[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Ni - What the hell is it?

[uumlau]

I can't help but feel the Ne-hopping is oftentimes too playful and distracting. It does have the power to get me out of ruts, but sometimes I wish they'd give me some warning, just enough time for me to put paperweights on a few things.

Nope. Sorry. That's how they think. Why would you need warning? They're Ne. Duh. They're like the Spanish Inquisition!

 

[windoverlake]

Nope. Sorry. That's how they think. Why would you need warning? They're Ne. Duh. They're like the Spanish Inquisition!

Well, I did say sometimes.

But you're right, they are The Spanish Inquisition. It's just, like, sometimes, I'm like, please, not the comfy chair again.

 

[uumlau]

 

[Seymour]

Stop, or I will say Ni to you, a second time!


Seriously, though, it seems to me like there's a continuum in how much people "chunk" based on experience over time and experience across contexts. I'd rank them:

• Se: Low across-time, low across-contexts
• Ne: Low across-time, high across-contexts
• Si: High across-time, low across-contexts
• Ni: High across-time, high across-contexts

In a way, I'd say that J types tend to perceive things based on consistency and repetition across time. So, something that is comprehensible for a J type looks like light writing:

Whereas SJs focus on things that repeat over time in the same context (that that's what tends to become "right" and other things "wrong"), NJs focus on things that repeat over time and possibly across contexts.

That means that if someone starts repeating a pattern an NJ will quickly perceive it. So that's a big win as far as perceiving things and being able to plan accordingly. They also tend to find deviation from the expected pattern distracting. It's as though they have a kind of persistence of vision, that enables them to be tuned into both the historical patterns, and the current momentum.

Something a bit more chaotic over time, though:

Is going to be distracting and chaotic (although the example above is pretty even, really). But for someone who tracks the light pen as it happens, relatively random is not significantly more distracting than non-random. An SP might always be tracking the point where it is (and how it might be tuned). An NP might be tracking where the light pen might go from here (partially based on possibilities based on other contexts). In either case, perceivers are less like to be perturbed by reduced predictability, but may be blind to repetition and momentum in some cases.

 

[VagrantFarce]

- Ne is like following a piece of string - you keep tugging on it, and you keep following it, excited by where it might take you or what it might do
- Ni is like considering the representation of the string rather than the string itself - you shift the way you look at it, thus changing it's properties

 

[Noon]

This might be a little off-topic, but what function is this?

“Half of what the songs are about is the subconscious,” she states in her bio. “Ideas of things happening. A lot of it is like daydreaming, dreaming when you’re awake, but tired; a lot of stories come from that world.” As a result her lyrics are often cryptic, walking a thin line between mixed metaphors and just-decipherable details. It’s no surprise she finds stimulus in the surreal, dream-like films of David Lynch.

‘I guess many songs are about looking for something to spend time, and to fill the body, to avoid loneliness and the physical functions or dysfunctions of the body. It’s one step forward and one step back.’

Her distinctive writing process is at its most striking in ‘Seven’, where a succession of stories – some real, some imagined, but all tangentially related to that number – are obliquely referenced. That’s the way Karin writes; just enough detail to sketch the outline and splash some colour without becoming mired in anything too specific.

“I prefer lyrics that are like that,” she says, “I like to keep it as minimal as possible. I like films the same way, ones with very little dialogue, such as the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (Leningrad Cowboys Go America), I think he’s fantastic.

I thought Ni but don't know anymore. She is very private and I think e9 (e5 as an alternative).

 

[uumlau]

This might be a little off-topic, but what function is this?

I thought Ni but don't know anymore. She is very private and I think e9 (e5 as an alternative).

Not really enough info. Almost certainly INxx though. Either INFJ or INFP would be most likely in my estimation, but leaning towards INFJ. INFPs, while subtle, don't tend to go for being deliberately mysterious and obscure.

 

[Noon]

Not really enough info. Almost certainly INxx though. Either INFJ or INFP would be most likely in my estimation, but leaning towards INFJ. INFPs, while subtle, don't tend to go for being deliberately mysterious and obscure.

She seems to focus a lot on paradoxes and contradictions in her lyrics, which I've read in other threads here is supposed to be indicative of Ni (supposed as in I don't know how true this is). These for example:

Is it dark already, how light is a light?
Do you laugh while screaming, is it cold outside?

Two elements collide in my open hand,
Making me a viewer. I am water and sand.

Open atmosphere
Take me anywhere, take me there.
We have water mouth
Sand in pockets and a strained household.
When the night falls
There is fire in the bungalow.

I wanted to see right through from the other side
I wanted to walk a trail with no end in sight

She is doggedly true to her own creative ideas, even among accusations of pretension, but I'd imagine that could come with FiNe as well as NiFe. Ne types are the ones more likely to challenge status quo, break out of boxes, right? Is the Ni equivalent simply subverting outdated paradigms, shuffling between them, can't keep one indefinitely dominant?

"It's always fun to try out different roles," she replies. "I would like to quote [gender theorist] Judith Butler, who says, 'We are always in drag'. That has to do with the idea of authenticity: is there really any time when you are your true self? I would say that we're always playing a role. Even guys with guitars who sing about their emotions, they are playing a role of a person who does that."

