Let us leave aside the definitions of introverted intuition given by C.G. Jung, and of white intuition given by A. Augustinavichiute. These definitions are both incomplete and, as experience has shown, have turned out to be incorrect in many respects. That is – outdated. Let's go straight to the modern views on this socionic function, which are based on experimental data rather than only on theoretical projections of an author's philosophical concept “descended from above”.

In our opinion, one of the best (and also quite concise) definitions of white intuition was given by the well-known socionicist “Danidin” on the Socioforum. Here it is:

“I’m ready to give you a definition of Ni. Quite unambiguous, brief, and understandable to all, although not pleasant to everyone. In short, look. Functions, in essence, are conglomerates of traits. To understand what a function is, you need to recall what each contributing trait means, and then generalize the result. In the case of Ni, it’s intuition, dynamics, and decisiveness (and for inert program Ni - also introversion and irrationality). When discussing Ni, people usually define it as dynamic intuition, but completely forget about decisiveness. And in vain, because decisiveness is a much more important trait than dynamics. Decisiveness is egoism and competition. When combined with sensorics, it's competition for material resources. Combined with intuition, decisiveness results in competition for the resource of time.

If we take program Ni, then the introversion of this function indicates that it concerns the internal time of the subject, their hidden informational (psychic) reality. Irrationality indicates that this function is connected with the instincts of individual survival (and not the presets of consciousness formed by society in the individual).

Summarizing all of the above, I came to the following conclusion:

Each of us has a precious life time, which initially belongs only to us. But society encroaches on this time, forcing the person to fill it with things they don't like, but that are needed by society. For example, working from dawn to dusk, participating in various social events, raising children and helping the elderly, etc. All these activities are often unpleasant in terms of distracting the subject from their own inner psychic reality. So, the strength of the Ni function is primarily connected with the subject’s ability to protect their internal time from the encroachments of the external world.

Program Ni is guided by the principle: to search for ways of extracting the resources necessary for life that require the least expenditure of personal time. In its pure form, this gives rise to a passive-consumer, parasitic survival strategy. Combined with ethics, program Ni seeks a strong patron who is ready to provide everything needed for life in exchange for “beautiful eyes” (mimicking an image pleasing to the patron), and the ability to endure, calm, and forgive their aggressive antics. Combined with logic, program Ni seeks secret knowledge, with which one can either earn a year’s worth of living in one day and then do nothing for a year, or even make others work instead while one reaps the rewards.

In either case, program Ni is perhaps the least socially productive function. The only thing it always produces, willingly and in large volumes – is plot-based modeling within its consciousness, disconnected from external realities. In essence – high-quality hallucinations. Thus, it’s not surprising that a predisposition to various kinds of hallucinations turns out to be strongly associated with Ni. No, this is not always the concomitant negative symptomatology of the function (as one might think, and as I myself thought recently), very often this is just its main, core meaning. Thus, meditative immersion into oneself, into the streams of inner images, the desire to understand the world through the contemplation of one's inner self (as a product of the world) eventually runs into the relative narrowness of inner images, their conditioning by the external realities in which a person exists and which they observe day by day. The desire to overcome this narrowness and “expand consciousness” generates the especially Ni-specific attraction to everything extravagant and strange – simply because the extravagant and strange inevitably increase the diversity of one’s internal reality, its depth and multidimensionality, making dwelling within it more exciting and less boring.

The ability to foresee the future, sense hidden trends, find bifurcation points in the stream of events, and thus choose the right moment for the right action – all these are only secondary traits of Ni, developed in the process of adapting to the external environment. The ability to mimic, hide one’s inner essence, and at the right moment “blend in with the background” to avoid a blow – all the same. But the ability to plan one’s time to work more and be on time to better meet social demands – is never Ni at all, but much more often anti-Ni. Time planning is in general a rational function, most often imposed on a person by society and, broadly speaking, unnatural from the standpoint of one’s instinctive, irrational nature.

Although, if we talk about the rational-extraverted (creative, contact) version of Ni, then planning one’s time for the long term is characteristic. But again, here too it is only a secondary trait. And primary for creative Ni is the desire to broadcast one’s time, one's internal flow of images outward, to impose one’s long-term goals on the surrounding world and other people, to push the world toward the future image that the creative Ni subject sees as most desirable.”

