Fundamental Question: What is Ni to you? & What is Intuition?

[Trent]

Sensing seems pretty understandable, but intuition? Hmmm.
One definition is "a phenomenon of the mind[SUP]1[/SUP]". Oh wow, that helps so much. To me the question is also what is the unconsciousness? I am venturing into relatively unfamiliar territories as far as psycho-babble, but what a great place to discuss such topics.

I posted this in "Was I in your head?"

I found this on Personality Junkie:

"One of the central features of Intuition is its capacity to synthesize information. It is sensitive to patterns and similarities, quickly seeing connections among disparate pieces of data. By seeing how everything is connected and interrelated, it is capable of discerning universal laws and structures. What is interesting about types with dominant Intuition, including INFJs, is that this Intuitive process, which for non-Intuitives is largely unconscious, is more accessible and observable in consciousness. This seems particularly true for INTJs and INFJs, whose Intuition is directly inwardly rather than being fused with the outside world. INJs have the good fortune of witnessing and consciously participating in a mysterious process which for other types is entirely unconscious."

Still trying to understand what is the subconscious. Staring to think another area of the mind and or soul. Perhaps, that is the "where" I was when referring to congnitive intuition.​

So far, I get this for sure, but the INFJ in me asks, "What IS intuition?" I guess it is like another sense. Oh God. Sixth Sense. Shut the front door. Lol.

I suppose when I walk into an environment the external information is constantly flowing into my conscious and subconscious. Whoa. With Si(?) I think the person utilizes the conscious information and somewhat unaware of Ni information, but with Ni the person the Ni & Si information is both gathered. Possibly more Ni than Si. Perhaps the balance of the what information is received may determine that. Ok, great.

So, with Ni I am processing a lot of information which I've read makes INFJs dis-associative material big time. Tangent.

I don't necessarily see intuition like a mental function, but does work in conjunction. It is like just 'there'. You know? Ugh. Feel stuck.

I have a feeling some of you have dug deep on this one. Share guru's, counselors, empaths

 

[zarcos]

I have some experience with Ni due to the unconscious nature of it in my functional stack but its nonetheless highly developed and manifests as an indescribable sensation of being drawn to the correct conclusion. I attribute inconsistencies with its reliability to interference with my supporting Ti (Ni-Ti loops), the use of which I am more accustomed to. Also I am really only comfortable supporting it with only one Extraverted Judgement. I doubt that Ne cannot be combined with Ni, or at least not in a healthy or useful way, and my Te and Se are less developed and just cause me anxiety to attempt. I believe this leaves me with the ability to read social situations with Fe-Ni in a similar (but objectively less dependable) fashion to INFJs. I have observed this to be manifested in my reserved demeanor and deeper understanding of human behavior relative to the majority of ENTPs I have met.

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[Wyote]

Ni is contemplating how the world is a bit gloomy or dysfunctional more than usual today while you walk into a table you didn't notice.

 

[zarcos]

After writing that I also realized I use Ni-Te in a much less conscious and reliable way to do math without Ti. Once again the necessity to choose an answer before Ti takes over makes decisive action necessary to get an accurate result.

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[charlatan]

Actually intuition is one of the most "overused" words out there. I'd say the kind referred to in MBTI sources is closer to van der Hoop's than Jung's in various ways.
And it doesn't hurt to mention N in the dichotomies tests is not intuition!!!! The name N is a bit of a misnomer. It's very possible to be very N, but not trust intuition, and be more governed by logic.

It also doesn't hurt to mention some of the most universally "intuitive" people are probably the NFs, again by the dichotomies test notion.
(Under which INJs are not necessarily intuitive dominants -- which is more a side theory of Myers than an empirical consequence of the dichotomies)

Jung thought of intuition in many terms - orientation to possibilities, orientation to the unconscious and hunches/that which inexplicably just is known, and so on. Something tells me in the modern MBTI, Ni carries more of the latter slant, and Ne more of the former slant.

I tend to tentatively label myself in the more modern stuff as "Ne"

 

[Flavus Aquila]

Intuition is the habitual understanding of the causes of things - applied quickly and accurately to situations/events, allowing one to perceive the events/interactions leading up the present situation/event and hypothesise about the possible outcomes.

 

[hush]

Ni is contemplating how the world is a bit gloomy or dysfunctional more than usual today while you walk into a table you didn't notice.

Sums it up quite nicely.

 

[charlatan]

I think of introverted intuition as the orientation closest to "subject=mind"; vs the extraverted intuition more willing to view there being mental phenomena apart from the subject's reality to be experienced. A lot of the eastern spiritualities focus on things I'd say are a very introverted intuitive perspective, where the nature of phenomena is almost all mental, diminishing the physical's role, i.e "inferior sensation," but also in addition to that, such phenomena are viewed as inseparable from one's sense of Self-consciousness.
In other typologies, I'd say the original enneatype 5 idea was very close to some of the introverted intuitive ideas.

Note that this is a somewhat more philosophical take than Jung took, because for him, actually the lines between his version of introversion-extraversion and intuition-sensation blurred. I love his work, but this is a place I am doing my own theorizing.

In Jung's theory the idea of complementing an extraverted with introverted attitude made little sense, but that's because the idea of this kind of complementing seems to work better in the cognitive than psychological realm. For analogy, P/J is a fine psychological opposition, but perception+judgment as cognitive elements tend to complement each other.
Jung's dichotomy was very deeply psychological (only his functions were truly cognitive).
But one can convert to a more cognitive perspective on the subject/object dichotomy, and there I think the complementing analogy makes some more sense.

There tends to be a definitive but not particularly pure (by virtue of subordination to dominant) relation strongly introverted intuitives have with some kind of outer directed judging. For instance, again in eastern spiritualities, a sort of relational unity with the apparent phenomenal world, which is viewed as not existing, is what might be termed an outer-directed feeling function at work. It is subordinate strictly to the dissolution of a false sense of subject.

The way I experience my own situation with auxiliary is that the crux of a thinking-introverted orientation is that logic strives to rid one's cognitions of experiential content, in favor of more universal abstractions... and the way introverted thinking tends to go is to strive for such universality by stripping away portions of cognitions which aren't logical, while ever noting that for any other to interpret the logic, they would have to technically assume the perspective the subject held while creating the logical framework. So funnily, stripped of experience, it is rid of "subjectivity" in the sense logic tends to provide, yet practically, it is not so, only theoretically.
Extroverted logic on the other hand more or less takes for granted the common consensus which logic tends to yield. Whence the greater emphasis on the logic as a means of implementation.