Reinin Dichotomies: biggest bullshit ever? (also Gulenko's cog-styles)

[MensSuperMateriam]

Some people accept them, some people don't. And some people are simply skeptic.

I've been before (at least partial) supporter of them, but I actually think they're highly questionable.

Something always "floated" in my mind is their number. We need only four (2^4 = 16) dichotomies for stablishing 16 types. Now we have an alternative model which claims to be equivalent to the original (producing the same types in same number, 16) despite being based also in dichotomies (2), having an higher number of them, and being this an odd number (15).

I'll use a math analogy for explaining why (in my opinion) this does not make sense. Let's consider personalities are points; the original 4 dichotomies would consitute the orthogonal vector basis for a 4-dimension space. There would be 16 "polarized" combinations, archetypes, limit cases or whatever denomination. Mathematically the orthogonal basis is only the easiest one, but there's nothing that makes it more correct than any potential alternative.

But if we assume the 16 polarized combinations are all that could be (not a subset), then the space is necessarily 4-dimensional.This implies that the set of linearly independent vectors (dichotomies) for any basis has 4 elements, not less neither more. If we add more vectors to the basis, they they would not be linearly independet, so some of them would be redundant.

Starting with 4 elements, I can create whatever algorithm for producing whatever combination, like has happened with RDs. But this does not imply that the product has to be meaningful. If we assume that the 16 types produced by RDs are the same that the 16types produced by jungian ones, then the set of 15 RDs and the set of 4 JDs have the same amount of information. And as JDs are included in RDs, 4 JDs and 11 (RD-JDs) are equivalent. But as cardinality of RDs-JDs is still > than cardinality of JDs, the 11 (RDs-JDs) are not linearly independent...

Conclusions:

• If models are equivalent (same 16 types) then whatever information I can obtain with RDs is contained in JDs. So they're unnecessary. Although there are rules for obtaining equivalence Model A <> RDs, they're at least internally redundant.
• If we assume all RDs are meaningful (linearly independent) then both models are not equivalent, and we would have 2^15 combinations (types). But then the algorithm which creates them from original ones should be ignored.

I do not think that no idea from them is useful. I can always think in a property X, like for example, positivism, and observe a if a particular user has a trend for manifesting this property as (+) or (-). But this can only be done user by user. No rule which correlates RDs with types is valid, due to their internal redundance, if we at the same time see RDs as different, independent, properties.


That was the Ti critique. Now the Te critique.


(As far I know), the first strong supporter for RDs was Mr Gulenko. He spreaded them through his cogstyles, which I personally think they are even worse. They're deduced from questionable ideas (RDs) , and his methodology is dreadful. He has sometimes expressed critiques to his colleagues because they're interested in "proving everything" whereas he's not. And he used this as an "evidence" of how bad CD cogstyle is compared with others.

How ironical the examples he provided of bad "CD behavior" are not ILEs. Descartes (circular reasoning in his "proof" of god), is a clear-cut LII, not ILE (ba dum tss). And that guy Skinner is not one, in my opinion. Rejecting (or at least ignoring) mental states does not fit well in an intuitive, less if combined with Ji (mental... state... mind... static...). Also ILEs are usually rebel (as EPs in general). Behaviorism is far from being someting they would (statistically) support. I will not say which type I think Skinner is, because I do not want to derail the thread with that discussion.

The same Reinin described LIIs as one of the most difficult minds for being changed...

Now let's take a look to the characteristis of HP cogstyle. This one is not described as the best (for Gulenko it seems to be DA), but also there's no evident bad characteristics in it. Only "others don't understand" because it condensates a lot of information in packs. The perfect cogstyle for justyfing his bad methodology. I mean, not that HP is bad, but he can use it as an apparent justification for not needing proofs, which is not true.

Nobody disagrees that the whole > the sum of its parts. You can create a model step-by-step, deducing, testing and combining small portions (what he calls CD). Or you can alternatively construct the whole, complete, model first, for explaining a lot of things. But this model has to be submitted (at least) to the same amount of tests.

An analogy. Let's say we have a methodology capable of measuring one unity of information each time. So the CD user proposes portions of this size, and tests them, proposes, tests.... The HP user prefers to imagine the whole thing. He/she created a single "super-entity", so to speak. but as it's a whole, not a set or related portions, he/she thinks "one thing, one test". Wrong, wrong, wrong. The model is size-10 (for example), you cannot assume one sucessful size-1 test proves it.

In fact, you cannot never fully prove it, because every test offers solutions which are valid in particular experimental conditions. Outside these conditions, we don't know. We cannot fully know, only know more/better than before...

