Is introverted intuition (Ni) really so hard to describe?

[PistolShrimp]

I think of my Ni as kind of like a mental Warp Pipe, taking me from one point to the next while skipping a bunch of unnecessary bullshit in between. Given all the information leading to 1, I can get directly to 4 without needing to stop at 2 or 3 for more information.



For me, it feels like a constant focus on where things are heading, to the point of having difficulty experiencing on the present moment. A sense of perpetual flux (Panta rei). "I told you so" know-it-all moments.

[Gilly]

Let me learn you some facts.

This is a thread about describing introverted intuition.

DJ Arendee commented, "As an Ni user, my mind feels like a cloud of atoms that condense into a form of somekind. That form is my conclusion. I don't know if this is Ni or Te or something."

Here is an unnecessary, point by point interpretation for your pleasure.

No. 1: "my mind feels like" suggests the subjective, introverted realm

No. 2: "Cloud of atoms" suggests an amorphous variety of component pieces. "atoms," in the context of such an analogy suggests a more logical/structural bent, given that atoms are generally depicted mathematically and geometrically.

No. 3: "That condense into a form of some kind" suggests a personal description of exactly what Jung was describing about the introverted thinking function. "Form" in this context suggests a definite and structural entity, in contrast to the previous amorphous "cloud", which suggests a rationally bounded idea arising out of an irrational and accidental arrangement of data.

No. 4: "That form is my conclusion" suggests not only judgement, but specifically judgement based on a subjective construction.

No. 5: His post began with "As an Ni user" and ended with "I don't know if this is Ni or Te or something." I felt the need to pose a third option, Ti.

*edit: Btw, I'm using Ne creative here, not Ti.

No, Jake, you are not using Ne. You are using BEING FULL OF SHIT

"shaping psychic content" is incredibly vague from the receiving end (maybe not the transmitting) and could easily refer to a whole variety of mental processes, the least important of which are socionics functions.

[Gilly]

btw pistol I see you are uncertain about your stacking; you strike me as sp/sx-ish, personally.

[ArchonAlarion]

I think of my Ni as kind of like a mental Warp Pipe, taking me from one point to the next while skipping a bunch of unnecessary bullshit in between. Given all the information leading to 1, I can get directly to 4 without needing to stop at 2 or 3 for more information.



For me, it feels like a constant focus on where things are heading, to the point of having difficulty experiencing on the present moment. A sense of perpetual flux (Panta rei). "I told you so" know-it-all moments.

That sounds like Ne to me. To help me understand your conception of the intuitive functions, how would you describe Ne (if you can/feel up to it)?

[Gilly]

Ni shouldn't be any harder to describe than any other function. For some reason it has turned into the mythical fairy tale function only understood by the chosen ones...

Yeah I think Ni can easily be summed up as recognition of patterns that extend beyond the currently perceptible situation. Associated functions determine the context or target of the process.

[PistolShrimp]

btw pistol I see you are uncertain about your stacking; you strike me as sp/sx-ish, personally.

Yeah that's actually what I had down until siuntal said I seemed so-instinct; it does seem like a pretty good fit. Thanks for the input!

That sounds like Ne to me. To help me understand your conception of the intuitive functions, how would you describe Ne (if you can/feel up to it)?

I'd describe Ne as "That thing my ILE boyfriend uses that drives me nuts." I see Ne as more about possibility generation, which just makes me confused and indecisive about things.

Maybe it would make more sense if I said I see point 1 as past/current events and info, and point 4 as the future. I can guess how things will play out without walking through them step-by-step.

[Finale]

Hmm... the easiest way I can describe my Ni is: "Deja Vu for Dummies"

[Shazaam]

lol NOT THE DUAL. *whacks head with frying pan* I love that.

[ArchonAlarion]

@Gilly:

Not simply "shaping psychic content." It is shaping psychic content into a conceptual vision. Psychic content includes mental imagery, imagination, sounds, psycho-somatic feelings of extension and balance, memories, and anything that occurs in the subjective realm. Introverted Thinking dwells on the experience of the process by which this amorphous mass is configured into definite, bounded, orderly ideas.

[quotes from jung, chp 10, yada yada]


"For this kind of thinking facts are of secondary importance; what, apparently, is of absolutely paramount importance is the development and presentation of the subjective idea, that primordial symbolical image standing more or less darkly before the inner vision. Its aim, therefore, is never concerned with an intellectual reconstruction of concrete actuality, but with the shaping of that dim image into a resplendent idea."


