# Am I right about Te and Ti?



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

Hi
I'm inviting @Obsidian into this conversation as he is who I was arguing against on this and since we're both Ti users, I thought it would be great to hear some Te users explain their thought processes.

I had understood Ti as being deductive reasoning and explain it, in my experience, as such (though this may include Ni without me knowing it):

I am presented with info or theory x. If x were true, the consequences of x - which we will call y - would also have to be true. If x were true, the cause of x or the logical chain of events that would need to lead to x would also have to be true - we will call this z.

So if z and y seem plausible, I will accept x as probably true. However, I will also accept z and y as also probably true (or if I'm feeling quite convicted I will consider them facts). I have not looked at a book at outside data yet, so z and y are essentially the products of my own logic.

On the other side of the coin, if z or y seem implausible to me, then x cannot be true and I will dismiss it.

This is probably where Ni comes in, but I can not always explain why things are implausible, as it is like a shape in my mind or a little buzzer going off to say "inconsistency", but it can take me a while to work out what it is that feels wrong to me.

At no point do I look in a book or read the internet during this process, though if I am stumped I might do and if I'm not totally certain I will either float it with others to get more data (I want them to try and break the idea so that I can make it correct) or look on the internet to get more data. But I do not accept data in and of itself, regardless of the expertise of the source. I fit it to what seems logical to me.

Am I right to say that that is Ti?

As for Te, would Te test x? If presented with x and the Te user does not know whether or not it is true, does he do the same as me - the deductive thing - or would he test it in the real world.

So the Te scientist might run a trial and find that 98 per cent of the time x is true, so x may as well be true. If it is only true 70 per cent of the time, more testing is needed or x is false.

I would not be happy about the above logic unless I am absolutely clear on where the other two per cent went and how it works and I can understand the processes that came to that point myself. 

For instance, if something seems implausible but comes up 98 per cent true on the test, I would ask about the conditions of the test - maybe it is not that women on benefits are more likely to have larger families, maybe it is that women brought up in a socio economic environment that is more likely to eventually claim benefits are more likely to have larger families. So even though the test said as fact that 98 per cent of women on benefits have larger families than women who are not on benefits, I would argue that considering whether they are living off the state or not might not be valid, as this is may not the true cause of the larger families. I would say this because to connect being on benefits with having more children would seem implausible - simply getting a giro does not cause you to have more children - so the fact, while true, is misleading and tells us nothing.

This is not to say that tests are always incorrect - I'm just saying that I would be very bothered by that two per cent and would want to know when it isn't true in order to deduce whether the test can be trusted.

So.......have I got any of this right?

I'm really unsure about Te.

EDIT: I should add that this does not mean I never look anything up or listen to others' ideas  I'm not that irrational! I enjoy reading others' ideas and will look up facts once I've had a go at solving them myself, but I will get very frustrated if people look up the facts before coming to their own conclusions and much prefer it that way round myself - I work out how it works and then I check it, but in places were their is no measurable evidence (IMO) like social sciences (Which is what I enjoy most) you can stay completely within your own logic and make your own deductions. This often means, however, I find it difficult to read an entire essay on social science, as in the middle something will strike me and I will think - oh yeah, put the book down and finish the theory in my head because I'm suddenly quite uninterested in what the other person thought, it won't be half as interesting to me as working it out for myself and having my own ideas and opinions.


----------



## Obsidian (Aug 10, 2011)

ukinfj said:


> This is probably where Ni comes in, but I can not always explain why things are implausible, as it is like a shape in my mind or a little buzzer going off to say "inconsistency", but it can take me a while to work out what it is that feels wrong to me.


I would say this part is probably Ti -- because it is based on vague logic, rather than a concrete and easily articulable principle


----------



## Carola (Apr 26, 2011)

I think that your initial post is somewhat right.

I think , Te can be also deductive.But it is not ''pure''.Te deduction is more ' for the sake of the conclusion' then ' for the sake of logic'.
It is not important that the process is perfect: it is important that the couclusion can be reached. 

