Objects vs. Fields
Fe, Te, Se, and Ne are aspects of objects. Fi, Ti, Si, and Ni are aspects of fields.
Object: one or more people, things, etc.
Field: the relationship between those people, things, etc.
Fields are not people, things, etc. that are connected. It's the connection itself. Those people, things, etc. are still objects even if they're connected.
What about connections between connections?
yeah, those too
- mechanical interactions
- non-mechanical interactions
- logical connections
- non-logical connections
fields are things percieved as relative, compared to one another. i.e. dependent to some subject.
fields may be perceived either as subjective or objective.
Plus-minus elements.
We're
Is that what you meant, machintruc?
LII-Ne
"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and the Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare!"
- Blair Houghton
Johari
Perhaps, though, we should be skeptical about the whole distinction rather than so accepting of it? Augusta came to her theory based on noticing intertype relations (at least dual vs. conflict, at first) and based on Jung. Later, it seems, she came up with the objects vs. field thing.Originally Posted by Joy
The reason seems obvious; she wanted to find some more "respectable" understanding than simply calling things "introverted" vs. "extraverted." Hence, without having to appeal to anything that might reek of a sociability distinction, she noticed that introverted functions are less directly connected with the "object" in question and involve "relating" things in a more indirect way.
Okay, fine.
But then people take this stuff too far when they think that the "object" IM elements involve no relating of things at all. Clearly,and
involve relationships between things too. They have to. And to say "well, if a
...
Last edited by Suomea; 09-27-2008 at 03:52 PM.
Suomea
No. This is a good example of the fallacy I was just referring to. Xi is not simply Xe with the addition of relations between things.
If you're oriented towards external information in a Te way and you relate things to each other in the process, it's still Te.
Think about it. Expat is an example of someone generally thought of as a leading-Te type. Are his posts just a bunch of random facts thrown together without any relations between them? And if not, is he then displaying mainly his 7th function (Ti) in his posts?
People are taking the idea of objects vs. fields way to literally. The idea that extraverted IM elements involve merely disconnected points with no intelligent connections between them is nonsensical. How could we even talk about Te and Fe as being "rational" IM elements if they were merely random observations of "stuff"? And even Se and Ne must involve connections between things, or they're completely meaningless.
No, I meant that LII's perceives correlations as objective, and LSI's as subjective :Plus-minus elements.
We're
Is that what you meant, machintruc?
see the difference...
Interesting. Could you please cite a reference on this? I was under the impression that Socionics was born of combining Jung's theory with another theory about information processing.
Socionics began to make far more sense to me when I began to understand this part of the theory. It was like I went from trying to understand how electricity works by observing the way a house is wired to actually understanding the scientific principles involved.
Elements? No. Aspects? Yes.But then people take this stuff too far when they think that the "object" IM elements involve no relating of things at all. Clearly,
The reason I say no for elements is because it is absolutely impossible to use one at a time. This is not some insignificant point.
No, you're leaving out the dynamics vs. statics component.
Te is actually more more similar to Fe than it is to Ti.
Fe is actually much more similar to Te than it is to Fi.
Ne is actually much more similar to Se than it is to Ni.
Se is actually much more similar to Ne than it is to Si.
Ti is actually much more similar to Fi than it is to Te.
Fi is actually much more similar to Ti than it is to Fe.
Ni is actually much more similar to Si than it is to Ne.
Si is actually much more similar to Ni than it is to Se.
And if you want to make comparisons of the differences between information aspects based on the objects/fields component, then the "similar" aspects are:
Te and Si
Fe and Ni
Se and Ti
Ne and Fi
I think, when focusing on
and+,
+ and
...
Last edited by Suomea; 09-27-2008 at 03:51 PM.
Suomea
Yes, I read that too. But I read somewhere that the reason she was looking at Jung to begin with was that she noticed that certain relationships worked out better than others, and later understand the difference she was seeing as being dual vs. conflict. I'd have to look for the reference. In any case, my only point here is the ideas derived from Jung and that the object/field thing was added later.
If it works for you, fine...I don't mean to take that away.Socionics began to make far more sense to me when I began to understand this part of the theory.
But do you see how if it's taken to the extreme, it doesn't work? I have no problem with viewing introverted functions as being more indirectly related to the object and therefore more concerned with the "relations" between things. But when people take it too far, then extraverted functions appear to be meaningless. Even if we think of them as information aspects, they really are relating things. How could it be otherwise? Can you come up with an example of, say, Ne that's not relating something to something else? One can't even form any thought at all without relating something to something else. How could one conceive of a "possibility" or "potential" of an object that relates no concepts at all? It's inherently meaningless.
