# Do Si users...



## nathdep (May 5, 2012)

Do Si-dom people consequently have exceptional memories?

I know that Si-dom people are very rooted to the past and emotions in the past. Does this give them an advantage of having a better memory because of them being so rooted in the past?


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## Boolean11 (Jun 11, 2012)

[video=youtube;3zNjQecyjE8Socionics]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zNjQecyjE8Socionics[/video] and Jung himself came out with a different interpretation, as an Ni dom I have no memory, you see how the theory is a bit broken/else requires odd rationalizations.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

No. Of course not. I believe Jung thought memory was a part of the endopsyche (unrelated to type). They can recall details, but usually in a certain context that evokes some kind of image ideal (something aesthetic in nature) in them. They just tend to speak in kind of a detailed fashion when referencing experiences (this was best put like "they tend to speak in terms of happenings...everything that "happened" to them).


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## Coburn (Sep 3, 2010)

I don't think they have an exceptional memory. I think they just recall memories vividly.

I can't tell you what I did two hours ago or two weeks ago or two years ago (my memory is terrible) but I can describe in vivid detail the banded colors of a sunset I watched while lying on the front lawn of my house. I can remember what I was thinking, how I was feeling-- if I was cold and where (arms, legs, etc). I can also re-evoke the emotion I felt watching at the sunset. 

Does that mean I can recall every sunset I've seen? Absolutely not. But the ones I remember I remember.

The neat thing about Si is that the memory is subjectively fluid. It is not just confined to being a memory. If I happen to look up one night and see a sunset of the same color, my mind will automatically bring forth that memory and the feelings associated with it. 

In some ways, Si allows a person to rexperience the same memories through other experiences. 

To give another example: when I was a kid, my family and I took a trip up the coast. While we were driving past a veterans cemetery, my father brought up the subject of Bill Clinton and his legacy. To this day, whenever I drive by that cemetery, I am reminded of that conversation. Involunatarily. 

Why do I remember it? I'm not sure. But there was something about that moment that stuck with me, and continues to affect me every time I come into contact with that location.

So to answer your question, I don't think Si gives us more consistent memories. I think it gives us memories that transcend the "I was there at that time." We recall the emotional and sensational experience of it, not just the facts.


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## Mammon (Jul 12, 2012)

I remember things from back when I was 2 years old and people often tell me 'IMPOSSIBLE YOU ONLY START REMEMBERING THINGS AT AGE 5!!1!1!1' Obviously not... I even know one person who remembers something when she was just a few months old!

I also remember lots of things other people do not, like completely stupid things. I remember the day I sat at the back seat of my brother's car at age 10 while he was driving reverse out of his drive-in and he gave me 5 euro's. 'It's my last but you deserve it' 'Here, keep it then =)' 'Nah it's aight' 'But you need it' 'I was just joking! You have a good heart, I'm proud of you.' Him saying that made my day and I will NEVER forget that. If I'll ask him about that now he wouldn't remember it at all.

I remember bicycling with a friend's bike who had two different colored wheels which was wicked back in the mid 90's. I remember my friends shouting 'Look out!' but me not understanding what they said I turned my head and then 'SMACK' right on my brother's front hood of his car as he was driving in.

I remember the feeling of 9-10pm in the summer back in '96. If everything is just right these days, I will just stand in the garden and enjoy that feeling that flashes me back. Playing with my cousin in her front yard just fooling around as the sun was going down.

I remember sitting on the back of my cousins bicycle at age 3 riding past some Turks with whom he had troubles with and them saying 'We'll let you pass this time because you have your nephew with you! We'll get you next time!' and him saying 'Whatever'

I can go on and on! I have millions of these things. 

Si-ish, right? Yet I relate more to ISFPs then ISFJs.


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## Bel Esprit (Aug 2, 2011)

My experience with Si has been that they often forget common things that they should know (at least the introverts do), but remember random unimportant events. My ISFJ boss forgets my name, but can remember some insignifigant specific thing that happened months ago. I can be like this too sometimes with Si as my tertiary.

