Quote Originally Posted by labcoat View Post
The reason I like Static/Dynamic is because it allows functions to be understood in terms of dichotomies.

When you try to understand what Ne is apart from "intuition", the introvert/extrovert quality of functions doesn't help very much. To "perceive into" the function in some kind of intuitive way to determine that said "function" is "extroverted" is a really dubious approach. After all functions can not be directly seen, only people. Instead one needs to explain "possession of Ne" in terms of the combination of "being intuitive" and some other property of the person. In this case that property is Static: the property that is theoretically explained as having introversion distributed to one's J functions and extroversion to one's P functions. This means that identifying Ne is essentially the same thing as determining that the person is intuitive and Static. A lot of people already use Static/Dynamic in that way, but don't realize it. When people ask me to explain how Static/Dynamic can be detected, I should return the question: how do you do this magical thing where you determine that a function is extroverted? If anyone ever managed to answer that question to themselves they'd find out the process of identifying Static/Dynamic occurs at an intermediate stage!

edit.

Let me explain in a different way. Suppose a person has the belief that they can somehow determine that "a person's perceiving ego function is extroverted". They might explain it in terms of "determining that the person has an active spontaneous way of relating concepts" or something like that. Now socionics dictates that this kind of mentality would necessarily be accompanied by that of "having judging ego functions that are introverted". This quality they might explain as "the person has systematic beliefs that can be explained in terms of the relation to other such beliefs". But the fact that these two mentalities always appear together makes them one and the same. Calling the mentality "Static" instead, and always mentioning the two together is efficient and logical thing to do. It doesn't cause any kind of reduction of explanatory ability. It simply mentions the two in one go.

edit.

One more thing: saying a person "has extroverted perceiving functions" instead of the person "is Static" is like saying "the house is above averagely warm" when it is really on fire. It mentions a minor part of the truth when the real gist of the matter is something more encompassing.
I think Static and Dynamic information elements look at the same things from opposing angles. They are the opposite side of the same coin.

Ne = Internal Static Object
Si = External Dynamic Field

Si and Ne are mirrored functions and the information concatenation produces a more complete informational module. Essentially this is how duality form because information concatenation between two duals produces and preserves a more complete informational module like creating a chemical bond between molecules.

As far as maximum number of dichotomies, this is a factor of how much functional resolution we have. Right now we're at 4 bit system which limits the descriptive combination.