The Key Factor in Screening Ni Dominance

[Andy Quellenlicht]

and, if the individual compoment of Ni-dominant is quite the contrary to Fi-dominant INFPs. driven by unconscious sensation, Nis follow their hunches, premonitions (in some cases) or metaphors which can put them on a quest for an object that cannot be found, by definition, since it's always out of reach, because not conscious. but, the unconscious, in a lacanian perspective, is embeded in the desire of the Other - in everything the significant Others "said", even before i was born. so the unconscious has a social dimension. so, it might be misleading to say that Ni are individualists, even if they behave like ones. they are more following the hidden, unspoken and unseen (which can be individual or social in the above sense).

INFP, Fi-dominants, are truly individualist, since it's basically about the integrity of their own inner world - at almost all costs.

 

[InvisibleJim]

Hate to say it. But 'perspective shifting' Pi/Ni/Si is fokelore. It's about 'introverted' perceiving and thus to and embracing a single view of ideas/sensation condition. Not about being super-considerate-superman/woman. The function is still the function regardless of attitude.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

because you say so?
have you read lenore thomson? if yes, why do you think she's wrong?
it has very little to do with understanding somebody elses viewpoint. it's freeing sensation.

 

[Trifoilum]

Aiye, my head.

Food for thought, certainly. Only your description seems to imply certain extremities? Or it's just for purposes of clarity?

 

[AUM]

I wouldn't be so quick to judge a person based on outward appeareances, for they can be misleading. What one may show on the outside, may not be necessarily what one is on the inside. Not many people truly know who they are, what makes you think that you know any better? In a perfect world, perhaps

Those of you who are sure of who you are, cherish it. For those who don't, let them find out for themselves.

 

[Frugal Gourmet]

I recommend the work done by David Kiersey on the topic.

I have not read, nor until now heard of, Lenore Thompson.

I also recommend the work by Riso and Hudson on the Enneagram.

 

[Nixie]

Ni War Ni War

[picture kilt wearing self-identified INFJs with blue face paint shouting as they run down an hill] "You shall never take our Ni!!!!"

 

[AUM]

Ni War Ni War

[picture kilt wearing self-identified INFJs with blue face paint shouting as they run down an hill] "You shall never take our Ni!!!!"

 

[Kmal]

Ni War Ni War

[picture kilt wearing self-identified INFJs with blue face paint shouting as they run down an hill] "You shall never take our Ni!!!!"

and to all the other PRETENDERS!!! we dont want you in our super secret club!!!! mystical or not, Ni is above you and we dont want to be associated with your peasantry.

lmao it reminds me of the oldfag/newfag game on 4chan.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

david keirsey is in my shelf, it's been read.

lenore thomson, personnality type, deepens this considerably.
there is a website devoted to the interpretation of her book which has become a standard, even though it's not an easy reader.

http://greenlightwiki.com/lenore-exegesis/

"Lenore Thomson is the author of book that takes the Myers-Briggs personality type system back to its roots in Jungian psychology."

an (very selective) overview is given here:

http://greenlightwiki.com/lenore-exegesis/Function_Attitude

as for the enneagram: riso, palmer etc. were students of claudio naranjo. the source is his knowledge and interpretation of the enneagram, which has been published in Character and neurosis. imo the basis for everything that followed in the us.

 

[justeccentricnotinsane]

Sometimes the funniest thing about forums is that everybody thinks there right about something of which there is no answer. That's why the books say different things. Because this is different people's theories, no one is right or wrong, just go with whatever you think.

