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Si...what is it?
- Thread starter Wolf
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Thursday
Earth Exalted
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Athenian200
Protocol Droid
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Theoretically, it should be your weakest function. So no one should blame you if it you can't use it.
But if I'm right, then Si is comparison of impressions. It's remembering how a similar set of concrete circumstances has impacted you before, and assuming that this current set will have the same effect as the previous one. It's also the process of seeing how the new impression was different, even if it was mostly similar. So it's not remembering the sensation itself, it's comparing the impact a previous sensation had on you against the impact that the current sensation you are experiencing is having on you.
Does that make sense?
Trovador
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I don't know if it's a wrong description, but Si looks like to be relative with valorization of well regarded and traditional ways. For example, the ESTJs and ISTJs that I know give a lot of valour to reading long and classical books, and reject more "rational"(i.e. NT) ways of achieving information like knowing just the historic period and circumstances of the topic rather than reading directly about it.
OctaviaCaesar
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In my experience, the Si of ISTJs involves being AMAZING at remembering The Rules, whatever the rules happen to be at the place and time. As Kiersey says, the ISTJs are the Inspectors, and this type is amazing at quietly taking it all in (the sensory data of a situation), storing the information away, and bringing it up again after everyone else has long forgotten it. I think this Si is what allows people to hold grudges for an insanely long time.
Ezra
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Am I right in thinking that Si in MBTT entails a strong sense of tradition, traditional values, and attachment to tradition, because of these pasts sensations that Si dominant/auxiliary individuals feel attached to?
It seems they're all confused about what it is, too.
I can't even relate to a number of these answers, oddly-enough.
OctaviaCaesar
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I have quite a significant amount of Ni, so I often try to imagine what it would be like to have my dominant process as S instead of N. With Ni, I feel like I am constantly processing my thoughts, "having insights on insights" as someone describes it in some book or other. So, Si is probably storing and collecting information inside oneself not about insights, but about the things that are going on around him/her. Like being a human recording machine. Being an SJ is all about having standards, so I am guessing the purpose of all the recorded information is to make evaluative judgments.
I get Se. It makes sense and is fairly simple to imagine. Not so with Si.
So-far I have lots of random opinions. Maybe this is because it is so foreign that even the descriptions I've read make no sense to me... I mean, I basically don't even remember anything physical. I remember that I like X, and I get X at Y, with any added qualifiers, but I only very vaguely recall the specifics of X.
In fact, I can't even bring up a clear mental image of my parents. They're just concepts with an assortment of relative features. When I picked my mother up earlier this month, I didn't recognize her until she started making a bee-line for my car, and even then I wasn't sure it was her at first. When I imagine things or dream, people have little-to-no physical form in my mind. This is probably quite strange to many of you. Even physical objects are rather fluid and can be changed to serve a purpose, though they have more consistent physical form than people do.
So-far I have lots of random opinions. Maybe this is because it is so foreign that even the descriptions I've read make no sense to me... I mean, I basically don't even remember anything physical. I remember that I like X, and I get X at Y, with any added qualifiers, but I only very vaguely recall the specifics of X.
In fact, I can't even bring up a clear mental image of my parents. They're just concepts with an assortment of relative features. When I picked my mother up earlier this month, I didn't recognize her until she started making a bee-line for my car, and even then I wasn't sure it was her at first. When I imagine things or dream, people have little-to-no physical form in my mind. This is probably quite strange to many of you. Even physical objects are rather fluid and can be changed to serve a purpose, though they have more consistent physical form than people do.
Nocapszy
no clinkz 'til brooklyn
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This is one it took me quite a while to figure out.
So, figure you have an ISTJ. In fact, I'll use my brother as an example. He sits at the same desk every day, for hours and hours. He always places his cell phone 4 inches to the right of his mousepad. He refuses to get a new mousepad, even though he's more than once spilled milk on, which has since soured, and smells. As an experiment, I made a small mark, in sharpie, in the corner of his LCD.
How Si got him to where he is. Si saw every miniscule detail in the desk -- he refused to use any desk that we hadn't already had in the house. He'd already absorbed a lot about the desk itself. Every time he passed by, sat down, or just looked at the desk, he collected, and stored away plenty of sensory information. This collection works a lot like a collage. It's the impression of an ideal like all introverted functions. In this case, the sensory ideal. He'd become used to the desk, and every other desk was inferior, because it was missing several of the components that he had assimilated into his understanding of how the ideal desk should look.
