[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Ni - What the hell is it?

[PeaceBaby]

The reality is that they see a different reality than you do. They're looking at a different set of interconnections that you don't readily see, just as you see interconnections that Ni doms don't readily see.

I remember from a fairly young age kind of inherently appreciating that there are interconnections I don't readily see and I believe that they exist for others even if I don't see them or can prove they exist (abstract is mutable?). But this rustic-looking table in front of me? A table. The first things in my mind are not an emblem of economy or a symbol of rural heritage or representation of anything else, simply a table with specific qualities (concrete is immutable?) If you put the table into a different set of circumstances it does not alter the physical reality of that table. It might change how we appreciate or use the table, but the table is essentially compositionally consistent (unless someone sets it on fire or performs some other distortion to serve a new purpose). Is that kind of what you mean? Or drop an example on top of that to contrast this?

I find it challenging when some Ni doms believe they do see the interconnections available more exclusively to other types, because they believe that "Ni sees everything". (As above, I don't "see" everyone's interconnections but am ok with the idea that they do exist and I can provide lots of space for them to exist? Like, I'm ok with a whole lot of perspectives floating around without distilling that further?)

And Si doms? Because there's no internal reference for something one can't actually perceive, it cannot even possibly exist - there's just seemingly way less stretch in there.

To Ne/Si, the concrete is immutable, the abstract is mutable. To Ni/Se, the abstract is immutable, the concrete is mutable.

Thanks for that. Good stuff to think about, I want to imagine more about the concrete being comfortably mutable. Those types of considerations, when my physical reality is threatened, really can stress me out. I've experienced depersonalization and derealization and it's distressing to lose that sense of a concrete perception, but what brings balance back is not minding and being ok with that kind of "distortion". It's an appreciation for a kind of timeless sense of time and space not contingent on here and now.

eta: I edited and added more to this, sorry if it's appreciably changed since a previous read.

 

[1487610420]

Thread: Ni - What the hell is.

 

[uumlau]

No, Ni or any other perception function doesn't "choose" anything. Only judgment does that.

I'm now wondering, if an example of Ni is when we come up with an idea, and it seems to fit so well, yet there's this sense that we might be missing something, or even overlooking something that collapses the whole premise; even though this factor is not yet known. Ne ignores this and hopes it goes away (for all that matters is that it can fit, and after all, nothing solid disproving it is being presented), while an Ni perspective would say "let's look at this and see what it really is".
Ni was described to me as "giving a voice" to something that [perhaps] could not be articulated, and I didn't fully get this at first, but then it suddenly dawned on me that it might be describing this subconscious sense of something missing, or things being "too good to be true".

Does that accurately describe Ni dom. experience?

Sort of. Let's classify two different kinds of problems that Ni doms might encounter. One kind is the "visible problem". Everyone knows there is a problem. Everyone knows it needs a solution. The other kind is the "invisible problem". No one knows there is a problem. There is no apparent need for a solution.

When an Ni dom sees an "invisible problem", e.g., that entire network of stuff that Ni doms see but Ne/Si types don't see, we see the problem AND we see the solution.

To an Ni dom, "invisible problems" look like a puzzle that has been completed, but for a single piece missing, and that piece is in our hands. When we explain things to the rest of the world, we either get the "wow, that's genius! The picture is so much better with your creative addition!" response, or we get the "That's how it's supposed to be. You can't change that!" response. The former is the source of Ni's reputation for amazing insight, when the reality is that it's just obvious to us. The latter is the source of Ni's reputation for arrogance.

We spend most of our time trying to convince others that there even IS a problem that needs a solution. Before the problem gets solved, everyone is wondering why the hell the Ni dom wants to change anything. "Why do you things always have to be YOUR way?" they ask. Once the problem gets solved, everyone can see that things work WAY better now, but they tend not to know how they got better. The new way becomes the new normal, the new concrete Si world.

You'd think things would be easier for Ni doms to explain their handling of the visible problem to others, but no, it isn't. Others see the visible problem, but usually the reason that the visible problem exists is because no one knows how to fix it. The Ni dom sees exactly how to fix it, but when others are told about the suggested solution, their response is, "You can't do that! That will make things even worse." The reason is that the Ni solution necessarily breaks the Si model of the world that the other people hold. This is precisely why the visible problem hasn't been solved yet: any solution that might work has a huge - almost political - resistance to being fixed.

Often, there are very legitimate reasons that there is a lot of resistance. Si types are quite aware that altering a complex system can have severe ramifications, and are thus extremely cautious about changing anything. An Ni dom should exercise a lot of due diligence to make sure that the new solution doesn't break things badly elsewhere. This is where some Ni doms can get a bad reputation, as they "fix" the apparent problem, but then the consequences cascade and create a bunch of new problems.

But if the Ni dom is actually good at doing what they do, they get the opposite reputation, and a level of trust from non-Ni types that the Ni dom is actually good at understanding the whole system and makes it work better. From personal experience, it takes years to get that level of trust, which is why I don't like to change jobs too often.

To summarize, I think the Ne/Si types sense the problems that don't have a solution, and try to ignore those, as you suggest, instead working on the problems they can solve. I don't think they can sense the "invisible problems" as I describe them. They instead see a working system that shouldn't be touched, because in their own experience, every time it gets touched, it breaks.

...

In the field of software architecture, there are reams of books on how to create robust designs that are resilient to change, most of which read like an INTJ wrote them. Lots of software out there is not resilient to change: changing it at all tends to break things that you didn't touch. This fragile software is generally written in a very concrete way (they actually USE this word!), where it's step 1, step 2, etc. The robust software, however, is very abstract (they actually USE this word, too!), where the abstractions keep the individual pieces from affecting each other, thus you can change one piece and not worry about breaking the rest.

 

[Nicodemus]

Meh... I'd say as far as filtering (which is, one admits, a kind of judging) it might go (least filtering to most): Se Ne Ni Si

I'd say Se being less filtering than Si is fairly indisputable.

Whether Ne vs Ni is more filtering kind of depends on perspective. I'd say Ne generates a large number of (single hop at a time) alternatives. Then a judging function (Ti or Fi) prunes from there, but in a way that pretty invested once it chooses.

