[Jungian Cognitive Functions] How to tell Se or Si?

[SwimmerGal97]

I have no idea how to go about this so I'm just going to blurt a few things down.

1) the original thing that made me think Si was my memory, especially my visual memory. In a chat with a friend I could recall with huge accuracy something I did on holiday 3 years ago (from the surroundings to the time to the route to what I wore to the weather and my thoughts at the time). For me, being able to recall things like that in scenes has always been easy, as has visualising things in my mind say from a book I was reading or just something I made up in my head.

2) the ideal weekend- maybe not entirely relevant but anyway, for me the ideal weekend is away from everywhere. I love hiking and camping, the serenity of nature, I love it when there are stunning views, as well as the sense of accomplishment after pushing myself on a big hike or run, (usually sundrenched valleys, stormy skies and coastal views do it for me). It's not that I don't like people....in my head I love people, it's just in reality they can be stupid and difficult and I'm crap at small talk and get a headache when surrounded by too many people as theres all the voices and smells and so on and it gets draining after a while (in case you haven't guessed I'm something of an introvert but that last bit made me think inferior Se?)

3) Following the theme of my last point, I wanted to mention my sensitivity to my environment and one of my hobbies- decorating (mostly interiors but i love to do my garden but that's not an easy task with three cats digging up plants). I'm pretty good with colour, had an understanding from an early age about how different colours affect us, but I have good spatial awareness too (The spatial awareness and being alert to environment = Se? But the effects of colour, be it direct or because for example the blue reminds you of a holiday or the green of autumn days or something,= Si?)

 

[Yama]

Si is more than memory and Se is more than liking outdoor activities.

I can't really speak for Se because I can't explain it as well as an Se dom or aux can, but in the case of Si, it's about past experience more than simple memory recall. It's similar to Ni in that it can be used to predict things, but it predicts based on past experience. Si walks into a room and noticed what's different. Si has a preference for the familiar over the unknown and doesn't mind things like ordering the same food every time they go to a restaurant. Si has a natural preference for what they know.

Se on the other hand, as I understand it, is about gaining new experiences. Let's try the new food at the restaurant instead of getting the same old thing. Let's try hanging out at this new place to see what it's like. I'm less sure about Se.

Si doesn't mean, however, that they will never try anything new and will always be stuck in their ways, just as Se doesn't always mean bouncing from place to place without being able to stay still.

Hopefully more people will jump in and give better input than I have.

 

[cascadeco]

Good post [MENTION=23583]21lux[/MENTION].

One thing I've noticed about Si users, especially combined with Ti, is a desire to be incredibly detailed in their descriptions of things, of events, places they went, what they did on a particular day, and so on. Actually nfp's can do this too, so maybe it is more the Si than the Ti. One of my good isfj friends would add all kinds of detail about things, it was like an elaborate story, when she talked about things she did. She was generally a very quiet person though, but if you asked her what she did over the weekend, for example, she'd paint a very detailed picture. I think Si people could make great storytellers, but that's just my opinion.

Se aux people, myself and the few I know at least, don't do that. We just give very high level summaries, as I don't think we find the details relevant or frankly interesting. But, to half the population at least, we're not being very helpful, or giving enough info, or interesting. I'll honestly sum up my weekend in one or two sentences, I could see how this would be totally boring to ppl. I think Se dom ppl on this subject can do the detail thing, but I feel like for them it's more about creating an impactful 'wow' story, ie details would be used to create an effect, vs for Si the details are important in and of themselves.

Just another trend of Se and Si have noticed...

Edit: It's not like SJ's won't sometimes do the one sentence response, because they can, but it's more when they're interested in talking about something they'll include every scrap of detail. vs even if I'm interested in saying something I still don't do that.


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When it comes to experiencing new vs old things, I can get pretty antsy if my life becomes too routine, seeing/experiencing new things and going new places can be almost a 'need' for me, I'd say.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Si perception is retentive and personalised, whereas Se perception is impactful and objectified.

 

[Sil]

Question: would Si users be more likely to rewatch movies/listen to songs/re-read books than an Se user?

