Quasi-defining statements

p. 169: "When we use Introverted Sensation, we don't adjust to our surface perceptions. We package them and take them with us--in the form of facts, numbers, signs, and memories."

p. 170: "When we use Introverted Sensation, we stabilize our immediate sense impressions by integratng them with the ones we remember and care about. We "find ourselves" in whatever is happening, because our perceptions are anchored by what we already know."

p. 170: "Introverted Sensation gives us the will to accumulate information--names, dates, numbers, statistics, references, guidelines, and so forth--related to the things that matter to us. ... Such facts are highly selective. ... They're part of our self-experience. They define the specific nature of our passions and interests. They become our basis for taking in new data."

p. 171: "From an Introverted Sensate viewpoint, immediate conditions have no stable meaning. They're just an influx of data impinging on the senses. And our response to these impressions depends on our mood, our state of mind, our desires, our feelings. It's our commitments and priorities, the facts we hold inalienable, that give our circumstances enduring significance."

As a dominant attitude:

p. 174: "ISJs...don't believe for a minute that the universe is inherently rational. For these types, the outer world is a jumble of ever-changing perceptual experiences, dictating ever-changing behavioral responses. What ISJs maintain, and maintain unconditionally, is their priorities, which stabilize perceptual reality and give it consistent meaning."

Proposed definition #1

Introverted Sensation (Si) is the attitude that what is manifest (apparent, observable) is overwhelming in its complexity and patternlessness, and that the only way we can find our way through it is with a map. To make our way through the unpredictable, we need to anchor ourselves in some way, to know what, in that vast chaos, to focus on.

Proposed definition #2

Introverted Sensation (Si) is the attitude that the unknown mostly contains threats that will undermine life and order. Given the precariousness of life--so many things have to be jjjjust right--the odds of something unknown being beneficial are very low. Consequently life demands that we carefully filter the unknown before letting it into a position of influence, that we construct barriers against the unknown, etc.

For example, in engineering, one is primarily concerned with designing systems that won't fail even though most of the exact causes of failure are not knowable in any precise way. Engineers learn many different ways in which things fail, and learn to design so that the things work, or at least major disasters don't occur, even when things go wrong--as they inevitably will. A bridge is typically designed to hold a load 6 times bigger than the biggest anticipated load, simply so it will resist unexpected troubles--shearing winds, or cracks in unexpected places, or who-knows-what that might come along and can never be fully anticipated. The full breadth of relevant dangerous factors is inherently unknowable.

An everyday example is to allow some extra time when leaving on a trip. The reason for leaving some extra time is because the world is filled with unpredictable things that could make you late. Very few unpredictable things could come along and make you early if you left late.

From the Si standpoint, the more you're going to depend on something, the more carefully you'd better inspect it, because you never know what unknown things might go awry, you only know that most of them are bad.

(Compare Extraverted Intuition, which leads to the exact opposite attitude toward the unknown.)

See also: Sensation, other Function Attitudes.