레딧에서 퍼옴. 레딧성님이 자기가 INFJ인지 INTP인지 헷갈린다고 질문남기자, 어떤 유저가 Ni(에 해당할 경우 INFJ)와 Ne(에 해당할 경우 INTP)의 차이를 남겨줌.
이 기나긴 잉여댓글을 남겨주신 분은 INTP임ㅋ
그런데 INTJ vs INTP 혼돈도 아니라 INFJ와 INTP 혼돈이라고?
NI VS. NE: As I said, both of these functions are preoccupied with what COULD BE, the difference is Ne is extroverted (External) while Ni is introverted (Internal) Ne sees an object, a thing, A SINGLE PIECE OF INFORMATION, and has a sort of "Explosion of ideas" of what it could expand to in the future. Ne sees a million ways a thing can develop in the future. Ni is the opposite, Ni gathers a million pieces of information, Ni is preoccupied always with the "big picture" only to see a single way that it could develop in the future.
Now, Ni is sometimes ironically called "Black magic", but I want to make clear that it can't blindly predict the future like witches, what it does is noticing patterns of how things evolved through time in the past and applying it to the future. (Example): I had an INFJ (Ni over Ne) tell me that when they were 4 years old they found confusing how children had to be explained to not touch the hot stove, the Ni user saw that in the past it went from a little red to much more and more red-ish as seconds passed so when they saw that it got a little red they got reminded instantly of the pattern and realized that in the future it will get hotter and hotter so they don't have to touch it. Now this is very basic 4 year old Ni, anyone with a little brain can do this at a reasonable age, but a 4 year old that is not a Ni user should be alarmed about these things. Now the ultimate question: Can Ni see in the future? Basically yes, this kid saw in the future what will happen with the hot stove so basically it can, but not in the superstitious way everyone thinks it does, it is not black magic!
Ne is good at brainstorming; it works like an explosion of ideas while Ni is always focused on one thing. Ne simply can't focus on one path in the future since it sees a million paths that idea can grow into. I heard about Ne users that they are very undecided of what they want to do in the future, they see a hundred career paths that they could go into and they don’t know which one to choose. Ni users are pretty sure of what they want to do in the future most of the time, they usually have 1-2-3 things they obsess on over the course of their lives and become perfectionists.
Also, Ni is comparing every individual element to how it relates to others. Think about math. Or physics. Generally to get a full result you need an unit of measure. Ni doesn’t work in an unit of measure. Do you know the famous meme “banana for scale” thing? Well Ni never has a “scale”, that scale is added by a(n extroverted) judging function (trying to bring Ni to reality usefulness). Ni is only comparing objects. It has its own scales but not relating to the real world. Let’s think about the universe for a little. If Ni had the whole universe in its system, it can use any object in the universe as scale, but when working in the REAL universe, it has to be post-processes by Te or Fe to be accurate. Internal frame of the world =/= actual world for Ni. Ni monologue: “How does this piece of information compare to everything I’ve ever experienced, felt, thought and imagined in my life?”
“More specifically it wonders how a perceived theme fits with all the other perceived themes, or how all these different sequences of interactions fit together. To contrast it with Ne; Ne wonders about specific sequences of interactions, it focuses on the idea itself and where it leads. Ni doesn't care all that much about where any specific idea leads; it cares about how it interacts with all the other ideas. The "trajectory" you get from Ni is because the way different sequences of interactions interact with one another is a process of elimination, you're left with less and less probable options the more themes you throw into the picture, a "best drawn line" is naturally created.”(Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/mbti/comments/65hr6k/sini/?st=j2oe5yu2&sh=7e879881) “Ni similarly isn't "essences of objects", everything you have any comprehension of is an essence, an abstraction. Are Ni doms generally interested in what makes an apple an apple? Of course not, who cares what specifically goes into the categorization of an apple, it's an apple, the specifics of what makes it an apple is of no relevance or interest. Now if an Ni dom on the other hand had thought a lot about culture, they might wonder what the apple symbolically represents within said culture and why, what is it about it that gives it that symbolic representation? What does it have in common or what separates it from other symbolic representations of similar objects? They might also wonder about how the concept of categorization relates to information processing, what does it say about our information processing? Or neither of those might be interesting thoughts because they're obsessed about something completely different and couldn't care less about culture or information processing. Ni only cares about essences in the context of "how does this relate to my overall perspective?", how does it relate to everything else I've seen, experienced and imagined? What connects a fish, a donkey and horse poop is probably not a very interesting question and a Ni dom isn't going to try to find the essence connecting those 3, because it has no relevance to them.”(Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/mbti/comments/65b1og/the_power_of_words_abstraction_and_seni/?st=j2oe8en0&sh=d5ffbefd)
Also, Ni sees the world in symbols and metaphors. Its metaphors and analogies are subjective to the self, because as Carl Jung said (not quote, just what I remember from memory): “An introverted iNtuitor can’t share these visions to the world, it would make people think he’s crazy! For example I had a patient once come to me once and she was like “I GOT A SNAKE IN MY STOMACH” and I was like “WTF???” and she was like “YEAH, THERE’S A SNAKE IN MY STOMACH” and I was like “How tf can a snake be in your stomach???” and she was like “Oh wait, it’s not an actual snake, but if feels like one!” (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7DpbJ1xFg&t=531s)
See the “thing” here? Ni has its own metaphors that aren’t very objective and accessible to the world like the Ne metaphors are. Ni is comparing the stomach pain to everything the user felt and thought in his/her life and immediately saw a connection between snakes and pain, using “snakes” as a metaphor for pain. Unfortunately the user forgot to post-process it with Te (for INTJs) or Fe (with INFJs) and people thought she was crazy.
