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What do you use more - ne or si?

[INFP] 
4K views 21 replies 12 participants last post by  0ddity 
#1 ·
The very interesting mbti YouTube channel - davesuperpowers (you must check this out if you haven’t) says that half the infp population uses Ne more and half the infp population uses Si more. I have been meaning to ask this for about a month now. The simplest way to look at this is, right now, not in the ideal situation, not way back in the past, but right now, how do you spend your day? Are you more into exploring the world, the world of ideas/the world of possibilities or do you follow your routines and your habits more and find the Ne excitement from within your Si restricted life?

This is actually a very rich question for infps so please do not give a hasty answer. I realise that this is not a very clear black and white situation for most of us. If you consider a writer, he has a routine to follow but in his actual experience he is exploring a lot of possibilities. On the other hand, an infp traveling salesman (if there is one such unfortunate soul) would meet many new people in his life and work but his communication will remain the same more or less. So there is the look of things of how new/routine it is for you and there is the experience of it of how new/routine it is for you.

There can be greater nuances even within the appearance of life and the experience of life. We will eventually get to that. According to your own assessment, how do you see your life? Is it more Ne or is it more Si? More exploration or more rules? You can share your satisfaction/dissatisfaction with it as well.
 
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#2 ·
DSP is most likely wrong, he plays with functions as if they're legos, without consistency between definitions and meanings of the theory.. if an INFP is more SI than NE, they cease to be INFPs, whatever the type signifies, they're no longer that. It becomes meaningless to refer to a type like this. For N to work, S needs to be suppressed, even worse when we add the attitude, someone who's adaptable (NE) cannot continue being a "P" and SI, as all these things are antagonistic.

To become SI one must give up both adaptability AND N, this doesn't just happen from one moment to another, and if it happens at all, it would take years, and probably unhappy ones. The cognitive preferences are ways our brain prefers to work, tasks to prioritize, questions it asks, how it learns etc, it's not like choosing what dress to wear.

And to answer your question, routines and stagnation make me stressed, miserable & anxious, it's not just about excitement, it's like oxygen, if I stop moving, I die.
 
#5 ·
People who toy around with it all as if it were just legos is annoying and sometimes very irksome as it pushes simplistic views on otherwise complex systems of being. It is like giving 16 blocks to a three year old child and going about it trying to explain the entirety of the internet.
 
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#4 ·
Well, I tend to trust tangible facts over abstracts. The way I've heard DSP describe a Si INFP is that they have their strong Ne like any other INFP but don't respect it, they like their concepts and abstract thoughts and like living in intuitive la-la land and everything but it's the more solid reality that they trust much more when making decisions and judgements, which leads to them trusting their fact-organising Si more than their abstract-gathering Ne, and that's something I relate to for the most part. Though I don't really relate to any of the behaviours attributed to Si over Ne's (except for living in the past, I have that in spades), just that fact, so I don't know what that means for me. I've specified my INFP as Si in my sig since watching his videos just to make that distinction but I really don't know whether Si-saviour INFPs are actually a thing, I've never seen them mentioned anywhere at all outside of his videos.
 
#6 ·
@Red Panda It is not my place to figure out the mode of exploration of how other people choose to approach and explore personality theories. That said, I don’t think there are proper defining formulations for personalities or if there is an innate infpness. Most of the truth of personality theories lie in subjective understanding and subjective experiences. There are a lot of people out there who reject the theories completely. What I am trying to do here is understand the theory better from my personal subjective stand point and ask questions to others that they can relate with. I feel your response was rather reductive of the question I have asked.

@Blue Flower

Not paying attention to the tertiary function is natural. But still, if I ask you to pay attention to the physical reality of your daily or weekly life, would you say that you have organised your routines and the places you visit well? You need not be aware of this but is it there or not - the organisation of your habits? I see you as a very healthy infp. So your response carries that much more importance. Is it not like you intuition works so much within the constraints of the routine life that you have? And if it is so, how did you arrive at it?

@Pizzafari

Si as a function gets a bad rap amidst the NF types. For FP types it is the quintessential evil (the governing thing in the all controlling SJ world). This is why not a lot of people talk about it. But if you talk to infps in the more unhealthy region, you will find that a lot of struggle that people put up against is against Si - the habits of living that have gotten established even when they do not go along with the massive Fi at the top. I think I am trying to open up a new channel here in understanding the infp type. In my opinion Si and Ne for infps are quite intricately enmeshed. People live a lot of Si and imagine a lot of Ne. Ne remains higher in awareness but Si dictates a lot of incidents and possibilities that happen or not happen. IMO a greater awareness of Si can be tremendously empowering. Yet at the same time one cannot push it too far because it is one of the inferior functions. I think there is a need to talk more about Si.
 