Well, this can go to a full debate about scientific methodology, and that's not exactly my goal. But what I want to say is that there's a trend in pseuociences like this (and out of them) in thinking "I've imagined it, so it's automatically true". When a concept is described in a way that "makes sense" it's asumed as valid, despite it has not been properly tested or worse, it cannot be tested (and if it's a pseudoscience, concepts have high chances for not being compatible with tests).

High doses of skepticism are required.

Reinin dichotomies are quite bad conceptualized, their justification is questionable. So are cogstyles. Yet many people easily accept them. It seems to me, I've observed sometimes... does not suffice. The fact that in one situation an idea seems to work does not imply it's true, or functionally true. There are a myriad or potential conditions, known and unknown.


[EDIT]
K0rpsy reminded links for maths behind RDs:

http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...in-Dichotomies
http://www.socionics.us/wikisocion/R...ml#Mathematics

I haven't read them for a long time, so I recognize here my fault. Many appreciations about linear dependence and so are considered in them. I think the point is still valid, because it has not be questioned that they're mathematically correct (that a valid algorithm can construct them), but that they're meaningful (and therefore useful). The maths in this post does not seem to contradict what the links express, so apparently everything is still OK.

[Ryan]

Interesting perspective.

An analogy. Let's say we have a methodology capable of measuring one unity of information each time. So the CD user proposes portions of this size, and tests them, proposes, tests.... The HP user prefers to imagine the whole thing. He/she created a single "super-entity", so to speak. but as it's a whole, not a set or related portions, he/she thinks "one thing, one test". Wrong, wrong, wrong. The model is size-10 (for example), you cannot assume one sucessful size-1 test proves it.

Not quite. Not to say that I agree with Gulenko, but you are missing the point. The HP user will see the model in each sample. It doesn't mean he will know everything there is to know in one go, or whatever you are implying, just that one sample is enough for the HP to work with while testing.

It's an odd analogy though, so I'm probably not making a decent point here.

[MensSuperMateriam]

Interesting perspective.

The HP user will see the model in each sample. It doesn't mean he will know everything there is to know in one go, or whatever you are implying, just that one sample is enough for the HP to work with while testing.

I do not see why what you say is not compatible with what I have said. Anyway my point is by no means to criticize HP users (I'm skeptical about the existence/validity of cogstyles), but to explain how a guy who is more or less anti-proofs, or put them in secondary importance (he said his goal is not to prove everything and criticize colleagues because of this) uses his own creature for justifying his bad methodology (I'm this CS, they are that CS..).

And as they superficially "makes sense" in a logical way, they're easily assumed as correct and adopted by many people.

[Saberstorm]

Decartes seems irrational, also he pretty clearly had a hidden agenda for popularity. He seems ILE to me! Kant is an LII.

[Absurd]

How's that Ne working out for you, Jadae?

[MensSuperMateriam]

Decartes seems irrational, also he pretty clearly had a hidden agenda for popularity. He seems ILE to me! Kant is an LII.

If you use the embodyment of Ti aka Kant as a measurement for what being a LII is, then almost no LII would be a LII but ILE. Descartes is recognized as a Ti dom in every jungian typology system. He shows all the signals, highly theoretical, disconnected from the world (in the sense he thinks he does not need the world for knowing it, only his own mind -his motto-), etc. Not being a robot as Kant does not make Descartes automatically irrational (ILE). Kant is a Ti-LII (or simply Ti); Descartes is more like a Ne-LII.

LIIs are susceptible for flattery, maybe not so consciously as ILEs, but it's there. Specially intellectual flattery.

[Korpsy Knievel]

MSM, if you've yet to see these:

http://www.socionics.us/wikisocion/R...ml#Mathematics

http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...in-Dichotomies

[MensSuperMateriam]

Thaks for reminding. Maybe I should add those links in the OP.

[InvisibleJim]

Some people accept them, some people don't. And some people are simply skeptic.

I don't accept them but I use them. They are a useful approximation because they attempt to define behavioural characteristics vs one or two information elements. The reason I don't accept them is that they are not strictly representative of Model A, they are infact model Reinin because these behaviours do not always apply to certain information elements where they claim to do so, but also they do not considered the complex interchange between the other information elements in the psyche.

i.e. they are useful when you don't have a lot of information, e.g. a short video, some limited discussion but they aren't definitive.

[Saberstorm]

@MensSuperMateriam

Who are you? Are you Jadae? You do sound like him.

[InvisibleJim]

@MensSuperMateriam

Who are you? Are you Jadae? You do sound like him.

Nooo, he's been around in other places, not jadae. Confirmed.

[MensSuperMateriam]

@MensSuperMateriam

Who are you? Are you Jadae? You do sound like him.

