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

[Yama]

Soon.

Well if it wasn't 42, and it wasn't 69, then when?!?!?!

 

[Dreamer]

Probably because 69 pages later and I still don't understand what Ni is

Here 21lux, I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote up in another thread on Ne/Ni. I think the analogy will make it clear and you can see the difference between Ne and Ni

"Ni realizes things as connected and interrelated, as Ne does, but keeps that system in place. Same inclination towards finding relationships, but maintaining the actual systems, or in other words, underlying structure in place. To my understanding, this is the fundamental difference between the two and how Ni is able to narrow things down to a point, whereas Ne tosses concepts around like a tossed salad. Ugh..ok, let's go with the "tossed salad" approach shall we? Ni sees the salad and all the pieces within the bowl, it's a salad with elements that come together to make that salad (cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce), sitting in the bowl. How are the elements related? Well it sees the underlying connections as making a whole, the concept or idea of what a salad is commonly known to be. Ne takes those salad elements, and throws out the bowl, so there is no longer anything restraining those elements to their original system of relationship. Think of the parts to a salad as all splayed out over a chopping board. Yes, they can all come together to make a salad, but the bowl, or unifying structure, is no longer relevant. They are now free flowing elements that have the opportunity to make new connections among one another since they are no longer bound to a system. Compared to other functions, Ni allows the person to step back, outside of the system that they are a part of, and sees it as an observer with everything all related. Ne allows the person to dissolve the system completely, and looks at the elements individually and tries to put them together in different ways. They both deal with finding underlying relationships, but through different modes.

Is one better than the other? Absolutely not. To me, Ni is more "magical" since it seems to work more in the background collecting data and making more sense of the system it's analyzing as it's taking in new perspectives and ideas. Ne is fully in the light with me, and ya I make connections at a lightning pace, and in that sense, can seem "magical", but I know precisely how those connections are being formed as it's happening, and while it's happening, it is an experience that happens in front of me and something that seems tangible and real, like I'm physically playing with the pieces. There is no "magic" to the process, and I can usually control my Ne to a rather strong degree. But the two are very similar in that they are both analyzing and seeking out relationships between things, or concepts for that matter. One just sees it as part of a "system", and one that disregards the system entirely and creates new systems in which to place things.

And as for predicting the future in way, like knowing how someone will react in a situation, that's totally Ni. Since they've collected all this information through experience and are able to see these individual lapses of time and moments as part of a larger whole. I really can't predict people's actions in the way an Ni dom user can, but the way I do it, which I can to a degree, is through my secondary Fi and my personal understanding of human nature and motives."

 

[Yama]

Not gonna lie, that salad example was absolutely necessary for me to understand Thank you, [MENTION=25763]Enthusiastic_Dreamer[/MENTION] !!

 

[uumlau]

Not gonna lie, that salad example was absolutely necessary for me to understand Thank you, [MENTION=25763]Enthusiastic_Dreamer[/MENTION] !!

Yes, [MENTION=25763]Enthusiastic_Dreamer[/MENTION], that was an excellent analogy!

To add one last piece to the puzzle of Ni, 21lux, it helps I think to compare with Si, as well, especially since you're Si dom.

Where Si internalizes "what things are", Ni instead internalizes "what things do". That's why Ni is good at "predicting the future". It really reduces to reasoning as simple as "predicting" that a serial killer will kill again, because that's exactly what a serial killer does. What differentiates Ni from the other types is that Ni types classify EVERYTHING in terms of what it "does", and that creates a whole internal system in our heads that lets us "see" ahead of time what will happen next even (and especially) in complicated situations.

In trade for this talent, I cannot for the life of me remember "what things are" directly. It's sort of like hearing "Harrison Ford" and drawing a blank, but if you say, "That guy who played Han Solo in Star Wars," I'm like "Oh, yeah. HIM!" and then I'll remember all the other movie roles he was in, too. I remember everything about what things do, you see. (No, I don't really forget who"Harrison Ford" is. It's just an analogy.)

 

[Dreamer]

So glad my explanation was useful! I was asking various people over the past month what Ni was and sort of came to my own conclusion and understanding of what the two N functions were, compared and as stand alone functions. I was worried I was totally off in my understanding and would have to start from scratch.

