Do many people hate the INFJ ability to read others and dig up hidden motivations?

Anomaly said:
I think I've explained it well-enough. Insight is trash without verification. Even if you feel badly about someone because they give you awful 'woo-woos', it doesn't substantiate the insight. You must do more work there to substantiate it. Sure, choosing self interest happens often, and that is just another violence in favor of feelings.
Not really sure, what I haven't been clear on.
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Is that really where you're going for?
 
Anomaly said:
Regarding 'violence', what I meant was that if you do the work to approach others with the perspective that your opinions about them aren't an objective truth, then you can balance your 'insights' with a necessity of some objective proof to substantiate them. In that process, it is a violence because you have to cross boundaries to get there,
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Why is this violence to you?
 
Winterflowers said:
Why is this violence to you?
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Because it's difficult and requires refinement, which is painful.
There is a reason that verification is equivalent to truth, and that truth is equated with fire, searing, burning, cutting, etc. The process is violent. This is why I used that word.
 
Anomaly said:
Because it's difficult and requires refinement, which is painful.
There is a reason that verification is equivalent to truth, and that truth is equated with fire, searing, burning, cutting, etc. The process is violent. This is why I used that word.
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Thank you for your explanation <3

It doesn't seem a violence to me, but that is my perspective, and not a universal truth. I see how it would be unpleasant or a violence for many.
 
Winterflowers said:
Thank you for your explanation <3

It doesn't seem a violence to me, but that is my perspective, and not a universal truth. I see how it would be unpleasant or a violence for many.
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I was merely trying to explain my viewpoint regarding my original statements. I don't need to be agreed with, I don't think that is the point, and I respect your view as well, Winter. I think because I have noticed in the thread that there was a difference in how people were approaching the notion of insight as their 'truth'; I wanted to offer a different perspective.

I think you have a gift for asking difficult questions, which cause one to stop and ponder their stance. I admire this in you, Winter.
 
Anomaly said:
Lol. Sorry to cause you eye strain. :sweatsmile:
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But I do agree it's always good to try and confirm a hunch or intuition if you can. I think there's a balance to be found for listening to your gut but not closing yourself off from gathering more information. Basically keep your intuitions to yourself until you can back it up.

Some things in life require us to think and act fast though. In which case I'd go with my gut everytime.
 
acd said:
But I do agree it's always good to try and confirm a hunch or intuition if you can. I think there's a balance to be found for listening to your gut but not closing yourself off from gathering more information. Basically keep your intuitions to yourself until you can back it up. Some things in life though require us to think and act fast though. In which case I'd go with my gut everytime.
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This is fair. Thank you for your response, acd.
 
Just reading through the recent talk here, it strikes me that it's really focused on a rather specific sort of situation - that of people who are in some kind of actual or proto relationship. By relationship I mean friendship, colleagues at work, regular customers, extended family even. I very much agree that verification is essential here and not just of negative intuitions, but those warm glowing insights as well that can equally prove misleading in the testing.

But there are other situations when acting purely on intuition is a very good idea. For example, if I'm walking alone down a dark deserted street at night, and I see three dodgy looking guys further along and feel uneasy about the body language they are showing, then I'm not going to verify whether or not they are really OK - I'll simply find a way to avoid them. This is a situation where being wrong is not going to harm anyone, but finding out I am in fact correct by verification could be dangerous and not worth the attempt.

I think there are a lot of much less extreme examples of the same thing - avoiding getting buttonholed by the incipient party bore, spotting a sales pitch before they start really working on you, avoiding sensor love-ins, spotting the guy who's very likely to divert a work meeting for hours, etc. In all these cases, a bit of intuition can save a lot of tedious wasted time. It won't always be correct but that doesn't matter because no-one gets hurt as long as it's done discretely.

I agree with what @Asa said some pages back though - this isn't necessarily Ni, though that can help. It's probably also linked to the common sense and the instincts that made us avoid predator danger in the forests at night in the days when we were all still swinging from trees.
 
John K said:
Just reading through the recent talk here, it strikes me that it's really focused on a rather specific sort of situation - that of people who are in some kind of actual or proto relationship. By relationship I mean friendship, colleagues at work, regular customers, extended family even. I very much agree that verification is essential here and not just of negative intuitions, but those warm glowing insights as well that can equally prove misleading in the testing.

