Jung, Meyers-Briggs, and Socionics Rant

[Rick]

I see a tendency for people here and elsewhere to assume that these three systems are all about the same thing, and that with a little bit of effort, they can be rephrased to arrive at a "common system" that combines all of them. People are saying MBTT is "wrong" because it doesn't take into consideration some things that socionics does. Socionics descriptions are "wrong" because they stray from Jung. Etc. etc.

This is incorrect. The systems appear similar, but they are not the same. It is incorrect to say that MBTT descriptions are "not quite accurate," and that by "helping them out" with some socionics concepts, we will somehow improve their system. Or that by sticking to Jung's functional descriptions, we will "help out" socionics.

Each typology is autonomous and stands on its own. The correctness of any assertion within any of these systems can only be judged from within that system. There are three different concepts of introversion/extraversion. Three different concepts of J/P or rationality/irrationality, etc.

Even if the descriptions of these and other concepts appear to be nearly the same, there are always implicit assumptions and unstated practices within each system that differ from the others. In other words, you can have two very similar descriptions of extraversion/introversion, but very different approaches to identifying this dichotomy. Socionists have different criteria for identifying dichotomies than Meyers-Briggs typologists. Although socionists also differ among themselves, they collectively gravitate towards a set of approaches that is distinctly different from MBTT or even Jung. Each typology and set of practical approaches is internally consistent. You cannot say that a socionics approach is "wrong" based on a Jungian or MBTT understanding, -- only based on a socionics understanding.

Socionics can define its terms any way it sees fit. The only ultimate criteria for evaluating the "correctness" of socionics definitions are, "Is this logically consistent with the rest of socionics?" and "Does this help explain interaction?" "Because Jung says it differently" or "because my mother is not like this, but she is INTj for sure" are not really valid arguments.

Likewise, MBTT can define its terms how it pleases, with its somewhat different criteria -- "Is this logically consistent with the rest of MBTT?" and "Does this help explain personality?"

These are two different paths, and they lead to different places.

I'm basically reacting here to people's attempts to create their own home-grown strains of socionics (usually mixtures with other typologies) and promote them as "socionics," while ignoring accepted views among actual socionists.

[Dmitri Lytov]

Socionics and MBTI are like English, French and Spanish: there is a lot of words in these languages that sound similarly and even have the same spelling - these words have common Latin origin; however, very often their meaning differs just enough to result in misunderstanding.

The same is with socionics and MBTI: common roots do not necessarily mean common trends in development.

[Dmitri Lytov]

...and I do not think that logical consistence is really a valid argument for MBTI guys. In the Western culture, "logical consistence" is something like interesting but useless game of mind; Westerners can easily accept internally contradictory theories when they "work". "Fact" means much more than "logical consistence". Sometimes I had troubles in communication with Westerners: they said "fact", "fact", "fact" and did not notice that these facts were not logically united with each other, it was just of no importance for them.

It's all not about blaming the West, it's about difference of cultural mentalities.

[Rick]

Thanks for joining my rant, Dmitri! All others invited.

[Olga]

I see the stone flying into the local Pandora box.

1. I do not personally see a problem that people try to use their own intellectual potential and imagination to make sense of socionics and we can also look at this: the less you know the less you are biased. Since we have recently opened the Pandora box, the discussions became more interesting, because we saw many diffeernt ideas and theories and genuine thoughts and opinions. I see it as a very healthy condition for the learning process, debate, progress of thought and free, creativite thinking.

2. While I agree on th whole with what Rick says about mixing up different theories of personalities I would say there is always to sides to the coin. If you don't know enough about a theory then mixing up ideas from the different theories may lead you to make false assumptions about personality, that's true. On the other hand I would not disagree with the positon why we should not use our associative skills/knowledege to progress in our understanding of personality. Comparison and association (with what you already know) is the way to understand something new. Different types will use different functions to make sense of info as if we try to draw all together a picture of personality wich has got, colours, dimensions, taste, sounds and abstract logical explanation, mathematical code and etc... if at the end of the day we shall get a pictureor picturers different from socionics (pseudosocionics) then at least we tried and used our free choice to agree or disagree with "officialy approved" knowledge. I also did like the idea expressed by Snowic (if I remember it right) that the time will come and people will be able to combine different theories of personlaity into a bigger framework or in other words there will be a new different understanding of the whole as if we shall find the better understanding of the human psyche and not just informational metabolism. Until then we shall continue to debate about different parts of the psyche: to what degree different theories can describe and explain this phenomenon, like MBTI describes the human leg and socionics just about fingers.