Although I'm going to have to object to @Andy Quellenlicht's point on Lacan for academic purposes I don't think we can conflate the unconscious described in MBTI and the unconscious described by Lacan. I think we need to come to that question from the perspective of "the unconscious is a theory in itself" - they're not talking about the same place

They both do mean, though, unconscious thought. What Lacan was talking about in seeking l'object petit a, was the illusion of wholeness and authenticity born out of the Symbolic Stage (law of the father, in Freud). What Lacan was saying is that we all imagine ourselves to be whole, but in fact we are driven by our original lack - as we cannot be whole, living in a symbolic stage that only pretends to be reality. In essence, Lacan was bringing linguistic theory to psychoanalysis, which is cool (and I thought that was part of what Ni was by the way, in my opinion, seeing models as being symbiotic so that you can mix and match from different theories - separating them from their original purpose seeing as it is arbitrary...anyway...). So Lacan was basically saying that what Freud thought was the displacement of the Oedipal theory (in finding a suitable partner) is actually finding our original lack - the fact that we aren't individuals - and meeting a suitable partner that makes us feel whole. Of course, it isn't only about romance but about everything - the person makes a myth of their completeness through their desire to fulfil a lack that was always there and never was (ok....I realise that doesn't make sense immediately but I need the toilet so I'm not going to explain unless people want me to )

So we all use the unconscious and we all have a l'object petit a, but when people talk about Ni being the unconscious, they mean just "not visible to the conscious mind", which is a different reading about what unconscious means. The Other, in Lacan, is in conflict with the "Imaginary I" - it is not to do something for other people, as in actual others, the Other is the person we measure ourselves against.

 

[grt$5vb]

[MENTION=3473]InvisibleJim[/MENTION]: What say you of my type, then, Sir??

If complete self-absorption is the only definitive of Ni, than another type I'd rather be.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

justeccentricnotinsane!

ah! a true Ni-dominant response! (after these holistic approaches, which are so far from infj - in the perspective of l. thomson). i like your stile of relativizing and deconstructing. if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I don't think at any moment I'm right, but that, based on the book of l. thomson, this is so and so. if I opt for another perspective, it's different.

jacques lacan: now, if you are talking about the "r

 

[Barnabas]

What your saying is that were all hipsters, if this is true then all hope is lost.

 

[roxtehproxy]

justeccentricnotinsane!

ah! a true Ni-dominant response! (after these holistic approaches, which are so far from infj - in the perspective of l. thomson). i like your stile of relativizing and deconstructing. if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I don't think at any moment I'm right, but that, based on the book of l. thomson, this is so and so. if I opt for another perspective, it's different.

jacques lacan: now, if you are talking about the "r

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

You're over complicating it. Ni is just intuition, like Ne. It's either you see things others don't or you suppress it to fit in with others.

Ni is rare but nothing inhuman.

to me, the big step was taken by l. thomson when she systematically showed how introverted intuition is the opposite of extraverted intuition: take away "context" (Ni), build "context" (Ne) - without knowing what one does. imo it's crucial to distinguish the two approaches of intuition. if you say, "you see things others don't", using "see" could indicate that that you have a Ne-way of understanding intuition (getting the big picture), it's how its commonly understood. so i'd like to quote thomson's basic words about Ni and Ne:

"Extraverted Intuition would move us to unify our sense impressions with their larger context, thereby creating new options for meaning and response. ...

Introverted Intuition would prompt us to liberate our sense impressions from their larger context, thereby creating new options for perception itself. ...

Because we usually associate Intuition with "feelings" and hunches, the conceptual nature of Introverted Intuition may be difficult to appreciate. Like its Extraverted counterpart, Introverted Intuition is a Perceiving function, but it's also a left-brain function. The left brain won't focus on many things at once. It depends on words and signs to make outward experience predictable and orderly.

Introverted Sensation and Introverted Intuition make us aware of all our sensory impressions, notwithstanding prevailing categories of knowledge. In consequence, ISJs and INJs tend to have interests and priorities that strike others as unpredictable or esoteric.

...

Extraverted Intuitives are right-brain types who deal with their sense impressions by unifying them into larger outward patterns. An ENP physician, for example, may realize, with sudden insight, that several unexplained symptoms are actually part of a single disease. As an Extraverted type, the physician has no doubt that the disease syndrome really exists. The pattern was always there, waiting for someone to discover.

... Introverted Intuitives don't think this way. For INJs, patterns aren't "out there" in the world, waiting to be discovered. They're part of us - the way we make sense of the riot of information and energy impinging on our systems. A disease syndrome is a useful construct, but that's all it is - an aggregate of observations attached to a label, telling us what to see and how to deal with it.