I quite like it with ESFJs, they have a tendancy to remember sweet memories of things that made them feel good and I think it's just freakin' adorable.


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

I have a great memory and my Si is almost useless.


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## possiBri (Jan 4, 2011)

My Si is technically inferior (maybe tertiary some days), but I can still relate to most of what @Marlowe said.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Existentialismz said:


> My experience with Si has been that they often forget common things that they should know (at least the introverts do), but remember random unimportant events. My ISFJ boss forgets my name, but can remember some insignifigant specific thing that happened months ago. I can be like this too sometimes with Si as my tertiary.
> 
> I quite like it with ESFJs, they have a tendancy to remember sweet memories of things that made them feel good and I think it's just freakin' adorable.


Well, this is interesting (and quite true in my experiences as well), because Jung makes it out that the Si doms tend to be the types who actually are very (willingly) out of touch with what's "real" in Ch. 10 of Psychological Types. Some of that might actually be related to inferior Ne in them (even though this interpretation would shake the worlds of Kiersey and the MBTI folks) sort of working to fill in the blanks of the events that seemed unfamiliar to their expectations of what they normally like to get out of experiences, while some of this might relate to what I said about them just preferring to get archetypal impressions out of experiences. Si is often described as a quirky mentality, so there might be this element of detachment from anything real so that they can, like all introverts, create a system of perception-based understandings from that which cannot be objectively verified. I don't get Si beyond the intellectual sphere of Jung/MBTI theorists, since it is my last function.


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## niss (Apr 25, 2010)

nathdep said:


> Do Si-dom people consequently have exceptional memories?
> 
> I know that Si-dom people are very rooted to the past and emotions in the past. Does this give them an advantage of having a better memory because of them being so rooted in the past?


No. Like other types, Si-doms remember what is important to them, or what makes a distinct impression. 

Si is a method of cognition that associates past impressions with similar stimuli before them. This makes for a quick method of recognizing and cataloging incoming data, but it's weakness is that its inherent subjectivity may cause it to miss details that are different than what has been stored as an impression from past experiences. To combat this tendency, the Si-dom may become very detail oriented. However, this will bring about another issue in that the threshold of "too much data" will cause us to shut down, ignoring the incoming data. As we deal with this information overload, we tend to exhibit the typical ISXJ desire to focus on "just the facts."


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Marlowe said:


> I don't think they have an exceptional memory. I think they just recall memories vividly.
> 
> I can't tell you what I did two hours ago or two weeks ago or two years ago (my memory is terrible) but I can describe in vivid detail the banded colors of a sunset I watched while lying on the front lawn of my house. I can remember what I was thinking, how I was feeling-- if I was cold and where (arms, legs, etc). I can also re-evoke the emotion I felt watching at the sunset.
> 
> ...


This is a great explanation although as a tertiary user I can't really recall things as vividly as you do and even then, putting something into new contexts can alter my Si experience to the point where it no longer occurs. For example, there was this song I used to associate with one of my exes because it was our favorite song by this band and for many years afterwards I thought of him whenever I listened to that song but now that memory has started to fade and I don't really associate that song with him anymore. This is probably because I have listened to that song in different contexts that are unrelated to him. 

To me, Si is a little like that function that can make you experience something without really knowing why you are experiencing it. Jung is very right about how Si cannot be expressed without a Je function. Otherwise it just becomes thoughts and feelings in your body but can't externalize it. Anyway, to get to my point, Si is a little how you can for example sing a nursery story to a child for many years every night and then even when that child is old and an adult, that same nursery story might still create this calming experience bringing back that feeling of how it was like to be a child and listen to that story, _even though the actual memory itself of that experience is gone_. I actually think a great, and I really mean great, example of Si-Ne in fiction is the movie Mr. Nobody. It's the perfect exploration of Si and Ne as functions and how they inter-relate because the stories in Mr. Nobody are uinque and contextual but they often seem to relate to the same profound experience, e.g. falling in love for the first time. 

