ʕ •`ᴥ•´ʔ
@Kill4Me, @sbbds, @echidna1000 and anyone else, would you guys kindly argue in another thread, like this one: [link]? I really care about this topic and you're making anyone who wants to read this discussion later have to wade through useless drama. Thanks
@woofwoofl, is it possible to split the thread?Originally Posted by ajsindri
LSI: “I still can’t figure out Pinterest.”
Me: “It’s just, like, idea boards.”
LSI: “I don’t have ideas.”
> Sindri used ethics
> It was super effective
Taxonomy is taxonomy. It is at least as scientific as anything else in modern psychology and I dare say more thought and functional theories have been put into Socionics with far greater success. What Socionics needs is better lucidity and consensus.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
Science is the process of finding causes and explanations for facts or observations. Socionics is the assumption that the current observation will continue into the future - for no reason. Or even that the current, local observation is a complete, objective observation. And that "no reason" part can't be scientific.
It would like how in pre-Newton days, where they measure the speed of a feather and an iron ball falling, and conclude that lighter objects fall slower because they have "slower-falling properties" (and you can show neat data and statistics showing exactly that). But this would mean nothing unless we can explain why they fall slower. It would require a new assumption that all objects actually fall at the exact same rate. Only then, we can start introducing newer concepts like air resistance, etc.
So what is ajsindri doing, does he just keep measuring the speed of a feather and an iron ball falling, and make a neat statistics out of it and say, "Look how objective my data is! It must be true that feathers drop slower and iron balls drop faster!"? Well that's pointless, since he can't even explain why that fact seems to keep happening.
So if you notice that fact, then it's only a start, and not the conclusion. That was the easy part.
Last edited by Singu; 11-08-2018 at 07:11 AM.
(non-sarcastic)
(legit support this well-articulated post; proud of u Dingu)
This "science as a mode of explanations" is surprisingly still not very well known. It also took me a while to fully get the concept. I also used to think that science was the stereotypical "empiricism objectivity blah blah blah".
(non-sarcastic)
(legit support this well-articulated post; proud of u Dingu)
Even when you criticize Socionics from the scientific standpoint, people still go "Oh so you're an empiricist" "You're a Positivist". Well no, since both empiricism and positivism have been rejected by science a long time ago, and it was never science to begin with. Those are just the stereotypes of science. Science has always been about finding the best explanations for phenomena.
Anyway...
https://www.quietrev.com/why-introve...t-the-science/
Jung started with the introversion/extraversion dichotomy and unpacked every other dichotomy from there. Essentially, the functions and the types rest on this dichotomy, as it explains function orientation (whether a function looks toward the object or looks toward the subject). So, starting from the scientific observations about introverts and extraverts, could we hypothesize that function orientation is determined by activity or lack thereof in the dopamine reward network, differences in acetylcholine activity, and differences in nervous system activity? If Model A is accurate, then it suggests particular relationships between the aforementioned activities and other areas of the brain. For example, as it relates to introverted feelers, this research could suggest communication between acetylcholine, the parasympathetic nervous system, and the amygdala (a region involved with emotions). Whereas with extraverted feelers, this research could suggest communication between dopamine, the sympathetic nervous system, and the amygdala (also preferred by introverted feelers).I’m standing in the crowd in front of the stage at the small gritty music club. My two friends—both extroverts—are on either side of me, swaying along with the crooning Indie singer and smiling. I was having fun for a while, but now I’m ready to head home and find my bed. The loud music, the dense crowd of strangers, and the small talk I’ve made all night have left me feeling drained. It’s just too much, for too long, for an introvert like me.I’d rather be in the peaceful solitude of my apartment. Just me, no noise, maybe a good book or the Internet to help me turn inward and recharge after this much socializing. Yet, my extroverted friends could probably stay at the concert, chatting long past the encore. They’ll actually feel energized when they leave and won’t need any recovery time. So, why do I react so differently than my extroverted friends to the same situation? The answer has to do with some key differences in the way introverts’ brains are wired.