By comparison, I'd say that Ni tends to filter down to a single (or small number) of likely "nearly inevitable" or "convergent" perspectives. Then Te or Fe prunes (in a way fairly flexible in terms of new input) from there.

Problem solved. Simple, comprehensible, short.

Close thread please.

 

[Eric B]

Sort of. Let's classify two different kinds of problems that Ni doms might encounter. One kind is the "visible problem". Everyone knows there is a problem. Everyone knows it needs a solution. The other kind is the "invisible problem". No one knows there is a problem. There is no apparent need for a solution.

When an Ni dom sees an "invisible problem", e.g., that entire network of stuff that Ni doms see but Ne/Si types don't see, we see the problem AND we see the solution.

To an Ni dom, "invisible problems" look like a puzzle that has been completed, but for a single piece missing, and that piece is in our hands. When we explain things to the rest of the world, we either get the "wow, that's genius! The picture is so much better with your creative addition!" response, or we get the "That's how it's supposed to be. You can't change that!" response. The former is the source of Ni's reputation for amazing insight, when the reality is that it's just obvious to us. The latter is the source of Ni's reputation for arrogance.

We spend most of our time trying to convince others that there even IS a problem that needs a solution. Before the problem gets solved, everyone is wondering why the hell the Ni dom wants to change anything. "Why do you things always have to be YOUR way?" they ask. Once the problem gets solved, everyone can see that things work WAY better now, but they tend not to know how they got better. The new way becomes the new normal, the new concrete Si world.

You'd think things would be easier for Ni doms to explain their handling of the visible problem to others, but no, it isn't. Others see the visible problem, but usually the reason that the visible problem exists is because no one knows how to fix it. The Ni dom sees exactly how to fix it, but when others are told about the suggested solution, their response is, "You can't do that! That will make things even worse." The reason is that the Ni solution necessarily breaks the Si model of the world that the other people hold. This is precisely why the visible problem hasn't been solved yet: any solution that might work has a huge - almost political - resistance to being fixed.

Often, there are very legitimate reasons that there is a lot of resistance. Si types are quite aware that altering a complex system can have severe ramifications, and are thus extremely cautious about changing anything. An Ni dom should exercise a lot of due diligence to make sure that the new solution doesn't break things badly elsewhere. This is where some Ni doms can get a bad reputation, as they "fix" the apparent problem, but then the consequences cascade and create a bunch of new problems.

But if the Ni dom is actually good at doing what they do, they get the opposite reputation, and a level of trust from non-Ni types that the Ni dom is actually good at understanding the whole system and makes it work better. From personal experience, it takes years to get that level of trust, which is why I don't like to change jobs too often.

To summarize, I think the Ne/Si types sense the problems that don't have a solution, and try to ignore those, as you suggest, instead working on the problems they can solve. I don't think they can sense the "invisible problems" as I describe them. They instead see a working system that shouldn't be touched, because in their own experience, every time it gets touched, it breaks.

That sounds like a pretty good description. (And I had been told of how the Ni perspective comes in handy for when a system is already in place and it needs to be improved in order to meet a particular goal, like streamlining and tossing out what's irrelevant and making things more efficient. Sounds like cartoon "robotic" science, like Dexter's "Ultrabot 3000", or the Twilight Zone episode about "inefficiency").

I'm trying to make sure I'm relaying correctly where the "invisible problems" come from, or what it really is. Ni is described as dealing in "unconscious" stuff, but then that word has other uses. N of both attitudes are called "unconscious", as is any introverted function, and of course undeveloped functions (e.g. "shadows"), and even a dominant function that becomes so "second nature", it too actually loses "consciousness" in a way. This is one thing that makes Jung hard to really grasp easily.

So I'm thinking that my "too good to be true" sense might be my [limited] experience of the "invisible problem". (Which you seem to be saying we don't sense at all). In other words, it's just a "hunch" (which is often associated with Ni), that is unspoken. The Ni description I've heard is "trying to find a vocabulary for it". (And I might have the limited experience, because at least I prefer one form of N; while for the SJ's, it would be even less conscious, and they of course go with whatever is familiar and already seems to work).

 

[OrangeAppled]

I really liked this post, OA.


This is so close to being dead-on accurate. It only has one flaw, which you can see if you compare it to Si. Si references internally stored archetypes, too. However, Si doesn't CHOOSE them: they were created by experience.


Similarly, Ni doesn't "choose" the perspective it perceives, as much as it might seem like it to others. Rather, think of both Si and Ni as libraries of experiences. Si stores the concrete, literal versions of those experiences, but doesn't tend to keep functional/purpose/meaning-based attributes of it. Ni stores a more functional/purpose/meaning-based version of experiences, but tends to lose track of the concrete specifics.

Both Si and Ni can quickly pull up their respective libraries, and quickly rifle through the index to pull up the most relevant past experience.

I don't mean a conscious, rational choice. But no one is perceiving all things at all times. There is a focus on some info over other info, whether we make a conscious decision about it or not. Certainly, this may be arbitrary for the Pi-dom, and they may experience it as just being aware, with certain things standing out over others (and generally, that's what perceiving is, right? A mental awareness that "sees" things as just being, almost unquestionably so; it's not a reasoned out conclusion. This is easiest to understand with Se of course). However, there is bias in every function, and so the ego is "choosing" what is perceived and what is not, in order to sustain itself. I'm sure it does not feel like a choice or any judgment, but it can appear that way.

Pi doesn't exist with Je either, and the lines are not totally clear in reality. I think the J mindset is a combo of both Je and Pi, which is also why Ji is more part of a P mindset that judging in the way people think of Je. I was telling someone else in the "Ask an INFP" thread how as an INFP, I often deal with reality by responding to possibilities as they arise, so that I don't feel as if I am making decisions or applying value judgments at all. I understand how perceiving doesn't feel like it's choosing anything, but there is some filtering out going on.

This is super obvious in Si-dom, who tend to focus on a sliver of reality, gaining mastery over it, and at times extrapolating from it to claim a grasp of all of reality (all introverts do this in some way, IMO). Their ego is limiting themselves to this sliver so as to not be threatened. It seems to me that Ni types can become quite narrow also, and this is when they can mistakenly apply their perceptions to something novel, making their intuitions dead wrong. The risk for the Pe type is opposite - to stay shallow, to jump from one thing to the next, because going too deep might prove to threaten the ego.

