Some unsorted personal reflections on this extremely interesting material ...
I think I am now slowly beginning to understand why there is still so much confusion about some of the important aspects of the differences between for example LIIs and ILIs. We might have a serious problem of mutual understanding here, and we might need to discuss more what these things should appropriately be called and how they should be correctly described.
From my perspective I have thought that I focus on generalizations. I have associated that with simplification, clarification, and one of my working hypotheses have been that it might have something to do with inductive reasoning in contrast to deductive reasoning. That's one reason why I have thought that Sergei Ganin's INTp Uncovered profile is misleading when he describes the INTps as enemies of generalizations. Are we talking about the same thing or not? I'm not sure, and now Gulenko complicates things a bit too.
Gulenko and I seem to agree that, in essence, an ILI's thinking is not analytic, and that it is more correctly described as synthetic. And I think that it is very important to understand that, because people confuse these things all the time. Some people have thought that my generalizations about the correlations between for example Socionics and MBTT is an expression ofand that what they see is a
ILIs are, in essence, synthesizers. I try to explain a synthesis when I say that, despite their apparent differences between how the types are described in Socionics and MBTT, they are nevertheless talking about the same referents, the same groups of people, the same empirical types. I have thought that that means that ILIs don't build deductive theories from axioms or basic assumptions -- that they try instead to explain the external information in more simple terms, but maybe that can be interpreted as almost identical to what Gulenko says about the involutionary (result) types:
So, according to Gulenko, that is what LIIs do -- simplify and reduce -- whereas the ILIs, belonging to the group of evolutionary (process) thinkers, would be the ones using deductive logic and building more complex theories out of simple axioms or assumptions, that is what I have associated with a the expression "a bottom-up" approach. And most people on this forum have automatically associated deductive logic with LIIs, not ILIs. How shall we understand this? Are we contradicting each other or not? What are we talking about? What is Gulenko talking about?Originally Posted by Gulenko
To complicate things further (if that is that what I'm doing ...) Gulenko also mentions in his article that for the involutionary types "is characteristic the accomplishment of backward motions - from the end at the beginning, from below - upward." I have thought that that is exactly what I have bee noticing in my own behaviour. That I almost always prefer to start with the conclusion, the main thesis, before I get into the details and the question how the conclusion was derived. I tend to ask: What's the point of all this? What (thesis) are you trying to argue for?
Is Gulenko wrong about this? An apparent consequence of what he says is that he seems to be contradicting a rather common understanding of LIIs as prone to use deductive logic and reasoning. I have always objected when people say that that is an indication of leading
Gulenko says about the evolutionary types:
Do I really complicate things mentally? Is that how ILIs are perceived? Maybe, I don't know. I could perhaps accept that, it's no very big deal, but I want to clarify these things so that we can hopefully reach a consensus on how to describe the differences.
One thing is clear. LIIs are essentially analytic in their thinking, whereas ILIs are essentially synthetic. My working hypothesis was that the LII's thinking can be called primarily deductive, and that the ILI's thinking can be called primarily inductive. Maybe it should be the other way around if Gulenko is right, and that would also be in line with my claim that ILIs are better at conceptual, deductive, logical thinking than LIIs, but this might need to be discussed some more. We should keep in mind that both types can think both deductively and inductively, but it is definitely the case that I use deductive logic when I focus on logical errors in other people's reasoning. And I definitely act like a typical ILI in those situations.
Maybe Gulenko and I are focusing on two different parts of the same process. What about this way of putting it?
The LIIs try to simplify, to reduce a complex reality into a few axioms and assumptions, and the theory of the functions in Socionics is an example of that kind of thinking.
The ILIs try to see reality in all its complexity before they even begin to think about reducing things to basic assumptions. So, at least in the initial stage of the investigating process, the ILIs seem to complicate things further and further. But their ultimate goal is to arrive at an all-encompassing understanding of the world that can be captured in a theory.
Gulenko seems to focus on the first stage of an ILI's thinking, whereas I have previously focussed on the ultimate goal -- to explain the complex puzzle as simply and accurately as possible. Seen from my perspective, the LIIs seem to get there too fast, so quickly that they seem to dismiss important pieces of information as irrelevant and simply assume things uncritically. And then they immediately seem to start building subjective theories from those assumptions.
Gulenko also seems to focus on the first stage of an LII's approach, whereas I, as said, have focussed on the later stages. Is that a possible dissolution of our apparent differences in views? Do we actually agree on this?
I'm not convinced that Gulenko is entirely right in his grouping of the types along these dimensions, but there must be some truth to it, because I fit perfectly as an ILI in Gulenkos framework of cognitive styles. Like my namesake Phaedrus in Robert M. Pirsig's auto-biographical and highly philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance my thinking is Dialectical-Algorithmic. Gulenko summarizes it perfectly when he says that:
In all my thinking and writing this is my attitude, my quintessential approach to fundamental problems in philosophy and science. If people would understand what this is about, they would see clearly that it is also my approach to the 16 types and everything I say about Socionics and its relation to other typologies. This is my way, this is Phaedrus's (Pirsig's) way, this is the quintessential way of my (sub)type of ILI.
An important aspect of this kind of thinking is the tendency to classify, or as Gulenko puts it:
It was probably this aspect of our thinking that an ENTp friend of mine said he had noticed clearly in me, his INTp brother, and a few other INTps that he has worked with. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you'll see what I am talking about. It can manifest itself as a preference for using dichotomies. Phaedrus in Pirsig's book is constantly thinking in dichotomies and comes up with new ones, for example the one between Classical (Intellectual) Quality and Romantic (Emotional) Quality. The ultimate aim, however, is to unify, to reduce the dichotomies into the ONE -- the ulitmate essence, the final synthesis that will explain the secret that is hidden underneath the surface level.
I am not at all convinced that Gulenko is right about quantum mechanics being a good example of dialectical thinking, and I am also skeptical of putting Niels Bohr in that category. Maybe Hegel's thinking was dialectical in a sense, but he was definitely not an ILI -- though perhaps an EIE. Roger Penrose is probably close to a charlatan in essence, and I think that a much better example of this kind of thinking -- or at least an example that I personally can identify with -- is Douglas R. Hofstadter and his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
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