Happy to get the approval of Ni users

 

[VagrantFarce]

Ni enables you to invoke, whereas Ne enables you to branch. Ni is totemic and reflective, Ne is playful and provocative. Both deal with abstraction, as opposed to Sensation's concrete grounding.

[edit] you might generalize these to include the Sensing functions as well:

• Introverted Perception is totemic and reflective
• Extroverted Perception is playful and provocative

The difference then lies in which domain you're sitting in:

• Sensation deals in concrete realities
• Intuition deals in abstract realities

 

[Mal12345]

Ni enables you to invoke, whereas Ne enables you to branch. Ni is totemic and reflective, Ne is playful and provocative. Both deal with abstraction, as opposed to Sensation's concrete grounding.

[edit] you might generalize these to include the Sensing functions as well:

• Introverted Perception is totemic and reflective
• Extroverted Perception is playful and provocative

The difference then lies in which domain you're sitting in:

• Sensation deals in concrete realities
• Intuition deals in abstract realities

Do you have a real, concrete example of what "totemic" means?

 

[Chrysanthe]

A fun way to look at Ni, based off general behaviour rather than the actual definition:

Ni is overindulging in food, sexual activities, drugs, and other forms of sensual pleasure or completely abstaining from all such things; it also means can manifest as an becoming over obsessive over one's surroundings or getting anxious over petty details, or becoming completely isolated from the physical realm and removing all subjective meaning from one's surroundings.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Do you have a real, concrete example of what "totemic" means?

I mean to say emblematic, or archetypal, or mystical. In my mind, Totems serve to actualize and express what cannot be immediately apprehended without looking inward.

 

[Eric B]

Here 21lux, I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote up in another thread on Ne/Ni. I think the analogy will make it clear and you can see the difference between Ne and Ni

"Ni realizes things as connected and interrelated, as Ne does, but keeps that system in place. Same inclination towards finding relationships, but maintaining the actual systems, or in other words, underlying structure in place. To my understanding, this is the fundamental difference between the two and how Ni is able to narrow things down to a point, whereas Ne tosses concepts around like a tossed salad. Ugh..ok, let's go with the "tossed salad" approach shall we? Ni sees the salad and all the pieces within the bowl, it's a salad with elements that come together to make that salad (cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce), sitting in the bowl. How are the elements related? Well it sees the underlying connections as making a whole, the concept or idea of what a salad is commonly known to be. Ne takes those salad elements, and throws out the bowl, so there is no longer anything restraining those elements to their original system of relationship. Think of the parts to a salad as all splayed out over a chopping board. Yes, they can all come together to make a salad, but the bowl, or unifying structure, is no longer relevant. They are now free flowing elements that have the opportunity to make new connections among one another since they are no longer bound to a system. Compared to other functions, Ni allows the person to step back, outside of the system that they are a part of, and sees it as an observer with everything all related. Ne allows the person to dissolve the system completely, and looks at the elements individually and tries to put them together in different ways. They both deal with finding underlying relationships, but through different modes.

Is one better than the other? Absolutely not. To me, Ni is more "magical" since it seems to work more in the background collecting data and making more sense of the system it's analyzing as it's taking in new perspectives and ideas. Ne is fully in the light with me, and ya I make connections at a lightning pace, and in that sense, can seem "magical", but I know precisely how those connections are being formed as it's happening, and while it's happening, it is an experience that happens in front of me and something that seems tangible and real, like I'm physically playing with the pieces. There is no "magic" to the process, and I can usually control my Ne to a rather strong degree. But the two are very similar in that they are both analyzing and seeking out relationships between things, or concepts for that matter. One just sees it as part of a "system", and one that disregards the system entirely and creates new systems in which to place things.

And as for predicting the future in way, like knowing how someone will react in a situation, that's totally Ni. Since they've collected all this information through experience and are able to see these individual lapses of time and moments as part of a larger whole. I really can't predict people's actions in the way an Ni dom user can, but the way I do it, which I can to a degree, is through my secondary Fi and my personal understanding of human nature and motives."

Ni enables you to invoke, whereas Ne enables you to branch. Ni is totemic and reflective, Ne is playful and provocative. Both deal with abstraction, as opposed to Sensation's concrete grounding.

