You're getting at something with this distinction, but it's not actually a matter of smartness-- it's more a matter of will to power.
By this I mean that you're describing the competition of different tendencies or psychological imperatives in conjunction with an evaluation which simply holds one tendency as superior and measures all others against it. I find it more useful to view the different tendencies as competing and interacting patterns or forces. Evaluation of the kind you're engaging in is entirely context and aim-dependent, and, in the case of conversation on a forum, the aim and context are entirely up for grabs, and a subject of that very struggle/will-to-power. If we take understanding as our aim, it would be useful to hold back on aim-specific evaluation for now.
To make this more tangible: Ni, as a power, is inherently what can be described as 'syncopated' or off-beat. This can certainly come across as, or be, a refusal to engage with the topic supposedly at hand. This is in fact what Ni does, in its most undiluted expressions: it refuses to accept the given rules of the game, or assumptions in play, or aims that have been taken or presented as given. Certainly, at least, until it has deeply justified them to itself, on its own terms. People with Ni high in their cognitive hierarchy are being constantly impelled and driven to follow a case, or chase a lead, which invalidates or goes beyond or operates in entirely different terms than the world-picture or rules of debate of the immediate context. It realises that most in that context are following certain axioms or assumptions in a robotic or blind manner (that is, they just go along with what's dominant, or obvious, instead of perceiving how differently things could go), and doesn't want to play along, even if it pretends to outwardly.
Largely for this reason, Ni is not often rewarded by the environment. It is shut down by processes in motion, seen as a threat, disliked by other cognitive processes, and invalidated/rejected in direct proportion to how forcefully/righteously it stands up for itself, without veiling itself and its operations with some reasoning or excuse that the environment can accept. Ni, similarly, sees the prevailing psychic/cultural environment as a threat to itself, and very often engages in revolutionary action. Basically, Ni has to go deep and figure out the overarching principles of the whole game for itself. This can take
a long time, and can necessitate a hell of a lot of sheer and apparently unjustified refusal to play or seem nice or pleasing or smart by immediate conversational or social or intellectual standards. To do what it does, whilst still engaging, learning, playing, growing, Ni often has to be brutal and bullish and unpleasing, or, by InvisibleJim's definition,
'stupid'.
For instance, the conversations he has had with me were part of an experiment which nobody else is aware of the nature of, and which I was conducting in order to augment an internal model of the flux of deliberately generated affects across time. Just as every engagement of mine on this forum-- from personality change experiments to convincing members to come and be my test-subjects in person-- has been some form of internal experimentation. By my aims, I got what I needed and now understand a particular aspect of people with very great depth.
Now, Ti/Te tend to engage with the topic at hand much more obviously and tangibly. They're not penalised by the environment in so far as they're being used with even basic competence. Unlike Ni, which has to to reach its peak and get the whole game before it stops risking coming off as off-the-wall, or impossible to talk to, or 'technically' lacking in 'proficiency' to engage as expected, the T powers are about sequencing and consistency and efficiency in terms of immediate and given information and aims. They largely take fundamentals as given, and then program/sequence/analyse from there. This type of processing would seem very 'smart' by your standard. It's an adaptive kind of thinking.
Own8ge is a young NiFe (visually and conversationally assessed) with a very long way to go. I've spoken to him, and, yes, he's abrasive and misunderstands much. He has a hell of a lot of characteristic Ni egotism which hasn't really justified itself yet. But people like him can go far. That kind of egotism can drive a person to take the stance nobody else was able to, but that needed to be taken. To be that unique form of life which did what nobody else would, performed the act of compassion or insight nobody else saw, destroyed what nobody else understood could beneficially be destroyed or re-created. Own8ge is simply advocating for what his cognitive hierarchy naturally advocates for, and experiencing the environmental pushback that typically happens when that's done in a raw form.
Is this a stupid usage of Ni? Not really. It takes a lot of effort and force and coherency, and a sense of some answer beyond, to be as bloody-minded and independent as Own8ge is. He knows on some level that the environment could respect him far more if he folded and expressed himself in terms of its given standards and the topics at hand, but he's in this for the long game. It's not so much about smartness as... will to power. His Ni is strong enough and smart enough to fight for itself, but it certainly hasn't peaked yet. He hasn't gotten the game and learned how to create the contexts all other powers work in terms of from behind the scenes. If he gets to that point, he'll be the type of person determining what people like y'all attacking him take as basic assumptions, a few decades down the line.
Now-- another question. Isn't Ni, operating in this raw form, just missing the point? Shouldn't it just go elsewhere? Not really. I don't think Ni users should just have to keep quiet, and their Ni is working in whatever environment they're in. It's almost always going to have to be breaking some context or another, with more or less effectiveness and incisiveness. And, IMO, the collective cognitive environment benefits greatly from its action, and makes its most fundamental shifts and advances by its operation. Either way... it's a matter of competing forces, will to power, and perhaps some collective intelligence of homeostasis arising from that competition. Ni goes for the long-game and suffers for it, T powers are shorter game more immediate-reward forms of intelligence. Both have their uses and functions, but a mutual understanding of what's going on in that will-to-power struggle might make for somewhat less of a zero-sum game. Possibly. Not sure if I care whether it does or doesn't. I can make good use of people's confusion and lack of insight in this regard.
I am somewhat disappointed that @
loveofreason, for instance, displayed the attitudes they did in response to this. I would have expected more from them-- perhaps an explaining to a younger NiFe of what was going on with him, and how he could make sense of the difficulties he was facing. Everybody on this forum has all they need to understand far more about people than this thread evidences. Ni is off-beat. Ni can go far. Ni can be abrasive and isn't rewarded by the environment in raw form. The tools you have give you a context for understanding that, and understanding that that understanding could yield a deeper approach to humans and their growth than just beating them down for doing what their cognitive set-up is advocating for. People come here largely for self-understanding, after all-- why not display yours, and help them with theirs?
)
I also prefer the following definitions:
