# low Se user = how can we see?



## silph (Feb 21, 2012)

ENFPs supposedly have their least used function (ie ranked 8th out of 8) to be Se.
if this is true, are we still using Se when we look at our computer screen or feel the keys under our fingers or cross the street?


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

Se isn't just seeing things. Every normal brain can interpret visual data - every normally functioning person can see. I think of it being high in the function order as just having a reliance on your concrete perceptions - finding them cognitively useful.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

No that's not what it means. Actually ENFP's inferior function is Si anyway and not Se (Se would refer to a shadow process which is a whole another discussion). We don't use functions in the way you describe, functions deal with how we process information, either objectively or subjectively. They are not tools used in a given moment but are literally ways in which your mind processes information about yourself (introversion) and the outside world (extraversion). 

The sensation function deals with how we process or appeal to data that comes in via our five senses. Basically how you focus on what that data is. Everyone has five senses apart from personality, just like everyone can think, intuit and evaluate apart from personality. Its not that the preference of a function dictates its existence, otherwise this would be silly. You'd come to weird conclusions like people who have inferior Thinking cannot think, or Thinking dominants have no ability to understand their emotions or that Intuitives cannot perceive the physical world. Of course these things aren't true, all having inferior sensation means is that Sensation as a thought process will be the least consciously appealed to way of perceiving things. When the intuitive wants to process something they will generally turn to intuition to figure things out rather than pay attention to the raw data coming in from their five senses. But it doesn't mean that the person doesn't have five senses or cannot use them. When we perceive the physical world via our five senses (and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't do this, we all use senses to perceive the real world), we can appeal to that data in one of two ways: an objective way (Se) where we just focus on the sense experiences as is without interjecting anything personal or from within (like a memory, emotion, feeling-tone, etc) onto that experience. It just is what it is. The other way is to appeal to it in a subjective or introverted way (Si) in which case the effect of the sense experience is more important than the raw experience itself. In the case of Si the focus is on 'how do I see things?' or 'what effect does that experience release in me?' The sense perception takes on a very personal character with Si, whereas with Se it always remains objective (Ni is the subjective perception function for a Ni/Se type). But in both cases we are talking about the five senses, taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing. 

In reality what this creates are two basic mindsets: one where the dominant intuitive tends to not take things at face value and never really trusts what he sees because by virtue of repressing his Sensation function there is a tendency to reject the raw physical sensory data of a given experience in favor of a notion, hunch, gut-feeling, etc. In contrast there is another mindset where the dominant Sensation type tends to only trust those things that are provable, tangible, physical and real and distrust hunches, notions, or the idea that there might be more than meets the eye because their focus is only on sensory data. 

But again both types can appeal to intuition and sensation, they just tend to prefer one over the other. But it is not "when I drive I use Se," and "when I read a book I'm using Ne," or anything like that. All four functions are being utilized at all times, even if you aren't consciously aware of them (as the ENFP might be less inclined to recognize their Si as a mindset they employ, but it is still there).


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## silph (Feb 21, 2012)

LiquidLight, i don't think i understand your post, so could you clarify something for me?

so an ENFP has Si as their inferior function, which means that using Sensing is the least consciously appealed to way their mind uses to make sense of the world around them and inside of them.

but it sounds like you're saying everyone uses their five senses, and this doesn't have anything to do with the cognitive functions that they prefer to use. so when an ENFP is seeing their computer screen, does this mean that their brains are merely seeing the computer screen, and doesn't necessarily meant that they're using the Sensing cognitive function?


but then you say:

===
When we perceive the physical world via our five senses (and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't do this, we all use senses to perceive the real world), we can appeal to that data in one of two ways: an objective way (Se) [.... or a subjective way] (Si)
===

which makes it sound like whenever i perceive the physical world [including when i see my computer screen], i'm either using Se or Si.


could you clear up this confusion for me?


