Si vs. Ni: Details and Patterns

You may have heard it said that Si is about details and Ni is about patterns. While both those statements are true on a superficial level, it removes a level a nuance from the comparison between them. While some may view the statement I am about to make as unhelpful and muddying the waters, I am going to inform the general populace of it anyway. Si and Ni both concern themselves with details and patterns. Patterns are not exclusively the domain of Ni, nor details only for those of us who use Si. Without details, there is nothing on which to base patterns upon, conversely if one cannot produce and recognize a pattern at a later time, storing away those details would be rendered in a large part useless. Fortunately, I am not one to muddy the waters and destroy distinction without coming prepared to provide a more accurate distinction between the two and how they handle both details and patterns. That is going to be the aim of today’s article.

Before I Begin:

I’d like to clarify who this article applies to. Si and Ni are both introverted perceiving functions, which are primarily concerned with forming patterns to predict and prepare for the future. This is something that primarily concerns judgers, rather than perceivers. As a result, this article will apply most heavily the Ni dominants (INTJ and INFJ), the Ni auxiliaries (ENTJ and ENFJ), the Si dominants (ISTJ and ISFJ), and the Si auxiliaries (ESTJ and ESFJ). Perceivers with lower Si or Ni may relate to aspects of this, but to a lesser degree.

Si’s relationship to details:

Si tends to hold the details of a given situation in the highest regard. This is part of the reason for Si’s reputation of being all about the sensory details. The perspective that Si chooses to view given information with is to hone in on the details and bring the user’s attention toward them. The Si dominant is going to have a high likelihood of paying attention to the details and storing those details away for future use. These uses can range from using it to project what will happen in the future to comparing it against other situations they come across.

Ni’s relationship to details:

Ni’s relationships with details is a bit different than that of Si. The Ni user will still very much concern themselves with the details of a given situation, but how they choose to use those details is fundamentally different than that of an Si user. Ni users view details as useful, but not necessarily in their own right. Rather, they view those details as useful in the sense of them being fundamental building blocks. In other words, they are more concerned about what they can turn those details into rather than the details themselves. What does this mean? It means that the Ni user is taking the details of a given scenario and forming a pattern off of those details. The important distinction is that the pattern is only based off of the details rather than including the details themselves.

(Note: An Ni user’s relationship to details is often subconscious, and not something they’re able to relay to others.)

Si’s relationship to patterns:

Si creates patterns directly out of the details that it stores away. They note how a situation transpired and the details that resulted in a conclusion. They keep that to later compare against other circumstances. After seeing the same set of circumstances play out in a similar way over and over again, a pattern is formed. This in essence is how an Si user forms the patterns that they use to project how the future will play out. Unlike the Ni user, the Si user is using the details integrally as part of the pattern. Instead of analyzing the details to see what kind of pattern structure they produce, Si users use the information directly to form the pattern, knowing that these details interacting in a specific way produce a specific result. This, in turn, makes the Si pattern highly specific to the set of circumstances to which they are tied. As a whole, this makes those patterns less useful for situations that do not perfectly align with that pattern. In this way, Si patterns are more specific while Ni patterns are more general.

Ni’s relationship to patterns:

The Ni user will create a pattern structure out of the details for information to sit in rather than making a pattern out of those details directly. Once the pattern is created, the details will be discarded and often forgotten. In this way, the pattern becomes more general and applicable in more places by way of being less specific. Unlike the Si user, the Ni user is not necessarily trying to line up the details of one instance to another similar instance. Instead, they are looking for details that indicate that the information will follow a similar structure to that of a previous instance. In some ways, it is like the Ni users take an extra step when making patterns by analyzing the details to create a structure or a template. This lack of reliance on details allows their pattern recognition process to be quicker at forming conclusions. In comparison, the Si users’ pattern recognition process tends to be a bit slower due to their need to compare detail to detail.

An Analogy to Demonstrate the Concept:

For the record, this is an OVERSIMPLIFICATION to illustrate a concept. Do not take this literally.

Think of Ni as watching a pile of movies of what is mostly comprised of comedies, but with a few other genres mixed in as well. Ni will then take the details of all of those movies and create a common structure using the details that are shared between all of them. From those details, Ni will then form a pattern. For simplicity’s sake, we will say the pattern produced is that all movies have a beginning, a climax, and an end. This pattern is general enough that almost any movie can fit into that structure and properly be predicted to follow that pattern as a result.

Si will take that same stack of movies and create a pattern as well. The difference is that Si will form a pattern based off of the details of what makes a movie a comedy. While this pattern may not fit every movie in the pile, Si is going to hone in on the specific details that all the comedies shared and create a pattern for what now will fit that classification. This pattern works almost exclusively for the comedies, with only some parts applying to all the movies and other parts not fitting the other genres at all. This is due to the pattern being created from the details rather than being dismantled to form a more generalized structure into which all genres of movies could fit.

Conclusion:

This concept is the real difference between how Si and Ni choose to parse details and create patterns. Ni will want to create something that is more generalized and can be used more universally. However, this can sometimes make their patterns prone to being too general, and therefore at times, lose their usefulness. Si, on the other hand, tends toward creating patterns that are specific to a set of events or circumstances. While these patterns can be very accurate at predicting the outcome when all of the specifics align, these patterns will be much more limited in their scope of use, and can be misleading if details are compared out of context.