A personal plea to those with user hypotheses

[April]

Let me start off by saying that I greatly admire and appreciate the work you put into furthering the development of Socionics hypotheses and theories. Your work enhances the quality of the community and suggests interesting potential avenues for practical application (e.g., achieving more accurate typings, identifying different aspects of intertype relations--to name a few). Please keep at it!

I also understand that it may be frustrating to come up with these ideas that seem promising and not have them acknowledged by the greater community. Personally, I find your hypotheses very interesting, but they are often so dense that I can barely sink my teeth into them. Call it weak , because it really isn't just laziness or stupidity.

To appeal to the broader community and make interpretation easier for those such as myself, I think there could be improvement in some of the ways that user hypotheses are presented. Please take this as my well-intentioned attempt at advice. I write peer-review articles for a living, so I'd like to think I know a little bit about presenting information.

• The first idea that comes to mind is primarily using a Wiki format. Frequently, when a new idea is presented, I find myself opening multiple tabs, cross-referencing texts, searching endlessly for related previous material, and losing my place as to what the hell I was even doing in the first place. If you provide links within your text, like a Wiki, this could make our jobs a lot easier.
  
• Secondly, I think you too often assume that people know what you're talking about, especially with your beginning premise, which is the most important! Take this quote, for instance, (sorry tcaud, your site is down for me so I can't do further interpretation and I'm really just using this as an example anyway):
  

  Consequentialist people (also termed "teleologists") are concordant with respect to the ego and discordant with respect to the id.

  Without any context, and if I had absolutely no knowledge of how concordant and discordant are defined, I'd already be lost at the very first sentence. Many people, at this point, would just close the browser window.
  
• Thirdly, define all your concepts! I just had a discussion with labcoat, for instance, in which he defined "choice" (as related to diffuse functions) as something I never would have imagined (i.e., that choices do not matter and you don't take them seriously--as opposed to focus functions, in which there is a single correct answer).
  
• Provide examples, if possible, by using at least one of the 16 types to illustrate your hypothesis.
  
• And finally, please explain your rationale if it might not be apparent to other people. You might say, "This implies that," but to me, it can feel like that South Park episode:
  
  WTF is in Phase 2?!

Ok, I'm done now.

[force my hand]

Agreed 100%.

Interested to see where this goes.

[Words]

Yeah i'd like this. Labcoats stuff seems quite interesting but it's difficult for me to cut through the jargon, end up I don't bother.

Could you make up a glossary or something?

[marooned]

Many people, at this point, would just close the browser window.

yep (or go elsewhere on the forum)... there are a lot of people's posts I simply don't read for this reason.

[Absurd]

Yea, shadows, dragons and words I can't even spell.

[krieger]

I'm not convinced there is a return on the investment of making socionics accessible to the unwashed masses. Half of this just sounds like laziness and an attempt to hitch a free ride with no intent of ever repaying the favor. Also you get one big Fuck You for making a failing on your part sound like I was the one in the wrong. Choice implies the multiplicity of options. If you can't make the mental effort to infer that this character of variability is what I'm getting at you don't have the right to criticize my sense of vocabulary.

[Azeroffs]

I'm not convinced there is a return on the investment of making socionics accessible to the unwashed masses. Half of this just sounds like laziness and an attempt to hitch a free ride with no intent of ever repaying the favor. Also you get one big Fuck You for making a failing on your part sound like I was the one in the wrong. Choice implies the multiplicity of options. If you can't make the mental effort to infer that this character of variability is what I'm getting at you don't have the right to criticize my sense of vocabulary.

I don't think she's suggesting that people are in the wrong for presenting them the way they are, just that if you're going to present your ideas, you might as well do it in way that majority of people will understand. If you don't want people to understand your ideas, then why present them at all?

[ashlesha]

/headdesk

[Creepy-bg]

/headdesk

+2

[April]

I'm not convinced there is a return on the investment of making socionics accessible to the unwashed masses. Half of this just sounds like laziness and an attempt to hitch a free ride with no intent of ever repaying the favor. Also you get one big Fuck You for making a failing on your part sound like I was the one in the wrong. Choice implies the multiplicity of options. If you can't make the mental effort to infer that this character of variability is what I'm getting at you don't have the right to criticize my sense of vocabulary.

Well, this is an unfortunate reaction. I'm genuinely interested in this stuff, and I've literally spent hours and days trying to understand just one post from one of you guys. But then I don't know if my understanding and your understanding of certain concepts match, so I feel like I can't move on from there. And then asking some of you (this isn't just about you personally, btw) just seems to annoy you, because you figure, "Why don't you just understand?"

I wasn't trying to place blame in my example or even blow it up to be a big deal. I just wanted to illustrate how the understanding of a seemingly simple concept can be different between two people. I was stuck on thinking, "Wait, choices are sometimes important, matter, and should be taken seriously." But you had a very different perception of the word from me.

