Sensing and Intuiting

[Tyltalis]

I have a question.
Let's say an N and an S both touched something. How does their experience with touching something differ? What does one think in comparison to the other?

 

[Alea_iacta_est]

I think the Sensor may feel the something more vividly than the iNtuitive, but the iNtuitive can feel something just the same as a sensor if he or she isn't constantly looking for possibilities and patterns.

Maybe an Ne user would touch the something and look around to see how it is connected to the environment and see possible patterns.
I don't know about Ni though, it is more unconscious, so maybe an Ni user would estimate how much the something would be worth to him or her in certain scenarios and how it fits in the framework built in the user's head.

An Se user would touch the something and be able to describe many more details about its physical characteristics than an Ni or Ne user.
I imagine an Si user would touch something and immediate recall items that felt or exhibited characteristics of the item at hand.

I don't know though, I'm not an expert on cognitive functions.

 

[EJCC]

I can only really speak for myself, but as someone who uses essentially no Se, if I'm touching something, I'm probably not "in the moment" regarding my experience of it*. I'm too distracted by context, past experience, and connotation to be able to feel it for what it is. Only if I really, really focus, can I zero in on the tactile experience.

*I do not consider myself to be an "in the moment" person at all.

 

[wolfy]

*I do not consider myself to be an "in the moment" person at all.

Even a hot stove?

 

[EJCC]

Even a hot stove?

Actually yes -- even a hot stove. That's more of a shock/instinct reaction -- something that doesn't take any real experiencing of the moment. Like my body running on autopilot.

 

[wolfy]

Actually yes -- even a hot stove. That's more of a shock/instinct reaction -- something that doesn't take any real experiencing of the moment. Like my body running on autopilot.

That is actually a real experience though. No? Pure, with no chance to conceptualize it.

 

[Jaguar]

*I do not consider myself to be an "in the moment" person at all.

So, you're the person who doesn't realize you just caused a car accident because of using your cell phone while you drive?

That was me, giving you the middle finger salute.

In the moment.

 

[EJCC]

That is actually a real experience though. No? Pure, with no chance to conceptualize it.

Huh -- yeah. You're right. Interesting. (Shows how much I understand the concept of "sensing"...)

So, you're the person who doesn't realize you just caused a car accident because of using your cell phone while you drive?

That was me, giving you the middle finger salute.

In the moment.

Oh, that was you? Didn't notice. My mind was somewhere more important.

 

[prplchknz]

Apparently I have delayed reactions to what's going on so I guess not in the moment, or I'm not processing things veey fast. I dunno whatever your interpretation is right at least that's what people believe

 

[Fun in the Sun]

I don't understand how when someone looks at, let's say, a styrofoam cup, that they see anything other than a cup or something to rub your teeth on, or something to chew on when you're done drinking from it. Wait, I just gave more than one possibility Is that intuition?

 

[Jaguar]

I don't understand how when someone looks at, let's say, a styrofoam cup, that they see anything other than a cup ...

Many years ago, there was a blog with an MBTI coach discussing the outcome of a workshop exercise involving an empty styrofoam cup. My initial response to the exercise was, "Fill me up, asshole!"
As I read on, she claimed the team of coaches at the workshop were mostly those who had a preference for S, and they were so surprised by the written responses from those with a preference for N, they wondered if the people had been drinking alcohol. Apparently, the N responses involved everything from personification (like mine), to poems, essays, symbolism, etc. (Alternatively, I could have written an essay on poverty or the shallowness of white supremacy.) But the point is, my first choice was not to describe the cup as it is in its concrete form.

I recall a friend of mine in this forum who started a thread on concrete description. She was excellent at the task, but I stared at the computer screen and laughed at myself.

 

[gromit]

I can't use styrofoam without feeling a little bad. Liberal MA public education...

 

[Cellmold]

Many years ago, there was a blog with an MBTI coach discussing the outcome of a workshop exercise involving an empty styrofoam cup. My initial response to the exercise was, "Fill me up, asshole!"
As I read on, she claimed the team of coaches at the workshop were mostly those who had a preference for S, and they were so surprised by the written responses from those with a preference for N, they wondered if the people had been drinking alcohol. Apparently, the N responses involved everything from personification (like mine), to poems, essays, symbolism, etc. (Alternatively, I could have written an essay on poverty or the shallowness of white supremacy.) But the point is, my first choice was not to describe the cup as it is in its concrete form.

