Varieties Of Intuition - MBTI: Ni And Ne

I have been intrigued by intuition, and the difference between extraverted and introverted varieties. 

After going through the definitions of N, and various articles I was sure that I was S and not N. A friend of mine would insist that I was N. 

I kept thinking.

Intuition is the ability to see patterns in data, the ability to see possibilities, the ability to intuit - "a ha, the butler did it (the murder)" rather than painstakingly go through all the clues to figure out who did it. 

As I reflected further, I realized that N had two distinct halves, I had one half and none of the other half. I could see pattern, I could sense a pattern, condense data but ,for the life of me, I could not see intuit (in the dictionary meaning of the English word).

I now understand the two halves this way. One part which goes downstream from data which perhaps is deduction (Ni). Another part which goes upstream and sees what could have caused the data (Ne). The latter is very close to what is generally known as feminine intuition.

If you look at the data here which shows the details of each MBTI type and statistics... you will see that there is a marked difference in the prevalence of Ti and Te (as dominant functions) between the genders. You can filter for the dominant function to be Ti and Te and see the sum of male percentages and sum for female percentages. 

Same for Fi and Fe across the genders. Now when we come to Ni and Ne, we find that male percentage of Ni is almost double of female percentage while female percentage for Ne is about 20% higher than male percentage.

Doesn't this seem to indicate that Ni goes with T and Ne with F? Meaning that the N/S and T/F are perhaps not independent dimensions. Look at the correlation between F/T and J/P. F constitute total (Male + Female) 60% of population, of which half is FJ and half FP. But if we look at T which constitute 40% of population, 24% is TJ and 16% is TP. But that is going to be a different post about interrelation between different parameters.

A good explanation of the difference between Ni and Ne is given here in the comment by sociotronics. Ni eliminates ideas to reach the one and only "best fit". 

A simple statement "I am fine" would be perhaps seen by Ni as just that. No other information or possibility could be derived. While an Ne could see what caused Jim to say "I am fine", that Jim perhaps wasn't feeling good when he said that, may be.... See the difference? When you take a data point and go downstream with it, sometimes you can't go anywhere because there is no pattern to be found, yet. But if you went upstream you could see a possibility. Ne is from the heart. Ni is from the head!

I am reminded of a maths problem about dividing 17 camels. Which of Ni or Ne could solve the problem? I think Ne.

Additional reading:
http://www.personalitypathways.com/education.html