How Ni works

[Orion]

Whilst learning a lot more about the cognitive processes through research and spending time and experiencing other people, I've come to a lot of conclusions regarding the INFJ's cognitive functions make up.

None of the below is very well researched, I just let my Ni run with it!

The thing that bugged me about the cognitive processes was that I didn't understand where they were placed in the mind in relation to Jung's theory of the Psyche. If you look at diagram's of the psyche according to Jung, most of them are depicted as circles inside circles, the circumference' of each one representing it's real estate in the mind.

For example:

So the cognitive processes reside in our consciousness and our personal unconscious is just underneath that. Jung says that intuition offers us glimpses into that personal unconscious. Ni dominants are masters of and can more easily access data and information from their unconscious.

Imagine the unconscious as a circular river of information, that surrounds the ball that is our consciousness. If you walk into a room, you might not be able to recall every single detail of what is behind you, but the mind records everything- we just don't have conscious access to this level of information.

So all the data, emotions, impressions, thoughts and feeling that reside in our unconscious, group together through associations that we create with them. We all make associations in real life be it social or psychological. So the same is true with our unconscious. Imagine it like a spider diagram- I say "fear" and I get loads of other words that associate with it. So an INFJ can make advanced associations between things and jump from one to another with relative ease, searching for an answer or prediction or hypotheses. I believe Ni doms do this constantly.

Abstraction and spiritualism associated with intuition

This is where sensors get annoyed, because people are all to quick to label the notion of intuition as "abstract" and therefore people associate that with spiritualism or magic.

Technically speaking, nothing is really abstract. Everything has to exist in some physical/tangible form. But what is abstract is associations. You can't logically explain an association, because it's so personal to you. It is not a definable thing, just like an idea or memory isn't definable in a tangible sense.

So when we say that intuition is abstract pattern recognition- what we're really saying is that intution is the ability to perceive how things relate in our unconscious and be able to draw tangible conclusions from so called "abstract" data. It's not abstract to us! It's all perfectly reasonable. This is why theory is the realm of intuition- N types are drawn to constantly creating associations and therefore recognising long term patterns.

Because Ni is an introverted function, it works best when we have time to reflect and pause. Nela, my girlfriend and also a forum member, is an INFJ and I've been fortunate enough to be able to see her Ni work and how both our Ni can pick up on the same patterns. This results in us both about to say the exact same thing. It's scary sometimes but when you look back a few minutes, I can see the steps we took to get to the same conclusion.

Although, I don't believe that INFJ's are superior at working people out in the moment because, cognitively speaking, we're one of the worst. But, after reflection and repetition (to generate a pattern) we can come to scarily good conclusions and often be right about something.

One of my house mates is an ESFP and he finds smug satisfaction in thinking that he can read anyone's motives. And it's true. His Se is so in tune with the current environment that he is very good and seeing people's motives. His only problem is, that he fails completely in being able to see himself and think about the long term affects of his actions. But that's moving onto how sensing works which I need to think about a bit more.

 

[Wyote]

"what we're really saying is that intution is the ability to perceive how things relate in our unconscious and be able to draw tangible conclusions from so called "abstract" data. It's not abstract to us! It's all perfectly reasonable. This is why theory is the realm of intuition- N types are drawn to constantly creating associations and therefore recognising long term patterns."


My god, yes. So well put I'd hug you if I could.

 

[Zero Angel]

I would say that intuition is like a thought process which works largely in the subconscious. Many of the things sent to our conscious thought as a 'hunch' are often based on complex series of associations formed within our subconscious. Intuitions are difficult to explain because it is not normally possible for the conscious mind to see the subconscious thought processes, which is a much faster and more powerful information processor than our conscious mind.

Ni types seem to form these complex associations on the subconscious level, as opposed to Ne types whose associations are far more visible because the intuitions/associations are often based on external and tangible objects, and the data is far more 'raw' since it consists mostly of the associations themselves and not necessarily the conclusions drawn from the associations (Ni). Ni also works better in an introverted modes because introverting gives Ni types much more freedom to work with their subconscious, and in many cases allows most of the brains processing power to be allocated to the subconscious level.

In my experience, when I am thinking about something, I will sometimes reach in my mind for information and sometimes a new theory, or idea, or intuitive hunch will just pop up. My thoughts about that was that I was probably thinking about that thing at some point on a previous occasion and my subconscious got to work on trying to figure it out, all while consciously I just went about my daily business. When I reached for that information again, out came an intuitive insight which was probably prepared a long time in advance.

 

[Neuropedia]

thanks I think this is pretty accurate of my Ni ^.^

 

[Orion]

Something else I've gathered is that you can look at cognitive processes from a few perspectives:

From a mechanical point of view- which means that you can analyse exactly how a cognitive function works by the way it interprets and synthesises information. In this case Ni is a subjective (personal) introverted (internal energy) perceiving (information intake) function, that has a bias towards certain types of information.

From a contextual point of view- How a cognitive functions works in the context of other functions and how it interacts with them.

From a tangible point of view- In other words, how a congitive functions influences and has tangible effects on the choices we make and how we live our lives. INFJ's collective behaviour comes from Ni.

Most people have an idea of the tangible point of view but if people understood the mechanics of the CP's then there would be a lot less confusion and bad information/generalisations/assumptions/stereotypes.