# The Paradox: Introverted Intuition is NOT intuition o.O



## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

imo, intuition is gapping across knowledge. going AGMPZ instead of ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. the downside is that you don't see BCDEF, HUJKL, NO, and STUVWY. the upside is that you get to Z faster.

in that sense, Ni is definitely intuitive.


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## Hastings (Jan 8, 2011)

Yes. And although you could make the argument that it's really just data that your brain processes for you, you have to take in consideration the experience of _using _Ni. Ni feels incredibly intuitive. In the midst of a conversation, you will feel this jolt of realization in your head: "Something's wrong with this picture! I do not trust these facts I am given. I must counter-argue them and this will be the best chance to do so."


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## XL Sweatshirt (Feb 11, 2011)

I'd agree heavily with that definition, because it's incredibly obvious with INxJ's that it's more about a deeper perception, rather than creating new possibilities. However, I still believe this is definitely intuition. Sensing suggests taking or accepting things on a more concrete level. And INxJ's, especially INTJ's can appear to be very concrete for intuitives. And also, this may be why Se artisans, especially when oriented in the arts, may appear to be less concrete for sensors.


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## pikache (Mar 20, 2012)

Peter said:


> You seem to be very analytical, explaining emotions rationally. I don't know enough about the INFJ type to say if that is typical for INFJ's. You're a male INFJ, perhaps that explains (partially) why you seem less F to who I assume are mostly female INFJ's that question your F.



As a female INFJ i feel things very strongly, but because i do, i feel more driven to analyse it with objective logic. it's kinda like my protective mechanism and i think the Ni and Ti is geared for it, because i can detect the subconscious workings of my emotions and actions there of, and my Ti breaks apart and organises this conscious obvservation. 
If i'm not incorrect, INFJs are supposed to be the "mentalists" in that they feel a lot, not just their own but others through Fe but they break it apart and pinpoint the workings of it with Ni and Ti. I probably didn't do justice to accuracy of the functions as my knowledge of it is more or less sketchy >.<.


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## Peter (Feb 27, 2010)

pikache said:


> As a female INFJ i feel things very strongly, but because i do, i feel more driven to analyse it with objective logic. it's kinda like my protective mechanism and i think the Ni and Ti is geared for it, because i can detect the subconscious workings of my emotions and actions there of, and my Ti breaks apart and organises this conscious obvservation.
> If i'm not incorrect, INFJs are supposed to be the "mentalists" in that they feel a lot, not just their own but others through Fe but they break it apart and pinpoint the workings of it with Ni and Ti. I probably didn't do justice to accuracy of the functions as my knowledge of it is more or less sketchy >.<.


I'm not sure. I think you´re not giving enough value to what Ni does and give too much credit to Ti. What you observe and know subconsciously is mostly Ni at work. Ti in third position just does a final check to make sure your Ni-Fe conclusions don't go against your own logical rules.

It's your Fe that tries to explain what your Ni is coming up with.


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## Donovan (Nov 3, 2009)

i like the thought that Ni is just a different form of perception that seems mysterious because the process isn't visible. yes, it's still intuition in a way, just not in the "ok i'm getting something... it was the doctor, in the board room, with a pair of scissors"--that's just (as far as anyone can tell) b.s. 

it may go off of stored data, but i think the most important part is the mold that data fits into and not the data itself. you get a "feeling" of where to look, or how to approach a problem based on the mold that it seems to fit--that seems "mystical" until you actually break it down and search for the reasons of why/how this all came to you, in which case it just seems like you somehow manage to pay attention much more that you seem to be doing half the time--a.k.a. a state of mind. (this will probably be revised later if i can think of a better way to explain it).

edit--ok, here's a better way of saying it:

if someone was to ask me a question about something and i gave a correct answer people might go, "hey, omg are you psychic? how'd you know that?", when really all the while i've been paying attention without realizing that i've been paying attention to the information that was needed (or that i even knew that tidbit of info., it's like the question or situation brought it up). so, if i try to rationalize it, to explain the process of what information came first and how this lead to the answer it seems much more ordinary--but that explanation is then using another function to explain my dominant, to explain something that wasn't purposefully done, to explain something that just popped into my head. since it does just spring up and the rationalization isn't always forthcoming or apparent to the audience (or even to the Ni-user themself), it seems mysterious when all along it's just a method of gathering info. done in a way that isn't always visible or even apparent to the user. (again, may be revised  since i feel like it's only capturing a fraction of what i see Ni as being)


