[Thalassa]

I am wondering if this is Ni. I have discussed in other threads, for example, how I've learned to make my Ni work for me as I've grown older, by using it productively to distance myself from my Fi ego and remove myself from the "in the moment" wallowing that I can do with Se (this is going on now, it will always be going on! woe is me!) ...and saying, hmm, this is maybe another reason why this person did that, or this situation occurred...actually asking "why?" and considering different perspectives, which ironically causes my Fi to mature, though I have to distance from Fi ego for this to work to my best interest.

I know that's Ni. I think it's also Ni that I have the neuroses I have (according to Jung's original diagnostic tool) about issues such as anxiety, or personal paranoia that people are ganging up on me, or other things.

BUT...what about this. I take in Se details of a thing. Say an RV camper. It's just a camper. I see a little girl standing in front of it, and it triggers a memory of me being a little girl, and suddenly I realize this RV is probably an early 1980's model, though I never even contemplated it before that moment, or took in this information by looking at the registration or blue book, just by the Se parts of what the camper looks like, and the added little girl making me think of my own early childhood.

I also do this with houses, like I'm pretty adept at guessing the architecture year for similar reasons. And it feels like just "knowing" ...it's weird. It's more like a "feeling" I get than collecting facts.

 

[Thalassa]

I want to also add that it feels like a "ghostly" feeling, like almost a sense of non-reality or time traveling for a second, it's a really cool feeling, and I end up being right. It is a *feeling* or a sense of something. Yes, I am taking in facts by visually looking at the thing, but I never consciously think "oh yes this particular door shape and color were popular in 1983." The means of "knowing" seem entirely personal and irrational.

 

[LiquidLight]

Probably Ni (with some memory and thinking thrown in). The flash or the insight is the intuition. The knowing its a late 80s model or Craftsman style bungalow is Thinking though. But that momentary fleeting "wait a minute..." feeling is almost certainly intuition. Sorta being able to see something in a moment that isn't there tangibly.

The issue for Se-doms though is sometimes when they discover this they think they have magical powers or are more insightful than they really are. All of a sudden some of them become prophets or purveyors of 'knowledge' not realizing that, like your RV example, the intuitions are still initially grounded in Sensation. You 'saw' the RV and it triggered, where a lot of times Intuitions do not need a sensory stimulus to operate effectively (like for example being able to guess who will be elected President this year off a hunch, without any real concrete data to back up that notion. A Sensation type might start quoting facts, figures, polling data, but an Intuitive, especially a Ni-type might just say "you know I think the country wants to stick with Obama," or "I think such and such group will change the dynamics of the vote and Romney will win." Again there's no real data to back up this conclusion its just a hunch about the underlying nature of American culture - having a sense of the collective unconscious, as Jung would put it, which is why the intuition is said to be introverted.)

 

[Cetanu]

Sounds like Ni to me. Especially if all of this is going on without any conscious effort.

 

[Agent Blackout]

I am wondering if this is Ni. I have discussed in other threads, for example, how I've learned to make my Ni work for me as I've grown older, by using it productively to distance myself from my Fi ego and remove myself from the "in the moment" wallowing that I can do with Se (this is going on now, it will always be going on! woe is me!) ...and saying, hmm, this is maybe another reason why this person did that, or this situation occurred...actually asking "why?" and considering different perspectives, which ironically causes my Fi to mature, though I have to distance from Fi ego for this to work to my best interest.

I know that's Ni. I think it's also Ni that I have the neuroses I have (according to Jung's original diagnostic tool) about issues such as anxiety, or personal paranoia that people are ganging up on me, or other things.

BUT...what about this. I take in Se details of a thing. Say an RV camper. It's just a camper. I see a little girl standing in front of it, and it triggers a memory of me being a little girl, and suddenly I realize this RV is probably an early 1980's model, though I never even contemplated it before that moment, or took in this information by looking at the registration or blue book, just by the Se parts of what the camper looks like, and the added little girl making me think of my own early childhood.

I also do this with houses, like I'm pretty adept at guessing the architecture year for similar reasons. And it feels like just "knowing" ...it's weird. It's more like a "feeling" I get than collecting facts.

I want to also add that it feels like a "ghostly" feeling, like almost a sense of non-reality or time traveling for a second, it's a really cool feeling, and I end up being right. It is a *feeling* or a sense of something. Yes, I am taking in facts by visually looking at the thing, but I never consciously think "oh yes this particular door shape and color were popular in 1983." The means of "knowing" seem entirely personal and irrational.