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What’s remarkable about this definition is that it takes into account the “decisive” properties of Ni, connects them to the evolutionary development of psychic functions, fully corresponds to modern experimental data on Ni properties obtained from questionnaires, and offers a new and rather convincing conceptual view on the mechanism that unites all the diverse manifestations of white intuition.

A fairly competent (although overly descriptive – without a conceptual unifying basis, and too brief) account of white intuition was also written by V. Gulenko. Ni, according to Gulenko, in brief – is premonition, forecasting, the ability to catch development dynamics, poetic fantasy, mystical sense.

In more detail, V. Gulenko described Ni’s properties like this, taking into account function signs (which, in our opinion, is a mistake – the sign hypothesis in socionics remains unconfirmed and only hinders a holistic understanding of the functions):

“(+) the future, change in a situation over time, prediction, foreseeing, gradual development, evolution, planned ascent, dynamics of change, time flow, imagination, consistency, subtle changes - step by step, convergence;

(-) the past, accounting for mistakes, avoidance of danger, anxiety, vague anxiety, brewing crisis, revolution, time leap, ability to insure against troubles, abrupt shifts, inconsistency, the moment of decisive action, divergence.”

It should also be noted that in Gulenko this definition is given only through the enumeration of properties (and again incompletely, without taking into account the decisive properties of Ni). But at least the properties listed (and he wrote this quite a while ago) are correctly named, without the natural-philosophical, top-down imposition of some special spheres of information competence onto this function, and, notably, without clear contradictions to modern experimental data.

An interesting idea linking Ni with an evolutionarily useful premonition of danger belongs to Timur Protsky:

“White intuition is not about forecasts, but about premonition, about sensing the dynamics of certain events. Something similar happens in animals. For example, goats grazing in the mountains. Suddenly they begin to leave and move to another place. And then an earthquake or other disaster occurs.

White intuition is connected with a sense of danger, with the premonition of something dangerous, with an anxious internal state.

White intuition is subjective and tied to each individual bearer of white intuition. And it is not connected to anything objective. Assigning Ni to concrete forecasts, actions, or anything concrete is simply incorrect, because it's not about that.”

And Svetlana Gurskaya sees white intuition through the prism of her own ethical worldview:

“White intuitives (especially with base function) very well, in detail and nuance, feel, understand, and are aware of their emotional mood and state. Moreover, they almost as well grasp the states of others. But they can't always express it in words.

Since white intuitives are very sensitive to the slightest fluctuations in their inner world, they often have premonitions, they feel changes happening in the world earlier than others.

Usually, white intuitives have developed figurative thinking. A special skill of white intuitives is creating atmosphere, primarily for themselves, but also for others. Moreover, for base white intuitives, this happens naturally.

Developed white intuitives know how to create the right mood. Be it for work, for receiving guests, for performances, or anything else.

White intuitives are often inward-focused, sometimes they seem “not of this world.” Due to a lack of sensing, they may be oddly dressed, wear quirky hairstyles and accessories.

Because of deep immersion in their inner world, white intuitives may struggle with social adaptation.

Creative white intuitives often actively engage in various esoteric practices and act as initiators in this area (they love all sorts of fortune-telling, often acting as the fortune-tellers themselves).”

Well, what do the properties of Ni look more objectively, based on the results of experiments with questionnaires?

A large body of material on Ni properties has been collected in experimental research by V.L. Talanov. In the works sociotoday.narod.ru/funkcii2.html and sociotoday.narod.ru/val_funk.docx, V.L. Talanov outlines the following set of key properties for program Ni, based on large-scale questionnaire statistics:

Distractibility, detachment and disconnection from the surrounding world and escape into fantasy and dreams, weakened “empathic care” and increased egocentrism. Weak motivation, lack of commitment. Frequent illusions of depersonalization and especially derealization of surroundings, increased predisposition to illusions and hallucinations (verbal and visual). Constant “replaying” in the mind of various fictional time-developing scenarios (with short plots, easily flowing from one to another, and in this sense, much like dreams). Dreaminess with withdrawal into a fantasy world, where one becomes merely an observer. Scenario-style mental modeling of both past and fictional events, usually lacking pragmatic meaning. Hence, from frequent scenario modeling arises an enhanced predictive gift, or rather – a gift of premonition (though, due to low need for planning typical of irrationals, weaker than that of rational creative Ni types). Due to frequent reference to personal memories and developed fantasy versions of events, Ni subjects also show high introspective and self-analytical ability. There is low internal energy, lazy passivity toward external challenges, increased tendency to masochistic fantasies and self-aggression, generally depressive mood, and sense of the world's hostility toward the self. Ni subjects feel more comfortable than average in solitude. Secretive, weak desire to communicate or share information. Avoidance of close bodily contact, avoidance of physical activity. Preference for twilight and darkness, often “night owls” in sleep schedule. The most introverted function of all.