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## pikache (Mar 20, 2012)

Peter said:


> I'm not sure. I think you´re not giving enough value to what Ni does and give too much credit to Ti. What you observe and know subconsciously is mostly Ni at work. Ti in third position just does a final check to make sure your Ni-Fe conclusions don't go against your own logical rules.
> 
> It's your Fe that tries to explain what your Ni is coming up with.


oh no don't get me wrong.  well the reason i didnt stress Ni too much is because i can't articulate what it is exactly clearly yet :3, tho it is my main mode of existing ironically. but yes, Ti is merely a tool to articulate into words/logic and organise the real thing, which would be the Ni and the Fe for me. well i feel that way.


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## Ollyx2OxenFree (Feb 2, 2012)

Peter said:


> I think that's the way Ni is perceived by others (that don't have Ni as their first function), but not the way it actually works. The other proposed definitions are better.


Lenore, the person who stated this, is Ni dominant- INTJ- so it's Ni from an Ni perspective but just a different approach to a system which Ni doms are all about. She's also in the INTJ Facebook groups and is married to an ENFP (famous pairing).


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## electricky (Feb 18, 2011)

It isn't that introverted intuition isn't intuition, it's that intuition is simply _seeing_ without seeing. There's nothing necessarily complicated, mystical, psychic, magical, or earth-shattering about it. It's a form of perception that exists outside the realm of need for evidence in the first place. I think non-intuitive dominants tend to blow this out of proportion and see it as it's most volatile or epic forms when the reality for us is that it's a constant prefered process unrestrained by these things. This often can lead to introverted intuitives being somewhat like Lenore describes them there.


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## Aquarian (Jun 17, 2012)

Eric B said:


> Basically, Ni employs archetypes. We all discuss certain archetypes as they relate to type, and in fact the types themselves are archetypes: blueprints of behavior of function patterns.
> For the NJ, it is the preferred _perspective_ of information gathering, and hence; I have noticed a lot of them often use fictional characters or stories to illustrate their points. Many of these things are archetypal. Like for example, the whole "Puer/Senex" dichotomy can be found in most comedy duo's (Abbott & Costello, etc). It's a reoccuring pattern or theme, stemming from what Jung called the "collective unconscious".


^^ This is freaking fascinating to me. Not all of my Ni, but there's something there, for sure for sure. Maybe if I also added in that there are "archetypes" (probably wrong use of the word) relating to the whole cosmos rather than just human beings alone, though I don't know if that goes outside of the definition of archetype. But ... like today I saw a video on neurons in the brain and it's a tree structure and it was like this surge of delighted recognition of relatedness along the lines of: yeah, that's a layer of a pattern found in both small and large scale _everything_.



Eric B said:


> There are many such themes in life that can be used to guage likely outcomes, and again, the NJ, or more mature SP's in teritary or inferior mode, will trust them more.


Hmmm. These other patterns I'm thinking about aren't so much about guaging outcomes as they are understanding the real landscapes. They feel very connected to Ni, though, in me.


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## bluenlgy (Apr 27, 2011)

Ni is the classical definition of "Intuition." Ne is all about the "current world" that is more or less known and understood by the majority of mankind. Ni, on the other hand, perceive things based on an age-old, fine-tuned psychological system that is the result of million's year of evolution and development of man species, with tons of insights and inspirations which could only come from sources located in the deepest depth of human psychology, which is a realm of total mystery even to the modern science.


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

bluenlgy said:


> Ni is the classical definition of "Intuition." Ne is all about the "current world" that is more or less known and understood by the majority of mankind. Ni, on the other hand, deal with and perceive things based on an age-old, fine-tuned psychological system that is the result of million's year of evolution and development of mankind, with tons of insights and inspirations which could only come from sources located in the deepest depth of human psychology, which is a realm of total mystery even to the modern science.


I disagree; I think Ne is more align with intuition, and I agree with Dr. Thompson. 

Ni is really 'connect the dots' that is seen in Ne as well, but it just uses a storehouse of external stimuli via Se that is unconscious to the user. These sparks are nothing more than a guess made from outside sources; there is nothing new that is permuted as in Ne.