Te is less precise because it is not interested in the ''pure'' of logic , it is more likely to do statistic assumption for this reason i think.
Ti wants pure logic.


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

Obsidian said:


> I would say this part is probably Ti -- because it is based on vague logic, rather than a concrete and easily articulable principle


Ah now, I'm not sure, because Ni is characterised by its vague amorphous shapes, I think. 

But this could also be true of Ti, as it is an introverted function and may work a similar way.


----------



## Obsidian (Aug 10, 2011)

Ni is characterized by recognizing vague, amorphous _connections _and _patterns._ It's not a judging function.


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

Obsidian said:


> Ni is characterized by recognizing vague, amorphous _connections _and _patterns._ It's not a judging function.


Yes that's true. Well I don't know. To be honest, it seems to me the more I look at it that I use the same functions as the INFJ and I don't appear to be an extrovert or a thinker so that leaves only INFJ. I think my confusion over it is that thinking and feeling feel equal to me.

I still want to understand Ti, though. Perhaps it is that I use both Ni and Ti so things would seem more vague in all quarters? Although a lot of my vagueness does tend to be Ti stuff, I suppose. If someone presents to me a problem, I see the vague core underneath of it and get annoyed by others making logic among the surface aspects as if one could cause another simply because two lines correlate on a graph - see the example in the OP, although obviously that one's pretty obvious, not all are. So that does sound more Ti than Ni.

For some reason I hadn't picture Ti as vague before but I can see as you mean - would that be that little buzzer in my head then to tell me something is illogical even if I can't see what it is that is illogical about it? Is that how you experience Ti?


----------



## Obsidian (Aug 10, 2011)

Yeah, Te is inclined to say that a conclusion must be false because it violates some recognized philosophical theorem. Ti might instead sense that the theorem is flat wrong, or that it doesn't apply in this instance, for whatever reason.


----------



## luemb (Dec 21, 2010)

Ni, as an introverted "sorting" function, wants to come to "conclusions" although they are different conclusions than a judging function. It's more a feeling that something is "right" or "this is the way something is" without being able to explain why. Ni is able to subjectively, not objectively (Ne is more objective) realize and be aware that patterns exist.


----------



## Spades (Aug 31, 2011)

Hmm, interesting. I definitely see Ti in your description, but also recognize Ni.

Ti is very stubborn. It will keep trying to perfect a point, even if it shows 98% evidence (like you mentioned). Te instead, will say "okay, this is not 100% certain, but what can I _do_ with the information I have?" and acts accordingly. Te wants to make decisions, it's all about efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. It can use Ni (xNTJ) or Si (xSTJ) as a corrector when new information comes in, but the point isn't absolute truth, but usefulness.


----------



## a space whale (Jul 12, 2011)

First, if x implies y, it does NOT follow that y implies x:

ukinfj has just finished a bottle of whiskey in half an hour, and now she is drunk.

We come back a week later, and there she is again, rolling around on the floor, clearly drunk. We CANNOT (necessarily) conclude that she just drank a bottle of whiskey. Perhaps she had three bottles of beer; perhaps she only drank half a bottle of whiskey.



I used this example just a little while ago, but I think it's useful so I'll repaste: 



> a good way to tell an INTJ (Te) from an INTP (Ti) is that the INTP is the one debating with a Christian over the existence of god. They become incredulous that someone could believe in something so obviously logically false. _Perhaps logical consistency isn't the point._


But lets dig a little further. From the mature Ti perspective (as @StrixAluco pointed out to me in the other thread), when they lead through the circular reasoning involved in faith, they are not looking to catch the logical flaws or to 'win' the debate. Rather, they would like to see how the mind of the other person operates, in terms of how it logically jumps from one idea to the next.

And in reality, Te's get into stupid arguments (ones with no defined outcome) all the time. In the example above, they would push the line that belief in god has historically resulted in genocide, persecution, has been used by televangelists to get rich etc.

