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Originally Posted by
Gilly
More than "meaning" I would say "significance," in terms of something being either personally relevant to oneself or another, or seeing how some force will impact a course of action by way of conducive or subversive action.
The first thing, about "personally relevant" would make it more specific to NiFe, I think, but yeah, that would be accurate for NiFe, I suppose, since meaning is sort of floating out there and significance is more tied to an individual, a consciousness, etc. I like the word "meaning" though, because it goes along with my language metaphor better. :D.
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Seeking new experiences for their own sake sounds more like Se than Ne.
Yes, apparently it is.
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I have a feeling this is not the case; they first seek to define a term, then they use Ti to understand how these terms fit into the scheme of things or the flow of things. Odd words that have no meaning strike a very odd reaction with IEI, for example the made up word like "bearspewingmagigi";
Oh, see, I think the process, as it unfolds in Ni egos, is much more intuitive and instantaneous than that. For instance, on the TV show Bones, even though Bones herself is a generic NT type, in several episodes, there's a part where she looks at all the evidence, considers all the facts (Te), and then suddenly puts together a narrative of what happened in her mind (Ni). It's not like a gradual process of defining this and then fitting it into a schematic. It's a sudden "moment" of putting the pieces together into a whole, or, to use Gilly's term, identifying the significance of each individual bit of information to the as of yet undefined whole.
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I have observed the tendency to for them to tie words to actions (you say this, yet you do that; if you're going to say this then at least do that...this is where predictions come in.)
looking for consistancies between actions and words.
"He doesn't do this, so why should you do that?" They try to find universal laws that govern Ti? Detailed study of one of the parameters of the external world.
This I do believe is a typical Beta NF trait, although it is a trait not many beta NFs possess. Beta NFs expect this kind of consistency, and that is more related to Ti: this assertion is statically tied to this action, and if you fail to enact that link, then there's something wrong with you, not with the static Ti "link" between the assertion and the action. But I think what I'm talking about is a bit different that what you're talking about. I would term what you're talking about more expectation than prediction, maybe an overly specific distinction, but I hope you get the idea?
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Ne seeks out unassimilated information (i.e. what it doesn't understand), which often means anything mysterious and unknown. The harder and more conceptual something is, the more I want to learn it.
Understanding a concept allows us to define its regularities and fit it within a logical (or ethical) framework. As soon as that happens, we lose interest and find something entirely new. This can seem overly capricious and irresponsible to Se quadras.
Ah! So here's the difference. Both Ne and Ni are seeking meaning. But Ne is seeking meaning in the outside world to be fit into a system (as you said, either logical or ethical, and points for noting that introverted judging elements are inherently systematic in nature--statics of fields, what is always true about relationships, but also attempting to pursue their unchangingness, as in Ti-egos trying to never deviate from what logic dictates, or Fi-egos trying to have a relationship that is solid and unshakeable.). Ni is seeking the outside world to inspire it to find meaning in an interior world (that is, in the "internal images", as Jung says), for the purposes of knowing what action to take (extroverted judging functions are about "how to do" something, generally). Or, to put it another way, NiXe says "I understand this concept when it allows me to make a better decision in the moment than I would otherwise have taken" On the other hand NeXi says, "I understand this concept when I have fit it into a cohesive and coherent system with other concepts." NiFe says that it understands a person when it can cause any change in their interior world (i.e., Fe, internal dynamics of objects) that it desires. NeFi says that it understands a person when it can explain any of their actions in terms of the unchanging laws about how relationships between human beings work (i.e., Fi, internal statics of fields). Of course, this is painting with broad strokes, but I think it is true generally or archetypally, although it does not consciously play out like this in real life.
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Any inherent "meaning" should belong to the concept itself and not to us, since our view of meaning is more objective. An Ni dominant's personal meaning and significance permanently redefines the universe in his own image; it's too subjective, and loses him the opportunity to understand spontaneous possibilities and the true workings of the universe around him. (That's why I get along with ILIs so much. Their plodding and meticulous thinking allows them to cast a net over many possibilities).
Yes, that is the difference between Ni and Ne: Ne wants the mystery and the meaning "on the outside" so to speak; Ni wants it "on the inside". More accurately, Ne routes the mystery and meaning through the outside. When exploring mystery, they are exploring something outside themselves. Ni routes the mystery and meaning through the inside. When exploring mystery, we are exploring something inside ourselves, insofar as we emphasize the mental image, or idea, of the thing, more than the thing itself. That mental image, obviously, is inside our minds. Of course, when you are exploring an object, you are exploring both the object external to the self and the mental image internal to the self. The difference is all in emphasis, and quadra differences on this score essentially amount to both sides shouting, "You put the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble!"
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The fact that two Ni dominants can arrive at completely different answers, and that ideological wars can break out within Ni quadras (usually prompted by adherence to a Ti or Fi system), is enough proof that Ni is too relativistic.
