Thread split: is Socionics a religion?

[Myst]

I do this with any scientific or pseudoscientific theory. I think that there are a lot of implicit assumptions that go into creating a system for determining truth, and I want to see if I can spot those assumptions to see if they really matter. I also dislike the hive-mindedness or "absolutism" that goes on in a lot of established fields. No system is perfect and their flaws should be made known so that we don't delude ourselves into thinking something is "objectively true" or "irrefutable". That being said, I'm a pragmatist at heart, and so even if these holes are made known I don't really care about changing them since the system usually works well enough for our purposes. If it doesn't, then we just scrap it like we normally would. The only places this doesn't work are systems that rely on strict logical correctness to be useful i.e. math and philosophy.

Oh so it's essentially just because it works enough for you?

Here's my opinion. Socionics is a "theory of everything" because of our propensity to be confirmationally biased: we loosen our definitions of the functions to allow all real-world traits to be associated with some combination of the functions. However, it doesn't bother me that socionics is trying to be a universal system precisely because the labels we attach are essentially bags of traits that someone has irrespective of our categorization. We could turn socionics into a system that is so detailed to the point where every trait has its own subtype or something, but that's not useful for talking about who someone is in a simplistic manner. The high-level labels allow for that. Yes, it screws up nuance, but if we can minimize confirmation bias over time by modifying our ideas of the functions when a better one is told to us (this is what I was talking about in my responses to Singu), then we can build up that nuance since the system would only be able to categorize a finite number of things. So, it's essentially my goal to restrict what each cognitive function is so that the system can't actually categorize everything.

So because it seems to be working for you you are not trying to go outside the framework and modify or drop essential assumptions for its model?

The structure I'm talking about is the one that's inherently associated with having boxes around traits.

The reason I don't use other, scientifically rigorous systems, is because they lack these boxes. Basically, if you can identify patterns between traits and then box somebody, then you can predict how they will behave in different circumstances. This is much more difficult to do when there aren't clearly established boxes.

That being said, I'm generally against boxing things up because things are rarely ever so black and white. I merely do it out of its utility for living life.

Boxes, the 8 IEs and resulting types you mean?


EDIT: One more question. So you say Socionics predicts things for you better than scientific or other stuff. Are you able to quantify this at least somewhat? I'd like to hear your numbers or estimate.

[Myst]

What's "scientific thinking"? It's only rigorous because it has been criticized over and over again, and that only creates more rigor.

It's rigorous because it's evidence based... and thus yes, you have to be definite with things instead of staying open like you are doing it in these arguments with people here.

And being open to criticism is to be open to alternatives, because the criticisms are often something like "Why this and not that?". And in "science", no criticism is too minor or something to be ignored. It has to accept all sorts of criticisms, preferably the ones that can be tested. And of course that is what creates rigor.

The thing is that science is not as open to alternatives as you are, or it would not have anything specific to say at all. Like you don't.

It may or may not be possible, but the point is that any claim being made about the future is going to be baseless conjectures (other than being based on good theories), because we don't know the future and the future is going to be different from the past. Not just about the future, but practically about anything is going to be a baseless conjecture. Your thoughts about the world, in the here and now, are baseless conjectures generated by your brain.

Like I said above, science is not this open. It's more rigorous than this from you.

This is also a theory of yours, which is not "based on" anything. Your assumptions about what is or what is not rigorous scientific thinking, or what it should be, or what is real and what is not real, are all theories and conjectures.

Please, you are postmodern relativist rather than scientific.

What if I came up with a theory that says, "A person will act in a way that is in any sort of logically possible behavior"? Then any possible CONCRETE evidence is going to fit that theory.

Which is basically what Socionics is doing, because the Socionics descriptions are so vague and broad that it can fit into any CONCRETE evidence.

Logically yeah the Socionics model literally is "anything can be true". And a theory of everything.

If you restrict that, which is what most people using it try to do, then of course it's no longer "anything can be true".

