#cognitve functions

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Taxi Driver | Travis Bickle: ISTP / 5w4

Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.

Judging Functional Axis: Ti/Fe

A detached observer, struggling to participate in the world, Travis has constructed his own cynical framework of reality where he dehumanizes people and passes inferior-Fe moral judgements on them, referring to them as filth and scum that needs to be washed away, with no real understanding of humans or how they work. He’s always out of harmony with everyone else, incapable of getting close to anyone because he can’t connect with them no matter how much he tries. He’s charmed by Betsy and takes her on a date to watch a porno, operating under the assumption that she’ll enjoy it because he doesn’t have a grip on social norms or what actual people are like and what they’re interested in. Similarly, even though he genuinely tries to help Iris get away from her life, he’s constantly challenging her worldview without actually getting to know her or sympathize with where she’s coming from. Though he’s not emotionally involved in his life, he’s prone to throwing fits, becoming volatile and reactionary when provoked (like when Betsy refuses to sleep with him.)

Perceiving Functional Axis: Se/Ni

Travis, stuck in a Ti-Ni loop, drifts through his life, driving a taxi and unable to partake in the sensory world, letting his inner world consume him, fitting all his harsh, singular observations into a narrow framework that shapes his worldview. Because he wants Betsy, he takes charge and talks to her, but immediately distorts his view of her when she’s not what he wanted her to be. He emerges out of his loop, when he finds purpose in the sensory world again, something that will allow him to take action, pushing himself to his physical limits (exercising, holding his hand over a fire), modifying his weapons, and carefully training himself to assassinate Palantine until he’s satisfied with himself. He has no problem jumping into action after that, shooting the guy at the convenience store, confronting Iris, quickly escaping from the Secret Service when they realize he’s trying to kill Palantine. When the assassination attempt fails, he simply switches targets, murdering Iris’ pimp and engaging in a shootout at the brothel she works at.

Enneagram: 5w4

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The Nature of High Ne

Contributing to Ni vs Ne: Ne is a function rooted in the present, not the future. Ne doesn’t spend time dreaming about who it’s going to be or where it’s going to be five years from now because it doesn’t like operating based on something that by its very nature is uncertain. The future is not a given. Maybe it’ll be good. Maybe it’ll be bad. Maybe we’ll all be forced into a highly classist train that goes around the world, forced to cut off our limbs so we don’t have to eat babies. Who knows? The future is constantly shifting, and no one understands that like a high Ne user. If you’ve ever interacted with one of them, they’re usually the first person to point that out.

High Ne definitely indulges in thinking about the future. They might like to daydream about having a loft in NYC or a cottage in the middle of the woods. But all their ideas for the future are vague single frame impressions of something they wish might happen. They usually don’t make it happen, and they’ll probably find a new thing to dream about in three days, because for high Ne users, it doesn’t really cost them anything to find another dream. For them, there will always be something else to look forward to.

NPs don’t have a panoramic view of the future. NJs — and to a lesser extent, SJs — do. They are the planners: NJs make abstract plans for the future; SJs make concrete plans. NPs don’t make plans. Generally. They can, if they absolutely have to, but it takes a toll on them, possibly depresses them because there is just so much else in the world. High Ne, however, is good at making short-term plans because it doesn’t box them into a corner and gives them the flexibility to move onto something else when they want to.

In this way, Ne is comparable to Se. They want to live — and they’re sharply attuned to — the ideas that are available to them now. It’s what allows them to make so many connections so quickly in the first place. You can’t do that when you are solely focused on the future. Ne engages with the ideas of the present, actively interacting with what is already there, and turning it into something else. Their function is more useful in the present, interpreting ideas, predicting patterns, and creating new things that can come to life now. It does think about the future, in that it can make predictions, foresee outcomes, and mark trends for the future by looking at the present, but Ne connects dots within the present, within the framework in which those dots exist. Its understanding of the future is vast and rapidly shifting because its understanding of the present is vast and rapidly shifting. Which is why it creates multiple possibilities that can theoretically happen. That is why all its predictions are, by its very nature, things that might happen rather than things that will happen.

It makes it fundamentally different from Ni that uses the present as a diving board to project forward into the space-time continuum, accurately snagging on a piece of the future that it knows will come true.