The dopamine difference
One major difference between the brains of introverts and extroverts is the way we respond to the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain that provides the motivation to seek external rewards like earning money, climbing the social ladder, attracting a mate, or getting selected for a high-profile project at work. When dopamine floods the brain, both introverts and extroverts become more talkative, alert to their surroundings, and motivated to take risks and explore the environment.
It’s not that introverts have less dopamine present in their brains than extroverts do. In fact, both introverts and extroverts have the same amount of dopamine available. The difference is in the activity of the dopamine reward network. It is more active in the brains of extroverts than in the brains of introverts as Scott Barry Kaufman, the Scientific Director of The Imagination Institute, explains in this short video:
https://www.quietrev.com/why-introve...t-the-science/
At the expectation of, say, getting the phone number of an attractive person or earning a promotion at work, extroverts become more energized than introverts. They buzz with an enthusiastic rush of good feelings, while introverts feel overstimulated.
For my extroverted friends, the noise and the crowd at the concert were simply all part of the fun. In fact, this intensity of stimulation acted as a cue to them that they were achieving their goal (the reward of socializing and a fun night out). Yet, for me, as the night wore on, the hubbub became annoying and tiring—even punishing—as I became overstimulated.
For introverts, acetylcholine is where it’s at
Introverts prefer to use a different neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, writes Christine Fonseca in her book Quiet Kids: Help Your Introverted Child Succeed in an Extroverted World. Like dopamine, acetylcholine is also linked to pleasure; the difference is, acetylcholine makes us feel good when we turn inward. It powers our abilities to think deeply, reflect, and focus intensely on just one thing for a long period of time. It also helps explain why introverts like calm environments—it’s easier to turn inward when we’re not attending to external stimulation. When I lounge at home in quiet solitude, lost in a book or watching Netflix, I’m basking in the pleasant effects of acetylcholine.
Nervous system differences
Another piece of the introvert-extrovert puzzle has to do with the nervous system, writes Dr. Marti Olsen Laney in her book The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World. Acetylcholine is linked to the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, which is nicknamed the “throttle down” or “rest-and-digest” side. When we engage the parasympathetic side, our body conserves energy, and we withdraw from the outer environment. Our muscles relax; energy is stored; food is metabolized; pupils constrict to limit incoming light; and our heart rate and blood pressure lower. Basically, our body gets ready for hibernation and contemplation—two of the things introverts like the most.
Both introverts and extroverts use both sides of their nervous systems at different times, just like they use both neurotransmitters. But—no big shocker here—extroverts tend to favor the opposite side of the nervous system: the sympathetic side, known as the “full-throttle” or “fight, flight, or freeze” system. This side mobilizes us to discover new things and makes us active, daring, and inquisitive. The brain becomes alert and hyper-focused on its surroundings. Blood sugar and free fatty acids are elevated to give us more energy, and digestion is slowed. Thinking is reduced, and we become prepared to make snap decisions. While extroverts thrive on the dopamine-charged good feelings created when they engage the sympathetic side, for us introverts, it’s too much.
Do introverts dislike people?
If you don’t understand introversion, you might get the mistaken idea that introverts are antisocial, reclusive, or rude. At the concert, I bolted for the door the first chance I got, leaving my extroverted friends behind. I imagine they only reluctantly left after the last song was played, the lights came on, and a security guard brusquely ushered them toward the door. Yet, given how my introverted brain works, it makes sense that after a few hours of stimulation and socializing, I needed to get out of there. It’s not that I dislike people; it’s just that socializing is more effortful and tiring for me than it is for extroverts. Curled up back at home, in a calm, familiar environment, I unwound and relaxed. Sure, I would go to another concert and hang out with the extroverts again, but only after some soothing alone time—and not a moment sooner.
Last edited by Desert Financial; 11-08-2018 at 01:11 AM.
Thinking about this further.