I recall a friend of mine in this forum who started a thread on concrete description. She was excellent at the task, but I stared at the computer screen and laughed at myself.

Of course how different might those answers be without a prior knowledge of MBTI? Or were the people there all in the dark, yourself included?

 

[Jaguar]

Of course how different might those answers be without a prior knowledge of MBTI? Or were the people there all in the dark, yourself included?

1,000 people were at my house reading her blog in the dark. I lit a candle. Kumbaya.

 

[cascadeco]

I don't understand how when someone looks at, let's say, a styrofoam cup, that they see anything other than a cup or something to rub your teeth on, or something to chew on when you're done drinking from it. Wait, I just gave more than one possibility Is that intuition?

haha. If I were in a workshop and presented with a cup and asked to describe it, I'd probably think, 'oh, is this one of those stupid exercises where I'm 'supposed' to be super deep and imaginative?' Truth be told, my gut response is, it's a cup. Nothing much beyond that, unless I'm forced to sit there for 2 minutes writing a response and then have too much time to think about it. But even so, I suspect I'd stay fairly concrete, descriptive, and maybe reference it being crappy for the environment . But mostly, boring, let's move on.

 

[EJCC]

This conversation is reminding me of the "Look at your fish!" story (which, btw, is loved by iNtuitives and Sensors alike)...

 

[WhoCares]

I don't understand how when someone looks at, let's say, a styrofoam cup, that they see anything other than a cup or something to rub your teeth on, or something to chew on when you're done drinking from it. Wait, I just gave more than one possibility Is that intuition?

No intuition is when you look at a styrofoam cup and experience a dejavu moment of when you were in another place also looking at a styrofoam cup but feeling either rotten or smugly contented and then feeling that feeling all over again, thinking you can see the same the surroundings all over again. Eventually you realise that someone is trying to talk to you but you had phased out ofthat moment entirely to relive he other one momentarily. It's also looking at a styrofoam cup and thinking I've been here bfore, I've done this before, but fucked if I can remember the details about it.

Both scenario's bear no relationship to the present moment. They are in your head moments of shifting through memories being triggered by an external object while neither taking in the details of the object or the current situation.

Intuiting is connecting feelings, and memories mnemonically to objects\situations you externally observe without taking in the now moment at all.
Sensing is taking in the object\situation in the now and observing what it means in the current context.

I regularly cut and burn myself. Often quite badly and to the point of serious bleeding, blistering of skin. I rarely feel the pain of it in the moment. My hand will recoil, I will react but I am not here now to fully experience it. Later it irritates because I feel the pain of it.

 

[Cellmold]

1,000 people were at my house reading her blog in the dark. I lit a candle. Kumbaya.

My lord!

 

[Standuble]

When I think of a Styrofoam cup I think in the first instance "it's a cup". But then I let go and let my imagination run (I'm never in the moment anyway thanks to Si so this is easy).

Essentially the process becomes a network of -> It's a cup -> It's Styrofoam -> It's made of oil -> What becomes of this when the oil becomes too expensive to produce and extract -> What will they use to make these cups and just about everything else they make from petroleum after it becomes too expensive to produce? -> What will become of humanity after that? -> Will we look back and think that we wasted our biggest gift on making cups? -> Will cups like these or the road outside become a symbol of a lost era? -> Will we long for it to return or dismiss it as a folly which ended up costing us dearly? -> We need to go into space and build colonies whilst we still have economical supplies of oil to produce sufficient propulsion to escape Earth's gravity well -> even if we do the human race won't find salvation as a space civilisation is still an empty existential construct -> if we don't we're back to the Middle Ages again -> Resource depletion will make it all wither away until we're back in the Stone Age.....and so on.

The above is an example and the process unfolds rapidly (sometimes within seconds and sometimes longer). That is what I consider NeSi with some Fi value judgements thrown in for good measure.

 

[Stansmith]

A lot of what people on personality forums describe as characteristic of Se sounds like something you would experience while under the influence of cocaine or methamphetamine. Touching a doorknob isn't a transcendent experience for me.