Describe Si more clearly

[Skyward]

This is actually quite useful for me on a 'type finding' standpoint. It explains a lot that the introverted perceiving functions are more 'hardwired' into the core psyche than other types.

Its a new insight that helps me narrow down type choices (And that studying functions on other sites isn't as good as reading posts about the same topic here )

From what I can tell, I use Si when I right and spell. Its common for people to ask themselves 'does this look right?' when they spell something, I think this is Si.

I can't remember things without some sort of reaction agent, like something in a conversation might suddenly spark a memory of something that happened soooo long ago. But I could never remember it consciously.

While typing: I just suddenly remembered playing a videogame when I was real little and living in a different house, all I really 'see' is the game and my hands - this led to a memory of my first bout of bad dehydration. I'll cut this off before I get mental diarrhea and dump all over this post.

Si can also be something that makes a person 'comfortable' with something. Like a friend always seems to call randomly during the day, at first it's annoying but now its almost routine. When they stop you feel there's a void 'what happened?'

/ramble

 

[Jack Flak]

Apparently, Si is my strongest function, and I'm not even sure when I'm using it.

Si=Memory.

Note: I don't subscribe to the business of Myers' function order, however.

 

[Eric B]

i think with ISTJ vs ISFJ, the ISTJ is impersonal about it -- life is more supposed to fit together efficiently and exactly, and the personal elements are often disregarded or subsumed. ISFJs express their Si through Fe, so they really do want to be finding and filling needs, and they are definitely far more interested in the practical personal aspects of the conflict. So you will get more sympathy out of them, even if their bottom line is still "suck it up, princess; do your duty."

That's whhat I figured. But I guess as Si dom. they would then be somewhat inbetween ISTJ and ESFJ with that?

The more intellectualized the description gets, the harder it is for the SJ, I think. It's got to be practical, relevant, and placed in context of their own lives, with lots of real-example analogy. N's will much more easily grasp an intuitive idea.

I would have thought that would be the F, in her case.

Plus... resistance, again, to anything that runs against what has been established, unless it can be justified (for the ESJ).

That's what was trying to explain to her. She is only familiar with the APS (the FIRO-based system I talk about), and thinks I've gone way overboard with "all this other silly stuff". (i.e., the functions, and trying to identify every interaction in terms of them.

What do you mean by that, exactly?

N people CAN have good memories. (Mine was superb when I was younger -- now, not so hot.)

The thing is that N people run off and explore abstract implications far more readily and instinctively than S people. They're less interested in data than the ramifications of the data.

Si people have very sharp memories for the things they prioritize, whether it's sports data, people's important dates, car information, or whatever else. My ISFJ mom was an RN for 40 years. Within the confines of her work she could rattle off very specific dosing amounts for numerous medications; she terrified me mainly sometimes because she couldn't apply the information well to new situations, if anything changed she became rattled. For someone who doesn't put information together well, I am still amazed at how many details she recalls... if the details are of value to her. (N's, I've seen, tend to accumulate a lot of data in many areas, not just one's of priority; anything "new and interesting" is a priority. They also tend to store just the key data and reconstruct other data from it, rather than storing it all.)

S people focus very clearly on data -- both the raw information, as well as what that data has meant for them in past experience. Si people in particular tend to accumulate a lot of past data based on their priorities to build a picture of the world inside of them that they then reference.

Joe Butts described Si as being not the raw experience of a chair but the idea of a chair inside one's mind that has been constructed. So unless specific care is focused on the external world, usually what gets seen is the "chair image" -- "what the chair should be, as all chairs are." Se people are much more apt to see "what is" and deal with that.

For me, Si is relief, in which I have a strong nostalgic sense, but I've been having a lot of memory problems as well, particularly in more serious areas. It's probably distraction, rushing, and just Ne beingmore preferred, which keeps pointing me every which direction. I think it's also a bit relief Si's shadow, Trickster Se, where I misperceive the here and now, and then get remembrances wrong from that, or things don't even go into my memory for Si to reference.

