What comes first: the feeling or intuition?
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I think it is more of a case that Ni can frequently tell us truths that our Fe refuses to accept. It can be very conflicting. A classic example would be Luke Skywalker realizing that Darth Vader is his father. His Ni knew it was true. His Fe refused to accept it.
Ni works very seamlessly with Te because both of these functions are open to things being the way that they are, no matter how they are. Ni can be very antagonistic to Fe, and by all accounts shouldn't be able to work with it. Even Carl Jung supposedly stated at one point in his development of the theory that there was no such thing as INFJs because he believed these two functions couldn't coexist with Ni being supported by Fe as Ni sees what is and Fe believes in what should be. And yet, here we are. Apparently he wasn't too far from the truth though, seeing as INFJs are the rarest of the types... probably for this very reason.
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- Nov 12, 2008
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Se is (again in my opinion) the fastest function. It simply doesn't take any processing. It simply knows what to do and how to do it. It does everything in real time. If you can learn to do this in tandem with Ni then it makes Ni work much more efficently by trusting what is received and understanding that it doesn't need to be processed.
This is how it is for me. I find that feelings are a reaction to things going on outside me, whereas my intuition just kind of happens without any prompts or stimulus. It's just...there.
I always differentiated intuition and feeling like this:
Intuition is situational. It's imaginative; creating those synthetic senses in my mind about what could be (the future or the alternative to reality). Ne is like an exponentially growing world inside my head, Ni is like spontaneous virtual reality or something.
Feeling is almost physical. It comes from the 'heart' as opposed to the mind. Like, when using Fe, I'll experience emotions for/of someone within myself. It seems more like an instinct than something processed through the mind.
Both transcend real explanation, which is probably why they're so easy to confuse.
Intuition is situational. It's imaginative; creating those synthetic senses in my mind about what could be (the future or the alternative to reality). Ne is like an exponentially growing world inside my head, Ni is like spontaneous virtual reality or something.
Feeling is almost physical. It comes from the 'heart' as opposed to the mind. Like, when using Fe, I'll experience emotions for/of someone within myself. It seems more like an instinct than something processed through the mind.
Both transcend real explanation, which is probably why they're so easy to confuse.
- Mar 17, 2010
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Whenever you have an idea or thought that seemingly comes from the subconscious that is an intuition. Feeling would be your emotional reaction to it often this happens so quickly it is difficult to tell the difference.
Intuition= Idea.
Feeling= Reaction to the idea.
Intuition= Idea.
Feeling= Reaction to the idea.
Ni and Se are actually mated pairs. Ni requires Se in order to fully function. Ni processes the information taken in by Se, and then seeks the patterns with that information. When Se is dominant over Ni, Ni is the natural back up for Se, allowing a person to make sense of all the information they are absorbing.
Until a person develops both processes in any pair well enough to allow them to work in tandem, those preferences will tend to compete with one another. For example, for INFJs the Fe and Ti can be antagonistic while developing Ti, but once they are developed well enough they can begin to work in tandem and can simulate both Fi and Te. It is a little more difficult for INFJs to develop Se, but it is well worth it, because it allows us to simulate Ne and even Si.
- Sep 28, 2008
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EEEEEEEE So interesting!
Okay, so I have a question, relating to whether one task I do is Se, Ni or some wacky combo of other functions like Si (practice --> memorizing amounts --> do it automatically)
I work at a deli and I spend many hours a day serving customers, which means filling orders for sliced meats in exact gram measurements. Of course we take the meat and put it on a scale, but I've noticed that I have the uncanny ability to hit the mark (sometimes the exact amount, like 200 grams) on the first try with super speed and no real thought. I just grab and go.
I was thinking surely since this is a fast task (I move really quickly this task and with pretty good precision) and I don't really think about what amount I'm grabbing - I just grab whats right - maybe this is an example of Se? Then I looked into it deeper and while the initial grab might be without thought, (maybe, there certainly is no internal dialogue until after I grabbed), I can "feel" if what I grabbed was too much or too little, and thats certainly intuition (I am also usually right). I usually get the feeling though only in the cases where I didn't get it right on the first grab though, like it's only giving my input if the first function use messes up.
