "doing" anything is not really correct. It's the interaction between two functions that produces affects. Looking at ESTJ's 7/8 combo of NiFe, do you have any insights? I read that to be something along the lines of consistently misinterpreting the intentions or motivations of other people. Similarly, the 5/6 dynamic (TiSe) I interpret to being critical of others and self based on surface qualities.
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Just out of curiosity, since I've totally hijacked the thread by now. It's my understanding that speaking about any one function "doing" anything is not really correct. It's the interaction between two functions that produces affects. Looking at ESTJ's 7/8 combo of NiFe, do you have any insights? I read that to be something along the lines of consistently misinterpreting the intentions or motivations of other people. Similarly, the 5/6 dynamic (TiSe) I interpret to being critical of others and self based on surface qualities.
Yeah, something like that. We can get "bad vibes" about things that are usually off-base. Yet another reason not to trust Ni at first -- because we associate Ni "bad vibes" with paranoia. We don't see it as ever being reliable, even though it is for Ni-doms.

I guess it would link to Fe in the sense that ESTJs, like INTJs, are not good at predicting how people will react to them. So combine that with Ni and you end up with a fear of potentially offending people down the road. ESPECIALLY if the ESTJ has had experience with people's emotional reactions hitting them from out of nowhere. The ESTJ will go through all their usual methods trying to figure out how they could avoid that next time (Te: "what's quick/straightforward/efficient/a win-win situation?" -- Si: "what's the usual method?" -- Ne: "sense any trends/patterns that could help?" -- Fi: "what's the RIGHT thing to do?"). But none of those methods are any good at reading people or making long-term predictions.

This relates to my theory as to why female ESTJs, at least in the US, tend to be so much less domineering than their male counterparts. Generally speaking, men are encouraged to take the lead and control situations, and women are encouraged to accommodate others and predict their needs. So female ESTJs are MUCH more likely, early on, to run into situations where their modus operandi deeply offends people. The female ESTJ is left wondering, what did I do? What could I do differently? And the best they can end up doing is using Si/Ne -- zeroing in on women who aren't as likely to offend people, noting specific behaviors of theirs, and mimicking them. But that paranoia is still there, because they know that this isn't a great solution, even if it is the best they can do.

^ Not all ESTJ women do this. Some ESTJ women couldn't care less about this sort of thing. I'd expect ESTJ 8 women to be especially resistant to that societal influence. But it's common enough that I've seen the "STJ women faking Fe" subject pop up MANY times on the forum in the past few years.
 
Joined
May 1, 2013
Messages
255
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
4w5
Maybe I don't have the best definition between the two functions, but it seems to me that Se users are quicker to act in the moment and actively seek sensual pleasures, while Si users are a bit more passive and lets the sensory pleasure come to them. Se tends to want new experiences, while Si likes to repeat them. Both Si and Se dominants like sensuality.
 

Poki

New member
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
10,436
MBTI Type
STP
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I think I know what Se is, but I fail to see why people feel it's the greatest thing on earth, e.g. why they have it as their primary function.

you say this as if people have a choice of primary function and can change at will
 

Poki

New member
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
10,436
MBTI Type
STP
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Si gets hung up on past sensory pleasures while Se gets hung up on seeking new ones.
 

Pionart

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
I think Se reacts more to objects in the physical environment. It feels pulled towards things, to that with the greatest energy.

And Si sees the world as more of a picture, with Si the viewer. Things are more bland, and instead Si is focused on its own state of being, being influenced by the external situation but also seeing it as somewhat unreal.
 

five sounds

MyPeeSmellsLikeCoffee247
Joined
Jul 17, 2013
Messages
5,393
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
729
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
images
 
Top