I do think my hypothesis that types that have ego functions in the same dichotomy, such as F/T, share preferences for particular regions of the brain corresponds to Model A's theory of dimensionalities. For example, EII and IEI share function dimensionalities and all the NF types have dimensionalities that are close to each other presumably because their amygdalas and right ventral hemispheric networks operate with roughly the same levels of sophistication.
I think this hypothesis still begs the question: if an IEI and EII have the same dimensionalities, what parts of the brain govern what's valued and conscious? What differentiates an IEI and an EII, neurologically speaking?
It's probably easy to sort out the consciousness aspect since it probably boils down to whichever neural pathways possess the strongest relationship to each other. It's a matter of general circuitry.
But what determines what functions are valued or unvalued? What does "valued" even mean, neurologically speaking?
Anyway, here's a study about intuition's relationship to the right hemisphere. Factor this in with what I posted about introverts and extraverts and you get an explanation for Ne and Ni.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3218761/
If you want to make socionics scientific, look for articles like this and do the math. You could probably patch it together. I expect you'll wind up with a messier theory than Model A, since "scientific socionics" is an oxymoron. By Gulenko's admission, part of the practice of socionics consists of art, as opposed to science. But yeah, if you view socionics as a hypothesis, then test it through research, you could find what parts of the hypothesis fit. New neurological research emerges every day.
Yeah, the question of what's valued will be tricky, though. I don't even know if the neurological community has an analogous term for what's "valued"; if they don't, they won't even be attempting to research it. If they don't, data revealed about such a thing is likely to be revealed accidentally. I also figure that, in reality, it's probably a catch all for general aspects of neurological makeup.
Last edited by Desert Financial; 11-21-2018 at 06:23 AM.
@echidna1000 Your new video that you posted the other day showed up on my Youtube feed and I liked it. Posting here for posterity.
Btw I’m guessing based on your mug that Socionics symbols are unlicensed?
Awesome. That’s probably the simplest way to do it. Question is if you can find enough studies to support different aspects of the theory and create a manifesto linking it all together like you said already. I think you could find enough, and pitch it to the head of a research department at some university while partnering with a researcher already. @ajsindri
@OP proposal: Socionics is masochistic enough without big pharmaceutical companies getting their hands all over it.
Well I've never heard of doctors prescribing medication based on the big 5, which is actually scientific. Maybe socionics would be used for marketing or political purposes, but unless you gave corporations your personality type, I'm sure the current AI models would preform better.
No, what I am afraid of is how to fund socionics research while keeping the field open. Socionics can't go down the private path of the MBTI, but at the same time, they need to make money.
^ Want to click “Like” for the above, but afraid ...
This kind of activity fondles the fine line between the spiritual and subjective human experience and the real, objective and scientific.
My favourite!
Mine too
･:*+.\(( °ω° ))/.:+
(Reposting this here since it got lost in the fork)
I think the solution to this is to reduce the model A concepts into dichotomies.
The first way would be to define the type dichotomies in terms of information metabolism, like defining rational / irrational types by their accepting and producing functions in Model A. This is nice because these kind of type dichotomies are mini typologies in themselves and can be tested independent of the larger theory. However, only the three temperament dichotomies can be isolated from the theory without degrading the structure. For example, think about quadra value. Merry / serious and judicious / decisive are the reinin dichotomies that define ego quadra value. They intuitively make a set and it would be wrong to only test one without the other. However, ego value (the classic quadra small group) is only one way to measure quadra value. You could also measure the specific quadra value of the base function.
This creates a different kind of quadra small group. If you combine these, you get an 8 part typology of dual pairs. This is the complete idea of quadra and has a "dihedral four group" structure. Anything less degrades the structure. I'm still not exactly sure how to define a dihedral four structure with dichotomies. It has eight elements, but if you only use 3 dichotomies to define it, you lose the dihedral structure, and make something isomorphic to the fano plane instead. @thehotelambush showed me there is a parallel dichotomy space we've been calling the Tencer space. I'm pretty sure if you define quadra with an extra dichotomy from this overlapping space (four dichotomies total) you define the correct dihedral structure. However, maybe there is a better way, I'm still working on this.