If so, does it depend heavily on s function placement?

 

[Oaky]

People often misunderstand what memory means for Si. It is not how much one remembers memories in our minds. It is how our biology remembers certain sensory stimuli. In example, when an Si user looks at an animal and experiences something pleasant from the sight, every time the Si user looks at that animal the experience will remain similar, and it is subjective, so another Si user may look at the same animal and experience it negatively, and have that repeated every time he/she sees it too. An Se user looks at the animal, and doesn't experience it other than the raw detailed input of what the Se user notices about the animal. They do not have it subjective and so don't experience anything subjective about it.

 

[Yama]

Question: would Si users be more likely to rewatch movies/listen to songs/re-read books than an Se user?

If so, does it depend heavily on s function placement?

Hm. I can't speak for Se, but I enjoy re-reading/re-watching things that are meaningful to me. The more I watch/read something, the more "nostalgia value" it builds up. By "nostalgia value," I mean that sometimes when I re-watch/read/whatever something that used to be very important to me, even years later if I see all of its objective problems and issues, I still love it and consider it special to me because of the "nostalgia factor." Simply finding something nostalgic gives it a boost in how much I like it, even if I would have hated it having picked it up for the very first time today. Take for example: Pokemon, the anime. I watched it all the time as a kid and loved it. I'm rewatching the series now, I'm about 100 episodes in, and... it sucks. Or, well, if this was my very first time watching it and I didn't have any "nostalgia value" for it, I would cringe and think to myself, "It's so bad how could it be so popular?" But despite its badness I love it anyway because of the nostalgia. I wonder to what degree Se experiences the "nostalgia factor," as I have named it.

 

[thoughtlost]

I may not be an Si-dom, so maybe this is why I don't relate to the nostalgia thing. So I cannot always experience something the same way. In fact, I've always preferred NOT to re-watch things because I find that it does ruin my "memory" of the experience. If I saw it once, I really don't need to see it again, even if it something I liked. I just tune out. I never related to how people had a favorite "thing" that they like to do over and over and over and over. I always hate it when people ask me what my favorite thing to do is, or what movies do I like or whatever because I don't have a one.

Also, I am not good at retelling my experiences; I don't go into detail because the details blur for me. In fact, what I have done is not more important than the subjective experience anyway ...so I tend to forget those details.

 

[thoughtlost]

I want to rephrase my stance on how I experience Si.
...I still stand by it in a way, but what I was getting at wasn't properly conveyed.

Si, to me, is about the PROCESS of developing your likes/dislikes. It's a pretty slow process so it really has to build over a period of time. Sometimes we know ahead of time what we'd like or not like, but if we do not have any prior experience, we'll ignore the hunch to tangibly test it out (although a lot of the times our hunches were right from the start). Or we will downplay it for the sake of the situation (so another person may really like hiking). I may not think that I'd like hiking ...but since this other person has an interest in it ...I'll try it out and see what it's about. We'll stick with it as long as possible until we form our own opinion about it. I've noticed that when someone else suggests things ...it's usually something I assume I don't like (and I end up right about it! haha). So usually I end up hating things/not finding the "thrill" in it that other people see.

But when it comes to experiences that I imagine that I'd like (even if I haven't done it yet), I usually end up being right about it.

I think what comes down to it is that Si knows itself best (being an introverted function) and has a tendency to either seek out those experiences it knows it likes even if it's just a hunch. Or it doesn't and does things that other people want him/her to do and ends up miserable.

I think Oaky described it well. It's not about remembering every detail about someone's wedding. It's not about simply sticking to a daily routine. When I follow my own interests, Si is about "knowing" ahead of time what it will like and going after that and getting lost in the experience.

There. I hope I said it haha.

 

[Yama]

To add to what [MENTION=18445]thoughtlost[/MENTION] said, Si is sometimes interpreted as close-minded and stubborn because it's "set in its ways." There is actually a lot more happening behind the scenes that people do not see. Si has a sort of thirst for more information to add its its storehouse--the more it knows about something, the better. Once Si has gathered enough information, it processes it and forms its opinion. Do I like or dislike this thing? Gathering experience and knowledge helps Si answer this question. When Si finally forms that opinion, it becomes quite settled. So when someone comes in and tries to shake things up, Si tends to react rather negatively. Instead of fighting the other person, responding to arguments they're already heard and processed, Si won't budge on what it's already decided upon unless you can bring new information to light that Si hasn't processed before.