• Thus, to the properties of Ni described by V. Gulenko, modern questionnaire-based research adds:
• a tendency to states of thoughtless contemplation, weakness of vital desires, apathy and abulia;
• difficulty initiating movements in their initial phase, tendency to stupor states;
• depression, frustration, tendency to see the negative or unpleasant side in everything (Ni's characteristic tendency to hypochondria and bile towards other people are also particular manifestations of this trait);
• predisposition to derealization and depersonalization experiences, as well as perceptual (especially auditory) illusions and pseudohallucinations.

Conditionally positive traits of program Ni: high forecasting ability (usually as a “sixth sense” for danger) and literary talent – both stemming from its connection to dynamic imagination. Since the function is also often accompanied by vivid mental visual imagery, it is often linked to talent for “drawing from memory”.

Conditionally negative traits: increased depression, often harsh attitude toward self and others, passivity, predisposition to schizotypal psychological disturbances. However, among all functions, program Ni interacts least with society, preferring to remain a “thing in itself”, so it is rarely praised or criticized – since it equally rarely helps or hinders others.

According to V.L. Talanov, at least one source of Ni’s evolutionary utility lies in its close connection with the aggressive Se of its duals (genetically complementary antagonists), and in the fact that Ni, according to the list of its properties, is tuned to mentally search for dangers in real and imaginary situations, as if accumulating these anxieties in memory "in reserve", which can help the Ni subject avoid dangerous situations in the future.

The second probable evolutionary benefit of Ni is well described above by Danidin and consists of a kind of parasitism on others’ time resources. The point here is that Ni helps a person successfully maintain passivity over a long time without unpleasant consequences, letting others act (and later sharing in the fruits of their labor), and only becoming personally active (especially for someone else’s benefit) at the most important moments, when the greatest benefit can be obtained from activity (hitting the jackpot).

Main Traits of Creative Ni

The main traits of subjects with creative Ni are largely associated with the fact that creative Ni is associated with extremely weak painful Si. From the painful Si comes the fact that the bearer of creative Ni seeks stress and tension, enjoys motivating pressure, loves fantasies and projects with risk, challenge, and global scale. In general, they like provoking situations and playing “on the aggravation” – as if probing for pain points (here Ni itself also helps). They are also prone to frequent unpleasant memories of frustration and discomfort, and sometimes even tend to deliberately torment themselves – ranging from intentionally created difficulties and inconveniences that “must be overcome”, to intentionally inflicted pain and masochism (in contrast, people with strong Si typically seek pleasant sensations and avoid disturbances and discomfort). Painful Si also explains the weakened appetite of creative Ni subjects, their inattention to clothing comfort, and irritation from everyday issues. Directly from Ni itself in the core traits of EIE and LIE, there is the fact that the subject of creative BI is directed by thought into future events (much more so than the introverted owner of base Ni), and, to some extent, that they enjoy critical tense situations with a lack of time. Their predisposition to akathisia (i.e., tendency to insurmountable restlessness and similar mental discomfort-dispersed anxiety) can also be partially explained by painful Si, though it can also partly be attributed to Ni.

Conditionally positive traits of creative Ni: High interest in future forecasting and the ability to effectively penetrate it mentally; grand scale of plans; willingness to disrupt the existing equilibrium and go “against the flow”; restless behavioral dynamism.

Conditionally negative traits: Tendency toward states of frustration (irritated dissatisfaction); weak perception of their body’s needs; predisposition to hypochondria; increased convulsive readiness; domestic egoism, weakness of care for partners, generally weak partner qualities.

HYPOTHESES ABOUT NEUROTRANSMITTER CHARACTERISTICS ACCOMPANYING STRONG WHITE INTUITION

Based on the correlations between the properties of Ni and marker features of various neurotransmitter activities, V.L. Talanov suggests that strong is usually accompanied by low cerebral acetylcholine activity, low serotonin activity, reduced testosterone levels, and increased glutamatergic neuronal activity (in neuroscience, heightened activation of postsynaptic NMDA glutamate receptors is associated with depression, self-aggression, and anxiety).