So what is this? Ni working alone, Se working first with Ni backing it up, or Ni and Se working in perfect sync?
I've asked this question on various typology forums, and I still can't get a sensible and logical response as to how you discriminate between a "feeling" and a "hunch/intuition"?
When you gather information from the environment, do you respond between what you felt, or what you actually intuit? To me, (Fi) and (Ni) are quite the similar process and this has been one of those things that has made me doubt between being a dominant feeler or intuitive.
For example, whenever I get a premonition or a future-related revelation(don't freak out, most of them don't come true), I'm not sure if it's coming from a feeling that something is about to happen, or if it's my intuition that is telling me so.
What do you guys think?
From what I understand, there's a difference between emotions and feelings in the neuroscience context. Emotions are very primal in that it's a way to filter out what is relevant and what is not. If you have absolutely zero emotional response to something, your brain won't process it any further than the raw input from the senses.
If there is this low level emotional response, it goes into the higher brain functions for evaluation by instincts. Is it a threat, is it food, is it sexy etc. From there it goes into the high cognitive areas for evaluation. At this stage, it's a very expensive operation as it's in the consciousness. Stuff up until this stage is the subconscious or unconscious.
A feeling is basically a signal to pay attention while intuition has more processing involved in it. For example, a feeling is being aware that something is going to happen. Intuition is being aware of what and how something is going to happen.
I should also point out that the stuff we are aware of lies in the conscious mind and this is a very small portion in comparison to the subconscious. There are memory studies into this about how some neurons hold memories for a long time vs for s short time and are found in different parts of the brain. Basically for the difference in purpose between things like "carrying the one" and "creating a book".
It really depends on how developed the thought is and where it is along the process.
Sounds mostly like (as in almost entirely) Ni with a little Fe backing it up, actually. Ni is amazing once it understands something. A little teamwork with Se, and it can pull off feats like that. I've done stuff like that all my life, and I know for a fact that I didn't really develop my Se until much later in life.
Ni is a really odd function, honestly. It doesn't work very well with no context, and it sometimes takes a moment to absorb everything and see the pattern, but once it does, the pattern recognition is amazing and often subconscious. Ni is the "I just know" function. Fe, when serving Ni, is really good at feeling the right amount, point, answer, etc. This is why us INFJs feel what we just know, rather than 'understand' what we just know. This is actually where the Jedi references come in (which are based on martial arts concepts like Zen), a combination of Ni and Fe. We do something often enough, and we just feel it. A little Ti and a little Se are very helpful, but in all honestly, these two functions alone are capable of pulling off these sorts of precision feats.
My most recent example... I had always been interested in archery, so I finally went to my local range, rented a bow and toyed with it for about an hour. I was zeroing in on how to do it based on how it felt. I wasn't reasoning my way through, I was feeling my way through. My shots were pretty bad at first. About an 18 inch grouping at 30 yards. This kept up until I had an 'aha' moment about 20 minutes in, where I realized something about shooting that I'd have a lot of trouble putting into words. All of a sudden my groupings shrunk to about 6 inches at 30 yards. All of a sudden, this dude comes walking up, clearly a regular at that range, and watched me shoot. He didn't say anything, but all of a sudden I had another 'aha' moment (which I strongly believe was me picking up on this guy's vibe to fill in the last of the gaps my Ni was working on) and I started hitting 10 and 9 point shots consistently (2 inch grouping) and even hit a few bullseyes. That was 45 minutes into it, though I've got background in other forms of shooting. All that to say, the way I did it was I just felt it. I felt when everything in my body was lined up the way it needed to be to let the arrow loose, and time and again, I was right. But, when I started the process, I didn't feel anything. Each 'aha' moment made me feel it just a little more, but I never really felt it until the last one.