So what Ni does is look at reality, e.g., at a problem, and immediately sees "what kind of problem" it is, pulls out the Ni-experience that relates to it, and it is nigh-instantly solved. (Just as if you'd asked Si about a fact, and the Si individual immediately recites the correct fact to you.)

Ni doesn't remember facts. It remembers how to solve "that kind of problem" in a very abstract way. As you might notice, putting "that kind of problem" into more concrete terms is very difficult.

But there is judgment inherent in that, even if it's not reasoned out but just "appears" as something obvious, as clear as the sky is blue. Still, there is a judgment of relevancy. Perhaps this is the influence of Je, but there is a filtering, and that to me is a choice of the ego (even if not a rational one for perceiving types).

You are going to have more of an understanding of Ne than I do, but I don't think Ne chooses a perspective either.

Certainly not consciously. Instead, some things loom with more potential than others. Possibilties seem to "emerge" on their own. You just become aware of them. They fascinate you. Etc... But I would be silly not to acknowledge that this is only a part of reality I choose to focus on, even if that choice is not conscious. Being aware that we, on some level, are choosing, is pretty powerful. It removes some of the grip of the ego, and that's also when we are able to appreciate that others are seeing and evaluating reality from stances that are just as valid.

Perhaps the difference is that you are judging dom and I am perceiving dom? You always end up choosing what you look at and how you look at it, perhaps? A blindness of Ni doms is that we don't really feel like we're "choosing" anything, that it's just there, but it probably looks like a "choice" to others.

Well of course I am a Ji-dom, but no, I don't consciously choose what I perceive that much either. The judgement for me comes more in the response, as I noted above. I generally feel as though I am just responding to reality as it unfolds. There's more of a helplessness there as an IxxP than with an ExxP, who seem to shape things as they unfold more. Ne-dom sort of merge with potential much as Se-dom do with objects they are manipulating (as if it were an extension of their body). My response is governed by an ideal model Fi has pre-constructed, which doesn't feel much like judgement either so much as recognizing what does or could resemble it (conceptually, not literally). Je-dom seem much more deliberate and to actually experience a categorical judgment.

Again, the notion of "whatever it is they want it to be" is off. This is how it looks to others, not to oneself. What you are experiencing perhaps from other Ni types is that they appear to want to change whatever it is you believe to be true, and you're immediate thought is likely, "But that's reality. You don't get to change that."

The reality is that they see a different reality than you do. They're looking at a different set of interconnections that you don't readily see, just as you see interconnections that Ni doms don't readily see.

I agree with this....and that's related to what I'm saying above about the ego. When you realize the "reality" you see is not the whole of reality, then you know that you are "choosing" it on some level.

I don't experience that with Ni-dom. People don't try and change what I believe to be true because I don't offer that up easily. Most of the time, people don't understand my premise, which is common for any introvert (being that its sourced internally and requires you to bring forth the same thing within someone vs offering external "proof"). What I experience with them is refusal to see a different perspective when they've "decided" that a certain one is the reality, and it often appears to be an interpretation that removes responsibility or error on their part. Of course, that is more common with INFJs, who are the Ni-dom I am usually complaining about .

Ni doms don't "choose" that perspective that they apply. It's what they see. It is their reality. AND they don't often realize that other people don't look at the world that way. Self-awareness for an INTJ is when we realize that no, we aren't that smart, but rather we simply don't look at the world the way everyone else seems to. Most people don't look at the world and see a complex system of cause-and-effect that can be altered in fundamental ways. One surprise for me was that what most people view as static, I see as entirely flexible and changeable. Conversely, what most people view as flexible and changeable I see as almost-immutable law, e.g., analogous to the laws of physics.


Interesting perspective, here. I think what you are encountering is the different visions of the world, again, which see different kinds of things as mutable/immutable.

Quick and dirty function-theory version: To Ne/Si, the concrete is immutable, the abstract is mutable. To Ni/Se, the abstract is immutable, the concrete is mutable.


More likely, circumstances changed (Se is mutable) which drew up a different Ni-experience-model-abstraction. To you, it looks like they just totally changed their mind, and don't even remember that you had just proven them wrong, for example. What really happened is that you believe there is only one context (Si is immutable), therefore the Ni dom just did a 180-degree logical reversal.

My ENFP ex and I had some really weird arguments along these lines early in our relationship, until after an explanation of mine she realized, "Hey, waitaminute! You changed context. You're not even talking about what I'm talking about now!" To which I replied, "Yes. Exactly. Why wasn't that obvious before?"

You might wonder how that fits into Ni being immutable. Ni is still immutable because the old context didn't just disappear. It still exists in abstract, but doesn't apply now in the concrete instance. If the context switched back, you'd hear the same arguments as before the original switch. Further, there can be kind of a "chaos theory" kind of effect: a slight change in circumstances can produce a radically different conclusion even when maintaining the same Ni-understanding. Physics and math are full of things like this, where the math doesn't change at all, but a slightly different input value produces a significantly different result.

I understand this concept because Fi is much more like this, which is why it can appear inconsistent to others. It's highly dependent on context and not a fixed set of values as its erroneously made out to be (not unless you really funnel it down to those fundamental concepts which are not even able to communicate, as once they are given form, they are now dependent on something specific). I think that's the nature of introversion also, but depending on your function, it. Of course, it seems more natural to me that judgment is context specific rather than perspective, but I also see multiple perspectives in any context (so that I don't find the Ni perspective wrong usually, just not the only one, and I only want it acknowledged that other possibilities exist). I suppose they need to switch contexts for this, but I know there is a paradoxical aspect to Ni, and I guess that's acknowledging several contexts simultaneously (?).

For me, Si is experiences as extremely negative or very frivolous (Feeling like the past reality is a pattern I cannot escape - I am doomed! Experiencing the sensory world romantically- everything is imbued with meaning, as if it has a personality), so that consciously I don't experience it enough as "me" to be able to explain it as if I own it. Both Pi functions are the hardest for me to grasp.

