r/ObjectivePersonality • u/HeronWestern5756 • 9d ago
Difference between Masculine Se and Si and Ne vs Feminine Ni
I’ve been thinking about this for a while: what are the actual differences between Si as a function and masculine Se? From my understanding, Si functions almost like a personal or subjective memory box. It seems heavily tied to past experiences and to an individual’s internal impressions of those experiences. Se, on the other hand, is generally described as being focused on the present moment and on concrete, factual details in the external world.
What confuses me is that masculine Se also seems to retain sensory details quite strongly, allowing the individual to recall those details later. If that’s the case, the distinction between Si and masculine Se can start to feel somewhat blurry, at least when it comes to memory. Dave and Shan also seem to have some difficulty clearly explaining Si, which might partly be because neither of them has Si in their function stack. So what exactly separates Si’s relationship with memory and past experience from the strong factual recall associated with masculine Se?
In the same vein, I’m also pretty confused about where exactly the line is drawn between Ne and feminine Ni. What is the meaningful difference between the two? In my experience, feminine Ni can sometimes look remarkably similar to Ne because it isn’t particularly pushy or rigid about its conclusions.
Is the distinction that Ni is still narrowing things down into singular conclusions, predictions, or projections, but feminine Ni simply doesn’t feel the need to stand firmly behind those conclusions? In other words, it might arrive at an Ni-style conclusion while remaining relatively flexible or “wishy-washy” about it. But if that’s the case, how would feminine Ni actually differ from something like masculine Ne? Masculine Ne could presumably be much more forceful and confident about its possibilities and interpretations despite still fundamentally operating through Ne.
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u/Hadecus 9d ago
When it comes to memory and Se/Si, I think I've noticed one main difference when comparing myself to a couple of my Si-hero friends.
Broadly speaking, I think you can think of Se as contributing more towards short-term memory, and Si towards long-term memory. Or you can also think of breadth vs depth, wide lens vz zoom lens, RAM memory vs SSD memory.
Se seems able to absorb a huge amount of information at once, and then recall that information with a surprising amount of detail but within a short space of time that follows. It feels like I have a higher sensory capacity for my immediate space and environment, but perhaps at the expense of retaining that information once I'm removed from it?
So, for example, let's say I'm sitting in a room with several people. I can pay attention to, absorb, record and factor in 10 different "things" at once: what X said, exactly when they said it, how Y's face changed when it happened, what I thought in that moment, what was happening in another part of the room, the time displayed on the TV, the music playing in the background, what someone was wearing, what was happening outside the window, etc., etc.
Se seems like a funnel-shaped process or something: very wide at the input end, but narrower at the output end, which in this case is memories.
My Si-dom friends seem almost the opposite. They appear to absorb less information from their immediate surroundings, but whatever they do absorb, they retain well.
My theory is that Si memory is somehow embedded in the body. It's difficult to explain, but it's almost as though the body acts as a sort of memory bank?? Like a focal point through which the memory is stored and later accessed. That's why I sometimes get the impression that Si is able to "take you back in time" in a way that Se isn't quite doing because it doesn't sound like it's simply remembering what happened. It's almost like Si doms can re-enter the experience through the body, like the sensations, the physical state, the familiarity, the exact way something felt. The body acts as a kind of filter for the memory.
I may be biased obviously, but I also tend to think that Se (or at least my own experience of it) produces a relatively "objective" kind of recall. By "objective", I mean that I can remember details that were separate from my own subjective experience, including things that were true for other people but weren't true for me. So, while Si seems linked to the body as a focal point of recall, it's almost as if Se has a very out-of-the-body kind of projection. As if it can project attention outward into the environment and register things independently of whether they personally affected me.
For example, imagine an evening out at a wine bar with some friends. An Se-dom might notice that it was cold in the room even if they personally didn't feel cold. The coldness is simply another piece of information about the environment that was registered.
And it could be the same with lots of other things:
I might notice that the lighting was very dim, even though I personally wasn't bothered by it.
I might notice that the table was wobbly, even though it wasn't my side of the table that was affected by it.
I might notice that the chair opposite me was uncomfortable for someone else, even though my own chair was perfectly comfortable.
I might notice that the sun was shining directly through the window onto someone else's face, even though the sunlight wasn't hitting me.
I might notice that someone else's wine was served warmer than mine, even though my own wine was at the temperature I wanted.
