The Defining Question

[Creepy-male]

Do you really think that psychological theory on personality types has tapped into some brilliant underlying pattern that exists within all people to explain people's differences in their individual meaning and worth as an individual?

Or do you think this is merely a list of prejudices and behaviors various people have observed that is interesting but by no means some underlying pattern explaining individual meaning and worth.

I believe in the second personally, but I am curious to see what the distribution of opinion is on this forum.

[normal]

Just curiosity

What happend that you dont believe socionics and their type now?


Now, for the question, i think both. One because i truly believe that knowing oneself its a step very important for any living one (conscious). how much you care about it its the most important things here. That's why i choose the second too, because (just in my case) the more deep you start to knowing yourself, more complicated things get when you start to doubt about who you are, how do you relate with things in life and other matters. The level of maturity its the key if you really want to know why other people are different from you and why you are like as you are.

I think that one person have to distinguish what make you unique (or what make you more youself) trying to stereotype itself within the society. That's why i think that many people look for types (or just in case). Maybe insecurity or maybe not.

[Rick]

I think the basic principles of socionics are not difficult to demonstrate. Yesterday at our seminar we tried talking about a subject using different aspects of information. It took a while to get into each one, but we saw a definite inability of people to use certain aspects, and a tendency for them to "taint" other aspects with their own leading ones. In addition, I think it is potentially not too difficult to demonstrate that people expect or need from those around them certain kinds of information. I'm still thinking of how to show this in a controlled setting, though, rather than simply observing it in everyday life all the time.

Based on those simple facts, you have both types and the basis for intertype relations. So yes, I believe in an underlying pattern that is rather ingenious in its simplicity.

[snp7901]

[Rick]

but must type and leading function hold for a given individual over an extended period? does socionics reveal a natural self, rather than just our nurtured development at any point in time? does it provide a lifelong strategy rather than just social tactics?

It all depends what and how you are typing. If you type the nurtured development at any point in time, then what is perceived as the "leading function" or type may change, and it would provide only an understanding of social tactics and personas. If you focus on typing only the natural self, then the leading function and type will not change, and you would in essence be providing a lifelong strategy.

Socionics aspires to do the latter, but if too many people insist on doing the former or believe that that is what socionics does, of course, it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

[snp7901]

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[UDP]

Do you really think that psychological theory on personality types has tapped into some brilliant underlying pattern

Forget everything else you said, and your various connotations and associations with those words that you said and have in your mind,

and I agree with what remains, with what I left in the quote.



"Psychological theory or personality types" are just tools at looking at the pattern, they are not perfect - just like no screwdriver, saw, microscope is perfect. Psychological types themselves are not the pattern. Numbers are not the pattern. Any sort of model of the pattern is not the pattern itself. For me, socionics bridges well enough to be useful to me.

"I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don't need my finger to see the moon, do you?"

[Rick]

but how do you type the natural self? i can only type what i can observe and my observation of others is subject to their social tactics. my observation of myself is subject to cognitive biases like forer effect. and measurement problems aside, what's to say there even is a natural self? obviously genetics plays some deterministic role in behavior but how much is very questionable.

Now those are interesting questions.

First of all, through experience. Yes, it takes concerted training and practice, like any skill. You can't just pick up a few descriptions, read a broschure or two, and "see people's natural self."

Another thing is that signals from different functions are accompanied by a sense of greater or lower confidence, so with training you can learn to recognize moments when people are demonstrating their central, dominant traits and competency. In long-term relationships, the natural self comes through stronger and dominates the relationship. If relationships changed a lot over time and depended only on social or production roles, the case for socionics would be extremely weak.

[UDP]

but how do you type the natural self?

That is 'understood' through awareness. Socionics does not apply to the natural, or real, self. The real self is not manifested in the world of things and interactions and tangible objects, it is not limited by a body. Socionics helps with understanding how the self manifests into this world.

[force my hand]

Do you really think that psychological theory on personality types has tapped into some brilliant underlying pattern that exists within all people to explain people's differences in their individual meaning and worth as an individual?

Or do you think this is merely a list of prejudices and behaviors various people have observed that is interesting but by no means some underlying pattern explaining individual meaning and worth.

I believe in the second personally, but I am curious to see what the distribution of opinion is on this forum.