As for [MENTION=5999]PeaceBaby[/MENTION] 's example, I will not see the table as a concept in itself, but I will see it as embodying an idea that is more like a personality. Sure, physically, it's a table, but it can take on a different "attitude" depending on context. Of course, there is also the metaphorical aspect too - the table is less a symbol than able to be used as a parallel for something unrelated on the surface. It annoys the crap out of actual SJs if they can't see the parallels. For NFPs, this tends to come out poetically more than practically, but you also use it to adapt quickly to new contexts.

 

[uumlau]

That sounds like a pretty good description. (And I had been told of how the Ni perspective comes in handy for when a system is already in place and it needs to be improved in order to meet a particular goal, like streamlining and tossing out what's irrelevant and making things more efficient. Sounds like cartoon "robotic" science, like Dexter's "Ultrabot 3000", or the Twilight Zone episode about "inefficiency").

Thanks.

I'm trying to make sure I'm relaying correctly where the "invisible problems" come from, or what it really is. Ni is described as dealing in "unconscious" stuff, but then that word has other uses. N of both attitudes are called "unconscious", as is any introverted function, and of course undeveloped functions (e.g. "shadows"), and even a dominant function that becomes so "second nature", it too actually loses "consciousness" in a way. This is one thing that makes Jung hard to really grasp easily.

This is one major spot where I disagree with Jung and Lenore on all the "access to the unconscious" descriptions. To give them due credit, I would say that the words really don't exist to describe it in the concrete way they describe all the other functions. (Which I would say is true for all the functions, which can be misconstrued because the terms describing them are often too concrete.) Ni isn't "access to the unconscious", it's just an unusual way of looking at the world. For the record, Nardi's descriptions in Neuroscience of Personality are very, very close to my understanding of Ni, and are the best descriptions of Ni in any published form (i.e., outside of forum discussions and the like).

The "invisible problems" are the ones that are really obvious to Ni doms who are familiar or expert with a system, but no one else sees them. It's like an electrician looking behind a light switch and seeing frayed wiring. Most people don't look behind the light switch, and the light works, so the problem persists until a fire starts, at which point it is blamed on bad wiring after the fact. So I'm not saying it's 100% invisible to non Ni types. Given time and persistence, others can be taught to see the same thing, e.g., "remember to look behind the light switch", but it is never "obvious", and most other types cannot be bothered to look behind light switches, as it's too much work, while it's trivial for Ni doms.

So I'm thinking that my "too good to be true" sense might be my [limited] experience of the "invisible problem". (Which you seem to be saying we don't sense at all). In other words, it's just a "hunch" (which is often associated with Ni), that is unspoken. The Ni description I've heard is "trying to find a vocabulary for it". (And I might have the limited experience, because at least I prefer one form of N; while for the SJ's, it would be even less conscious, and they of course go with whatever is familiar and already seems to work).

The "too good to be true" sense is definitely similar to what Ni doms do, except to you, it's still this vague hunch that something is wrong. To an Ni dom, it's obvious that something is wrong.

A recent example: a friend was talking about the Mythbusters episode that covered the bees lifting the laptop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12L_Dme8Vc is the original video. I watched this video and immediately knew it was fake. But it would take hours for me to explain HOW I knew it was fake, because there are years of experience with physics involved. Those years of experience develop an "intuition" of what is possible with physics. I understand concepts like lift, airflow, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, chaotic processes and so on. All of these taken together convince me that the video is fake, the primary indicator being that there is no way that the laptop would hover so precisely. Forces have to be exactly in balance for that to work, or there has to be a credible dynamic equilibrium with a feedback mechanism to make it work. Drones and helicopters and harrier jets have a huge amount of engineering behind them to make them hover precisely.

But to most other people without that expertise, the best they might get is a feeling of "too good to be true".

Now, Ni does not equal "expertise" per se. Other types can be equally expert with engineering to spot the problem here. This is just an analogy to give you an idea of what it feels like. If you have enough knowledge, you "just know" it's fake, but the knowledge is so esoteric that you can't just way why you know without confusing everyone around you. This is how Ni feels.

The Ni strength is being good like this with just about any complex system, given a fairly short time to study and understand it, because Ni naturally looks for the key functional components that might dictate failure or success. That's just what it does, without having to try very hard, just as Ti doms can just do logic in their heads without trying too hard, or Fi doms can read an individual's emotional state without trying too hard, or Si doms can recite their knowledge of a topic verbatim without trying too hard. But none of these introverted dominants can explain HOW they do what they do very easily. They just DO IT.

 

[OrangeAppled]

To summarize, I think the Ne/Si types sense the problems that don't have a solution, and try to ignore those, as you suggest, instead working on the problems they can solve. I don't think they can sense the "invisible problems" as I describe them. They instead see a working system that shouldn't be touched, because in their own experience, every time it gets touched, it breaks.

I think we should call that Si/Ne, or a very, very mature NP .

A young NP is reckless. NPs are arguably the most destructive of existing systems, for the hell of it. We are not as obviously rebellious as SPs, perhaps, because it's not so much in the physical realm. We're not focused on solving small problems to keep things running smoothly - refinement is not our gig. It's about what can be done, so that even if something existing works, why not explore other ways?

I "waste" a lot of time experimenting at work - but sometimes I come across a new way that makes something more efficient the next time I do it. I especially will do this with repetitive tasks, because I want to shoot myself otherwise. I will do it in different ways to see how much faster/easier I can make it. When I do find a very fast, easy way, then I may repeat that, but I'd be totally open to a new way if it were even less tedious. If there's any resistance to new systems, it's having to learn new details that I find tedious, when I may have felt I just figured out how to cut out the details. If I can learn it fast and it has few tedious details, then I'm all for it.

As a kid in school, SPs acted up in class physically and were reprimanded for it - they were testing physical boundaries. However, I quickly figured out the teacher's grading system and sought to subvert it. I would earn the A on my terms, finding loopholes to exploit and alternative interpretations for assignments, and the teacher often suspected nothing. The ones who caught on sort of subtly admired this, chuckled, and let me be. In life, some SJs catch onto this and are very suspicious of you. They see you "getting away with" stuff, but they find it hard to call out, which irritates them.

If I believed the system worked and was best, then I'd follow it, but I more often find myself working around it. I'm just not openly rebellious unless it's some Fi value violation. I suppose NPs oppose only when necessary, but we work around rather with a system, so that new or old, the system may simply be irrelevant to our methods.