Of course, there is more to the function than the initial shaping, but that is where it begins. It begins in the subjective realm, dealing with psychic content, and being a Thinking function, it's immediate goal is to rationally organize the content into an idea, an idea that is defined and thus clearly constrains the spectrum of possible derivatives from it to a certain set. Incoming data can then be defined as belonging to or not belonging to that set, i.e. true or false, i.e. judging. One's ability to "correctly" do this is more related to actual intelligence or skill. Introverted Thinking dominance is where "libido" (as Jung defines it, mental energy, life energy) is primarily directed to this kind of thought process, especially to the experience of the shaping, which seems of "paramount importance" to do. Due to repeated practice, Introverted Thinkers become acquainted with a more intensive understanding of and use of this process by way of their fascination with it, and thus may develop actual skill. Over time, Ti dominants become familiar with the "contours of thought."

*edit:

BUT EVEN MORE TO MY POINT:

"But just as little as it is given to extraverted thinking to wrest a really sound inductive idea from concrete facts or ever to create new ones, does it lie in the power of introverted thinking to translate its original image into an idea adequately adapted to the facts. For, as in the former case the purely empirical heaping together of facts paralyses thought and smothers their meaning, so in the latter case introverted thinking shows a dangerous tendency [p. 482] to coerce facts into the shape of its image, or by ignoring them altogether, to unfold its phantasy image in freedom. In such a case, it will be impossible for the presented idea to deny its origin from the dim archaic image. There will cling to it a certain mythological character that we are prone to interpret as 'originality', or in more pronounced cases' as mere whimsicality; since its archaic character is not transparent as such to specialists unfamiliar with mythological motives. "

i.e. describing a thought process as a cloud of atoms assembling into a form (that is a conclusion). He was describing an empty thought process, devoid of objective content (he wasn't actually referring to atoms or bees, or trains, or anything). If he used that imagery as a personal subjective process for understanding actual, objective facts, his conclusion would be ultimately biased by the aesthetics of the original vision. Unfortunately, the subjective experience can only serve as an indirect analogy for the objective world. Properly, this kind of thinking helps in understanding how your own mind thinks, and what it is capable of thinking, and because people are generally similar, how others think, although the latter is rarely developed adequately.

"Introverted thinking is primarily orientated by the subjective factor. At the least, this subjective factor is represented by a subjective feeling of direction, which, in the last resort, determines judgment. Occasionally, it is a more or less finished image, which to some extent, serves as a standard. This thinking may be conceived either with concrete or with abstract factors, but always at the decisive points it is orientated by subjective data. Hence, it does not lead from concrete experience back again into objective things, but always to the subjective content, External facts are not the aim and origin of this thinking, although the introvert would often like to make it so appear. It begins in the subject, and returns to the subject, although it may [p. 481] undertake the widest flights into the territory of the real and the actual. Hence, in the statement of new facts, its chief value is indirect, because new views rather than the perception of new facts are its main concern"

[Azure Flame]

Does Vortical-Synergetic cognition look like a good approximation?

Cool! I'm gonna tell women I have vortical synergetic cognition. They're gonna be like, "OOoo you're so dreamy!"

That article was written really well, almost like poetry.

I do have cascading thoughts that transform into another. At one point it said, "LIE's push their bad moods away by setting a new goal."

Couldn't be more true. My method of coping is to dissolve my bad moods into the sea of turbulent thought. I actually get depressed if I have no goals. Just got dumped? Start analyzing my personality. Stock market just crashed and I lost 5000 bucks? Time to start reading about real estate instead. Paranoid that someone is going to backstab me in the office? Time to start acquiring an aggressive number of allies until I feel better.

[Gilly]

@Gilly:

Not simply "shaping psychic content." It is shaping psychic content into a conceptual vision.

Ok, closer...maybe "shaping psychic content into structurally-based conceptual vision" would be better, because I think your description still kind of drips into Ni territory.

Psychic content includes mental imagery, imagination, sounds, psycho-somatic feelings of extension and balance, memories, and anything that occurs in the subjective realm. Introverted Thinking dwells on the experience of the process by which this amorphous mass is configured into definite, bounded, orderly ideas.

Well you have confirmed for me that I am not a Ti ego

[quotes from jung, chp 10, yada yada]


"For this kind of thinking facts are of secondary importance; what, apparently, is of absolutely paramount importance is the development and presentation of the subjective idea, that primordial symbolical image standing more or less darkly before the inner vision. Its aim, therefore, is never concerned with an intellectual reconstruction of concrete actuality, but with the shaping of that dim image into a resplendent idea."

Interesting. Makes me wonder if Tolkein was Alpha NT rather than Delta ST.