As regards to logical consistency of the theory or system, nobody will disagree with it's importance but just on its own without sufficient evidence or facts it is not worth much.

[Rick]

Olga, I think I agree with your points. I am only really objecting to people making false assumptions about socionics based on MBTT, Jung, or their own home-made version of socionics.

I am all for trying to understand personality and relationships. You don't need socionics to do this, actually.

I object to people being lazy with their terms and continually treating the 3 typologies as the same thing despite constant reminders that they are different. Just because you know the word "introvert" doesn't mean you understand what a socionics "introvert" is.

I prefer to use socionics terms for discussing socionics, MBTT terms for discussing MBTT, and non-typological terms for discussing things that are outside of the bounds of these systems. Technically this is correct. If we don't do it, we're being lazy with our thinking and terminology. Seeing that is my 4th function, I will probably continue to be very picky about this.

[Creepy-]

I agree with your sentiments, Rick.

In defense of Jung, I think his theory is at least good for reorienting ourselves (particularly in terms of introversion and extroversion, some people seem to slip rather easily into the "social" definitions).

[snowyc]

An example of how MBTI differs from Socionics in regards to functional ordering:

INTJ = | | |

INTj = | | |

I like to use the analogy that the MBTI is to Active Server Pages (ASP) as Socionics is to PHP: Hypertext Processor. We can argue till the ends of time which one is superior, technically speaking although we already know which one is more popular due to mass-marketing from names we can supposedly trust. Hence how you can train to become an MBTI certified practitioner or an uncertified Socionics enthusiast.

I first came into contact with MBTI tests, profiles and descriptions and certainly experienced the awe moments of idenfication. In a hidden desire for self-discovery I certainly believed that since I tested as INTJ I was indeed "a natural brainstormer" and "applier of theoretical systems" as a typical INTJ description would discuss.

On the other hand, after studying the Socionics INTj functions i came to a new realisation that my greatest strength was not necessarily ideas per se but "seeking to understand" systems of interest and "noticing endless possibilites" in the outer world of objects.

In essence, out of one pigeon hole and into another. Kind of like the ASP programmer who later realised that PHP, albeit more seemingly alien at first, was a new solution they preferred - similiar to Socionics, it's not usually something you learn formally in the Academic world. Take my Multimedia Technology degree for example, the bureaucracy decided that we were to learn Macromedia Director and not Flash, Maya and not 3DSMax, ASP not PHP and the list goes on. I only learnt Flash when i decided indpendently, "hold on a second, this is 2003, i'm doing a Multimedia degree and i don't even know Flash" which i then proceeded to self-learn and later became an integral and necessary part of my final year project.

Back to MBTI vs Socionics. We have to remember that MBTI attempts to give us a descriptions of our personalities based on psychometric testing. On the other hand as i'm aware, Socionics needs us to also pigeon hole ourselves for a different purpose: to understand relationships with regard to how functions affect eachother consciously/subconsciously and in what way (information metabolism).

A dichotomy arises. "Certified/Centralised Knowledge" and "Non-Certified/Decentralised Knowledge" as in the case of MBTI vs Socionics. Also known as inside-the-box vs outside-the-box thinking - thus when doe the outside-the-box thinker "retire" their thoughts into a final artefact e.g. write the (final?) book on a subject and move onto the next?

A quote perhaps, to describe why Socionics is not widely known (yet) in the Academic world:

“New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.” -- George Bernard Shaw

MBTI has it's place and so does Socionics. The only reason I prefer Socionics is because of the rationalisation of intertype relations. MBTI does provide some idea or reasoning for which types go together but i never really understood it hence my and exerting itself to figure things out with Socionics just like the ASP programmer who concedes defeat that PHP is simply better for X, Y and Z reasons even though ASP still does the job to an extent. For arguements sake, my ESFj friend would recommend ASP and I would prefer PHP simply because we think differently - traditional "known" vs unconventional "variation of the known".