(PATTERNS): Now I said that the way Ni has their path into the future is through seeing patterns of how events happened through time, but how do you think Ne knows all these different ways a situation can go? They do that too! While Ni sees patterns in the internal world of an idea, focused on how a single idea evolved through time, Ne sees patterns in the external world around them, finding the hidden meaning behind and in-between things, “Reading through the lines”. They see interconnections in the external world of an idea, how the idea relates to other ideas and how everything is connected and how it could go in the future. Ni instead sees how other external ideas and factors influenced the idea through time and how it got to this present point.
(PATHS): Also, I would like to talk a little about paths and time. Ni is described as having a set path that it must follow with a clear, but, unknown destination. They have this gut feeling that this is the way it goes, like there’s some sort of “light at the end of the road” without knowing what the light gives them. They have a clear set destination that is unknown. Ne, as always, is reversed. Ne sees the end goals very clearly and has no clear “path”, they have a million paths that they can follow and they want to get to know and experience all of them. Ni has the destination as the end result and the path there is the starting point. Ne has the destinations as a starting point and the path is the end result.
(Puzzle Analogy): Imagine a puzzle, Ni is having most of the puzzle done, especially the corners (that's what it needs) and fills what is missing. Ne has the center pieces (that's what it needs) and slowly goes in all the ways to fill the puzzle. Ni is very good to see what is missing while Ne is good to see what could be improved.
(Example): In a haunted house, Ni will tell the user “I have a gut feeling like there might be something behind the door” while Ne would tell the user “Imagine how random would be for someone to pop out the door right now hahah, but what are the chances?”.
(Astronomy Analogy): Ne vs. Ni is also like supernova vs. nebula: An appropriate visual representation of Ne would be that of a supernova. What starts as a star explodes into all of its properties removed from the object itself and completely deconstructed. Ne does a similar thing. It completely deconstructs an object according to the ideas, symbols, systems, what have you associated with that object. Ni is much like a nebula. A nebula, if you don’t already know, is a cloud of particulate and other forms of matter in space that slowly forms into a star system. Over time, what looks like an amorphous blob begins to collapse in on itself until a star is formed and possibly planets as well. These solar systems that are formed are there for the long term. Ni is much the same way. The systems and models that Ni forms are often very much long-term models and systems that will stand the test of time and hold up well under scrutiny. This is why Ni is often described as the long-term system building function. The more relevant information an Ni user possesses, the stronger the system that is being built. The less information a Ni user possesses, the weaker the system that is being built or the system may simply never coalesce.
One thing that is heard often about Ne is that it is all about making connections. That is indeed true, but Ne needs to have a correct base to jump off of in order to make the correct connections. It is my belief that Ne on its own can make connections based on all of the possibilities it intuits, but those connections will have little relevance to the outside world. The resulting structure would look more like a giant ball of tangled Christmas lights a la Christmas Vacation rather than a structured and organized web. (Source for astronomy analogy and the other paragraph: http://personalitycafe.com/articles/84275-cognitive-function-ne-vs-ni.html )
“Ne is like an excited young bird that can’t fly looking at the sky and the world of possibilities. Ni is like an eagle flying very high looking at the world down, like those video games where you have “bird’s eye view” or something like that.”
Also I would love to make clear before moving on what some people mean when they say that Ni and Ne are “unconscious processes”. Half of the process of our iNtuitive functions is hidden from us. The way a Sensing function works it’s that it is directly sent to the user without any post-processing done by any judging function. A Se user would just see a tree on the sidewalk and think “oh there’s a tree”. Now think about Ne for example. Is a Ne user first going to realize that an asteroid is going to hit earth just ‘cause they can imagine it before realizing that it’s EXTREMELY improbable? (like 0.0000001%) Probably not. Information from our iNtuitive functions is firstly post-processed by the judging function paired with it and THEN sent to the user so it doesn’t make us go insane thinking we’re going to die every 0.1 seconds.
Personality types with Ne as their first PERCIEVING function are xNxP (ENTP, INTP, ENFP, INFP) while personalities types with Ni as their first PERCIEVING function are xNxJ (INFJ, ENFJ, INTJ, ENTJ).
