[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Explain Stuff to Jeffster!

[Jeffster]

ISSUE ONE

Explain to me how "Introverted Intuition" (Ni) can be a positive thing.

Now you know me. Or if you don't, then you should. But even if all you know about me is my MB type, then you know not to step to me with any weak, wall-of-text "Ni is concentric to the vector of the partial Ne-Te loop associated with Einstein's left testicle etc etc blah blah." I mean give me REAL examples, something I can see in real life, not "If I could see inside your brain" type of stuff.

P.S. All the questions/explanations I ask for in this thread, this same rule will apply. There's already plenty of threads where people talk in circles and don't apply this stuff to anything. So there's no use making this thread another one.

Usehername gave me an example that I think has some merit, but it was in a PM, so I'm not gonna post it here unless she gives me permission.

But anyway, I WILL challenge what you say. Not because I want you to be wrong, but because I want to understand, be convinced, not just say "ok, that sounds spiffy, see ya!" Of course, I might ultimately do that, in which case, this could easily be turned into a thread to post pics of big boobs. So, either way, I expect to get something out of it.

Who wants to step up first? DO YOU DARE ENTER THE ARENA?

 

[Athenian200]

Of course, I might ultimately do that, in which case, this could easily be turned into a thread to post pics of big boobs. So, either way, I expect to get something out of it.

Now that's Ni.

Ni can be something like an awareness of the various ways a situation might go. There's nothing that you can inherently sense that tells you that those might be the possible outcomes, yet you see them anyway. And that's Ni.

The actual process of exploiting those possible outcomes (which is what you did), or setting up the situation so that more of the possible outcomes are favorable, on the other hand, involves Se.

The truth is, Ni can be a lot of things. It's quite flexible. It can be trying to compare things across contexts, building up elaborate fantasy scenarios in your mind (like an author would do), or trying to see how a central idea links several seemingly disparate things.

The reason it can be positive, is that it can give you a goal. It helps you see further down the road, so to speak. You get an idea of what you want... and then you try to imagine yourself doing the first step, and all the things that might happen. Then you imagine yourself doing the next step, all the things that might happen then (and the most likely one), and so on. It's basically very good for planning things out, trying to figure out "What would happen if..." Oh, and you can try to imagine what a present, past, or future situation would be like if something were different, like another person or thing was here, or another person or thing was gone, if something's nature were changed. That can be useful as well.

What part do you want a real life example of?

Who wants to step up first? DO YOU DARE ENTER THE ARENA?

I dare to enter, but I don't expect to walk out. You'll probably beat my argument, but I figure it's worth a try.

 

[Jeffster]

Athenian gets major points just for being the first to reply.

And I will ponder on your response.

You know, tomorrow.

Freud would probably say I just have mommy and daddy issues. Maybe I should have started with a perspective reminder.

My dad - INTJ, My mom - INFJ
Me - ISFP

Yeah, see, I'm using my amazing buried intuitive powers to sense that some of you will read that and already start forming ideas in your heads about how that might have influenced my views on this particular subject. Of course, when I was growing up, I didn't have any of these labels for anything, but you can imagine why when I read descriptions of what "Ni" is supposed to be, my mind does not necessarily focus on the positive.

 

[stellar renegade]

Oh, something was said about this in another thread on these forums somewhere. It was about meditation and how Ni/Se are kind of on the same platform in that arena.

It's like if you go walking in the woods, and you just take in everything without thinking about it. The perception of your surroundings is Se, the peace and inward calm of your being is Ni. At least that's the way I look at it.

An SP can get all entangled in things and addicted to sensory experiences. Ni helps teach to be disattached enough to where you can have a loose grip on things so that you can experience even more. It's like being willing to walk away from your rich mansion and hop out of your expensive sportscar right before it goes reeling off a cliff, or give away all your possessions to the poor and journey to a far-off land just for the heckuvit.

I see it as a loosening mechanism to enjoy all sensory experiences in their grandeur without being particularly addicted to any of them. You don't obsess, you just enjoy for its own sake.

 

[simulatedworld]

Ok instead of my usual ridiculously exaggerated technical jargon brain fart for comic meta-effect, I'll just try to explain Ni...

It's basically being able to step out of your bubble and think about the underlying values that drive personal interactions. (That's only one part of it, but I'm trying to give a real example.)

When I'm having a strong Ni moment, I realize that, excepting truly mentally retarded people, no one is actually stupid. Their value systems just differ from mine and I'm making a mistake when I assume that my value system is fundamentally superior.