"which ironically causes my Fi to mature,"
Just want to point out that all of a person's set of functions support each other dynamically. According to Jung and other sources, developing one function always strengthens and improves others...

The bolded parts sound like Ni, and match up with almost every description I've ever heard of it.
Like a ghost-like or wraith-like feeling or vision that happens randomly... can be very strong and convincing with an imperative quality.
Does that sound like what happened to you?

 

[Worriedfunction]

The RV part sounds a bit like Si, but of course Se with Ni could have produced a similar effect.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

Sounds Si to me. Everything you spoke to is a sensory memory/perception.

Ni is abstract.

 

[Lucky AcidStar]

Strictly speaking, Ni is sensory/memory perception; that is, without some kind of sensory input, Ni would not have anything to intuit. As far as I can understand, Si works with Data (words) and Ni deals with raw perception (visual/feeling/abstraction).

As of such, seeing a situation and instantaneously jumping to a conclusion does sound like Ni... Si would be a more conscious process, following Ne as it jumps around finding triggers with which to pull out data.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

Si is introverted sensing; using all your senses to chronicle impressions in a great data base inside your brain/memory, where convoluted connections are made, with historical (and even archaic as Jung believed) depth.



Ni is everything else that cannot be detected with your senses; it is intuition. Wispy and ethereal--the epitome of imagination, so much so that without anything else it would float away, yes.



They are both irrational perceptions, but one involves the senses and the other is non-nonsensical.

 

[Lucky AcidStar]

If I understand iNtuition in general semi-correctly, N is effectively letting the mind doing the work for you, imagining, connecting. As of such, what you see or think may not be detected or sensed, but the mind itself is sensing it; Se is raw sensory input, it works by action, in the present. Once it goes into the mind, Ni can jump around on this MASSIVE feeling, not in words, not necessarily in any consciously structured way, but it can go flying and pull a non-verbal, abstract idea out of this mesh that the mind has been putting together in its own way.
Si (I think) works on a more conscious-memory base, it feels like; you find information, comprehend it literally, and store it literally. It won't always make distant connections spontaneously... you have to find them yourself. Honestly Si can have little to do with the five senses, as it's more focused on the information put in being sensible than actual information gathering, Si leaves that to Ne and Je.
Hmm... that said, having the functions Fi>Se>Ni would probably make a difference as to how Ni plays out, as opposed to an Ni dom, just as much (for me) Si works differently than it would for an Si dom.
Needs more information, as always.

Idea: is Se pulls in information literally, in real time, then it doesn't feel compelled to "define" what it does, it just "does it." This seems connected to Ni; it doesn't define what it's doing, it just "knows it".
Whereas Si looks at something and goes "what is it? I shall call it X." Then Ne goes "hey look I found something! What is it?" "I see!" says Si, "it shall be called Y and placed next to X. Good, good." "Aha! I found something else!" says Ne, and this little cycle repeats ad nauseam.
Granted, this changes depending on where you put those Pe/Pi functions... for an IxxP or ExxJ, they're near the center and more "balanced", whereas with an IxxJ or ExxP you get more of a puristic sense of that function... so, dom Ni would be very ethereal, whereas Ni next to Se might feel more... real? Still very spontaneous, I'd think.
Idea regurgitation, Go!
This makes sense to me, at least.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

Nah, I respectfully disagree about your interpretation of Si especially. Si is irrational and collects sensory data and is an internal function. So when you wrap all these together, you get a lot of symbolism in its own right, because an object will observed and contemplated with internal, irrational thoughts that have already been stored. It is this complexity which makes Si so difficult to understand and define.



I think of Ni as always just wanting to see more clearly--always driving to see something more clearly, more true. Once it knows something it moves on to something it does not know.....and on and on. It usually remains open-ended, at least moreso with Fe than Te, until it knows, but once it knows, it lays it down and moves on. This is why Ni doms are so stubborn, and Si doms as well, because to change they have to sift through soooo much.

 

[Lucky AcidStar]

In my description, I would imagine that Ti is doing the question for Si; however, Si feels the gaps itself, and pulls them up itself. From everything I've read of Si, it works in a way similar to the forms Plato described; abstract absolutes, but absolutes nonetheless. Remembering absolute facts, and furthermore attaching new facts to older ones. Those absolutes do not have to be strictly sensory; they can be rules (math, law, religion), they can be physical forms (music, shapes, picture) they could be words, et cetera. The key to Si, from what I've read and seen, is absoluteness; such and such IS, and can be defined (at least in the mind). The shape of the idea, of course, relates to the other functions, and their order.