The dihedral four structure is also the true form of the four Jungian functions (intuition, logic, sensing and ethics), and is one reason why the MBTI is wrong. The way they test intuition / sensing and thinking / feeling does not respect that one is dominant. Over the years, I've watched people having taken the MBTI test learn enough socionics to figure out their Model A type. Normally the MBTI test gets the dominant process right, but its a toss up if they get their auxiliary process (N/T/S/F) correct, assuming you can compare MBTI to Model A type. Jung had the same problem, which is why he wrote about eight psychological types, not sixteen.
Model A is very clever how it defines the sixteen types in a relational structure rather than straight behavior, and how you are describing yourself as using both logic and ethics is consistent with Model A, and my own observations. The producing functions are not set in a certain expression like the accepting functions are. Augusta's creative function was defined as the inner type balance and application to the world of the base function, but that does not mean it is the only way the base can block. Even though I think Gulenko's energy model is inferior to Model A, I think he is right to add emphasis to the equivalent of the Model A demonstrative function. Maybe we also need to add emphasis to the mobilizing function to balance the portrait of average behavior a description constructs. However, all of this seems to be subtype related, and unless I want something that can define explicit behavior rather than mental architecture, Model A works great, because the purpose of the functions, if and when people use them, seems accurate to me.
Getting back to simplifying the application of socionics to dichotomies, I hope you can see there is both a mathematical and empirical reason why most dichotomies are gross abstractions of what they are defining. Maybe the solution is to use a hybrid Tencer and Reinin dichotomy space, but if we are going to make it that complicated, we might as well just test the higher order objects so we don't lose emergent behavior. These higher order concepts can be defined as dichotomies if we can define their positive and negative aspect, like a criteria for having base introverted intuition verses not having base introverted intuition. The problem with this is the higher order objects have more complex information metabolisms. Theoretically, introverted intuition as base also equals introverted sensing as role, extroverted sensing as suggestive and extroverted intuition as ignoring, as well as limiting the producing functions. A proper test of base function theory might imply testing 32 information-function combinations, which is getting into the ridiculous range. Also if you tested all of this together without understanding the structure it came from, you'd easily get lost. @sbbds this is why you can't just research a few traits and call it good, and why Model A has not been tested yet.
Nebula, you are also right to bring up the problem of how a continuous empirical measurement can be categorized in a binary way:
Now I disagree with you because I see socionics as describing internal motivations, not external behavior, but I accept that something like a socionics test can only measure external behavior, and so is at the heart of empirically testing socionics. I think the only way to test this fairly is to create a criteria for logic and ethics separately and then test thinks like inverse correlation and bimodal distribution. I know a major problem the MBTI has had is bimodal distribution.
Jung also imagined his type compass (N-T-S-F) was a spectrum, not discrete categories like in socionics. This would mean there is a smooth gradient between mirror types. However, it may be that socionics is more correct than Jung's fuzzy and mystical intuition, or that subtype can account for this difference between discrete types.
Either way, the only fair way to test Model A is to allow a smooth empirical space that does not exclude any of these effects, and then see if these discrete categories happen naturally in the empirical data. I'm really interested in this problem, if you want to help me work on it, or even just list all the way the binary structure of socionics might be wrong, I'd appreciate it.
The smooth empirical space is hella difficult to define and will be one of the final stages. I'm not sure if it is best expressed as a Lie group, a vector space or a Clifford space. Either way, I still haven't figured out the discrete structure of the intertype relations, so I have to do that first.
Nebula, I also want to address the problem of generating standards you brought up, because I have a plan for that too, but this is already a long post and I want to give you a change to respond before going into that.
hehe your part one sounds a lot like my beginning. It's good to just start in reality. I've noticed many people start typing people online, or just like to talk a lot, but not experiment in real life. I remember the times I was interviewing my colleagues without them knowing, all these strange question i was asking to determine their type hehe. I used the 4 dichotomies a lot in the beginning, nowadays i have database in my head and use visual identification a lot, it's fast. Types look a like. This starts to become visible after a couple of years. e.g. You type your 5th SLE and you see they look the same as the other 4 in some ways...