I'm wondering now if strong Si can appear as Ti with some technical things. I was recently trying to complete a network setup (to get a Vista laptop to see the desktops running XP, and I kept forgetting settings I changed, and where to find them. So then it wound up being disconnected from the network altogether, and we had to get a friend, who I believe is ISTJ, who is good with taking things apart and figuring out how they work, and putting things together (she puts all our shelves and computers and stuff together). I felt bad, because I'm the one who's supposed to have the dominant Ti. But I think my problem was both memory (made worse by rushing), as well as patience, which she has for those things. If I could remember better, then my Ti would more easily internalize what I figure out in exploring the system.

I asked her, with brief descriptions (she knows nothing about MBTI) and she seems to have good Te and Ti use, and attributes it to being alone as a child and learning how to do those things. I assumed she was ISTJ in the first place because she tested in APS as a pure Melancholy Compulsive, which would fit Chart the Course and Guardian, and is as Melancholic as one can get. Not INTP and I doubt ISTP (which is actually part Sanguine). Though her house is messy, and she is the "messy J" I sometimes mention in those discussions. She does seem very SJ otherwise, seems to want closure, and is definitely IT.

 

[Skyward]

Note: I don't subscribe to the business of Myers' function order, however.

I doubt Si is as simple as 'Memory.'

On a more debatory note:

Memory is what you remember definitely. A lot of an ISJ's Si is subconscious or in snippets and not really seen 'directly' as INTJMom described in her friend.

Granted the most basic term for Si -is- memory... you cant really describe it that way to an Si, we don't brainstorm as well as you Nes!

( Ne is 'Oh you see the dancing elephants too!? ' and Ni is 'I'm in your head! Hahahahah! Dammittinfoilhat' and Se is: D) )

 

[Jack Flak]

I doubt Si is as simple as 'Memory.'

Granted the most basic term for Si -is- memory... you cant really describe it that way to an Si, we don't brainstorm as well as you Nes!

Why do you think I disagree with function order? Because it doesn't make any blasted sense. When you define Si as "How ISTJs think," which actually is how many people define functions, you're redefining it.

 

[Dali]

I was recently in a group that had to do a really hard, incredibly jumbled-up (no other way I can describe it) school project. There were 8 of us in the group and most were brainstorming almost absurdly on how to structure it. There was an ISTJ girl that was part of the group and she was almost completely quiet for the for the first 20 mins and then, she spoke up and when she was done speaking, we were all just about ready to bow down to her. She had taken every single aspect of the project, mentally assessed it against criteria some of us had long forgotten (dating back to our first or second year. We're currently final year students), organised it as easily as though the various parts of the project were numbered and then laid it out in a way everyone could understand.

On a slightly related note, the highest achieving student in most classes I've been in since my primary schooling has been an ISTJ.

 

[Skyward]

Why do you think I disagree with function order? Because it doesn't make any blasted sense. When you define Si as "How ISTJs think," which actually is how many people define functions, you're redefining it.

I agree with you on how function order is weird. I just forgot to say it in my last post. Besides, there are 4 more functions, only using 4 is just looking at the skeleton of a personality.

And its this thread that showed me that Si is beyond 'how ISTJs think' and more 'How things feel in the gut compared to the past.' With the latter statement, I can compare to very well. I just don't think I have a powerful Si memory like others do, mine is fairly vague.

 

[Jack Flak]

I agree with you on how function order is weird. I just forgot to say it in my last post. Besides, there are 4 more functions, only using 4 is just looking at the skeleton of a personality.

If it weren't the wrong skeleton, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

And its this thread that showed me that Si is beyond 'how ISTJs think' and more 'How things feel in the gut compared to the past.'

Has it now. *walks away like the guy at the end of the game Fallout*

 

[raz]

Could Si be why I place so much value on my iPod? I've collected a good amount of music, movies, tv shows over the years. The most important ones, I have on my iPod. I'd go crazy if I lost all of them. It's like everything has a memory attached to it. If I look at a song on my playlist, I can remember exactly where I got it from.

 

[Skyward]

...

If I look at a song on my playlist, I can remember exactly where I got it from.

I don't have the exactifiable memory you do, but its the same with me and my music. I have so much of it that if I lost the computer it all is on I would break down, since it would take so long to get everything back again.

