Intuition - Origin and Definition

Hi @TomasM - I've not listened to the videos you've posted yet because of their length but they sound interesting and I'm hoping to play them on our TV soon, rather than watch them on phone or computer.

On a more general note, at the level of depth you are working I think it's worth relating your relationship with the concept of Intuition to Jung's wider psychology of the whole psyche rather then just in the context of MBTI. That's because there is an apparent ambiguity in some of the contexts that needs some analysis and clarification, if only in terms of definitions and relationships to which model. Otherwise there is room for endless confusion about what is meant by intuition.

There is a lot of accreted stuff built on top of Jung's original model and I think it's worth going back to the roots. He created his theory of types in part in order to get to grips with problems he was having in his therapeutic practice. He was of course dealing with psychological illnesses that had their roots in the unconscious minds of his patients - but he found that one-size-fits-all methods did not work. This led to the development of his typology, initially as a means of finding the best route to patients' subconscious minds. It's fruit was the identification of their inferior functions which he saw as essentially unconscious, and as the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. The personality differences expressed in typology led to very different approaches in how he dealt with a dominant introverted sensor compared with a dominant extraverted feeler, for example.

This is where it can get murky because for INFJs Ni is the dominant and Se is the inferior. So the path to the unconscious for us is extraverted sensing, and our most consciously controlled function is introverted intuition. Yet there is a view that suggests that Ni works in an unconscious sort of way. I think that this situation needs to be fleshed out in any analysis of Ni - and related to Jung's overall model of the human psyche if the analysis focuses on an MBTI concept of Ni. Personally I think that the problem arises because the terms are used too broadly. I find that I'm perfectly conscious of using Ni and the experience is analogous to using sight. Now sight appears to be a very concrete function with little in the way of being buried in the unconscious, but it's a matter of layers. There is a huge and complex process of turning the photons that hit my retina into my visual experience of the world out there, and this process is normally completely unconscious to me, though the experience is not. I think Ni works in the same way - there is an intricate subterranean process that delivers a nicely packaged insight to my conscious mind and I'm not aware of how it works, but like with sight I'm very conscious of the result. I don't think this is the same at all as saying than Ni is unconscious in the way that MBTI and Jungian psychology as a whole intends the meaning. It's a matter of layers and the unconscious layers of sight and dominant Ni are much lower down in out minds that the sort of embedding in our shadows that are implied by Jungian psychology.

Of course there are other possible definitions of what is meant by intuition, but I think it needs a precision in definition if those are analysed in order to avoid discussions that are confused by coming from different conceptual models.

While reading this, a few things came to mind that are relevant to the topic. There was a brief mention of epigenetics, which is the modification of our genes by the environment. This is a relatively new field of research and shows how flexible living beings are.
And not only that. I think that humans are the only known living beings that are able to “reach into their own heads/brains/thoughts with their own hands.” We are able to condition ourselves. We can learn a lot through practice. We can influence our thinking through meditation/autogenic training/hypnosis. No one knows how far this is actually possible. However, I am convinced that it is possible to practice and learn intuition or sensory perception. Of course, a person who only starts practicing something at the age of 30 that another person has already learned naturally as a child will probably not be able to surpass these abilities. But I am convinced that our character is not set in stone.

You're right. And then the question remains, would you even want that? I, for one, am actually happy being an INFJ.

Perhaps it's a kind of low entropy. So at some point, the character settles into a certain position because that's where it needs the least energy?

The brain remains flexible even in old age. It is difficult to make a direct comparison with small children, as they do not yet have to consider so many different aspects. When learning a foreign language, adults may be thinking about what they need to buy for dinner and whether they have enough money to do so. Of course, many of the connections between neurons are not yet established in small children.