[edit] you might generalize these to include the Sensing functions as well:

• Introverted Perception is totemic and reflective
• Extroverted Perception is playful and provocative

The difference then lies in which domain you're sitting in:

• Sensation deals in concrete realities
• Intuition deals in abstract realities

These are like the "classic" Ni description attempts, and the sort of thing that I based this old illustration I did years ago, when I was coming to get the idea of it a little better:

So I guess the frame of reference is the "internal" one (the observer always starts out with his own internal perspective), and the circle (common connection point) ends up conveniently representing the "bowl", and Ni has the bowl inside (i realm), where Ne has thrown the bowl "out" (e realm). The "salad" is the individual objects, and this is what Ne has "internalized", while Ni can look "out" at them from the central hub, so to speak.
So Ne looks from the outside to the inside, where it "branches", and Ni starts in the inside and "calls" ("invokes"; "call earnestly for") from the outside. (You could look at both as working in tandem with the associated Sensing attitude; i.e. Ne/Si and NiSe).

Even after putting this together, it still seemed something was missing in fully understanding; we weren't really getting to the bottom of what the function IS, and only focusing on what it DOES.

This is why I've more recently moved toward the whole "unconscious" definition (which I thought before was too ambiguous). The "bowl" is really in the unconscious (and I think a big part of the problem is that many of these descriptions make it look like the whole process is conscious, and even a bit rational, like a judgment function). For Ne, the bowl lies in the outer realm, which is "conscious", yet the observer (the "subject" or "i" realm, which is also considered "unconscious") sees the objects as he looks outward. For Ni, the bowl is what lies within the subject, so it's doubly "unconscious". As as I said earlier: Ne=“consciousness of unconsciousness”; Ni=“unconsciousness of unconsciousness”

Yes, [MENTION=25763]Enthusiastic_Dreamer[/MENTION], that was an excellent analogy!

To add one last piece to the puzzle of Ni, 21lux, it helps I think to compare with Si, as well, especially since you're Si dom.

Where Si internalizes "what things are", Ni instead internalizes "what things do". That's why Ni is good at "predicting the future". It really reduces to reasoning as simple as "predicting" that a serial killer will kill again, because that's exactly what a serial killer does. What differentiates Ni from the other types is that Ni types classify EVERYTHING in terms of what it "does", and that creates a whole internal system in our heads that lets us "see" ahead of time what will happen next even (and especially) in complicated situations.

In trade for this talent, I cannot for the life of me remember "what things are" directly. It's sort of like hearing "Harrison Ford" and drawing a blank, but if you say, "That guy who played Han Solo in Star Wars," I'm like "Oh, yeah. HIM!" and then I'll remember all the other movie roles he was in, too. I remember everything about what things do, you see. (No, I don't really forget who"Harrison Ford" is. It's just an analogy.)

I don't think it's so much about "what things do". I would think that would likely fall more under a judgment function, particularly Thinking. And Ni is also not particularly "predicting the future", any more than Ne, really. It's just that it seems so, because of the fact that it's from the unconscious within (so it looks like it "comes out of nowhere", and you figure it must be "from above" or something), where Ne looks at objects (that can be shown to everyone), and it in comparison seems limited in away, by what these objects can do, so doesn't have an air of "certainty" that Ni might project.
By "what things do", you're probably thinking of the unconscious "bowl", again, but as stated above, it's presented in a way that makes it sound too "rational" and conscious.

The example of predicting a killer killing again is really Si. It's a tangible real world experience (S) that has been taken inside (i) as a fact and compared with others from memory (and Si/Ne "Inquiring Awareness" is what tends to compare data, where SeNi "Realizing Awareness" takes it more directly), and from there, guessing what might or might be able to happen.
I used to get hung up like that too, from the "Ni=predicting the future" or "What WILL be" descriptions, but just any speculation on the future is not Ni.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

This is why I've more recently moved toward the whole "unconscious" definition (which I thought before was too ambiguous). The "bowl" is really in the unconscious (and I think a big part of the problem is that many of these descriptions make it look like the whole process is conscious, and even a bit rational, like a judgment function). For Ne, the bowl lies in the outer realm, which is "conscious", yet the observer (the "subject" or "i" realm, which is also considered "unconscious") sees the objects as he looks outward. For Ni, the bowl is what lies within the subject, so it's doubly "unconscious". As as I said earlier: Ne=“consciousness of unconsciousness”; Ni=“unconsciousness of unconsciousness”

This got me excited. I think you are very right about N.