But most people also do not have attention on when they are restricting things properly and when they fall into "anything can be true" apophenic thinking, and so then they mix these two ways - and I dont think it can be expected from people to keep trying to stay consistent with the restrictions, it's instead the model that needs to specify limits properly.

So more "evidence" is not what is needed, but rather alternative theories are needed. And it also needs to solve some problems, because the ability to solve that problem is going to be the criteria in which the theory will be judged by.

Sure I've been saying that. Upgrade by shedding all erroneous even if essential assumptions from the model.

If all we want to do is to "prove" that there are 16 types, then you're going to find the "evidence" for that everywhere, because the entire premise is that there is or there ought to be 16 types of people. And that doesn't solve any problems, other than to say that some concrete problem can be solved by evoking that people can be categorized into 16 types. But it obviously doesn't, because there are plenty of alternative theories that doesn't use any sort of 16 types system, that can solve the problem better.

The problem was supposed to be about certain aspects of how people relate to each other and how to optimise there. I don't think there is any alternative theory that addresses what Socionics attempts to address.

[Singu]

It's rigorous because it's evidence based... and thus yes, you have to be definite with things instead of staying open like you are doing it in these arguments with people here.

The thing is that science is not as open to alternatives as you are, or it would not have anything specific to say at all. Like you don't.

Like I said above, science is not this open. It's more rigorous than this from you.

Read this:

The inferential, imaginative and creative nature of science

However, science isn’t simply the accumulation of observable evidence and the orderly gathering of knowledge. All observations require interpretation and inference by scientists. To do this, scientists require imagination and creativity to make inferential statements about what they see. In fact, imagination and creativity are needed in every aspect of a scientist’s work – making sense of observations, making the creative leap from data to possible explanation, coming up with new ideas, designing investigations and looking at old data in a new light.

The subjective and theory-laden nature of science

Different scientists can interpret the same datasets differently. How can this be so? Scientists do strive to be objective, but it is just not possible to make truly objective observations and interpretations without any bias. A scientist’s mind is not a blank slate. Individual scientists have their prior knowledge, theoretical beliefs, experiences, cultural background, training, expectations and biases, each of which will affect their observations and conclusions. All observation is preceded by theory and conceptual knowledge. Science tries to overcome this lack of pure objectivity through the scientific community, which scrutinises scientific work and helps balance individual scientists’ leanings.

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/reso...ure-of-science

It's obvious that all this idiotic Socionics knowledge is interfering with people understanding how science actually is. They think that science is this stereotypical "Te" or "Ti" or whatever the heck they think it is. It's not.

[Raver]

Well actually you can't explain it, because there's no explanation for why should Fi and Te get along and Fi and Ti conflict, other than that perhaps it has been observed before that they do. So these explanationless theories are a dime a dozen, like in astrology where say, Virgos and Scorpios get along, but there's no mechanistic explanation for why should the date of birth have anything to do with whether people get along or not, so they can be summarily rejected. Or at least, there's not going to be a functional reason for preferring one over the other. Why should we accept Socionics over astrology and vice versa? The reason why we prefer any good scientific theory over anything else is because they have better explanations. The fact that they're explanationless is why people tend to mix them up and see no conflict between them, even though they're both saying totally different things about the same phenomena.

The fact is that one can easily come up with an explanation for why people get along or not that has nothing to do with Socionics. And how many discussions end with "NTR" or "non-Socionics related factors"?

One factor that Socionics has over astrology is that astrology is based on time and Socionics isn't. It's not everything, but it does give Socionics a little a bit more credibility. Socionics is not meant to explain the entire human personality, only one aspect of it. That's something that most people already knew.

I don't doubt the existence of observable behaviors and traits, but I don't necessarily think that they have to do with functions and types.

One of the problems with Socionics is that the theory is going to fit in with any kind of possible evidence. If they get along, then it must prove that Socionics is correct. If they don't, then it's due to some NTR factor. That might be useful in never being proven wrong, but it's not such useful information because it's not actually telling us anything.

