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

[FemMecha]

Ni is an internalized abstraction of the abstract connections in reality.

 

[Ginkgo]

Out of curiosity, does anyone perhaps believe "anchoring" to be correlated with introverted intuition? I've heard people link the two before.

Anchoring is usually described as focusing one's vision on a specific point to think extremely deeply, concentrate, or indulge the self in fantastical daydreams. Unsurprisingly, the object being blindly stared at is called the anchor due to its somewhat fixed nature, and this fixation allows the self to gaze inwardly upon the self and ideas generated by and cultivated by the self without having any external distractions. Anchors can be anywhere from specific points on a wall to bottles of water sitting out, to a street pole in the distance, but they are usually fixed (though some can be slightly moving) and small, but what makes it an anchor is the hyperfocus that accompanies it, with it seeming like the peripherals of the vision completely blurring until the point where even the anchor goes unnoticed due to how deep one retracts into the mind. Introverted intuition is often described as looking inwardly toward oneself, a vortex that sucks the mental focus into the mind, blurring the outside world in favor of mental imagery.

Thoughts?

I think Ni can be the result of anchoring, but I don't think they're the same thing.

 

[Dr Mobius]

Out of curiosity, does anyone perhaps believe "anchoring" to be correlated with introverted intuition? I've heard people link the two before.

Anchoring is usually described as focusing one's vision on a specific point to think extremely deeply, concentrate, or indulge the self in fantastical daydreams. Unsurprisingly, the object being blindly stared at is called the anchor due to its somewhat fixed nature, and this fixation allows the self to gaze inwardly upon the self and ideas generated by and cultivated by the self without having any external distractions. Anchors can be anywhere from specific points on a wall to bottles of water sitting out, to a street pole in the distance, but they are usually fixed (though some can be slightly moving) and small, but what makes it an anchor is the hyperfocus that accompanies it, with it seeming like the peripherals of the vision completely blurring until the point where even the anchor goes unnoticed due to how deep one retracts into the mind. Introverted intuition is often described as looking inwardly toward oneself, a vortex that sucks the mental focus into the mind, blurring the outside world in favor of mental imagery.

Thoughts?

If this were true I and a large portion of my extended family would be Ni users……….. which is about as likely as a cat magically appearing and spewing Greek Fire at my face. It could maybe be linked to introverts in general. I think perhaps this sound like hyper focus as experienced by those with ADHD?

 

[hacbad macbar]

Ni? There's no doubt about it

 

[Noon]

Actually reading in this thread has made me realize that a lot of what I'm doing, how I'm thinking, methods I like to use for processing is Jungian Ni-Se.

And that is weird, because since I've known it for so long as Si, and things that are far more common than unusual, I almost want to say, "No, that's not right; Si does that too."

My wanting to rewrite Si in spite of what general consensus seems to assert it is, is what made me start re-examining my type to begin with.

Though I still have the urge to say that Si does a lot of Ni too.

I think what I want to say is that they do the same thing in different contexts: Ni breaks conceptual borders and Si breaks concrete borders. There's crossover bleed-over with Pi in general; there are, by extroverted standards, non-sensical symbols and intuitive leaps with Pi in general.

I don't know how this would stand up to Father Jung, though.

 

[Serendipity]

Out of topic

In my world, I can try to look at you as a person and you become hollow. You are but a shell. I am sorry. What I see around you is what directs it. That would be closer a description of what you are. There are threads heading from outside in. They foster communication between the shells experiences and the directors vision. There's also a lightsource within but I believe it is there because that is where the information is shared. Between the shell and the director.

At times, it is easy to perceive what to do if I want to help. Holding your arms and pushing your back so that something happens and it clears stuff up. I live in Sweden, and here you have to explain everything everytime. I don't even know the swedish word for "hunch". I wish I did, it'd make my life so much easier. I'd also be able to have confidence in me, but that's another story, sorry.

Not everyone is so. Many are. There's also the ones I prefer not look at, or at times when I don't feel like seeing, you are a gray image. I can flip what I see but then I cannot experience. It is hard, because then the world turns entirely empty. Every now and then, that emptiness isn't and a rich fulfilling world takes its place. Then commercials really speak to me, I am filled entirely by their enticing pictures, the foam of the beverage. It only happens when all inside is in direct conjunction with all outside. Or rather, when both flames burns equally bright. It is a type of transcendence.