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

l feel both the separation from the self, have the meta self orientation and the "knowing'' of Ne. l assumed the Ne was a result of being removed from the ego.

is it normal for Ne to encompass both?

My ex was classic INTJ from HELL and looking back at our dynamic 10 years ago, when l had no knowledge of MBTI l can still see our Ni/Ne dynamic clearly.

l understood him completely but he sometimes found my "randomnes'' annoying.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Ehm, that makes no sense at all. It is intuition - probably the more classic kind of intuition than Ne, which is more of an appendage of Si (the outlet to keep these types in check with what they might be possibly missing). I can see this intuition being waaay out-of-the-box to the point that you might not even realize the person ever considered a box at all (repression of sensation). Ne would be the more classically deliberate out-of-the-box intuition - like, everyone will know where they're coming from.


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

JungyesMBTIno said:


> Ehm, that makes no sense at all. It is intuition - probably the more classic kind of intuition than Ne, which is more of an appendage of Si (the outlet to keep these types in check with what they might be possibly missing). I can see this intuition being waaay out-of-the-box to the point that you might not even realize the person ever considered a box at all (repression of sensation). Ne would be the more classically deliberate out-of-the-box intuition - like, everyone will know where they're coming from.


l view it as such, too. l don't think it being a left brain function excludes it from being intuitive. The meta self is what intuition is to me, l may not understand how Ne works very well because l view Ni more like intuition if this is the definition.

But l do view both as having a meta aspect and separation from the ego, perhaps Ni isn't entirely a left brained function. But even if it were...l just think it's more complex.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

The "left-brain" function thing is just a hypothesis - there is no proof of it (I doubt that's true of Ni - Nardi's study pinpoints it as a "whole-brained" experience to say the least).


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## 11thNight (Sep 2, 2012)

_Lenore characterizes Ni as "about the box" as opposed to Extraverted Intuition's "outside the box"_

Depends on how you define the box.

Is thinking inside the box doing things the way they've always been done, because that's what you've been taught? If that's the case than I disagree with the statement.

However, if the box is the basic structure, order, or system that things are subject to, than yes Ni is all about the box. Ni tries to understand the box. It mentally deconstructs things (thoughts, people, ideas) and finds out the core underlying system that makes them work. Once Ni thinks it understands the box, it tries to pull things into the box. It applies the system to other like-things of the thing it deconstructed and tries understand them. It may relate two topics that otherwise seem unrelated.

Ni is essentially trying to find underlying patterns and systems. It uses these systems to figure things out. Ni users may solve problems in different ways using "out of the box" thinking. "Thinking inside the box" tends to imply that they did something because they were told to do it that way or that's what people have always done. But Ni users often ask "why?" If they can find out why something is done they can find out if it really is the best way, and if it is, they will do it that way. If not, they'll try to find a better way. Sometimes that way is unconventional.

Ni's focus on patterns also makes NJs arguably the most future orientated. Because if they know the pattern, they can predict what's going to come next. Or they see what's going to come and they want to find a way to change it.


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## Chiron (Jul 15, 2013)

Removed***


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## Kabosu (Mar 31, 2012)

Sometimes I think people over complicate the meaning of Ni and it doesn't help that in the MB community, Ne and Ni have meanings that could apply to the other orientation.
It took me a long time to grasp it and the emphasis on this mystical and deep stuff doesn't help at all.
It was interesting to see in this old thread how the title would be described.


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## Chiron (Jul 15, 2013)

INFJ - The Protectors​

I disagree. You're only a little like the NFs. I'm afraid you're far too conscious of your thinking process. Your elaboration of it is far too coherent, categorical, codified, orderly and articulate for me to accept that the principle lense between your impulse to expression and the world is anything but a thinking one, in the Jungian sense. 
Furthermore, you appear far too enamoured with the aesthetic clarity of your discourse. Yes, I tease you a little by introducing a few affective considerations, a la the realm of feeling. But in fact, these are mere metaphors; my main assertion still stands.
Consider this: can you demonstrate an inability to articulate precisely and cogently what is going on in your head right now? I thought not. Back to the Thinker's side buddy! 

(This reply is nearly 4 years after prior post. Hope that doesn't matter. )​
​​​


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