Functions cause a whole bunch of behavior, and whatever behavior that we observe, it must be caused by a certain function. This again fits in with any kind of possible evidence.

That's because functions and types are merely symbolic, not literal. A personality theory that only explains an aspect of our personality rather than all of it is bound to fall into this problem, that doesn't invalidate it, it just means that it's limited, which is no mystery.

Well if they act differently depending on different situations, then that only proves that their behavior isn't consistent. Neither can you predict how they're going to act in different situations.

What I mean is consistency in terms of the symbolic representation of type and functions manifesting themselves based on strength. Socionics is based on people having strengths and weaknesses from their types so what we're trying to look for is if people are better or worse at certain things because of their type.

I think "certain mindset or outlook on life" obviously changes over time. I'm sure you have changed your outlook throughout your life. If a person's outlook has been influenced by a certain culture or environment that he's in, then that has nothing to do with "who he really was".

So indeed people's certain mindset or outlook affect their behavior, but why should we care whether that's Te or Fe or whatever? Why can't we simply study that instead of referring to Te or Fe? I don't think that there's a such thing as "Te beliefs" or "Fe beliefs", as anyone is capable of having any kind of beliefs.

The whole point of Socionics is that it's mean to transcend culture and ethnic traditions and behaviors and their behavior, mentality, strengths and weaknesses is based on their personality that is derived at random from their genetics. However, I don't disagree with the last part, we could call it something else with further study and make a new system and all it "X" personality system and proving it via brain scans and/or the scientific method. However, until that happens there is nothing wrong with using Socionics.

How many people are actually so alike that they act almost in the exact same way? They might be similar in some ways, but they're also going to be different in some other ways. And we're likely to only remember when they're similar, because we're looking for similarities.

I'm thinking that if we were to group people by their shared traits and behaviors, then there must be millions of different personality types. And even then, they're quite fluid and malleable and they change over time. So I think trying to classify people by their personality is going to be a nightmare.

Socionics is not meant to explain everything though about a personality type, just an aspect of it. Socionics is boxing people arbitrarily based on certain characteristics so you're going to get very different people within the same box and that's completely fine, it was never meant to explain them in their entirety. Anyways, I feel like this argument is a waste of time to be blunt with you. I agree with Myst that you're immersed in the belief of post modern relativist thought, which I believe has corrupted the way you perceive the world significantly.

I find post modern relativism to be far more dangerous than Socionics because it encourages you to discourage science and it parades itself as science. Socionics can be potentially harmful when people look at it zealously, but post modern relativism is worse because it affects your mentality over a wide array of scientific subjects, I consider it anti-science at its best. Perhaps directing your energy at eliminating or minimizing the far left cultural marxist philosophy of post modern relativism from your mentality instead of attacking Socionics would do you a lot of good IMO.

[Myst]

Read this:

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/reso...ure-of-science

It's obvious that all this idiotic Socionics knowledge is interfering with people understanding how science actually is. They think that science is this stereotypical "Te" or "Ti" or whatever the heck they think it is. It's not.

Who said here that science is "Te" or "Ti"? You are the one mixing Socionics into things here needlessly...

[sbbds]

You asked once in some other thread what we liked about science. And I can't find that thread now, but I said then, and I'll say it now again, that science is the process of being curious and asking questions, and then devising ways to find the answers to those questions. And what's not to like about that?

Not all scientific inquiry is set up as formal experiments either and the questions don't have to be hypotheses to test, you could ask something like, "Is there water on Mars?" or even a much broader question, "What is the environment on Mars like?" and then you design a probe with a camera to go take a look and see what's there whether it's water you find or something completely unexpected, you're just looking for the answers to your questions, and learning more about an as-yet unfamiliar environment. Science is exploratory, seeking to learn more always.

It's all about seeking answers, and yes, being open to whatever those answers are. Especially if those answers are unexpected or crush your prior beliefs. That's when things get exciting. If a person is instead trying to prove that their ideas are correct, and is NOT open to being wrong, then it's not exactly scientific thinking they're going for - it's dogmatism.