Yet another example of good Si-Ne exploration is the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and how we essentially explore the main character Joel's mind and how he remembers and thus also _experienced_ his relationship with Clementine. I don't think all movies that would deal with Si experiences have to be about memory, but there is indeed a strong correlation between memory and Si in the sense that Si can help you to recall things pertaining the memory itself - how something felt like, how you felt, sounds, images, touch and so on. 

Most people have seen/read Harry Potter so the story about when Snape got humiliated by James Potter should be known to most. It's an Si moment in the sense that Snape labels that memory as is most shameful. He does not want to remember or think of the memory _because of the shame he experiences_ whenever he thinks of the memory itself. Strong Si is probably more capable of recalling these things, even for events that seem to have no actual bearing on you as a person e.g. the memory itself is shameful. Si can also trigger that shame in situations that seem to at face value be reminscient of the situation where you first experienced shame even though they are actually unrelated. 

Bla bla, sorry I rambled.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Existentialismz said:


> My experience with Si has been that they often forget common things that they should know (at least the introverts do), but remember random unimportant events. My ISFJ boss forgets my name, but can remember some insignifigant specific thing that happened months ago. I can be like this too sometimes with Si as my tertiary.
> 
> I quite like it with ESFJs, they have a tendancy to remember sweet memories of things that made them feel good and I think it's just freakin' adorable.


lol yes. My ESFJ grandmother tends to forget the name of people all the time or mix the names up or fail to remember important dates (she keeps a diary though, the cheater) but she loves to look at photo albums because I suppose it helps her to remember those feelings the memories evoke although to me looking at those photos when she was hiking with gramps in their 30s is largely useless to me, I can't feel what she feels. 

She also constantly uses her Fe to manipulate the settings around her to superfiically reminisce of a setting she found pleasant in the past, e.g. trying to make me or my father to sleep over so it reminds her of whatever feeling she had when we were kids or something which apparently must be enjoyable to her. 

Funnily enough, I was just watching this anime called Higurashi no naku koro ni in which a girl is serving a boy dinner and another girl remarks how the first girl is happy because the setting seems to superficially remind her of her lost older brother and how she used to cook food for him. Another perfect example of Si.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

DubLeWoble said:


> I remember things from back when I was 2 years old and people often tell me 'IMPOSSIBLE YOU ONLY START REMEMBERING THINGS AT AGE 5!!1!1!1' Obviously not... I even know one person who remembers something when she was just a few months old!
> 
> I also remember lots of things other people do not, like completely stupid things. I remember the day I sat at the back seat of my brother's car at age 10 while he was driving reverse out of his drive-in and he gave me 5 euro's. 'It's my last but you deserve it' 'Here, keep it then =)' 'Nah it's aight' 'But you need it' 'I was just joking! You have a good heart, I'm proud of you.' Him saying that made my day and I will NEVER forget that. If I'll ask him about that now he wouldn't remember it at all.
> 
> ...


Being an ISFP doesn't mean you can't access to Si. I think all people are capable of reminiscing these kind of things to a degree though, but I wonder if Si folks have an easier time doing so or experience things more vividly when reminiscing past experiences. Do note that I always focus on experience here because Si is all about concrete experiences. They just so happen to often come along with memories because we can remember experiences for example. But it's also about to have these experiences in settings that only are reminiscient of each other at first glance.


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## Kito (Jan 6, 2012)

possiBri said:


> My Si is technically inferior (maybe tertiary some days), but I can still relate to most of what @_Marlowe_ said.


Me too, which is interesting. Wonder what the difference is.


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## Herp (Nov 25, 2010)

I experience Si as some sort of ideal-comparing perception. 

Let's say I have to buy a bike. First thing I have to do is know what a bike is (2 wheels, frame, handlebar). Then, since I already know what I bike is, I can look for the object that matches up this ideal the closest. I know that this is a very simple example, and that pretty much anyone could relate to this, but when you extrapolate this to pretty much anything, you get what I experience as Dom-Si.