Glad to find a kindred spirit in terms of applying socionics to real people when you learn itbut I'm pretty against visual identification. Even if it worked (I think it does not), I like that I can only really know a person's socionics type once I get to now them. Its almost the last thing I learn about them, and it is a way to check if everything I learned about them is consistent. If I'm not sure of a person's type, that means I don't actually know them well.
But even if VI is controversial, It would be interesting to put it to the test. If we had a data base of people and their type, assuming people could agree that the database was accurate, we could show a picture or video clip of a person and test the accuracy of each person's ability to visually identify type.
I once made a list of the phases people go through when discovering socionics, it's somewhere here on the forum. First they say socionics doensn't work, then they find out it does. then they say subtypes don't exist etc. and in the last phase they notice that VI works :-)Glad to find a kindred spirit in terms of applying socionics to real people when you learn it
But even if VI is controversial, It would be interesting to put it to the test. If we had a data base of people and their type, assuming people could agree that the database was accurate, we could show a picture or video clip of a person and test the accuracy of each person's ability to visually identify type.
I agree with your database idea, except you have to make it yourself in your head. Do not try to get consensus, since you always have 50% of some half serious people, and they screw the result.
Just type enough people in real life, and you'll start to notice so called 'copies'. People of the same type who resemble as twins almost! This will be your important discovery. From that point on you start to 'believe' in VI. I've been doing socionics for 15 years or so, still learning though. VI doesn't work always but it sure works fast if it works, it's a handy extra tool.
I kind of find it funny to try to prove that structure exists.
#1 it is all hypothetical
#2 what are we supposed to be measuring?
#3 questionnaires do not seem to be good for fine resolution.
As socionics deal with intertype relations it could be used as a stepping stone (one potential mine for ideas) for mapping interpersonal stuff in science. Brain imaging and stuff whatever comes along.
MOTTO: NEVER TRUST IN REALITY
Winning is for losers
Sincerely yours,
idiosyncratic type
Life is a joke but do you have a life?
Joinif you dare https://matrix.to/#/#The16Types:matrix.org
@Singu, @Troll Nr 007 I don't see the problem of testing Model A's validity as much different than studying physical relationships, except that it is more difficult to isolate variables in people than it is with physical objects. Take gravity for example, since it was brought up earlier. As we learn about all the forces acting on a falling object, our simulations of real life get better and apply in more circumstances. Differential equations are needed to calculate the trajectory of objects falling near terminal velocity, like a feather falling through air on earth, but that doesn't invalidate the force of gravity, it just means you can't neglect air resistance.
We know a lot about gravity. We can measure the relativistic effect denser rock strata have on the passage of time. We can fire artillery miles with high accuracy. We sent the Voyager probes into the far reaches of our solar system using gravity assist orbits. But we don't know what gravity "is" as much as we know what anything "is". Even so, we've benefited a lot by studying nature and tuning our models to higher degrees of accuracy.
This is all we can hope to do with socionics - test to see how close the theory matches reality, try and improve it, and decide if our current model is good enough to use in a certain circumstance, or if another model has more utility. Anything else is an impossible standard for anything, and is not worth worrying about.
Well a theory is supposed to explain the evidence, not that you use the evidence to support a theory. So whatever theory that can explain the evidence in the best and the most detailed way, is the theory that we would naturally prefer, since the theory has much more use than the other rival theories. And if a theory can explain the evidence more, then the theory would have better predictive ability. So we would naturally pick the theory that has greater explanatory and predictive power.
