An interesting Question and Answer appeared on socionics.com

Question #1119891784

Q. Hello, I have been interested in socionics for about a year now, and have often searched through many pages over the internet, read much Freud and Jung, and have attempted to assemble the theory for myself due to lack of information. It has been a fun journey, but one which also leaves me with many questions. Here are some of my biggest questions: [1] About the "strong accepting" and "strong producing" concept which seems to be an integral part of the theory of information metabolism. There are, to my knowledge no translations of Kepinski's theory publically available in English. Is this still accepted as part of the backbone of Socionics? How exactly is this concept (from an intuitive standpoint) related to the concept of spontaneous realization? How does it, in theory, occur? I have my speculations but would appreciate a more professional explanation. [2] The model A. I have read much about informational rings and have been curious about the ideas behind them. I have also been curious as to why the model A is set up as it is, the top row reading from left to right, the second row right to left etc... why is this? [3] I have been curious as to the reasoning behind the interaction of conscious and unconscious. I am aware that strong unconscious functions correct strong conscious ones, and from Dimitri Lytov's site the weak unconscious are labeled "suggestive" 5th, and "Estimative" 6th. Is this because it is a weak form of correction? Basically, I am looking for a more in depth explanation of the theory behind the models. I have been piecing it together as much as possible myself, but still have many questions. Any comments would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! -- Steve, ENTp


A. I would like to answer much of my own question by saying that the function symbols are analogous to those little blocks we used to fit inside those shaped holes when we were babies. Functions only "fit" together if they are the same shape. In this you have correction, support, inhibition, and understanding. This is all dependent upon strengths of functions. In this sort of thinking, I need not elaborate, much of the answers can be found on one's own. There is no "order" of functions, merely strengths and weaknesses. This is helpful in understanding the "Model X". -- Steve, ENTp
http://www.socionics.com/advan/qa.htm?1119891784

So since this seems to be related to this discussion, I thought I might as well post it here. And because I have at least myself used the phrase "order of functions" I thought I should try to clarify myself. Socionics.com uses the Model X which is apparently a modified version of the original Model A. What seems to add to the confusion is that different sites use different models, and the Model X that socionics.com prefers is not properly explained on the site. All I could find was this article: When you look past the acronym which appears to be based on this Model X, but even that is not explicitly stated.

What I meant with "the order of functions" that seems to confuse people, was simply that when we encounter people displaying certain behavior which we can with some degree of confidence classify as manifestations of a certain function Fi or Fe or something else, we cannot always tell if this behavior or function is, for example, a manifestation of their first function, = the program function according to the Model A on Dmitri Lytov's site http://www.socioniko.net/en/1.1.types/index-type.html, or whether the behavior and functions I seem to observe are actually a case of someone displaying their third function, or the role function according to the Model A. Apparently according to the standard model the first function should always be stronger than the third function - and if this is not the case you have been mistyped - but especially for outside observers this is not always easy to tell, as people often like to display their role function to strangers - as we learned for instance from this post by discojoe.