But there are other situations when acting purely on intuition is a very good idea. For example, if I'm walking alone down a dark deserted street at night, and I see three dodgy looking guys further along and feel uneasy about the body language they are showing, then I'm not going to verify whether or not they are really OK - I'll simply find a way to avoid them. This is a situation where being wrong is not going to harm anyone, but finding out I am in fact correct by verification could be dangerous and not worth the attempt.

I think there are a lot of much less extreme examples of the same thing - avoiding getting buttonholed by the incipient party bore, spotting a sales pitch before they start really working on you, avoiding sensor love-ins, spotting the guy who's very likely to divert a work meeting for hours, etc. In all these cases, a bit of intuition can save a lot of tedious wasted time. It won't always be correct but that doesn't matter because no-one gets hurt as long as it's done discretely.

I agree with what @Asa said some pages back though - this isn't necessarily Ni, though that can help. It's probably also linked to the common sense and the instincts that made us avoid predator danger in the forests at night in the days when we were all still swinging from trees.
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This is a good point, John. I think it was due to the common theme that many don't verify their insights, and cling to the initial gut reaction in any case. The distinction in scenario is important. I think often though, those gut reactions can be indicative of other factors, such as our biases of certain demographic areas for example, or initial judgments without basis for concern.

I can see that intuition serves well for survival, as you've said. I agree.
 
Anomaly said:
This is a good point, John. I think it was due to the common theme that many don't verify their insights, and cling to the initial gut reaction in any case. The distinction in scenario is important. I think often though, those gut reactions can be indicative of other factors, such as our biases of certain demographic areas for example, or initial judgments without basis for concern.

I can see that intuition serves well for survival, as you've said. I agree.
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It seems a bit weird being very analytical about it, but it sees to me that there's an equation to balance - if the potential damage of being wrong in an intuition is high then verification is vital, but if it's low and the cost or risks associated with verification are high then it makes sense to just go with the gut.

I suspect that one of the challenges for Ni types is that we instinctively use templates to place other folks very quickly. This is like Agatha Christie's ace detective Miss Marple with her St Mary Mead neighbours - she works out everyone's character by relating them to someone she knows from her village, and judges them accordingly. That can be very misleading in real life though - if only life were that simple lol.
 
John K said:
It seems a bit weird being very analytical about it, but it sees to me that there's an equation to balance - if the potential damage of being wrong in an intuition is high then verification is vital, but if it's low and the cost or risks associated with verification are high then it makes sense to just go with the gut.

I suspect that one of the challenges for Ni types is that we instinctively use templates to place other folks very quickly. This is like Agatha Christie's ace detective Miss Marple with her St Mary Mead neighbours - she works out everyone's character by relating them to someone she knows from her village, and judges them accordingly. That can be very misleading in real life though - if only life were that simple lol.
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Haha, yes, indeed. Though, I struggle in not being overly analytical about most things, but I appreciate the mention of it. It's something I'm working on. :)

I've noticed that too. It is something I've been pondering a lot lately.. projections, the narrowing of content of information equating to the 'whole' in our perspective, associations due to an observation of 'commonality', etc. People are multi-faceted, extremely dynamic and complex. When we think we know someone, they change, and there's something beautiful in the human capacity for being a dynamic force. That the you today, is not the you of yesterday, nor the you of tomorrow. Or at least, there exists the capacity for that.

Have you ever met a mutual friend of a friend, and their perception of the identity of your friend is wholly different than your experience with them? I find that fascinating too. There was an excerpt of a book I read like that, where his friend passed away and he went to the funeral. Each person had a story with that friend, and everyone was amazed at all of the details they didn't know in their interactions with the friend. It shows how little we actually know. :)
 
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Anomaly said:
Haha, yes, indeed. Though, I struggle in not being overly analytical about most things, but I appreciate the mention of it. It's something I'm working on. :)
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:D Don't try too hard though. Ti is a great partner to Ni as long as it's the servant not the master. I'm bound to say that as an E5W4 though aren't I? Standing back a bit, I really think it's at the heart of what you are saying about verification, when it's definitely needed. It seems to me that forming as clear a view of another person as we can needs all of our Ni, Fe and Ti working together - alongside a good ethical framework too. I doubt it will happen properly otherwise - it might not happen anyway, but it definitely won't be accurate or fair if we just use one function and poor values (I'm specifically talking INFJ here, and I'm just taking Se input for granted)