I think it makes an attempt to describe the very real fact that different personalities exist. I know people who are clearly ESFx's, and they will never act like people I know who are clear INTx's - just an example.

Debating specific function use is relevent when comparing the model against itself, but I don't think there is a literal transference between what the model states and how people really function mentally/emotionally. I DO think, however, that - right or wrong - trying to explain how the functions work is a useful tool to evaluate your own mental processes and behaviour that may lead to some insight into how you tick. " states this, is there anything in my behaviour that reflects this process, or is it an area that could use some improvement?" Learning an abstract concept like is something I probably wouldn't have developed on my own, yet to read about it I realize how it often pops up in my own head, and that's quite useful to me.

Or, at least, I believe it's useful to me.

[snp7901]

[Creepy-male]

Just curiosity

What happend that you dont believe socionics and their type now?


Now, for the question, i think both. One because i truly believe that knowing oneself its a step very important for any living one (conscious). how much you care about it its the most important things here. That's why i choose the second too, because (just in my case) the more deep you start to knowing yourself, more complicated things get when you start to doubt about who you are, how do you relate with things in life and other matters. The level of maturity its the key if you really want to know why other people are different from you and why you are like as you are.

I think that one person have to distinguish what make you unique (or what make you more youself) trying to stereotype itself within the society. That's why i think that many people look for types (or just in case). Maybe insecurity or maybe not.

Well its not really what happened but what I realized. In my opinion socionics and things like this sort can express things that are very outward-in, or a very objective, realistic, and empircal view of a person. However for me thats not really what I am interested in when I look at all this stuff I am interested in the inward-out, the true essence of a person to understand other's role/character inward-out and to understand myself inward-out. Once I realized this the next question was obviously. why did I end up looking up things like socionics etc? Eventually I realized the reason was because socionics helped me express the outward part of it and inspired me to think more deeply about the inward things. In other words I was never interested in if a person was , but more so why they were . If this makes sense.

Now with that said I still believe in the scientific process of all of this, but I think people should stop and take care with such things, mechanics and physics are very easy to put science to, but something like people is different, the moment personality comes up your bringing forth knowledge from a highly subjective standpoint. People understand people in a subjective way, in a personal way and a way that involves their lives, however mechanics is objective, its impersonal and it usually doesn't mean much in their lifes other than having power to understand/control things. Its incredibly easy for a person to say they are 100% ENTp for example because they want to believe this because Intuition is a source of strength and pride for them and common sense is a sore subject with them. Saying they are 100% ENTp for example places the blame off themselves for not being good with common sense by claiming its just science and it makes them feel really good. However an intelligent person would understand a person cannot fully be any one of these types but merely only have a preference in a type, and a wise person is one would do well to explain the reasons why they prefer this choice and how it plays into their journey in life. However this process is stagnated the moment one seeks after an absolute definition of the self. Its very haughty to think that psychology can explain a person 100%, thats like claiming physics explains our universe 100%, the truth is physics is always remodeling and reshaping and the more it goes on the more comphresive and simple the concepts revealed and the more complex the explanations, just the same with psychology the more comphresive and simple the concepts revealed and the more complex the explanations. Its important to remember psychology is still in the process of understanding.

Finally the last thing I think is in applications, you may ask "What good is this all if we can't hope to fully understand a person" or you may ask "Isn't knowing just a large majority about a person good enough for practical usage?". Anyways the answer to this question is that their is always a certain tool for a certain job, if you looking to get a general sense of a person and profile them, socionics is incredibly useful, if your looking for a quick reference to aid you in personal understanding socionics is also useful, however once you delve to a certain depth you have to discard socionics altogether or you have to maintain a very loose liberal understanding if you wish to make progress in understanding.

So hopefully this explains it, merely for me I find little use in socionics as a rigid scientific theory in no other means than in trying to profile others, but once I get to know people well enough I discard it, simply because at that point it becomes more personal and I become more interested in getting into their motives and life journey rather than simply identifying their behaviorial traits, something that with socionics is massively difficult to do. However I still applaud socionics for the ground its made in the scientific community.

[Creepy-male]

Do you really think that psychological theory on personality types has tapped into some brilliant underlying pattern

Forget everything else you said, and your various connotations and associations with those words that you said and have in your mind,

and I agree with what remains, with what I left in the quote.