For me, I feel my Ni like a throbbing light energy surrounding me. When I need to know something, a companion function connects to Ni and the appropriate Ni ray of truth shines on to the object and I understand it and have insight. Ni is like a 360 degree sphere of fuzzy light.

And just to say, I DO believe it can come from God, or the supernatural realm. It is no coincidence most prophets and visionaries are Ni dom. Ni is a gift that allows the unconscious mind to tap into the greater spiritual supernatural realm, I believe.

EDIT: To clarify: I don't usually 'see' Ni as a ball of light surrounding me, only if I conceptually look at it in order to describe it better. Usually Ni for me feels like I'm swimming in a hazy world of possibilities, open to finding what fits where.

 

[Forever]

Yo dawg I heard you like introverted intuition so we put an unconsciousness in your unconsciousness so you can know while you know.

Ne=“consciousness of unconsciousness”; Ni=“unconsciousness of unconsciousness”

Wait what?

I don't think it's so much about "what things do". I would think that would likely fall more under a judgment function, particularly Thinking. And Ni is also not particularly "predicting the future", any more than Ne, really. It's just that it seems so, because of the fact that it's from the unconscious within (so it looks like it "comes out of nowhere", and you figure it must be "from above" or something), where Ne looks at objects (that can be shown to everyone), and it in comparison seems limited in away, by what these objects can do, so doesn't have an air of "certainty" that Ni might project.
By "what things do", you're probably thinking of the unconscious "bowl", again, but as stated above, it's presented in a way that makes it sound too "rational" and conscious.

The example of predicting a killer killing again is really Si. It's a tangible real world experience (S) that has been taken inside (i) as a fact and compared with others from memory (and Si/Ne "Inquiring Awareness" is what tends to compare data, where SeNi "Realizing Awareness" takes it more directly), and from there, guessing what might or might be able to happen.
I used to get hung up like that too, from the "Ni=predicting the future" or "What WILL be" descriptions, but just any speculation on the future is not Ni.

 

[fetus]

Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is commonly used in coins, and its practical use dates back to 3500 BCE.

 

[Mal12345]

I mean to say emblematic, or archetypal, or mystical. In my mind, Totems serve to actualize and express what cannot be immediately apprehended without looking inward.

All right, let's get really real here. Can you think of any person you know (even yourself) or famous celebrity who is totemic and can you say in what way this person is totemic?

 

[VagrantFarce]

All right, let's get really real here. Can you think of any person you know (even yourself) or famous celebrity who is totemic and can you say in what way this person is totemic?

I would describe praying to Mecca as totemic behaviour. You imbue something with subjectivity, and then invoke it.

Perhaps "shamanistic" is a better word?

 

[Eilonwy]

I am constantly comparing concepts/contexts/experiences against the info that's built up over time in my head, then using that comparison to come up with new future possibilities/plans/solutions. I see my Si-dom sister doing the same thing but with different data/criteria. Her plans/visions/possibilities can be just as unrealistic as mine, but in a different, more concrete area of data.

To use the salad and bowl idea, I might see a bowl of fruit and compare it to the bowl of salad that I've stored in the framework in my head, see that they have a bowl in common, and wonder what other commonalities I can find between the contents, and then look for novel ways that those commonalities might be used or related or have meaning. My perception of the bowl of fruit is not so much about the bowl of fruit, but about the concept of a bowl of fruit and how it might relate to concepts already in my head.

So, to me, Ni is about storing concepts of observations that then get triggered and connected by a sensory stimulus of some sort. To my thinking, the process of Ni is similar to Si, but it focuses on a different set of data. In my mind it might be easier to understand Si because it deals with more concrete looking concepts, then what's learned can be applied to understanding Ni. And that in itself, to my thinking, is an example of Ni at work.

 

[uumlau]

Even after putting this together, it still seemed something was missing in fully understanding; we weren't really getting to the bottom of what the function IS, and only focusing on what it DOES.