I'm trying to explain parts of how I experience the world. I don't mind if you think I am crazy, hell, as a child I always believed that the truth will only come from those that have gone far enough off the edge to see what is really there. Those will speak parts of truth and I wanted to become a healthcare proffesional for crazies because of this.
I'm still a little bit wishing I could do that but I am also scared that I'd flip over to the other side without being able to entirely keep the worlds apart and not make myself nd up in a cell. Which, in part would be a very nice thing if I am not pumped with drugs, I could use it to do great work within but I do value my liberty of leaving places whenever I'd like to.

This is the reason I traverse the edge. Between the two worlds truth must be found.


Now, please don't think I'm crazy and Please don't judge what I wrote, and Please don't reply to this. Please.

 

[WhoCares]

Ni to me, is just a pattern sorter and maker. I am obssessed with patterns that lie at the heart of everything. But if the pattern has no consistency then I am lost and things don't make sense to me. Because I constantly search for the pattern behind things I hate sequential learning, being led from one conclusion to the next. That kind of thing makes me want to stab someone. Don't feed me conclusions, give me the pattern and let me make my own.

I like sewing so much for this reason, different shapes that become new shapes when sewn and turned right side out. It's a good metaphor for what I do with everything. The shape I am constantly searching for is the answer to 'why'. I don't care so much about how but the why is very important. Once I find the motivation for something everything else makes sense.

This is why people in general elude me. Their 'why' is rarely consistent and answers like 'just because' or 'its fun' make no sense to me at all. So I tend to see humanity as this chaotic tide that can turn on you in an instant and has no predictability about it. Because its motivations and patterns constantly shift, to my mind at least, it can't be trusted. Not in the way I can trust the laws of gravity or the fact my cat will wake me up before 7am every morning to be fed. Understanding the pattern of something is my solidity in the world. If you know the pattern of something you can work with it and get a good outcome.

 

[Emperor Enigma]

I just had a strange experience.
My friend and I were conversing with each other when he suddenly suggested that I accompany him to some place. I refused because I was tired and too much of a homebody. And then, right at the very moment, I got an ephemeral image of two gold wheels turning for a millisecond and then one of them just halting to a stop. Is this related to Ni?

 

[Coriolis]

I like sewing so much for this reason, different shapes that become new shapes when sewn and turned right side out. It's a good metaphor for what I do with everything. The shape I am constantly searching for is the answer to 'why'. I don't care so much about how but the why is very important. Once I find the motivation for something everything else makes sense.

An interesting example. I sew, too, and also learned to do basic machining in grad school. I immediately saw a similarity between the two activities. Of course when I shared this observation with my shop instructor, he didn't get it.

 

[indra]

a personality foremost affixed upon the sense impression of objects

 

[uumlau]

I just ran across this:

Se is the cat playing the piano. Ni is what imagines an orchestra that makes sense out of the cat playing the piano. This demonstrates Ni's greatest strength and weakness. Ni is very good at synthesizing data, which is a strength, but is also good at synthesizing data that didn't have any intrinsic meaning in the first place. Ni types need to be careful whether the patterns they spot represent the data before them, or instead represent what the Ni type already had in his/her mind.

And perhaps it's because I'm a musical person, but I can attest that this is what Ni "feels like" to me, the barest outlines of a melody replay in my mind as a complete symphony.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Se is the cat playing the piano. Ni is what imagines an orchestra that makes sense out of the cat playing the piano. This demonstrates Ni's greatest strength and weakness. Ni is very good at synthesizing data, which is a strength, but is also good at synthesizing data that didn't have any intrinsic meaning in the first place. Ni types need to be careful whether the patterns they spot represent the data before them, or instead represent what the Ni type already had in his/her mind.

I think this works as an excellent metaphor for what it's like to experience Ni.

To expand and further use it to describe the difference between Si and Ni- because I imagine Si experiences something very similar- would it be fair to say that Si dom/aux types gathering afterwards to compare the 'sheet music' or instruments or whatever that surfaced for their own orchestra (i.e. to bounce their subjective understanding of external events off of others) will already be more calibrated to others in their vicinity (e.g. having a similar melody or tempo)? It seems to me like this is something Si dom/aux are able to take for granted more than Ni dom/aux are- that their internal 'orchestra' is playing something similar to others?