I'm pretty sure Singu was just asking that as an insult and has little to no respect for any of the people on this forum. Treating other people properly isn't a function of Fi or Fe either, apparently @Singu . I lol that you continue to try to treat him respectfully squark instead of fighting fire with fire but it might just be because you don't realize this (i.e. what he deserves and needs). Stop asslicking the most useless and worthless people on here. I see a trend now.

[Myst]

He is a linguist, not a scientist. Popper's work actually reminds me of e-prime. Some people don't realize that you can't judge things outside of their field, or that there are different fields to begin with. They don't operate by the same laws. It just doesn't work. You can't rate a cake by a mechanics standards. It's silly. A linguist writing a book on why Induction is useless to science is irrelevant. In context of his field and what he is knows, it may make sense. But as far as science is concerned, this guy is nothing but a troll, whether he knows it or not, and his book is worthless. I'm saying this after reading his book and finding nothing useful. I can't say I expected anything though. I only gave it a chance because I gave up on Singu making sense.

Lol I looked up e-prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

This says "Kellogg and Bourland describe misuse of the verb to be as creating a "deity mode of speech", allowing "even the most ignorant to transform their opinions magically into god-like pronouncements on the nature of things"."

That's just for Singu lol...

Which book of his did you read specifically?

How do you think that connects with Socionics? I don't necessarily think that this principle is limited to science, but it applies to all knowledge in general.

But I think what's more slightly significant, is that people seem to be obsessed with finding "evidence", as if evidence would be the deciding factor in changing anything. Evidence is only as useful as what the theory is telling us to look for and the experiment that it is conducting.

Should we look for the "evidence" that there are 16 types? But then the premise is already that there ought to be 16 types, so no amount of evidence would change anything. If we look for evidence that there are 16 types, then yes, there would be "evidence" for it everywhere (and I'm sure that there'd also be evidence for any other arbitrary numbers of types). And if we couldn't find any evidence, then we might just say that we're not trying hard enough to find it.

So what actually is the role of evidence? It can only be the deciding factor when there are two or more rival theories attempting to solve some problem, and one correctly yields the result of what it's predicted to put out, and other does not, and hence one gets accepted and the other get rejected.

So finding "evidence" is definitely not the main point, because you can easily make a theory that fits in with any kind of evidence, and hence the theory is proven to be correct or at least not falsified, but the theory may not be very useful in solving some problem. The criteria of a theory is always going to be based around whether it can solve the problem or not.

Oh and this... if you made a theory that fits in with any kind of evidence, you'd be kicked out really fast as a researcher. It has to be a theory where you are able to make testable hypotheses out of the theory. I would think this is basic though if you have really read up that much about science...

[Singu]

Well what I and that article that I just posted is saying is pretty much Popperian, and only a few people here understand Popperian epistemology. If you don't understand Popper, then you're just not going to understand what I'm saying.

This also has nothing to do with types, because I didn't used to know any Popperian ideas and I didn't used to be one. In fact if you told me Popperian ideas a while ago, then I wouldn't have believed it and would have thought that you were crazy and insane. Pretty much the same reaction that some people are having now.

And it's not as if Popperian ideas are incredibly difficult or counter-intuitive, in fact Popperian ideas are incredibly common-sense and straightforward, even obvious. The reason why it's so difficult to accept is that the "default mode" of thinking in our culture, particularly the Western culture, is Empiricism and Inductivism. And that's because modern Western culture that was started during the Enlightenment period, was jump-started by Empiricism influenced by people like Locke and Berkeley. And that was good, because it freed us from knowledge from authorities like Kings or holy scriptures, and instead the source of knowledge returned to ourselves. But soon Empiricism was found to be rationally untenable, and it self-destructed many times, even after it "evolved" to Positivism and Logical Positivism. And Inductivism was not without its problems, and it was often criticized without anyone coming up with a credible solution. That was until Popper (in)famously claimed to have "solved the problem of induction" in the early 20th century.