 

[Cimarron]

From what I can tell, I use Si when I right and spell. Its common for people to ask themselves 'does this look right?' when they spell something, I think this is Si.

That's along the lines of what I'm thinking. And I am good at that kind of thing! So maybe there's some truth to this after all.

It's like everything has a memory attached to it.

Maybe, but I don't realize this stuff consciously most of the time. That's what makes this function so difficult to pinpoint. I'd only know for sure if it happened to me, and then I could tell you at that time....<---Interestingly enough, is that Si working there? When you experience something, you see if it feels familiar to something that's happened before? Sounds like what we've been talking about.

---------

I think I do this with music as well. Having a "good ear" for music, like knowing how two notes "sound" together and being able to distinguish them after hearing them. I say "that harmony is a major third, I can tell." Sure, it's related to the extraverted sensing, but that linking it with something in your memories is introverted sensing. They are two sides of the same process.

 

[Jae Rae]

What kind of Si are you using when you spell write wrong?

 

[Cimarron]

What kind of Si are you using when you spell write wrong?

Yeah, seriously, Skyward.

 

[Kaizer]

For me, Si is relief, in which I have a strong nostalgic sense, but I've been having a lot of memory problems as well, particularly in more serious areas. It's probably distraction, rushing, and just Ne beingmore preferred, which keeps pointing me every which direction. I think it's also a bit relief Si's shadow, Trickster Se, where I misperceive the here and now, and then get remembrances wrong from that, or things don't even go into my memory for Si to reference.

The 'role relief' aspect of Si and experiencing it in that almost signature 'child-like' 'innocent' way, & its expression in a similar manner is indeed comforting in seeming fleeting moments almost and yet the near laterally introduced 'concreteness' by the combination of Si & the inferior Fe brings about greater maturity related stability to balance the combination of Ne led by Ti generated plethora of possibilities and their seeming probabilities.

so is complementarity perhaps the best natural route to maturity? by best I don't mean easiest, but rather the most realistic one thats true to life as whole and across all kinds of people etc.

 

[wildcat]

We've had a lot of discussion about what the Sensing factor is (S vs. N), but we haven't had much discussion at all about the specific Si function (Introverted Sensing). We often hear that it is "memory of details" or something similar. But we all remember details, don't we? So I hope to explore this in more depth.

Here is basically the only mention of Si I found after searching these boards:

Apparently, Si is my strongest function, and I'm not even sure when I'm using it.

Look at the colour in the photograph.
The original colour is the complemantary partner of the colour we see.
Why?

Who turns the colour around?
We do.
Why?

You have a read sweater.
In the original photograph it is green.
Why?

A specific green colour brings about a specific red colour.
Where?
In the location of the specific green colour.

What is the common bond between Si and Ne?
It is the location.

Is there other common bond?
No.

What is the significance of the location?

 

[Totenkindly]

... is still not as clear. The only way you would know what "chairs are like" is with experiences with chairs in the past, built up over time. I guess that's what you were saying--past experiences, supposedly the source of Si--but I'm not really aware of an "internal picture of the world" as Joe Butts is. I mean, I assume things will be the way they've always been, until something changes, then that becomes the new assumption. But it couldn't be otherwise, could it? You can have doubt, guessing that events may not be the same, but don't we all subconsciously "expect" them to be the same when under similar conditions?

I don't think it's clear what Se is like here.

I went walking in the woods with my ESFP son (Se primary), and I was amazed at how much he noticed. Because I didn't.

I feel like I'm very perceptive in some ways, but mostly that comes down to how I make connections between things -- and because I'm making connections, I'm not experiencing raw data unless I am actively telling myself, "Okay, go into 'soak it in' mode." It is not my natural mode.

I was getting dizzy with all the things he was seeing and point out as we walked, and he was amazingly good at noticing wildlife and other things we were almost stepping on, things I just didn't even notice... when I was TRYING to notice them.

This is raw Se. He was soaking it in. He had experience with and ideas about trees, frogs, ants, rocks, moss, grass, sky, sun, and all of that, assuredly... but he wasn't referencing the INNER collection/compilation of each of those items, he was taking in raw data and responding to it.