I guess I agree with @JungyesMBTIno said about 'Ne filling the blanks', especially when it comes to situations where I can't create a standard of comparison, such as events where interaction with an unknown factor is relevant (i.e.: social situations). It draws a subjective content from objective data (Let's say, if you throw a rock up and then it falls down, Si says 'Every rock will fall down when being thrown - this is a characteristic of rocks.'), and then works from it by completing with possible outcomes when it doesn't know the object entirely.

It constrasts very strongly with Ne, which (as I perceive it) does not care about establishing a reliable expectation about a subject, but responds instinctively to the input by linking the traits of it to others. Where Si looks for possibilities to create expectations of what's reliable, Ne looks at reliable traits of objects to create new possibilities for it. Nevertheless, the inferior will subject to the dominant, and shall provide a complementary role to it.

I'm not entirely sure about memory and Si. For starters, my memory is as shitty as it gets. If left to my own devices, I would screw up a lot of things because I'm wouldn't remember them. If you scheduled something up with me, I would arrive on time, neatly dressed and ready to do it, but I would have forgotten my tap open, the dog's food and writing the tomorrow's essay.


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## Cellar Door (Jun 3, 2012)

@Herp

It's really interesting hearing what positive Si feels like. I have mixed feels about it's affect in my own life. Sometimes it really helps me out or helps me read people. Like when people have a certain style, it reminds me of other people that i know who have that style, so it sometimes reminds me of them. Which can be good or bad, sometimes I write people off immediately because of this. I'm not consciously thinking "this person has a bracelet, i hate them", it's more like a general diminishing of their essence in my eyes for reasons I can't explain. Also, sometimes I'll see something, hear something, or whatever that reminds me of some past painful experience, dream, or day dream. It can sometimes be hard for me to deal with, I may flinch or react in real life because it's like I'm re-living that moment.


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## Zero11 (Feb 7, 2010)

Herp said:


> It draws a subjective content from objective data (Let's say, if you throw a rock up and then it falls down, Si says 'Every rock will fall down when being thrown - this is a characteristic of rocks.'), and then works from it by completing with possible outcomes when it doesn't know the object entirely.


Thats extraverted Thinking :laughing:

And still Si is the most mysterious to me because it is the function that I understand the least.


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## Owfin (Oct 15, 2011)

Zero11 said:


> And still Si is the most mysterious to me because it is the function that I understand the least.


I still have a hard time wrapping my head around Si not making sense. Then again, Ni is like this unconquerable mountain of what to me, so I shouldn't talk.

The idea of Si dominants having a magical ability to completely play a scene with every detail filled in is ludicrous I tend to remember events in short clips where many of what I guess my brain considers "non-essential" details are missing, such as 3/5 senses in one scene or WHAT ACTUALLY WAS GOING ON AND NOT A BROWN ROOM WITH A SOFA in another. When I am reading, I will make short clips similarly. This leads to me having an extremely vivid picture of a character's dress and no idea what their face looks like, or more commonly visa versa. 

But the other Si dominants I've seen posting do not share this sort of memory. I am inclined to think that the exact mechanisms of memory are independent of type.


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## nakkinaama (Jun 20, 2012)

I thought that the description of most Ns had something to do with being either rooted in the past or always thinking about the future? And Ss were in the moment.


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## nakkinaama (Jun 20, 2012)

Fuck doublepost


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Cellar Door said:


> @_Herp_
> 
> It's really interesting hearing what positive Si feels like. I have mixed feels about it's affect in my own life. Sometimes it really helps me out or helps me read people. Like when people have a certain style, it reminds me of other people that i know who have that style, so it sometimes reminds me of them. Which can be good or bad, sometimes I write people off immediately because of this. I'm not consciously thinking "this person has a bracelet, i hate them", it's more like a general diminishing of their essence in my eyes for reasons I can't explain. Also, sometimes I'll see something, hear something, or whatever that reminds me of some past painful experience, dream, or day dream. It can sometimes be hard for me to deal with, I may flinch or react in real life because it's like I'm re-living that moment.


