This is a reply to Khruse on Discord, hi. 🙂 He asked what the difference is between Ti castle construction and Ni symbolism. And the forum feels better to me for a very involved topic like this one. Hope to start a meaningful discussion here. So I'm assuming the passages in question are roughly:

Ti Castle Construction

For Ti, this scaffold serves as a sort of Rubik's cube or kaleidoscope that allows the complexities of life to be viewed and understood from a convergent point. Should there ever be a mismatch between the reality outside of them and the kaleidoscope's prediction, the Ti user hurries to try to reformulate and refine their instrument (to fix the Rubik's cube), but an instrument they must use. The Ti user does not interface with reality directly, but does so through this instrument which acts as their proxy and go-between and allows them to make sense of things without needing necessarily to engage in the difficult task of materialism or empiricism. This leads inescapably to the formation of a personal theory, often beginning with phenomenology of the mind/consciousness.

Ni Symbolism/Convergence

The Ni user is not an inciter or generator of novel things, nor is his specialty a spontaneous creativity, but is instead the holistic assimilation of trends over time, and a convergence of perspective along the most reinforced trendlines. They generally see only one or a few trajectories stemming from a given situation and are magnetically drawn to the likeliest interpretations. Thus, the ideas the Ni user arrives at are not things he creates, but things he discovers to already be "the case"; often sourcing from an inside-out evaluation of 'being' but just as well from a panoramic evaluation of society.

Metabolism

There are various ways to answer the question of what the difference is. First I'll give the metabolic answer, which is similar to what I mentioned in chat so I'll paste some of this here to start with. The main difference between Ti or Ji crystal-formation and Ni trend-weaving goes back to their primary difference as J vs P processes. Pi (Ni) is not formulaic, it's perceptual. It's information, rather than principles (Ji).

Ti/Ji castle constructions are J "formulations." A J formulation is a scaffold that sits atop of the data, and is not identical to the data itself. It's like a "theory", or a model. And models are generalizers, which try to reduce complexity into few premises. But because of this, models often deviate from the info beneath them, and need to be recalibrated. The gap between recalibrations necessarily makes it so J-leads have a fissure between the world as-is, and their model of it. And Ni's symbolism is not the same as these formulations. You could say that the articulation of discrete "symbols" is only instrumental to communication - but Ni's symbology is a way for it to communicate how it senses/experiences these data-rivers intersecting life.

The difference between J formulation and P synthesis is very clear and central here. And once you know what these things mean in a tangible sense, it all clicks together, but before knowing the difference - it's difficult to explain it. But I'll give some examples of this below to paint a quick picture: Lets evaluate the following statements:

* Sally has coffee first thing in the morning, then she showers and then she goes to work.
* The supermarket cycles through holiday sales all year long, usually start 3 weeks before the holiday itself.
* Today's fashion seems to recycle clothes from previous decades, but hybridize them with modern elements.
* I saw a dog which was very protective of its owner, while being hostile towards strangers.
* Suzy was badmouthing her boss behind her back again, and not working very hard.

In the most general sense, these are simply observations; perceptions. There is nothing absolute about them, and the conditions of their reality are ebbing and flowing along with all the information they depend on. But now lets see what might happen if Ji tried to epitomize this information into principles:

* Sally is a coffee-person. Sally is hygienic. Sally is a worker. A "daily routine" consists of coffee, showering and work."
* Holidays, in essence, encompass the weeks before they arrive.
* Fashion is a hybrid cycle of current and past styles.
* Dogs are protective of owners, and hostile towards strangers.
* Suzy is a mean person.

If you notice, these latter five are declarative statements, rather than observations. They are informationally simpler, having less details and more conclusions. And because of this, they can be categorically wrong. They operate under true/false or right/wrong dichotomies.

This difference permeates the difference between Ti and Ni. In general, for Pi (Ni) the whole set of information is 'the thing'; the point is not 'a point', but a volume of things. Principles of ordering are secondary to P-leads. It's more like the volume of the world's data self-orders into what it is, without our imposition of definitions.

Oppositely, the principle of the existence of a platonic idea - is what Ti isolates or identifies, and it builds these together as a collection of standalone truths. But there isn't much archival information in an axiom, it's just a kind of irreducible or un-simplifiable core. Whereas for Ni as a Pi process, the nature of the isomorphic-object is more like the magnatic pull of information into a shape, like a funnel, that intersects reality. So for Ni, the isomorphic object is not a set definitional boundary, but a net of arrays molded into an organic shape; moving together through information. It's not a description, a declaration, or a monistic property - it's a river or a wind. It has no edges, no static truths, and because of that it's "irrational" (as Jung said about the P functions), but still very real.

Ti declares the ontology of a thing, statically. It identifies and makes definitions; it is definitional processing (J-). Ni is not definitional processing, but temporal contextualizing (P-), so Ni is concerned with reading the streams of life and saying "i know where we are", which necessitates a volumetric answer and placement. Ni is not what gives people conceptual conclusions or ideas, it's what gives people a sense of (physical/conceptual) locality through space-time. It will paint a picture, rather than state a rule.

Beta

Now, Beta types are curious since they have both Ti and Ni, which makes them a special case. It's possible that a Beta's Ti can create a principle around a sensed Ni isomorphic array. And this Ti-Ni participation is what's nicknamed the "Cabalist." Here, symbology is epitmonized and systematized. Certain shapes (sacred symbols) are seen as platonic truths (Ji). In such cases, the question we might ask is one of hierarchy: Is it Ti above, with subservient Ni, or is it Ni above with subservient Ti?

In the case of Ti>Ni, definition-formation, and formulation comes first, and there is great satisfaction in having an elegantly concise and consistent set of principles which lock together like tetris pieces. And Ni supplies fuel, in the form of trendlines, which can then be turned into more principles that crystalize reality into an absolutely true description. TiSe with developed Ni will want to "control" reality rationally, which is to say -- to create an encompassing explanatory framework that always accounts for everything, at least in concept. It seeks "perfect" comprehension, conceptual completion.

In the case of Ni>Ti, thread-weaving and river-surfing comes first, and there is great satisfaction in spinning ever-larger information threads with details that cross every domain of life, with exhaustive breadth. The more exhaustive the breadth, the better. And when engaged in this activity, Ti serves to quantize or communicate what some of these rivers look like, to those who might wanna know, by taking a snapshot of the river and writing that down. But Ni>Ti would ultimately distrust, disbelieve and be disinterested in any efforts to gain full control or grip over life - any more than one could grip water. Carl Jung is a perfect example of Ti in the service of Ni.

~

I'm not sure if this answers your question, somewhere in there, but I hope it presents a start? Let me know your thoughts.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Juan E. Sandoval.