"Psychological theory or personality types" are just tools at looking at the pattern, they are not perfect - just like no screwdriver, saw, microscope is perfect. Psychological types themselves are not the pattern. Numbers are not the pattern. Any sort of model of the pattern is not the pattern itself. For me, socionics bridges well enough to be useful to me.

"I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don't need my finger to see the moon, do you?"

Lol very INTj like logic, limiting down just the peice you agree with, it was probably an INTj who invented the line item veto. Anyways you misunderstood the essence of the question is in the connotations I have used, by underlying I don't mean merely abstract, I mean like timeless, I mean like talking about the f***ing structure of the universe and existance like the very meaning and essence of things, not just merely unobservable but like the unobservable of unobservables. I am asking if you think this theory can express the one and only true meaning of a person, afterall if it can't even come close to lightly touch on some underlying true meaning and essence of a person.... aren't we just using fancy words to describe behaviors we see?

[Exodus]

by underlying I don't mean merely abstract, I mean like timeless, I mean like talking about the f***ing structure of the universe and existance like the very meaning and essence of things, not just merely unobservable but like the unobservable of unobservables. I am asking if you think this theory can express the one and only true meaning of a person, afterall if it can't even come close to lightly touch on some underlying true meaning and essence of a person.... aren't we just using fancy words to describe behaviors we see?

You make it sound like those are the only two options.

Socionics comes somewhere in between, and that's that.

[Rick]

rick: i agree that people show different levels of confidence in their different abilities. i agree that experience and close inspection can differentiate along those lines.

what i don't agree with (necessarily), is the leap in reasoning that says this has anything to do with what is natural and inborn. maybe we are more confident in a given function because that's the tactic which circumstance has made us use most often? the confidence could be acquired rather than predetermined. and if a person wanted to or if circumstances changed and forced them to adapt (as they often do) maybe then we aquire confidence in wearing a different mask, given enough investment.

i would not be surprised if most people do tend to settle with one particular skill set rather than repeatedly changing face in the long run. but that relationship isn’t necessarily causal. generally we are more free to experiment in our youth compared to the specialization and security that older responsibilities often force one to undertake. whatever mask circumstance has us wear as young adults may be what we find most convenient for growing accustomed to, regardless of whatever would be “natural.”

to differentiate between what is natural and one has invested time into acquiring, i think more needs to be known about cognitive science. they can appear identical when conventionally observed.

Agreed, but we're talking about modes of thought, not abilities. They are quite a bit more rigid than abilities. People never really work on developing "modes of thought." If what you're suggesting here is entirely correct, it would not make sense why people experience many negative emotions when they are put in situations or with people where there are certain predominating modes of thought.

[snp7901]

[tcaudilllg]

As the universe continues its geometric expansion via the further integration of structure into progression (accelerating return,) the meaning of individual life will grow more complex accordingly. I don't think any theory will ever capture the subjective experiences -- the views and feelings -- of every individual, unless it models those feelings itself.

Ts try to fit the enneagram to socionics or any objective typology; but enneagram is --maybe even somewhat -- and therefore evades any objective consideration. Only by modeling and themselves, right down to their methods of manifestation in the brain, can the architecture of these feelings be understood, and even then only at the biological level -- to say nothing about the role of electron transfers themselves and their architecture.

At some level, the world simply justifies itself. Theory will never encompass the entire world because not all the world is theory. But if you want to know how individual people manifest their dreams and hopes in today's world, then help us refine socionics... and someday the next generation may give you an answer by building on our collective work.

[tcaudilllg]

but say if years from now it turns out that our functional confidences are indeed mostly inborn, if this is consistent with some hard science. then that's the way it is, i can accept this is possible. unlike jung i don't subscribe to a mysticism that forces me to care too much either way. but in the mean time i think you do harm to the theory by assuming it as fact prematurely. i haven't seen that too much around here but on ganin's site there is a lot of pigeon-holing by way of the nature assumption. it's very off-putting as it casts doubt on the empirical soundness of socionists and if it's mostly proven wrong you could lose all remaining credibility that jung himself didn't squander. not to mention all the potentially inaccurate advice you would be dispensing in real people’s lives.