If you're going to say that "This theory accurately describes reality", then of course it does, because any theory is going to describe some kind of partial reality. But it becomes a problem when a theory starts to become unable to describe some evidence or observations. And since the theory can't actually explain the evidence, the evidence would likely get ignored or pushed aside as something irrelevant or some mystery that is still yet to be solved.
And so the purpose of a rival theory is to solve that unresolved mystery. If Socionics can't explain some evidence, then it's time to come up with a new explanation, or a whole new theory. But of course this evidence can be easily pushed aside as some minor error to be ignored. Or the evidence can be forced into the theory by coming up with ad-hoc modifications. But if we do have an explanation them, then that would be great, and it would highlight the flaw of Socionics even further.
Well, here's the problem. You're saying that Socionics, and any scientific theory for that matter, should have 1:1 correspondence to reality, and the goal is to have it as close to describing reality as possible.
But how are we supposed to describe what has yet to have been? As in, how are we supposed to predict things about the future, which is by definition something that has never happened yet, and therefore we can never describe anything about the future in the present? At least, we can't make any observations about the future.
And yet the entire scientific knowledge depends on the ability to predict events. Nobody has ever been to outer space before, and yet science was able to predict things with great accuracy. How was this actually possible?
Well technically, the criteria for science is not perfection (induction is never 100% certain) but falsifiability so our understanding converges to the right answer through cycles of the scientific process.
Socionics is concerned with human nature, which is very old and has a long history. Also the standard procedure to test a prediction is make a hypothesis, run an experiment, and see if the results support or contradicts the hypothesis.
Bro, there are people living in the ISS right now. What are you talking about?
Yes, that's exactly correct. So science isn't actually a 1:1 correspondence of reality, but rather a hypothesis of the unknown world, as in what we expect to happen in the future. It's an act of pure imagination, because any assertion about the future must be an act of imagination. There's nothing controversial about that. It's simply obvious.
So people are mistaken when they think that science is just something that's dry and unimaginative, because science is purely a creative and an imaginative endeavor. It requires the creativity and the imagination of coming up with explanations. And of course not just any kind of explanations, but explanations that are rational, grounded and objective. So scientists are often a special kind of people that are highly imaginative and creative, and yet are at the same time grounded enough to be realistic and rational about it. So they need to have a good balance of both.
So science is reality plus imagination.
And what do we exactly mean when we say that Socionics is "accurately describing reality"? Well Socionics is after all just one of the many interpretations of reality, and none can be said to be "the" description of reality. There are so many other interpretations of the same fact or an observation beside the Socionics interpretation. All it can hope to do is that it interprets it in the best way according to the purpose of utilizing the interpretation, as in solving whatever problem that we have at hand.
Well obviously, I'm talking about the days of Newton and Einstein, where they have made predictions about outer space that nobody has ever been to before, and where they have been vindicated for the most part, by correctly predicting the things that the theory would predict that it would happen.
So you really need to ask the question, how is it possible for them to have made such predictions?
Reality is self-consistent. All physical factors (properties and relationships) we discover on earth apply anywhere in the universe and all relate to each other. Both Newton and Einstein took known factors and combined them into greater paradigms. Because all the factors relate to each other, both deduced new emergent patterns.
I don't know exactly what aspect of astrophysics you have in mind, but if either's theories can explain a phenomena completely, its because they accounted for all relevant factors in their model. Neither Einstein nor Newton accounted for quantum physics, and so for instance, could not describe why black holes evaporate over time.
Most activities we do in space are on the macro scale, so Newton and Einstein's paradigms are sufficient, and even the preferred mental model, even though in a sense they are wrong. In the same way, socionics can be useful even if there is a deeper process happening (which there certainly is). All that matters is if socionics is accurate for the scope it is describing. If we could get socionics really rock solid, and its limited scope demarcated, then it can be a foundation for future paradigms, but we, and any future new paradigm makers, will never know if it should be used as a foundation until we test it.
Last edited by Lao Tzunami; 11-10-2018 at 01:02 AM.