Partly related to memory in general, memory being able to automatically check and compare current data to past data. This function of the brain itself seems irrational for sure. Si and Ni seem to be looking for a way to store/sort that data, that is "what data do I want and how do I remember it" (can't word this idea correctly); and, how one sorts data would be significantly impacted by, or significantly impact, the data one takes in (which sounds like Se and Ne, the interactive data-seekers)

Other way of putting my thoughts into words: Ni and Si both rely on what has been sensed in a literal way; knowledge doesn't exist without experience. What I observe and find interesting with the functions is that, consistently, Ne is paired with Si and Ni is paired with Se. While this isn't precisely consistent, it is intriguing, and suggests a correlation between them. From my own experience, Ne and Si appear to compliment each other fluidly; it follows to store ideas in a literal, concrete way, comparing those ideas to already known, concrete things.

Side note: "drive to see more clearly" sounds like Si as much as it sounds like Ni; in particular, like a Pi function paired with a Pe function. "Drive to see more clearly" can define humans in general, more in some than others, and doesn't seem peculiar to Ni, or Si for that matter. Actually, when I first read that I thought it sounded just like Ti.

It seems fair to say that the way any function works changes depending on the other functions, as well... so, it's hard to say how an ISFP would use Ni as compared to, say, an ISTP or an INFJ. Not to mention how an ESTP might use it, as they may not really be consciously even aware of its use.

 

[JungyesMBTIno]

It's Ni (that example had 0% anything to do with personal sensory perception recreation in the mind via Si and reliving a sensory experience in depth in ones head with subjective features added to it). Very interesting, btw! As an Ni dom, I can relate to this example the other way around, where I'll start with the intuitions first and then, come to some bizarro conclusion about sensory connections between one sensory thing and another, etc. For instance, I have looked at certain things and intuited that based on some sensory quality about them that I can't put my finger on, there must be some underlying significance behind it of so-and-so nature. Or, for a more recent amazing example from July, there was a certain special that I thought should've been on TV in the exact moment that it was, based on some intuitive impression that I had that enough time had went by that certain programs of interest to me should've been on by now, based on intuitive passage of time impressions I get and how programming with specific qualities in it had been on previously - so basically I symbolize the outer world to my own expectations and in that case, had an eerily prophetic moment, where what I thought was on at the exact moment it was was on, lol (my twin was really creeped out by that, haha, because she knew I was right before I knew, since she checked earlier without predicting anything). It's super hard to explain dominant intuition, but it tends to come true when I "feel" it should in a given moment in relation to aspects of the outer world (Fi for me backs up Ni with significance).

 

[Thalassa]

Si is introverted sensing; using all your senses to chronicle impressions in a great data base inside your brain/memory, where convoluted connections are made, with historical (and even archaic as Jung believed) depth.



Ni is everything else that cannot be detected with your senses; it is intuition. Wispy and ethereal--the epitome of imagination, so much so that without anything else it would float away, yes.



They are both irrational perceptions, but one involves the senses and the other is non-nonsensical.

Ni needs Se to bring in information first, especially in an Se type. In an ISP or ENJ, Se/Ni or Ni/Se are closer together and work in tandem.

It's not going to be the same as an Ni dom, especially since you reject Se.

I don't know why Si would give me a ghostly feeling, or why it would be a non-linear experience. Si =/= memory.

 

[HandiAce]

Ni needs Se to bring in information first, especially in an Se type. In an ISP or ENJ, Se/Ni or Ni/Se are closer together and work in tandem.

It's not going to be the same as an Ni dom, especially since you reject Se.

I wouldn't say INFJs reject Se. Rather they have it chained and put under very strict control. Just because I'm an Si-dominant does not imply I can't do interesting or novel things a strong Ne attitude would do. Rather, I cultivate specific and sometimes odd interests and stick with them.

If you are an ISFP, then you habitually converge upon reality to test yourself as an individual rather than diverge from it to see how your "self" applies to something reality is not. If you realize how your "self", upon reflection, applies to what your own past experiences are NOT, you are on your way to understanding the Ni attitude. If you had an Si attitude, you would readily identify with your own past experiences relating to your "self" and if your typing is correct, that is a big NO-NO for ISFPs. Your "self" either emerges in the reality as we know it or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you need another way of looking at your "self" so that you can merge with the objective reality again. I hope I made some sense.

