Se / Ni:
(ESFP, ISFP, ESTP, ISTP, ENTJ, INTJ , ENFJ, INFJ)
Si / Ne:
(ESFJ, ESTJ, ISTJ, ISFJ, ENTP, INTP, ENFP, INFP)
iNtuition -
I'm reading My True Type by A.J. Drenth and this is what he says about intuition:
While our senses tell us about the surface appearance of things, intuition dives deeper, discerning hidden patterns, connections, and motivations. It surveys available information, both conscious and unconscious, and works to get a sense of what things mean or look like when taken as a whole. It excels at making inferences, filling in any holes or gaps to develop theories and explanations.
When dominant intuitives (INJs and ENPs) express the need to "think about" something, this means something qute different from what it might for other types. Namely, the lion's share of their thinking occurs subconsciously, outside the bounds of conscious control and awareness. Consequently, their ideans and insights often arrive unexpectedly, as if coming from "out of the blue." In his best selling book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell cleverly describes intuition as "thinking without thinking." For intuitives, "sleeping on a problem" is as sure a route to a solution as any.The question I have here is this: If I observe something sensory (with my eyes/ears/nose/touch, etc.) what really distinguishes "filling in the holes" and "making connections" from simply observing the sensory information and Thinking about it?
I know that Thinking is a judging function, rather than a Perceiving one like intuition... the only thing that comes to mind is knowing that Intuitives tend to gather their information through their Sensing function (Si or Se) and this information is sometimes taken in unconsciously and is allowed to float around in their brain without any real response until the bathwater that this unconscious thought has been floating in, suddenly spills over, and the Intuitive becomes aware of their conclusions. So while it APPEARS to be coming from "out of the blue" - it's really just been soaking in their mind and when the patterns/connections have finally been made, those conclusions gain weight and take new form - like burning away the dross to leave a solid conclusion behind without any conscious "work."
Still though, intuitives have to use their Thinking function all the time. Maybe they don't arrive at their strongest conclusions this way, but they do have to use it and most intuitives like Thinking.
Many friends, family and acquaintances demand these little intuitive morsels on a dime, especially when they are seeking the counsel of their "wise" Intuitive, and this just isn't how it works. So I think many times Intuitives are forced to Think rather than Intuit, in order to manufacture/produce these conclusions - they're having to try and speed up their intuitive process which means retreating and focusing hard to let their N work or inundating themselves with information in hopes of speeding along this perceiving process. Intuitives are so often expected to be a lightbulb factory and as a result, end up suffocating their real work in exchange for a sloppy T, with a slight taste of N, conclusion instead.
Although intuitives are privy to subconscious ideas and images, there is still a sense in which they cannot control the creative process. What they can control, at least to some extent, is what they do with their conscious mind. Namely, they can control the types of information they ingest, as well as the sorts of questions or problems they consciously (and therefore also subconsciously) wrestle with. The more they immerse themselves in a certain topic or interest area, the more their subconscious will eventually yield.In the excerpt above, I can certainly relate to the words "ideas" and "images" because this is what my mind looks like most of the time. What I don't really understand, at this point, is how this differs with T. I use Ti and I know that Ti deals with building your own structure of information based on learning first-hand. Ti likes to be independent, take things apart, figure out how things work INDEPENDENT of books and manuals, etc. Their thinking is based on what THEY know, not on what others know. So once they learn new information, and the Ti user is trying to fit that into their existing framework and make judgments based on this newly revised framework. The last sentence - the more they immerse themselves in a topic the more their subconscious will yield - but what is an Ni/Ti to do when these 2 functions point inward and seem to act the same once a conclusion has been made. Yes, I know the means of how they get there are different, but they tend to arrive in the same manner. Maybe this doesn't even make any sense. I need more time to think.
Sensing -
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