Yes, so we don't actually know whether something will actually "work" or not. They were both guesses, as it were, albeit very good guesses that happened to have been miraculously right for the most part. They could have been wrong. In fact they could have been easily proven wrong, but they weren't. And if they were wrong, then they would have remained some obscure figures that have made some outlandish guesses about the universe.
So the point is, how much of the part of Socionics are hypotheses? How much of the reality can it explain? You would notice that not much, since they're mostly based on previous observations of people. And it's the expectation or the assumption that the observation would somehow continue in the same way in the future. And that is obviously problematic, since things don't necessarily just keep repeating itself. You can't know things about the future by just analyzing past patterns.
So if you want to make Socionics "scientific", then you're going to have to come up with some risky hypotheses that could be easily proven wrong by a test or an experiment. But my view is that it's more important than that to come up with good explanations for phenomena.
Unfortunately "hypotheses" have become a bit of a dirty word in some parts of the world due to misconceptions, especially in a country like the US, even though that's the only way to know anything about the future. I mean of course the evidence could be empirical, and it should be empirical, but hypotheses can't obviously be empirical. So it misses the point when the criticism is "it's not empirical" or "that's just a hypothesis or a theory". The criticism should be directed at whether it's a good and a sensible hypothesis or not.
Last edited by Singu; 11-10-2018 at 09:34 AM.
@Singu I don't know why you are focusing on "predicting the future." That's not the aim of socionics. The aim is describing a part of human nature that is the same across time. The reason stories from hundreds of years ago still capture us is because they were people just like we are people. Unless we start genetically engineering people, its going to be the same in the future too.
All of socionics is a hypothesis as far as I know, because nothing has been tested (although maybe there is some Russian research I don't know about). As for if socionics is a compelling hypothesis, I think it is. I've applied socionics in my personal life and it works very well for me. But there are a lot of promising psychological theories out there, so people should study what they are interested in. I have no problem if people study something else instead of socionics. But I'm interested in socionics, and I assume anyone who spends hours of their day posting on socionics forum are also interested in socionics. The burden of proof is on the socionics community, not its critics.
Also, if you want this to be a constructive discussion, please stop asserting your opinions as facts.
You think hypothesis is a dirty word -> it is not a dirty word
You think predicting the course of the future events is the purpose of socionics -> no, the purpose is to describe human nature
It is a subtle manipulation tactic and its very annoying. I think you are a smart person and this conversation might lead to an interesting outcome, but if you don't stop, I'm going to ignore what you say. Please stop so we can have a good discussion.
...Because "predicting the future" is the aim of science, and you're trying to turn Socionics into a science. I'm sure that if you can describe human nature, as in describe how they work, then you can predict them (to a certain extent) anyway.
Can we agree that science is basically nothing more than a series of explanations and predictions? I think we can. What I'm saying is nothing controversial. Explanatory power and predictive power.
What I'm saying is really no different than some of the typical criticisms that are aimed at Big Five, for example. Is Big Five a total nonsense? No, but it's not exactly treated as a science, either. I also don't think that the approach of Big Five is very different from Socionics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fi...raits#CritiqueCritique of Big Five
Subsequent critical replies by Jack Block at the University of California Berkeley followed. It has been argued that there are limitations to the scope of the Big Five model as an explanatory or predictive theory.
Also, the static Big Five is not theory-driven, it is merely a statistically-driven investigation of certain descriptors that tend to cluster together often based on less than optimal factor analytic procedures.
A frequent criticism is that the Big Five is not based on any underlying theory; it is merely an empirical finding that certain descriptors cluster together under factor analysis. Although this does not mean that these five factors do not exist, the underlying causes behind them are unknown.
I just don't see much point if you can't explain why an observed regularity seems to be occurring. Don't mistake appearance for substance.
@ajsindri For some reason I didn’t get pinged by your tagging of me.