Edit: I should add that the Pe mentality is also a confidence that you can deal with stuff as it arises. So we don't tend to try to foresee problems, but this is not out of attachment to a system. Although Ne can work to see negative potential, it doesn't sweat details too much. The aversion to planning comes from the mentality that we can figure it out as it happens, which is also energizing, whereas following a planned schedule feels tedious. Of course, this fails sometimes.

 

[Destiny]

Ni types are often analyzing people's hidden intentions/motives.

Whenever I am having a conversation with someone, I often find myself wondering, "Why did he/she said that? What is their intentions?"
For example, my boyfriend told me that I am skinny and I should eat more, and I started wondering, "Why did he say that to me? Is it because he has a fetish for fat girls and he doesn't find me attractive and he is trying to mould me into his ideal girl image, or is it because he is concerned about my health?"

As an Ni type, I rarely take words at face value. Whenever people says something to me, my first reaction is, "Why did he/she say that to me? What is their intentions behind saying those words?"

And it doesn't matter how long I know them, or how much I trust them, no matter how close someone is to me, I also have this same reaction toward them. I am constantly analyzing everybody around me, constantly analyzing their motives. Even people whom I love and trust, I am also analyzing their intentions all the time.

I also described Ni as having a tendency to "know" things without knowing why. For example, there was once when this person who is wearing casual clothes walked into the doctor room at the clinic.And then this lady beside me was shocked, she asked me who is he and why is he walking inside the doctor room. Then I told her he is the doctor.
And bingo! I guessed correctly, he really is the doctor. Then the lady beside me kept pestering me asking me how I knew it. I don't know I knew this either, but I just knew it
Then there is another time when an acquaintance of mine told me that she is going back to her homeland soon, and she was grinning very happily.
Then I told her, "You feel happy because your boyfriend is waiting for you in your homeland." And my acquaintance looked very shocked, she asked me, "How did you know?"
I often find myself knowing things about people without knowing how I knew it.

As an INFJ who uses Ni-Fe, this is how I use my Ni. My Ni often appear very strongly when it comes to human relationships and reading people etc.
INTJs are also prone to reading hidden intentions and motives, but their Ni leans more toward impersonal systems rather than human relationships, and this explains why INTJs, along with ENTJs, often end up becoming very successful entrepreneurs, because their Ni always managed to know where is the best location to set up their business, how to attract customers to their business, and how to make the most profit out of it etc. And their Te aids them in manifesting their visions into reality. And this explains why they are often successful entrepreneurs etc.

 

[PeaceBaby]

As an Ni type, I rarely take words at face value. Whenever people says something to me, my first reaction is, "Why did he/she say that to me? What is their intentions behind saying those words?"

And it doesn't matter how long I know them, or how much I trust them, no matter how close someone is to me, I also have this same reaction toward them. I am constantly analyzing everybody around me, constantly analyzing their motives. Even people whom I love and trust, I am also analyzing their intentions all the time.

Thanks, I enjoyed your sharing here. And yet, there are types that only use words at face value. There are no intentions. Perhaps aside from just getting along amiably with the environment or communicating a point of fact. Do you believe that? Do any of your conclusions about people reflect that reality, that sometimes, words are just words? They do not mean anything deeper?

As for @PeaceBaby 's example, I will not see the table as a concept in itself, but I will see it as embodying an idea that is more like a personality. Sure, physically, it's a table, but it can take on a different "attitude" depending on context. Of course, there is also the metaphorical aspect too - the table is less a symbol than able to be used as a parallel for something unrelated on the surface. It annoys the crap out of actual SJs if they can't see the parallels. For NFPs, this tends to come out poetically more than practically, but you also use it to adapt quickly to new contexts.

lol yes, this is good, I should have thought of that last night too. I agree with this. Inanimate objects have personalities too!

 

[PeaceBaby]

I especially will do this with repetitive tasks, because I want to shoot myself otherwise. I will do it in different ways to see how much faster/easier I can make it. When I do find a very fast, easy way, then I may repeat that, but I'd be totally open to a new way if it were even less tedious. If there's any resistance to new systems, it's having to learn new details that I find tedious, when I may have felt I just figured out how to cut out the details. If I can learn it fast and it has few tedious details, then I'm all for it.

x100. In keeping aligned with the values attached to the overall goal and my own personal standards of quality, I will reuse projects, repurpose graphics, chunks of code, employ contractors, multitask mercilessly. I streamline and cut corners wherever possible. There's always a faster, better way and as long as I can be the puppetmaster pulling the strings of it whilst having to do as little of the repetitive work as possible, I am all for that.

What I experience with them is refusal to see a different perspective when they've "decided" that a certain one is the reality, and it often appears to be an interpretation that removes responsibility or error on their part.

Yep on that too. How can such a thing NOT be a choice? (heh, if it's not a choice, that's pretty darn convenient!)

eta: it's like Ni doms (maybe all Pi doms?) have created a template of themselves (a super-ego structure perhaps?) a paradigm of what they are supposed to be that can function to deflect/filter/absorb? what and how makes an impact on Pi? (Like, some functional stuff is already invisible anyway, but that's not the stuff I mean.) So if you're an INTJ who sees themselves as being very system-efficient or an INFJ who sees themselves as reading intentions well, anything that enters into the perceptual module in opposition to the accepted paradigm is less ... checked, evaluated, considered by Je. It's not thrown into the world for fact-checking. Sometimes it is outright rejected as input not worth analyzing. This kind of amazes me. Maybe it's a sheer volume thing. Too much to process and you've got to accept some tenets as true in order to gain traction on the input?

I think why this always gets my attention is that Ji desires the most precise, accurate, truthful judgement. It's not about utility, it's about Truth (capital letter here on purpose). Perception that's not utilized or evaluated on equal par with other input lends higher risk to create a falsity of conclusion, especially of the self-delusional kind. idk, Pi as my tertiary is a tricky place, lending credence on occasion to worries not substantiated in the Pe world. iow, tough for me to talk about on par with dom Pi.

