Dual nature of man, section 5

[mu4]

Original translation link here

http://www.socionics.us/works/dual_nature_of_man.shtml

5. Who Is Interested in What, and Who Knows What

(this section will undergo minor editing)

In order to satisfy one's own needs, the individual must have an idea of the entire surrounding reality. People cooperate in serving society. The mechanism of this phenomenon, as we understand it today, is quite simple: different aspects of reality are represented in the brain with different degrees of differentiation and awareness. Those aspects that only the individual himself makes use of are represented with comparative generality and are remembered in the form of images, experience, and skills. Aspects that the individual conveys information about to society are perceived with a high level of differentiation and precision, allowing him to make sense of this information and communicate it verbally.
What are these aspects? An organism's process of adapting to its environment is an unceasing chain of acts of physical energy. All that takes place in the objective world around oneself is also no more than a chain of acts of physical energy. It may be said that all that happens to us and around us are also chains of acts of physical energy. And a chain of acts of physical energy is no more than the four strokes of an internal combustion engine:

1. Potential energy
2. Conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy
3. Kinetic energy
4. Utilization of kinetic energy

These are the four perceptual aspects of reality, which, because of our typal nature, people perceive with varying degrees of cognizance. One better knows about the capabilities and abilities of others (1st stroke), another — their emotional workings (2nd stroke), another — how they operate (4th stroke). [3rd stroke omitted in original —trans.] We will assign a symbol to each of these aspects and will call them "black" elements of a person's IM:

: potential energy
: conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy
: kinetic energy
: use of kinetic energy

With these elements the individual obtains information about:

: the potential energy of observed objects and subjects, their physical and psychological capabilities
: the level of arousal and excitability of objects, people's moods and emotions
: the degree of mobilization, strength of will, power, and beauty of observed objects and subjects
: the level of activity of objects and subjects, their capacity for work

However, the world around us consists not only of moving bodies, but also of their fields of interaction. These can be called psychological fields. The componenets of these fields are relationships between objects and processes, perceived by people as certain feelings. Thus we have another four dimensions of the world which, because of our typal nature, people also perceive with varying degrees of cognizance (awareness). We will also assign each of these aspects a symbol and will call them "white" wlements of a person's IM:

: relationships between processes taking place at the same time, their reflection in the inner state of an object and its feeling of well-being
: relationships between processes occuring at different times; a sense of timeliness
: objective relationships between two objects and their separate characteristics; the relations of objects or the measurement of one object by another; spacial distances
: subjective relationships between two objects or subjects; a sense of attraction and repulsion

With these IM elements one obtains information about:

: objects' internal state or sense of well-being
: relationships in time between processes, events, and actions; the availability or lack of time; the expectation of danger or safety in the future
: objects' objective relationships to each other; their weight, magnitude, worth/value, etc., i.e. any parameters that can be measured against each other; the distances between them; their location in space
: the attractive or repulsive force of objects and subjects; how much they need or do not need each other; feelings of like and dislike; love and hatred

A few words about the origin of the graphic symbols. We have represented black sensing with the symbol — a figure that suggest the fullest contact with the external world. Intuition is a triangle , which fits perfectly into a circle. Logic and ethics are the external form and the internal content of the same process. Therefore, if we represent logic with a square — a symbol of strict reasoning — then a symbol that fits into a square must be chosen to represent the internal aspect of the same process. Thus was born a square without one corner — .
We will assign corresponding field elements the same symbols, only with a different color: , , , and .
Thus, in the process of information metabolism one uses eight IM elements, each of which reflects one of the objective aspects of reality. Now, for convention, we will assign each of these elements a name by which we will refer to it in the future (table 1).

I wanted to discuss this section of this article because I think not enough people have read it or understand it as one of the mechanics of socionics.

It's actually quite a intuitive, simple, but powerful analogy which allow socionics to work the way it does.

A recent discussion resulted in the problem of whether reality contains information aspects or whether or not everything is merely filtered by the mind.

I think it's something else more like this. Reality provides holistic information which is however non-uniform, the mind takes this non-uniform information and make perceptive categorizations and differentiation. The more ordered the system being perceived, anything from a cell to a technological product of our design, the more it will be differentiated. However it's entirely possible for information to come at us in a more chaotic and non-ordered manner, or in other words, environmental noise. Our mind imo filters much of this out and instead focuses on novel information.

The human mind is geared to perceiving order(whether it's there or not) from phenomena, and discovering or inventing rationalizations and explanation for why these phenomena exists. We have been intelligent enough thru our development to be able to construct some good approximations of reality and models of interaction which we use to design new mechanism of interaction. This is quite a valuable tool that our mind has developed which allows us to use the mechanisms that is perceived in existing order to create new systems of order.

I think the human mind is geared towards perceiving differentiated information concerning orderly processes, which gives us insight into greater reality.

In short, some information in the world is differentiated, and the human mind is focused on that differentiated information, and tries to understand and rationalize it in order to communicate it to others.

I probably could go on more about this, but let me know what you think.