Ti's and Te's and Trees

[Siúil a Rúin]

I'll look up some links as well, but for some reason the distinction between these two is not entirely clear to me. Anyone have a good handle on it? Fi-Fe and Si-Se make sense, but the Ni-Ne and Ti-Te bit, not so much for some reason.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'll look up some links as well, but for some reason the distinction between these two is not entirely clear to me. Anyone have a good handle on it? Fi-Fe and Si-Se make sense, but the Ni-Ne and Ti-Te bit, not so much for some reason.

I have covered the Ni-Ne thing elsewhere a few times, as I saw it from Lenore Thomson and a few others; but maybe I was not as clear as could be, or some other person needs to give their perspective.

Ti-Te seems very clear to me. If you understand Fi-Fe, that helps.

• Fi = internal personal values, the subjective valuing of things, drives behavior from inside
• Fe = external personal values, the "rules" that have been designated by society to express internal motivations and maintain outer relationships.

So Ti and Te are similar, just in the impersonal vein.

• Ti = internal structure/essence/definition of things, like the bare-bones conceptual outline of 'truth' about things
• Te = the external structuring of things in a way that makes them work most correctly and efficiently and effectively, that still ends up reflecting their inner truth.

Put another way:

• Ti and Fi make decisions about the internal organization (i.e., categorization and nature) of things
• Te and Fe make decisions about the external organization (i.e., how they are assembled and implemented) of things.

Note that Fi and Fe have some overlap -- the personal values are reflected in the social values and vice versa, they are not clearly separate from each other but overlap each other. And Ti and Te are the same way -- the essence of what something is impacts how it needs to be best implemented, and the ways that things are best implemented says things about their inner "true" natures.

 

[ptgatsby]

I'll look up some links as well, but for some reason the distinction between these two is not entirely clear to me. Anyone have a good handle on it? Fi-Fe and Si-Se make sense, but the Ni-Ne and Ti-Te bit, not so much for some reason.

It's harder to see what we are... which is ironic, because we never really know what the other is like. It's just easy to assume what it is like!

I'm not sure if this will help you, but Ti and Te might help... And here is Ni and Ne.

The easiest ways to explain them is that T is the decision making process based upon order. Ti orders concepts internally... how things fit together conceptually. Te orders concepts externally... bring order to the world.

N is relatively easy to explain once the basic "intuitive" mind is understood. Ns are the ones that see things that don't exist in the present. When they see trees, they don't see a tree... they see what the tree represents, how it will grow, what it will become, how it will affect the land around it. For Ns, nothing is just "an apple", we are driven to see more than just that. Nis project into the way the world 'should' be... an internal version of how things can become. Nes see the world as it will become.

Hence you get Te-Ni, which are the law makers, the shapers, the leaders (ENTJs)... and you get the INTJs that are the visionaries, the drivers. On the flipside you get the ENTPs, the dreamers and inventors... and the INTPs, the philosophers and theorists.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

So Ti and Te are similar, just in the impersonal vein.

• Ti = internal structure/essence/definition of things, like the bare-bones conceptual outline of 'truth' about things
• Te = the external structuring of things in a way that makes them work most correctly and efficiently and effectively, that still ends up reflecting their inner truth.

Put another way:

• Ti and Fi make decisions about the internal organization (i.e., categorization and nature) of things
• Te and Fe make decisions about the external organization (i.e., how they are assembled and implemented) of things.

So is Ti most likely to know the name of every wildflower, or remember every opus number and such things? There is something I dramatically lack when processing information, and it has to do with categorization and labeling. I do love to organize things externally, but I'm hopeless with labels. It was my biggest challenge getting through grad school. I loved discussing stylistic evolution or dating a piece on hearing it, but naming pieces on hearing them? No thank you. I also love organizing sounds based on an inner vision, but once again, the less they are labeled in my mind, the easier they are to work with. Is that Ti or Te?

The easiest ways to explain them is that T is the decision making process based upon order. Ti orders concepts internally... how things fit together conceptually. Te orders concepts externally... bring order to the world.

I'm really thinking I'm Te. Sometimes it's hard to tell over the internet, but my concept of order is external. My mind is like a tornado slide. Whee!

N is relatively easy to explain once the basic "intuitive" mind is understood. Ns are the ones that see things that don't exist in the present. When they see trees, they don't see a tree... they see what the tree represents, how it will grow, what it will become, how it will affect the land around it. For Ns, nothing is just "an apple", we are driven to see more than just that. Nis project into the way the world 'should' be... an internal version of how things can become. Nes see the world as it will become.