#8 ·
@Red Panda It is not my place to figure out the mode of exploration of how other people choose to approach and explore personality theories. That said, I don’t think there are proper defining formulations for personalities or if there is an innate infpness. Most of the truth of personality theories lie in subjective understanding and subjective experiences. There are a lot of people out there who reject the theories completely. What I am trying to do here is understand the theory better from my personal subjective stand point and ask questions to others that they can relate with. I feel your response was rather reductive of the question I have asked.
It can be your place if you want it to be, anyone can think about it and explore the possibilities and patterns, as well as criticise other people's systems. Your belief that there's no innate "infpness" is far more reductive than anything I've said. Because clearly there are objective differences observable between people, even down to facial patterns/types of faces which of course relate to personality as well. It's not a matter of subjective view. It is about biology. The problem is how we correctly identify and cluster those patterns and define them with our language. That's what my first post criticised, as it's absurd for DSP's own system and language, that an "INFP" is an N yet uses S more.
 
#7 ·
@burningsoul

It is normal for all people, regardless of type, to establish routines and keep them. That is evolutionary psychology more than type theory. The brain uses a large percent of our calories and throughout most of our evolutionary history, calories were precious. So the brain develops habits and shortcuts so it can work on autopilot. Si is partly about routine and the past, sure. But we all use it for that. Even my ENTJ husband has strong routines and Si isn’t in their stack.

But I am a bit disorganized in general. I’m a piler not a filer. My inbox is a disaster. My house isn’t tidy. I have routines but not organization.

When I take function tests I’m very strong in Fi, Ne and Ni. Ti. Fe and Te are moderate. Si and Se are shameful. I’m a bit clueless. I have to focus undistracted to notice details.
 
#9 · (Edited)
Give me a moment to qualify what I said. I said there is no innate infpness. That means it is open to subjective interpretation, which is very Ne Fi. And I have good reason to do that, which goes as follows. A few years back I was more active on the enneagram 4 forum. I met this guy who was trying to reform type 4s on the confessions page. It got really weird when he started claiming that he knows type 4s better than type 4s themselves. Theoretically speaking, an innate ideation of a personality typing invites stereotyping of personality types and also of individuals and their issues. A variety of understanding and a variety of language usage around the core concepts can go. Again, it is not my place to defend DSP. I, personally, admire his work and would say that he has helped me understand the typology better. You can launch an invective against me that my understanding is based on the flawed understanding of davesuperpowers. But that’s not the case. My understanding my language, your understanding your language, somebody else’s understanding their language. I think allowing plurality is greater value than truth.

I don’t want to defend whT DSP has said because I really feel that’s not my place even if I agree with him. I am only investigating what Si means to Infps. That is all.
 
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#13 ·
The thing you say about subjective interpretation being "NeFi" and therefore INFP, is something that works within the framework of a particular theory, one which imo doesn't come from enough observation. Jung didn't believe in "NeFi" and the language framework he used did not allow such a combination. And the only reason it works in the modern typology is because the underlying consistency that Jung tried to have doesn't really exist anymore.
But to put in simpler terms, me as an INFP do not seek the subjective interpretations, but to understand the objective reality as best as I can, it is the nature of the extraverted adaptable person, based on how Jung defined the terms originally. I disagree that plurality is more important than the truth, I don't think 10 people lying to me is better than 1 telling me the truth, but it's your choice.

DSP doesn't even get the basics right, such as what it means to be objective, which he equates with appeal to popularity and self-verification of his system. He thinks that if he trains 10 people to type people with his system, it makes his system objective. This is completely unscientific and downright fallacious circular reasoning. So within that framework he manages to say that an INFP can actually be S. I don't ask you to defend DSP, I'm giving you a different point of view to consider. What you do with this is your own choice.
 
#11 ·
This is an interesting question for me to consider. When I was younger I used to type very consistently as an ISTJ, which is an Si-dominant type if I'm not mistaken. As I've gotten older, I've gotten considerably more flexible, but I'm not sure moving from J to P, or Si to Fi is all that is at play. Now I pretty consistently come up as INFP, though with very strong Fi and moderately strong Ne.

