How NJs and NPs view time

[1487610420]

Pass right thru me.

 

[trancemode]

I don't hear anyone saying "move up a day" or "move back a day". That would be horrendously confusing and I have no idea what either of those mean. I would imagine both of those as "later than originally planned", actually. Maybe that phrasing is more common in the US?

Could be. We’re pretty backwards here in the US. We haven’t even converted to the metric system yet.

I still don’t see why NJs who are familiar with the expression (such as those Thomson uses as examples) would have a problem with it and not other expressions they use that don’t make sense literally.

 

[Kierva]

better than thinking of the theme song to "The Jeffersons"

it can ALWAYS be worse!

Haha, I thought about how wrong I was when I moved my hand down and found out I was still pushing it. XD

What a way to mindfuck people!

 

[FDG]

HAH! That is how I see the explanation also. Up/forward would be going towards 1, down/backwards would be going towards 30/31

Bunch of headaches though, just give me a date.

Yeah, but FTR I've mostly heard secretaries using that terminology.

 

[INTP]

my INTJ friend says that when something happens where he needs to react fast and think a bit(subject came out when he had a really nice and fast triple kill in one computer game), he feels that his thinking gets faster, while external world goes at the regular speed. for me its pretty much the opposite, it feels as if the world outside would slow down for a moment, while my thinking speed remains the same.

would be nice to hear if this is something type related, as i could see it having to do a lot with our functions being opposite.

 

[Coriolis]

Which is to say: It's been my experience that NPs pretty much take for granted that time is represented linguistically in spatial terms. Just as a country can be divided into counties and cities, we customarily divide time into segments and pieces.

NJs of course acquire the many terms that permit us to do this, but they don't appear to regard the time --> space conversion as entirely natural.

For example, when someone tells me (I'm an INTJ) that a meeting has been moved up a day, I'm *never* sure whether I'm supposed to show up a day earlier or a day later. There is nothing that feels natural to me about thinking this way. In fact, if I try to work it out in my mind, the spatial terms ultimately incline me to "picture time."

This is exactly how I see it. I never use the expressions "move up" and "move back", and when others do, I always clarify: "so we are meeting Tuesday, then?" It is interesting, because my internal view of time is very visual, just not spatially linear the same way. I suppose I do orient myself more by events than units of time. I am very good at sequencing, that is planning out events such that they occur in the right order to maximize efficiency and ensure everything gets done.

 

[Tiltyred]

Here’s something for you to chew on. It’s a post by Lenore Thomson (“cult” author of Personality Types: An Owner’s Manual), copied and posted on another forum by someone. It’s about the contrast between NPs and NJs in their conversion of time to “spatial constructs”. Though she doesn’t mention SPs and SJs, her drift seems to be toward the difference in how Js and Ps view time, in line with her theory that Js are left brain dominant (linear), Ps right-brain (non-linear).

For me (INFP), it fits. I don’t have trouble with the expression about moving a meeting or event “up” or “back”, though I recognize that it’s backwards if I stop and think about it (which I never had until reading that post).

It’s curious how the NJs she quotes get stuck on this one common expression, amid all the others that don’t make literal sense which they have long since absorbed; surely they know what people mean when they use it. It’s hard to imagine all these NJs out there getting confused whenever someone they have plans with wants to move them “up” or “back” a day.

And how do SPs and SJs see this? If I’m right, SPs would be similar to NPs, and SJs to NJs.



1. on the
Concept of Time
by
Lenore Thomson

(Informal correspondence, used with author's permission, all rights reserved.)

I'm neither INFP nor INFJ, but I do have a kind of off-the-wall way of narrowing the distinction between NP and NJ. I'm not going to take a definitive stand on it, but it's worked out often enough that I've come to think of it as an approximate rule of thumb.

This distinction doesn't turn on behaviors or traits, so it doesn't lend itself to negative stereotypes. It's simply about the way people represent things to themselves.

Which is to say: It's been my experience that NPs pretty much take for granted that time is represented linguistically in spatial terms. Just as a country can be divided into counties and cities, we customarily divide time into segments and pieces.

NJs of course acquire the many terms that permit us to do this, but they don't appear to regard the time --> space conversion as entirely natural.

For example, when someone tells me (I'm an INTJ) that a meeting has been moved up a day, I'm *never* sure whether I'm supposed to show up a day earlier or a day later. There is nothing that feels natural to me about thinking this way. In fact, if I try to work it out in my mind, the spatial terms ultimately incline me to "picture time."

When I do, I see a linear path, on which "time" is proceeding from the past into the future. So, "moving back" a future event would mean bringing it from where it is up ahead, so that it's now closer to the present.

But the phrase actually means the opposite. Moving an event "back" is to locate it further in the future.

