• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[Ni] Ni - What does it look like in real ife?

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
...INTJ ...Ni Te Fi Se

Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

I haven't studied the MBTI functions in these expressions before.
I don't know how much iNtuiting I really do.
What does Ni look life in someone's life?
 

Economica

Dhampyr
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
2,054
MBTI Type
INTJ
What does Ni look life in someone's life?

The following descriptions of Ni from the Lenore Thomson Exegesis Wiki really resonate with me:

Introverted Intuitions are not really ideas. They're like trains at the edge of articulated knowledge. You can't claim them or advocate them. You put on a hat, grab hold of a boxcar door, and see where they go.

Ni is a way of knowing (or at least thinking you know) that bypasses reason, facts, evidence, the expected or intended interpretations of signs, or anything you can point to, simply giving you an awareness or belief that seems indisputably true to you, period. You can't tell by introspection how you got this idea. There is no thought process. There is only tuning into this form of awareness and just knowing.
 

Athenian200

Protocol Droid
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
8,828
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
There are two things it seems to do. The first, it seems to just "know" certain things without being able to pinpoint why. The second, it allows you to alter your own and other people's perspective on a situation.

Does that make sense?
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
In a more practical sense, when you are discussing a topic and someone reframes the question -- not because they have had past experience with the question, but are simply able to see this on the fly -- and so reveals the bias that was in play before, well, that is one visible use of Ni.

I've seen it happen on the forums here repeatedly by INxJ types.

If you imagine the discussion/problem as a three-dimensional object, and everyone is standing on one side of the problem, viewing it from that angle, the person using Ni walks to a different side of the problem and sees it from a different angle.

Often we assume that we are viewing something objectively, when actually there are many different perspectives that would change how we assess things. It is all a matter of where we position ourselves and place our feet.

Just this morning, I was reading an op-ed by Chuck Colson in the back of CT magazine and found myself irked by him because of his inherent judgementalism. He notably lacks any real sense of Ni and is not even aware his idea of "truth" is built on some basic assumptions. (For one, "how the Bible should be read.") His ideas follow logically from his assumptions, but when you step outside his assumptions, there are other logical frameworks to pursue... but he essentially says, "Where I am standing is the only right place to stand."
 

cafe

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
9,827
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
I identify with what Jen has described. My own mental picture of the process is to hold the idea in my hand like a large faceted stone and turn it around in my hands so I can see different sides of it. I can't not do this.

If someone tells me that something is ________, I can't help picking it up and turning it around to see if it is still ________ from a different angle. Usually it doesn't look quite the same way if you look at it from another side. It's a little disorienting at times.

I'm familiar with the "just knowing" thing, too. I find it disturbing a lot of the time. It bothers me when I can't backtrack in my mind and figure out the puzzle pieces my mind put together while I wasn't looking. It's kind of naughty of it to keep me in the dark like that, I think.
 

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
2,790
MBTI Type
OMNi
My own mental picture of the process is to hold the idea in my hand like a large faceted stone and turn it around in my hands so I can see different sides of it. .

Freaky. I thought I was the only person who saw it that way. To think you even used the same analogy I came up with years ago. I didn't conceive that was what Ni is. I figured it was that ability to know when people were lying, just repeating stuff they read, manipulating, lying, withholding information, etc. That multiple perspective facet ability has gotten me into a lot of shit in real life.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I just made a post in another thread about this. Although i was comparing how both Ni and Ne might interrelate in my head. I was wondering if people's dominant functions tended to develop their opposite as well, since that is what is used the most.

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/56703-post14.html
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I just made a post in another thread about this. Although i was comparing how both Ni and Ne might interrelate in my head. I was wondering if people's dominant functions tended to develop their opposite as well, since that is what is used the most.

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/56703-post14.html

Or perhaps the perceiving functions at least develop together? Since it is just another method of data acquisition, and a person is just flipping their perception in or out, but it is still somewhat the same "trait"?

I could imagine that the person's level of extroversion is also a factor, in terms of trait development, especially when you get near the extremes.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Or perhaps the perceiving functions at least develop together? Since it is just another method of data acquisition, and a person is just flipping their perception in or out, but it is still somewhat the same "trait"?

I could imagine that the person's level of extroversion is also a factor, in terms of trait development, especially when you get near the extremes.
How would the level of extroversion affect it? For some reason i don't understand. Do you mean a more extroverted Ni dominant would develop Ne? As it stands, it means they more strongly develop their secondary function Fe or Te, right? I'm just not clear about it. I do know that for my weaker functions Ti and Se, there ain't no Te or Si to be found. ;) But for the Ni and Fe, i do have some sense of Ne and Fi present in my thinking - just not as strong.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
How would the level of extroversion affect it? For some reason i don't understand. Do you mean a more extroverted Ni dominant would develop Ne? As it stands, it means they more strongly develop their secondary function Fe or Te, right? I'm just not clear about it. I do know that for my weaker functions Ti and Se, there ain't no Te or Si to be found. ;) But for the Ni and Fe, i do have some sense of Ne and Fi present in my thinking - just not as strong.