Day to day, I'm pretty oblivious to the material world. I usually miss details unless I deliberately concentrate on the object in question. Ideas are easier to process, as long as I don't get too bogged down in small details. Many ideas pop in and out of my head, sometimes before they've even had a chance to register. I have the most fun talking to a friend with ADHD who can careen from idea to idea.

I'm not sure where the ISTJ typing came from. I can *force* myself to think that way, but its not my natural preference. I think in the past I trusted neither feelings nor intuition, and forced myself to think in "straight lines" because I didn't like the alternative.
 
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#15 · (Edited)
I’m going back to my original problems with how people interpret MBTI.

I’m INFP but I’m something like 80/20 N over S. The idea that any S function would be a major player in my processes does not match my test results.

But I’m balanced T and F so the analytical functions are used often. The insistence that Te is at the “bottom” of the stack and is a poorly developed “baby” until late in life is just...utterly made up. A fiction concocted by those who use the building block method of function theory.

I’m strongly introverted and strongly intuitive. Those aspects of the type descriptions fit me. I’m highly logical and analytical, and have been since preschool, so the idea that INFP does not handle practical matters well never applied to me.

People are individuals. Type theory is a broad brush.

Edit to add that I missed my point.

No one who types as an N should be using an S function more than an N function. Or they’d type as an S. I am strong in T but still am higher in F functions than T functions, or I’d type T.

I’m not familiar with the videos mentioned but it doesn’t make much sense. People may choose to use any function in certain circumstances but the point of MBTI is what you prefer. If you prefer sending you are not an intuitive.
 
#16 ·
The relationship between Ne and Si is rather funny, but after thinking about it, not only do I consume more than I sleep, I think of new ways of doing things before defaulting to what I always do.

For example, I pretty much do the same things every time I have free time or when working through my job. Sure I spend the same hours watching people play video games, playing video games, reading posts of the NFP subforums, and learning sciency stuff, but it's almost always about entertaining new concepts then organizing them.

[ ]
New traffic pattern! Diverging Diamond> Owait, we don't have any in Portland -> I'm uncomfortable with traffic, but that is how it is.
{Instead of}
Traffic is broke, let's fix it. -> Is there something else we can do? -> No we can't but diverging diamonds are cool anyway.
[ ]

I'll also entertain new concepts without the need to organize them. I prefer to learn about topics that are out there, without having the need to know or have built myself up on the foundation of knowledge to better understand it. I love quantum mechanics, can't do contemporary physics (I mean I can do a little). I love watching HAS play starcraft and implementing new strategies, I have no idea how to two-base immortal all-in which is a common strategy.

In contrast to my ISTJ mother: She makes the same dishes for dinner when she cooks and every once in a while she is impelled to make something out of her comfort zone and totally new. I think about making different things for dinner every other day, but in the end, I screw it and make the same seven dishes I do know how to make.

But... I just spent minutes trying to prove to you I like my Ne, so maybe? I'm a Si-INFP after all.
_______________

In line with pizzasafari (really liking that avatar btw, I enjoy the colors more and the bangs look better), I don't know if Si-INFPs actually exist. It's probably more of and INFP that enjoys Si more than most INFPs. A week ago, I was going to write that I was a Si-INFP, but then you told me to think about it. I do rely heavily on my Si, but not as much as my Ne.

I'd like to respectfully disagree with Red Panda, that to be an N type, we need to suppress S. This can be seen when we compare ourselves with ENFPs. They actively suppress their S, they gather gather gather. They know that organizing those new concepts is good, but they're like, "Nope!" In contrast, I think INFPs do something similar but they don't suppress the S. INFPs make a whole lot more comparisons than ENFPs, be it to how things were like before, to other types-resulting in depression sometimes, and we often compare new concepts to things we've learned. The ideas posted on the ENFP boards are much wilder than the INFP forum. It's all pseudoscience, so we should just go with the theory that works best, instead of the theory we think should work best.

_______________

Could these Si-INFPs just be Fi-Si loopers? In a video, DSP mentions looping but does not dismiss it. Sounds partly right to me, doesn't feel right though. Conclusion inconclusive.
_______________

I use my Ne more than my Si.
 