Given their real-life consequences, mental constructs don't strike INJs as imaginary or irrelevant. They're merely arbitrary, derived from a particular view of life." (extracts from p. 222 - 225.)

this is a small portion of the distinctions of Ne and Ni thomson establishes. so to say Ni and Ne is quite the same is inadequate, imo.

so, how do you INFJs relate to what thomson says? do you recognize yourself in her description of Ni? if not, why do you think you're INFJ?

 

[justeccentricnotinsane]

Andy:

On Lacan, first of all - just to make sure we're on the same page.

The unconscious/id in Lacan is the signified, the ego is the Ideal I and the superego is the symbolic order (signifiers). Of course, the ego itself - the Ideal I - is also a signifier rather than the signified. It seems to me that Lacan is saying we necessarily leave something behind when we make the transition from animal instincts to socialised beings - we must forget the real in order to create language, which from then on defines us, our viewpoint and even the way we see things in a literal way (i.e. blue is only blue because we've decided it is - other languages don't have a word for blue because it does't exist). So our literal experience of life is commanded by language and is always removed from the "real" or signified. The lack is an awareness that there is something missing (because we are separated from the real/signified at all points) but it is impossible for us to get there and remain human. I think Lacan also considered it folly to try - he said something that to me seemed a little short about the surrealists But love their films as much as I do, the surrealists were doing something I couldn't give too much of a shit about - leaving ideology, being authentically themselves, returning to the purity of their identity blah de blah de blah - not only impossible but slightly irritating and definitely pointless. (Though I like the art and films - just not their philosophy). This, incidentally, was what I thought of when I read about Fi.

I'm trying to fit Ni into this for myself. I had always considered Ni to be an awareness of the process of signification and a rejection of the signified. I.e. - nothing has meaning, because it is not possibly to reach the signified (something that is real). This is a problem I had with Ti. People describe it as a search for meaning. For me, it is a search for rationalisation - which means meaning but in a different way. I think in more of a "what is the meaning of this?" way than a "this means...symbolically" - that would be the opposite of me. I don't tend to see meaning in the things around me. I tend to see what is there and why it's there and why it's arbitrary - as you say (and your view is very close to what I thought Ni was, though I'm not sure it's the same). I don't actually find personalised meaning in things - like others seem to. "This means so and so to me because..." - you know, when someone has a souvenir or something. Or this song means so and so to me.... I don't really do that. And I had considered it to be because I tend to see meaning as arbitrarily ascribed. That's not to see that we should not believe anything. It is to say we should believe in the values that, considering the arbitrariness of it all, works out best - sort of knowing this is arbitrary but it;s not like there's any other way to live and I am not offended by it's arbitrariness - it's just how it is and you go with it because that's what works. That's not to say I believe there should be no change, it's just change within the system seeing as we cannot change the system, regardless of what external objects we move around.

So yeah. I would relate Ni to a knowledge of the signification of things (or that system that always already signifies but arbitrarily so) rather than being in the unconscious in the same way that the signified is in the unconscious. Lacan said, and I agree to a certain extent, that our signifier-filled conscious is born of the signified in our unconscious but the signified is inaccessible - which makes theoretical sense, but I don't know how useful it is.