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

silph said:


> ===
> When we perceive the physical world via our five senses (and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't do this, we all use senses to perceive the real world), we can appeal to that data in one of two ways: an objective way (Se) [.... or a subjective way] (Si)
> ===
> 
> which makes it sound like whenever i perceive the physical world [including when i see my computer screen], i'm either using Se or Si.


I'm not LL, but I can try. The key word is "appeal". When you appeal to something, you recognize it in your consciousness in a way; you value its input.

The process of visually seeing the world is an unconscious part of your neurological function. Se or Si processing is part of your psyche, hence somewhere in your consciousness.


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## silph (Feb 21, 2012)

Flatlander, let me try to use your idea and see what i come up with.

so maybe when i'm walking down the street, i unconsciously / neurologically see the particles of light that enter my eye, and unconsciously i adjust my movements so i don't get run over by a car. but consciously, my psyche is (say) trying to get "hunches" on what is "behind" everything that i'm seeing.


but still, when i'm in art class, and i see the shape of a line and the colour of the fruit bowl i'm trying to paint, isn't my psyche consciously trying to see exactly what is in front of me? and hence, aren't i using Se, even though it's not even in my top four functions and therefore shouldn't even be accessible to me consciously?


and what about (to use a "middle" / more grey or less obvious example), when i am crossing the street, i might consciously say to myself "oh, there is a car there, and it's kind of close to me". is that not consciously using Se, too (ie it's definitely conscious, proven by the fact that i actually consciously thought that thought!)?


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

silph said:


> Flatlander, let me try to use your idea and see what i come up with.
> 
> so maybe when i'm walking down the street, i unconsciously / neurologically see the particles of light that enter my eye, and unconsciously i adjust my movements so i don't get run over by a car. but consciously, my psyche is (say) trying to get "hunches" on what is "behind" everything that i'm seeing.
> 
> ...


What makes these processes into a "type"?

My answer, so far: Type is what defines your typical approach. Type is part of what you reach for to define itself, identify yourself. You can do things that indicate Se facility, but does Se fit into your dominant approach to your life?


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## silph (Feb 21, 2012)

Flatlander,

but if it IS true that i am using Se when i see that a car is close by,
isn't it fair to say that using that function is pretty "dominant" in my approach to life, since sight and audio perceptions are used by me *all the time*?

and also, i thought that i almost never use Se, because it's in my shadow functions and that those functions are never consciously used by me?


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

silph said:


> Flatlander,
> 
> but if it IS true that i am using Se when i see that a car is close by,
> isn't it fair to say that using that function is pretty "dominant" in my approach to life, since sight and audio perceptions are used by me *all the time*?


Do you live immersed in the world of external Sensing? Do you most often track the external world in an Se way; are you good at it, primarily responsive to it?



> and also, i thought that i almost never use Se, because it's in my shadow functions and that those functions are never consciously used by me?


I'm not convinced that functions are things to be "used". I see them as mental processes that define our foci. To differentiate Se or Ne (though other functions might get tangled in your answer) I might ask: What is your perception of the world around you like; do you trust or distrust what your senses tell you? (Why?)


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

> So an ENFP has Si as their inferior function, which means that using Sensing is the least consciously appealed to way their mind uses to make sense of the world around them and inside of them.
> 
> but it sounds like you're saying everyone uses their five senses, and this doesn't have anything to do with the cognitive functions that they prefer to use. so when an ENFP is seeing their computer screen, does this mean that their brains are merely seeing the computer screen, and doesn't necessarily meant that they're using the Sensing cognitive function?


Yes and the distinction of least conscious versus weakest is a distinct one. Because people think that inferior function means weakest function (partially this is due to how MBTI interprets things), but this isn't really so. Inferior function is only weakest in terms of consciousness. So in a dominant intuitive you can think of it like a see-saw where the dominant function is exerting pressure on one side and the inferior on the other. The only thing is you can't see the other rider (the inferior function) but that doesn't negate its influence. Consciousness deals largely with awareness and the inferior function being closest to your shadow (the parts of you that you are not aware of) tends to go unrecognized in many people.