When Ne looks at something, it doesn’t see it for what it could be in the future, it sees what it could be in the present.

Ne usually works with something that is present or has been present and turns it on its head to make something that is completely new. It doesn’t usually conjure up things or propose ideas that have never existed — that’s in the realm of Ni.

You can see this in TV and film.

You generally won’t find an Ni director or creator paying homage to films or TV that exist. You generally won’t find an Ni director acknowledging tropes just so they can turn them on their head. You won’t find them reaching into the pop culture database to reference it in their work. You will find Ne directors and creators almost exclusively only doing this. (Eg: Tarantino, Dan Harmon, Joss Whedon, Mike Schur etc.) (Harmon’s Community, specifically, is an ode to how high Ne works.)

Ni directors like to create their own mythos and personalize their symbolism. It’s not in their nature to look at what is there (literally, but mostly just conceptually.) Ne, on the other hand, can only create, interpret, and connect dots like it does because it is looking at what is there.

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Se7en | William Somerset : INFJ / 9w1

Ernest Hemming way said, “The world is good, and worth saving.” I believe the second part.

Perceiving Functional Axis: Ni/Se 

Somerset is an intensely cerebral person who constantly asks probing questions that others do not necessarily understand or see the point in (“Did the kid see it?”) He’s always teeming with insight — about crime scenes, murderers, people — that others don’t always comprehend because they don’t see what he sees. For instance, the minute he sees the first body, he knows John Doe is not done. It’ll keep going on and on, he says. Similarly, he also knows that Mills isn’t ready to take on the case. He can look forward far enough into the future to see patterns and predict outcomes. He’s always certain of his instincts, asserting that they’re things that will happen rather than things that might happen. Somerset’s a detached observer, disengaged from the sensory world, who prefers to take every piece of information in before jumping into action.

Judging Functional Axis: Fe/Ti

Somerset is stuck in a Ni-Ti loop, abstracting insights from humanity at large, fitting all his perceptions into a narrow framework for understanding to keep himself from feeling too much. But that’s his problem — he feels too much for people and what is happening to them. Their problem, he says, is their apathy. And he can’t stand it, so he decided to turn it off to focus on facts and logic instead. But like Mills points out, he doesn’t actually believe it. He has an excellent understanding of the human mind: he knows how they work, what their emotional triggers are, and how to reach out to them. Though naturally solitary, he’s also warm and understanding when he has to be. His assessment of John Doe is swift and precise, as well, that he can’t help but point out the flaws in his logic.

Enneagram: 9w1

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Shameless | Mickey Milkovich: ESFP / 8w7

Ian, what you and I have makes me free. Not what these assholes know.

Perceiving Functional Axis: Se/Ni

On any given day, Mickey is violent, brash, and uncooperative. He pistol-whips people for pissing him off, regularly goes around the South Side beating people until they give his family back what he owes, and generally just uses violence to solve his problems. When Frank catches Ian and him, Mickey responds to the situation by coming up with a plan to murder him. When that doesn’t work out, he gets himself thrown in juvie. Mickey refuses to engage with any situation or person beyond the surface level — he says Ian is “nothing but a warm mouth to him”; he leaves Svetlana to deal with their son. Mickey doesn’t like thinking about things; his first impulse, always, is to act. But as he grows, he becomes better at thinking about the future, unshakable in his belief that, no matter what happens, it will always be Ian.

Judging Functional Axis: Fi/Te

Mickey knows who he is. Even in the beginning, he’s never seen struggling with his identity — he knows exactly what he wants. He just doesn’t want other people to know. Almost always in tune with his emotional state, he knows what he’s feeling at any given moment. His problem is that he never wants to let anyone in on this information. Ever. His feelings are his own. And they are intense, turbulent, and always lurking beneath the surface. He’s just extremely reluctant at verbalizing them. Most of the time, he chooses to express it through violence instead. As Mickey grows, he becomes better at that, but still chooses actions over words (taking incredible care of Ian when he gets his diagnosis; getting his name tattooed on his chest.) Mickey rarely applies himself — in school, or, just, in life. But he’s good at taking charge when a situation calls for it. For instance, when he discovers Svetlana is not getting paid enough for her services, he rounds up all of Sasha’s girls and starts his own business.

Enneagram: 8w7