Now, you mentioned deconstruction. Funny that, because when I first came to my conclusion about Ni (I don't know when or what I'd read, sorry) it struck me as the process of deconstruction. Again, to make sure we're on the same page, I am assuming you mean deconstruction as Derrida described it? Rather than conscious deconstruction (deconstructing a joke, say - that's more like self-reflexivity). Derrida said that the system of signification is always already deconstructing itself - that it is always dissolving even as it is created, in that it is not possible for it to exist. So, because "absent" can only exist if the concept of "present" exists (because otherwise we would not have a name for it - seeing as there would be nothing to compare it with) then there must be a "trace" of something between the two words that is neither present nor absent but the root at which we are able to think - simultaneously - "absence" and "presence". Now, this works for me better than Lacan. Because I would think of Ni as being, not the trace itself (which would be impossible) but an awareness of the trace - an awareness of the system of signifiers around us. This also fed in, for me, to the idea that Ni will pick up on what I considered to be "surface signifiers" without needing them to be signifying anything at all. So. Let's say you see a picture of someone with their arms crossed and another person with their arms open. It is not that arms crossed MEANS angry/defensive whatever or that arms open MEANS welcoming/warm whatever - those two signifiers do not mean anything in and of themselves (although obviously there's a psychological and socialisation aspect) because it depends on what signifiers they are being presented alongside. If the person with the arms crossed is smiling, perhaps they are nervous or cold. If the person with the arms open is laughing in a certain way or is holding their face in a certain way, this would actually be read as domineering. So the signifiers themselves do not have meaning, their meaning is ascribed in and of the moment - according to what they coincide with.

I'm not saying Ni users literally go through all that in their mind, by the way. They're not sitting there working out the puzzle (like the Sherlock Holmes references you sometimes gets about INFJs - he uses Te, I believe). The reading people thing was an example of a different viewpoint, but I don't believe Ni users would sit there thinking about it.

So that's what I was thinking of with regardless to (post)structuralist reasoning (which had crossed my mind too, I'm glad you mentioned it).

so, how do you INFJs relate to what thomson says? do you recognize yourself in her description of Ni? if not, why do you think you're INFJ?

As for that - I don't know. I find it difficult to say exactly what I'm like or what I do. 90 per cent of the time I say "I'm like..." I'm wrong and someone points the inconsistencies out to me at some point. I do not have a satisfactory narrative for myself but I don't think it's necessary.

EDIT: The only people I have seemed to agree with a lot about Ni have been INTJs - I've seen some bang on descriptions from them on what I thought I recognised in myself. Which does not mean it is Ni. It could be that they describe tertiary Fi or that they are describing the working of Ni with Te, for instance.

EDIT II: Another point I forgot to mention that I would like to discuss with people who have opinions on Ni. I have heard from some people that Ni takes time to order itself so that you get the "aha" moment rather than conscious thought. Now. I don't do conscious thought when making decisions but the "aha" moment tends to be immediate sometimes (depending on the subject). With people, for instance, I know instantly. But I think the difference between gut reaction and emotion does need to be made clear - as someone said below - that it is not that I have a feeling about the person - I more have the sense of having figured them out and I do judge from there in a relatively passive way.

But I would like to know why people feel Ni takes time. It isn't a challenge. I just haven't figured that out yet.

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

justeccentricnotinsane,

first some clarifications about Lacan:
in his seminar of 1974 – 1975 lacan comes to link the 3 „registres“ (orders) by the borromean knot. so, what goes together is this:

Order: imaginary, Unit: signified ; instance: ideal I, main purpose: establishing continuity

Order: symbolic, unit: signifier; instance: subject of the unconscious; main purpose, with regard to the imaginary: rupture, to inscribe the lack (by the Father funciton). this is the order in which Lacan understands his typical and new way of conceiving the unconscious: l’inconscient structur

 

[Andy Quellenlicht]

just eccentric not insane,

"I'm wrong and someone points the inconsistencies out to me at some point. I do not have a satisfactory narrative for myself but I don't think it's necessary." i "feel" the same way. and i believe it's quite a classic Ni-first-way of looking at the ego (which i do not distinguish from the self as jung does). who is the "someone" for you? for me it's an inner instance, not somebody from the outside (well, i'm an e3, so my persona is something else than my core, for alle th insignificant others ;-) do you know your e-type?

 

[justeccentricnotinsane]

Andy:
Think we should stop using terms from other people because we have different definitions. Signifier, signified and real have all been used by many theorists and it depends on your perspective.

Signifier does not mean language. Language is a type of signifier but there is no signified in human experience. The signified is the world we are locked out of (the real) and I believe Lacan used Saussure's terminology (signified/signifiers) as a metaphor for the unconscious/conscious barrier.