Honestly, you've already displayed pretty good Ni for a strong SP type just by being interested in typology and trying to understand all the different ways people think about the world that may differ from yours.

Remember, nobody is actually stupid--their priorities are just really, really different from yours.

Ni is hard to discuss in more concrete terms than that, unfortunately.

 

[Jeffster]

Now that's Ni.

Nah, that's just Artisan optimism.

What part do you want a real life example of?

All of them, of course!

 

[wolfy]

Remember that Asian mountains post? You saw the pattern and then exploited it to have an impact. Se/Ni.

 

[Athenian200]

Nah, that's just Artisan optimism.

Hmm... it could be that too, I guess.

All of them, of course!

It's far easier to do those things than to explain them, but I'll try.

A. The various ways a situation might go.

I should note that this one could be Ni or Ne... it's just an N thing.

Imagine that you're an overworked bank teller. Everything is going normally, you're taking deposits and offering withdrawals to customers, dealing with complaints, and you're looking forward to your overtime pay and Christmas bonuses. Then, all of a sudden, this guy comes in waving a gun. Now, instantly, your mind flashes through several possible ways the situation might go:

1. He shoots you the moment you move, because he sees it as threatening.

2. He assumes you're moving to get the money for him, and ignores you.

Since scenario 1 is quite likely, you freeze up and put up your hands to minimize the chances that you'll be shot. The guy walks up to you with a bag and says, "Money in the bag, NOW!" At this point, more possibilities flash through your mind:

1. He shoots you because you refuse to give him the money.

2. You give him the money and he leaves you alone.

3. He waits until you give him the money, and then shoots you to make sure you don't try anything.

Obviously you don't want to do 1, but you don't want to count on 2. Thus, you prepare for 3. You go to get the money, and press the silent alarm nearby. As you approach the guy holding the gun, you hesitate for just a few seconds... and in that time, some bank security wielding guns come out of a room in the back. Thinking quickly, the bandit takes you as his hostage while their guns are trained on him. More options:

1. You try to escape from him and he shoots you (but if he does so, he'll be taken down immediately).

2. You standby and wait, and hope they can talk him down (but you notice he's becoming increasingly desperate/agitated and you're afraid he'll shoot you the moment the police try something).

Thus, on a hunch, you try #1 at a moment when his grip is loosened because he's gesticulating, and manage to knock the gun out of his hand. The bank security grabs it and him in the blink of an eye, and he goes off to jail.


There, that's an example of how Ni might perceive the various ways a situation can go. Not all the situations are lousy B-movie plots , but hopefully you get the picture.

B. Comparing things across contexts.

There are tons of examples I can give, and none of the best ones are coming to mind right now.

Here are the ones I can give, though:

Good manners are the emotional equivalent of wearing a nice suit.

Clocks are to time, what measuring tapes are to space.

Appointments are to time, what an X on a map is to space.

That was all I could think of at the moment. Hopefully you got it, even though it wasn't that good.

C. Building up elaborate fantasy scenarios.

Okay, look at my response to "A." That one was ripped from somewhere, but I can do better.

I'm imagining a castle. The drawbridge is closed, and there's a moat around it. It's around sunset. I'm looking at the large bricks and admiring the quality of the masonry, wondering how they ever got those things on top of each other. I take a second look at the drawbridge, and notice it's made of metal. I think to myself, "A shame, really. They lost the original and couldn't find anything better to replace it with."

While I'm standing on the road in front of the castle, I happen to notice a frog. It startles me, and I kick some dirt towards it, frightening it away. Just then, the drawbridge lowers. I contemplate walking inside, but I decide not to. After all, I don't really know the people inside. Instead, I walk off down the road... and it gets dark. Just as I'm wondering when the road ends, I suddenly feel myself falling. I look up, and realize I just walked off the edge of the world, and I'm going to fall, forever.

Well, that was a weird Ni fantasy scenario. Not one of my best, but it was one.

D. Seeing how a central idea links seemingly disparate things

This one is easy.

A lock. An army. Encryption. A savings account. What do they all have in common? Security. They're all oriented around the central idea of security.

Reading a book. Watching someone do something. Asking people questions. Experimenting with something. Learning. They're all oriented around the central idea of learning.

E. Giving you a goal, "what if," etc.

I'll pass on this one. I'm really not in the mood to articulate this one, as it's very involved and personal. Most of it just gets condensed into a single judgment (which is all that's expressed), and what's behind it is hard to see. But believe me, it's there.

