Quasi-defining statements

p. 42: "When we use Thinking in an Introverted way, we get a mental image of the logical relationships in an entire system. For example, if we're crocheting an initial into a sweater, we're likely to draw a picture rather than work out the logical relationships analytically."

p. 342: "Introverted Thinking is a right-brain form of judgement that makes us aware of a situation's many variables. When we use it, we recognize our power, as individuals, to exploit some variables at the expense of others."

p. 343: "This kind of awareness is not only impersonal: it's graphic, immediate, and wholistic. It prompts no predetermined categories of good and bad. Variables that have unusual or perverse potential are accorded the same consideration as variables that assure a socially appropriate outcome."

p. 287: "As a right-brain function, Introverted Thinking is not conceptual and linear [contra Extraverted Thinking]. It's body-based and wholistic. It operates by way of visual, tactile, or spatial cues, inclining us to reason experientially rather than analytically."

p. 288: "The right brain, with its all-at-once approach to life, doesn't require exact predictability before it takes action. Its decisions are based on probabilities, and it leaves room for the random and the unexpected."

p. 290: "These perceptions aren't peripheral. They're crucial to our intended effect. And they aren't reflexive. They're unspecified. As we're selecting and responding to them, we're not defining them and telling ourselves about them in a left-brain way."

As a Dominant Function:

p. 292: "Introverted Thinkers understand reality only in terms of their ability to 'converse' with it, to take part in its 'becoming'."

As a Secondary Function:

p. 210: "Unlike Extraverted Thinking, which is conceptual and generalized, Introverted Thinking motivates strategic action in a specific situation. When ENTPs use it, they don't start with abstract rules and apply them, step by step, to bring about a goal. They recognize themselves as part of an ongoing process, and they keep adjusting their behaviors in terms of the whole picture."

p. 210: "When combined with Extraverted Intuition, Introverted Thinking can be highly cerebral, and it usually involves a complex imaginal pattern of relationships. For example, an ENTP might enjoy playing chess, because such types can usually anticipate the results of many potential combinations of moves. An ENTP salesperson might pull together a host of small details and recognize in one mental image how a customer is likely to respond to a product. An ENTP cultural historian might see how a seemingly insignificant detail in a popular movie actually defines the underlying ethos of a culture."

A proposed definition

Introverted Thinking (Ti) is the attitude that beneath the complexity of what is manifest (apparent, observed, experienced) there is an underlying unity: a source or essence that emerges and takes form in different ways depending on circumstances. What is manifest is seen as a manifestation of something. From a Ti standpoint, the way to respond to things is in a way that is faithful to that underlying cause or source and helps it emerge fully and complete, without interference from any notion of self. The way to understand that underlying essence is to learn to simultaneously see many relationships within what is manifest, to see every element in relation to every other element, the relationships being the "signature" of the underlying unity. This can only be experienced directly, not second-hand. [ This is actually a description of introverted intuition and, to some extent, introverted sensation -- Robert Evans]

Goals

Perhaps the notion of a goal explains why Lenore calls Ti Subjective:

p. 288: "We have to recognize, in the midst of action, which variables are best taken into account and which are irrelevant to our goal."

p. 290: "When we're Thinking in an Introverted way, we're coordinating our behaviors with the variables in a situation related to our intended effect. This is a matter of logic, limitation, and goal orientation--all the things we associate with a rational approach to life."

p. 287: "Subjective logic--a way to coordinate our behaviors logically with immediate sensory data: the position of the ball, the skill of the batter coming up, the distance we can probably slide, the actions of the other players."

p. 287: "When we use (Introverted Thinking), we're not structuring experience before it actually exists. We're engaged by conditions here and now, and we're adjusting to them in light of their impact on our goal."

Perhaps in these passages Lenore is describing Ti as something other than a Dominant Function. My own experience is not one of seeking goals. Seeking a goal usually seems to me unpleasant, going against the grain of things. My own experience, and I think what most ITPs report, is more an attempt to coax something out, to give form to some idea that I won't fully understand until it's been given form. A goal known in advance of this process would interfere with the process; it would corrupt the idea so that what emerges wouldn't be pure.

--Ben Kovitz

Counter-argument from Thompson: "INJs have an unusual awareness of how such conditions determine our conceptual vocabulary, and their intuition leads them to discern (ie. multiple forms of exegesis) aspects of reality that aren't being acknowledged. Thus, many INJs choose professions that allow them to work with questions of language and terminology!!!!!!! ...... Any field that involves conceptual signs and categories is likely to interest these types. -- You (Ben Kovitz) are an introverted intuitive who thinks he's an introverted thinker (based on scoring as an INTP on a test, probably). This is quite common. -- Robert Evans (all emphasis and parentheticals are mine)

EXTPs do not seek goals either, not in the TJ sense. I recognise opportunities. My goal then is to exploit them, but I often meander because of what I discover along the way (or because of sheer laziness). I have an idea of what I want, but that idea is very flexible, and I go where emerging discoveries and circumstances take me.

I'd correct the p. 287 quote to say that by adjusting ourselves to the conditions in the here and now, we also adjust our goals.

Thank you, Michelle! Maybe you'll enjoy the new definition I just added to Extraverted Intuition. --Ben Kovitz

Semiotically Disoriented in dominant-Ti style

p. 293: "Unless the man had direct involvement in the unfolding process and could exert some effect on its logical outcome, he didn't know how to relate to it."

See also: Thinking, Louis Farrakhan, other Function Attitudes.

Far forethought based on inductive reasoning of current social/personal/etc... situation. Less a focus on human dynamics than the tools, scientific methods, etc... that humans will use in the future (social organization can fit here too). Speculative Hard Science Fiction.

Quoting Jung: In his own special field of work he provokes the most violent opposition, which he has no notion how to deal with, unless he happens to be seduced by his primitive affects into acrimonious and fruitless polemics.

Quoting from a Terry Pratchett book "Small Gods":

'He bloody well accused me of slander!' he was shouting.

'I didn't!' shouted the other man.

'You did! You did! Tell 'em what you said!'...

It's the difference between ST:TNGs's Data (introverted intuitive -- yes, he is!), Neil Stephenson, etc... and ST:TNGs Reginald Barclay