If Socionics is to the Pros of an open-source community as the MBTI is to the Cons of a closed-source community then I think Socionics does a very good job of explaining things considering the more forward momentum of this niche community at large.

"Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behaviour of the whole.” -- Murray Gell-Mann

I reguarly combine Socionics with Keirsey's Temperement theory more so as another tool for type idenfication.

[Dmitri Lytov]

Snowyc, it's incorrect to use socionic signs for MBTI functions (Te, Ti etc.). It's 1000 times incorrect, because MBTI guys mean something different under these functions.

While Ne matches very well with the socionic , and Ni matches very well with the socionic , the situation with sensing functions is quite different: Se resembles , and Si slightly resembles

Just read descriptions of functions, and you will understand why MBTI models do not work in socionics, and why socionic models are senseless in application to MBTI types.

The reason of such discrepancy is simple. Isabel Myers accepted C.G.Jung's descriptions of functions "as is", while socionists revised them from the standpoint of the logical consistency, i.e., so that the terms introversion and extraversion etc. meant exactly the same in application to all functions. In fact, Jung reformed his understanding of extraversion and introversion throughout all his life, and the descriptions in his Psychological Types (1920) are very raw and somewhat contradictory.

[snowyc]

An example of how MBTI differs from Socionics in regards to functional ordering:

INTJ = | | |

INTj = | | |

I stand corrected, the above should therefore read as:

• An example of how MBTI differs from Socionics in regards to functional ordering:
  
  INTJ = Ni-Te | Fi-Se | Ne-Ti | Fe-Si
  
  INTj = | | |

[Rocky]

The reason of such discrepancy is simple. Isabel Myers accepted C.G.Jung's descriptions of functions "as is", while socionists revised them from the standpoint of the logical consistency, i.e., so that the terms introversion and extraversion etc. meant exactly the same in application to all functions. In fact, Jung reformed his understanding of extraversion and introversion throughout all his life, and the descriptions in his Psychological Types (1920) are very raw and somewhat contradictory.

Can you explain what you mean here? How did Myers accept the funcitons "as is", and how did socionists revise them?

I actually identified with Jung's descriptions. And I have heard examples of people say that they are both INFP in MBTI and socionics, but the Jungian Introverted Intuitive type fits them best. I tend to agree.

[Olga]

I think this topic is very interesting. It would be great if people who have got a good knowledge of all three positions/theories could bring more light in what way they differ plus to what have been already mentioned by Dmitri.

[Dmitri Lytov]

Can you explain what you mean here? How did Myers accept the funcitons "as is", and how did socionists revise them?

That's simple. Jung presented descriptions of 8 types in his Psychological Types (1920), and these descriptions, without any corrections, were later accepted by both Myers and competing analytical psychologists as descriptions of Dominant functions.

At the same time, Myers revised Jung's concept of rationality (judgment) / irrationality (perception), you know how.

Augusta read the same Jung's work, Psychological Types (1920), and it also served as a basis of description of Program functions of the socionic types. However, Augusta found several inconsistencies in descriptions of these functions, and later she presented REVISED descriptions of all the 8 functions in her Duality of Human Nature (1982). She presented extraverted functions as energy-spending and introverted as energy-saving, and eliminated from the original Jung's descriptions everything that contradicted to this concept. In fact, she had to correct descriptions of only 2 functions, Se and Si; the remaining 6 functions were left almost intact.

At the same time, she left Jung's concept of rationality (judgment) / irrationality (perception) "as is".

Therefore, both Myers and Augusta revised Jung in their own way, and this is the reason of contradictions between the two theories.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Olga]

What is it exaclty you expect? West is all about individualisation and profit and the true chrisitanity as well as socialism is all about togehterness and secrifice .

I can see the point why rmcnew is sensitive about others attacking socionics. It is not just about informational metabolism it is also about philosophy and morals.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Functianalyst]

[quote="Rocky"]

I actually identified with Jung's descriptions. And I have heard examples of people say that they are both INFP in MBTI and socionics, but the Jungian Introverted Intuitive type fits them best. I tend to agree.

I think you know as well as most us, that those who have delved deep into the subject does not share your sentiments Rocky. The majority of people at the MBTI forums dismiss socionics, in particularly those who believe in type functions and not simple dichotomies. The average introvert who subscribes to MBTI, struggle with socionics theory on reversing the type functions, and have learned this subject.