Finally, take a look at this thread. Test your understanding! haha see if you can judge which side is Te/Ti -- they are essentially in agreement about the facts but get into a debate anyway.


----------



## electricky (Feb 18, 2011)

a space whale said:


> Finally, take a look at this thread. Test your understanding! haha see if you can judge which side is Te/Ti -- they are essentially in agreement about the facts but get into a debate anyway.


This is pretty good as a model of the difference wink, but who is the Te side in there? The argument that looks the most like Te is probably Ti+Se, and the one that looks most Ti is from someone without a type listed. 

Did I just fail the test? 

Isn't Te the one that builds upon external objective criteria, and Ti the one making sure the meanings are correct and consistent for every word involved and such?


----------



## a space whale (Jul 12, 2011)

ElectricSparkle said:


> Te the one that builds upon external objective criteria, and Ti the one making sure the meanings are correct and consistent for every word involved


Consider, for example:



> Just by the way,
> 
> “If we don’t find Higgs then it doesn’t exist, and therefore the Standard Model is not valid”
> Prof. Shlomit Tarem, the head of the Israeli research group in LHC, Technion High Energy Experimental physicists at CERN / ATLAS
> ...


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

a space whale said:


> Consider, for example:


Hm....see, although I don't know what higgs boson is (heard of it but not into physics), what that professor says sounds like my way of thinking - i.e. if this part is not there, then the whole model is defunct and we have to start from scratch (we must not ignore any inconsistent data). 

But are you saying he uses Te? Perhaps I don't understand what you mean. 

One thing that's just come up with me and my boyfriend (pretty sure he's an ISTP) has been following instructions and I just wanted to bring this up in here to see if there's a difference here between Te and Ti.

Both me and my boyfriend have difficulty learning things from books and manuals because often it will give you step by step instructions or just tell you WHAT to do without telling you WHY you are doing it. Therefore it doesn't make logical sense (to me). I hate being taught in this way (often happens in jobs when you're learning new software grrrr!) because firstly I won't remember which button to press if I don't know why I'm pressing it and what it does and secondly, how am I to make decisions or use the software/knowledge in a useful way according to the circumstances if I do not know the principle?

At the moment, my boyfriend is learning how to develop iPhone apps (as a hobby) and he is doing exactly what I would do - watch a ton of tutorials and read a ton of instructions and try and see the connection between them. They're all step by step guides that he's seen so far so he's watching a load of step by step guides of different things so that he can work out what principle all of the individual guides are working off in order to do it himself. It just struck me that that's exactly what I would do in the situation and made me think of Ti/Te again.

So, though this may be quite separate from cognitive functions, is there a difference here for Te? I imagine everybody has to understand why they're doing something before they do it (unless they don't care about it) but would a Te user have a different way of learning from directions/instructions?

I feel I haven't made myself clear! Sorry if this was just nonsense. If what I've said is understandable, I'd love to hear from a Te user on whether you'd approach the problem the same way?


----------



## Muser (Jul 17, 2011)

What is the cognitive difference (if any) of someone who feels the need to make life/career plans so they "will get something done and have something to compare agianst" versus someone who believes that "something can easily pop up and drastically change my course in life so why plan so far ahead anyway?"


----------



## Eleventeenth (Aug 24, 2011)

It seems like the OP's description is some sort of combination of Ti and Ni. Ti seems more concrete or non-subjective than Ni to me. Like sometimes people will say things and you just know that what they are saying is NOT LOGICALLY POSSIBLE. Or that it absolutely makes no logical sense.

Like if someone says, "I can't go to the football game now because it's raining." I could infer from that statement that maybe what they mean is that they don't want to get wet or they don't like being outside when it's raining or something like that. But, logically, this statement doesn't make sense to Ti because lots of people go to football games when it's raining. So, it's like the statement does not compute. 

