The number and nature of the Element Dichotomies

[The Ineffable]

According to Wikisocion, there are 7 Element Dichotomies. On short: wrong.

In its dedicated section, it's asserted that the IEs can be separated using:
- the 3 basic dichotomies of the IAs;
- the 4 derived dichotomies out of the basic ones.

Ok, the basic three dichotomies we all know, they're fundamental to Socionics. But how comes that using "the mathematics of Reinin" we can deduce exactly four derived ones?

Assuming that by "derived dichotomies" we refer to the second tier ones:
1: Bodies + Dynamic, Fields + Static = D1A (we find it as Rational/Judging)
-- Bodies + Static, Fields + Dynamic = D1B (Irrational/Perceiving)
2: Bodies + External, Fields + Internal = D2A (Decisive and Serious - listed there as Gamma values)
-- Bodies + Internal, Fields + External = D2B (Judicius and Merry - Alpha values)
3: Dynamic + External, Static + Internal = D3A (<not known1> - Delta values)
-- Dynamic + Internal, Static + External = D3B (<not known2> - Beta Values)

Related:

I previously explained what Decisive and Serious on one hand, and Judicious and Merry on the other have in common. Let's say on short - and probably not very accurate -, that the first type of information is "generality" vs the second, "speciality". Eg:
- generality: this guy is a winner, people are mortal, this machine is working;
- speciality: this guy keeps winning, people die, this machine worked every time/the last time.

The "not known" is a dichotomy I told you about and that, from my observations, may offer a difference of suggestibility to types (I once called it: Suggestible/Non-Suggestible). Some other findings of mine revealed a property - with maybe a better naming convention for this - that I can't remember right now, but I was associating it, when it's over the Base function, with people who for example:
- after a long period of having a different lifestyle, living abroad or experiencing important events etc, they feel everything changed, that they changed, that old things are not applicable anymore to them or the new contexts. They're stereotypically accused of becoming arrogant, of "forgetting their roots", forgetting their old friends, becoming startups (esp associating them with a better career or so), while they feel that they're simply "on something else". They can't resume familiarities so easily with old acquaintances because their attitude changes. Types: LII, ESE, all Beta, SEE, ILI.
- after living elsewhere, they remain "the same", their attitude on things, people and events doesn't change much; they may come back years later after living in totally different environments and resume relationships from where they left them like nothing happened, may even tend to use old nicknames. Types: ILE, SEI, LIE, ESI, all Delta.

Note that I'm not sure about it, I have to make further observation on a larger sample and observe consistency, maybe even focusing on the information itself.

There are only three of them. Only Rational/Irrational, Gamma/Alpha values and Delta/Beta values are correct derivations of the core dichotomies, so where come Abstract/Involved from? In my opinion, it is a false, speculative dichotomy; there's currently no reasonable evidence that it actually manifests in types that I know of. It is apparently added because it was the grouping of the 8 IEs that was missing, having all other Reinin dichotomies named, but it is based on nothing else (again, that I know of) - and at least not on the three fundamental ones.

[Exodus]

You forgot involved/whatever it's called. SF vs. NT.

[Aiss]

Things don't need to be theoretically constructed to work. It is only "wrong" in so far as it doesn't proceed directly from Augusta's original element dichotomies you quote recently. In other words, assuming you agree with all of her writings, it isn't "proved" correct, but neither is it contradictory, "proved" false. And it doesn't seem you are otherwise limiting yourself to logical deduction based solely on her assumptions, so why do so in this case?

For the longest time I thought Abstract/Involved was a bad idea, but then I saw it working and locking in with the other dichotomies. I suspect it might be even easier to observe than Internal/External for Aristocratic types, while it's less clear to Democratic quadras, whose egos are either entirely Abstract or entirely Involved, but join Internal and External elements - and Augusta was one of those, just as you.

[krieger]

Taking Bodies/Field as a fundament is a mistake. The only reason the dichotomy exists is because people without adequate philosophical acumen mistook two unrelated terms for each other on account of their having a common name in colloquial language.

The only thing in socionics that should be associated with Object is Pe. The only thing that should be associated with Fields is Pi. Ji and Je are epistemic subjectivity and objectivity respectively. Only the name coincides where Object and Objectivity are concerned.

[The Ineffable]

Things don't need to be theoretically constructed to work. It is only "wrong" in so far as it doesn't proceed directly from Augusta's original element dichotomies you quote recently. In other words, assuming you agree with all of her writings, it isn't "proved" correct, but neither is it contradictory, "proved" false. And it doesn't seem you are otherwise limiting yourself to logical deduction based solely on her assumptions, so why do so in this case?

For the longest time I thought Abstract/Involved was a bad idea, but then I saw it working and locking in with the other dichotomies. I suspect it might be even easier to observe than Internal/External for Aristocratic types, while it's less clear to Democratic quadras, whose egos are either entirely Abstract or entirely Involved, but join Internal and External elements - and Augusta was one of those, just as you.