Anyway, it's not as if Popper suddenly came up with a new idea or anything, but rather he was simply describing how science has always been done since the days of Galileo. It's almost as if Galileo had accidentally found a way to do science.

Who said here that science is "Te" or "Ti"? You are the one mixing Socionics into things here needlessly...

Read the article that I just posted. Does any of it sound like any of the stereotypical description of Te or Ti? It doesn't sound like any of the functions, mostly because they're based on things that Jung hadn't considered or Jung didn't know.

Most people here see things from within the Socionics framework. Even you. But they're inadequate whenever you need to see things from what Socionics doesn't describe, which is a whole lot of things.

[FarDraft]

Oh so it's essentially just because it works enough for you?

Basically. I'm able to get what I need out of it, so it's "good enough".

So because it seems to be working for you you are not trying to go outside the framework and modify or drop essential assumptions for its model?

Yes, but let me explain more carefully what I am trying to do. You're correct in that I'm not looking to drop essential assumptions for the model. For example, the assumption that there exists 8 uniquely definable information elements that, in tandem, process all of a person's cognition is something I'm willing to concede. Moreover, I will accept the assumption that we can group these IEs to form "types" that use these IEs in particular ways. For example, ILIs have "role" Si and LSIs have "creative" Se. I accept both of these assumptions without proof for the sake of practical utility. Without the first assumption, we wouldn't have a structure to categorize cognition and without the second we wouldn't have as effective a use for those categorizations since there would be too many possible combinations of IEs that aren't a part of some larger structure. For example, if someone has a preference for Ni > Fi > Te > Se, then we could either label them as nothing or as an ILI with a particularly strong valuing of Fi. Then, we can associate the high-level patterns of an ILI to this person even though they don't fit the exact picture. This approximation is useful but an approximation nonetheless.

What I'm against doing is categorizing every single high-level behaviour to this model since a person uses every IE every day; moreover, people's behaviours are hugely impacted by their past experiences and interactions with their environment. Essentially, it's possible to have the same cognitive preferences and abilities while acting "out of character". This is why I'm highly critical of VI, though I'll admit that I don't fully understand it.

My goal with the system is to figure out what we can and can't accurately predict based upon these assumptions so that we don't conflate, through confirmation bias, certain behaviours with certain functions. Over time, we can more completely understand the domain of the theory by restricting its abilities.

Boxes, the 8 IEs and resulting types you mean?

Yes.

One more question. So you say Socionics predicts things for you better than scientific or other stuff. Are you able to quantify this at least somewhat? I'd like to hear your numbers or estimate.

I don't think I ever said that socionics predicts things "better" for me than other things but rather that it provides a method of predicting things that other systems don't. You could say that that makes it "easier" to predict things in socionics but not necessarily "better". I'm certain that if I spent the time trying to understand other systems as much I as I have socionics, then I could make predictions equally as good (or bad) - it would just take more effort.

So, I can't really provide numbers.

[FarDraft]

OK so we are on the same page now. Uh about my perspective, I'm in general just interested in how to add those valid bits from Socionics to what science already got about how the brain and the mind works. There are a few more recent research results (neurocognitive) where I very strongly recognised things that I've seen from Socionics too. It's however definitely not like Model A anymore.

I could start another thread for more specifics, but I'd like to do a write up on the whole thing anyway and post that when ready.

I would definitely like to see that thread whenever you're ready to do to so. I don't know how we could just add things from a different theory without forcing it in, which would lead to confirmation bias.

[Myst]

Well what I and that article that I just posted is saying is pretty much Popperian, and only a few people here understand Popperian epistemology. If you don't understand Popper, then you're just not going to understand what I'm saying.

This also has nothing to do with types, because I didn't used to know any Popperian ideas and I didn't used to be one. In fact if you told me Popperian ideas a while ago, then I wouldn't have believed it and would have thought that you were crazy and insane. Pretty much the same reaction that some people are having now.