Person X: "I can't go to the football game now because it's raining."
Ti: "Why not? Put a raincoat on and go to the game."
Person X: "Well, what I mean is _I don't want to go to the game now that it's raining."_
Ti: "Oh, OK. Now I see what you mean. That makes more sense. You _could _go to the game, you just don't want to." 

Ti isn't really a hunch. It's more of a definite "what you just said doesn't _technically _make sense". And I'm going to keep clarifying until I understand exactly what you mean.

It's also eliminating possibilities. Like if you get a word problem: Based on the following evidence, who killed the butler? A) The maid, B) The gardener, or C) The babysitter? Well, OK, let's break this all down. Let's first look at option A. It couldn't have been the maid because blah, blah, blah. Let's eliminate her 100%. She's off the list. Now it's between B and C. It "could be" B - I see no logical reason why B should be eliminated. Now let's look at C. Oh, look - here's a flaw in the logic. It couldn't possibly be C. 100% cannot be C. Therefore, the answer MUST absolutely be B. 

If C is only 98% ruled out, then it's still very much a possibility. Ti will say, "It's most likely B, but C still has a 2% chance as well." Ti won't eliminate the possibility until it is 100% sure that the option can be eliminated.

Compared to Ti, Ni is much more connecting patterns and images and things like that.


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

Muser said:


> What is the cognitive difference (if any) of someone who feels the need to make life/career plans so they "will get something done and have something to compare agianst" versus someone who believes that "something can easily pop up and drastically change my course in life so why plan so far ahead anyway?"


Don't take my word for this but having something to compare against sounds quite Te - monitoring, measuring progress according to eternal factors like time taken or how well compared with others. Making life and career plans, I'm not sure. I do that and when I first came here I thought that was an NJ thing (future+doing) but I think it's a bit more complex than that and I'm sure a lot of P types also makes plans for the future - perhaps it depends how meticulously or why you're doing it?

As for something can easily pop up and change my life - that sounds like Ne (seeing many possibilities), but again, in isolation we can't be completely sure. It depends why, really, and also what the person is like in other aspects.


----------



## Muser (Jul 17, 2011)

ukinfj said:


> Don't take my word for this but having something to compare against sounds quite Te - monitoring, measuring progress according to eternal factors like time taken or how well compared with others. Making life and career plans, I'm not sure. I do that and when I first came here I thought that was an NJ thing (future+doing) but I think it's a bit more complex than that and I'm sure a lot of P types also makes plans for the future - perhaps it depends how meticulously or why you're doing it?
> 
> As for something can easily pop up and change my life - that sounds like Ne (seeing many possibilities), but again, in isolation we can't be completely sure. It depends why, really, and also what the person is like in other aspects.


Thanks for such a thoughtful response, ukinfj.


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

@Eleventeenth That's very interesting, thank you. So the fact that I literally look for the big picture rather than sticking to info x would be Ni? The fact I don't remain on the information given but rather judge it by its logical implications and logical starting point - see the entire picture in my mind and then intuit the bits that are missing. <<<That's the easiest way I can put this. I tend to put the information into some kind of context, I think, so that the whole picture is available. This is all quite automatic so I can't describe exactly what I do I'm afraid, what I just said was an assumption of what I MUST do, but what I'm definitely very aware of is noticing that there is some missing from the picture. I don't get a vivid image or a model to look at, it is like a shape in my mind, but I experience it as if you've got a square peg and a round hole and you're bashing them together! It's is a gut reaction far more than a logical process as it can take me a while to work out what's wrong with what I have been told. But I will know pretty much immediately that it's wrong.

Does this mean that Ti is aware before Ni is aware? I get the warning - something wrong - and I am very conscious of that, but the actual seeing the picture and deciphering the missing piece (understanding what piece is missing) can take a long while. So is Ti saying "Something wrong" and Ni going "wait a minute! Not there yet!" and failing to provide all of the data I need quickly enough?