And I agree about Ni types needing to be careful about the patterns. It's important to be able to separate the connections that fire off from the external source of those connections, to know the starting point of those patterns.

 

[Jackitty]

Sometimes I will get a certain hunch or feeling that something I have observed was brought about by some specific scenario or reason. The explanation will actually feel right to me, and from there I will automatically start looking for evidence that proves my sudden insight. It would take considerably more data to chip away enough of this impression, by contradicting it, for me to be willing or able to disregard this initial hunch.

Does the above sound in any way like Fi/Ne, as opposed to Ni/Fe?

 

[Feline]

I would almost reverse Arclight's graphics comparing Ne and Ni.

I thought the same. I don't really understand Ni all that well, but those arrows should be reversed based on the common descriptions of Ni.

 

[Feline]

Frm what I understand of Ni, I don't feel I use it any major capacity, but FiNe sort of mimics it in a way.

This is where mbti makes my head go in loops. I think that different letter combos can do the same set of actual thinking steps (although maybe they might come from different parts of the brain maybe). One of my fantasies would be to sit in other people's minds for a while. Like one week at a time. Just to know how similar or different we are.

 

[uumlau]

This is where mbti makes my head go in loops. I think that different letter combos can do the same set of actual thinking steps (although maybe they might come from different parts of the brain maybe). One of my fantasies would be to sit in other people's minds for a while. Like one week at a time. Just to know how similar or different we are.

No, it's not the "same set of actual thinking steps". Such similarities are observed because people with different functions arrive at the same results.

Have you ever had an argument with someone, only to realize that you both really agree about everything, but you just disagree about WHY you are right? That's the different functions in action. Truth is very often an objective constant, thus different people thinking in different ways often arrive at the some objectively true conclusion. But for really complex topics, if you explore how each type is thinking before they arrive at a conclusion, you'll see how differently each one approaches the topic. If you make them talk to each other before coming to a conclusion, they'll all think that they other types are full of shit, even if in the end they all agree about the conclusions.

 

[Werebudgie]

Have you ever had an argument with someone, only to realize that you both really agree about everything, but you just disagree about WHY you are right? That's the different functions in action. Truth is very often an objective constant, thus different people thinking in different ways often arrive at the some objectively true conclusion. But for really complex topics, if you explore how each type is thinking before they arrive at a conclusion, you'll see how differently each one approaches the topic. If you make them talk to each other before coming to a conclusion, they'll all think that they other types are full of shit, even if in the end they all agree about the conclusions.

^^ .... and here you've just accurately described the vast majority of the arguments in my (INFJ-INFP) relationship.

 

[Feline]

No, it's not the "same set of actual thinking steps". Such similarities are observed because people with different functions arrive at the same results.

Maybe it's not the best wording. Maybe I should say the same set of mental "tasks".

 

[yeghor]

This is what Ni feels like to me.

And this:

 

[Coriolis]

Now compare Ni.

Ni = optimization, e.g., playing with a multi-variable math problem to come up with best possible mix of variables that will solve that problem. Ni is internally-oriented, so you engage Ni by pulling problems down into an internal laboratory of your own making and playing out the variables against each other: You put a bunch of variables in a matrix or spider web and then shake the spider web over and over to determine the best arrangement or combination of variables. You keep that up until you've pretty much viewed all the possibilities, and you get that Ni "aha" moment where you decide on the optimal combination and pronounce the problem solved.

The playing around with permutations of A and B that you describe seems more like Te, or Te/Se. Ni is not nearly as deliberate or consciously controlled. Remember, it is perception, not judgment. Using your example, it is more like looking over the tactical map, reading the unit rosters, reviewing all details of what is available, to become as familiar as possible with the situation. Yes, one might work through various options in one's head, but Ni will typically, suddenly reveal a close-to-optimized solution that is really "none of the above", sometimes pulling something out of left field. For instance, some small combined subset of units A+B who can be sent out in an advance sneak attack to disable a critical element of the enemy defenses.