As Jim said, I'm not Jadae. You made me investigate a bit about that user. What an interesting coincidence that he seems to be acknowledged as EIE, the same type I'm investigating against my I always assumed I'm logical due to certain peculiarities of myself .

What a pity he's retired, I cannot converse with him for contrasting.

[krieger]

i've never viewed them as anything more elaborate or meaningful than a set of names for arbitrary groupings of types. there is a number of surrounding hypotheses expressed in terms of the reinin lingo that should each be evaluated on a case by case basis. most of them aren't practically useful but somewhat inspiring and worth considering as thought experiments. they are on equal footing with socionics as a whole on that basis.

[MensSuperMateriam]

I don't accept them but I use them. They are a useful approximation because they attempt to define behavioural characteristics vs one or two information elements. The reason I don't accept them is that they are not strictly representative of Model A, they are infact model Reinin because these behaviours do not always apply to certain information elements where they claim to do so, but also they do not considered the complex interchange between the other information elements in the psyche.

i.e. they are useful when you don't have a lot of information, e.g. a short video, some limited discussion but they aren't definitive.

So basically you see RDs as a set of properties constituting its own particular model which has or could have, certain correlation, but not much more. That's more or less a valid way of dealing with them, I think.

i've never viewed them as anything more elaborate or meaningful than a set of names for arbitrary groupings of types. there is a number of surrounding hypotheses expressed in terms of the reinin lingo that should each be evaluated on a case by case basis. most of them aren't practically useful but somewhat inspiring and worth considering as thought experiments. they are on equal footing with socionics as a whole on that basis.

You hit the nail.

[Saberstorm]

I find them to be very useful, and the only thing that seems to be socionics to me. I wish there was more information on them.

[Korpsy Knievel]

^ I would "like" labcoat's post too if the software allowed.

[mu4]

Reinin dichotomies imo are very important in the advancement of typology. Take aristocratic and democratic, this is a extremely important dichotomy as is about the clubs, club duals and indicate a separation between NF/STs and NT/SFs.

When you examine each Reinin and the associated type and the functional and model reasons why the delineation is made you'll see that it gives you a vector of analysis which doesn't exist in other typologies.

Some are very self-evident like Static/Dynamic, process/result, merry/serious, and others not so, tactical/strategic. The key to understanding reinin is to understand the underlying separation, the terminology and description are simply ways to communicate this underlying separation which isn't really something that's been well analyzed or described.

[MensSuperMateriam]

Reinin dichotomies imo are very important in the advancement of typology. Take aristocratic and democratic, this is a extremely important dichotomy as is about the clubs, club duals and indicate a separation between NF/STs and NT/SFs.

When you examine each Reinin and the associated type and the functional and model reasons why the delineation is made you'll see that it gives you a vector of analysis which doesn't exist in other typologies.

Some are very self-evident like Static/Dynamic, process/result, merry/serious, and others not so, tactical/strategic. The key to understanding reinin is to understand the underlying separation, the terminology and description are simply ways to communicate this underlying separation which isn't really something that's been well analyzed or described.

But we come back to the same, things that makes sense (form a logical perspective) are easily accepted, regardless they've properly tested or not.

Some common mistake with these "blurry" concepts is that they can fit whenever needed. Your example for example. Aristocratic/democratic. The definition says that aristocratics see people as members of groups. But at the same time, it says that the particular definition of group is up to the individual. In such case, how can you properly identify that "group belonging" without incurring in self-confirmation bias? The so called group for one aristocratic does not exist for another. Racist? Then beta/delta. But many of them are radically the opposite, whereas certainly there are alphas and gammas who are racists...

At most, we can say that "group belonging" is a bit more a beta thing, because their egos are, how to say, more "collectivized"?. But I fail to identify this clearly in deltas, the quadra which is usually seen more focused in self-development (individualistics).

An even if the aristocratic/democratic were valid, inherent to nature of types, this does not imply that the others RDs have to be. Makes sense->correct. Not always.

Certainly, that "vector analysis" could offer some aspects that were not evident at first. The same way that you can do maths with vectors and obtain modulus, angle... etc. But this does not imply that any math or conclusion I can do should have real meaning. That's IMO the true problem of typology: it lacks proper methodology. It will never surpass the state of pseudoscience whereas this step is not made. Damn, astrology has its particular logic, right?

Take a look to this thread, in case you've not yet seen it:
http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...-thought-in-Te

[Azure Flame]

haha this cracked me up.

I think, like everything else, there is a SPECTRUM to these polarities. I don't think they're so absolute. There are some things, but a lot of the positivism/negativism just seems like bollocks to me. When I'm in a bad mood, I see everyone's worthlessness. When I'm in a good mood, "EVERY ONE OF YOU DESERVES A MEDAL!"