It might be easier if you named a specific goal you want to work towards. It's hard for me to just arbitrarily name and and illustrate this process, because it doesn't really work unless it's a real goal, or at least is defined by someone else.

F. Imagining if something were different.

Present: Okay, I'm imagining my coffee table... with no cokes or junk on it. It would be easier to find places to put things if that were the case. But, I'm too lazy to move them, so it will just remain a fantasy. Oh, well.

Past: I remember that one time, a kid took my pencil while I was doing schoolwork. When he did this, I simply took out another pencil and continued working. He started calling me, "The Machine." It's probable that if I had instead whined that he was being mean, and begged for my pencil back, he wouldn't have called me, "The Machine."

Future: If they stopped selling cola next week, I would have to deal with caffeine withdrawal.

 

[alcea rosea]

ISSUE ONE

Explain to me how "Introverted Intuition" (Ni) can be a positive thing.

I can't because I don't use it too much.

And the next question is?

 

[Quinlan]

One example: worst case scenario planning, with Ni foreseeing possible developments, you would hope that whoever designed the plane you're flying in had come up with and taken into account as many scenarios as possible. "What would happen if a flock of seagulls flew into the engines? What would happen in a terrorist attack?" These kind of questions and answers to them are very positive and help us avoid disaster.

 

[Ace_]

The most positive thing about Ni is foresight. Either short term or long term. This is very very helpful in life.

And also approximation. Weighing what's right and wrong and the percentages for each choice and going with the most probable one. Ni users are pros in that department. This is the reason I ace all multiple choice tests, sometimes without touching my book. I use Ni for weighing my options and deciding which one is the most probable and it rarely lets me down.

 

[simulatedworld]

Athenian, dude, come on...do you really think that's the best way to explain this idea to an ISFP?

 

[Athenian200]

Athenian, dude, come on...do you really think that's the best way to explain this idea to an ISFP?

What do you mean?

Too abstract?

I didn't manage to make it concrete enough or what?

 

[simulatedworld]

Yeah, it's REALLY long and complex and I think he wanted a concrete and fairly concise example of one single real life positive use of Ni...not the entire interrelated theory with 12 paragraphs of background info.

 

[Snow Turtle]

I dunno. I thought it was really good. There was plenty of examples in that post. Sure, not all of it might have been real life events but they are concrete enough. Let's wait for Jeffster to reply back first rather than assume it's not enough for him.

From my perspective:

Ni - Extrapolation with current knowledge. Figuring out what the likely outcome is, and entertaining alternative scenarios. It's like other people said: Foresight. If you have ever read the book called 'Blink', I'd say that captures Ni rather well although other functions are thrown in as well.

However as mentioned in the book. It can sometimes go horrendously wrong when the person using Ni has a bad foundation, so Ni users can be prone to making statements that make sense but don't make sense as well. Then again this applies to most people.
The downside of Ni summed up in two words: wrong assumptions.

Now that description there sounds very much like Ti as well. And I see them as very similar, but I get the impression that Ni is more unconscious, hence all the supposedly flash of insight feelings. Where as Ti is more conscious and linear in it's construction of a model, essentially predicting what will come.

 

[Amargith]

I'd love to know this is different from Ne, coz..I tend to do the things you describe as well and use it quite frequently.

 

[simulatedworld]

^ They're almost the same thing.

Ne changes and reinvents the external object or idea, preferring to imagine what could be in the external environment in the future (this is not limited to physical things) to perceiving what is there now.

Ni doesn't actually interact directly with the external environment; it only seeks to redefine its own personal interpretation of the external environment, and that's an important distinction. Ni wants to scrutinize the process of perception itself and what mistakes we might be making by assuming arbitrarily that our perception is correct.

 

[Amargith]

Ok, no offense but that's depressing. I mean, sure, you can see that a beautiful sign is supposed to give you that warm fuzzy welcome feeling, but all it is, is a wooden board with some letters on, but I prefer to recognize that as such and still go on enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling it invokes and dream about what else could be, enhancing said feeling

 

[stellar renegade]

Now that description there sounds very much like Ti as well. And I see them as very similar, but I get the impression that Ni is more unconscious, hence all the supposedly flash of insight feelings. Where as Ti is more conscious and linear in it's construction of a model, essentially predicting what will come.

Thank you for this, because by Athenian's example A, it sounded like regular ol' Ti. So Ni will actually "see" those things happening? Like CSI?

 

[Laurie]

To me that sounds external. How is that bank teller thing different from Ne? I thought a robber was external?