This is why we cannot say that an intuitive has poor sensation. Its just that when going about normal operation, their default go-to perspective will not be one that pays much attention to the input from their sensory data but rather one that tends to downplay or repress that data. Think of it this way, intuitions come in a flash. A quick hunch, a quick moment where all of a sudden you see the whole picture, a sense of a possibility, a gut-feeling or the feeling that there may be more than meets the eye. In order for this to be a robust dominant perspective, it requires that paying attention to the physical or as-is world (sensation) gets repressed or downplayed. Because you can't be paying attention to the real world and the intuitive world at the same time. You can't be perceiving what is there and what isn't there (or might be there0 at the same time. In principle its one or the other (in the extreme cases), you are either seeing the world as it exists (as perceived via your five senses) or you are paying more attention to possibilities or the bigger picture, or looking behind the scenes or whatever you want to call it. If you are looking behind the scenes of a situation, reading between the lines, or appealing to possibilities, all of these generally require intuition and in every case this means what you are not doing is paying attention to the raw reality of an experience. That would be somewhat contradictory. If I am intuiting that the player may score a goal on the next kick, then I am not in the present reality but rather my mind is in the future. 

Sensation types on the other hand mostly rather live in the present reality. They might scold you "how do you know he's going to score? You're making stuff up! The guy hasn't scored all season!" Their appeal is generally always one of facts. What actually is there. The physical tangible world. In contrast if you ask the intuitive how he knows what he knows, especially if he turns out to be right about his hunch, often the intuitive may not even know how he knew, because there may be little to know actual physical evidence to corroborate his hunch. The hunch or notion often manifest outside of what is actually going on. If I have an intuition that it might rain tomorrow (without any data to backup that claim but rather a true intuition) there may not be any physical evidence for this. There might be blue skies. To a sensation type he might see me as crazy because nothing physical or tangible says 'rain tomorrow.' Yet the intuitive still perceives, has a feeling or a notion and may be right (they may say "something tells me..." or "...I just had a feeling.") Sensation type on the other hand might pull out weather data, point to the fact that it hasn't rained in weeks and so on. A reliance on facts. Sensation types are the ultimate empiricists. "Prove it!" might be their mantra. 

What happens is that Intuitives have a Sensation shadow (meaning though they consciously appeal to intuitions to see their way through, there is also the opposite perspective of sensation working even if the person isn't aware of it). But in the inferior, the sensation function will be, what Jung called, archaic and primitive, meaning not well adapted for intuitives. A very base level appeal to sensation, unlike the highly nuanced way that dominant sensation types can appeal to their five senses. With Intuitives its usually all or nothing. There's an inconsistency to the way they appeal to their five senses, because it feels weird for them to sort of only be living in the moment of the right now. They'd much rather have their heads somewhere else than in reality as perceived via your five senses. So what happens is any issues that the person may have that surround his five senses (like sensitivities, phobias, fears, etc) will be amplified. It's not uncommon for ENxPs and INxJs to become hypochondriacal, or have violent outbursts, addiction problems, sexual problems, be bad with money (impracticality arising from not paying attention to the demands of the present moment), never finish what they start and so on.

Sensation types, in contrast, have an intuitive shadow. This means that their intuitions will be of a primitive or archaic character. Conspiracy theorizing, hyperbolizing outcomes, negative possibilities ("what if this happens? what if that happens?") always seeing the worst possible outcome, assuming the worst, believing objects have more power than they really do like trusting in things like rabbits feet and magic dice and pendants, or wearing lucky socks, or playing with your lucky baseball bat, etc. Because sensation types want to concretize everything there is a tendency to view metaphysical things, or intuitive things through the lens of a physical object. If a Sensation type says "my gut tells me..." they might literally mean they have a sensation in their gut. They might say "when my bones creak I know its going to start raining." These are actually intuitions, but because the person cannot let go of the idea that not everything must be physical and empirical, they get assigned to physical objects instead (which actually diminishes the power of the intuition, because good intuitions, as we know from ENPs and INJs operate free of physical reality). Because the sensation type is largely unable to recognize that something may exist that may not be provable, it results often in wacky notions and hunches that look silly to an outsider. I tell the story of my ESTP boss who was convinced everyone was coming to work to work on projects for another company. ISxJs have a tendency toward worry because Ne is their inferior function so all the possibilities that drive an ENxP take on a negative and nefarious character where the ISxJ always expects the worst thing to be right around the corner. 



