Cognitive Functions - Te vs Ti

As always with these types of videos, don't take it as exhaustive, it's simply whichever thoughts about these functions were in my head at the time of filming. I'll revisit all of them many times ~ Nathan

The way I prefer to think of it is - Ti is True/False logic, and Te is Pass/Fail logic. One is concerned with precision and the whole truth at the expense of efficiency while the other is concerned with the good enough at the expense of precision.

Te says "Get it done quickly" Ti says "Get it done properly"

As a Ti Dom(INTP), I am incredibly grateful to my current math teacher for allowing us to use whichever methods we are comfortable with on tests, mainly because some higher level problems require some deeper thinking as well as having many possible paths. Of course, it's important to learn the "standard" way of doing it, but he constantly emphasizes the fact that there's no one "correct" way to solve a problem. He gives us full credit if we can show how our solution is logically sound even if he's never seen someone solve it in that way. On a different note, it's important to note that even though some methods are objectively more efficient than others in that they take less steps, someone might be faster(and more accurate) with a "less efficient" method if they're used to using it compared to a new shortcut that they just learned.

"Ti gives suggestions, Te gives directions". Love that! As an INFJ, I'm becoming frustrated by my Te in the trickster slot, and wanting to utilize it more. Thanks for sharing your insight Nathan.

Even being an INFP I can constantly feel my inferior Te screaming to me, demanding me to do more actual stuff. "Get shit done" is something constantly on my lips. I do see my INTP friends prefer being accurate than being productive, and sometimes their logic is so bizarre that I find it hard to reconcile with. Well, as long as it works!

It sounds almost too obvious, but as a Te dom, I just HAVE to talk or after a while I almost can't function. ISTP's Ti and Se might be similar in some ways, but they are just so silent compared to Te doms... My INTP son can go whole days practically without saying anything. I find it astounding. To me it's like the thinking is all shared. I want to know what other people think and I want them to know what I think. In that regard I think Te and Fe have more in common than one might think at first glance. Whereas the Ti people are so private about their thoughts, like INFPs about their feelings. Another great video.

To me, being in the same room with a Te dominant feels like standing in front of a bulldozer. You WILL be put to work on whatever it is they are doing (whether you want to or not), and you will be doing it their way, because they don't have the time or inclination to stand around talking about ideas. I think the phrase, "Sometimes wrong, but never in doubt," was coined about extroverted thinkers.

Always getting into trouble here, questioning Te bosses methods. “but this is we’ve always done it and it’s worked so far” 🙄 - ISTP

That last part was soooo accurate, I'm an ENTP so Ti who takes A level maths and I always get told how I'm doing a different method, often being told I'm overly complicating something unnecessarily

I can relate to what you said about your INTJ piano student. I’m like that with writing. I research so much about methods, rules, etc and plan the characters, the world and the story for so long that I sometimes never even start writing the actual story, and if I do, it’s a long time after I first came up with the idea of it. It’s because that when I start writing, I want it to go as efficiently as possible. I don’t want to stop writing once I’ve started because there’s an error in the plot or because my writing feels wrong.

T is just T - reasons, logic, how something works as opposed to how it feels emotionally (F). The main difference is that Ti is focused and goes deeper, stacking many logical steps on top of each other. Te is more diffuse, with a broader focus and therefore less deep, like the difference between a laser beam and a flashlight. One isn't inherently better than the other, it depends on what you need them for. The other difference is perspective. Ti has a first person perspective and Te is more like a third person perspective. Te users feel like their own logic is incomplete without the input of others which makes them well suited to working in teams and committees but they are likely to feel lost on their own. Ti users want to focus their thoughts and are likely to find other people's perspectives to be superfluous which gives them an advantage when working alone but they risk coming up with solutions that are rejected by others because they are too hard to understand or out of tune with what people want.

I think Te also is generally open to hearing how things are done in different places, and hearing the logic behind different mindsets/approaches that people have. They'll want to keep these separate, as "this is how x people do this, this is how y people logic out that," and use different "systems" of logic depending on the location/situation/context. Meanwhile, a Ti will try to find a one-size-fits-all method

Great series on comparing functions, would like to hear Fi/Fe Another concept that I’d like to hear about is how the types use shadow functions. How would the ENTJ unconscious show up for INTP, or how would a Ti user incorporate Te? I don’t think these inferior functions are always used in a negative way.

"Not because it's more accurate, but simply beacuse that is its intention.". This is an amazing statement! Loved it.

My mother has no Ti in her OS. It is highly frustrating for me living with her because of her lack of sound logic when doing things. Her feet is terribly deformed because for years she would buy $1 used sneakers 2 sizes too big from garage sale to wear at work, standing and walking for 14 hours a day 6 days a week. Her reason? Saving money and easy slip on and off. My approach on foot health was researching on picking the right footwear during my decades of running, hiking, and mountaineering. I knew I couldn’t buy the cheapest shoes. My feet’s long term health is worth investing and replacing shoes.

"accuracy vs effectiveness", well said! I now have language to describe this concept. Nathan, thank-you!

As an INTP and so Ti dom, I'm honestly not the greatest in taking instructions and advice, to learn things I have to mull and process them myself to figure out how to do things. But with my Ne I do absorb all kind of tidbit ideas from my surroundings and form some odd methods to do things (which makes it kinda embarrassing to having to explain my sources of decision-making..."I was reading this book about magic tricks and it made me think that we need to reorganize our company web page"...yeah, I know I sound like a crazy person when I do that which is why I might be vague about explaining myself) I'd guess my mother to be ISTJ: her judgments are more based on thinking than feeling, but she readily asks for advice and relies on opinions of people she deems trustworthy (as well as things that have always worked, of course) which to me spells out Te.

I'm an INTP. I remember taking math in elementary school and getting in trouble for solving a problem my way and told it was wrong because we had to do it a more clumsy way. A week later we'd learn to do it my way. When I'd ask why it was wrong last week, I'd be told that it we didn't do it the other way first we wouldn't understand the foundation of how we got to it, which I had proven wasn't true as the second way was obviously superior. That's why answers are all that matter to me. Showing your work is like frustrating make work to prevent originality of thought.

An ESFP vs ENFP video would be great. I think it can be tricky sometimes for people to tell the difference between these two types because Ne and Se as dominant functions can, at a superficial level and without knowing the person very well, both be somewhat camouflaged by their chaotic natures, especially when Fi is shouting directions from the passenger side.