”Getting back to simplifying the application of socionics to dichotomies, I hope you can see there is both a mathematical and empirical reason why most dichotomies are gross abstractions of what they are defining. Maybe the solution is to use a hybrid Tencer and Reinin dichotomy space, but if we are going to make it that complicated, we might as well just test the higher order objects so we don't lose emergent behavior. These higher order concepts can be defined as dichotomies if we can define their positive and negative aspect, like a criteria for having base introverted intuition verses not having base introverted intuition. The problem with this is the higher order objects have more complex information metabolisms. Theoretically, introverted intuition as base also equals introverted sensing as role, extroverted sensing as suggestive and extroverted intuition as ignoring, as well as limiting the producing functions. A proper test of base function theory might imply testing 32 information-function combinations, which is getting into the ridiculous range. Also if you tested all of this together without understanding the structure it came from, you'd easily get lost. @sbbds this is why you can't just research a few traits and call it good, and why Model A has not been tested yet.”
To repeat myself yet again: What I said only had to do with proving that some elements of Socionics exist empirically. At some point you need to prove the entire structure of Socionics is meaningful, but it’s far easier to try to prove some simplistic claims made by Socionics yet which are unique to Socionics, and thus would be an expedient way to help it gain some traction in the scientific community. The bolded is you yourself describing how approaching this from Socionics’ abstract structural aspects is by comparison going to be a far more difficult task.
I totally agree.
I don't know copyright law in Russia, but in the USA, you cannot copyright a theory, only a specific inventory (test). That's why the MBTI test is copyrighted and it's statistics are not available to the general scientific community. I'm also not sure what school of socionics is most popular in Russia. There is an annual socionics conference, but I don't know who runs it.
Last edited by Lao Tzunami; 11-15-2018 at 05:34 AM.
Cool. Well would be interesting hearing your plans on that side of things too as things progress.
@ajsindri Do you know even if there’s currently any single, unifying institute or board on Socionics theory out there right now? Does anybody own any rights or is this all loosely goosey free knowledge? You’d need to find out about that first too.
I think Freudian psychology is a bad theory, while Jungian psychology is even worse.
Freudian psychology offers a rudimentary theoretical framework of how the human mind works. Which means that at least it can be proven wrong.
Jung's approach is entirely based on categorization of observations, which means that it can't be proven wrong, since you can't exactly prove an observation wrong. At least, an observation will always be true and correct to the observer.
The obvious limitation of Jung's approach is that you can't predict the future by just expecting the current observation to stay the same into the future. Yes, it could be true that things will stay the same, but it's not necessarily the case that it will. Another limitation is that you can't know more than what you have already previously observed.
Freud's approach is an explanatory approach, although it offers bad explanations. Jung's approach is purely an Empiricist, Instrumentalist and explanation-less approach.
Either approaches are differences in philosophies and methodologies.
@Singu I have observed that your existence here is boring and can predict that it will continue to be that way in the future.
What value do you gain out of continually logging in day in day out just being a dissenter?
Well that's funny, since I didn't even used to have these thoughts before. I used to be an "Empiricist", but I have changed my mind. I or anyone else can never predict how my mind will change into the future.
What value do you get out of sinking your time in something that doesn't work out in the end? Unfortunately, I know it too well that this whole thing is methodologically flawed so that it's largely a waste of time. All I can do is spread the idea everywhere that explanations are what matters, and that empiricism and instrumentalism are flawed. It also helps me to understand my own position better by creating arguments.
Well it doesn’t present itself as scientific or as really having any methodology in the first place.
Well that's just the typical excuses, "It's not supposed to be science" "It's not supposed to be objective".
It doesn't matter if it claims that it's not based on any methodology, because that's what it's doing nonetheless. I don't think you'll disagree that Socionics is about categorization of observations. And I have clearly stated the limitations of such an observational approach. Explanatory approach also has "cons" in that it's risky and it can be wrong. But it's also the only way to know anything about reality.
Also the claim that it's supposed to be subjective or subjectivity should be considered more than objectivity. The problem is that the "reality" consists of both the subjective and the objective. So if we really want to understand "reality" then we'd have to consider the subjective and the objective.
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