> and what about (to use a "middle" / more grey or less obvious example), when i am crossing the street, i might consciously say to myself "oh, there is a car there, and it's kind of close to me". is that not consciously using Se, too (ie it's definitely conscious, proven by the fact that i actually consciously thought that thought!)?


All of these examples are just sense perception apart from personality. Much more biological than psychological. Remember personality theory (at least to Jung) deals with psychology and how you are you. Not so much with the biological function of the brain to tell you that the light is red, or to tell your heart to beat a certain rhythm or to tell you that the sound you hear is a trumpet. 

To break it down, in order to be you, you must be able to perceive and judge both the world around you and yourself. You have to be able to draw a distinction between the two in order to have self-awareness. The purpose of the functions is to fulfill this necessary information gathering for your ego so that you can know what is 'you' and what isn't (I don't necessarily mean on the most primal level like an animal but more of a conscious awareness level so that when someone asks "who are you?" you can answer them back because you know who you are by self-awareness and awareness of how you differ from the world around you. It is the functions that allow this). So in order to fulfill these purposes for your ego, Jung theorized four basic ways that your ego would employ: Sensation, or the input of your five senses, the raw physical world which tells us that something is. Thinking which is how we conceptualize, categorize and identify. The thinking function isn't thinking itself but rather how you deal with your thinking either in an objective (extraverted) or subjective (introverted) way. If sensation tells us that something exists, then thinking is what tells what it is. If sensation tells us what is there, then intuition is how we perceive things that aren't there but still exist nonetheless. Intuition is how we can see potential or make a guess about something in the past. And finally we need a way to evaluate our emotions. To know whether or not we like or dislike something and that function is the Feeling function. 

Everyone has these four functions, thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition (again the Sensation function isn't your five senses but rather how you appeal to them, same goes for the other functions -- Feeling isn't feeling but rather how you evaluate your feelings). And these functions can be used in an introverted/subjective/self-referencing way (how we know whats going on within us) and an extraverted/objective/world-referencing way (how we know whats going on in the world). Introversion always is met by extraversion. So if you have developed a dominant introverted function, this by nature will mean that you have repressed its opposite extraverted counterpart (so dominant Ne will be met by an inferior Si function that is likely as strong as the dominant, yet repressed from consciousness - the person just doesn't pay any attention to a sensation perspective consciously). Dominant extraverted thinking will have a repressed inferior introverted feeling function and so on. What happens is this creates something of an ego/alter-ego or Jekyll/Hyde dynamic with people where the ENxP, for instance, may think of himself as Dr. Jekyll, but also has a Mr. Hyde in Si that he is probably not aware of (but maybe outside observers are). Same goes with other types. INTPs and ESTJs may not see themselves as emotional, but outsiders may see their inferior Feeling function raging even if they can't and regard the INTP as being hypersensitive, even if the person themselves rejects that because they don't see it in themselves.

In Jung's typology, personality exists around the tension of opposites. The tension (see-saw if you will) between the dominant function and its inferior shadow. That's why its not really an issue of "when I do x, I use x function," because you are always using the functions. The question is how aware of it are you and how much does appealing to that function feel normal or natural. Usually if something feels 'not you' or 'weird' then its a good bet its probably an inferior function (maybe a tertiary). Usually people are easiest to type via their inferior function as opposed to their dominant because its often easier for a person to figure out what it is they don't see themselves as, or don't want to be, or hate in other people (all of these represent their shadow) and many times these things will coalesce around one of the functions. Feeling types may have a sensitivity around their Thinking, always feeling like others are talking down at them, or that they aren't smart enough, or always feeling confused for example. BUt we really have to divorce ourselves from the idea that we use functions as tools. That's not how they work. Think of it more like directing information, or lanes on a freeway. You can go north and south, but just because you are only paying attention to say north doesn't mean south isn't there and not doing anything.


