There's an interesting corollary in this thread between Ni / Ne and Fi / Fe. Ne here is the function that can tend to presume "but I
know about intuition; I do that" and Ni the one to say, "No, you just don't get it."
So since I feel like Fe doesn't
get Fi, I accept that Ne doesn't really
get Ni either. But it's a fascinating exploration nonetheless.
Ni is about shifting perspectives. It solves problems by focusing on seemingly simple ways in which they could be different, which outwardly manifests as a strange "knowing" or clarity of how things should be. It is different in outward appearance from Ne in that Ni users are very self-assured about their own view of how things should be. Ne is always looking for options about how things should be different, and always considering different perspectives and changing its mind.
Ni doesn't really link information together -- that's more akin to the Ne process of pattern-finding. What Ni itself does is analyze information by playing with its own perspective of it; as opposed to Ne, which links information to other seemingly unrelated environmental factors, weaving a new emerging pattern out of reality.
I like all that; nice Aleksei.
Fi consciously decides if something is good or bad.
Ni unconsciously links pieces of information together.
Why is Fi conscious and Ni unconscious?
Ne: There are always other perspectives and new meanings to discover
Ni: There is always a future to realize and a significance to be revealed. "Revealed" basically means "uncovered". So it's a matter of UNcovered versus DIScovered.
Yes, that's
very nice too.
I have always thought of Ni as the microscope, and Ne as the telescope.
Ni says, if I look at this close enough, and long enough, from all the angles, the truth will be revealed to me, like a flower that blossoms. Ne says, if I look at the world and explore all the possibilities, I can find the answer, a truth, the solution.
Seriously....using FiNe makes Ni seem rather unimpressive to me. The demi-god status of it 'round these parts makes me roll my eyes. I like the simple descriptions, as there's no pretense of mystery or superiority. They actually make sense & ring true to me because of it. Of course, I hate having my Fi oversimplified, so I can understand why Ni-doms become all poetic in describing their precious thought process.
Haha, I know. There's that INTJ tendency to sound so darned sure too and in the process, somewhat condescending.
Ooooh, but here's a cushy sweetie hug from PB for any irascible INTJ's!
Behavior-wise, when dealing with others, the easiest way to spot Ni is the "context shifting." This concept of context shifting doesn't come straight from Jung, but it is present in the Myers-Briggs and Lenore Thomson literature, among others. It's useful to be aware of this effect both to spot it in others and to be aware of when doing it oneself if one is strongly Ni.
Yes, it's this sense that we just changed gears but I wasn't prepared for it, or that the rules are being re-written as we are discussing an issue.
I'm fairly sure that's Ne. It's finding new (objective) possibilities.
Yes, I was sure it was Ne but did want to leave room for alternate explanation.
Here's an example of Ni from my perspective, of the "spooky" sort. I was once watching one of those corny Twilight-Zone-like shows back in the 90s [Tales from the Crypt, if I recall correctly], where there is always a twist in the plot, usually totally unexpected. This particular story was about an old man who has died, his pretty trophy wife, and his two sons. There is also another son who left long ago, estranged, and is only mentioned in passing. They're arguing about the inheritance, and the sons don't want the trophy wife to have a share. Without going over the entire story, which I barely remember, I'll tell you my Ni insight. I thought, "Oh, the wife is really the missing son, with a sex change," after watching it for about 5 minutes.
Thanks for that great example uumlau.
That twist would annoy me frankly, because it rewrites an assumed gender role, and would only be understood, as you say, through the context shift. To me, it's a weak plot device.
Although, if I were watching the same show, I would wonder why the son was mentioned at all, would then infer that he would become a factor at some point or else would not be in the story, and
then cycle through possibilities Ne-style to see what reasoning the writer had to place him in the plot at all and if there was reason as to
when they chose to introduce his character.
But I confess: to me, if you have to rewrite the initial
premise, the assumptive rules we started off with to explain your story, it's a pretty lame story. I don't mind being surprised, not at all. I think that kind of twist is cheap.
The most important aspect of Ni in this regard is that we don't disregard particular possibilities based conventional notions of likelihood, but rather we allow/disallow contexts based on whether they "work." As long as the context is self consistent (kind of like Ti), we'll keep an open mind about it. If it's the ONLY possible context, it sounds like we just predicted something magically, by "just knowing." It even feels like that to ourselves.
That's very thought-provoking, and @bold: I think that's the key - part of my reasoning will include a probability factor, so the least likely solution remains the least likely one, until I gain new evidence to the contrary. Not all ideas initially get the benefit of a level playing field, even if consistent, especially if they are patently ridiculous ideas that defy other "rules" - like those of human behaviour, for example.
So I guess you could say human (or Fi rules if you prefer) are the "trump card" for me. A story makes no sense if it regularly violates these tenets ... it's one of the reasons why I read so little fiction, because most writers have no concept on how to create this type of consistency.