1. You do not understand other people's arguments here, so you find it convenient to imagine that we all are just upset when we disagree about something.
2. Even if Popper is your current God you believe in currently, you don't actually just replicate in your arguments what Popper said.

And it's not as if Popperian ideas are incredibly difficult or counter-intuitive, in fact Popperian ideas are incredibly common-sense and straightforward, even obvious. The reason why it's so difficult to accept is that the "default mode" of thinking in our culture, particularly the Western culture, is Empiricism and Inductivism. And that's because modern Western culture that was started during the Enlightenment period, was jump-started by Empiricism influenced by people like Locke and Berkeley. And that was good, because it freed us from knowledge from authorities like Kings or holy scriptures, and instead the source of knowledge returned to ourselves. But soon Empiricism was found to be rationally untenable, and it self-destructed many times, even after it "evolved" to Positivism and Logical Positivism. And Inductivism was not without its problems, and it was often criticized without anyone coming up with a credible solution. That was until Popper (in)famously claimed to have "solved the problem of induction" in the early 20th century.

Anyway, it's not as if Popper suddenly came up with a new idea or anything, but rather he was simply describing how science has always been done since the days of Galileo. It's almost as if Galileo had accidentally found a way to do science.

The scientific approach and methodology currently taught does incorporate ideas from Popper, so what's your problem? Popper is old news really.

Read the article that I just posted. Does any of it sound like any of the stereotypical description of Te or Ti? It doesn't sound like any of the functions, mostly because they're based on things that Jung hadn't considered or Jung didn't know.

Most people here see things from within the Socionics framework. Even you. But they're inadequate whenever you need to see things from what Socionics doesn't describe, which is a whole lot of things.

Lol, stop claiming things about me without any proof. It's you who tried to categorise that article as Ti or Te. I did not think of Ti or Te at all while skimming the article. I don't even know why you needed to bring up Socionics in connection with that article. Seems like a compulsion you have.

I have no need to do that, because I've put the good Socionics ideas in a larger framework more to my liking, and I did so quite a while ago. So I have no need to try and think about everything from a narrow Socionics pov.

And other people too have been telling you here that they do not see everything from Socionics's model, that it's just a model among other systems and approaches that they already utilise.

Please, by all means, feel free to just continue projecting your own issues onto other people, if that's what's most convenient to you. It's just painful to watch lol

[Singu]

Well you still don't understand Popperian epistemology really, so you're just going to think what I'm saying is crazy and insane, which is understandable.

My problem is that Socionics is Empiricism and Inductivism (Jung and Augusta said so themselves), and so are most people here's conception of "science". But Popperian epistemology, which science has largely incorporated, would say that both Empiricism and Inductivism are invalid. This most people find hard to believe, because they've been so indoctrinated by their culture to think in terms of Empiricism and Inductivism. They simply don't know how to think in any other way, because that's the default way of thinking taught by their culture or by their education.

So no matter how many times I try to explain it, it's met with disbelief (which what I've been saying is literally the same as what that article is saying). It's "argument from personal incredulity". Unless, they've been familiarized with Popperian epistemology. It's just not something that you're going to get without changing how you think about about things in almost a fundamental way. You're going to need a "Copernican revolution" in thinking.

[Myst]

Well you still don't understand Popperian epistemology really, so you're just going to think what I'm saying is crazy and insane, which is understandable.

I've used said scientific methodology in official research. Please feel free to claim whatever about me, but it's painfully off.

My problem is that Socionics is Empiricism and Inductivism (Jung and Augusta said so themselves), and so are most people here's conception of "science". But Popperian epistemology, which science has largely incorporated, would say that both Empiricism and Inductivism are invalid. This most people find hard to believe, because they've been so indoctrinated by their culture to think in terms of Empiricism and Inductivism. They simply don't know how to think in any other way, because that's the default way of thinking taught by their culture or by their education.

So no matter how many times I try to explain it, it's met with disbelief (which what I've been saying is literally the same as what that article is saying). It's "argument from personal incredulity". Unless, they've been familiarized with Popperian epistemology. It's just not something that you're going to get without changing how you think about about things in almost a fundamental way. You're going to need a "Copernican revolution" in thinking.