Anomaly said:
I've noticed that too. It is something I've been pondering a lot lately.. projections, the narrowing of content of information equating to the 'whole' in our perspective, associations due to an observation of 'commonality', etc. People are multi-faceted, extremely dynamic and complex. When we think we know someone, they change, and there's something beautiful in the human capacity for being a dynamic force. That the you today, is not the you of yesterday, nor the you of tomorrow. Or at least, there exists the capacity for that.
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I had a strange perspective on this when I researched my family history. We usually think of people in terms of the present - we relate to their past and future like we do our own, as something we are travelling from and towards together. But most of our ancestors are long dead and I suddenly realised I was thinking of my parents, grandparents and all the others in terms of their whole lives, not as they were at any point in time. They will never have actually experienced how I see them because I see them at single glance over 50 or 60 or 80 years - of course I can't see all the everyday details that all of us go through while we are alive. Which is the true person? It seems to me that we are only complete and unchanging after we have gone, and we can never be fully known at any point in time, even to ourselves.

Anomaly said:
Have you ever met a mutual friend of a friend, and their perception of the identity of your friend is wholly different than your experience with them? I find that fascinating too. There was an excerpt of a book I read like that, where his friend passed away and he went to the funeral. Each person had a story with that friend, and everyone was amazed at all of the details they didn't know in their interactions with the friend. It shows how little we actual know. :)
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This can happen with close family too. I think those of us who have fathers or grandfathers who went to war may not know that side of them very well. My dad was conscripted into the army at the start of World War 2 in 1939 - when we were kids he used to tell us hilarious stories about the things he and his mates got up to. It was only in the years before he died, in his mid 90s, that I got him to sit down and talk about the other side of it. It was only then that I realised just how lucky he was to come out alive, because he was travelling in a jeep in the Sicilly invasion in 1943 that was shot up by a German plane. I saw a completely different side to his character when he talked about the actual soldiering he did.
 
John K said:
They will never have actually experienced how I see them because I see them at single glance over 50 or 60 or 80 years - of course I can't see all the everyday details that all of us go through while we are alive. Which is the true person? It seems to me that we are only complete and unchanging after we have gone, and we can never be fully known at any point in time, even to ourselves.
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I mentioned something about this a few days back on Wyote's blog, that we exist as four-dimensional beings with three-dimension perception.
That, who we are now isn't who we are in totality.
 
John K said:
:D Don't try too hard though. Ti is a great partner to Ni as long as it's the servant not the master. I'm bound to say that as an E5W4 though aren't I? Standing back a bit, I really think it's at the heart of what you are saying about verification, when it's definitely needed. It seems to me that forming as clear a view of another person as we can needs all of our Ni, Fe and Ti working together - alongside a good ethical framework too. I doubt it will happen properly otherwise - it might not happen anyway, but it definitely won't be accurate or fair if we just use one function and poor values (I'm specifically talking INFJ here, and I'm just taking Se input for granted)


I had a strange perspective on this when I researched my family history. We usually think of people in terms of the present - we relate to their past and future like we do our own, as something we are travelling from and towards together. But most of our ancestors are long dead and I suddenly realised I was thinking of my parents, grandparents and all the others in terms of their whole lives, not as they were at any point in time. They will never have actually experienced how I see them because I see them at single glance over 50 or 60 or 80 years - of course I can't see all the everyday details that all of us go through while we are alive. Which is the true person? It seems to me that we are only complete and unchanging after we have gone, and we can never be fully known at any point in time, even to ourselves.


This can happen with close family too. I think those of us who have fathers or grandfathers who went to war may not know that side of them very well. My dad was conscripted into the army at the start of World War 2 in 1939 - when we were kids he used to tell us hilarious stories about the things he and his mates got up to. It was only in the years before he died, in his mid 90s, that I got him to sit down and talk about the other side of it. It was only then that I realised just how lucky he was to come out alive, because he was travelling in a jeep in the Sicilly invasion in 1943 that was shot up by a German plane. I saw a completely different side to his character when he talked about the actual soldiering he did.
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John, I long to give this the attention it deserves, but life beckons. I'll return to it soon. <3
 
Anomaly said:
John, I long to give this the attention it deserves, but life beckons. I'll return to it soon. <3
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I'm off to bed anyway now Anomaly - it's getting late UK time.
We're probably risking derailing the thread too with some of this overthinking :sweatsmile::tearsofjoy:

Goodnight all <3
 
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