Doubting N

[nolla]

No. It IS thinking. How would you get information from "out there?" How would that work, even on the a theoretical level? Reality isn't organized into concepts and themes; your mind is.

Sensing is getting it from out there and making a replica inside the mind. How does intuition compare to that? Why is it so important to call it intuition, if it is only a different way of using thinking?

N is pattern recognition

Realizing and interpreting interrelationships between otherwise unrelated elements

This seems to be relatively small area when compared to the other functions. How can it be that it has the same value as sensing? Think about life without sensing. You couldn't really communicate with the world at all, you couldn't make any sense of anything. Now, tell me how it could be that bad without intuition?

[Night]

Precisely.

Now factor preference and you have cognitive interaction.

[nolla]

That's more Ni to me -- the deep-seated hunch that leaps the gap that my Thinking rightfully points out as shaky ground and refuses to put its weight on. That's how I recognized it: Because I would fight internally over acting on the knowledge. Thinking screams, "No, you can't trust it THAT much," and Intuition yells back, "Stop being a scaredy cat -- you KNOW what the truth is."

Ok, that is something that I can understand being intuition. Still, that hasn't got anything to do with perceiving, does it? Because it comes from inside and to perceive is to get it from outside... So, why not turn the typology into a form that groups T, F and N into the same category and get rid of S, because all data comes in with S? (I know it is a far fetch, but I don't see how it makes sense to group N and S under the same function)

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Sensing is getting it from out there and making a replica inside the mind. How does intuition compare to that?

Intuition is the organization of the sensory data.

Why is it so important to call it intuition, if it is only a different way of using thinking?

Meh. I don't think it's important at all. It's just one way to look at and describe personality. The test was popularized by human resource specialists where this difference in attention and thinking style could be beneficial.

One more thing...the "Thinking" in MBTI is not thinking as used by cognitive psychologists, or philosophers, or Buddhists. It's something completely different which has to do with making decisions the the criteria for making those decisions.

[nolla]

Intuition is the organization of the sensory data.

Then it must be inferior to sensing by default and not actually perceiving, but distortion.

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Ok, that is something that I can understand being intuition. Still, that hasn't got anything to do with perceiving, does it? Because it comes from inside and to perceive is to get it from outside... So, why not turn the typology into a form that groups T, F and N into the same category and get rid of S, because all data comes in with S? (I know it is a far fetch, but I don't see how it makes sense to group N and S under the same function)

That wouldn't make sense under this theory because the purpose of the functions (N/S vs. T/F) are different and describe a different experience. Intuition and sensing has to do with information gathering, so presumably, at that stage, you are just collecting information. Kind of like a crime scene investigator looking for clues. The T/F is a judgment-making function, so it's concerned with the criteria for making a decision based on that information you've already collected. So, is the person guilty or innocent? A hard hard F might ask how they feel about the criminal, while a hard hard T would just look to the evidence and burden of proof. So combining the functions doesn't really serve any purpose and would just be more confusing.

Then it must be inferior to sensing by default and not actually perceiving, but distortion.

Well, now you've made a judgment about what's good and what's bad and I don't think this is the realm of MBTI, but more ethics or philosophy. A judgment like that doesn't make sense to me unless you define what ends you're trying to achieve. If you want pure perception, then maybe someone who neglects all sensory input are is immersed with his ideas would be "inferior." If you're trying to achieve understanding of relationships or context, then sensing would be "inferior."

[nolla]

Intuition and sensing has to do with information gathering, so presumably, at that stage, you are just collecting information. Kind of like a crime scene investigator looking for clues.

So the N is an automatic system that chooses unconsciously which clues to pick up? Doesn't that mean that it is actually the thing that makes world understandable? That I could not differentiate any objects from one another without it? Sensing would only be to see colors and shapes and taste bitter and sweet without understanding the meaning or difference.

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Intuition in it's most basic form can stated in one word: "Why?" The desire to know "why" is your mind trying to use intuition. It's looking for the explanation behind something. Sensing, in contrast, has to do with simply seeing something as it appears. This is why intuition is sometimes described as pattern recognition or viewing something from multiple perspectives. It is trying to find an extra meaning other than the most obvious one that we see.

[Totenkindly]

Ok, that is something that I can understand being intuition. Still, that hasn't got anything to do with perceiving, does it? Because it comes from inside and to perceive is to get it from outside...

That's a peculiar definition.

iNtution *is* perceiving something.
Patterns and insinuations from the outside.
But patterns and insinuations on the inside too.

Think of it more that way.
Se is the perception of raw data.
Ne is the perception of the insinuations made by the raw data.
Si is the awareness of internal states/memories of raw data.
Ni is the awareness of the insinuations made by internal states/memories of raw data.

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

So the N is an automatic system that chooses unconsciously which clues to pick up?

N doesn't have to be automatic, but it often is. It depends on the situation. The link I provided for you deals with social intuition, which the author (smart guy, btw) claims is the result of implicit (subconscious) processing. Other uses of intuition are probably more conscious, like debating.

Doesn't that mean that it is actually the thing that makes world understandable? That I could not differentiate any objects from one another without it? Sensing would only be to see colors and shapes and taste bitter and sweet without understanding the meaning or difference.

When people use the word intuition in an MBTI context, they're talking about recognition of higher level patterns than merely "this shape is different than that." If you want to call it a low level intuitive process, I don't think anyone's going to object.

By the way, this is intuition.