First of all, it's wrong to state that it's an IA/IE dichotomy, that it's justified by the three aspectonics primitives, while it's not. At least Wikisocion states that it is - I don't remember what Gulenko - or whoever invented it - said, if there's such thing. That is the first criterion, of course, what else? At a close analysis on the eight functions alone, it is totally unjustified, there is no aspectonical reasoning supporting for it.

I find that supposing its existence from the model combinations of the eight functions as flawed, a post hoc Aiss, but correct me if I'm wrong. One can split the types according to certain observable type dichotomy (putting aside their theoretical emergence from Reinin), but when finding that the functions can be split into two halves by this, can we conclude that this is a property of information itself?

In fact I made a little omission in my previous post, there can possibly exist observable type dichotomies that can be associated with it that anyone could acknowledge, they're just caused by the arrangement in the Model. But these type dichotomies are already explained by other means, by the true dichotomies depending on the block positioning! To become higher-level Information Aspect dichotomies, they need proof. We do know that a type is determined by exactly two functions, not one, don't we? We do know what a block consists in, therefore we can observe how the function dichotomies affect types, for example, the Aristocratic/Democratic is caused by the paring of Internal/External elements in a block. The same with the actual definition, N,T/S,F, to conclude that the IEs blocked in whatever types have something in common just because the types themselves have respectively things in common is a gross fallacy of division (like "atoms of water are wet" - from Wikipedia).
---

In my opinion, the extended problems with these "element dichotomies" are:
- they can't be explained independently, as actual information properties;
- they're arbitrary choices, based on an erroneous reductionism and a conventional selection of premises;
- we don't have descriptions and names for the two second-tier dichotomies, besides Rationality, apart from my writings on the forum, which might also be inaccurate;
- people are inclined to - and do make use of - speculative combinatorics and fictional descriptions to mask their lack of understanding/explanations or apparent lack of coverage; especially the ones with authoritative and business goals;
- blind adoption and lack of what are professionally called "analysis" and "peer review".

[krieger]

Taking Bodies/Field as a fundament is a mistake. The only reason the dichotomy exists is because people without adequate philosophical acumen mistook two unrelated terms for each other on account of their having a common name in colloquial language.

The only thing in socionics that should be associated with Object is Pe. The only thing that should be associated with Fields is Pi. Ji and Je are epistemic subjectivity and objectivity respectively. Only the name coincides where Object and Objectivity are concerned.

The closest thing to a relation between this Object and Objectivity is that in Rational types, both the Pe and Je functions are Focal in all positions in the model A. In a sense, Rationals could be called the types that "focus" on Objects and Objectivity.

[Exodus]

First of all, it's wrong to state that it's an IA/IE dichotomy, that it's justified by the three aspectonics primitives, while it's not. At least Wikisocion states that it is - I don't remember what Gulenko - or whoever invented it - said, if there's such thing. That is the first criterion, of course, what else? At a close analysis on the eight functions alone, it is totally unjustified, there is no aspectonical reasoning supporting for it.

I find that supposing its existence from the model combinations of the eight functions as flawed, a post hoc Aiss, but correct me if I'm wrong. One can split the types according to certain observable type dichotomy (putting aside their theoretical emergence from Reinin), but when finding that the functions can be split into two halves by this, can we conclude that this is a property of information itself?

In fact I made a little omission in my previous post, there can possibly exist observable type dichotomies that can be associated with it that anyone could acknowledge, they're just caused by the arrangement in the Model. But these type dichotomies are already explained by other means, by the true dichotomies depending on the block positioning! To become higher-level Information Aspect dichotomies, they need proof. We do know that a type is determined by exactly two functions, not one, don't we? We do know what a block consists in, therefore we can observe how the function dichotomies affect types, for example, the Aristocratic/Democratic is caused by the paring of Internal/External elements in a block. The same with the actual definition, N,T/S,F, to conclude that the IEs blocked in whatever types have something in common just because the types themselves have respectively things in common is a gross fallacy of division (like "atoms of water are wet" - from Wikipedia).
---

In my opinion, the extended problems with these "element dichotomies" are:
- they can't be explained independently, as actual information properties;
- they're arbitrary choices, based on an erroneous reductionism and a conventional selection of premises;
- we don't have descriptions and names for the two second-tier dichotomies, besides Rationality, apart from my writings on the forum, which might also be inaccurate;
- people are inclined to - and do make use of - speculative combinatorics and fictional descriptions to mask their lack of understanding/explanations or apparent lack of coverage; especially the ones with authoritative and business goals;
- blind adoption and lack of what are professionally called "analysis" and "peer review".

What is your point? No one actually uses this dichotomy anyways.