Do you know what Einstein said when he was asked what he would do if the theory of relativity turned out to be wrong? "Then I feel sorry for the dear Lord, the theory is right."

base always knows what is structurally true. I don't argue with types over their assessment of powers and forces, and neither should you argue with a type over what structures do and do not exist.

[snp7901]

[Rick]

...

secondly, why wouldn't my argument make sense, given those negative emotions you've seen people experience in those settings? maybe that's just evidence that people become set in their ways and take for granted that other people are like them in these ways. but it says nothing about the origin of those things, as far as i can tell. if something has a bit of a learning curve to it and requires some investment to refine, not everyone is going to be receptive to it at first, be they a "natural" at it or not. we all generally have some mental inertia, some nearsighted attachment to our previous investments, be they optimal in the long run or not.

i'm not ruling out some degree of "natural self," btw. for example, i've seen some users trying to tie temperment to neurotransmitter production, which as we know from identical twin studies are controlled significantly by your genes. that's one link which sounds plausible. but it is only one of many possible components whose total effect is still up for grabs imo. cog sci and the nature/nurture question have a long way to go here.

but say if years from now it turns out that our functional confidences are indeed mostly inborn, if this is consistent with some hard science. then that's the way it is, i can accept this is possible. unlike jung i don't subscribe to a mysticism that forces me to care too much either way. but in the mean time i think you do harm to the theory by assuming it as fact prematurely. i haven't seen that too much around here but on ganin's site there is a lot of pigeon-holing by way of the nature assumption. it's very off-putting as it casts doubt on the empirical soundness of socionists and if it's mostly proven wrong you could lose all remaining credibility that jung himself didn't squander. not to mention all the potentially inaccurate advice you would be dispensing in real people’s lives.

Well, I don't have an answer, but this sounds like a productive train of thought to me. I don't have an issue with the "natural self" question, because it "seems obvious" to me (I am a very careful observer of people). But I am interested in all scientific studies relating to the topic that can provide material answers to these things.

[UDP]

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them"

[Creepy-male]

by underlying I don't mean merely abstract, I mean like timeless, I mean like talking about the f***ing structure of the universe and existance like the very meaning and essence of things, not just merely unobservable but like the unobservable of unobservables. I am asking if you think this theory can express the one and only true meaning of a person, afterall if it can't even come close to lightly touch on some underlying true meaning and essence of a person.... aren't we just using fancy words to describe behaviors we see?

You make it sound like those are the only two options.

Socionics comes somewhere in between, and that's that.

Well I was trying to draw extremes out of UPD, because the topic is called the defining question not the so-so question and I am looking to have a prompt that can seperate people by two different schools of thought. Sure in reality it is somewhere in between but thats the boring objective answer, I guess what I want to know is the subjective side of it, which do you believe socionics is closer to, a means to quickly profile people or a profound statement concerning a person's underlying nature. This is the nebulous part of it where individual opinion comes in.

[Creepy-male]

rick: i agree that people show different levels of confidence in their different abilities. i agree that experience and close inspection can differentiate along those lines.

what i don't agree with (necessarily), is the leap in reasoning that says this has anything to do with what is natural and inborn. maybe we are more confident in a given function because that's the tactic which circumstance has made us use most often? the confidence could be acquired rather than predetermined. and if a person wanted to or if circumstances changed and forced them to adapt (as they often do) maybe then we aquire confidence in wearing a different mask, given enough investment.

i would not be surprised if most people do tend to settle with one particular skill set rather than repeatedly changing face in the long run. but that relationship isn’t necessarily causal. generally we are more free to experiment in our youth compared to the specialization and security that older responsibilities often force one to undertake. whatever mask circumstance has us wear as young adults may be what we find most convenient for growing accustomed to, regardless of whatever would be “natural.”

to differentiate between what is natural and one has invested time into acquiring, i think more needs to be known about cognitive science. they can appear identical when conventionally observed.

Agreed, but we're talking about modes of thought, not abilities. They are quite a bit more rigid than abilities. People never really work on developing "modes of thought." If what you're suggesting here is entirely correct, it would not make sense why people experience many negative emotions when they are put in situations or with people where there are certain predominating modes of thought.