I don't think Socionics is strictly even empirical lol. There's a lot of speculativeness in the model... Jung admitted to that, too.

My thinking isn't simply categorised as what you try to categorise it as, and doesn't need any "Copernican revolution", thank-you.

[Myst]

Yes, but let me explain more carefully what I am trying to do. You're correct in that I'm not looking to drop essential assumptions for the model. For example, the assumption that there exists 8 uniquely definable information elements that, in tandem, process all of a person's cognition is something I'm willing to concede. Moreover, I will accept the assumption that we can group these IEs to form "types" that use these IEs in particular ways. For example, ILIs have "role" Si and LSIs have "creative" Se. I accept both of these assumptions without proof for the sake of practical utility. Without the first assumption, we wouldn't have a structure to categorize cognition and without the second we wouldn't have as effective a use for those categorizations since there would be too many possible combinations of IEs that aren't a part of some larger structure. For example, if someone has a preference for Ni > Fi > Te > Se, then we could either label them as nothing or as an ILI with a particularly strong valuing of Fi. Then, we can associate the high-level patterns of an ILI to this person even though they don't fit the exact picture. This approximation is useful but an approximation nonetheless.

Actually we can categorise cognition without having to use Socionics's original model. It just would not be as incredibly simple, but that's just what reality is, not as simple - or simplistic - as that lol. I understand what you are saying about approximations, we think differently there though.

What I'm against doing is categorizing every single high-level behaviour to this model since a person uses every IE every day; moreover, people's behaviours are hugely impacted by their past experiences and interactions with their environment. Essentially, it's possible to have the same cognitive preferences and abilities while acting "out of character". This is why I'm highly critical of VI, though I'll admit that I don't fully understand it.

Yeah I'm against that too. Singu seems to be doing that compulsively though lol and then he tries to convince himself here in public of a way to let go lol

My goal with the system is to figure out what we can and can't accurately predict based upon these assumptions so that we don't conflate, through confirmation bias, certain behaviours with certain functions. Over time, we can more completely understand the domain of the theory by restricting its abilities.

Yeah I was doing that and ended up elsewhere as a result... what I already said above about changing the model.

I don't think I ever said that socionics predicts things "better" for me than other things but rather that it provides a method of predicting things that other systems don't. You could say that that makes it "easier" to predict things in socionics but not necessarily "better". I'm certain that if I spent the time trying to understand other systems as much I as I have socionics, then I could make predictions equally as good (or bad) - it would just take more effort.

So, I can't really provide numbers.

Agreed that it does deal with aspects other systems don't. I do think however that if you add other understanding for the rest, your predictions would be better... I do suggest that for everyone else, too. Instead of accidentally trying to apply Socionics for aspects where it doesn't belong and where a general understanding of people and the mind's / the psyche's general mechanisms works *better*.

I would definitely like to see that thread whenever you're ready to do to so. I don't know how we could just add things from a different theory without forcing it in, which would lead to confirmation bias.

Forcing it in? The whole framework has to be changed like I already said, so it wouldn't be an issue.

[Singu]

I've used said scientific methodology in official research. Please feel free to claim whatever about me, but it's painfully off.

Did you suddenly forget what you yourself just said in this very thread?:

You instead want to keep things open, but that's not rational, even in science.

Your problem is staying open all the time. That's not rational. Scientific thinking is not open like this. Scientific thinking is far more rigorous than this.

You do not live in the moment, you keep living in the future of imagining possibilities coming true, but you can only make a rational decision in the moment here and now. That is the only way you can do closure, and have actually rigorous scientific thinking.

It's rigorous because it's evidence based...

The thing is that science is not as open to alternatives as you are, or it would not have anything specific to say at all. Like you don't.