All of the dichotomies have an equal standing mathematically, but it's not obvious (IMO) which ones are most important empirically. (With type dichotomies I'm much more comfortable saying Jungian dichotomies are more important, but again there's no way to "prove" this mathematically. It's just a matter of how well it works to explain behavior and stuff.)

In fact I made a little omission in my previous post, there can possibly exist observable type dichotomies that can be associated with it that anyone could acknowledge, they're just caused by the arrangement in the Model. But these type dichotomies are already explained by other means, by the true dichotomies depending on the block positioning!

Mind explaining this a little further? I don't see why this doesn't also apply to external/internal, for example.

[ashlesha]

i wish these threads didn't confuse the shit out of me.

[The Ineffable]

What is your point? No one actually uses this dichotomy anyways.

LOL! Well I'm annoyed by the falseness, not necessarily that there's some current misuse. Wait a little and see how many hypotheses it will generate.

Mind explaining this a little further? I don't see why this doesn't also apply to external/internal, for example.

Because Internal/External is a fundamental information dichotomy, this is how the IAs/IEs are composed, defined and explained, by Bodies/Fields, Dynamic/Static and External/Internal.

If you also want me to explain to you the erroneous inference made to conclude that Abstract/Involved is an element dichotomy, you should first provide me your understanding in it, because I don't see how could you understand my explanation as long as you don't even have reasons to believe that this dichotomy exists in the first place.
I told Aiss what generates Aristocratic/Democratic traits, but in your case I don't know what exactly are you refering at.

[Aiss]

First of all, it's wrong to state that it's an IA/IE dichotomy, that it's justified by the three aspectonics primitives, while it's not. At least Wikisocion states that it is - I don't remember what Gulenko - or whoever invented it - said, if there's such thing. That is the first criterion, of course, what else? At a close analysis on the eight functions alone, it is totally unjustified, there is no aspectonical reasoning supporting for it.

Why would you need theoretical reasons for its existence, as long as it's descriptive power justifies it? The point is, SF and NT - as information aspects, not types or clubs - have distinguishing qualities which might be summed up as experiential and conceptual respectively. Would deriving SF from static/fields/external plus dynamic/bodies/external plus static/bodies/internal plus dynamic/fields/internal explain these? Seems like overcomplicating the issue.

The thing is, Augusta made an arbitrary categorization. And it is socionics canon, as you keep reminding us. It doesn't mean there's nothing more to it.

I find that supposing its existence from the model combinations of the eight functions as flawed, a post hoc Aiss, but correct me if I'm wrong. One can split the types according to certain observable type dichotomy (putting aside their theoretical emergence from Reinin), but when finding that the functions can be split into two halves by this, can we conclude that this is a property of information itself?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. If we see observable differences between information aspects, it makes sense to consider it a property of information itself. There's no need to drag types and functions into it beyond the reality check, unless you dismiss information aspects and only consider elements, that is aspects as functions in types. For me, information aspects are a huge part of socionics, it's biggest advantage over Jung or MBTI, which only describe the effects of taking a certain perspective, effects which may vary, rather than the perspective itself.

It's easy to abstract and extrapolate it to a point where it no longer applies in any way to types or functions, which is why I mentioned reality checks, but working with the conceptualization itself might be useful, offer explanatory power beyond purely descriptive profiles.

In my opinion, the extended problems with these "element dichotomies" are:
- they can't be explained independently, as actual information properties;
- they're arbitrary choices, based on an erroneous reductionism and a conventional selection of premises;
- we don't have descriptions and names for the two second-tier dichotomies, besides Rationality, apart from my writings on the forum, which might also be inaccurate;
- people are inclined to - and do make use of - speculative combinatorics and fictional descriptions to mask their lack of understanding/explanations or apparent lack of coverage; especially the ones with authoritative and business goals;
- blind adoption and lack of what are professionally called "analysis" and "peer review".

This. Augusta's choice of three dichotomies was, in fact, arbitrary. That she chose them made them socionics canon, as you keep reminding us, but it didn't make them more real. In essence, the dichotomies might be defining for socionics elements, but they're only descriptive for what she took from Jung's works. Taking it as gospel and following to the point where they no longer resemble the original is an example of losing sight of a big picture, a stray from reality I mentioned earlier as a risk.

Consider this: if Augusta looked at distinguishing traits of SF vs NT (meaning aspects), and not those of ST and NF, would socionics be so different? We'd have, to paraphrase your beginning:

1: Bodies + Dynamic, Fields + Static = D1A (we find it as Rational/Judging)
-- Bodies + Static, Fields + Dynamic = D1B (Irrational/Perceiving)
2: Bodies + Abstract, Fields + Involved = D2A (Delta values)
-- Bodies + Involved, Fields + Abstract = D2B (Beta values)
3: Dynamic + Abstract, Static + Involved = D3A (Gamma values)
-- Dynamic + Involved, Static + Abstract = D3B (Alpha values)