[Rocky]

I think you know as well as most us, that those who have delved deep into the subject does not share your sentiments Rocky. The majority of people at the MBTI forums dismiss socionics, in particularly those who believe in type functions and not simple dichotomies. The average introvert who subscribes to MBTI, struggle with socionics theory on reversing the type functions, and have learned this subject.

http://intuitivecentral.com/forum/sh...6&postcount=49

Also, ask Ishy as well, as she is an INFP (both), and, like me, has read Psychological Types and agreed with it.


@Dmitri: How does Si differ? Like I have said before, I have read Jung Introverted Sensing type several types and was convinced, "That's me". I was "pretty sure" I was an SLI before I read it, but that was the nail in the coffin for me.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Rocky]

But rocky, how do you know if those descriptions of your function are ONLY Si, and not mixed with any other functions?

I don't. That's why I like asking other people.




Side note: do you people think Myers was IEI or EII?

[Dmitri Lytov]

As far as I remember, Jung describes Se as lust for physical enjoyment; people with this dominant function, according to him, sacrifice even their own careers to their lust for excitement and enjoyment.

According to socionics, extraverted sensing (or Will Sensing) is a control of physical space; people with this function as Program Function tend to spread their influence, to dominate over other people, and they often become leaders. Doesn't it contradict to what Jung wrote?

However, it contradicts only partly. Just as typical extraverts (in Jung's terms), people with this program functions often cannot stop their activity, cannot stop extending; they can extend and extend their power until they go too far, just like Napoleon Bonaparte who occupied much more than he was able to control.

[CuriousSoul]

...and I do not think that logical consistence is really a valid argument for MBTI guys. In the Western culture, "logical consistence" is something like interesting but useless game of mind; Westerners can easily accept internally contradictory theories when they "work". "Fact" means much more than "logical consistence". Sometimes I had troubles in communication with Westerners: they said "fact", "fact", "fact" and did not notice that these facts were not logically united with each other, it was just of no importance for them.

It's all not about blaming the West, it's about difference of cultural mentalities.

I think the point is that logical consistence is the crusial criteria only within self-enclosed systems like mathematics. Socionics and other psychological theories are worthwhile to the extent they manage to accurately describe and predict reality, whether they are logically consistent is of secondary importance.

[Rocky]

As far as I remember, Jung describes Se as lust for physical enjoyment; people with this dominant function, according to him, sacrifice even their own careers to their lust for excitement and enjoyment.

According to socionics, extraverted sensing (or Will Sensing) is a control of physical space; people with this function as Program Function tend to spread their influence, to dominate over other people, and they often become leaders. Doesn't it contradict to what Jung wrote?

However, it contradicts only partly. Just as typical extraverts (in Jung's terms), people with this program functions often cannot stop their activity, cannot stop extending; they can extend and extend their power until they go too far, just like Napoleon Bonaparte who occupied much more than he was able to control.

http://oldforumlinkviewtopic.php?t=3...r=asc&start=45

[Rick]

http://oldforumlinkviewtopic.php?t=3...r=asc&start=45

Rocky, I think in your portrayal of Napoleon as an SLI you're using a different set of definitions. No socionists here would associate "winning at all costs" with . Moreover, that isn't a quality that appeals much to -types.

[Rocky]

Winning at all costs seems like an SLI trait to me. That's what we're best at.



- (distant distance)
01) estimation and the skill to recognize the negative potential qualities of people, their possibility.

02) the multiplan perception of peace, man.

03) the skill to see the absence of essence, to evaluate the lack of promise of potential possibilities, ideas and undertakings.

04) search and the vision of alternatives.

05) the paradoxicalness of thinking.

06) the dimensionality of thinking, erection as the chief concern of the forgotten old (ordinary), abstract theoretization.

07) black humor, disbelief.

08 ) the suppression of radical conversions.

09) sensation.



+ (short range)

A) business reasonableness in personal questions.

B) the ability to determine and to evaluate the business qualities of individual people.

C) the personal pragmatism: the expediency of personal actions.

D) the personal functionality: reliability, order, accuracy.