HYPOTHESES ABOUT BRAIN NEURAL NETWORKS ASSOCIATED WITH STRONG WHITE INTUITION

According to V.L. Talanov, states of high Ni correspond to the active functioning of the so-called “default mode network” of the brain. The name “default mode network” comes from the fact that this state arises when a person is sitting or lying idle, not preoccupied or concerned with anything in particular, disconnected from the external world, while their mind is automatically filled with random mental wanderings, meandering thoughts that process information from the current day in a sluggish background mode (partly unconsciously and randomly, like a cigarette butt in a puddle drifting under the breath of the wind, wandering through recent impressions and memories). Another model situation of this kind is nighttime dreaming. And if we speak of another conscious state—it is the state preceding sleep, when sleep has not yet come, but the head is already overtaken by strange, elusive wanderings of fantasy, and sometimes vivid, almost dreamlike, partly “cartoonish”, dynamic (constantly moving and changing) visual images—so-called hypnagogic hallucinations. The center of the default mode network's activity is the increased activation of the hippocampal cortex—an ancient brain structure that serves as the repository of our dynamic episodic memory (where one subsequent event is likely to connect with a previous one, flowing from it, and then in turn possibly giving rise to the next one in time, and so on). The hippocampus is also responsible for the memory of our physical movements in space. This is, again, dynamic, time-unfolded memory, where one location leads to the next, one turn gives rise to another. It’s no coincidence that with prolonged memory training on routes (as in professional taxi drivers), the hippocampus itself increases in size.

It is not for nothing that writers who are specialists in Ni love to build plots around some conditional and usually completely incomprehensible in their purpose (that is, aimless) wanderings, which nonetheless become the backbone of the narrative, onto which all events are layered. This could be a journey along an unknown and therefore endless river, or a trek through the desert, or an unceasing wandering through other worlds, or even a multi-day journey of characters along a conveyor belt passing through various departments of a poultry factory, as in Pelevin’s novella “Six-Fingered”.

.> ...can base Ni produce much more developed and elaborated forecasts than creative Ni?

Maybe, if it's a lot smarter. With an equal IQ, the creative has the advantage. This is indicated by the statistics of the questionnaires, and it is clear why. Creative Ni works on demand. It does not drift freely, but drifts like a shuttlecraft along the necessary plot moves, modeling them in fantasy from similar situations taken from memory, from experience.

>...How are the images created by intuitive scenario modeling organized and "visualized"?

Visualization takes place mainly among Ni-ethicists, especially IEIs. This is if you're on the couch during the day. It looks like dreams, or hypnogogic hallucinations when falling asleep.)

Logicians rarely visualize (sometimes it happens to ILIs if they are not too deep logicians. In logicians, the action often unfolds in the mental-auditory sphere, with murky visual images (if there are any at all).

Ni - a stream of scenes. Quite chaotic, but ultimately, by spinning around, it sheds light on possible developments of the situation from different angles (although the situation being played out may not be the one that interests the person, but something similar or even fantastical, yet analogous).

Where is it in science? Well, first of all, it's exactly in planning an experiment (dynamically, it envisions what will be done after some time, what questions might arise from someone, what conversations might follow).

Moreover, imagining these scenes - including different stages of approaching the goal - is motivating. It motivates, just like any dreams. In any dreams, there is always a lot of Ni

How does Ni participate in predictions?

I think no Ni will be able to predict the exchange rate of the dollar or the political situation. That is, there's nothing magical about it. What can it predict? Personal matters. And, first of all, what depends on the actions of the person itself. Ni suggests certain actions, thus increasing the probability of the prediction — it will happen if I do this.

But this is for logicians. For ethicists, mystical insights are also possible. Which are more often deceptions. But sometimes – both for ethicists and logicians – Ni overcomes internal blocks to access certain information and helps perceive things that, during the day (or outside Ni fantasies that bypass blocks with allegories), don't make it into consciousness due to these mental blocks. According to Freud, in short.

That is, it seems to me that the main predictive tool of Ni is that with its allegories it helps bypass the prohibitions established by consciousness on certain lines of reasoning. Thus, it restores all possible versions, and suddenly, on one of them, previously ignored or forbidden (from the perspective of non-Ni consciousness), an epiphany occurs — like, oh, that’s it!!!

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