What the function is? The function is a "type", and it's part of a "typology". There is no "is", if that makes sense. Also, there is no "does". The function is a description of a classification.

Some aspects of that classification are extremely abstract and can only be observed/experienced, and not explained precisely with words. Trying to say what "Ni is" is like trying to describe "what sugar tastes like".

And don't go and say, "That's completely Si!" or whatever. It's an ANALOGY, a metaphorical description. You're supposed to use it to help you figure out what I'm getting at, you aren't supposed to use the analogy as a concrete example to reason from as if it were some sort of statement of fact that can be proved or disproved.

For example:

The example of predicting a killer killing again is really Si. It's a tangible real world experience (S) that has been taken inside (i) as a fact and compared with others from memory (and Si/Ne "Inquiring Awareness" is what tends to compare data, where SeNi "Realizing Awareness" takes it more directly), and from there, guessing what might or might be able to happen.

That was an ANALOGY. I'm putting things DELIBERATELY in VERY SIMPLE TERMS so you can then build the abstract ideas from it.

By "what things do", you're probably thinking of the unconscious "bowl", again, but as stated above, it's presented in a way that makes it sound too "rational" and conscious.

That's because you're taking my description way too literally.

I am not saying, "Ni thinks ONLY in terms of what things do." I'm not saying that Si NEVER thinks in terms of what things do.

I am saying that the framework that Ni tends to build tends to be mostly in terms of what things do, of their roles, etc. Of their "functionality". The Si framework instead tends to be built on what things "are". The distinction is subtle. Si thinks of "serial killer" (a concrete label) and reasons from there. Ni thinks of "tends to kill people often" (an abstract function) and reasons from there.

Yes, I know it all sounds "concrete". That's because it's a very simple example, and we tend to conflate "concrete" with "simple". Si types are quite capable of using complicated and abstract reasoning. Ni types aren't "better" at abstract reasoning overall, so much as they're very good at particular aspects of it. (Ne types are good at other aspects of it.)

Ni types (and Ne types) are good at taking an abstract point and using it to figure out other abstract points, without having to translate the abstractions into concrete ideas. When we're asking to explain our reasoning, it can be deceptive, because then we're forced to translate each abstract idea into something concrete: the reasoning isn't concrete, but the explanations tend to be. That's why it's kind of freeing when you can just handwave and describe the abstraction without being concrete to another intuitive type: they get it without having to laboriously translate the abstract to the concrete.

Si types, conversely, are great at reasoning from concrete idea to concrete idea. They can reason in ways that we'd describe as "abstract", too, but they tend to need to start from something concrete, and then launch into the abstraction. The hops from abstract idea to abstract idea are much more unfamiliar to them and tend to be a blind spot in their reasoning.

A simple example that I've encountered in real life: some students are VERY good at math, and can get 100% on a calculus exam, and be experts in manipulating trigonometric functions - far better than I ever have been. Trigonometry and calculus are weird parts of math that are helped very much by memorizing very specific formulas and methodologies: it isn't obvious that one expression is the same as the other, or that if you substitute things "just so", a complicated integral becomes a simple integral. BUT ...

I can take those students who are used to using "m*g*sin(theta)" to get the force on an inclined plane, and instead of measuring the angle from the horizontal, I mark it as being measured from the vertical. And I can point out that this is not the normal angle theta, but its complement, so I'm being fair and letting them know that something is up, and not being sneaky/tricky about it. It doesn't matter. They'll still use "m*g*sin(theta)" and not "m*g*cos(theta)". Why? Because the "right answer" is "m*g*sin(theta)". That's what they've memorized. They know it's reliable and correct. They can do all this complicated and abstract math, integrating and differentiating trig functions and so on, but a simple problem that involves nothing complex, just an understanding of what sin means and what cos means, is beyond them.

That isn't to say that they can't learn that, too, but only in the sense of it's being a variation of the original problem. I.e., they memorize the new solution as applicable to the new case. They're weak at figuring out how to figure out things from first principles if I changed yet again something else in the problem. (Same physics principles, almost the same math, slightly different set-up.)

