I want E and I to mean only one thing.
2:00 AM 4/4/11
I want: to change the letters of socionics so that each letter represents one, and only one, thing, and you can refer to the letter without referring to its position. In socionics, the letters have two attributes: which letter, and which position.
EIE
IEE
EII
IEI
The I and the E have both 'position' and 'letter' attributes. They also have another attribute, 'introverted/extraverted.' However, that doesn't matter if you (I'm having a hard time expressing this, bear with me) merely want to quickly say someone is an 'S' type or an 'L' type. Those letters are unique. You can quickly get the general idea what I mean if I say someone is an S or an L (sensing or logical). You don't have to worry about whether I mean introverted or extraverted, and you don't need to know. But if I try to quickly say 'He is an E type,' or 'He is an I type,' there are several different things I could mean. I have to qualify this and explain that I mean extraverted/introverted (E/I is in the last position), or else that I mean ethical/intuitive (E/I is in the first or second position).
Sometimes, you just want to quickly say that somebody has that letter somewhere in their type, but you don't need to worry about what position it's in. When I'm typing somebody, and I start to get the feeling that they are logical instead of ethical, I might want to quickly say 'He's not an E.' It's a shorthand abbreviation if I don't want to write out the whole word 'ethical.' I shouldn't have to write out the whole word every time, and I shouldn't have to go hunting for a symbol (and then, if I did get the symbol, I would have to decide whether it was the empty symbol, or the filled in symbol - there is no 'I'm not sure whether it's introverted or extraverted' image available, like, for instance, a box with dots or stripes inside it. There aren't any 'ambiguous version' symbols, but they would be useful.)
I wanted to quickly say 'He's a _____ type,' but I couldn't say that. I had to go back, unfortunately, to saying 'He's a T type instead of an F type,' using the Jung/Myers-Briggs letter system. I did not want to refer to whether it was introverted or extraverted, because I didn't know whether it was introverted or extraverted, so I wouldn't have been able to use the square/L-shape symbols either. I don't want to slip back into using Jung/Myers-Briggs.
This is a barrier to socionics being accepted in the USA. In order to speak easily in socionics, it helps to have previously learned and understood the Myers-Briggs way of speaking, because there is no quick and easy convenient way to refer to a particular letter without also mentioning its position, and the easiest way to do it is to go back to using MBTI's 'T' or 'F.'
You shouldn't have to go back to using Myers-Briggs, and if you do, you might be undermining socionics in a way. Socionics should be stand-alone. It should be easy to use without knowing any previous systems. People would feel frustrated when they get confused by the position of the I and the E, wondering whether it refers to extraversion or ethics, and introversion or intuitive. If they feel frustrated, they won't enjoy using the system. It encourages people to slip back into using the familiar old Myers-Briggs types instead of totally relying on the new and unfamiliar socionics types.
When I was learning socionics for the first time, over the past few weeks, I found it hard to quickly blurt out the letters 'IEE, IEI, EIE, EII' without thinking very slowly and carefully about it. I wanted to make invalid combinations like (it's hard to remember how to do this - I've forgotten - my brain accepted the rules and it's hard to break them now) EEI and IIE.
I wanted a symbol that was:
1. unique, referring to only one thing
2. has no extraversion/introversion tag
3. has no reference to position
It isn't a problem with the letter L and the letter S. Those are both unique and tagless.
You can decide which letters should be changed. E could mean ethical or extraverted, and it doesn't matter to me which one. Same with I for introverted or intuitive.
MBTI chose to use the letter 'N' from the second letter in the word 'iNtuitive.' That's one way of doing things, but not the only way. You could also find a totally different word for 'intuitive,' a synonym, and use that word's first initial. Socionics has no obligation to stay connected with MBTI and use the letter 'N' so that it's familiar to MBTI users. Instead, socionics can be a totally different language of its own.
Which words are most unique and essential - which one should be kept, and which one discarded? 'Ethics' has a slightly different connotation than MBTI's 'feeling.' Is 'extraversion' an essential word that we have to use, or is there a substitute for it? - I once saw a web page where they called it 'Objective/Subjective' instead of 'Introverted/Extraverted' for each of the functions, for instance, 'objective ethics' instead of 'extraverted ethics.'
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Originally Posted by Ryene Astraelis
This is where the meat of socionics is (and the major distinction from Myers Briggs as i see it).
Fo Fum.
a kid in a gas mask