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## firedell (Aug 5, 2009)

You can't, you are forever doomed.


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## silph (Feb 21, 2012)

LiquidLight, thanks for your lengthy reply. after reading it through, the impression i'm left with is that there may very well be a lot of ideas in your post that "changes" the way i see MBTI/Jung; that is, i previously had (for example) ideas of cognitive functions as "tools" that i "use", but now you present the idea that it's more to do with psyche/personality and "who am i as an individual, as apart from others or the world?".

but i'm not 100% clear on exactly what the ideas in your post actually are, that are giving me these impressions, and i want to sort of get a better feeling for just how these new ideas "changes" things.


(i can say, though, that
1. i'm still confused, then, about appealing to intuition. in my everyday life, i don't see myself coming up with hunches, or having flashes of insight not backed up by data, or any such things. but yet, in all online tests, i routinely test 100% N and 0% S).
2. what an inferior function is, vs your shadow functions.
but i will ask questions about these things in the future, if i feel they're important. if you know of good threads off the top of your head that deal with these questions, though, that you could link to, please do so!).

do you mind if i return in a few days and try to ask some insight-giving questions, questions that might more strongly "get at the heart" of this "new way of thinking of Jung/MBTI" that i want you to clarify?


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## Jewl (Feb 28, 2012)

@silph, thank you for asking really good questions.  

It's all right if you're still confused. It takes a while to sift through all this information. Even though I'm definitely a Ne-dom, I can't all that easily see what I do as getting "hunches" and I think that's because the definition of "hunch" or "gut feeling" is kind of subject to interpretation. I know many Sensors who say they get really good gut feelings. Another thing good to keep in mind is that I think Ne happens to be the hardest to distinguish between Sensing. It seems more "grounded", if that makes sense. 



> do you mind if i return in a few days and try to ask some insight-giving questions, questions that might more strongly "get at the heart" of this "new way of thinking of Jung/MBTI" that i want you to clarify?




I don't think anybody here would mind if you did so. ^_^ Although I can't speak for LiquidLight. I can't answer things as well as he can. XD


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

No... I believe you are using your eyes, fingers and body, respective to each example.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

There's a few good resources on here and around to help you out. One of them is the first article posted in http://personalitycafe.com/cognitiv...k-guide-understanding-jungian-psychology.html. Then you can begin to understand shadow functions if you read http://personalitycafe.com/cognitiv...volving-eight-functions-type-beebe-model.html and https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=...om/FreeArticles/Evolvingthe8functionmodel.pdf but you need a pretty solid foundation in what Jung was talking about in terms of archetypes and complexes before you can understand shadow functions. Remember Jung is a psychologist, so his is a theory about human psychology. Personality type is just a subset of that. You can also, of course, read chapter ten of Psychological Types (I'd read the entire book but chapter 10 is online) Psychological Types - Wikisocion and really begin to see how Jung thought of personality as a tension between the conscious self and the unconscious or shadow self.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

> Same goes with other types. INTPs and ESTJs may not see themselves as emotional, but outsiders may see their inferior Feeling function raging even if they can't and regard the INTP as being hypersensitive, even if the person themselves rejects that because they don't see it in themselves.