I also see this in an ISTJ coworker of mine, who is an excellent software developer. If it's a pattern he's followed before, everything is tic-toc-logical-beautiful. But if there is something new, or it's a new technology, he tries to apply the old patterns in the new paradigm, and wonders why he's having so much trouble. I can explain and teach to him the new patterns, and he eventually figures it out with practice, but he doesn't "just see" those patterns which are obvious to me. He sees the form and works with the form, but he doesn't see the function except as a side effect of the form. I see the function (all of those patterns that I can "just see" without having to think hard), but I don't see the forms he sees except as a side effect of the function.

That's why I veer away from the "unconscious" part of the description of Ni. It makes it look too mysterious, in my opinion. I would say that to most Ni doms, our thinking is very conscious, where the "unconscious" and "irrational" part is that we see patterns in the world that other types don't see. Those patterns we "just see" are predominantly functional patterns, descriptions of what things do, and how they connect in an active cause-and-effect kind of way. Because we "just see" them as obvious, it is difficult to explain how we "know" them. If we were Si types, we would just say that we "remember" them, because that word exists for what Si types do. We Ni types also "remember", but we remember these patterns, such that when we see them again, we know exactly what they are and how they work.

 

[Mal12345]

I would describe praying to Mecca as totemic behaviour. You imbue something with subjectivity, and then invoke it.

Perhaps "shamanistic" is a better word?

I asked for an example of a real person. Are you saying that all Muslims who pray to Mecca are Ni dominant?

 

[Eric B]

What the function is? The function is a "type", and it's part of a "typology". There is no "is", if that makes sense. Also, there is no "does". The function is a description of a classification.

Some aspects of that classification are extremely abstract and can only be observed/experienced, and not explained precisely with words. Trying to say what "Ni is" is like trying to describe "what sugar tastes like".

And don't go and say, "That's completely Si!" or whatever. It's an ANALOGY, a metaphorical description. You're supposed to use it to help you figure out what I'm getting at, you aren't supposed to use the analogy as a concrete example to reason from as if it were some sort of statement of fact that can be proved or disproved.

That was an ANALOGY. I'm putting things DELIBERATELY in VERY SIMPLE TERMS so you can then build the abstract ideas from it.

That's because you're taking my description way too literally.

I am not saying, "Ni thinks ONLY in terms of what things do." I'm not saying that Si NEVER thinks in terms of what things do.

I am saying that the framework that Ni tends to build tends to be mostly in terms of what things do, of their roles, etc. Of their "functionality". The Si framework instead tends to be built on what things "are". The distinction is subtle. Si thinks of "serial killer" (a concrete label) and reasons from there. Ni thinks of "tends to kill people often" (an abstract function) and reasons from there.

Yes, I know it all sounds "concrete". That's because it's a very simple example, and we tend to conflate "concrete" with "simple". Si types are quite capable of using complicated and abstract reasoning. Ni types aren't "better" at abstract reasoning overall, so much as they're very good at particular aspects of it. (Ne types are good at other aspects of it.)

Ni types (and Ne types) are good at taking an abstract point and using it to figure out other abstract points, without having to translate the abstractions into concrete ideas. When we're asking to explain our reasoning, it can be deceptive, because then we're forced to translate each abstract idea into something concrete: the reasoning isn't concrete, but the explanations tend to be. That's why it's kind of freeing when you can just handwave and describe the abstraction without being concrete to another intuitive type: they get it without having to laboriously translate the abstract to the concrete.

Si types, conversely, are great at reasoning from concrete idea to concrete idea. They can reason in ways that we'd describe as "abstract", too, but they tend to need to start from something concrete, and then launch into the abstraction. The hops from abstract idea to abstract idea are much more unfamiliar to them and tend to be a blind spot in their reasoning.

~

That's why I veer away from the "unconscious" part of the description of Ni. It makes it look too mysterious, in my opinion. I would say that to most Ni doms, our thinking is very conscious, where the "unconscious" and "irrational" part is that we see patterns in the world that other types don't see. Those patterns we "just see" are predominantly functional patterns, descriptions of what things do, and how they connect in an active cause-and-effect kind of way. Because we "just see" them as obvious, it is difficult to explain how we "know" them. If we were Si types, we would just say that we "remember" them, because that word exists for what Si types do. We Ni types also "remember", but we remember these patterns, such that when we see them again, we know exactly what they are and how they work.