But sometimes it's hard to tell what are 9 motivations from that popular "mystical" painting of Ni. She seems to circle around themes of oblivion, merging with something larger, mysticism, etc a lot. One of the masks she's worn is of an Ibis.

 

[VagrantFarce]

This works:

Entry 94: Introverted Intuition | Drafts

- Extraverted intuition (Ne) is expansive and brainstorming; introverted intuition (Ni) is singular and intensive.
- Ne uses patterns to explore the possibilities; Ni uses patterns to assert the inevitability.

 

[Mademoiselle]

Ni is a treasure, faith is the key.
As for me, I have the key, and the treasure, but I chose not to open the door to womderland, as I have a family and a life to take care of.. A more challenging way to live.

Die after a worthy life.

 

[Ene]

This works:

Entry 94: Introverted Intuition | Drafts

Very good article! Thank you for sharing it.

 

[Eric B]

I see he's using my old illustration. I did that when I was coming to understand the difference between the N attitudes more, though still trying to fully grasp, myself, what I was explaining there. (Most of these explanations beat around the bush, and can't seem to put one's finger on exactly what the process actually is).

I've since come to understand the difference between all function attitudes as doing the same things, but the focus being "individual" vs "environmental". Ne looks at things in light of patterns in the environment (though these patterns may be stored in memory), while Ni (just running across what I said in #523) Ni fills them in with stuff repressed from memory (not necessarily intentionally; likely just deeply forgotten stuff).

So the illustration is still good if you understand the "i" area as representing the "internal" world of "individual" perception (whether conscious or unconscious memory), and for Ne, memory is where the other patterns (beside the one being observed and compared currently) are referenced, and the connections are made externally, while for Ni, the connection is made in the unconscious; generally looking at one pattern on the outside (not necessarily a bunch of them at a time, as shown, though it could hypothetically connect a bunch).

This is much simpler than the way I was trying to put it, then.

 

[Mal12345]

Guys, here is Ni in a nutshell. (Copied from another forum where I feel more comfortable writing things.)

The Ni in INTJ is not determined by the nature of one's beliefs. Ni is a perceiving function; it is determined by the perception involved. An Ni perception comes to the person in a flash of Great Truth.

For example, an INTJ I used to work with took a course on genetics. He told me that, as he was examining the nature of the human gene, a great revelation suddenly came upon him. He suddenly realized that genes could not have been created without a Creator.

Whether this is scientifically true or not is irrelevant due to the nature of the revelation which expresses a Great Truth.

The nature of the Ne function lies in putting various pieces of evidence together to form a hypothetical concept in need of scientific proof. The Ni Truth does not require scientific proof, it is sufficient unto itself.

 

[uumlau]

Guys, here is Ni in a nutshell. (Copied from another forum where I feel more comfortable writing things.)

The Ni in INTJ is not determined by the nature of one's beliefs. Ni is a perceiving function; it is determined by the perception involved. An Ni perception comes to the person in a flash of Great Truth.

For example, an INTJ I used to work with took a course on genetics. He told me that, as he was examining the nature of the human gene, a great revelation suddenly came upon him. He suddenly realized that genes could not have been created without a Creator.

Whether this is scientifically true or not is irrelevant due to the nature of the revelation which expresses a Great Truth.

The nature of the Ne function lies in putting various pieces of evidence together to form a hypothetical concept in need of scientific proof. The Ni Truth does not require scientific proof, it is sufficient unto itself.

Your observation has no need of scientific proof.

 

[Mal12345]

Your observation has no need of scientific proof.

Neither does the definition of 'table.'

 

[Mal12345]

Jung believed that Ni perceptions were the product of some unconscious mechanism. This may or may not be the case. It is simply in his background to explain everything psychologically. Psychological Truth is the product of his Ni perception which in itself required no need of scientific proof. And as far as I know, Jung never made a single effort to scientifically validate any axiom he believed.

 

[Mal12345]

Ayn Rand, who is considered an INTJ, based all of her intellectual beliefs on axioms which she verified on the basis of her unquestionable "instincts" (to use her term). Although later in her life she intellectually recanted the idea of human instinct, those "instincts" stand as axioms which she dogmatically held to and considered incapable of proof, only demonstration "in reality." (See, For The New Intellectual and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.)

 

[Mal12345]

I searched the INTJ page at celebritytypes.com and came up with this perfect quote from INTJ John Nash's quote list:

"Nash acquired his knowledge [not] from studying ... but by [seeing the] truth for himself. ... Einstein once chided him for wishing to amend relativity theory without studying physics."

 

[uumlau]

Neither does the definition of 'table.'

Well, it's a bit easier to agree on the definition of a table. Bald assertions claiming to be a definition beg the question.

 

[Mal12345]

Well, it's a bit easier to agree on the definition of a table. Bald assertions claiming to be a definition beg the question.

I'll have to assume Jung's definitions anyway which could be entirely fantasy when they lack scientific investigation.