Here is the real question, how can you ever hope to get an objective glance at the "modes of thought" of any individual. This is completely off limits to objective knowledge and is a confusing paradox, its one thing to find out how a machine is working, but to expect the machine to figure out how its operating is a paradox since it is still operating when its trying to figure out how its operating. Simply put, its purely impossible to ever hope to gain an objective explanation of a person's inner world.

Also... I got lost in your debate so I'll bring up a seperate point of interest in addition to the above one.

You spoke of socionics trying to peg the natural self and understand it, so I'd assume you believe that socionics attempts to tap into an underlying nature in the person, their hidden potential and 'destiny' if you will, I use that term liberally also to note. What I am saying is I am guessing more or less you believe the goal of socionics is to describe something that exists within the person and dictates their uniquenes with respect to 15 other types. Now my question is, how does one go about clearly typing the "natural" self if its masked by the social self and locked away within the person? People spend their entire lives trying to bring their inner potential into actuality and very rarely do most observers even come to see this true self on a day to day basis, usually most people experience others in terms of social behaviors and even the individual themselves is likely to see themselves only in terms of social behavior except in particular cases throughout their life. People that have a high correlation between inner potential and reality are very rare and usually make for very powerful characters when you run across one. To me it just seems ludacris to think socionics can easily mark a person's inner potential, this would be incredibly difficult to do. Now I guess my question is how do you think a socionist can go about marking a person's inner potential and not just some meaningless fluff like one day you say a person solve a hard puzzle, they must be (insert type here) or meaningless fluff like greg like extreme sports he must be an ISTp or something like that.

[Creepy-male]

but say if years from now it turns out that our functional confidences are indeed mostly inborn, if this is consistent with some hard science. then that's the way it is, i can accept this is possible. unlike jung i don't subscribe to a mysticism that forces me to care too much either way. but in the mean time i think you do harm to the theory by assuming it as fact prematurely. i haven't seen that too much around here but on ganin's site there is a lot of pigeon-holing by way of the nature assumption. it's very off-putting as it casts doubt on the empirical soundness of socionists and if it's mostly proven wrong you could lose all remaining credibility that jung himself didn't squander. not to mention all the potentially inaccurate advice you would be dispensing in real people’s lives.

Do you know what Einstein said when he was asked what he would do if the theory of relativity turned out to be wrong? "Then I feel sorry for the dear Lord, the theory is right."

base always knows what is structurally true. I don't argue with types over their assessment of powers and forces, and neither should you argue with a type over what structures do and do not exist.

This is also the reason why I've shyed away from socionics, this for example is using the idea of the theory not for fun people watching, not for self-improvment, not for clinical psychology, not for self-development/understanding, not for criminal profiling, not for science, not for knowledge, none of these. It is being used in order to enforce a debate point, and in order to continue this debate one would have to hunt and pick at theoretical points in order to make progress, a little too much trouble if you ask me. Anyways the real truth is implies interest in structures not proficiency in understanding them -- you made a hasty intuitive leap. Even if a person was it simply means they examine structures not that they are always right.

[Rick]

rick: i agree that people show different levels of confidence in their different abilities. i agree that experience and close inspection can differentiate along those lines.

what i don't agree with (necessarily), is the leap in reasoning that says this has anything to do with what is natural and inborn. maybe we are more confident in a given function because that's the tactic which circumstance has made us use most often? the confidence could be acquired rather than predetermined. and if a person wanted to or if circumstances changed and forced them to adapt (as they often do) maybe then we aquire confidence in wearing a different mask, given enough investment.

i would not be surprised if most people do tend to settle with one particular skill set rather than repeatedly changing face in the long run. but that relationship isn’t necessarily causal. generally we are more free to experiment in our youth compared to the specialization and security that older responsibilities often force one to undertake. whatever mask circumstance has us wear as young adults may be what we find most convenient for growing accustomed to, regardless of whatever would be “natural.”

to differentiate between what is natural and one has invested time into acquiring, i think more needs to be known about cognitive science. they can appear identical when conventionally observed.

Agreed, but we're talking about modes of thought, not abilities. They are quite a bit more rigid than abilities. People never really work on developing "modes of thought." If what you're suggesting here is entirely correct, it would not make sense why people experience many negative emotions when they are put in situations or with people where there are certain predominating modes of thought.

