Intuitively Rational

Dec 10

The Blind Painting Man and Introverted Intuition

There’s apparently a man in Ankara that can paint shapes, color, and perspective without ever having seen them – he was born without eyes, according to the spot on him on the Discovery Channel (always a great source for in-depth discussion *snark*).

The cogsci people are all excited, because they naturally thought that eyes were necessary for visual information to be processed. He uses his hands to gain sensory information, but it’s pretty unclear how so much visual data can be transmitted by the hands alone. I conducted a series of studies on tactile information for speech processing several years ago, and found surprising results, too (e.g. that novice hearing subjects could recover a large amount of articulation information by using only their hands), but I am doubtful that tactile information is enough to give him this much conceptual information on perspective and color.

Within the Jungian conceptualization of intuition, there is an interesting way to think about this. One of Jung’s ways for gaining information is intuition, which is the semi-mystic way people perceive possibilities and underlying meanings. Introverted Intuition, for Jung, is the inward-turning kind of intution. It looks inside, finding the possibilities and underlying meanings.

For Jung and many subsequent thinkers, introverted intuition is often at odds with sensory perception directed at the outer world. In particular, it is conceived of as the di-pole opposite of extraverted sensation, which perceives the outer world “as it is.” Introverted Intution rejects the outer world and its perceptual information by turning inward, to the Self, and its infinite possibilities. To someone focussed on introverted intuition, the world of sensation is just so much “noise” – the “many colored, seething populace” of Kierkegaard.

Introverted intuitives tend to believe that the inward-looking eye can perceive everything that is important. This is a theme that has regularly recurred in religious thought – consider Gandhi’s elaborate and repeated discussions of this, or the numerous writings in Buddhist perspectives. As the fox in the Little Prince explains, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

People of other persuasions (especially those whose preferences are for Sensation) tend to pass off this kind of talk as silly mysticism. Yet here we have a man who can perceive the outerworld, including clouds, trees, and blue skies, by turning inward. Forced by his blindness, he necessarily followed an inward-turning line of perception, and arrived at a view of the outside world. This is how the introverted intuitive views their relation to the world, and, for them, it isn’t at all surprising that someone can do this.

Posted 2 years ago

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blindness, introverted intuition, gandhi, the little prince,

Dec 8

Gandhi, the ultimate INFJ

Gandhi is often typed as an INFJ, but usually there are no reasons cited – just a name and a category.

Mohandas K. Gandhi was a proponent of what he called Satyagraha ‘Clinging to the truth.’ That could, itself, be the motto of the INFJ. He took on the suffering of all of India, and tried to embody it in himself – when India was rioting, he stopped eating. When India was enslaved, he went to prison. He felt himself as a sort of an incarnation of the nation of India, but at the same time, he preached the universal truth of all religions, and the destruction of all divisions between people (race, religion, and caste, in particular).

Universal experience is a common theme with the discourse of Introverted Intuitives. They believe that their inner landscape embodies the universals of the human state. In the case of the INTJ, this usually manifests itself in terms of knowledge; their perception of their inner landscape gives them a perspective-less kind of universal knowledge. For example, an INTJ might say that, because of some particular characteristic of their Self, they can know some theory is right or wrong – and that it’s right or wrong universally. In contrast, the INFJ, who is an extraverted feeler rather than thinker, tends to bring out their universality in terms of morality. Through some inner path, they have arrived at an intuitive understanding of the underlying morality that drives all humans, and which all humans are called to adhere to, or perish.

In its worst cases, these kinds of traits surface as megalamania and controlling, aggressive behaviour. Even in Gandhi’s case, this was often apparent, as anyone can see in the first few pages of any of his books. However, when it is directed properly, it gives the INFJ an indomitable will (which Gandhi himself referred to often), bent on achieving the realization of Universal Truth on earth.

Ironically, it is this goal itself that typically is the INFJ’s undoing, as well as Gandhi’s. Politics, and the motivations of great masses of people, are not so easily simplified, and what works for an individual of Gandhi’s strength of character is often disastrous when applied to large groups of people. The INFJ can end up absorbed in power struggles and big-picture political debates and end up not fulfilling their purposes, dying frustrated, misunderstood, and even hated. Worse, because the INFJ refuses to submit to external circumstances, they can often become blind to the real consequences of their ideology, making ruthless decisions without considering the real human consequences of them. Another well-known INFJ, Adolf Hitler, is a good example of the INFJ gone far in this direction.

I think that the best way for an INFJ, like Gandhi, to realize their potential is to restrict themselves to realizing it for themselves, being mindful that people around them will be best influenced this way. Rather than forcing other people’s hands with power-plays and political games, or becoming submerged in objective, big-picture issues, the INFJ is most effective by living the life themselves. This is what Gandhi meant by Satyagraha: convincing others by employing the INFJ’s indomitable will on the Self.

Posted 2 years ago

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gandhi, infj, introverted intuition, adolf hitler,

Dec 6

Extraverted vs Introverted Intution

I think an intuitive has to live by Investing themselves, bleeding themselves out for some Thing. You hear this in all their talk - for both sides. The Ne types, like St. Exupéry, say you have to die for your rose - you have to barter your life for something Else (in his example, a Tree). The introverted intuitives say the same thing. Gandhi’s ideas are full of it - cling with your whole soul to The Idea. To your Belief. Live for it and through it.

So, if you think about it, both intuitive types barter their lives for something - they just differ in what this is.

For the Extraverted Intuitive, it is something External to the self - something Out There. A tree. A book. A work of art. It may be a person (e.g. the Man bartering his life for the Boy in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road), but it will be an external sense of bartering - to keep them alive, to keep that person In the World, so to speak. As McCarthy once said, Nothing worth doing is worth doing unless it almost drives you to suicide.

For the Introverted Intuitive, it is something Internal. An Idea - a Belief. A Value. (Depending on the type.) This could be a Theory (e.g. an INTJ), or one’s understanding of religious Faith (an INFJ). But it’s going to have to be Total - in order for the Introverted Intuitive to feel really completed.

I think, for people that have it as a secondary function, it’s slightly different. It adds a ‘drive’ to their dominant attitude. The INxPs use Ne to drive them to make their ideas and systems meaningfully relevant to the world. The ENxJs use Ni to drive their ideas, to give their plans for people or institutions a sense of real purpose and fire.

Of course, this often puts these two attitudes at odds. The Ne is selling themselves out, to the last drop of blood, for The World. For the beauty of things external to the self. The Ni is renouncing that world in favor of the Inner World. The Ne will see the Ni as blind and possibly destructive (if they destroy external beauty while following their vision), while the Ni will see the Ne as devoid of values and flighty - pretty much like the external World that they want to renounce.

Posted 2 years ago

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intuition, extraverted intuition, introverted intuition,