Ni/Ne, active/passive, and making sense of it all
Jan 9, 2018 14:01:36 GMT -5 by Kahawa
Aqua and laurinicole like this
Post by Kahawa on Jan 9, 2018 14:01:36 GMT -5
Forgive my ramblings, and forgive me if I pass off as 'discoveries' things that others have long-ago articulated, or debunked.
I find myself here because I could never quite 'reduce' MBTI to parts that made sense, and I loved the idea of objective empirical cognitive signals, because I've always noticed them, but didn't have the adequate nomenclature to categorise and systematise them properly, or even realise that that's what I was trying to do. And here I find a community well under-way in doing this, and doing it well. I'm very happy.
I've had a casual interest in MBTI for years, because people are obviously different, and MBTI has some explanatory power. I was introduced to the function stacks last year, and that helped a lot. But I've been trying to understand what 'introverted thinking' really is, or 'extroverted sensing', and not really getting it. The explanations feel so vague to me, and many times overlapping. "Extroverted intuition is finding meaningful connections in the world; introverted intuition is finding meaningful connections within yourself."
Huh? Within myself, as in, in my memories? In my thoughts about the external world? It all sounds kind of the same. Idk...
I like reductionist approaches even though they have their limitations. Ultimately I'd love to know what 'Sensing' really is neurologically - is it the firing of neuron clusters in the parietal lobe, that propagate into the nervous system, or pass from something to something, or what? I need to know how the parts really work so that I can understand the whole.
These things have got me thinking a lot about what the difference between, say, Ni and Ne really is. A few days ago I was pondering the problem (while playing soccer of all things), and the idea struck me that perhaps extroverted intuition is a passive process, and introverted intuition is active. That is, what if Ne was about observing the world and deciphering the significance in things, and Ni was actually a mode of applying meaning to things.
The more I thought about this, the more I realised it has explanatory power. Ne+Si types gather databases of information, and decipher what it could mean. It's passive, in that the Ne+Si user believes that 'meaning' is objective, it's 'out there', it exists in various past events. The Ne+Si basically gathers data, and looks for the meaning. This resonates with how I view the world, being an Ne user.
So, since I'm not an Ni user I can't really know what it's like, but as I see it, I would guess that the Ni+Se types tend not to see the world as full of meaning waiting to be uncovered. They see the world as almost a blank slate, or perhaps a chaotic cosmos of unrelated forms, and they purposefully shape its meaning (sorry for generalising and stereotyping - obviously no one is that binary!).
This seems to hold true for the Ni/Ne types that I know - for example, FeNi and FeSi users are ethically shepherding people around them, but the FeNi users I know are constantly trying to create vision and significance (e.g., Oprah). They are much more inclined to hand out coloured string or things like that at a staff meeting and say "This represents harmony" or "This shows how we are strong together."
Ne users on the other hand are more inclined to see significance in experiences that they've already had. My SiFe wife is always telling stories (classic SiFe ) that are really meaningful to her, and we've started to realise that these stories aren't as appreciated by the Ni types that we know. For her, the story has real significance, and she tells the story (and amps it up!) until she sees that the other person gets the meaning.
It's made us realise that Ne and Ni types are really quite fundamentally different, if we're indeed interpreting this correctly. We've also noticed that almost all our Ne friends have married other Ne users, and Ni friends Ni users (e.g., SiTe with FiNe, or TeNi with FiSe). The people we (my wife and I) get along with the most are also Ne. Is this because we're passively observing shared significance in life, while Ni users are actively crafting a meaningful existence? Does this resonate with anyone else?
This can also explain some 'difficulties' we've had with different types in the past. I (who have always typed as INTP) have had a hard time with INTJs. I feel like they're pressuring me into something that I don't feel I've thought through properly. I get the sense from them that they feel I'm 'resisting' their efforts, or at least not conforming to what they're doing. This may be because a NiTe is predominantly logically implementing carefully crafted significance in the world around him, while the TiNe is logically evaluating existing significance in his world. I suspect INFPs and INFJs feel that same push-resist tension. INFJ: "Why don't you care about the emotional direction that we need to go in?" INFP: "Why are you pressuring me to act in a way that doesn't resonate with my values?"
This could also explain certain tastes in art, music, and even mystical and religious paths, although I haven't really looked into it much. Does 'impressionism' or abstract art come out of an instinct to craft meaning? What about jazz? I suspect that religious idols and icons were a form of imbuing items with special significance. To me, an idol is a stick of wood made from a tree that someone cut down, and has no meaning because I naturally believe that meaning must objectively exist in objects before I can identify them as meaningful (I'm not saying my view is correct, but that's how I see the world by default, because of my cognitive functions).
I have more thoughts and theories about this (on books and love and life etc), but I'm interested to hear from others if any of that makes sense, or where it misses the mark, etc. Like I said, I'm relatively new to CT, but I really want to get to the bottom of it.
I've also wondered if the 'passive/active model' can reductionally explain Se/Si, or Te/Ti, or Fe/Fi. As a Ti user (unconfirmed by the CT experts though ), I don't feel like I'm creating truth or logic or anything like that, but I definitely feel like I have to apply the rules of logic to things before I can accept them, whereas my Te-lead friends seem happier to accept conclusions as established, and thus move ahead with acting on them. This is perhaps why Te users are stereotypically recognised as more productive: "Things are settled, now we can act!" Ti="I haven't verified that yet, and I'm not even sure if I have all the relevant data to confirm it, or where I can get it, so I'll just sit around and dabble in things." *raises hand guiltily* Regardless, I don't know that "Te users have extroverted, socially relevant thinking" is all that meaningful to me, but perhaps I haven't understood the literature well enough yet.
