[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Ni + Te = WTF?!?!?!

[SillySapienne]

Attribute functions are not skills. They provide driving forces to act/think in a particular way, and it is these behaviour paterns that result in skills developing. However, under the right circumstances an attribute function can lead to the development of a skill not normally associated with it.

I'll give an example. An INTP followed the call of his Ti and became a theoretical mathematician. Later he has an INFP daughter. Their prime functions, Ti and Fi are mutually opposed to each other, so the two of them rearly see eye to eye, leading to poor relations between them as she get older. However the daughters Fi function is telling her that she would rather get along with her father. To bridge the gap she tries to take an interest in his work, so they will have something to talk about. This leads to her having a talent for mathematics, but the driving force was Fi, not Ti or Te!

Te can lead to development of maths skills, as they often help to get the job done, but it could just as well result in a talent for public speaking, sign language or anything else it thinks is required to get the job done.

If you enjoyed matha, it was probably because it appealed to your Ne function. Many mathematical problems can be solved easily by going about them in the right way, but finding that way requires imagination. Every step in a proof is logical - except the first one, because knowing where to start is more a feat of intuition than anything else.

Interesting, interesting...

My father actually happened to be an INTP, and his Ti certainly clashed with both me and my sister's Fi, but this led to us getting and not liking him, and him to not getting us thereby treating us poorly/oddly which led to our not liking him which he did not like, that's a bit confusing, but therein lies the cylical formula for a perpetually disasterous relationship, which it was.

I've always had fun with numbers, but math became really fun when I was alone and I thought about math *conceptually*, the ideas of zero and infinity and what they truly mean and thus their implications to/in math and life have been a constant recurring thought since 5th grade.

Also, I LOVED geometry, because there were multiple ways to solve a proof.

In fact, I always tend to go about solving problems "differently", dunno why, I just do, much to most of my teacher's and prof's disapproval. :rolli:

But what a digression...

I'm not satisfied yet.... :/

Ni = <insert what>

Te = ""

Fi = ""

Perhaps I need to read through the posts again, but am I the only one who thinks that having Ni as your primary function and Te as your secondary function is just *inherently* weird, hence the rarity of your kind in the populus.

 

[Andy]

Interesting, interesting...

My father actually happened to be an INTP, and his Ti certainly clashed with both me and my sister's Fi, but this led to us getting and not liking him, and him to not getting us thereby treating us poorly/oddly which led to our not liking him which he did not like, that's a bit confusing, but therein lies the cylical formula for a perpetually disasterous relationship, which it was.

I've always had fun with numbers, but math became really fun when I was alone and I thought about math *conceptually*, the ideas of zero and infinity and what they truly mean and thus their implications to/in math and life have been a constant recurring thought since 5th grade.

Also, I LOVED geometry, because there were multiple ways to solve a proof.

In fact, I always tend to go about solving problems "differently", dunno why, I just do, much to most of my teacher's and prof's disapproval. :rolli:

But what a digression...

I'm not satisfied yet.... :/

Ni = <insert what>

Te = ""

Fi = ""

Perhaps I need to read through the posts again, but am I the only one who thinks that having Ni as your primary function and Te as your secondary function is just *inherently* weird, hence the rarity of your kind in the populus.

Yeah, that example was just an idea of how a situation like that might turn out, not necessarily how it would, but I think you probably worked that out for yourself.

Ni + Te is an odd combination in some ways, as it produces "pragmatic dreamers", which almost sounds like an oxymoron. I've heard one facet of Ni described as "The ability to internalise and resolve apparent paradoxes" which might explain why it doesn't bother us!

Nevertheless, I maintain that they can work together (in typical INTJ "I'm-right-and-everyone-else-is-wrong" way, damn that demon Si). Ni defines the goals to which Te works. Our innerworld is a mass of ideas and desires - "just think what it could be like 10 years from now!" - but our relationship to the outerworld is all business, especially as teenagers. At that point it's all Ni+Te. Fi and Se are still rather silent, so when we are doing something other than thinking, we are doing something with a definable goal. I never went to parties or discos because I didn't understand them. What as the point of them? What was the end result? These days I just people watch, but even that grows rapidly stale after a few hours and the old urge to DO something comes back (dancing and talking don't count as doing anything, by the way). Anyway, I'm rambling and self anylising, much to the delight of Fi.

Back to the plot. Te gives structure to the outpourings of Ni, and a method of bringing it's desires into the real world. Potential problems foreseen are listed next to their solutions, along with an estimate of their probability. Once found a solution is fed back into Ni to see how it effects everything else. Will the solution create new problems or new opportunities? How does everything fit together? The second generation opportunities and problems go back to Ni, and everything goes through this process again and again, until the patterns generated become mind boggling.

When I was at university I was given a manufacturing process to work on and improve. After a 6 months, I felt I had a pretty good idea of how it all worked, but when I came to try and express it I found I couldn't. I tride making a flow diagram with little boxes and arrows, but I found one piece of A4 wasn't enough. I stuck a couple of sheets together and started again, but by the time I'd finished all I had was a mass of boxes and criss crossing lines that looked like something produced by a drugged up spider. There wasn't even any definable starting point, just a circular blob of interconnecting factors. I just looked at it and realised that I was the only person on earth it would ever mean anything to. I got a 2.1 in the end. I'd probably have got a 1st, if I'd been able to find away to express what I was thinking. Such is life.