Just thought I'd clarify this for the OP, since there is probably more misunderstanding about emotions vs. feeling function than anything else on this forum (and also, I do think I've had experience with this phenomenon with some inferior F types I know, so I really think on a visceral level I get the meaning of this). It's like, with some inferior F type, they might be laughing and looking like they're enjoying themselves in a normal enough kind of way, so you might join in with them on whatever this is, but then, they might act like they don't get what you're doing or don't get why you're responding to them the way you are, while to you, you have an obvious rationale that perhaps you think they're seeing or reasonably able to see also. There might be tendencies for them to wrongly evaluate people's actions (e.g. they might claim that you were mocking them when you clearly weren't, for instance) or do so with a negative bent of insecurity (I think a very popular one with inferior Fe types tends to be reading ill-intentions into criticism...sort of the "You hate me" variety of stuff, because being dominant T types, they tend to be used to thinking they can make sense of everything just like that). It's not like, in general, people with any inferior function can't see accurately from the other perspective, but when they're really wrapped up in their own business via the dominant function, which is much like a natural reflex, they tend to lose touch with the inferior and have trouble sort of tapping into the opposite, let alone, doing this with ease and comfort about their own identity (so, their shadowy fears and such that they don't normally consider to have anything to do with them kind of get reflected in inferior episodes). The functions are mainly just labels for these rationalization phenomena that take place (in type theory - outside of the idea of type, they're irrelevant to anything significant about people) - not literal entities that activate a person's every move.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Inferior T tends to be interesting and little talked about online, I've noticed (probably because of misconceptions about what thinking entails on a personality level online), to the point that it seems like most of what gets associated with reflecting F dominance in the internet stereotypes is actually often a reflection of inferior T, but you'd never know it, so unfortunately, these types tend to get the brunt of ridiculous stereotypes imo (e.g. being these lovey-dovey, hyper emotional, social, emo, sensitive, almost too human or too good to be real, too soft to hold controversial opinions, etc. beings - like they're the only types that can make niceness a part of their personas, which is just silliness (and oh boy do I feel bad for the inferior Fi types online, who get stereotyped in the opposite way as rude, no fun, all business, assholes or something akin to the spawn of Satan, SOBs, or what have you, lol). Why some of this would probably reflect inferior T, one might ask? I suppose it would kind of relate to what @LiquidLight said about some of these types being prone to misjudging demonstrations of competence or clarification, etc. in other people as attempts of being talked down to, among other things like self-esteem insecurities. Standing up for themselves might be a general issue with these types and taking solid stances on stuff, etc., contrary to popular belief that these people might be the vociferous leaders marching down Washington on controversial issues, etc. (I mean, they could be, but taking Jung into account, perhaps it's not such a strange thought that the T dominants could be more confident here, etc. - things rarely are what they might seem to be stereotypically with Jung) Off topic, I know, but I couldn't help myself - it's too fun to get new perspectives on this stuff.


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## Ubuntu (Jun 17, 2011)

I could be way off, I think the basic difference between Se and Ne is that Se is experience oriented and Ne is concerned with the abstract and symbolic. Because Se is concerned with experience for it's own sake, it perceives information in a concrete and literal way, it observes the world as it actually is. Ne perceives information abstractly or symbolically, it considers what experience 'means' or symbolically represents or views it in the context of some abstract concept or idea. Ne experiences what Se does, it just doesn't care about experience for the sake of experience. Ni internally organizes and makes sense of what Se perceives and Si internally organizes what Ne perceives.


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## Boolean11 (Jun 11, 2012)

silph said:


> ENFPs supposedly have their least used function (ie ranked 8th out of 8) to be Se.
> if this is true, are we still using Se when we look at our computer screen or feel the keys under our fingers or cross the street?


http://personalitycafe.com/cognitive-functions/115791-subjective-versus-objective.html#post2925504

Don't fall for the stereotypes, both Se and Si can look alike but they are fundamentally different in principle.


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## Yedra (Jul 28, 2012)

How about we look at Ne as an enhanced version of Se?
Ne-users take in information via Ne. The thing is, Ne doesn't take in just the raw data like Se but at the same time it also adds to it. It is a kind of extended reality.

Watch frezned (ENTP) add notions to something physical like eyes:


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