Of course, there is more to the function than the initial shaping, but that is where it begins. It begins in the subjective realm, dealing with psychic content, and being a Thinking function, it's immediate goal is to rationally organize the content into an idea, an idea that is defined and thus clearly constrains the spectrum of possible derivatives from it to a certain set. Incoming data can then be defined as belonging to or not belonging to that set, i.e. true or false, i.e. judging. One's ability to "correctly" do this is more related to actual intelligence or skill. Introverted Thinking dominance is where "libido" (as Jung defines it, mental energy, life energy) is primarily directed to this kind of thought process, especially to the experience of the shaping, which seems of "paramount importance" to do. Due to repeated practice, Introverted Thinkers become acquainted with a more intensive understanding of and use of this process by way of their fascination with it, and thus may develop actual skill. Over time, Ti dominants become familiar with the "contours of thought."

*edit:

BUT EVEN MORE TO MY POINT:

"But just as little as it is given to extraverted thinking to wrest a really sound inductive idea from concrete facts or ever to create new ones, does it lie in the power of introverted thinking to translate its original image into an idea adequately adapted to the facts. For, as in the former case the purely empirical heaping together of facts paralyses thought and smothers their meaning, so in the latter case introverted thinking shows a dangerous tendency [p. 482] to coerce facts into the shape of its image, or by ignoring them altogether, to unfold its phantasy image in freedom. In such a case, it will be impossible for the presented idea to deny its origin from the dim archaic image. There will cling to it a certain mythological character that we are prone to interpret as 'originality', or in more pronounced cases' as mere whimsicality; since its archaic character is not transparent as such to specialists unfamiliar with mythological motives. "

It's interesting how in this last bolded part, Jung is essentially describing "weak" Ti. IEIs are pretty heinously guilty of this IME, although they are pretty easily righted.

i.e. describing a thought process as a cloud of atoms assembling into a form (that is a conclusion). He was describing an empty thought process, devoid of objective content (he wasn't actually referring to atoms or bees, or trains, or anything). If he used that imagery as a personal subjective process for understanding actual, objective facts, his conclusion would be ultimately biased by the aesthetics of the original vision. Unfortunately, the subjective experience can only serve as an indirect analogy for the objective world. Properly, this kind of thinking helps in understanding how your own mind thinks, and what it is capable of thinking, and because people are generally similar, how others think, although the latter is rarely developed adequately.

I think the process he described is pretty universal to all introverted types, at least as far as seeing a bunch of "disparate" data and only understanding it as the pieces fall into their proper places. And the last part is you convincing yourself that your projections are accurate estimates of other people's internal workings

"Introverted thinking is primarily orientated by the subjective factor. At the least, this subjective factor is represented by a subjective feeling of direction, which, in the last resort, determines judgment. Occasionally, it is a more or less finished image, which to some extent, serves as a standard. This thinking may be conceived either with concrete or with abstract factors, but always at the decisive points it is orientated by subjective data. Hence, it does not lead from concrete experience back again into objective things, but always to the subjective content, External facts are not the aim and origin of this thinking, although the introvert would often like to make it so appear. It begins in the subject, and returns to the subject, although it may [p. 481] undertake the widest flights into the territory of the real and the actual. Hence, in the statement of new facts, its chief value is indirect, because new views rather than the perception of new facts are its main concern"

I don't really see how this is pertinent, personally.

[Gilly]

Sounds like internal fields to me

I was thinking abstract fields.

[Leader]

The thread was good at first...now its turned to shit.

[Beautiful sky]

Cool! I'm gonna tell women I have vortical synergetic cognition. They're gonna be like, "OOoo you're so dreamy!"

As long as it's not some STD I don't know about

[Creepy-pokeball]

I was thinking of soccer fields.

Who wants to touch my Ni for 5 dollars?

[Creepy-pokeball]

Ni shouldn't be any harder to describe than any other function. For some reason it has turned into the mythical fairy tale function only understood by the chosen ones...

You describe it then.

[ArchonAlarion]

Ok, closer...maybe "shaping psychic content into structurally-based conceptual vision" would be better, because I think your description still kind of drips into Ni territory.

Mm, sort of. My understanding is that the "shaping" has a certain deciding quality about it, taking an act of will and judgement to do so. To keep some extension, or discard it is faulty or irrelevant. Ni would more passively/receptively experience such a formation as if it came from without.

Well you have confirmed for me that I am not a Ti ego

Okay. Wasn't trying to convince you.

[Gilly]

Mm, sort of. My understanding is that the "shaping" has a certain deciding quality about it, taking an act of will and judgement to do so. To keep some extension, or discard it is faulty or irrelevant. Ni would more passively/receptively experience such a formation as if it came from without.