 

[Eric B]

This is one major spot where I disagree with Jung and Lenore on all the "access to the unconscious" descriptions. To give them due credit, I would say that the words really don't exist to describe it in the concrete way they describe all the other functions. (Which I would say is true for all the functions, which can be misconstrued because the terms describing them are often too concrete.) Ni isn't "access to the unconscious", it's just an unusual way of looking at the world. For the record, Nardi's descriptions in Neuroscience of Personality are very, very close to my understanding of Ni, and are the best descriptions of Ni in any published form (i.e., outside of forum discussions and the like).

The "invisible problems" are the ones that are really obvious to Ni doms who are familiar or expert with a system, but no one else sees them. It's like an electrician looking behind a light switch and seeing frayed wiring. Most people don't look behind the light switch, and the light works, so the problem persists until a fire starts, at which point it is blamed on bad wiring after the fact. So I'm not saying it's 100% invisible to non Ni types. Given time and persistence, others can be taught to see the same thing, e.g., "remember to look behind the light switch", but it is never "obvious", and most other types cannot be bothered to look behind light switches, as it's too much work, while it's trivial for Ni doms.

The term Nardi keeps mentioning for Ni is "Zen-like pattern" (using the "whole brain", p.102) "What is this zen state like? When presented with a problem, the Ni types seek to harness all neocortex regions in order to 'realize' an answer" (in the actual maps he shows, both Ni dom. types ⦅T and F variant⦆ have the most activity in the whole perimeter and the strongest readings in the corners ⦅Fp2, F8, T6, 01⦆, and T2 ⦅left, center⦆). He compares it to the blind men feeling different parts of the elephant, and a "zen-like synchronous state" allows one to reconcile all the different perspectives and arrive at the closest sense of the whole ("the elephant").

But this is describing, basically, the "unconscious". It (the "whole brain" perspective) is unconscious to everyone else, and likely at least somewhere below consciousness for the Ni user as well. Hence, "zen-like", and something that just "comes up" when they focus (without distractions). They're bringing up something from where else, but the "unconscious". That's why you are describing it as an "unusual way of looking at things".

But this description does support what I'm coming to understand about Ni. I had forgotten to look it up again. Every time I saw it before; I wasn't sure, because of all the different descriptions of Ni (including ones that invoke "the unconscious", and including his earlier definitions which were often vague or just generalized it as "foreseeing" or "meta-perspective") that had to be sorted through.
So this explains everything.

The "too good to be true" sense is definitely similar to what Ni doms do, except to you, it's still this vague hunch that something is wrong. To an Ni dom, it's obvious that something is wrong.

A recent example: a friend was talking about the Mythbusters episode that covered the bees lifting the laptop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12L_Dme8Vc is the original video. I watched this video and immediately knew it was fake. But it would take hours for me to explain HOW I knew it was fake, because there are years of experience with physics involved. Those years of experience develop an "intuition" of what is possible with physics. I understand concepts like lift, airflow, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, chaotic processes and so on. All of these taken together convince me that the video is fake, the primary indicator being that there is no way that the laptop would hover so precisely. Forces have to be exactly in balance for that to work, or there has to be a credible dynamic equilibrium with a feedback mechanism to make it work. Drones and helicopters and harrier jets have a huge amount of engineering behind them to make them hover precisely.

But to most other people without that expertise, the best they might get is a feeling of "too good to be true".

Now, Ni does not equal "expertise" per se. Other types can be equally expert with engineering to spot the problem here. This is just an analogy to give you an idea of what it feels like. If you have enough knowledge, you "just know" it's fake, but the knowledge is so esoteric that you can't just way why you know without confusing everyone around you. This is how Ni feels.

The Ni strength is being good like this with just about any complex system, given a fairly short time to study and understand it, because Ni naturally looks for the key functional components that might dictate failure or success. That's just what it does, without having to try very hard, just as Ti doms can just do logic in their heads without trying too hard, or Fi doms can read an individual's emotional state without trying too hard, or Si doms can recite their knowledge of a topic verbatim without trying too hard. But none of these introverted dominants can explain HOW they do what they do very easily. They just DO IT.

Ti can determine that that is fake as well. A lot of what you describe sounds more like judgment (knowing how things work by memorizing the rational principles of how they operate).
I guess you do it in a more perceptive way, and hence, just like in theories, you may quickly dismiss something, where I have to take in the information through Ne first (which looks surely at the object and allows that maybe it's something possible you never knew about), and then process it through Ti, weighing it with all the variables and principles. If this pocess can get it to fit, I might be more likely to believe it's possibl, yet still have that nagging "too good to be true" sense).

 

[FemMecha]

Ni types are often analyzing people's hidden intentions/motives.

Whenever I am having a conversation with someone, I often find myself wondering, "Why did he/she said that? What is their intentions?"
For example, my boyfriend told me that I am skinny and I should eat more, and I started wondering, "Why did he say that to me? Is it because he has a fetish for fat girls and he doesn't find me attractive and he is trying to mould me into his ideal girl image, or is it because he is concerned about my health?"

As an Ni type, I rarely take words at face value. Whenever people says something to me, my first reaction is, "Why did he/she say that to me? What is their intentions behind saying those words?"

And it doesn't matter how long I know them, or how much I trust them, no matter how close someone is to me, I also have this same reaction toward them. I am constantly analyzing everybody around me, constantly analyzing their motives. Even people whom I love and trust, I am also analyzing their intentions all the time.

I also described Ni as having a tendency to "know" things without knowing why. For example, there was once when this person who is wearing casual clothes walked into the doctor room at the clinic.And then this lady beside me was shocked, she asked me who is he and why is he walking inside the doctor room. Then I told her he is the doctor.
And bingo! I guessed correctly, he really is the doctor. Then the lady beside me kept pestering me asking me how I knew it. I don't know I knew this either, but I just knew it
Then there is another time when an acquaintance of mine told me that she is going back to her homeland soon, and she was grinning very happily.
Then I told her, "You feel happy because your boyfriend is waiting for you in your homeland." And my acquaintance looked very shocked, she asked me, "How did you know?"
I often find myself knowing things about people without knowing how I knew it.