This makes it hard for him sometimes to categorize a sensation experience appropriately, he tends to deal with each singly as a unique example... if he does categorize at all. Normally he's focused more on the live active Now experience.

Si is very good at taking all these raw streams of data and creating an inner perception/collection of the points that it prioritizes. If it likes frogs, it will collect lots of frog data. And, like with the chair, it creates an inner image/memory of a frog that is referenced when new frogs are noticed or the word "frog" is brought up. This "ideal frog" or "image of the frog" stands in for the real image. [This makes it hard, btw, for Si types to deal with change; they're just seeing that inner image, not the raw reality, and it's painful for them to have to recast the image quickly. It leaves everything feeling unstable.]

Because an external data flow does not exist for itself, it only exists to trigger an inward cascade of thoughts that the Si person values. (This is the way with all MBTI introverts, basically -- the external world is being used as a catalyst for inner processes dealing with data that is of importance to the person). Introverts with a Pe secondary are definitely locked into an external data stream, but it's still just being used to feed the inner primary process (a judging function), which are of main importance.

Extroverted people will think "outside" their head and deal with raw data much more, especially Se types. They tend to be connected to raw data so much that they don't categorize/generalize that data as well (I think) if there is any matter of interpretation that has to go on.

is that more specific?

 

[Cimarron]

I know my question may have sounded a little pushy, so I appreciate your thoughtful response. Even though I've already agreed that it's hard to catch yourself "using" Si (or Ni, similarly), that's where my frustration is. Either I don't use it much at all, or I use it much more than I realize, which makes sense because of Si's nature. That's why I'm trying to sort through memories of thought processes to find a good example.

People often describe this process as untraceable. If I can trace an "Si moment" back to its source and explain how it came about, it's still Si, right? I guess it should be, it's just that the "tracing" part is a different function helping me explore the Si.

 

[INTJMom]

What kind of things do you remember and repeat to other people?
Sports statistics?
Trivia?
Jokes?

 

[Cimarron]

What kind of things do you remember and repeat to other people?
Sports statistics?
Trivia?
Jokes?

I don't know, it's hard to say. Things that come to mind are:

Lines from T.V. shows.
Numbers, like the values of math constants.
Historical dates.
Looking at a word once and probably remembering from there on out how to spell it.

Most of that could fall under trivia or jokes, I guess.

*This is fun, but let's stay on topic. I know it likely will be, but just to be sure.

 

[raz]

That example of Se is a good one, Jennifer. It makes me think of yesterday when I was at the library with my ENFJ friend. She actually has Se as third function. When I walked over to an aisle with her to show her some books, she told me to stop suddenly, and not to touch the thing on the shelf. She said, "Don't you dare pick up that roach!" She was pointing exactly where it was, and I stood there for seriously 15 seconds looking ALL over the area she was pointing, and it took me that long to find it. It was on top of a book. I was standing there thinking, "How can I be so blind?"

The way I was looking for it was scanning by layers. I looked over each book in the general area. Then I looked over each shelf. Then I looked around each book until I finally found it.

INTJMom, all I can really answer to that is specific things. I hate sports, I find random trivia pointless, and my jokes are really sarcasm. One specific example I can think of is when I worked at a fast food restaurant. I had worked at the register so much that I had memorized the prices of 90% of our foods. At that restaurant, when I was working on the drive-thru, I'd have to cook some things while taking orders. Many times, when someone ordered things, I'd remember the prices of each thing, add it up in my head, and then tell them the total. My manager was just shocked when he saw me do that.

Now working at my department store, it actually bothers me a lot that I can't memorize the prices as much as I could there. They change all the time. The only thing similar to that that gets me going is when customers ask me "What is X percent off of Y?" I just figure it out in my head. In my first 6-9 months working, I learned how to find out people's sizes, and I started memorizing sizes of clothes and their conversions.

I was actually a little afraid of myself when I was doing returns for customers. They'd give me their driver's license, and after putting in their information, I'd have it memorized. It was the same if a situation called for me to take their social security number a few times. I'd be telling myself, "That is NOT something you're supposed to remember!"