Here is the real question, how can you ever hope to get an objective glance at the "modes of thought" of any individual. This is completely off limits to objective knowledge and is a confusing paradox, its one thing to find out how a machine is working, but to expect the machine to figure out how its operating is a paradox since it is still operating when its trying to figure out how its operating. Simply put, its purely impossible to ever hope to gain an objective explanation of a person's inner world.

Also... I got lost in your debate so I'll bring up a seperate point of interest in addition to the above one.

You spoke of socionics trying to peg the natural self and understand it, so I'd assume you believe that socionics attempts to tap into an underlying nature in the person, their hidden potential and 'destiny' if you will, I use that term liberally also to note. What I am saying is I am guessing more or less you believe the goal of socionics is to describe something that exists within the person and dictates their uniquenes with respect to 15 other types. Now my question is, how does one go about clearly typing the "natural" self if its masked by the social self and locked away within the person? People spend their entire lives trying to bring their inner potential into actuality and very rarely do most observers even come to see this true self on a day to day basis, usually most people experience others in terms of social behaviors and even the individual themselves is likely to see themselves only in terms of social behavior except in particular cases throughout their life. People that have a high correlation between inner potential and reality are very rare and usually make for very powerful characters when you run across one. To me it just seems ludacris to think socionics can easily mark a person's inner potential, this would be incredibly difficult to do. Now I guess my question is how do you think a socionist can go about marking a person's inner potential and not just some meaningless fluff like one day you say a person solve a hard puzzle, they must be (insert type here) or meaningless fluff like greg like extreme sports he must be an ISTp or something like that.

It sounds like the natural self you are talking about is some kind of diagnosis for self-actualization, i.e. "you are an Immanuel Kant in embryo." Or, "you could be a great _____". I don't believe that this is the kind of diagnosis that socionics gives. Only an insightful, careful observer could give that kind of prophesy.

I also don't believe that whatever socionics is interested in typing can be particularly locked up or hidden. After all, socionic type simply describes the basic kind of information signals the individual perceives and relays to others with the greatest degree of confidence and -- as a result -- frequency. So it essentially lies on the surface. The only problem is learning to read or register information signals, and getting in situations where you can judge the confidence and frequency of different information signals. (maybe the difficulty of this is the whole point you are making?)

If Greg likes extreme sports but never talks about it or anything else action-oriented or risk-laden, we can say that his hobby does not play a significant role in his interaction with others and is related more to his weaker functions than his strong ones. If, however, he talks about them a lot and constantly is trying to get others to take risks of different kinds, we can say that his extreme sports are probably an outgrowth of his strong functions. It is something he actively tries to promote and make a point of, and it influences his relationships: if others don't like being told to take risks all the time, they are repelled by him, while people who like or need this message are drawn to him. Over time his hobbies may well change, but I very much doubt his underlying manner of saying things will. At least I have not observed anything like that in people.

[Rick]

This might be another hidden vs. debate. HaveLucidDreamz seems to be more interested in analyzing the theoretical possibility of identifying the natural vs. social self. I can follow the train of thought (mostly), but I eventually drop it because in practice there are different problems than this, and determining whether what you are observing is theoretically possible, or whether you can be observing anything in the first place, is less of an interest to me.

[Creepy-male]

Well I pretty much came to the same conclusion, I kind of ranted on last night mainly because I had been up for 36 hours + without sleep and was just rambling. However I can more clearly define what I mean by natural self and social self.

I am kind of looking at the "natural self" as , or potentalities that exist in people. I am looking at a person's natural self as the potential self people have inside. The reason I call this the natural self is usually I find people make important life decisions that affect their behavior based on inspiration from this inner potential. In other words a musician is different from a non musician not because one merely plays music and the other doesn't. It's because the musician was inspired to pursue music and the non musician isn't inspired the least to pursue music, this is a division that doesn't lie in the physical reality but lies within each individual subjective interpretation of what is worthwhile in life and a person's subjectivity and ideas concerning what is worthwhile in life all come from this inner potential which dictates subjective meaning to the person in a sense.

Now to me the social self is merely what people see when they walk around out in society. It is the "mask" people were so to speak. It usually is a manifestation of the "natural self", but with that said its very hard to pinpoint what connection the social self makes with the natural self. Like greg playing extreme sports is his functioning in society, this is the social self. However is this because greg was inspired to seek thrills and risky sensations, or is it because greg thinks they are cool and it will help his reputation, or is it because greg needed an activity to get exercise with, or is it because greg got involved in it with a couple of friends. This is the allusive part.