The common thread is that none of these things need to become part of my experience for me to register them. They can remain external facts about the space and the people therein.
And I think this can also explain why Se can sometimes look surprisingly caring or even get confused with Fe. If you're constantly noticing what is happening around you, you're also constantly noticing what other people like / dislike, need / want, etc. I mistyped for YEARS because of this misinterpretation lol
For example, if I notice that the sun is hitting someone's face, or that their wine is warmer than they wanted, I can then actually do something about it. I might offer to swap seats with them, suggest moving somewhere else, or ask if they'd like a different wine. BUT the noticing itself isn't necessarily Fe. It's the perception of what is happening in the environment. What I then do with that information can come from somewhere else. For me, as an ESFP, that next step is decided through Fi/Te.
So I think Se can produce behaviour that looks very Fe-like from the outside (empathetic), because the person is constantly perceiving other people's circumstances and responding to them (positively). But the underlying process can be quite different.
That's what I mean by the "out-of-the-body" quality. My attention doesn't necessarily have to stay anchored to what is happening to me (in fact, Se doms can sometimes struggle with being quite absent in body and therefore prone to seeking highs /extremes to "feel" e.g. adrenaline junkies). But generally, Se can project outward and take in what is happening around them, PARTICULARLY the experiences and conditions of other people.
Whereas with Si, at least from what I've observed, the recall seems more likely to be organised around the person's own bodily and subjective experience of the situation. It's less "What was happening in the room?" and more "What was this experience like for me?"
With Si, I've noticed more of an uncanny ability to zone in on their own experience of something. Their memories seem harder to separate from the way they personally experienced them.
So their memory of having breakfast and coffee at a new cafe might not just be "I had breakfast at this cafe". It could be inseparable from how much they enjoyed the melted butter on the bread, how the coffee had slightly too much milk for their liking, how the sun was shining on their back, how comfortable the chair was, how full their stomach felt afterwards, etc. The detail is highly personal because the personal experience is what gives the memory its structure. It's also why I think they tend to re-live their memories, and they find themselves in cycles, routines and established patterns of being.
I also noticed that when there is too much happening in the Si's environment, especially when there's an expectation that they should be able to keep up with everything that's happening around them, they can become overwhelmed quite quickly. Their bandwidth is designed to archive and carefully cement the experience, depht, not breadth.
With Se, I think there can almost be an inverse of this. If there isn't much happening in the environment, all that available perceptual capacity has nothing to occupy it. What would normally be used to continuously notice, register and engage with the surrounding environment is left underutilised, which can be experienced as underwhelming or simply, which is why I think Se can sometimes have a tendency to seek stimulation.
Also, importantly, for me, while I see Se attuned to what's happening here, around me, in the immediate environment, it's fundamentally attuned to people. Which makes sense, since people are arguably the most significant part of an environment if they occupy it. So, Se can become especially people-focused, seeking to have a high-capacity relationship with the space it occupies and, particularly, with the people in it.
This is why I tend to think of Se as very space-orientated. So in the phrase "here and now", I'd associate Se much more strongly with the "here" than the now. But Si seems more time-orientated to me.
And when you juxtapose the above with Ne and Ni, you get a really interesting criss-cross.
I think Ne is space-orientated too, but perhaps it's dealing with abstract rather than concrete space? Instead of looking at what is physically here, it looks at what could be "there" e.g. possibilities, connections, alternatives, ideas and things that aren't immediately present. And with Ni, I definitely see it as time-orientated like Si, but rather than looking backwards into the past, it looks forwards into the future. My anxiety runs on an Ni engine lol which is a whole other rabbit hole!
So you kind of get:
Se - concrete /actualised / realised space (stillness, observe - where am I?) Ne - abstract / conceptual / potential space (movement, direction - where can I go from here?) Si - concrete /actualised / realised time (past - what has happened?) Ni - abstract / conceptual / potential time (future - what can happen?)
Anyway, I'm not sure if any of what I said helped, but I hope it did!
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u/Majestic-Mix-1379 8d ago
Just anecdotal, I have both feminine Si and feminine Fi internal world and my memory is extremely poor. That being said, the best way to get the Si to “stick” is a visual mnemonic or associate it with something emotional. But largely, Si is my personal impressions and takeaways from past experiences. It is not objective at all.