I'm a rather strong N. This is how I see a tree

 

[ptgatsby]

I'm a rather strong N. This is how I see a tree

Awesome analogy then

It makes you sound very INTP. I can't picture a Ni-Te saying anything like that easily... certainly not easily and willingly. (I'm trying to picture my GF saying this and I'm cracking up!)

 

[wildcat]

The S/N dichotomy does not affect the dichotomy of Extraversion. These are basically separate processes even when they coexist.

There is always the standpoint of E. E is subdivided in impulsiveness and activity. These are separate processes.

From the standpoint of E, P is impulsiveness and J is activity.

E does not divide between N and S nor between T and F but only between J and P.

Therefore from the standpoint of the J/P dichotomy of E, N does not differ from S; or T from F. E in this sense is colour blind.

Ne/Se = impulsion = P
Te/Fe = activity = J

Ni/Si is not E. It is the exact opposite. Ni/Si is stable.
Ti/Fi is not E. It is the exact opposite. Ti/Fi is non-active.

 

[Totenkindly]

So is Ti most likely to know the name of every wildflower, or remember every opus number and such things?

I wouldn't say that -- those are very specific details. Knowing the "essence/ nature" of something is different than accumulating lots of details.

Ti collects details, then crunches through them and spits out the conceptual truth/framework that connects them all.

So while I have a good memory (well, I did before I stopped sleeping!) and often accumulated lots of details, trivia or otherwise, I am very aware that my mental process is one that searches out the details, coaxes out the patterns / underlying concepts, then throws out the detail.

(So it is very frustrating to me when I get into a Te style argument -- I have to research the topic all over again! All I have in my head are the conclusions and underlying concepts, and if someone wants me to explain everything, I often have to go back and recreate my process.)

There is something I dramatically lack when processing information, and it has to do with categorization and labeling. I do love to organize things externally, but I'm hopeless with labels. It was my biggest challenge getting through grad school. I loved discussing stylistic evolution or dating a piece on hearing it, but naming pieces on hearing them? No thank you. I also love organizing sounds based on an inner vision, but once again, the less they are labeled in my mind, the easier they are to work with. Is that Ti or Te?

I'm not sure what all that is. I will have to think about it.

See, discussing stylistic evolution or dating a piece on hearing uses more Ti -- you're describing a process for the first, and for the second you are discerning the pattern in something based on reducing it to its core elements, then comparing it to other known patterns. (Does that make sense?)

Te is much more like library science, lab research, the scientific process, the skills that mechanical engineers use, or an electrician uses, and so forth. Practical mathematical equations -- accounting, bookkeeping, number-crunching, engineering / science experiments with quantifications -- fall into that category as well.

(I find doing math computations boring, the conceptual math is more interesting, for example!) It's also like people who love to create theories, versus people who like to implement/use theories to organize and do things.

Imagine a lab technician, who uses high-tech equipment to examine and study forensic evidence. A Te person does very well in that environment. A Ti is less concerned about the outer process and sometimes would get frustrated because the process is so exact and rigorous and all about the external concretes.

Awesome analogy then It makes you sound very INTP. I can't picture a Ni-Te saying anything like that easily... certainly not easily and willingly. (I'm trying to picture my GF saying this and I'm cracking up!)

But I could see an INFJ saying it.

For an INTJ, it is far too personal and organic. (either that, or they are wasted/drunk off their gourd!)

 

[Natrushka]

PT and Jen, thanks for the excellent explanations.

 

[ptgatsby]

But I could see an INFJ saying it.

For an INTJ, it is far too personal and organic. (either that, or they are wasted/drunk off their gourd!)

That wouldn't be Ni-Te though Perhaps a better way of putting it is that I'm not sure any Te dominant would think this way... But a lot of that has to do with what wildcat said - Te doesn't bother with trying to build that kind of framework around something so mundane. I'm not so sure Fe would tend to do it either... Dominant Nis, especially in cases where the P/J isn't well defined, could do this normally as well.

If I bring up the concept of a tree with my GF (INTJ), it's more like... Tree? Has bugs. I hate bugs. I hate tree... Tree? It's hot. Tree offer shade. I like tree. It's still different than the S version of Tree? What kind of tree? Is it healthy? How much folliage coverage is there? I got that from my parents...

But when you talk to an INTP... it's more like Tree? I love nature. Nature is solitude, it connects us. We all need it. It's so peaceful.