I think what is happening here is simply the perspective clash that these conflicts highlightng. One who's main ego world-view is Ni, who understands what it is, but by the nature of the function can't really explain it.

This is exactly what was pointed out in a one on one discussion years ago with another INTJ (who's very knowledgable and trustworthy with these things), even down to me often taking "analogies" too literally.

Ni was described as inferring "what's being left out" of an existing arrangement of elements. (where Ne infers external elements in terms of a larger arrangement that gives them meaning; and you can see right here, where this can be confused with the Ni "bowl" analogy; being that the bowl could be considered a "larger arrangement that gives them meaning", which is why I find some of these analogies ambiguous).

Ni was portrayed as dealing with "what doesn't yet have a home or a voice in a larger pattern", and thus will reach for an analogy that will give that left-out something a way of being perceived by others, and in order to flesh it out, one has to find things in the outer world that are sort of like it, to make an analogy and get it out of the head and into words.

And significantly enough, here:
"That's why INTPs and INTJs are often in conflict."

Ti wants "to hammer in the stakes of a tent that offers the best shelter for others" [i.e. in my own way of framing it "This is the TRUTH (T), and since I realize it (i), then I think others would want this truth as well" ("subjective" perspective projecting onto others)], but the Ni type is "usually cutting a hole in the side of a tent to peer into the dark and make out something else that's moving on a distant landscape."

So all of this would seem to agree with what you've just said. But the problem is, people are still not understanding these analogies (rather than clarifying them, which I and others tend to expect them to do), and the biggest part of this is likely due to the strong presence of Inquiring Awareness types (mainly the NP's, and would include SJ's) for whom Ni is a shadow function, and who thus who interpret in their own introverted perceptive perspective, which is "concrete".
So left this way, that method of defining the function would become like a sort of "in-house" understanding among the NJ's; and you seem to disagree with how I put it, but then not everyone can understand it through those sorts of analogies like you can. (The illustrations end up pointing the wrong way, or even sounding like another function, or at least becoming ambiguous. THAT's what makes it "mysterious" to us!)

So my strategy was to go after what exactly makes it "introverted" (or "subjective"); what's really internal about it (which is what would distinguish it from Ne; and of course focusing on what's "abstract" about it distinguishes it from Si), and so that is the "unconscious impression", as much and as long as I tried to avoid that term myself.

(And I didn't think you were saying "Ni thinks ONLY in terms of what things do." or "Si NEVER thinks in terms of what things do." It wasn't which does what, and how much they do it; I just thought the description sounded a bit too "rational" in function).

So what you're calling "what things are vs what things do" is basically what, to go back to Jung, is "what it is" vs "where it's heading". A bunch of alternatives I came up with is "is (actual) vs could (potential)" [i.e. as in "could do"], "experience vs story" [a "story" is a synopsis of what things do], "practice vs theory" [theory is an understanding of what things do], and Mark Bruzon's "static (items) vs motion (process)" [again, "motion"="doing"].
So again, I just saw "what things do", and from a Ti perspective, this is a more "rational" type of description.

(While what you described as "what's unconscious about it" covers the N ["seeing patterns others don't see]; which could hold for Ne as well, but the difference is that Ne infers them directly from the object, which can be shown to others); remember, the "i" part is called "unconscious" as well. That's what I meant by Ni being doubly "unconscious".
So while "what things do" might technically describe it, I wouldn't say the function becomes "conscious" when preferred; what's "conscious" in a type stack [and I believe this point really needs to be taken and understood more] is the ego state (or a particular "complex") that marks the type and the function's position. Immediate physical sensation is definitely "conscious" for everyone, but when we say "Se" is "unconcious" for an SJ, NP, or an NJ who hasn't developed it yet; it's a particular ego state of awareness that either pays more attention to it or not that is being emphasized
So this is why Ni is often portrayed as "sudden insight" that comes up in an "aha moment" fashion. I don't think it's something itself consciously reasoned out, like referencing an "understanding of how something works". Of course, all these functional perspectives are present in all data, and thus implicit, so there is always judgment that fills in a perception process, an adds that rational understanding).

