Reducing People to Intentions

[Eldanen]

Intention is not directly related to any function. All types have methods of figuring out intentions. In the Enneagram, though, type 6 is supposed to have a strong focus and ability to discover the intentions of other people.

[silverchris9]

^I'm butting in. I thought that thread was a good example of you and Gilly completely misunderstanding and misinterpretting Diana (or perhaps partially understanding and then twisting everything) and ganging up on her and accusing her of intentions she (imo) probably didn't have. (actually misrepresenting is possibly a better word)

Eh... the thing is most people do actually have a LOT of motives. It's more like overemphasizing one motive and ignoring others than being totally inaccurate/untrue. But I don't know the specific thread. Still, I'd be surprised if they were completely wrong.

[marooned]

Eh... the thing is most people do actually have a LOT of motives. It's more like overemphasizing one motive and ignoring others than being totally inaccurate/untrue. But I don't know the specific thread. Still, I'd be surprised if they were completely wrong.

I agree with the bolded and I think that zeroing in on some shred of possible intent on some layer and blowing it out of proportion is completely misunderstanding someone. And I think it represents the danger in this kind of thing which turns into uncalled for accusations.

[Exodus]

The point of being related to it is that the consequences of the action are often seen as obvious. So if helping others at one's own cost will benefit a person in the long term, their intentions are questioned - it isn't a sacrifice, but investment. Such as "playing hero" to gain in group's eyes, even if it wasn't the case. This is different from the example you give.

The other issue is that the keyword seems to be "say".

ok, I wasn't addressing the OP specifically, but for that I would just refer you to Loki's explanation. It's about how a person is expressing himself, and to that extent related to .

[Mattie]

That bolded bit is the difference, to me. I mean, that's the difference between Ni-ego and Ni-superid: as an Ni ego, I would say that if you guess right the first time, why keep looking at alternatives? I mean, you know, have a little confidence in your guess. But then in practice, I have subconscious Ne, because I don't always say my guess the first time, and I do allow for other information that might change the model. But I never have a shifting wheel of models like an Ne-ego might. I use a little Ne but I don't think it's that important. You use a little Ni but you don't think it's that important. Makes sense to me.

It's strange, because it isn't that I'm not confident in my guess or guesses, I just see too much room for interpretation. I feel like I can predict something because my imagination just comes up with every possible solution, and then trims down from there. And then I continue and continue to eliminate until something fits. I do this with typing as well. In my head, if I have a couple of typing for someone, I have them "wear" a type in my brain until I observe enough that tells me my guess is more or less wrong than my other guesses. But yeah, I think just by the types of responses (I think mostly NiFes and NeFis), we can tell there's a clear placement on valuing here.

[Krig the Viking]

It's strange, because it isn't that I'm not confident in my guess or guesses, I just see too much room for interpretation. I feel like I can predict something because my imagination just comes up with every possible solution, and then trims down from there. And then I continue and continue to eliminate until something fits. I do this with typing as well. In my head, if I have a couple of typing for someone, I have them "wear" a type in my brain until I observe enough that tells me my guess is more or less wrong than my other guesses. But yeah, I think just by the types of responses (I think mostly NiFes and NeFis), we can tell there's a clear placement on valuing here.

This is exactly how I type people as well -- excellent description! I expect it's related to the Holographic cognitive style.

[detail]

Beta NFs enjoy fantasy, tropes and gossip, so they often end up applying tropes on people. Sometimes there's a degree of truth in their interpretation of people's motives and sometimes it really is nothing more than "applying a trope on someone", as if they wanted romantic, cliché fantasy to take life. That's actually why they like Se valuing people: they are upfront about what they want so they work exactly the same way they imagine interactions between people work. On the other hand, you can't just say "Beta NFs interpretations of people's motives are utter bullshit" because you can't escape having selfish desires and motives to some extent.

Of course they will often project intentions based on self image on others because it's an obsession of theirs, but they are certainly not more limited to interpreting people from their own point of view than anyone else; more often than not, it's the younger ones who will make such mistakes anyways, because like everyone else, they like to "play" with their skills.

Clearly it can be quite infuriating when Beta NFs proudly expose what they think are your selfish intentions as if you should feel ashamed or wouldn't deserve something and you're like "uh no?", but there's more than the interpersonnal level to this. Hidden behind seemingly worthless gossip lies the observation that whatever you do, you affect the universe, which in terms of interests can be interpreted as taking a stance, even though your conscious intention is to take no stance, so suddenly their misinterpretation of your intention gains the potential to teach a great lesson on personnal responsibility and with our inherent tendency to take the simplest road, we can't have too much of that.