When several NJs discussed their problems with this expression on the psych-type list a few years ago, every one of the NPs who responded expressed surprise that anyone would even find the subject worth talking about. Some INFPs agreed that the language was imprecise, but they also regarded the complaint as a non-issue. One INFP said he just pictures his date book. Moving an event "back" in the date book is to put it closer to the back cover, or to push it further away in time.

I asked an ENFP, and he said the same sort of thing: He pictures a cup in front of him on a dinner table. Moving the cup "back" is to push it away; moving it "up" is to pull it closer.

I was really struck by this. Every NJ -- ENTJs, INTJs, INFJs and ENFJs -- who wrote about the topic experienced the same translation problem that I have. We all felt obliged to "picture time" as such.

*None* of the "pictures" supplied by the NPs had anything to do with time. They were *entirely* within the realm of space.

Since that psych-type discussion, I've talked to a lot of NJs and NPs, and just about every one of them has reacted according to type. The NJs have identified with my experience, even when they're math-oriented or scientifically educated or make blueprints for a living. They've even welcomed the opportunity to put their frustration with the time --> space conversion into words. Many said that the only way they ever get hold of images that spatialize time is to make a deliberate effort to forget that time is at issue, because the conclusions they draw on that basis never jibe with the way the images are normally understood.

In order to make the spatial images work, they try to associate them with concrete landmarks from their own experience -- like associating yearly intervals with school semesters, so that other events can be associated with specific experiences rather than the intervals themselves.

It seems to me that this distinction is functionally related, not in the sense of behavioral motivation, but in the sense of the functions describing the way in which people are accustomed to explaining things to themselves.

An NP's inner world is oriented by Introverted Judgment: a will to discern underlying organizational patterns. The outer Perceptual world (Extraverted Intuition) "just is," until the NTP recognizes underlying structural relationships and maps it, or the NFP recognizes the larger design in which all parts ideally cooperate. So perhaps these types are accustomed to grasping virtual reality in terms of spatial models.

NJs are coming at this from the other direction. It's their *inner* Perceptual world that "just is" (Introverted Intuition). Time in this inner Perceptual world doesn't exist in its own right; it's completely relative to subjective experience. It's the outer world of causal consequences and consensual limits (Extraverted Judgment) that determines a consistent standard of meaning for what's being taken in.

So NJs appear to feel a clash between spatial constructs for temporal orientation and their native experience of time, forcing them to figure out what those constructs are "supposed" to mean. In fact, the ENJs to whom I've spoken are highly critical of people who use the phrases "move up" and "move back" incorrectly, because the potential for confusion strikes them as so great.

In summary, when I'm trying to figure out whether someone is an NP or an NJ, I generally ask them whether they have a problem with the terms "moving up" and "back" an event in time. NPs will frequently acknowledge the linguistic imprecision, but they don't regard it as a big deal and will generally say they associate the phrases by analogy to other spatial events.

NJs, on the other hand, will usually agree that the linguistic convention is peculiar and makes for confusion, may welcome the opportunity to talk about something they thought was "just them," and will often maintain that they don't use the phrases with others without supplementing them with further information (We'll move the meeting up a day -- that is, from Wednesday to Tuesday).

Thank you SO MUCH for this. I knew there was something here.

Slightly off-topic but maybe not even -- I related an incidence of precognition and someone PMd me to ask me what it felt like. I said it felt exactly like when you suddenly remember something, except that I'm experiencing it going forward instead of going backward.

Yes. NJs experience of time is different. YES. Good. Thank you. And yes, moving things up or back confuses me, and I always supplement with the numerical expression of the date, just to double-check.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Yes, I’ve always had a problem sorting out ‘moving up’ and ‘moving back’, and need specific clarification mentioned at the end of the op to make sure I understood correctly (e.g. “from Wednesday to Thursday”). I also have a problem sometimes in spring or fall with remembering what setting the clocks ‘ahead’ or ‘back’ means for DST, I need to hear it in terms of losing an hour or gaining an hour.

 

[Society]

in all likelihood, the difference he is noticing is how Si and Se users acquire language differently:
for NPs, its simple enough to view it's use based on "how it's always being used" in their little Si, while NJs will be all too aware of the metaphorical context because of the strength the spatial term has in their little Se .

note that i agree there is a potential difference in how we view time (more likely Ni vs. Ne), but in this case, his extrapolation point is a very limited set of data applicable only to a certain cultural context which probably doesn't apply to the grander context of typology.

for example, i have used "earlier" and "later" as would be the norm in hebrew, and have likewise used those to confirm whenever anyone uses the English schedule terms. this has served me well throughout my years in english speaking countries, and both J's and P's seem to find this completely acceptable.

otherwise, the english terminology is as confusing to me as the piece suggests it is for the J's, because it doesn't serve the same role in my own little Si.

great subject matter nonetheless.