As an INFJ who uses Ni-Fe, this is how I use my Ni. My Ni often appear very strongly when it comes to human relationships and reading people etc.
INTJs are also prone to reading hidden intentions and motives, but their Ni leans more toward impersonal systems rather than human relationships, and this explains why INTJs, along with ENTJs, often end up becoming very successful entrepreneurs, because their Ni always managed to know where is the best location to set up their business, how to attract customers to their business, and how to make the most profit out of it etc. And their Te aids them in manifesting their visions into reality. And this explains why they are often successful entrepreneurs etc.

I understand what you are saying and when I was younger I used to read into other people's words moreso than now. Human beings do function on both a conscious and subconscious level in communication and decision making, so we are all capable of motivations that we are not even aware of ourselves.

Having spent 15 years with someone who functionally communicated at face-value, I've also learned that there is a kind of social contract in words. When someone gives me words I take what they have offered, and if they are hiding something or have a separate meaning, on some level they are responsible to share what they really mean. I also try to do this with people and not hint them to death. If I say I am alright with a decision or action, I try to stay true to my word. Also, if someone tells me something I will take them at their words, and in a way, respect the privacy of their deeper meaning even if I sense it is there.

After interaction with a few highly intelligent and manipulative people, I've reached a point where I don't even care for words much at all. Human beings get so proud of our words and have even assumed it is proof that we are the only conscious animals (assuming thought requires language). I think that is quite inaccurate. Words are all abstractions of reality, and it is language that allows us to distort our sense of reality. It is language that allows us to justify any action, to manipulate, to confuse, and harm. I much prefer a simple look in the eye, an instinctual body posture. I've been given stunningly beautiful, but absent words, and I've been given rough, but well intended words. Language is artifice, and so the more I can let go of it, rather than reading into language with assumption built upon assumption, the more at peace I am.

 

[uumlau]

The term Nardi keeps mentioning for Ni is "Zen-like pattern" (using the "whole brain", p.102) "What is this zen state like? When presented with a problem, the Ni types seek to harness all neocortex regions in order to 'realize' an answer" (in the actual maps he shows, both Ni dom. types ⦅T and F variant⦆ have the most activity in the whole perimeter and the strongest readings in the corners ⦅Fp2, F8, T6, 01⦆, and T2 ⦅left, center⦆). He compares it to the blind men feeling different parts of the elephant, and a "zen-like synchronous state" allows one to reconcile all the different perspectives and arrive at the closest sense of the whole ("the elephant").

ALL types have the "zen like state", which he prefers to call (these days) an "in the flow" state. What Ni types don't get (like other Ne intuitive types) is the "Christmas tree pattern".

What makes the "in the flow state" unique for Ni is that Ni types call on it at will, for just about anything, especially solving for the answer to a single question in context. Other types don't do this. Si types show this state when practicing or recalling things. Fi types show this state when listening closely. All types show this when doing something in which they hold expertise. Ni types are "experts" at solving in-context puzzles.

But this is describing, basically, the "unconscious". It (the "whole brain" perspective) is unconscious to everyone else, and likely at least somewhere below consciousness for the Ni user as well. Hence, "zen-like", and something that just "comes up" when they focus (without distractions). They're bringing up something from where else, but the "unconscious". That's why you are describing it as an "unusual way of looking at things".

By your reasoning, all memories are bringing up something from the "unconscious" for Si doms, or any act of expertise is "unconscious" for any type. You DO have the original book right? Not just quoted references from online?

Ti can determine that that is fake as well. A lot of what you describe sounds more like judgment (knowing how things work by memorizing the rational principles of how they operate).
I guess you do it in a more perceptive way, and hence, just like in theories, you may quickly dismiss something, where I have to take in the information through Ne first (which looks surely at the object and allows that maybe it's something possible you never knew about), and then process it through Ti, weighing it with all the variables and principles. If this pocess can get it to fit, I might be more likely to believe it's possibl, yet still have that nagging "too good to be true" sense).

Any type with "expertise" can determine that it's fake. My overall point is that is what Ni "feels like" from a personal perspective, except it's about most anything that can be translated into a single in-context question.

 

[scorpiomover]

Of all the functions, this is probably the hardest to understand what it means.

I mean you read a description and it's like "Knowing thins instinctively" and "Experiencing Premonitions" and it's just like WTF? It's hardly an explanation of how a mental function works. Does anyone have a better explanation? I can almost never tell definitively in characters if what they are using is Ne or Ni, since both are abstract idea generators and pattern connectors, supposedly.

Ne-doms and Ni-doms have 2 distinct patterns of thinking, which is illustrated in a simple question.

Suppose that you take a class in economics. The lecturer asks what is the best economic system?

An NP will usually give a very unexpected answer, like "Social Credit".

An NJ will think: "The professor talks a lot about the need for social justice. People like that lean towards socialism. If I answer what he likes, he'll probably give me a better mark. So I'll say that the answer is socialism." INTJs often call this "context". What they mean, is anything that might indicate a bias in the environment in which the problem is placed, that has nothing to do with solving the objective problem itself, but could help one solve the problem without having to figure out a viable solution.

 

[GarrotTheThief]

ENTJ NI: TE dom NI auxillary - writing down all the given information, pruning the relevant info(NI), and then solving for the missing variable

INTJ NI:
NI(dom) - not having to write down the given information, reading the question and magically knowing which information is relevant almost as if by magic.
TE(aux)- writing down just enough to solve for the missing variable

 

[Eric B]

ALL types have the "zen like state", which he prefers to call (these days) an "in the flow" state. What Ni types don't get (like other Ne intuitive types) is the "Christmas tree pattern".

What makes the "in the flow state" unique for Ni is that Ni types call on it at will, for just about anything, especially solving for the answer to a single question in context. Other types don't do this. Si types show this state when practicing or recalling things. Fi types show this state when listening closely. All types show this when doing something in which they hold expertise. Ni types are "experts" at solving in-context puzzles.


By your reasoning, all memories are bringing up something from the "unconscious" for Si doms, or any act of expertise is "unconscious" for any type. You DO have the original book right? Not just quoted references from online?

I looked it up in the book.
But this shows exactly the problem I mentioned regarding the term "unconscious". It's also used for introversion, and that's why it might hold for Si types as well.