----------



## Eleventeenth (Aug 24, 2011)

ukinfj said:


> @_Eleventeenth_ That's very interesting, thank you. So the fact that I literally look for the big picture rather than sticking to info x would be Ni? The fact I don't remain on the information given but rather judge it by its logical implications and logical starting point - see the entire picture in my mind and then intuit the bits that are missing. <<<That's the easiest way I can put this. I tend to put the information into some kind of context, I think, so that the whole picture is available. This is all quite automatic so I can't describe exactly what I do I'm afraid, what I just said was an assumption of what I MUST do, but what I'm definitely very aware of is noticing that there is some missing from the picture. I don't get a vivid image or a model to look at, it is like a shape in my mind, but I experience it as if you've got a square peg and a round hole and you're bashing them together! It's is a gut reaction far more than a logical process as it can take me a while to work out what's wrong with what I have been told. But I will know pretty much immediately that it's wrong.
> 
> Does this mean that Ti is aware before Ni is aware? I get the warning - something wrong - and I am very conscious of that, but the actual seeing the picture and deciphering the missing piece (understanding what piece is missing) can take a long while. So is Ti saying "Something wrong" and Ni going "wait a minute! Not there yet!" and failing to provide all of the data I need quickly enough?


I started a thread in the INTJ forum just yesterday about the nature of Ni and the INTJ's gave some very good, descriptive answers - that might help you. I think I called the thread "Question about Ni". That might provide some clarity for you.

The vague images you're seeing - that's Ni. I don't really relate to that as a Ti-user. 

It's hard for me to answer your questions - I know how I use Ti, but it's hard for me to distinguish between your Ni and your Ti other than to say that Ni is more "vague" (images, etc.), while Ti seems much more clear and logical (concrete, definite) to the person using it. Ti (coupled with Ne) still sees "the big picture" - INTP's are very much big picture thinkers - I'm not sure how it plays out with Ni and Ti interacting with each other. When I'm concentrated on small little details, that can probably be Si as well. But, yes, Ti is able (if I want it to) to narrow in on some small part of the whole. Like say I'm reading a book or the newspaper. I'm thinking about the WHOLE picture - the whole topic that I'm reading about, but while I'm reading it, if there is a small typo or a small inconsistency/contradiction, it stands out very clearly to me. Or if someone says to me in January, "I like cats." And then in November (10 months later), they say "I don't really like cats", then there will be a blip on the Ti radar screen. Because both statements cannot logically be true. Either you like them, or you don't. What happened to change your mind? Or maybe you were drunk in January when you said that. Or whatever. 

See the difference? It's not vague at all, like Ni. It's much more clear and definite. Person X _clearly _doesn't know what they are talking about. Person Y _definitely _isn't speaking logically. Answer C can _definitely _be 100% eliminated from this multiple choice question - it can't possibly be the answer. Grammatically, there should _definitely _be a comma between those 2 words, etc, etc.

Another stupid example that will often drive Ti people crazy. Something that just "doesn't make sense" - even if it's something stupid and small. Like say you're driving down the road and the driver in front of you turns on his left blinker, but proceeds to make a right lane change. Those things hit the Ti radar big time. Logically, it's just wierd. It's strange. It doesn't make sense. Why would someone do that? Are they asleep at the wheel? But, it's clear - it's definite.

Or if someone says, "I don't like politician X because he's bald." Well, OK, but logically that's just stupid. His baldness, 99% of the time should have no effect on his work. I say 99% because maybe he's bald due to cancer and might die soon - then that would be an exception, even though it's still not really a reason to not like the guy. It's about logical consistency - finding what makes sense and what does not make sense. I'm using really silly examples here, but we are able to see the inconsistencies even in very complex conversations/books/articles - and we're able to reference it back against past information. Like I can read a scholarly article today and think to myself, "That totally contradicts what my college professor told me 10 years ago. Hmmm, I wonder which person is right and which is wrong. Let me look into this so that I can find the real truth." But, again, see how it's not vague? It's not "images". It's a clear, definite inconsistency.