Oh, silly! That happens because there are multiple things that are true about any given object, and Ni-egos (and people in general) tend to arrive at partial object knowledge, paradoxically enough. Even though for Plato there was no difference between saber and conocer, I find that in real life (as opposed to in Plato's dialogues/system), people studying, say, human nature, can obsessively see the glory of human nature--we find this in, say, Whitman, who is constantly celebrating how wonderful people are--or they can obsessively see the horror of human nature--we find this in, say, Samuel Beckett. The superior perspective (and the perspective we see advanced frequently by Shakespeare in hero-villains like Iago, Edmund, Hamlet) is to understand the wedded whole from which the two partial knowledges are split off (because we could not understand the whole without first breaking it into parts; yet to understand the parts separately is not to understand the wedded whole, to know parts =/= to know whole). But the point is that Ni disagreements arise from the essential subjectivity of the universe, which is that contradictory propositions are both true, man is both good and evil, and to such a degree that you would assume that the good would banish the evil or that the evil would banish the good. But the opposites are forcefully wedded, and that is the universe's violent concision, or at least the universe as we know it now. Man enacts that subjectivity by emphasizing one side or the other of the dichotomy--this is where Ni disagreements arise from. But one can achieve what I like to call Shakespeare objectivity (which has some relation to Harold Bloom's "detachment") wherein one resolves the dichotomy into its original unity, and thereby achieves a larger measure of knowledge.
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I suppose that Ni quadras say the same about Ne. That Ne is too relativistic because it's willing to work with too many possibilities and doesn't adhere to anything of personal significance.
Eh. I guess. But I'm fine with other ways of doing things, really. I just don't choose to do them that way. If I have my way, I'll be like shakespeare and transcend type through type.
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Well, Fi is more giving than Fe is. Fe is more selfish, emotional connections based more on what others are doing for you, then what you are doing together. You can tell this easily with Fi music, how it's much more sharing and gliding over more raw, personal feelings.
Yeah, it is. While certainly a given person can be either selfish or selfless depending on their ideals, there is a fundamental selfishness to Fe, because Fe is about the emotion, the change for its own sake, and thinks that the internal change is more important than keeping the relationship solid, keeping people comfortable. I see this all the time with my SEE brother (semi-duality is really a bitch, because each one expects the other to be their dual because it just seems so much like it). He wants to avoid the raw feelings for the sake of keeping people from being upset, for the sake of maintaining the quality of the relationship, whereas I would rather upset the relationship for a while for the sake of expressing myself, and yes, there is something truly selfish about wanting to express one's self (feel the extremes of internal change) rather than focusing on how that self-expression is going to impact your relationship to another human being, and so I can't argue when he says I'm selfish in that way, 'cause it's true. But I kind of have to assume that it's valid in its own way, even if sometimes it is excessive (tcaud-I-think has this idea of transcendent and immanent, and I feel like the idea of transcendence is like settling, moderating your behavior, letting things be; I want to go past all limits and all time, I don't want to moderate myself, I want to pursue my way so far that it becomes okay, I don't know).
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I would consider Ni simply as the most clearest, translucent idealistic function, and the function that is able to connect and synthesis multiple ideas and wishful scenarios together.
:D. Only IEIs would find that the most simple explanation. And yet I agree with you, it is a lot simpler to just understand what it is that way than to do it in this long explanatory way. But I dunno, I think it's worthwhile to elaborate on what you mean, even if it is all just elaboration on a simple statement like that.
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I LOVE to do this. However, I live in a sort of closed off and ghetto area, and sometimes people look at me weird when I do that. Like 'god why isn't this nut out there working like us...' But I love to just sort of, travel through the world at a safe distance and suck up the sights and sounds all that, and safely explore without getting lodged up in a system or institution that in the long-run is a useless veil, that I sense so easily with my Ni. In fact, I often critically judge people as using their time uselessly. I know they do it to me too though so I don't really have much pity on them for that.
Oh, see, that's why I like living in NYC, because there's always somewhere that's safe to walk 'cause there are people out, but I'm scared to walk at home (Texas), b/c a) the streets aren't built for pedestrians and b) I just can't walk very far before I'm afraid I'll be walking in the hood and it won't be safe. I know, I'm being pussyish, but hey. That's how life should be, I think. You should get to explore the world without being tied down. It's so funny how all the ideas that I try to be so logical and poetry with are also so obvious. Like it took me a long and tortured time to work out my doctrine about not getting tied down to systems or institutions, and they are all a veil, and it's better to not get tied down in them, even if you can't see past the veil, don't pretend that the veil is better than what's behind it, because that's just silly.
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I often want things to be messier in an artistic way. You know that boxed in ennegram 3, Te-valuing way that American society is constructed? Oooh nothing pisses me off more then that. And then I actually like when an accident or 'something wrong' happens because it challenges people not to be controlled so much. And it sort of riles them up and stirs them up inside and forces them to be a bit more social and a little less 'economical' and I just like that.
lol. I have a big dramatic theory about this too, about how Iago had his idea of the Good destroyed or whatever, but it just seems silly to have big dramatic ideas when things are so obvious. But it's important to be able to express yourself well. But it's more important to know than to say, ultimately. That's what I think anyway.