 

[Natrushka]

Tree, it's a good home for the birds, if it's big enough, it might need water if it's the idiot neighbours across the street, it's going to help keep the house cool in the summer and all that privacy in the winter (it's obviously a blue spruce!). I'm going to have to get more blood and bone meal, this weekend, and the hydrangea that's going in will need to be 10 feet further away, because this sucker is going to get hyouge.

 

[ptgatsby]

Tree, it's a good home for the birds, if it's big enough, it might need water if it's the idiot neighbours across the street, it's going to help keep the house cool in the summer and all that privacy in the winter (it's obviously a blue spruce!). I'm going to have to get more blood and bone meal, this weekend, and the hydrangea that's going in will need to be 10 feet further away, because this sucker is going to get hyouge.

Perfect

 

[Totenkindly]

Blatting about Trees

The tree is part of nature. The tree is towering and green and complex and budding, it dances in the organized chaos of the wind currents in some pattern I can sense but cannot fully articulate, itself a beautiful fractal starting from the trunk and webbing upward and outward.

I climbed the tree as a child, feeling the breeze caress me, I remember the branches swaying under my feet as I clambered up, feeling my way and intuiting what branches would snap and which ones would not, and where I should place my feel for the safest hold, for a brief time the tree and I were symbiotic along with the wind, moving as one, reacting to each other. I cannot explain, I can only remember, but the interaction was rational and fathomable even if it was too complicated to express.

The tree is hoary and old, ancient wisdom, with far too many rings to count, it has seen histories and years I can only imagine, a living calendar of the world through which it has grown. The rings talk to me, tell a tale of drought and flood, good soil and sandy soil, storm and sun. I wonder if the trees talk to each other. They seem to, but I cannot be sure because I cannot actually hear them... but they dance together as if perfectly choreographed, reacting to each other's movements as one. Balanced -- perfectly balanced, preserving the equilibrium.

I wonder if the roots go as deeply as the branches go up, curling down to the earth's core and clenching it firmly, anchoring itself. Technically they do not, I know that, but the metaphysics of being anchored in the system? In that sense, everything is woven into everything else....

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I especially like your tree description, Jennifer. This is really fascinating to have different types describe a tree. I hope this trend continues. It is somehow riveting. Maybe I'll add it to the title.

If I bring up the concept of a tree with my GF (INTJ), it's more like... Tree? Has bugs. I hate bugs. I hate tree... Tree? It's hot. Tree offer shade. I like tree. It's still different than the S version of Tree? What kind of tree? Is it healthy? How much folliage coverage is there? I got that from my parents...

I don't see a difference between that and a Sensor except one is asking questions and personalizing it while the other makes concrete observations. Hers sounds like an SJ, while your description of the Sensor sounds more like an SP. Is she a strong N?

It's my hunch that many Ss test as Ns.

 

[Totenkindly]

yes, we can have a "TREE" thread!

(I like the title change, btw -- i had a pleased little laugh when I read it. : ) )

 

[ptgatsby]

I don't see a difference between that and a Sensor except one is asking questions and personalizing it while the other makes concrete observations. Hers sounds like an SJ, while your description of the Sensor sounds more like an SP. Is she a strong N?

She's not strongly N over S... in terms of FFM (population), she's more open than about 60% of the population... She's never formally taken the MBTI (I or II).

I was paraphrasing quite a bit though. What I was implying was that the Ni tends to see things as use, or how it affects them. It represents influence outside of what it is (not as concrete details, but influences of the tree). The NP is driven to see what the tree reflects in other things. Trees are related to nature, nature to us, us to the tree... it's a mystical form of treeism, if you will. NTJs just don't think that way... not that they can't, MBTI being preferences and all that, but they just don't.

The S answers towards plants are far more technical. For example, my parents are master gardeners... You talk to my mom (ISFp) about a plant and you get only two conversations: the technical conditions for it to grow (this is her SJ side) and the "it's so pretty", which is far more SP.

For example, she'll have picked some flowers and the first thing she'll say to us is "Don't they smell nice?" or "Aren't they pretty?". The first thing I think of, if I think of them at all, is that it's a shame they were cut and put on table to wilt and die... and often I wonder if there is any real significance to their life - why not let them serve as an attraction, to bring meaning to their life.