These silly examples happen all the time with SF types, for example. Not picking on them, they're lovely people. But, SF's say stuff all the time that makes no logical sense whatsoever. And it drives us mad. 

Ti is also learning information at light speed. Getting interested in a new topic and reading/learning everything I can feverishly until I have a grasp of the material. It could be 1 hour, it could be 3 weeks - depends on how interesting the topic is, and how vast the material is. If it's a really interesting topic, it sort of consumes me and Ti is like hypnotized by it - it thinks about that topic day and night. The very minute I wake up in the morning, I'll be fixated on it and might forget to eat breakfast. Wake up, start reading right away. 

Hope all this helps.


----------



## ukinfj (Apr 15, 2011)

@Eleventeenth That's very helpful indeed, thank you. You can see your Si working in there too  (being able to relate new material to material seen in the past and notice changes). 

I'm not as into details and tend not to care about the correctness of things like grammar so long as the text is still readable (which is not good in my job, where I am writing and sub-edited every day.....). but what I do recognise is that Ti obsessiveness you describe at the end. That is very much like me. Once a topic has interested me, it will take over my mind to some extent, I will wake up thinking about it and it'll keep me awake at night. I do get obsessively interested in a subject, but I guess the difference is that I don't really read up on it exactly. I do a little bit, but I tend to not be completely interested in what other people have said. I grab the raw data I suppose - I try to get a grasp of what is already known about a subject but once I feel I have enough material, I put the books away or shut my browser and from then on I'm working on it in my mind. So perhaps that is the Ni part - I rely heavily on my own imagination and personal logic to work things out and get a very clear and seemingly accurate sense of the subject I am concentrating on. This does lead me to suddenly say to somebody "you know photons - they're not actually shiny are they? That's interesting because our experience of the world corrupts what is actually true. We can not describe light as shiny, because it isn't, it is just an illusion created by photons hitting our retina. So there is absolutely nothing about light that is actually shiny or bright. Just as sound does not exist - vibrations exist. Sound is just a translation of vibrations so its illusory - so if a tree falls in the middle of the forest and there's no one there, it really definitely doesn't make a sound." 

I write that because I feel that what I tend to do over and over again is separate things that have been "needlessly" connected to other things but which are not true in and of themselves - what I do in my mind over and over again, and with each subject I come across, is break it down to its smallest parts and question the validity of everything and my own experience of the world - which must be "corrupted" (not accurate) because of the workings of consciousness itself - which is necessarily subjective. So that tends to be the way I see everything. This has confused me quite a lot when looking at typology - because that breaking down seems to fit Ti - it digs deeper until it finds the smallest principle from which to work - is this correct? Ni tries to see different perspectives on everything, but my experience of Ni and Ti is that the topic is broken into its smallest parts (as much as possible) and these parts are dealt with like principles that are connected. For example, I have written this somewhere else, but I will see the universality between starlings, shoals of fish and the crowd effect in a theatre. This interests me *because it is the same*. I break those processes down into the smallest component and decide in quite an abstract way that I'm afraid I can't put into words at the moment but I'll try and think of a way to do, and then I see that smallest component as an underlying principle that is universal throughout the world. Now that I have done that, starlings and shoals or fish and the crowd effect and mob culture and society itself in every way is the same - by the smallest principle from which consequences arise and behaviour is sourced, the social world (whether with pack animals or humans - but not with solitary animals in this case) are the same. 

So do you see Ni working in there? I find it very difficult to separate Ni from Ti and I have always wondered which function it is that leads me to be far more interested in similarities than differences. To me, differences tell us nothing (unless they are breaking the theory, and then they tell us everything and can be used as leverage to make the theory correct) but in the end, the state of affairs I aim for, is for consistency across the board - and by across the board, I may as well just mean the whole world. I seek universality and I prefer to see everything as a symbiotic system as every process informs another. Is that universality Ni do you think?


----------