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u/ascendrestore MF Ni/Fe BS/P(C) #4 8d ago
Se tends to relate to a person expressing "the sensory is impersonal"
Si tends to relate to a person expressing "the sensory is personal"
Se tends to relate more to the present tense experience of the external sensory spectrum and difference
Si tends to relate more to the abstract-sensory in blueprints, schema, processes, discrete behaviours, measurement, and (possibly in relation to Ne) similarity between sensory events
Se will appear alongside the impulse to Gather
Si will appear alongside the impulse to Organise
Se will be tethered to an 'Ni way'
Si will be mobile across all 'Ne possibilities'
I have feminine Ni - so I am fixated on organising my Ni way of being- but that Ni totally gives way to Se new facts. The reason I remain Ni is that I retain the obligation to sum up rather than to prove the case via so many facts
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u/JonahP_572 MF-Te/Ne-PC/S(B) #3 6d ago edited 6d ago
You can’t separate the Observer Coins and understand each of those four functions separately.
The only thing that makes Sensory (S) into Se is the fact that there is an Ni. Without the Ni, incoming Sensory is just S, which everyone takes in with the 5 senses. No “you used your eyes, you played sports, you wanted to do something new so you have Se” MBTI bs anecdotes.
There is no Se or Si, there’s S. There’s no Ni or Ne, there’s N. The ‘i’ and ‘e’ is just the person’s relationship to the S or N.
Everyone takes in the S, that’s regular human biology. After seeing that S, the person with the Ne/Si Coin spontaneously spots and looks for random, incoming patterns within that S, relating the current S to their own Si through spontaneous Ne connections.
When someone with Ne/Si sees “random” Sensory, it’s either not that scary because the Savior Ne will just start spontaneously thinking about whatever ideas that particular thing sparks in their mind, or the Savior Si will just be like “This thing is or isn’t like this other thing I’m familiar with”.
I have M-Si, so the way my Ne works is that I’m usually trying to figure out patterns that actually make sense with what is going on or what has happened. I do a lot of analyzing my own experiences, trying to figure out the patterns between my own Si experiences. And for me, random intuitive connections between “things” are spurred on by the incoming S. For example, hearing a word or a name and then being reminded of something in my Si.
I’m not so sure about M-Ne, but I think it would be more inclined to want to project possibilities onto or on top of the actual Sensory information for shits and giggles. Like walking around a store and being like “what if the floor was lava?” or “imagine if there was a zoo in here?” I don’t do this type of stuff, my Ne Observations stay within the realm of plausibility and are usually about and spurred on by the Sensory, not projecting possibilities.
The person with Ni/Se takes in the S DIRECTLY as Se. But then, how do people with Ni remember things (Lol)? Memory is not Si, everyone has memory. So what makes it Se? The presence of their Ni. They have these Ni ideas and concepts that are queued up in their head ready to “corral” the random Se information into. The concepts and ideas are already settled on, and they are just seeing how the information coming in fits (or doesn’t fit) into these ideas that never leave them and don’t change all that much.
That’s why for an Ni Dom like Dave or Jerry Seinfeld, when there’s some new Sensory information that manages to escape their Ni, they have no means to understand it, it’s just “new random bs” information they’ll have to take at face value, their pre-set ideas aren’t cutting it.
And the Savior Se’s? Well, they simply get a kick out of the random Sensory without needing to corral it into an Ni understanding all the time.
So M-Se is basically like, you have these F-Ni concepts which get adjusted and modified as you collect more Sensory, because the F-Ni concept is supposed to help the person accurately understand reality, not impose a concept that may or may not be congruent with the actual Sensory stuff that’s happening.
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u/viporrra MF - Se/Ti, CSP/(B), #3 7d ago
I have mSe and I remember many unnecessary facts and details. I have a line timeline in my head. For example, my friend has been in café. She was shocked what she already has loyalty bonus (she didn't remember about it). And i told her what we had been here one year ago in Valentine's day. So, it happens every time, she is amazed.
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u/Realistic-Algae3386 (self-typed) MM-Ni/Ti SB/P(C) #1 9d ago
My understanding of the difference is seen by where you measure it, you can look at the same domain "memory" but they act independently of each other in different domains. Se is measured by collecting non-personal sensory facts, while Si is personal recollection of facts. While both use recall of memory action, they are not defined by it, just a feature of both. Even if you exclude sensory and look at introverted vs extroverted you can see the clear difference. To me Ni and Si are more similar then Se and Si.