Anyway, thanks for reading to anyone who's gotten this far, and for letting me regurgitate my unfinished thoughts on your relatively clean website.
I find myself here because I could never quite 'reduce' MBTI to parts that made sense, and I loved the idea of objective empirical cognitive signals, because I've always noticed them, but didn't have the adequate nomenclature to categorise and systematise them properly, or even realise that that's what I was trying to do. And here I find a community well under-way in doing this, and doing it well. I'm very happy.
I've had a casual interest in MBTI for years, because people are obviously different, and MBTI has some explanatory power. I was introduced to the function stacks last year, and that helped a lot. But I've been trying to understand what 'introverted thinking' really is, or 'extroverted sensing', and not really getting it. The explanations feel so vague to me, and many times overlapping. "Extroverted intuition is finding meaningful connections in the world; introverted intuition is finding meaningful connections within yourself."
Huh? Within myself, as in, in my memories? In my thoughts about the external world? It all sounds kind of the same. Idk...
I like reductionist approaches even though they have their limitations. Ultimately I'd love to know what 'Sensing' really is neurologically - is it the firing of neuron clusters in the parietal lobe, that propagate into the nervous system, or pass from something to something, or what? I need to know how the parts really work so that I can understand the whole.
These things have got me thinking a lot about what the difference between, say, Ni and Ne really is. A few days ago I was pondering the problem (while playing soccer of all things), and the idea struck me that perhaps extroverted intuition is a passive process, and introverted intuition is active. That is, what if Ne was about observing the world and deciphering the significance in things, and Ni was actually a mode of applying meaning to things.
The more I thought about this, the more I realised it has explanatory power. Ne+Si types gather databases of information, and decipher what it could mean. It's passive, in that the Ne+Si user believes that 'meaning' is objective, it's 'out there', it exists in various past events. The Ne+Si basically gathers data, and looks for the meaning. This resonates with how I view the world, being an Ne user.
So, since I'm not an Ni user I can't really know what it's like, but as I see it, I would guess that the Ni+Se types tend not to see the world as full of meaning waiting to be uncovered. They see the world as almost a blank slate, or perhaps a chaotic cosmos of unrelated forms, and they purposefully shape its meaning (sorry for generalising and stereotyping - obviously no one is that binary!).
This seems to hold true for the Ni/Ne types that I know - for example, FeNi and FeSi users are ethically shepherding people around them, but the FeNi users I know are constantly trying to create vision and significance (e.g., Oprah). They are much more inclined to hand out coloured string or things like that at a staff meeting and say "This represents harmony" or "This shows how we are strong together."
Ne users on the other hand are more inclined to see significance in experiences that they've already had. My SiFe wife is always telling stories (classic SiFe ) that are really meaningful to her, and we've started to realise that these stories aren't as appreciated by the Ni types that we know. For her, the story has real significance, and she tells the story (and amps it up!) until she sees that the other person gets the meaning.
It's made us realise that Ne and Ni types are really quite fundamentally different, if we're indeed interpreting this correctly. We've also noticed that almost all our Ne friends have married other Ne users, and Ni friends Ni users (e.g., SiTe with FiNe, or TeNi with FiSe). The people we (my wife and I) get along with the most are also Ne. Is this because we're passively observing shared significance in life, while Ni users are actively crafting a meaningful existence? Does this resonate with anyone else?
This can also explain some 'difficulties' we've had with different types in the past. I (who have always typed as INTP) have had a hard time with INTJs. I feel like they're pressuring me into something that I don't feel I've thought through properly. I get the sense from them that they feel I'm 'resisting' their efforts, or at least not conforming to what they're doing. This may be because a NiTe is predominantly logically implementing carefully crafted significance in the world around him, while the TiNe is logically evaluating existing significance in his world. I suspect INFPs and INFJs feel that same push-resist tension. INFJ: "Why don't you care about the emotional direction that we need to go in?" INFP: "Why are you pressuring me to act in a way that doesn't resonate with my values?"
This could also explain certain tastes in art, music, and even mystical and religious paths, although I haven't really looked into it much. Does 'impressionism' or abstract art come out of an instinct to craft meaning? What about jazz? I suspect that religious idols and icons were a form of imbuing items with special significance. To me, an idol is a stick of wood made from a tree that someone cut down, and has no meaning because I naturally believe that meaning must objectively exist in objects before I can identify them as meaningful (I'm not saying my view is correct, but that's how I see the world by default, because of my cognitive functions).
I have more thoughts and theories about this (on books and love and life etc), but I'm interested to hear from others if any of that makes sense, or where it misses the mark, etc. Like I said, I'm relatively new to CT, but I really want to get to the bottom of it.
I've also wondered if the 'passive/active model' can reductionally explain Se/Si, or Te/Ti, or Fe/Fi. As a Ti user (unconfirmed by the CT experts though ), I don't feel like I'm creating truth or logic or anything like that, but I definitely feel like I have to apply the rules of logic to things before I can accept them, whereas my Te-lead friends seem happier to accept conclusions as established, and thus move ahead with acting on them. This is perhaps why Te users are stereotypically recognised as more productive: "Things are settled, now we can act!" Ti="I haven't verified that yet, and I'm not even sure if I have all the relevant data to confirm it, or where I can get it, so I'll just sit around and dabble in things." *raises hand guiltily* Regardless, I don't know that "Te users have extroverted, socially relevant thinking" is all that meaningful to me, but perhaps I haven't understood the literature well enough yet.
Anyway, thanks for reading to anyone who's gotten this far, and for letting me regurgitate my unfinished thoughts on your relatively clean website.