I myself am using Saussure's terminology as a metaphor for what I considered to be Ni (but there is no reason we should assume me to be an INFJ, I may used Ne/Fi, and that's where problems come!).

So, put simply, the signified is not something we can experience, but signifiers (which we do experience) fool the subject into believing they refer to the signified (but they are always once removed). Signifiers are constantly moving and never had meaning. As you say, they take on meaning in the context.

This is all a rather po-faced way of saying: Ni does not believe meaning is static. I always described it as a profiling function. It is able to profile the future or understand things it hasn't experienced because it imagines the signifiers involved and reads them.

t is an unconscious process in that you are not aware you are doing this. You simply get frustrated with other people for "not seeing what is there". Ni-doms do not see things as puzzles - they experience everything as clear and obvious. Or rather, I do. The most mysterious thing to me is my own mind. When people try to ask what I'm like, I can find that difficult. But if people didn't ask I'd never think about it, I suppose - the only time I've thought about it is when I was very unhappy, in which I looked for good things to say about myself and attempted to understand what was going in my brain in order to be able to organise it. This doesn't work of course, the answer is to stop thinking, I realise that now.

But I may actually be describing Fi. Because I think I do have a model of the world in my mind and that is why it's so easy to navigate. I consider myself to have some generalisations that help me out but that this generalisations can be put aside when I meet the exception. For instance, I will assume, for convenience's sake, that the very basic general laws of human nature apply if I am talking about a group of people I have not met (let's say I'm just talking about "the working class", or "the middle class") Baically, I would consider those two groups to be essentially the same and that their actions can be projected according to the similarities between them, when spoken of in groups. It is not until I speak of an individual that I factor in the differences between them and other people.

So, this means I have a stock answer for things that I have experienced before. Why do people bully others? To appear superior in comparison. But of course I mean - most of the time - and consider the to be a part of human nature. If I was to meet one particular bully, I may decide that this is not the case, but I see the generalisation as useful when you are projecting something that you cannot see directly in front of you because then you're talking about a matter of probability.

I notice that some people do this the other way round. They will assume different groups of people (demarcated through surface signifiers like socio-economic status) are different from each other rather than the same, so they expect those groups to act differently. But then, when they meet an individual, instead of stepping away from generalisations, they use those generalisations to project an individual's behaviour - for instance, I have a friend that will forgive someone over and over again on the belief: "When people do wrong they feel guilty". Now, this is a useful generalisation, because it applies to the majority and you could use it in a loose way if necessary, but it is completely irrelevant to the individual. Not all people feel guilty when they have done wrong. So my friend eventually got very upset and - in her own words - "lost her faith in humanity" - because it turned out in the end that this person did not feel guilt when she does something wrong. This knocked my friend's worldview, but I had always thought the person in question did not feel guilt so I did not feel any emotions about it (although I was just as involved in the situation). Does this make sense?

Everybody uses generalisations and judges things as different and the same. I do not make assumptions with individuals. I meet them, see them for what they are, and make assumptions based on that. So if I see that somebody does not appear to experience guilt, I will not expect them to feel guilt and factor that in to my assessment of the situation. From then on, I judge what I should and shouldn't do and what I should and shouldn't say and what I should and should't trust based on this initial information, assuming it to be true. So I judge individuals as being different from each other, but if we're going to talk about swathes of people it is more useful to think of them as being the same in essence (basic human nature) because it is more practical and is probably going to be more accurate than factoring in the many, many, many exceptions to the rule. But with individuals I judge and foresee according to their particular grouping of signifiers (or neuroses, or instincts, or likes and dislikes, or whatever). Not consciously, but I follow my gut.

So I would say that everybody deals with the system of signification (through which meaning is found) but Ni does not assume meaning is constant as it assumes it is a system. This is not practical when talking about large groups so we generalise according to the most probable signification, but with individuals we do not follow "rules of human nature" - because there is no model for individuals.

Ok, does that makes sense? I'm trying to write this and watch tv at the same time so it might be a bit disordered or vague!