And sure, if you look at Ne the "information aspect," then you can talk about a possibility or potential of an object that's just out there to be discovered. It still involves a relation. Otherwise it's meaningless. There is no meaning if there is no relation.
Yeah, when she went beyond studying someone else's theory and Socionics was born.
You're right, that's pretty much what it comes down to. Whatever works for the person trying to understand the theory.If it works for you, fine...I don't mean to take that away.
I can certainly see how it doesn't work when used in the wrong context or misunderstood. If that's what you mean by "to the extreme", I agree. I've also observed that these concepts are too abstract for most people who already think they understand information elements to easily relate their understanding to without one on one explanation from someone who already understands it.But do you see how if it's taken to the extreme, it doesn't work?
It's like a piece of pie.I have no problem with viewing introverted functions as being more indirectly related to the object and therefore more concerned with the "relations" between things. But when people take it too far, then extraverted functions appear to be meaningless. Even if we think of them as information aspects, they really are relating things. How could it be otherwise? Can you come up with an example of, say, Ne that's not relating something to something else? One can't even form any thought at all without relating something to something else. How could one conceive of a "possibility" or "potential" of an object that relates no concepts at all? It's inherently meaningless.
And sure, if you look at Ne the "information aspect," then you can talk about a possibility or potential of an object that's just out there to be discovered. It still involves a relation. Otherwise it's meaningless. There is no meaning if there is no relation.
You can't bake just one piece of pie. One piece of pie cannot exist without being (or having been) a part of the pie as a whole, but that doesn't mean you can't separate that one piece and put it on a plate by itself. Even though each of the slices is a piece of the same pie, that doesn't mean that you can't look at each one individually.
Similarly, each information aspect is a slice of one reality as a whole. They cannot exist without all of the other aspects of that reality, but that doesn't mean you can't look at each one individually.
Well, my other point there is that the intertype relationships and Model A do not depend on the object/field/internal/external/etc. theory being right. They're like separate theories, separate components. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, but it's not necessary for the others to work.Yeah, when she went beyond studying someone else's theory and Socionics was born.
Well, except that we end up with different theories then.Whatever works for the person trying to understand the theory....Which is perhaps an argument for going with with the object/field thing, except that I still tend to be a skeptic.
That's may be why it's such a pet peeve of mine...and this isn't restricted to people whose understanding of Socionics is obviously marginal.I can certainly see how it doesn't work when used in the wrong context or misunderstood.
Two examples of what I see as incorrect use of the idea:
* People attempting to display Te by stating a bunch of irrelevant, insigificant factual details about something, and saying that that's what Te is all about.
* People saying "he just connected one idea to another. That must be Ti."
I understand where you're coming from. Based on this theory, if an LIE is speaking or writing and focusing on Te and Ni, then essentially all of the connective part of the discourse is really Ni; basically the Te part is merely being grounded in external facts, and how the thoughts all go together is Ni, which makes it seem that Ni is 99.99999% of it.It's like a piece of pie.
Maybe....But I still have trouble seeing how we can differentiate Te from Fe from Se from Ne if they're all just about disconnected "stuff." The distinctions between "internal," "external," "dynamic," and "static" imply some sort of relationship of ideas. That's why I prefer to think of extraverted information aspects as having at least the beginnings of "relations."
Maybe one could make an analogy to a flower. The petals of the flower are connected, and you could say that the connection is the introverted part. But even as you get away from the center, they are "going in" towards the center, where they connect. So, where does one draw the line between the part that is connecting in, and the part that is on the outside? Is the extraverted part just the infinitessimal tip of the petals? That would seem to make the extraverted part completely boring and insignificant, and give almost everything to the introverted part.
I find it easiest to compare it to dynamics vs. statics.
Statics are the states of people/things/etc. Dynamics are activities.
You can't have activities without having people/things, and people/things can't exist without ever changing (so there are always activities). They are still two separate things though.
I've found that irrational types seem, generally speaking, to appreciate this aspect of Socionics less than rational types. Perhaps it's just my imagination though? Gilligan would be an exception, of course.
I have no problem conceptualizing the distinction between objects and relations. The issue is that I'm skeptical about whether it is the best way to conceive of the information aspects.
See, another way to view the information aspects is that you have the irrational elements, which, from a Jungian perspective, have to do with what you perceive....In other words, the irrational elements are "the stuff," so speak, and the rational elements involve the judgement...that is, the structure, the ordering of "the stuff."