E) advantage and benefit for itself;

F) the hierarchy of the close environment: family, friends, familiar;

G) optimality in the concrete realization of anything: the skill to recreate (to devise and to think over), to organize, to improve separate applied technological process, procedure, algorithm of the actions, where there is a clear understanding of the necessary sequence of actions, division of labor.

H) money in its pocket: personal purchases, economy, investment, expenditure.

I) the algorithm of concrete calculations, innovation in the separate technological process.

J) the ramification of the facts, which are concerned the concrete matters, people, objects.

K) understanding the working qualities of objects (elasticity, softness, thermal conductivity and so forth.) their practical value for itself.



???


(I think winning at all costs is + btw).

[Rick]

Winning at all costs seems like an SLI trait to me. That's what we're best at.

Maybe in some other system, but not in socionics. I've never heard this before. This trait, if it is even related to type at all, most socionists would associate with if anything.

[Rocky]

Winning at all costs seems like an SLI trait to me. That's what we're best at.

Maybe in some other system, but not in socionics. I've never heard this before. This trait, if it is even related to type at all, most socionists would associate with if anything.

Why not +?

And remember, Napoleon's big thing was the close family/business/community, which is so very Delta and so anti-Beta.

[Functianalyst]

I think you know as well as most us, that those who have delved deep into the subject does not share your sentiments Rocky. The majority of people at the MBTI forums dismiss socionics, in particularly those who believe in type functions and not simple dichotomies. The average introvert who subscribes to MBTI, struggle with socionics theory on reversing the type functions, and have learned this subject.

http://intuitivecentral.com/forum/sh...6&postcount=49

I am not sure whom that person is, and not sure whether he is slamming F(i), not N(i). Nevertheless, he does reference to INFJ in the end.

Also, ask Ishy as well, as she is an INFP (both), and, like me, has read Psychological Types and agreed with it.

Never witnessed Ishy on MBTI boards, but that makes two, possibly three (still not convinced the copy from the intuitive central is referring to INFP, although the person claims to be one from his profile).

[Phaedrus]

The correctness of any assertion within any of these systems can only be judged from within that system.

Your statement is plain false, Rick. In fact, it is often the case that an assertion within a certain system can only be judged from a position outside of the system. That insight is a consequence of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which is proven to be true. And it is definitely relevant to the evaluation of the two systems Socionics and MBTT.

[Rick]

The correctness of any assertion within any of these systems can only be judged from within that system.

Your statement is plain false, Rick. In fact, it is often the case that an assertion within a certain system can only be judged from a position outside of the system. That insight is a consequence of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which is proven to be true. And it is definitely relevant to the evaluation of the two systems Socionics and MBTT.

Yes, in the global sense of evaluating the systems. But here I was actually talking about something more specific, such as this case with typing Napoleon. If we are trying to determine Napoleon's correct socionic type, we must use socionics criteria, not MBTI or Jungian criteria.

You must be an LIE or LII. They always seem to be the ones to catch me on my wording .

[Rocky]

If you were going top argue Napoleon's type through socionics, then you must do it through intertype relationships (since that is supposed to be the "reference point" in socionics). Unfortunatly, that would be almost impossible to do. Socionic's definitions for the funcitons, however, are relatively flexible, and not set in stone. It would not be detrimental to the system to tweek the funcitonal descriptions.

So, if you are saying that SLIs are a bunch of spineless, lazy, pussies, then I would vehemetly disagree with you. And, no, that wouldn't contradict socionics theory. I have been called competative before, but there is no way, no how, I would fit into the Beta Quadra.

[wym123]

The correctness of any assertion within any of these systems can only be judged from within that system.

Your statement is plain false, Rick. In fact, it is often the case that an assertion within a certain system can only be judged from a position outside of the system. That insight is a consequence of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which is proven to be true. And it is definitely relevant to the evaluation of the two systems Socionics and MBTT.

Yes, in the global sense of evaluating the systems. But here I was actually talking about something more specific, such as this case with typing Napoleon. If we are trying to determine Napoleon's correct socionic type, we must use socionics criteria, not MBTI or Jungian criteria.

You must be an LIE or LII. They always seem to be the ones to catch me on my wording .