What's annoying with my Si is that I sometimes tend to trust Si over Ne and the result tends to end up as a catastrophy. For example, I was making home-made pizza yesterday and while I was making the dough I was certain I needed to pour 2 dl milk into the dough because I was certain the recipe said so (If I had been a Te user, maybe I would've gone and confirmed this before pouring but Ti judgement is sometimes just... -.-). Yet my gut (Ne) was telling me that it should just be 1 dl, that something was off and not right with 2 dl. Anyway, I said "screw you" to my intuition and poured 2 dl into the dough and it became all fucked up. 

What's even more funny is that when retracing this event I realize that I also had some double Si perceptions because the dough as I had it before I poured 2 dl into it was fine, but this was conflicted with the memory of the recipe itself -.- And everytime it happens I keep telling me I should go with my gut and not listen to how things should be done according to my memory!


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Zero11 said:


> Thats extraverted Thinking :laughing:
> 
> And still Si is the most mysterious to me because it is the function that I understand the least.


Well, the easiest way to understand Si is to study what an experience means to you. If you've had memory associations caused by external events that remind you of a specific event in the past and what that event felt and was like that's a bit akin to how Si is like.


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## Zero11 (Feb 7, 2010)

Owfin said:


> I still have a hard time wrapping my head around Si not making sense. Then again, Ni is like this unconquerable mountain of what to me, so I shouldn't talk.


:mellow:
Constant Vision, constant evaluating in your head for what leads to what (all the consequences) to establish a plan, another plan to be prepared, to act strategic in every action you do. The need to minimize failures at all costs. To find shortcuts and new ways of approaching things or just to creat a modified foundation. 



LeaT said:


> Well, the easiest way to understand Si is to study what an experience means to you. If you've had memory associations caused by external events that remind you of a specific event in the past and what that event felt and was like that's a bit akin to how Si is like.


It´s still in my Blind Spot :crazy: with Fe I know to what it leads like (how it manifests) I understand the merit of it. I´m not drawn to it but I can see it. With Si I don´t even know that :angry:

If it´s a recall function I can use it somehow through my Ni vision. So whats the point? It can´t be just that or? I highly doubt that memory = Si.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Zero11 said:


> It´s still in my Blind Spot :crazy: with Fe I know to what it leads like (how it manifests) I understand the merit of it. I´m not drawn to it but I can see it. With Si I don´t even know that :angry:
> 
> If it´s a recall function I can use it somehow through my Ni vision. So whats the point? It can´t be just that or? I highly doubt that memory = Si.


Yes, memory is not the same as Si. It's about experience that can often be linked to memory but it is not memory _per se_, it is experience. For example, when I look at my cat, I don't just see a cat, I see an animal that I own and that I like very much and it fills me with a wide array of feelings towards him (especially now as he is sitting on the floor and is in general looking at me with his charm face XD). Se + Fi can also probably very much appear as Si but Si is felt in the gut. You are experiencing a lot of things in your body kind of that are hard to explain. They are different to gut feelings and the like.


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## Herp (Nov 25, 2010)

Zero11 said:


> Thats extraverted Thinking :laughing:
> 
> And still Si is the most mysterious to me because it is the function that I understand the least.


Well, then I guess I got my example wrong. :laughing:

What I wanted to say is that everytime I use what I think that is Si, I look at things for what they are supposed to be and compare. It's not like Se, which is just experiencing the object for what it is, but comparing this object against a personal ideal of this given object, in other words, subjectivizing the object. Si, for me, is being guided by these personal ideal of perceptions.

Then, again, Te has a role in this for me because it also says 'This is not supposed to be like this'.


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## nathdep (May 5, 2012)

@LeaT



> Snape labels that memory as is most shameful. He does not want to remember or think of the memory _because of the shame he experiences_ whenever he thinks of the memory itself.


I can think of a song that is related to earlier in my childhood. This period of my life was not good by any means. It seems like that now, whenever I listen to that song, I cringe because of the bad memories. Is what you said related to this?

Also, how is this response different from other cognitive functions?


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