His mousepad, which he refuses to change, moved with the desk, and will likely move with him when he leaves the house, along with the desk and his computer. The reason is, he's compiled a collage of sorts. He's used to the mousepad, and slowly acclimated himself to the sour smell of the milk. He actually likes it, because for him, in his subjective interpretation of how the ideal mousepad should look on the ideal desk was built on this slowly developed collage.
Imagine taking a snapshot of a bridge. Then coming back a few days later and doing the same. Maybe there are different cars on the bridge. Maybe there's a biker or a few pedestrians. Perhaps the paint has started to fade. Si will notice all these things, and compromise the old with the new as long as it doesn't violate the old too strongly. The more often Si film is exposed to the light of the same object, the more strongly developed the collage is. It captures a new detail -- whether it's happened recently or was always there -- every time. It matches this up against the old blurred ideal, and eventually incorporates it.
Now there's more to it than that.
Si does store the collage of what is, but the information that's actually sent to judgement is not that. The information that judgement receives -- and this is why we say "it's like noticing when something is different" is that exactly. Si takes the collage and adapts it to the form of a model which can be used by Te and Fe. It tells either of these functions what's different, so they can go to set it back to what they're acclimated to.
It's why most businessmen insist on handshakes and suits and such. All a bunch of S_Js, and it's what they're acclimated to. Nevermind if it's effective or productive. Te's directive is led by perception, just like with an ENTJ. But the ESTJs perception is reestablishing what he's used to, or occasionally expanding, and ultimately doing the same in the new endeavor. What he's spent every minute of his life getting used to. Te is what forces those things to change back to their ideal, or attacks those things that won't.
This is why Keirsey says S_Js like to acquire things. They'll never let anything go, because they've become so used to it. As far as they're concerned, the wall behind that dresser doesn't exist. The dresser is part of the room. They might put something on top of it, sure, but it will be something miniscule like a dish or a trophy. Something that doesn't really violate the sensory ideal; that they can quickly get used to.
So, figure you have an ISTJ. In fact, I'll use my brother as an example. He sits at the same desk every day, for hours and hours. He always places his cell phone 4 inches to the right of his mousepad. He refuses to get a new mousepad, even though he's more than once spilled milk on, which has since soured, and smells. As an experiment, I made a small mark, in sharpie, in the corner of his LCD.
How Si got him to where he is. Si saw every miniscule detail in the desk -- he refused to use any desk that we hadn't already had in the house. He'd already absorbed a lot about the desk itself. Every time he passed by, sat down, or just looked at the desk, he collected, and stored away plenty of sensory information. This collection works a lot like a collage. It's the impression of an ideal like all introverted functions. In this case, the sensory ideal. He'd become used to the desk, and every other desk was inferior, because it was missing several of the components that he had assimilated into his understanding of how the ideal desk should look.
His mousepad, which he refuses to change, moved with the desk, and will likely move with him when he leaves the house, along with the desk and his computer. The reason is, he's compiled a collage of sorts. He's used to the mousepad, and slowly acclimated himself to the sour smell of the milk. He actually likes it, because for him, in his subjective interpretation of how the ideal mousepad should look on the ideal desk was built on this slowly developed collage.
Imagine taking a snapshot of a bridge. Then coming back a few days later and doing the same. Maybe there are different cars on the bridge. Maybe there's a biker or a few pedestrians. Perhaps the paint has started to fade. Si will notice all these things, and compromise the old with the new as long as it doesn't violate the old too strongly. The more often Si film is exposed to the light of the same object, the more strongly developed the collage is. It captures a new detail -- whether it's happened recently or was always there -- every time. It matches this up against the old blurred ideal, and eventually incorporates it.
Now there's more to it than that.
Si does store the collage of what is, but the information that's actually sent to judgement is not that. The information that judgement receives -- and this is why we say "it's like noticing when something is different" is that exactly. Si takes the collage and adapts it to the form of a model which can be used by Te and Fe. It tells either of these functions what's different, so they can go to set it back to what they're acclimated to.
It's why most businessmen insist on handshakes and suits and such. All a bunch of S_Js, and it's what they're acclimated to. Nevermind if it's effective or productive. Te's directive is led by perception, just like with an ENTJ. But the ESTJs perception is reestablishing what he's used to, or occasionally expanding, and ultimately doing the same in the new endeavor. What he's spent every minute of his life getting used to. Te is what forces those things to change back to their ideal, or attacks those things that won't.
This is why Keirsey says S_Js like to acquire things. They'll never let anything go, because they've become so used to it. As far as they're concerned, the wall behind that dresser doesn't exist. The dresser is part of the room. They might put something on top of it, sure, but it will be something miniscule like a dish or a trophy. Something that doesn't really violate the sensory ideal; that they can quickly get used to.
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