Actually, Rick is correct. Assertions within a system can only be judged from within the system alone. In other words, whether a statement within a system is true or false can only be determined by the definitions of the system. It would not make any sense to examine the validity of the statement under a different set of definition, while holding the statement against the system.

Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem doesn't actually apply to MBTI/Socionics for a number of reasons. But assuming that it did, all the theorem would say is that there exist assertions that cannot be consistently judged by the system, hence every system is fundamentally lacking. The theorem is largely irrelevant in reality because it only delineates the existence of pathological assertions that no one even cares about. It does not say anything about assertions that can be consistently judged by the system such as whether Napolean is an SLI. It's only there for a sense of completeness by answering a long held question about (mathematical) systems (whether the ultimate dream of devising a complete (mathematical) system can be attained).

Just to be clear, the validity of an assertion cannot be judged by reality either. As a hypothetical example, the fact that Napolean is an SLI according to the definitions of Socionics but is nothing like the description of an SLI, is not fact that refutes the validity of the statement as judged by the system. The statement is still true within the system of Soconics and all this says is that Socionics is not sufficiently similiar to reality by making assumptions that are not necessarily in agreement with reality. Of course for a subject like Socionics, this isn't a very good thing, despite some of opinion of certain forums members.

[MysticSonic]

"Just to be clear, the validity of an assertion cannot be judged by reality either."

It depends what your epistemic stance is. I, myself, am a "realist", someone who ardently holds that one's perceptions of reality are fairly congruent with what is actually there---and if a particular assertion does not cohere with respect to what is actually being observed, then the assertion is false.

[wym123]

"Just to be clear, the validity of an assertion cannot be judged by reality either."

It depends what your epistemic stance is. I, myself, am a "realist", someone who ardently holds that one's perceptions of reality are fairly congruent with what is actually there---and if a particular assertion does not cohere with respect to what is actually being observed, then the assertion is false.

Except that Socionics isn't exactly a product only of the perception of reality and I am only talking about assertions of Socionics. It is a framework that includes generalization and other stuff that we think up that may not be relevant to reality. Hence your argument doesn't really apply to Socionics, especially given that the empirical nature of Socionics isn't firmly established yet.

Furthermore, I put validity in italics to show that I am defining it in a very special way: specifically, validity as according to the system, and I believe that's what Rick was really arguing. You can always say that an assertion is invalid because it does not coincide with reality and this is a fair definition, given that we would like Socionics to coincide with reality. However, that's not the definition of valid/invalid I am using. I am only speaking in terms of a statement being ascertained to be true or false by the defintions of a system alone.

[MysticSonic]

"Except that Socionics isn't exactly a product only of the perception of reality. It is a framework that includes generalization and other stuff that we think up that may not be relevant to reality. Hence your argument doesn't really apply to Socionics, especially given that the empirical nature of Socionics isn't firmly established yet. "

I still hold that if claim A made in Socionics somehow contradicts objectively apprehended aggregate of perceptions B, then claim A is incorrect, as such perceptions hold a greater deal of epistemic sway, as far as the rationality of the particular idea is concerned, than posited hypotheticals of various Socionists.

"Furthermore, I put validity in italics to show that I am defining it in a very special way: specifically, validity as according to the system, and I believe that's what Rick was really arguing. You can always say that an assertion is invalid because it does not coincide with reality and this is a fair definition, given that we would like Socionics to coincide with reality. However, that's not the definition of valid/invalid I am using. I am only speaking in terms of a statement being ascertained to be true or false by the defintions of a system alone."

I know that's how you were defining it---I was merely contesting the fact that it should be used as such. How useless would that be?

[wym123]

I still hold that if claim A made in Socionics somehow contradicts objectively apprehended aggregate of perceptions B, then claim A is incorrect, as such perceptions hold a greater deal of epistemic sway, as far as the rationality of the particular idea is concerned, than posited hypotheticals of various Socionists.

Let me give you an example. Consider these two propositions: If it rains, we can see the sun. It rains.

Is the statement, "We see the sun" false under this system? The statement is still true and the whole system is logical. Because the assumptions of the system do not coincide with reality, namely that on planet eath, when it rains, we usually don't see the sun, the assertion is intuitively incorrect, but it is still valid under the system. If we can establish exact correspondence with reality, as with the case of the best scientific theories, then we can apply your realist stance such as saying that electrons do exist because we have a framework that says so and the framework is shown to coincide with reality.