My GF doesn't care... at all. She doesn't care what they look like, she doesn't care what I think about them or any of that fluff stuff. She (more SJ) does care that flowers are brought to the hospital (Si and Ni connection in how it serves them) and she (more NJ) does care that she can manipulate people through token gifts (exerting influence through her actions in flowers, therefore caring what the flowers are like. The significance is "at a distance" and not readily apparent).

It's my hunch that many Ss test as Ns.

Heh, then there are very very few "real" Ns

 

[Natrushka]

I don't see a difference between that and a Sensor except one is asking questions and personalizing it while the other makes concrete observations. Hers sounds like an SJ, while your description of the Sensor sounds more like an SP. Is she a strong N?

It's my hunch that many Ss test as Ns.

green leaves, lush foilage, vshaped branches, trunk, which is strong and tall, majestic, root system holding it all in place.

That's my husband on "a tree" - ISTJ.

 

[Totenkindly]

The NP is driven to see what the tree reflects in other things. Trees are related to nature, nature to us, us to the tree... it's a mystical form of treeism, if you will.

All bow down to the Tree! The Tree is as One!
(well, only if you want to. I think.)

For example, she'll have picked some flowers and the first thing she'll say to us is "Don't they smell nice?" or "Aren't they pretty?". The first thing I think of, if I think of them at all, is that it's a shame they were cut and put on table to wilt and die... and often I wonder if there is any real significance to their life - why not let them serve as an attraction, to bring meaning to their life.

Oh dear. That sounds far too familiar.

As an odd tangent, the older I get, the less I like to "kill" things. Even if it's plants. I'll still pull weeds and mow the yard, but for things like this I'd rather let them stay where they are. (When I was younger, I used to have no real qualms, but now it's like everything is part of an interlocking system and I just don't like disrupting it.)

 

[Natrushka]

As an odd tangent, the older I get, the less I like to "kill" things. Even if it's plants. I'll still pull weeds and mow the yard, but for things like this I'd rather let them stay where they are. (When I was younger, I used to have no real qualms, but now it's like everything is part of an interlocking system and I just don't like disrupting it.)

Yes, definitely, with the exception of mosquitos and slugs. I like to take my salt shaker to the garden when I go slug hunting.

 

[ptgatsby]

All bow down to the Tree! The Tree is as One!
(well, only if you want to. I think.)

As an odd tangent, the older I get, the less I like to "kill" things. Even if it's plants. I'll still pull weeds and mow the yard, but for things like this I'd rather let them stay where they are. (When I was younger, I used to have no real qualms, but now it's like everything is part of an interlocking system and I just don't like disrupting it.)

I'm not sure that works for me and plants. I am a one man destroyer of plant life. I hate gardening with such a passion that I actually use to sneak out of the house to rip apart plants. My parents used me to deforest - and I use that term literally - groves of their banana plants. I use to take this wicked looking serrated pruning saw and hack them into literal mulch. It became a challenge to see how fast I could destroy any semblance of a living plant. It got so bad that as the alpha of our pet dog, the dog actually started to emulate me. Of which, btw, there is nothing cuter than a dog ripping apart a 10 inch thick banana stalk as the owner is literally jumping up on down on it.

I was somewhat traumatized as far as plants go, as you can tell.

So when I talk about INTPs and plants, I'm so not talking about me. I'm more likely to pour draino into the flower vase than I am to feel bad for them.

(This strange warping is rather unusual... I still love nature and use to sit under trees for the entire day reading or thinking. I love hiking and I love going to the national parks, including flower parts. But when I visit my parents, my only thoughts on the garden is how to flatten and salt their land.)

If you need a form of evil personified, I'm sure the trees would agree that I'd be appropriate. I'd be the devil to your treenity anyday.

 

[cafe]

Oh! Oh! I wanna play!

Trees: I never thought that much about trees until I moved out west. In North Dakota, the part where I lived, the prairie rolled, covered in tall grass and dotted with small, gnarled cottonwoods. The only trees besides those were planted trees. I was surprised to find that every autumn I became homesick for trees of all things.

Where I'm from, trees grow like weeds. If you don't want them, you have to keep them cut back. It's as if the land remembers that it was once forest and is eager to return to that state. In the autumn they are brilliant. Gold, browns, reds. The air is crisp and the sky is unusually clear and blue. The contrast is pretty breathtaking.

I love that scene and think it's beautiful, but leaving it and missing it showed me that it is more than something nice to look at, it's a part of me. Trees are tied to my sense of happiness and well-being. Without them the landscape feels stark and robbed and lonely to me. I feel uprooted and displaced.