But when Augusta developed her theory, the extraverted elements became "the stuff" and the introverted elements became the relations between stuff...that is, the structure.
So you almost have this mapping:
Jung rational = Augusta introverted
Jung irrational = Augusta extraverted
Now I'm not saying that mapping works all the way; in fact, in many Socionics writings, the information aspects/elements are described in ways that are closer to the original Jungian conceptions of them than they are to the object/fields approach. For example, sometimes Te is referred to as "business logic" or "algorithms," etc. Well, logic and algorithms imply some sort of structure, some sort of relationship between stuff. If Te is just "disconnected facts," as many people suppose based on the fields/objects stuff, well then it can have nothing to do with logic, algorithms, and many other things associated with Te.
An interesting question, by the way, is how do you derive the distinction between rational/irrational from object/field and dynamic/static?
Now, of course, by definition, rational = dynamic/objects or static/fields,
and irrational = dynamic/fields or static/objects. But the issue is, what about dynamic/objects has anything to do with how the "rational" elements are described in Socionics, and what about dynamic/fields has anything to do with how the "irrational" elements are described?
Surely if one thinks of objects as just disconnected stuff, how is that rational?
This whole idea, while it makes sense at some level, seems bizarre. What does one mean by an object? What does the word entail? An example of an object is a person? Ok, so in what characteristics is a person an object? Is an object a thing that contains properties? Or is the object the properties? I think an object would be the collection of properties(a bundle theory.) So the object person would be the sum of all the traits of the person. I don't know I just can't my head around that reasoning. Like, an object stops at the total sum of it all? Wouldn't the sum be a relation, thus, object=relation, creating a contradiction? What do you mean when you say an object is a thing? I just find the concept really confusing.
"To become is just like falling asleep. You never know exactly when it happens, the transition, the magic, and you think, if you could only recall that exact moment of crossing the line then you would understand everything; you would see it all"
"Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the bedside of a dying child."
Like, I find it really intuitive to point out what an object is, to give examples of an object. A mouse is an object, a pencil is an object, a star is an object. A thing is the object. But then what constitutes a thing? I'm having a hard time understanding that. What do you mean by when you say a thing?
"To become is just like falling asleep. You never know exactly when it happens, the transition, the magic, and you think, if you could only recall that exact moment of crossing the line then you would understand everything; you would see it all"
"Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the bedside of a dying child."
For purists in this theory, I think it means something like "the aspect of something that signifies its existence." If one makes an analogy to math, one might think of the "objects" as the individual elements that exist within a given mathematical universe...for example, all the numbers. The relations would be anything interesting one could observe about them at all....for example, all theorems, axioms, recognition of properties, patterns, and on and on. As you can see, it gets pretty lopsided, because the objects in themselves are pretty boring, and most of the interesting part is how they relate to each other. Of course, the objects are needed, but they form merely the "basics," the "fundamentals." This would seem to imply that extraverted elements are only concerned with basic, raw materials, and that practically all mental processing of any significance involves mainly the introverted elements.
Now, I think what's missing here is the fact that practically speaking, object means, instead, "the thing external to the individual's conception." That is, the extraverted element makes one interested in the actual external thing in question, rather than just one's reaction to it. This is why extraverts take initiative to make things actually happen, whereas introverts are often content to merely focus on their own reactions and may not care as much what is actually going on as long as their reactions are good.
What is also missing...and I think this solves a great deal of confusion created by Augusta's object/field dichotomy....is that relations (fields) are really referring to relations from the point of view of the individual...whereas the object (the extraverted point of view) also presupposes relationships, but ones that exist outside the individual's mental purview.
For example, an Ne-oriented person assumes that there are possibilities, which involve connections, external to the individual. The Se-oriented person assumes that objects outside the individual are connected. They may use Ti to seek to understand those connections in a way they can grasp internally. A Te-oriented person assumes that the reality outside has struture and attempts to guide his/her actions to reflect the external structure that exists. He/she may use Ni to imagine and conceptualize what may happen next...to model reality, so to speak. So the introverted functions are used to create relationships that we can grasp and work with ourselves; however the extraverted functions presume an order and connection to things external to the individual. This is why Te can be seen as highly structured, and why Ne may be seen as seeking out connections.
Without understanding the extraverted elements as involving connections and relations (but just ones that are external..."beyond" one's own private conception of them), I think the theory tends to lead to significant problems.
The interpretation of introvert/extrovert, or field/object that I am using is pespective dependent vs. perspective independent.
Also:
Wide scope vs. narrow scope.
I theorize that the "object" is really just a meaningful collection of perspectives to our psyche.