This makes good sense.

Okay. Wasn't trying to convince you.

lol I know it was just my reaction...

[strangeling]

I don't know how people will react to this, but I feel a need to describe it. I'm stating things as if they were completely true just for presentation of the idea.


Imagine you're driving a car and there are many other cars around you. The road you are on has no lanes, no speed limits, no initial laws, except those implied in the physics of nature, and it has an infinite width and an infinite length.

Introversion/Extroversion and Rationality/Irrationality
There are two fundamental ways to drive on this road in relation to the other cars: you can adapt to their driving or cause them to adapt to yours; introversion and extroversion, respectively. There are also two fundamental ways to introvert and extrovert: you can create and modulate a structure of how and why the drivers will drive in relation with one another or you can understand how and why the drivers drive in relation to one another and modulate that, rationality (judging) and irrationality (perceiving) respectively. Rationality is static because it attempts to put and keep a structure in place by making it axiomatic; irrationality is dynamic because it acts on aims by disregarding axiomatic thought.

Irrationality - Intuition and Sensing
Si
Being that it is introverted and irrational, its perception is not limited by axioms and it does not desire to modulate anything. An Si driver guages and pays attention to the driving of the other drivers as it relates directly back to the Si driver. Some people like to summarize this by saying it is about sensations and impressions (which I've been guilty of), which it is, but that's oversimplifying it. Others like to summarize by saying it is about facts, memory, or familiarity, which it can be, but that's kind of oversimplifying as well. Its nature is more precisely this awareness of how everything around the Si driver impacts them on a qualitative level. This qualitative aspect is the inherent basis for tangible comparison with other people.

Ni
Being that it is introverted and irrational, its perception is also not limited by axioms and it does not desire to modulate anything. An Ni driver also will gauge and pay attention to the driving of the other drivers, but is more concerned with how the drivers relate to one another than how they relate to the Ni driver. What the Ni driver then sees is not a tangible entity like with the Si driver because it is looking at that which is not directly relatable to any one thing, but all things. To illustrate what I mean, consider the idea of the unconscious and the conscious within the realm of nature and nurture. We exist both as a representation of our genes (nature) and a representation of how our genes came or have come to be (nurture). The Ni driver, by looking at how the other drivers relate to one another, is looking to understand the link (or a link) between nature and nurture. Because of this, there is an implicit attention to intangible comparison and a preoccupation with understanding the unconscious aspects of reality, whereas the Si driver is focused on a conscious and much more tangible understanding of reality. Now some miscontrue this to say Ni is simply about understanding how something changes over time or making predictions and even just plain day-dreaming. However, they are remotely related and going off such ideas seems to greatly mislead the concept of its form, as evidenced on just about every typology forum and the fact that everyone seems to have a different interpretation.

*Rant: But Ni actually is closest to schizophrenia in this regard because it kind of neglects itself (no Si) in order to understand something intangible that relates to all things. The neglect if taken too far can mess with the mind and cause delusions and hallucinations; the thought disorder is an attempt to make what is understood tangible enough so that others will understand it. Although interestingly enough, other Ni people usually have an easier time understanding, whereas ESEs and LSEs are the quickest to label someone like this as 'defunct', making things much worse even because now they are also judging. Jung said a schizophrenic is cured when they are understood by another person; since schizophrenia is used as a blanket term for labeling those that aren't comprehensible to other people, this makes a lot of fucking sense and very little sense as a 'clinical' term.

[ArchonAlarion]

Now some miscontrue this to say Ni is simply about understanding how something changes over time or making predictions and even just plain day-dreaming. However, they are remotely related and going off such ideas seems to greatly mislead the concept of its form, as evidenced on just about every typology forum and the fact that everyone seems to have a different interpretation.

This entire thread, basically.

Also, good post. I'm going to steal your car analogy

This passage from Jung's-super-duper-awesome-fabtacular-chappy-ten-that-jake-must-constantly-quote is what I'm assuming you're referring to:

"Whereas introverted sensation is mainly confined to the perception of particular innervation phenomena by way of the unconscious, and does not go beyond them, intuition represses this side of the subjective factor and perceives the image which has really occasioned the innervation. Supposing, for instance, a man is overtaken by a psychogenic attack of giddiness. Sensation is arrested by the peculiar character of this innervationdisturbance, perceiving all its qualities, its intensity, its transient course, the nature of its origin and disappearance [p. 506] in their every detail, without raising the smallest inquiry concerning the nature of the thing which produced the disturbance, or advancing anything as to its content. Intuition, on the other hand, receives from the sensation only the impetus to immediate activity; it peers behind the scenes, quickly perceiving the inner image that gave rise to the specific phenomenon, i.e. the attack of vertigo, in the present case. It sees the image of a tottering man pierced through the heart by an arrow. This image fascinates the intuitive activity; it is arrested by it, and seeks to explore every detail of it. It holds fast to the vision, observing with the liveliest interest how the picture changes, unfolds further, and finally fades. In this way introverted intuition perceives all the background processes of consciousness with almost the same distinctness as extraverted sensation senses outer objects. For intuition, therefore, the unconscious images attain to the dignity of things or objects. But, because intuition excludes the co-operation of sensation, it obtains either no knowledge at all or at the best a very inadequate awareness of the innervation-disturbances or of the physical effects produced by the unconscious images. Accordingly, the images appear as though detached from the subject, as though existing in themselves without relation to the person.

Consequently, in the above-mentioned example, the introverted intuitive, when affected by the giddiness, would not imagine that the perceived image might also in some way refer to himself. Naturally, to one who is rationally orientated, such a thing seems almost unthinkable, but it is none the less a fact, and I have often experienced it in my dealings with this type."

[consentingadult]

I've posted an article on my blog on Ni, for anyone who's interested:

http://mavericksocionics.blogspot.nl...hat-is-ni.html

[Gilly]

Octo I think that's as good as I've seen

I tried but mine was too short and a bit too technical

[Radio]

Ni is to do with extrapolating a mental "map" (or schema, to emphasise the time dimension) from a small number of data points.

I wouldn't use the word "map" to describe Ni, because it brings to mind something much closer to Ti and Fi.

This mental map allows the individual to predict things as they are likely to occur.

Mmm. Again, map brings to mind Ji fxns and the way you put it (i.e. "prediction") is much closer to INXj, but as I see it, it's not so much prediction as it's the gestalt, which may be used to predict and which may be expanded to extrapolate data, but on its own it's usually just that. To use an analogy, it kind of feels like they're lifting an idea up to a certain point and then letting it go, so as to allow other people to form conclusions on their own. That state when the potential energy is highest, from where it seems like tangents might grow and expand on their own, is Ni. That state when the tangents do start to grow and expand and follow their own logical paths, when the kinetic energy is highest, is Ne. Both sit at two ends of the same continuum.

People who are "good at Ni" have more accurate mental maps, are able to utilise them at will, can zoom in in greater detail, can extrapolate more information and more accurately from a given data point, can recognise outlier data points, and can recognise where the map is fuzzy (essentially, have accurate error bars). However, such mental maps are dependent on the accuracy of given data.

This is good, just one addition I'd make to this is that zooming in towards greater detail = Ne, which is usually not the preferred method for Ni egos.

Types who have weak and devalued Ni tend to distrust the concept of being able to extrapolate in such a fashion (the further the extrapolation the more difficult to trust), particularly if the individual utilising Ni has no actual experience of the situation in question.

Ya.

[Radio]

I don't quite understand your analogy My original thought as to how Ne fits in with the picture is that Ne either fights to expand the map while Ni wants to flesh it out in more detail, or it keeps wanting to turn the page...

Yeah, that's what I meant as well. Ni strengthens the gestalt impression, whereas Ne follows the lines to wherever they're expanding. It's funny how your word choice implies that you see it as redundant ("fighting" to expand) whereas my word choice implied natural progression. Two different perspectives, I suppose.

Again, maybe I need to clarify what the map is - I wasn't sure of how to word it, hence why I used "predict things". I originally thought of it as greater detail = more depth, running off the edge of the map = exploring unknowns, but I can see how it can also be interpreted as running off the edge of the map = going into "mysticism" etc.

Ah, depth. I had the mental image of breadth (i.e. following where different tangents lead to; that would be detail from my perspective). I don't know how to better phrase that at the moment, but I do agree with what you've said, so it doesn't matter.

[strrrng]

predictions fall more into the ENxj range, and even then they're more like reactive directors. Ni supplies the conceptual mortar for them, which depend on a stricter sense of causal relations (whether mechanical or social). there's definitely a lot to be said for the issue between clarity of data points and breadth of schema; the biggest drawback I've found in myself and other Ni types is literally not being able to turn a blind eye to themselves. if some theme is already in motion, information can be easily overlooked; and if it isn't right on point, they'll just fold in and readjust the lens a little. so it goes both ways. but what I find happening most often is being hit by random associations. it can be the texture of someone's posture or a scene from a movie, but it all gets streamlined. situations may pan out in a way I find unsurprising, but it's more like feeling the transition in a piece of music than actually knowing what notes are played next.