What You Never Knew About Intuition
I love philosophy, theory and speculation. I love going down the rabbit hole, exploring, testing, and forming a big picture theory of everything. And I love testing ideas against one another. I like seeing what is most propable, and determining how likely a theory is. As a philosopher speculant type (INFJ) I have two unique intelligences. Existential intelligence and speculative intelligence. INFJs and INTJs spend a great deal of time running simulations on a theory, investing a great deal of energy into exploring it, and learning from it. We do it from inside our own heads, with no need to ground our intuition in clues and information from the outside. We prefer to detach from the environment, filtering out stimulation, and getting a grasp of the world without actively engaging it. And we love when we can make theories and predictions about the world. Especially when our theories come true.
- Existential intelligence (IN) is the ability to study the world from inside your head, by running simulations and thinking about how things will develop over time.
- Speculative intelligence (NJ) is the ability to judge ideas against each others to decide which options or which ideas are more propable or likely to occur.
The INXJ type is therefore someone who runs simulations to explore how things will develop over time.
Four Forms Of Intuition
Our style of intuition is not the only one. There are in total four unique approaches to intuition. Everyone uses and engages the intuitive process differently. The core interest is always the same: learn about the unknown, explore the hidden, deduce what is missing, find the secrets of the world. The primary clue behind the intuition is found in sensory processing sensitivity. A large majority of the sensitive types are intuitives. The higher sensitivity to sensory stimulation tends to drive a person that tunes out or filters in their sensory input. Sensitive types instead engage in imaginative thought. Most intuitives have a higher than average response to sensory stimulation. Because of this, our sensation glass fills up more quickly, causing us to tune out from the world.
The main blind spot of an intuitive type is attention to the real world. Intuitives frequently tune out from the sensory information around them. They are filtering out information, ignoring what is apparent, repeated, and traditional, seeking original explanations for how the world works. There are two additional intuitive intelligences beyond the two previously mentioned.
- Investigations intelligence (EN) is the ability to study clues and patterns around you to make educated guesses about what is happening in the world.
- Creative intelligence (NP) is the ability to consider options and alternative angles and to test out new ideas and opportunities.
The ENXP type is someone who thinks of the world from multiple angles, seeing different possibilities as they emerge in the present moment. Beyond this, there are two unexplored intuitive types: the INXP and the ENXJs. INXPs and ENXJs have an underestimated intuition, and are far more intuitive than past theories knew. So far, people have operated with INXPs and ENXJs as “weak” intuitive types. But we may all have just missed how intuitive they really are. INFPs and INTPs have an intuition that mixes the introverted nature of the INXJ intuition. This as well as the possibility oriented intuition of the ENXPs. ENXPs have an intuition that mixes the extroverted nature of the ENFPs intuition with the speculative nature of the INXJs intuition. This explains why a lot of INFPs and INTPs struggle to know if they are INXJ or INXP.
Carl Jung covered intuition as introverted or extroverted. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator on the other hand, divided NJs with NPs. When Isabella Briggs began talking about introverted and extroverted intuition as the result of if you were a perceiver or a judger, the definition of intuition became warped. We began talking about extroverted intuition as a brainstorming process, and introverted intuition as a speculative process “that could predict the future!”. For Carl Jung, the difference between introverted and extroverted intuition was if the intuition was based on the real world, or based on internal simulations.
Take our intelligences test to find out what your unique form of intuition is!
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