Well, I am just fishing around and imagining the "good spots to throw a line," rather than having thought it all through, but here is what I was imagining:

Those who are extremely extroverted or extremely introverted could be prone to either avoiding the opposite function altogether. For example, an introvert with primary T/F frightened to interact with the environment (possibly because of extreme introversion) might end up trying to avoid the environment input altogether and just develop the weaker introverted perceptive function instead of their normal extroverted one.

(That was one possibility. And I was imagining some other potential "ideas" to test as well, if you can take things from there...)

They are just possibilities, though, and need support from data.
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I think I experience that "just knowing" thing several of you have mentioned.
However it seems like I lately second-guess myself a lot.
I've been so sure sometimes and then ended up being wrong. Oh well.

Thank you all for your input.
Gotta go.
Be back later.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

Glowy Goopy Goodness
Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
3,376
MBTI Type
ENTP
Another aspect of Ni is that it seems to be very future oriented. It makes lots of plans and seems to have an idea of how things will turn out in the future.
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
Another aspect of Ni is that it seems to be very future oriented. It makes lots of plans and seems to have an idea of how things will turn out in the future.
Aaaaah.
That I can really relate to.


I have always loved "proverbs" because of the great wisdom they impart.
Much wisdom has to do with being careful at the beginning of the road,
or else you probably won't like where you end up at the end of the road.
 

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
2,790
MBTI Type
OMNi
I think I experience that "just knowing" thing several of you have mentioned.
However it seems like I lately second-guess myself a lot.
I've been so sure sometimes and then ended up being wrong. Oh well.

I have an issue with the "just knowing" thing because I never have anything tangible to back it up. I just know about a person or how a situation will turn out, but I'll agonize over it rather than do anything because I can't prove to myself that what I know is true.. And then, of course, it turns out to be exactly as I expected. :doh:
 

nightning

ish red no longer *sad*
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
3,741
MBTI Type
INfj
I have an issue with the "just knowing" thing because I never have anything tangible to back it up. I just know about a person or how a situation will turn out, but I'll agonize over it rather than do anything because I can't prove to myself that what I know is true.. And then, of course, it turns out to be exactly as I expected. :doh:

But that's only to guard against the incidents where you're wrong... because if your interpretation's wrong, how you act would be completely off-based and you make a mess. :doh: Doesn't happen very often but still, I had bad experiences.
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I have an issue with the "just knowing" thing because I never have anything tangible to back it up. I just know about a person or how a situation will turn out, but I'll agonize over it rather than do anything because I can't prove to myself that what I know is true.. And then, of course, it turns out to be exactly as I expected. :doh:
Yeah. I hate when that happens.

I worked with an ISFJ once and she would get these "hunches".
I would be like, "Where in the world did you get that idea from?!"
Yet over and over again, it would turn out she was right.

I figured out that her S function was taking in all these facts and details and storing them for future use.
And then somehow, she would get a "hunch" that would just pop up out of nowhere
that was actually based on facts she might have taken in 5 or 10 years ago!
Incredible!
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
So the Ni is making invisible connections based on iNtuitive information, I guess?
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
There are two things it seems to do. The first, it seems to just "know" certain things without being able to pinpoint why. The second, it allows you to alter your own and other people's perspective on a situation.

Does that make sense?
I sometimes find myself being the "devil's advocate" when people are talking to me, though most people hate it and resent me, so I am very careful with it now, but I frequently see the "other guy's point of view".

This is especially useful when I'm only hearing one side of a story.
I am wise enough to know the other side of the story is usually equally compelling,
and I don't get in the middle - usually.
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I just made a post in another thread about this. Although i was comparing how both Ni and Ne might interrelate in my head. I was wondering if people's dominant functions tended to develop their opposite as well, since that is what is used the most.

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/56703-post14.html
From your thread.
"As is described with Ni, my mind processes information by reconciling paradox."

I do this, too.
When someone is telling me something, as I listen, I am reconciling the information with information I already have in my head.
When something doesn't make sense to me, it's because it doesn't "add up" with what I already know to be true.
I will frequently make the person stop talking and back up because I am no longer taking in what they are saying.
I am back 2 sentences ago still trying to reconcile what they said with what I know.
I can't just ignore it and move on.
It's worse than trying not to scratch an itch.
 
Top