 

[Thalassa]

@AphroditeGoneAwry another reason I don't think I have Si is because I don't have a strong sense of "supposed to" when it comes to physical objects.

For example, I'll use a measuring cup as a cereal bowl, wash my dishes in a bathroom sink, or do my laundry in the bathtub with a 2x4 if need be. I tend to adapt well physically to the immediate situation, which has come in really handy since I like to cook, because I can improvise with a lack of kitchen equipment, as well as working with the ingredients I have.

 

[Thalassa]

I wouldn't say INFJs reject Se. Rather they have it chained and put under very strict control. Just because I'm an Si-dominant does not imply I can't do interesting or novel things a strong Ne attitude would do. Rather, I cultivate specific and sometimes odd interests and stick with them.

If you are an ISFP, then you habitually converge upon reality to test yourself as an individual rather than diverge from it to see how your "self" applies to something reality is not. If you realize how your "self", upon reflection, applies to what your own past experiences are NOT, you are on your way to understanding the Ni attitude. If you had an Si attitude, you would readily identify with your own past experiences relating to your "self" and if your typing is correct, that is a big NO-NO for ISFPs. Your "self" either emerges in the reality as we know it or it it lost. I hope I made some sense.

I honestly don't fully understand what you're saying. Like comparing my "self" to what my past experiences are NOT, like my self is what I am and what I will become? Yes. Even when I was 17 I wrote in my journal that I was puzzled from where I came from because I felt "different" from what my experiences had necessarily been. I remember writing something like "I was born upon the crest of a wave, I belong to no one." Yeah, well, I was 17, you have to forgive me for being pretentious and self-centered. :dry:

Anyway, ISFPs have Si as their "critical parent" function, which means they may scold others (or even themselves) based on the way things are "supposed to be" or "were" in their shadow under stress. We (ISxPs) can act like "yes, I am the authority on factual data ...you should move on from the past..." and become irritable if other people expect them to memorize *exact* facts. My ESFJ friend will ask me things like that a lot, like "what color was the basket" and I will be like "well ISTPs clothes were in there, so it was his." And she wants me to tell her exactly what color the basket was, and I'll get annoyed. She also wants me to remember exact words (this is a trait of Si, methinks) like two days ago "so did they say 'problem' or 'situation'" being totally pedantic in stress mode, like she's being an INTP. And I'm just like "problem, situation, in the context of the conversation it has roughly the same meaning" and she's like "NO it's very important!"

 

[JungyesMBTIno]

She also wants me to remember exact words (this is a trait of Si, methinks) like two days ago "so did they say 'problem' or 'situation'" being totally pedantic in stress mode, like she's being an INTP.

Yup, that's definitely an INTP thing (my twin does this a ton in conversation - probably more than ESFJs normally do).

 

[HandiAce]

When I say "self", I mean the inner values held by your own Fi. Technically, ISFPs do not know exactly what their values or opinions will be until a situation comes up. Not because you lack foresight. Quite the opposite, but because you generally place trust on what the real world or the moment shows you. When it is not possible for you to apply your values somehow or you are reflecting like a normal introvert would, this puts you in a place where you contemplate how your values could apply to experiences you have yet to face.

Contrast that with Si where one doing Fi-Si business reflects on how his or her values have applied to experiences he or she already had.

 

[Thalassa]

^^^

Also, the specific situation with the basket isn't an indication I don't remember colors. Often with cars, for example, I remember the color of the car, but not the make or the model. Things like that. In that particular situation what was important to me is that I recognized ISTPs clothes, and it was rather dark, so I could care less about the color of the basket. In my mind, all baskets are equally functional for this purpose, it only matters *whose* clothes are in them. ESFJ doesn't agree. She gets very attached in an Si way. Says things like "who sits on a bed in the middle of the day"? I'm just like...um, it's a chair, you can sit upon it? My thinking is so much more FUNCTIONAL than hers. Or so it seems to me sometimes. This may be Te rather than Se clashing with her, though. Of course she's functional in her own way, she just seems more "this is supposed to be like this" than me.

But on the other hand, when she uses her Ne she comes up with all sorts of possibilities that I didn't even think of. I think of a different physical solution (there's no wifi, I'll move into the walk-in closet and plug my laptop into the modem) ...and she's like "why the hell are you sitting in the closet? (which is "weird" to her, but "functional" to me) Let's try this, then this. We'll solve this." And she did come up with a better solution.