Ni vs. Ne: Perspectives and Possibilities

I had a realization the other day that I thought I’d share with you all, concerning Introverted Intuition (Ni) and Extraverted Intuition (Ne). It’s funny how you kind of know something, but one day the nuances of it click much more consciously into place. That’s basically what happened in regards to this topic. We’ve always generally said that Ni narrows, while Ne broadens, but I wanted to delve a little deeper into that in this article, namely how they relate to perspectives and possibilities. People usually relate perspectives to Ni, and possibilities to Ne. I’m going to explain how that works. First though, let me lay out a basic principle when it comes to cognitive function use.

Principle: High function use has more depth of control than low function use

Obviously, I’m going to take a second here to elaborate on that. The first thing you have to understand is that a high user of a specific cognitive function is naturally capable of doing everything the lower user of that same function can do. (The reverse, however, is not true, by default. Lower users must intentionally exercise their use of that lower function in order to gain a broader use of it.) Some people make the mistake of assuming that anyone showing forth certain negative tendencies from a specific function must be a lower user of that function, but that is not always true. If that person is generally unhealthy, they could easily be a higher user of that function who just happens to be in a bad spot in life. When we’re trying to determine high use versus low use, we don’t just look for weaknesses and negative tendencies, but we also look for the prevalence of use, consistency of use, and variety of use. These are all technically separate factors. A dominant function should be in use constantly, consistently, and in many different ways, as opposed to the more extreme swings that one sees from attempted use of the inferior function. The higher the function, the more it should permeate your life.

This is why, for instance, an ISFP might relate to the weaknesses of inferior Se, or an INTP might relate to the weaknesses of lower Ne. If you have the function, you have, at some point, used it badly, and ergo an inferior description of that function is unlikely to be completely foreign to you. It just shouldn’t be a struggle that’s permeating your life constantly.

So, transitioning back to the subject at hand, as a lower Ni user, I always kind of wondered how my Ni use differed from higher Ni users. Sure, I knew their use was “better”, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. I’m going to attempt to share my recently learned explanation with you now.

Ne Possibilities

Let’s start with Ne. Basically, Ne takes one single Si detail and generates an abundance of possibilities or connections from this single concrete thing. That is the entire spectrum of use right there: one detail to many potential connections. The higher the use, the more conscious and in control the user will be of the entire process from start to finish. What this means is that a lower Ne user, when using Ne, will tend to feel like their Ne is spinning out of control when they do use it, and they will jump quickly to their “broad” spectrum of possibilities. (Of course, their spectrum of possibilities is not likely to be as broad as a dominant user’s will be, hence the quotes.) They then should have a much easier time ruling out or dismissing these possibilities, due to their much closer connection to the concrete details.

In contrast, the higher Ne user will be making their leaps much more constantly, seeing connections to just about everything. They won’t naturally want to rule out possibilities, since they’re gaining enjoyment from the ideas themselves. (That’s not to say they can’t rule them out, if needed.) However, they’ll want to keep themselves open to the possibilities as much as… possible. 😛 Their Ne use will be natural, rather than something that they feel is spinning out of control and thus needs to be shut off from time to time.

I’ve seen many people describe their use of a lower function as something that is untamed. A true dominant user shouldn’t really see their dominant function as untamed, even though it is permeating everything that they do. It’s simply there and ever present. Dominant use should be the most natural and controlled, auxiliary should be slightly less, followed by tertiary, and then inferior. The higher the function, the smoother the control. The lower the function, the more clumsy or extreme. (IE: Lower Ne users can generate possibilities – the process is just more extreme and uncontrolled.)

Ni Perspectives

And now we come to what I personally learned the other day. As a lower Ni user, I have always been a bit wary to describe Ni, because I understand my use of Ni best, and didn’t necessarily know if that would cause me to mess up the higher Ni descriptions. As a lower Ni user, I jump to the narrow single answer conclusions very quickly. Yes, my Ti can be very indecisive and has to think about stuff for a really long time, but I’m very conscious of my gut reactions when I have them. Like I said, they usually jump to an answer very quickly, an instinct, if you will. When typing characters, I’ve learned to be wary of this tendency, because what will happen is that I’ll draw a conclusion too early in the show and start accidentally blocking out contradicting evidence. This is why it’s good to have a partner like Ryan (who has opposing functions) to do this stuff with – checks and balances. Knowing my tendency, I can force myself to broaden, rather than hone in solely on my one instinct.

Higher Ni users, while distinct from Ne users, aren’t as drastically distinct as I initially thought. They start by exploring a broad spectrum of perspectives, or potential angles from which to look at something. Dominant Ni should naturally see varying angles, calculate probabilities, and then narrow in from there. It’s similar to possibilities, yet not quite the same. Their ultimate goal and natural tendency is to draw one single conclusion, or to derive one single, universal principle, rather than leaving themselves open to all of the theoretical possibilities. Auxiliary Ni will experience a slight degradation of that process, being less likely to value multiple perspectives quite as highly, wanting to jump down their singular path much more quickly. (Auxiliary Ni users are dominant extraverted judgers, or ENXJs, after all.)

Of course, high Ni users can and do still encounter a similar problem to what I described myself having, but they were more likely to consciously check the varying perspectives first, meaning the conclusion might not have been drawn quite as erratically or irresponsibly. Of course, as a lower Ni user, I’m experiencing this issue “frequently”, but only “frequently”, in the sense of when I choose to use Ni. Like I said, higher Ni users are using the function more frequently and more naturally, while lower users will have a more on and off relationship with it.

In conclusion…

I hope that made sense. Of course, you can apply that general principle of depth of control to every cognitive function, and speculate as to what exactly it means for every cognitive function. I’m still learning all of the nuances myself. Ne and Ni users of all positions are welcome to comment below about their personal experiences with the function relative to its placement in their stack. I welcome feedback!