It seems in the orignal Jungian concept, the most "conscious" awareness is external tangible experience. Anything internal, or intangible (and internal is technically intangible for the most part, though internal body sensations aren't) is considered not "conscious", along with any function not developed.
So it's like
Se: conscious consciousness
Si: unconscious consciousness
Ne: conscious unconsciousness
Ni: unconscious unconsciousness
I'm in the process of trying to come up with a better concept of "generic" functions, which are what everyone does regardless of type. Like basic seeing, hearing, etc. (which by itself isn't "using Se"). The undifferentiated functions are all "mixed together" (hence, not differentiated). When you "use" one, you're separating out the particular elements associated with the function, but the other functional elements are still there; just not separated out. Like when Ti comes up with something elegant, and you "like" it. Not true Fi, but is based on the same elements (internal personal valuation).
So then perhaps "unconscious" impressions might be the generic counterpart to Ni, that is involved in other introverted functions.

 

[Little_Sticks]

Ni types are often analyzing people's hidden intentions/motives.

Whenever I am having a conversation with someone, I often find myself wondering, "Why did he/she said that? What is their intentions?"
For example, my boyfriend told me that I am skinny and I should eat more, and I started wondering, "Why did he say that to me? Is it because he has a fetish for fat girls and he doesn't find me attractive and he is trying to mould me into his ideal girl image, or is it because he is concerned about my health?"

As an Ni type, I rarely take words at face value. Whenever people says something to me, my first reaction is, "Why did he/she say that to me? What is their intentions behind saying those words?"

And it doesn't matter how long I know them, or how much I trust them, no matter how close someone is to me, I also have this same reaction toward them. I am constantly analyzing everybody around me, constantly analyzing their motives. Even people whom I love and trust, I am also analyzing their intentions all the time.

I also described Ni as having a tendency to "know" things without knowing why. For example, there was once when this person who is wearing casual clothes walked into the doctor room at the clinic.And then this lady beside me was shocked, she asked me who is he and why is he walking inside the doctor room. Then I told her he is the doctor.
And bingo! I guessed correctly, he really is the doctor. Then the lady beside me kept pestering me asking me how I knew it. I don't know I knew this either, but I just knew it

heh, this is nice when it's true. But sometimes people give off auras of being something that they aren't. I've embarrassed myself like this before. But I'm the same; I take nothing at face value. Everything has a context to me and I will take time to read the context before jumping to any conclusions about anything. To me all communication carries different forms of implications and I suppose it's in my DNA to read what those are. Because unfortunately, often what people say is quite different from how they feel or what they mean. I guess it would be nice if we all could make our intentions and thoughts clear and explicit, but that would require people to understand themselves as a prerequisite. And there always seems to be things about ourselves that we are not aware of until after-the-fact.

 

[uumlau]

I looked it up in the book.
But this shows exactly the problem I mentioned regarding the term "unconscious". It's also used for introversion, and that's why it might hold for Si types as well.

It seems in the orignal Jungian concept, the most "conscious" awareness is external tangible experience. Anything internal, or intangible (and internal is technically intangible for the most part, though internal body sensations aren't) is considered not "conscious", along with any function not developed.
So it's like
Se: conscious consciousness
Si: unconscious consciousness
Ne: conscious unconsciousness
Ni: unconscious unconsciousness
I'm in the process of trying to come up with a better concept of "generic" functions, which are what everyone does regardless of type. Like basic seeing, hearing, etc. (which by itself isn't "using Se"). The undifferentiated functions are all "mixed together" (hence, not differentiated). When you "use" one, you're separating out the particular elements associated with the function, but the other functional elements are still there; just not separated out. Like when Ti comes up with something elegant, and you "like" it. Not true Fi, but is based on the same elements (internal personal valuation).
So then perhaps "unconscious" impressions might be the generic counterpart to Ni, that is involved in other introverted functions.

I don't think "unconscious" is a useful synonym for introversion, or even a useful property with which to describe introversion. A while ago I played a similar game with objective vs subjective, where extroversion is objective and introversion is subjective, obviously, but T vs F is a different kind of objective vs subjective, and S vs N yet another kind of objective vs subjective. But all of this is just word games. It's like saying 1+9 = 10 and 2+8 = 10 and 3+7 = 10, etc., all of which is TRUE, but none of which adds any more meaning than just saying "10". What matters is context, what matters is what is being described, e.g., 10 fish is not the same as 10 fingers.

I kind of read Jung's version of "unconscious" as being kind of like "dark energy", in that it exists as a placeholder to label what is observed, but to also indicate that we don't know what the heck it really is. I believe that when we root through all of these things that are classified as "unconscious", we're sort of making them literally conscious, all the while keeping Jung's label in mind as a general placeholder, perhaps finding additional meaning for "unconscious" as we investigate. The important thing is to remember that saying something is "unconscious" doesn't really explain it. Why is it unconscious? Is it unconscious because it's like breathing, autonomous on its own? Is it unconscious because it's repressed? Is it unconscious because it hasn't been developed or differentiated? Which KIND of unconscious is it?

For Ni, it might be best to say that it doesn't draw its realizations from "the unconscious", but rather to say that Ni works in an unconscious manner, that while it is likely drawing upon real knowledge and experience, the way it accesses that knowledge and experience is kind of automatic and even "magical". But it's no more "magic" than my thinking words in my head, and my fingers just type them without any conscious effort.

 

[Eric B]

Yeah; "subjective/objective" is exactly the same way. (Always noted that one). Another such ambiguous term is "concrete/abstract" (often used for S/N, but can appear to mean an extraverted or introverted function, and really indicates an undifferentiated function, which is "mixed togther" with the others, which is concrete, and when differentiated, they "abstract", or separate out the particular elements they deal with).

It seems the kind of "unconscious" Ni deals with is stuff repressed from memory. (Obviously not "because it hasn't been developed or differentiated" for someone who HAS differentiated it, and on the flipside, not "because it's like breathing, autonomous on its own" which would also fit someone for whom it has differentiated, but NOT fit others who have access to it, like when it's auxiliary or tertiary).
So while Si will draw on tangible data that can be consciously brought up from memory, Ni will extract the dats in a more symbolic form from the unconscious. (Which is what would make its awareness seem "magical").

But yes, the ambiguity or multiple use of these terms is part of what makes Jung so hard to understand.