I guess I have this idealistic view that, if we can all get aboard the same train, we can make it function more efficiently. If you don't want the input of the broader community, that's certainly your prerogative, though.

[Capitalist Pig]

I fully support this thread and your noble endeavor.

[tcaudilllg]

Well, this is an unfortunate reaction. I'm genuinely interested in this stuff, and I've literally spent hours and days trying to understand just one post from one of you guys. But then I don't know if my understanding and your understanding of certain concepts match, so I feel like I can't move on from there. And then asking some of you (this isn't just about you personally, btw) just seems to annoy you, because you figure, "Why don't you just understand?"

I wasn't trying to place blame in my example or even blow it up to be a big deal. I just wanted to illustrate how the understanding of a seemingly simple concept can be different between two people. I was stuck on thinking, "Wait, choices are sometimes important, matter, and should be taken seriously." But you had a very different perception of the word from me.

I guess I have this idealistic view that, if we can all get aboard the same train, we can make it function more efficiently. If you don't want the input of the broader community, that's certainly your prerogative, though.

You're missing the point: we don't have cover like you do. We don't yet have a single spur. We haven't yet finished our undergrad. Under current social conditions, that makes us non-entities no matter how effective we are in offering original explanations for the phenomena we study. It's in our interest to refine our understanding in preparation for the day when we achieve the right, in academic terms, to discuss.

And it's best that the conservative individualists (or hell, even the extremist liberals) do not have a clear understanding of what we discover AS YET, because they are like to cause a lot of damage if they "adopt it", claim absolute credit for it all, and publish stuff about it. For one thing, it damages the precept itself because only Left leaners (negativists) are generally willing to give due attention to the process of refining understanding even to the point of introducing subcategories. What would it mean for someone to just "announce" vast understanding in the context of a system which forbids it? Confusion, which would be most easily dealt with by drawing attention away from/questioning the aspects of the system which renders the individual unable to contribute in the way that they purport to have done. Ego can compromise the search for truth, particularly when that ego is built on lies.

Bottom line, people even today study Jung's tomes for years at a time. You can get a PhD in Jung studies. If it's OK to study Jung, why not study our work for just a little while? But yeah in any case I don't exactly think it would be a good idea for the right leaners on this forum to get any MORE radical ideas about the essential significance of personality theories, especially given their record of eventually reversed past moves. Once those people get something in their head -- particularly if they think some idea or notion is dangerous--, nothing seems to stop them.

We're just not ready for all this information to leave this community. Actually I have some suspicions that Boukalov himself is printing his completely irrelevant and bizarre "Physics of life and consciousness" articles in the socionics institute journals for the specific purpose of keeping socionics in the dark to all but those who can understand the ramifications of what it would mean to be practicing trait psychology on a public scale. We DO NOT need for socionics to "break out" until there is assembled a very strong left-wing counterpoint to any right-wing reactionary/radical/what-have-you passions. If something like that did happen, there would be nothing to salvage it... would probably force us back 40 years.

When the time is right I think you'll hear people talking about it, actively... that time is not yet.

[Jarno]

99% of the time here hypothesis are bullshit.

So my igoring tactic is paying off greatly 99% of the time.

[Not A Communist Shill]

[tcaudilllg]

Oh yes, I glossed through that. I admit my wrongness. And I agree with the user above me. Here's a quote attributed to Einstein which I sometimes think of when I see people trying to complicate theories such as Socionics:

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

Congrats for taking that quote out of context.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Is it actually possible to take that quote out of context?

[tcaudilllg]

Is it actually possible to take that quote out of context?

Two ways of interpreting it: 1) it refers to anybody who engages in propositional logic and who proposes new dialectical relationships to explain the differences between things that were previously considered conceptually indistinct, 2) it refers to people who use unprovable conjectures to explain phenomena that doesn't fit the model prescribed. (like the aether he disproved)

[krieger]

Oh yes, I glossed through that. I admit my wrongness. And I agree with the user above me. Here's a quote attributed to Einstein which I sometimes think of when I see people trying to complicate theories such as Socionics:

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

Which is exactly what I do. I recently reduced all the information in the work of Reinin to the interpretation of a single function dichotomy (Focal/Diffuse). It's the people around here that don't bother with reading up on the most recent condensations of the terms and keep juggling around out-dated ones that Einstein was talking about. That means you.

ps. I'd like to make the disclaimer that every time tcaudilllg said "we" in his post, I am not in whatever group he was referring to.

[xerx]

It's the people around here that don't bother with reading up on the most recent condensations of the terms and keep juggling around out-dated ones that Einstein was talking about.

If Einstein's -base had anything to do with that quote, then I doubt it.