Furthermore, I put validity in italics to show that I am defining it in a very special way: specifically, validity as according to the system, and I believe that's what Rick was really arguing. You can always say that an assertion is invalid because it does not coincide with reality and this is a fair definition, given that we would like Socionics to coincide with reality. However, that's not the definition of valid/invalid I am using. I am only speaking in terms of a statement being ascertained to be true or false by the defintions of a system alone.

I know that's how you were defining it---I was merely contesting the fact that it should be used as such. How useless would that be?

Do you mean "shouldn't?"

Err, the point of the argument wasn't really about usefulness/uselessness of the definition. It was about correct/incorrect. Specifically, the gist of Rick's argument is that we should consider assertions with the definitions of the system and only those alone, despite the history of the definition and the system. I was arguing that his position is correct and my argument was explaining why his position is correct, and I had to define validity in such a way to make my argument clear. If you want to argue the uselessness of this definition and argue that it important that the assertions are applicability to reality, and hence we should define it similarly, then you should have really participated in my thread about the empirical justification of Socionics. I would have loved to hear your comments, which, I think, would have been in support of the search for empirical justification of Socionics.

[wym123]

I can see the point why rmcnew is sensitive about others attacking socionics. It is not just about informational metabolism it is also about philosophy and morals.

Lord, I agree with this.

Is it just me, or do I HATE HATE HATE "Informational Metabolism" hahah

Just wasted brain power is all I see. Who cares about it? Stupid and pointless. They should leave the brain to the nerologists really.

I am curious. What does Socionics say about morals? Perhaps I overlooked something about Socionics.

[MysticSonic]

"Err, the point of the argument wasn't really about usefulness/uselessness of the definition. It was about correct/incorrect. Specifically, the gist of Rick's argument is that we should consider assertions with the definitions of the system and only those alone, despite the history of the definition and the system. I was arguing that his position is correct and my argument was explaining why his position is correct, and I had to define validity in such a way to make my position clear."

Yeah, but we really shouldn't be doing that with Socionics. That's a bit dangerous, don't you think?

"If you want to argue the uselessness of this definition and argue that it important that the assertions are applicability to reality, and hence we should define it similarly, then you should have really participated in my thread about the empirical justification of Socionics. I would have loved to hear your comments, which, I think, would have been in support of the search for empirical justification of Socionics.""

I suppose I should have, and yes I would have been---and still am.

[wym123]

"Err, the point of the argument wasn't really about usefulness/uselessness of the definition. It was about correct/incorrect. Specifically, the gist of Rick's argument is that we should consider assertions with the definitions of the system and only those alone, despite the history of the definition and the system. I was arguing that his position is correct and my argument was explaining why his position is correct, and I had to define validity in such a way to make my position clear."

Yeah, but we really shouldn't be doing that with Socionics. That's a bit dangerous, don't you think?

Whether that is dangerous really depends on what Socionicists want to do with Socionics. This view itself is perfectly valid and, in my opinion, the problem only arises when this view is considered sufficient (i.e. well-definedness and consequently, logical correctness, are enough and empirical relevance is unimportant and can be sacrificed). I don't know where most Socionicists stand on this matter (whether they are Philosophers or Scientists).

Honestly, I think we are digressing too much. I don't think this thread was arguing in favor of diverging from reality in favor of logical correctness, but just diverging from MBTI/Jung in favor well-definedness.

[Creepy-]

I think you know as well as most us, that those who have delved deep into the subject does not share your sentiments Rocky. The majority of people at the MBTI forums dismiss socionics, in particularly those who believe in type functions and not simple dichotomies. The average introvert who subscribes to MBTI, struggle with socionics theory on reversing the type functions, and have learned this subject.

http://intuitivecentral.com/forum/sh...6&postcount=49

Also, ask Ishy as well, as she is an INFP (both), and, like me, has read Psychological Types and agreed with it.

It's true. I'm not an INFJ in MBTI, I've never identified with it. When I came to Socionics, I tested as an INFP, but I'd already read that the J/P switches for introverts and was confused about being an INFJ but I'm definately not anything other than the NiFe.