*** WARNING: This post contains very lengthy, unedited, rambling, controversial, and hypothetical viewpoints about the ideas of other forum members. No offense is meant here; this thread is merely one person's digesting of what other people have said. It is an attempt to hone in on some of the central "unique" ideas that are associated with various forum members, and to find a common thread...some might say a rather bizarre and completely coincidental common thread... ***
Expat: While Expat has contributed a number of ideas, among the most unique is that there are a lot of people whose main emphasis appears to be Ti who are nevertheless IEI. This seems to solve the very common question "How I can identify so much with Ip, N, and Ti?" Expat tends to see many of these people as obstinate, although that may be an expression of his "supervisor" relationship with IEI. While this theory is useful in typing people in person who clearly show signs of Ni and Ip temperament, it may be more problemmatic online when any such indications are ambiguous. Interestingly, it seems that the sort of "unflinching" behavior that some people thought related to Ij temperament may be similar to the sort of "obstinate" behavior that Expat sees as indicating a Ti-focused IEI. Another question is whether some Ni types who seem to "give off Ti" may really be some sort of extreme Ni subtype of ILI. Nevertheless, the recognition of the IEI/Ti type as a particular kind of intellectual personality may be an important contribution. Perhaps more effort could be given to fleshing out what IEI-Ti types are like, and particularly high-functioning ones (not just the "obstinate" sort). It should be noted that despite Expat's apparent strong lack of acceptance/interest in Tcaud's theories, his ideas strongly parallel Tcaud's earlier conception of NiTi types. Even Expat's description of what he sees as the IEI/Ti's dysfunctional behaviors, particularly with regard to Te, seems similar to Tcaud's idea regarding undifferentiation of Je.
hitta: Hitta's system involves a number of hypotheses, but among the most interesting is the extension of Gulenko's "+/-" dimension in a way in which it seems close to "values/devalues," leading to what we might call the "left-shifting hypothesis" whereby each type seems at times "almost" like the type immediately to its left. While hitta doesn't fully postulate a complete theory of "left-shifting," his descriptions of LIIs focused on "unconditional love" and IEEs being mainly practical types show the influence of left-shifting. Unfortunately, the dynamic between hitta and the rest of the forum has eliminated any sort of objective discussion of how to test for evidence of left-shifting, etc. Some evidence could be found. One admittedly highly speculative example is that Rachmaninoff, who many Socionist consider LII in person, often wrote music that seems to evoke an Fi sense of interpersonal relationships. If we go further out on a limb here, we might even consider that some of the several people on the forum who insist that they're ILI but seem to Expat (and now some others) to be IEI are in fact "left-shifted" ILIs...that is, that their crea-Te, being "-Te," is an emphasized function that nevertheless exists to "protect" and eventually lead toward +Fe. This also leads to the question about whether the degree of "+" and "-" (and hence the degree of left shifting) may differ among individuals.
Smilex: Smilex's approach involved emphasis on Reinin dichotomies and the belief that types represent states of mind rather than stable, unchanging aspects of the personality. Unlike others who, like him, talk about type change and shifting among type "states," Smilex believed that type shifting is mostly within a temperament...especially involving shifting to the type immediately to the left or to the right. Among his most unusual ideas was that the process/result dichotomy led to an altered relationship between the accepting and producing functions. In process types, this relationship would be more or less as described by Augusta: One starts with the accepting function and seeks to "produce" a result in the space of the producing function. But a result type would "start" with the producing function in some manner. Interestingly, if one considers the "+/-" thing, this is equivalent to saying that one will start with whichever function in the ego block has a + sign. Hence, one will start with whatever function the type to one's left starts with; this could be seen as yet another form of the left-shifting hypothesis, although admittedly that's probably twisting it a bit past what Smilex had in mind.
Tcaud: Despite having a reputation for pushing "far out" theories, Tcaud's researches are based on very basic, understandable extensions to Socionics. Initially, he attempted to flesh out Jung's conception of "undifferentiation." Later, he experimented with functional patterns that broke the rules of which IM elements can be blocked together. This theory was itself related to undifferentiation. For example, the NiTi type (I think he called them "INxp" or "INTx," but those notations seem ambiguous) would have undifferentiated Je. More recently, he has explored the idea that the information aspects may play different roles in different dimensions, or aspects, of the personality. For example, if viewed "in one way," a person may be one type, but if the information aspects were applied to another aspect, that person may be a completely different type. (Although this process could involve many different types for the same person, Tcaud has stuck with two.) This idea seems potentially promising as a way to explain contradictions people experience...for example, one may ask "Why is it that I identify functionally with this type, but all my interests line up completely with a different quadra?" While this is a promising idea, the sticking point for most people has been the difficulty regarding how one might be able to relate type-related clues to each of the two aspects, which he refers to as information "metabolism" and "exertion." Suppose, for example, we're trying to figure out if someone is type A or type B. We look at the person's behavior, speech, etc. Perhaps some things may point to type A and some to type B....but which observations should we consider to characterize the "metabolism" and which ones the "exertion"?
Phaedrus: Phaedrus often finds himself in the debate between those who emphasize the true fact that a theory may use any set of definitions (e.g., you could create a system where Te = liking the color blue if you wanted to) and those who emphasize the equally true fact that some definitions lead to more "useful" systems than others. He clearly holds to a strong version of the second position, suggesting that people who consider that one system is as good as another are relativists and wrong. However, he also sees this conflict as type-related, suggesting that people who value Ti are the relativists, whereas those who, like him, value Te, recognize the need to focus on empirical, external "truth." (Of course, holding that either position is merely an indication of type and therefore not any more correct than the other is at least a partial concession to what we might call "type-based relativism.") Among his most controversial proposals is the idea that different typologies that seem similar and use similar terminologies (inherited from Jung) are necessarily based on empirical observations that converge, and that the notationally simplest "mappings" between these systems are the correct ones. He has also proposed that when a functional understanding (e.g., IM elements, Model A) conflicts with this "empirical mapping" approach, the functional understanding should be discarded in favor of the hypothesis that the various systems are all recognizing the same empirical observations regarding groupings of people. This theory has some appeal but would require disciplined scientific studies for any kind of proof. It is Phaedrus's outspoken faith that these systems have the same empirical underpinnings, and the stalwart quest to find this empirical unity, that has led some people to conclude that he isn't ILI but is (at first people said) LII and more recently the type to the left of ILI, being IEI.