 

[SillySapienne]

Pragmatic Dreamers.... Lovely!!!

When I was at university I was given a manufacturing process to work on and improve. After a 6 months, I felt I had a pretty good idea of how it all worked, but when I came to try and express it I found I couldn't. I tride making a flow diagram with little boxes and arrows, but I found one piece of A4 wasn't enough. I stuck a couple of sheets together and started again, but by the time I'd finished all I had was a mass of boxes and criss crossing lines that looked like something produced by a drugged up spider. There wasn't even any definable starting point, just a circular blob of interconnecting factors. I just looked at it and realised that I was the only person on earth it would ever mean anything to. I got a 2.1 in the end. I'd probably have got a 1st, if I'd been able to find away to express what I was thinking. Such is life.

Reading this made my heart smile.

 

[Sniffles]

Yeah I'm dom-Ni and even I'm confused as to how Ni and Te go together.

 

[SillySapienne]

Yeah I'm dom-Ni and even I'm confused as to how Ni and Te go together.

Werrrrd!!!!

So I'm not crazy for being so confused!

 

[Sniffles]

Nope. I mean the ability to put Ni to actual pragmatic use is something I can only gaze at wonder.

 

[MacGuffin]

You asked if the visions were founded without experience or observation. This would be a literal impossibility. The visions arrive from day one and compound with the experience of day two, and then day three, and so on, until we reach approximately day 29,200 and die. Se being weak or not, it has been inputting information from the beginning, along with books, experiences, tests, accidents and so forth. It is like any introverted function, and not like any extroverted function, it acquires depth and perception as it ages. It has access to the entire world in there.


And before too much more irritating is said, Ne is meant to work on Si. Si having a very clear and detailed picture of what was, will become hidebound and moribund without someone to suggest that sometimes there are new ways to do something or even that there may be--horror!--new things to see. For Ni, it's Se that tells it something new, not about possibility, because it already knows that, but about reality, what's there right now.

And that's (I think, a big part of) why INTJs are pragmatists. Because we have almost no ability to care directly about the past. The past will appear as warnings in Ni perspectives on the future, but not as particularly efficacious memories themselves. I wonder sometimes if this is really true because it's a little scary, but there it is.

I just found this thread, and I wanted to say that was an enlightening post. The whole thread is good.

 

[Virtual ghost]

And that's (I think, a big part of) why INTJs are pragmatists. Because we have almost no ability to care directly about the past. The past will appear as warnings in Ni perspectives on the future, but not as particularly efficacious memories themselves. I wonder sometimes if this is really true because it's a little scary, but there it is.

I can relate to this.
Many people have asked me a number of times why I am not afraid that I will not have any "real" memories if I continue to live asocial life.
And to be honest I never knew what to say as a proper answer.

 

[Uytuun]

Do other people see someone else's Ni?

Yes, actually...EN(F)Js and (I)STPs for example will get really interested when I display Ni (which for use with other people often correlates with outrageous imagination for me). They really latch on and get involved in my fantasies...they drink it up like crazy. I like taking them on a wild ride for the entire day - their eyes glitter.

 

[musicheck]

Ni: Source of detailed and intricate fantasies
Te: Efficient taskmaster

Think of a bunch of thought bubbles being figuratively piled up and thrown at the wall to test them. The ones that make it are then put into action. Because F isn't directly part of this process, the imaginative thoughts aren't necessarily "creative thinking" in the conventional sense. You're just as likely to get a vision of society, a structure for a computer program, or a piece of art out of Ni. Any of these ideas will be put to empirical tests once it is well formed. Fi is a more detached judge of whether or not this process is working in the big picture sense- whether the final product has "quality" to it.

 

[SillySapienne]

What inspires these thought bubbles?

From what source are they derived?

 

[musicheck]

They inspire themselves. If they need external stimulus to develop, Te gets it for them, but fundamentally they mind their own business. I think about the same questions for months on end. If you're an Ne dom, picture that type of creativity separate from the experiene that inspires it. Where Ne bounces off the world around it and synthesis it creatively, Ni just kind of floats right through and processes the ideas that it itself is interested in processing.

Though in a bigger picture sense, I would say Fi inspires it. I might decide that, say, understanding economic development is a good cause. I then will spend years thinking about it. My long term thought process is:
1. Fi decides something is important
2. Ni forms an intricate web of thoughts around this thing
3. Te cuts the web into something connected to reality

Also, watch this movie:
Stalker (Сталкер)

 

[PureStealth]

I'll give my take on it with a new metaphor

For me, Ni is like a machine which dispenses lego blocks, at all times of the day and without any external interaction. The blocks it dispenses are of all different shapes, types and colours, and appear to be completely random.

Te then moves in and structures these lego blocks into different designs, so that they can be used to create something of practical value. This process is ongoing, and happens whenever Ni feeds in new lego blocks. The structures it creates are permanent and unshakable but are also in a state of constant improvement due to the steady flow of new blocks from the dispenser.

Finally, Fi is the small child observing this process, picking out designs which look good, and rejecting those which may cause long term problems.