An Ne explosion

[Jaffa]

I am curious as to the experiences of other INTP's of the time when their Auxillary (Ne) function started to appear and take a grasp of your thoughts and desires.

More to the point, after a LONG, in-depth discussion with my INFJ friend (Whom I shall refer to as Paul from here onwards) he seems to think that my Ne is now developing and manifesting itself and this is the cause of my gradual shift towards an obsession with knowledge and a desire to learn about topics that fascinate me.

Until this evening, I didn't really realise the change in myself. I just seemed to have a spark, a transformation that lasted only months from being a relatively quiet bystander who, although very opinionated, would keep himself to himself into a hungry sponge of knowledge with recent interests/obsessions in Psychology (Hence MBTI, the reason that I'm here), Physics, Quantum Theory(ies), Religion and other 'big' topics. Paul really helped me to realise this about myself.

I've always had an interest in the above, but I've never had a need to learn and to come to some kind of conclusion on the 'big picture'. I've just accepted what will be will be and I've been more focused on my career and what I now see as Sensory, material things that aren't really important.

I'm 25. Last year I moved in with my Fiance and in September we are getting married. My career is in a reasonable place at the minute; is it simply a case of me getting my life into a decent position before wanting to persue intellectual subjects OR is this the early signs of my Ne development? Or perhaps it is neither and it is simply me coming to grasps with my dominant Ti? I want to hear your experiences around my age as, I assume, the majority of members on this forum are older than me.

I'm a relatively new player amongst the MBTI community but I have grasped the concepts quite well. I can give quite an accurate assumption of the MBTI types of those close to me. However, Paul is an INFJ - this is a type that I struggle to work out? I digress slightly from the original question, but this is a side question that I suppose wouldn't harm anybody.

So, can any of the older members help to shed some light onto this for me?

Thanks

 

[introverted_thinker]

I'm a pretty recent addition to this forum (and quite young), but I'll give you my experience with Ne anyway. I was always good at making connections in the world around me, even from a young age. An example of this is when I realised I was able to go into a lesson and intuitively make connections as to what we would be studying that lesson. Teachers tend to do a weird preamble to a topic, before they actually begin to explain the actual subject matter. Within the first 30 seconds or so, I would figure out what the lesson would be about (especially if I was familiar with the subject matter) e.g At the start of a recent Physics lesson, our teacher asked, "If I were to throw an object at one of you, how could I throw it so it would hurt you the most? And what should I throw?" My Ne instantly brought up momentum as the topic for the lesson.

(And don't worry, my Physics teacher isn't a sadist. )

Ne also manifested itself creatively, when I realised it was incredibly useful for analytical writing. When I studied a text, a load of new possibilities arose as to what the underlying meaning was, as well as connections to other parts of the book.

Anyhoo, I think your Ne and Ti both contribute to you wanting to learn about topics: same for me, Ti understands concepts, Ne makes connections between them. Everytime you want to learn about something new, (or randomly have the urge to Google something) it is your Ne kicking in.

But yeah, I have the same interests as you;the complex or "big" topics are Ti and Ne heaven.

 

[MissQuote]

Physicists are definitely masochists, not sadists.

I had some very interesting experiences in my mid twenties as far as my personality shifting and solidifying are concerned. (I am 31 now)

I think a lot of people do, it is supposedly that it is about that time that the frontal lobe fully develops and one becomes able to fully, to the best of their ability, circumvent irrational impulse in favor of logical decision making.

I was obsessed with finding the "answer" to the whole universe up until that point, and focused mostly on religions and spirituality as the place I would find that, from the age of fifteen to about twenty six I was on a quest to find that one piece that meshed with all beliefs (big and small and obscure) seeking the most hidden pattern. I would always get frustrated with unreasonable things, and people had a tendency to refer to me as both passionate and "practical". My family, though I didn't realise it back then are mostly all F types, I think, except my grandpa, who I have now come to believe was most likely an INTP, and who would, from my very early childhood, argue me and attempt to foster logic in me. I think I frustrated the hell out of that man, and one of the reasons was we were too much alike. Anyway, he passed on when I was twenty six, and I no longer had anyone to lovingly beat me over the head with what was reasonable and what was irrational. Suddenly I had to figure this shit out on my own!

I don't think I ever made the distinction, outright, between subjective and objective thought before then. I knew intuitively, but had never actively pondered it before. So anyway, it was around then that, after a period of amazing freaking out and a bit of a nervous breakdown, I ceased my "quest" to find the one answer, and was able to expand both where I was looking for the answers to things as well as just be comfortable with the joy of amassing knowledge with no defined goal of "figuring it all out once and for all" but instead figuring out what I can for the pure pleasure of it while actively making connections between seemingly unrelated areas of study but being reasonable and logical about those connections (i.e. not ending up in a mental ward over it all).

Umm. That is the story of that. I don't know if it had anything to do with your questions.

 

[Jennywocky]

Aside from other things that have been said, Ne helps the INTP to "ease up" a bit. Ti can be really serious and really focused on the causal chain between things, and it also can be deconstructive, whereas Ne forms connections between things and is thus more 'constructive' in nature.

It's inherent in the function style -- Ti is a judging function, Ne is a perceiving function and more playful. It gathers info to feed to Ti, and keeps Ti from being a one-note boor, while Ti helps keep Ne from just bouncing off the walls and doing crazy stuff.

it was interesting with my son (INTP), he was very rational early in life, forming cause->effect relationships between everything to figure out how they worked. He could also be very critical of things that "broke the ruleset" he had been taught or how he thought things fit together. He took himself very seriously.

His playfulness and sense of humor really kicked in about the time his Ne really started to take off, and he was able to take a step back, laugh at things, find the wonder in the world. You could see the a-ha moments on his face as he would see connections and want to explore them. it was still all geared towards figuring things out, but he became more relaxed, more adventurous, more open when his intuitive sense flowered.