ILE's dominant state is active mental activity that implies or demands some sort of discussion with others. New information gleaned from an interesting source must be conveyed to others. Because this need is no dominant, an ILE always has "colleagues" around who receive and digest his or her information. Extraverted intuition "shines" most when discussing and relaying information and expressing ideas. An ILE will light up and put immense energy into getting other people to understand things.

http://www.socionics.us/practice/type_comparisons.shtml
Strong type indicator in my experience.

[krieger]

Your post is unrelated to mine to the point of outright non-sequitur.

[xerx]

ILI's dominant state is receptive mental activity — sort of like registering on an internal slate signals from external reality (or an abstract internal representation of this reality). This information does not necessarily demand verbal transmission to others. One expresses it is a more subtle way — in one's reactions to others' statements and actions. When verbally expressed, this information is no less interesting than extraverted intuition, but it usually has to be sought out by others. It also often requires interpretation, whereas ILE's messages are adapted to his/her audience.

Forgot to post the rest.

[krieger]

Are you done littering the thread with irrelevant quotes?

[xerx]

What's so irrelevant about them?

[krieger]

Their complete lack of pertinent content.

[xerx]

Not in my opinion. You suggested something that was, in my opinion, rather antithetical to the interpersonal behavior of ILEs, and I offered up a contrasting view. I fail to understand why it aroused such strong claims of irrelevancy against it. .

[krieger]

I have no interest in furthering this conversation for obvious reasons.

[xerx]

I'm sure.

[tcaudilllg]

In a year and a half we'll pull magic out of our hats and make our ideas comprehensible. You've got our guarantee on that.

In the meantime, we still have questions to ask and work to do.

[krieger]

The post was an attack on people who put hard work and intense mental effort into developing views on socionics by raising the pretext that the poster was in a position to reject what these people offer of their own accord. The fact that people like you don't realize there is something wrong with this is exactly why a harsh response is warranted.

[ashlesha]

The post was an attack on people who put hard work and intense mental effort into developing views on socionics by raising the pretext that the poster was in a position to reject what these people offer of their own accord. The fact that people like you don't realize there is something wrong with this is exactly why a harsh response is warranted.

i didn't interpret it as an attack. i thought it was a suggestion, and in a way a compliment...instead of dismissing your ideas because of the comprehension difficulty, she instead asked for help to understand them, perhaps because of seeing potential in them if she could understand them better. i'm sort of speaking for april here, and she can correct me if i'm wrong, of course.

if you are fine with your thoughts only being accessible to those who are on the same wavelength as you, that's certainly your prerogative.

[Aiss]

The quote was relevant; it's just that external fields valuers don't see it.

So is this one:

When the time comes for him to transplant his ideas into the world, his is by no means the air of an anxious mother solicitous for her children's welfare; he merely exposes them, and is often extremely annoyed when they fail to thrive on their own account. The decided lack he usually displays in practical ability, and his aversion from any sort of re[accent]clame assist in this attitude. If to his eyes his product appears subjectively correct and true, it must also be so in practice, and others have simply got to bow to its truth. Hardly ever will he go out of his way to win anyone's appreciation of it, especially if it be anyone of influence. And, when he brings himself to do so, he is usually so extremely maladroit that he merely achieves the opposite of his purpose. In his own special province, there are usually awkward experiences with his colleagues, since he never knows how to win their favour; as a rule he only succeeds in showing them how entirely superfluous they are to him. In the pursuit of his ideas he is generally stubborn, head-strong, and quite unamenable to influence. His suggestibility to personal influences is in strange contrast to this. An object has only to be recognized as apparently innocuous for such a type to become extremely accessible to really inferior elements. They lay hold of him from the [p. 487] unconscious. He lets himself be brutalized and exploited in the most ignominious way, if only he can be left undisturbed in the pursuit of his ideas. He simply does not see when he is being plundered behind his back and wronged in practical ways: this is because his relation to the object is such a secondary matter that lie is left without a guide in the purely objective valuation of his product. In thinking out his problems to the utmost of his ability, he also complicates them, and constantly becomes entangled in every possible scruple. However clear to himself the inner structure of his thoughts may be, he is not in the least clear where and how they link up with the world of reality. Only with difficulty can he persuade himself to admit that what is clear to him may not be equally clear to everyone. His style is usually loaded and complicated by all sorts of accessories, qualifications, saving clauses, doubts, etc., which spring from his exacting scrupulousness. His work goes slowly and with difficulty. Either he is taciturn or he falls among people who cannot understand him; whereupon he proceeds to gather further proof of the unfathomable stupidity of man. If he should ever chance to be understood, he is credulously liable to overestimate.

[Creepy-male]

99% of the time here hypothesis are bullshit.

So my igoring tactic is paying off greatly 99% of the time.

I didn't know taking a personal vested interest in commenting on every new idea that is presented was such a viable ignoring tactic!