A simple example that I've encountered in real life: some students are VERY good at math, and can get 100% on a calculus exam, and be experts in manipulating trigonometric functions - far better than I ever have been. Trigonometry and calculus are weird parts of math that are helped very much by memorizing very specific formulas and methodologies: it isn't obvious that one expression is the same as the other, or that if you substitute things "just so", a complicated integral becomes a simple integral. BUT ...

I can take those students who are used to using "m*g*sin(theta)" to get the force on an inclined plane, and instead of measuring the angle from the horizontal, I mark it as being measured from the vertical. And I can point out that this is not the normal angle theta, but its complement, so I'm being fair and letting them know that something is up, and not being sneaky/tricky about it. It doesn't matter. They'll still use "m*g*sin(theta)" and not "m*g*cos(theta)". Why? Because the "right answer" is "m*g*sin(theta)". That's what they've memorized. They know it's reliable and correct. They can do all this complicated and abstract math, integrating and differentiating trig functions and so on, but a simple problem that involves nothing complex, just an understanding of what sin means and what cos means, is beyond them.

That isn't to say that they can't learn that, too, but only in the sense of it's being a variation of the original problem. I.e., they memorize the new solution as applicable to the new case. They're weak at figuring out how to figure out things from first principles if I changed yet again something else in the problem. (Same physics principles, almost the same math, slightly different set-up.)

I also see this in an ISTJ coworker of mine, who is an excellent software developer. If it's a pattern he's followed before, everything is tic-toc-logical-beautiful. But if there is something new, or it's a new technology, he tries to apply the old patterns in the new paradigm, and wonders why he's having so much trouble. I can explain and teach to him the new patterns, and he eventually figures it out with practice, but he doesn't "just see" those patterns which are obvious to me. He sees the form and works with the form, but he doesn't see the function except as a side effect of the form. I see the function (all of those patterns that I can "just see" without having to think hard), but I don't see the forms he sees except as a side effect of the function.

As a side point, all of this are more good examples of why Ni/Se would be termed "Realizing" and Si/Ne would be "Inquiring" (or as I put it, involve more "comparison"), to use Berens/Montoya's new terms.
So I'll have to think more on this. Perhaps I can find the simpler alternative to "unconscious" I've been looking for from it.

I am constantly comparing concepts/contexts/experiences against the info that's built up over time in my head, then using that comparison to come up with new future possibilities/plans/solutions. I see my Si-dom sister doing the same thing but with different data/criteria. Her plans/visions/possibilities can be just as unrealistic as mine, but in a different, more concrete area of data.

To use the salad and bowl idea, I might see a bowl of fruit and compare it to the bowl of salad that I've stored in the framework in my head, see that they have a bowl in common, and wonder what other commonalities I can find between the contents, and then look for novel ways that those commonalities might be used or related or have meaning. My perception of the bowl of fruit is not so much about the bowl of fruit, but about the concept of a bowl of fruit and how it might relate to concepts already in my head.

So, to me, Ni is about storing concepts of observations that then get triggered and connected by a sensory stimulus of some sort. To my thinking, the process of Ni is similar to Si, but it focuses on a different set of data. In my mind it might be easier to understand Si because it deals with more concrete looking concepts, then what's learned can be applied to understanding Ni. And that in itself, to my thinking, is an example of Ni at work.

Anyone can compare things, but from what you're saying, you do the comparing once you've already perceived the data, in order to extenalize it (in this case, doing something with it; which fits what I mentioned above). You don't have to compare in order to do the perceiving to begin with. That's what I was trying to say. (And again, the process of comparing the bowls sounds a bit too conscious and rational, to the point that I can even identify with them in my Ne/Si perspective, but then, maybe that's another one of those analogies that shouldn't be taken too literally. Either attitude of N is about the "concept of" things, but again, Ne will be more external focused [the things themselves], while Ni, as described, is "the concept of the concept" [ i.e. "meta"]).

 

[giorgaros2]

I have created a theory where each perception function is described using simple words and all people use all 4 perception functions.
When i say known info i mean info that are inside your memory
When i say unknown i mean the opposite.

So...

Ne:Takes unknown info from outside(exploring etc)
Ni:creates unknown info from inside (imagination etc.)
Se:sees outside known info (experiencing stuff, because Se users may know how an experience feels but want to live it again )
Si:sees inside known info (retrieving from memory etc.)

So since all people use al 4 perception functions that makes sense