#17 ·
I'd like to respectfully disagree with Red Panda, that to be an N type, we need to suppress S. This can be seen when we compare ourselves with ENFPs. They actively suppress their S, they gather gather gather. They know that organizing those new concepts is good, but they're like, "Nope!" In contrast, I think INFPs do something similar but they don't suppress the S. INFPs make a whole lot more comparisons than ENFPs, be it to how things were like before, to other types-resulting in depression sometimes, and we often compare new concepts to things we've learned. The ideas posted on the ENFP boards are much wilder than the INFP forum. It's all pseudoscience, so we should just go with the theory that works best, instead of the theory we think should work best.
You might wanna think this a little better because you basically made my point for me... to put what you said in different words: you are not a N dom because N doms suppress S more.
 
#19 ·
I have a issue I need resolved.

I'm not too interested in whether or not a theory, system, or method of typing is correct. I used to deal with that struggle for some time throughout the few years I studied all of this personality theory. I have been left with two basic conclusions: 1-Nobody really, really seems to agree both on theoretical/definitional grounds. 2-Everyone is relatively confident in defending their typing methods and typing results. Maybe those conclusions are somehow wrong and that's fine, I'll accept I can be corrected on those. And I am aware that people have admitted to mistyping people for various reasons. But beyond that, there does seem to be some consensus of confidence in personality theory knowledge, regardless of typing skill/experience. But this is what's bugging me.

I've engaged in two external typing services thus far, and every result and brought back ENTP. Along with the good ol barnum effect with re-taking various tests after having been typed, as well as confirmation bias perhaps fucking around with introspection attempts and likely false memories, I'm starting to find more reason to accept that I am in fact, ENTP, over INFP, INTP, INFJ. This doesn't bother me as much as I thought I would. I am already familiar with friends and family supporting the current stereotypes of ENTPs. But overall, something still nags at me: If people use different typing methods and check for different criteria during their respective typing methods, how is it that they continue to come to the same concluding result for my type? And more specifically, what the hell is up with me getting myself wrong all this time and never having even considered being the resultant type I've gotten?

Sure this is an anecdotal example from my own experience, but I'm considering the possibility that these typing methods are either in agreement in their inaccuracies, or they all use conflicting methods to come to similar results. And if the latter is the case, the method in question seems to be less relevant than simply having a sound understanding of the terms. Well, that's the thing: people seem to use different terms, but come to the same conclusion.

What the hell is going on here?
 
#20 ·
The answer is probably a little simple: they're not really using different typing methods. Pretty much all the modern typing systems online I've seen are based on the Harold Grant stack that came after Myers'. They base their understanding of types on the idea of Grant that attitude alternates between ALL functions, i.e. that an ENTP is NeTiFeSi. Myers' stack for an ENTP would be Ne-Ti-Fi-Si and the closest for Jung would be ENT-p ("NeTe" - (p = perception dom)).

The discrepancy between these stacks comes from the dilution of the underlying theory throughout the years, imo. There's no explanation offered as to why an ENTP must be NeTiFeSi, whereas Jung's types result directly from his theoretical framework. I haven't found why exactly Grant wanted to make the further change from Myers', except that it has to be some kind of "balance" that supposedly only your antagonist attitude can bring, but in my experience is total bullshit (see for example the end of my answer in post #18). And because it's a dilution, it still retains some degree of accuracy but whether or not it is accurate for you is the question.

My experience with ENTPs though, is that they really *are* interested in why things are wrong, or correct, for what is worth.
And maybe if you have such effects as the ones you describe in 2nd paragraph, maybe you know deep inside that it doesn't suit you as much as it seems from the stereotypes. ENTP is prob one of the most misunderstood/mistyped category, the quirky charming genius psychopath entpreneur inventor scientist troll clown... go figure xD
 
#21 ·
I would say Ne for me. Sometimes, I am so detached from reality, that the real world feels like a dream and I have to force myself to focus outward on my surroundings. Sometimes the world actually seems like it is in slow motion. I recall a mountain rain storm while driving to work. The sun was behind me and the rain drops were impossibly large. I could almost see each drop containing the light of the sun. I have beautiful profound experiences like that, that are very surreal. It is a wonder why I don't trip and fall or run into things more often. I am only aware of Si when I replay embarrassing situations or conversations from the past in my head. Si allows me to also recall obscure details from past conversations with individuals. People are surprised what I remember about them. It is quite a leverage sometimes.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I use Ne actively... but only as an author. Also I get bored easily and I always seek different things to keep me amused.
I use Si pretty often too but I know that I shouldn't be stuck in past and each attempt has a chance of different outcome. Also I kinda hate traditions and always try to find my way instead of doing common stuff.

As I think about it, the answer is no. I use Ne more than Si.
 
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