I said earlier that you can't escape having selfish desires and motives, well there's something even more unescapable: Leaving a mark.

[Beautiful sky]

Intention is Fi. It is signaled by which options are partaken of given a selection of choices. The option selected reflects, theoretically, a desire to partake of potentials enabled by the selection in the future. This in turn can signal "drive".

This is true, but how does Se couple with this?

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Beta NFs enjoy fantasy, tropes and gossip, so they often end up applying tropes on people. Sometimes there's a degree of truth in their interpretation of people's motives and sometimes it really is nothing more than "applying a trope on someone", as if they wanted romantic, cliché fantasy to take life. That's actually why they like Se valuing people: they are upfront about what they want so they work exactly the same way they imagine interactions between people work.

I like this, and I agree- this is an accurate description of how I work.

On the other hand, you can't just say "Beta NFs interpretations of people's motives are utter bullshit" because you can't escape having selfish desires and motives to some extent.

You can't escape that at all. That's the interesting, fun point.

Of course they will often project intentions based on self image on others because it's an obsession of theirs, but they are certainly not more limited to interpreting people from their own point of view than anyone else; more often than not, it's the younger ones who will make such mistakes anyways, because like everyone else, they like to "play" with their skills.

I don't really do this though. It is sometimes hard for me to gauge other people's intentions, especially if I'm trying too hard- I look at it as a Fe vs. Fi valuing thing. So it's not so much I'm projecting my own, it's that I'm fantasizing of what their intentions are probably most likely like because they're not being clear in the Se-way that I need.

Clearly it can be quite infuriating when Beta NFs proudly expose what they think are your selfish intentions as if you should feel ashamed or wouldn't deserve something and you're like "uh no?", but there's more than the interpersonnal level to this. Hidden behind seemingly worthless gossip lies the observation that whatever you do, you affect the universe, which in terms of interests can be interpreted as taking a stance, even though your conscious intention is to take no stance, so suddenly their misinterpretation of your intention gains the potential to teach a great lesson on personnal responsibility and with our inherent tendency to take the simplest road, we can't have too much of that.

You're overcomplicating it. We just want people to be rawly romantic and be able to say who and what they really like, people tend to think their emotions are these sacred things 'nobody can get to.' That just makes Betas make fun of people until they crack.

I said earlier that you can't escape having selfish desires and motives, well there's something even more inescapable: Leaving a mark.

Everybody leaves a mark. Usually it's a mark of confusion though, because there's too much conflict about what they desire vs. what they feel they owe the rest of the world. Celebrities are likeable people because they're constantly mending those two things together.

[Sirena]

I think it does matter whether they were 'playing hero or not' .. makes the difference between an idiot and a genuine person. Looking simply at whether a person's actions is benefiting people seems a cold approach and would make for a cold, fake society. And evaluating every aspect of a person's character at a party on the spur of the moment is hardly feasible.. therefore not the intelligent thing to do - nor is it fun. :-p You're also being way too subjective re your definition of intelligence.

This is how I look at it. People with a hero/heroine complex really aggravate me. I had a co-worker who used to be this way...to the extreme, and it honestly made me want to snap her neck about 10 times a day. I don't care how much "good" she did, all I could see was her complex. It actually went as far as to me finding the many people who couldn't see through it, irritating and stupid as well. I'm not saying I feel proud for feeling this strongly negative about it, but it's definitely my reaction.

To me the intention totally negated the action.

[chip]

INTJ intuitive subtype here and I'm fairly certain I can tell what someone's real intentions are in an unbiased manner.

So person green is acting like the big brother type at a party by helping others get home safely and acting responsible and catches the attention of person yellow who says that person green is 'playing the hero'.

I can not make a judgement call as to weather or not person green is being the big brother type or playing the hero because there is more than one way to perceive his actions and intentions in thought. If I had seen what person yellow had seen and if he is truly unbiased then I would have arrived at the same conclusion as likely anyone would who has an ample amount of perceptibility and disdain for phony behaviour.

I can still surmise that person yellow's intention to saying 'playing the hero' is biased. The choice of words has a condesending tone and effectively undermines the actions and intentions of person green to such an extent that the entire situation has been determined by his words from the person who posted the story on this forum to the people who responded to it.

I can easily tell someone's real intentions simply by remaining objectively detached and unbiased from subjective opinion and influence. Introveted intuition is uniquely imaginative but ask yourself is imagination equitable to intentionality? My answer is definitely no because intentionality is real unlike imagination.