Just to clarify...which one is which, in your interpretation? How are you mapping "perspective dependence" with breadth of "scope" with field/object?
It may seem obvious to you, but I could see it going several ways. Similarly, how are you defining these concepts?
Are extraverts the people with the wider and more independent scope because they're involved further afield from a narrow set of personal concerns? Or is it the other way around; is it that people who focus more on their external environment become defined more by the specifics of their situation, whereas people who are introverted and less aware of their situation per se can let their minds roam and think about all sorts of things not related to them specifically? Like most things around here, it could go either way.
There is also something in psychology called "field dependence/independence" (http://tip.psychology.org/styles.html, which Dmitri thought correlates with being an ethical vs. logical type.
Right. A perspective overlooks a number of objects. Hence to focus on an object means to narrow ones perspective. Anyway, I wouldn´t say this conclusion is at all ´obvious´ to me, it is just the one that seems most tenable to me at this point in time.
Further, it is a description and is thus liable to being interpreted in multiple ways.
I also fully support your sceptical attitude to the socionics concepts that others use, though that does not mean it will always be to my benefit to join you in it.
That was insightful. I learned something from it.Now, I think what's missing here is the fact that practically speaking, object means, instead, "the thing external to the individual's conception." That is, the extraverted element makes one interested in the actual external thing in question, rather than just one's reaction to it. This is why extraverts take initiative to make things actually happen, whereas introverts are often content to merely focus on their own reactions and may not care as much what is actually going on as long as their reactions are good.
Field/Object in my opinion is the most difficult to grasp dichotomy because the words generally used to explain it are ambiguous in many different ways. Personally I've replaced it with Rational/Irrational since it was easier to understand and somehow feels more natural and fundamental. That's why I think the easiest way to grasp Field/Object is by looking at why Rational+Static and Irrational+Dynamic are Field oriented and Rational+Dynamic and Irrational+Static are Object oriented.
Rational/Irrational can be understood when looking at a beautiful old tree. Irrationally you can observe the tree in all its glory. Rationally you can for instance observe the tree's species, genus and family. In a sense, Irrational is what the world imposes on us and Rational is what we impose upon the world. The world doesn't care that all species have a genus and family. That's something we rationally constructed.
Static/Dynamic in a sense is about being versus doing. Attributes of something, structure, interconnections,... those are aspects of what is. Behaviour of something, things affecting each other, interactions,... those are aspects of what does. Of course you can study the behaviour of something, but then you can again look at both Static and Dynamic aspects of it. The Static/Dynamic dichotomy in my opinion exists because we live in a spacetime. Space allows things to be. Time allows things to do.
Rational+Static (Ti, Fi) could then mean "structure we impose on our world". Relationships that exist between people for instance are not physically there, but are a construct of our mind. In the same way, there's no real connection between two steps of a mathematical proof, only in the sense of a rational interpretation of it. If you could visualise these interconnections using special glasses with a headup display or something, you'd see lines drawn wherever a relation exists along with information characterising the nature of the link. All these links together look a bit like a network. Ti/Fi perceive aspects of this network and not of the nodes, i.e. Ti/Fi look at the Field that is formed this way.
Rational+Dynamic (Te, Fe) would be "interpretation of behaviour" or some such. Information that characterises the behaviour or interactions of something within a larger context. Here you can see it is Object oriented. Te could characterise behaviour in terms of efficiency, functionality, malfunction,... There's plenty of examples of this on the wiki. Fe could characterise behaviour as entertaining, acceptable, unacceptable, conflicting,... within a given group of people. In my experience Te/Fe really are dependent on this context. For instance, there are things one group would find entertaining and another would not. Te/Fe adapt their interpretation to such a context.
Irrational+Static (Se, Ne) could be described as "inherent characteristics of things in the world around us". This is perhaps the easiest to understand in a basic way, but in my experience it's therefore also the easiest to underestimate as function. Anyway, I think it's clear to see this is Object oriented.
Irrational+Dynamic (Si, Ni) could be (vaguely) about "undergoing the world". How does the world affect you or, when you put yourself in someone/something else's shoes, how does the world affect them. What kind of impact do certain events have on you as you are personally involved. In contrast, Te/Fe observe such impact from a detached rationalising point of view. To see why this is Field oriented you can again envision a network in which you are a node and links in the network indicate interactions with your environment. Si/Ni then provide you with information on how all these interactions affect you. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes would mean moving to a different node in the network and observe/undergo the world from there.
Pff, this turned out longer than I expected. I hope it's useful somehow
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