So it is interesting to ask how something as intangible as intuition can develop in the brain. Is it advantageous if the environment does not make clear statements and the child always has to try to read between the lines?
Did particularly intuitive people have this kind of environment in their childhood?

it’s easy to get the idea that our functions are fixed, but it seems to me that is misleading. Everybody has all the functions - otherwise they couldn’t ‘function’ as people. But something seems to happen that orients us into developing only a small number of them into fluent conscious control, at least at first. The way the choice of these is made for each of us seems a bit like the symmetry breaking that is said to have determined the way the laws of physics unfolded at the dawn of time. The way they end up is one of many possible and maybe it’s just chance that governs what happens with the choice of functions in gestation and infancy.

But certainly the dynamics of MBTI don’t stop there. Jung himself was very clear that people who don’t start to develop beyond their primary and secondary functions by mid-life are going to suffer significant psychological problems. He didn’t see this as developing other functions from nothing - they are in an undifferentiated or partially differentiated darkness in our unconscious to start off with, but they are all there. The path to psychic wholeness involves bringing them out into greater and greater consciousness - and with them other aspects of our shadows.

He saw this as a lifetime of growth and development, and that we become stunted if we don’t do this, at least to some extent.

I think that we cannot replace our primary functions easily though, no matter how well we develop any of the others. I’ve spent a lifetime using Ti extensively but I’m not as good at it as the native born - in the sense that it often passes outside my conscious control, and it drains me in a way that Ni certainly doesn’t.

What can definitely happen is that some folks are forced away from their native dominant function. An INFJ can become INTP/J-like in a research organisation for example. An INFJ child will not develop Ni very well in a predominantly xSTx family. I think some apparent changes in type in older folks comes from people who were forced away from their primary functions in childhood then claim them as adults, and this can look like a type change.

When reflecting on intuition, it’s interesting to consider the philosophical traditions Jung may have drawn upon in shaping his understanding

-Giammarco

The body is always listening before the mind speaks. The body senses.
The mind interprets.
The spirit aligns.

@TomasM it feels to me as though there is a category mismatch between the items in this list, but what do you think? For example, it seems to me that the sensation of itch (10) and aesthetic attunement (31) are different sorts of things. To exaggerate a little, it's a bit like saying a brick and the theory of gravity are the same sort of thing - maybe they are in a sense that they can both be considered a sort of concept, but that is to discard far more meaning than to gain any unless a lot more is said about them.

Since I am INFP and Ne is the main way I intuit things I think it is safe to say that this is very different from Ni

Ne with extraversion sees potential in everything to become something else,
that is to say it is indeterminant and looks outside itself for what could be.

Dario Nardi called it the Christmas tree like pattern because everything is buzzing around creating connections.
Ni on the other hand creates a wholistic brain gamma synchronization - this makes one idea as a complete idea.

The tertiary of INFP is Si - now Si is not the same as Se because the signals are generated from inside the body not outside sense organs.
This does not mean we have no Se but that often we can cut of from it easier whether we like the internal sensations or not.
Se being extraverted takes in everything and sees the body as external well Si sees the body are the self - (each type have different "self's")

Se allows Ni to form more wholistically then because everything is one. One unit of the worlds that sees all together at the same time.
They can explore inside themselves then more organically. Not sporadically creating connections between many random things (Ne).
Ni is more chronological than analogical.

Ne must deal with many pieces at once, too many to count or hold in memory.

Ni takes one idea, holds it, sits with it, making it unified like how Se is one outside existence.
Ni then makes it more like a causal story than web of connected things.
Often I seen Ni types have said its like looking into the source of why something came to be.

What makes these one way or another could be experience or genetics but we all have the four basic functions (Feeling thinking Sensing Intuition) They just have different directions.

In my sleep I can have things happen to me that are unconsciously Ni
Consciously I do not hold the world together as one thing but in my dreams I sort of do.

If I try to extravert my sensing then I do feel more stable. Si is all over the place.
I did that last night and had better more realistic dreams.
But in me I keep trying to connect things together that there is too much to hold in conscious awareness. I dart back and forth.

Recently I had a core memory brought back up and I trying to remember it because I cannot fully remember it.
Something to do with rainbows and clay colors in a book I had. More is there I just cannot remember it yet.