I agree, there is a lot more to Si than simply tradition and routines and memory. It's all about gathering experience and processing it through a subjective, personal lens. Taking it in as it is and then filtering it through oneself, building upon things that it already knows, and adding as much as it can to its "storehouse" of information. Si is, after all, a perceiving function.

 

[Zay]

People often misunderstand what memory means for Si. It is not how much one remembers memories in our minds. It is how our biology remembers certain sensory stimuli. In example, when an Si user looks at an animal and experiences something pleasant from the sight, every time the Si user looks at that animal the experience will remain similar, and it is subjective, so another Si user may look at the same animal and experience it negatively, and have that repeated every time he/she sees it too. An Se user looks at the animal, and doesn't experience it other than the raw detailed input of what the Se user notices about the animal. They do not have it subjective and so don't experience anything subjective about it.

That's interesting, does the same also apply when a Si user looks at someone whom he or she has a crush on?

 

[Oaky]

That's interesting, does the same also apply when a Si user looks at someone whom he or she has a crush on

I imagine so, however, looking at a crush tends to have an emotional aspect to it also. Si itself is not emotional, just a sensory experience, just like when eating something delicious you enjoy that experience but don't, in normal circumstances, feel emotional towards. Depending on the type you are, Si can be coupled with Te/Fi, Fe/Ti, and can also be altered with it, kind of like blacksmithing a sword, where you have to heat it up and bend it. Si is not so brittle as it is more malleable. So yes, if you feel strong emotion towards that crush, it's possible for her or him to alter your Si to make you prefer to see visuals that are similar in nature.

 

[IZthe411]

It's a hard question to answer upfront. It really depends on a lot of things. Depending on it's position in the individual's stack, it will manifest itself differently. So Se in an ESXP looks different than ISXP, which looks different in an ENXJ and different in an INXJ. Which means you may be hard pressed to "see" Se in NJs and Si in NPs. But that also means if you are able to positively identify Ni or Ne in someone, the other end of the axis is Se (Ni) or Si (Ne).

Also- Se is object focused- meaning it's impersonal and the attention is mainly on what's in front of them (mind you this can be a physical object or something intangible like an idea or concept).

Si is subject focused- meaning it's personal. The perception or vision the object produces is tied to something specific to the individual, and less focused on the properties that describe the thing. (Again this can be associated with an idea or concept).

So Se doms would describe a car as red, 25MPG, horsepower, rim size, amenities, etc, and is not likely to leave that level of description. Ask them to describe the car the tomorrow and you may get different physical properties than today. It depends.

Si doms would give some physical descriptions, but will eventually compare the physical properties to a car they had, their mother had, something they saw last week, or a dream.

 

[wolfnara]

Question: would Si users be more likely to rewatch movies/listen to songs/re-read books than an Se user?

If so, does it depend heavily on s function placement?

No, imo, I don't think indulging in nostalgia is a sensing function necessarily, because I don't Si is connected to the past. Memory is something everyone has and takes into importance.

However, I think Ne types would be least likely to do the same experiences again, because Ne is looking for new possibilities and exploring the unknown. When there are no new ideas to explore in their area of interests, they drop it in cold blood and move on to a new idea (according to the Jungian description)

 

[wolfnara]

I would explain Si vs Se but I wrote a description on my blog recently on my mbti tumblr page:
Si description

I think MBTI descriptions forget that Si is a sensing function, and therefore is connected to sensation and not memory itself.
Se is the most realistic function with it's extroverted perception. They are concerned with impacting "the real world" and therefore are not interested in ideas that may not have a potential effect on the actual surrounding.

Si is about using their collected experiences of sensation and applying this to the current situation. As an introverted (aka subjective) function, it is about how sensation impacts an individual internally.