Now wrapping this back up to how it plays into socionics. It is my belief socionics cannot pinpoint a natural self, it contains a person's inner subjectivity and is difficult to understand objectively and is too long term to type so rigidly in my opinion. Socionics however can pinpoint the social self so well that it's extremely easy for people to make intuitive leaps in order to speculate and understand a person's motives and the connection of the social self and natural self. If we knew greg was an ISTp or any xSxp we could guess he just naturally enjoyed the thrills of extreme sports, however if greg was ISTj it may be that he needed an activity for excercise, if greg was ESTj or ESTp it may have been a thing to get involved with, with friends. However a person can't say this will absolute conviction, as gregs inner subjective motive is hidden from socionics. Even with the idea greg prefers certain types of activity over others still cannot justify his motivation since its the motivation that alters preference and not preference that alters motivation.

One example of my reasoning is, me, before college I was very un-intuitive in the Jungian Sense. In school I never got analyzing literature, to me I didn't think it was important what this characters motive was or that characters..... they just did what they did, a very xSxp outlook. In math and science I never took a conceptual look at problems I just used a very ISTp based mode of thought, it was about using mechanical intuition (sensing traits in jungian psychology) and thinking of everyday situations. I thought things like inkblots were just inkblots and etc. I was always uncomfortable with what jung would call the Intuitive things. Although there was a dividing point at the begining of college where I got more intuitive and started to understand the conceptual side of things and such, now its extremely easy to explain a theme in a movie or book and analyze motives of characters. When looking back at the transition it was really a matter of desire to pursue Intuition in this case, to me placing an intuitive outlook to school was unimportant in high school, the material was boring, the environment was focused on practical success and being a student over deep thought (xNTx stuff), and I was younger and interested in more lively things. Now in college the desire is greater, the material is interesting, the environment is focused on education, and their is more freedom so its easier to concentrate on academic things when class is in session. So to me, it very hard to say I believe I was dominant Intuition at the younger years in my life, all I see when looking back at how I was in high school is a potential to have used all that intuition and not nessicarily a weaker developed intuitive side, just the same now days I don't see myself as being weaker in sensing, I still have common sense and such from my earlier days and such just that now I am focused on exploring more intuitive things and while I may not be focused on practicality while being intuitive I still have common sense already developed from which to draw upon.

So I guess my point is --

Natural Self ----inspires-----> Action ------manifests-------> Social Self

and socionics seeks to give a model for the actions (their behaviorial preferences) of a person. However I don't think socionics can give a reason for the motivating force of a person's actions other than its simply their nature. This would mean a socionics type is still at the mercy of the natural self to undergo change, and therefore cannot type the person's natural self but only the social self. At best socionics can only seek to delve into speculation of the natural self.

[mikemex]

My intuition says socionics is just a big coincidence. I have a vague idea that they picked up some dichotomies and arranged them in a way they balance each other. It works somewhat to predict how relationships are likely to develop , but it doesn't explain how the mind works. I mean, they are just reporting an observation and giving away a wrong explanation. From that perspective it is not much better than MBTI.

It is very bad at predicting the individual characteristics. For example, it might seem like an ISFp is dumb to the ass, but I know real world ISFp who are quite intelligent.

[Creepy-male]

I've run across a ISFp math professor before oddly enough.

Anyways my intuition tells me the same I am just trying to rationally prove it.

[Stormy]

Do you really think that psychological theory on personality types has tapped into some brilliant underlying pattern that exists within all people to explain people's differences in their individual meaning and worth as an individual?

Or do you think this is merely a list of prejudices and behaviors various people have observed that is interesting but by no means some underlying pattern explaining individual meaning and worth.

The latter - Socionics tends towards explaining roles in society, for example.

[Exodus]

This might be another hidden vs. debate. HaveLucidDreamz seems to be more interested in analyzing the theoretical possibility of identifying the natural vs. social self. I can follow the train of thought (mostly), but I eventually drop it because in practice there are different problems than this, and determining whether what you are observing is theoretically possible, or whether you can be observing anything in the first place, is less of an interest to me.

I think HaveLucidDreamz is ENFj.