Your view of science is to not keep things open, to have alternatives restricted and to only make decisions in the "here and now" without the use of much imagination or speculation (i.e the Inductivist "evidence-based" scheme). Btw, this is so stereotypically the "Sensor" description of Jung/Socionics, which makes me think that you've been at least unconsciously affected and biased by your own "typing".

But this is what that article says about science:

The tentative nature of scientific knowledge

Although it is reliable and durable, scientific knowledge is neither set in concrete nor perfect. Rather, it is subject to change in the light of new evidence or new interpretation of existing evidence. Because of its tentative nature, we cannot claim ‘absolute truth’ in science. The tentative nature of scientific knowledge also means that laws and theories may change.

The inferential, imaginative and creative nature of science

However, science isn’t simply the accumulation of observable evidence and the orderly gathering of knowledge. All observations require interpretation and inference by scientists. To do this, scientists require imagination and creativity to make inferential statements about what they see. In fact, imagination and creativity are needed in every aspect of a scientist’s work – making sense of observations, making the creative leap from data to possible explanation, coming up with new ideas, designing investigations and looking at old data in a new light.

The subjective and theory-laden nature of science

All observation is preceded by theory and conceptual knowledge.

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/reso...ure-of-science

If that's not about being speculative and being open to alternatives (and neither is it about being restricted to the "here and now"), then I don't know what is.

I don't think Socionics is strictly even empirical lol. There's a lot of speculativeness in the model... Jung admitted to that, too.

Socionics is strictly about "deriving from observations" and categorizing that information in an orderly way. That's Empiricist and Inductivist.

My thinking isn't simply categorised as what you try to categorise it as, and doesn't need any "Copernican revolution", thank-you.

Well it's pretty apparent that you do, and it's sad that you're being so unwisely stubborn.

[Myst]

Did you suddenly forget what you yourself just said in this very thread?:


Your view of science is to not keep things open, to have alternatives restricted and to only make decisions in the "here and now" without the use of much imagination or speculation (i.e the Inductivist "evidence-based" scheme). Btw, this is so stereotypically the "Sensor" description of Jung/Socionics, which makes me think that you've been at least unconsciously affected and biased by your own "typing".

LOL wtf, you are the one again who keeps bringing Socionics into this, not me... you are typing my stuff as "Sensor". After trying to type your article as Ti/Te. Why the fuck are you doing this?

I always thought this way, before Jung/Socionics too, so congrats about your speculation being painfully off.

If Socionics affected anything about what I say in general, it's that it helped me explore myself and improve my metacognition, and so I can verbalise some things better.

However my statement specifically about having to lock down to the concrete data in the here and now has nothing to do with how I function at all as a person or my own personal metacognition, this was more general than that. That specifically comes from a book that has nothing to do with Socionics but is just about cognition of people and logically rigorous thinking in general, and about how people make errors in that in everyday life. And I happened to see that book as making a lot of sense.

Really overall you do not have to use typology theories to make statements like this, I saw people do it who had no idea about Jung or Socionics, for example in that book, do you really think that outside these theories it's impossible?

And no, I didn't forget what I said before. When you do scientific research, you do have to lock down to one conclusion at a time, i.e. you have to explicitly state your conclusion instead of saying "oh it could be really ANYTHING, we just can never know". It's not about sitting in the armchair and philosophising like you do it.

Note I never said that you can't update the conclusion and improve theories. I actually do think that we are continually to improve our understanding of things. Keeping it in mind that we do not have the ultimate complete truth. But that's still not the same as what you are trying to propose here.

But this is what that article says about science:

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/reso...ure-of-science

If that's not about being speculative and being open to alternatives (and neither is it about being restricted to the "here and now"), then I don't know what is.

Creativity is in service of making sense of observations and creating explanations, is what this link says. That is not about remaining eternally open to alternatives.

Socionics is strictly about "deriving from observations" and categorizing that information in an orderly way. That's Empiricist and Inductivist.

If you think Jung or Augusta had no creativity to make explanations, think again...

Well it's pretty apparent that you do, and it's sad that you're being so unwisely stubborn.

Apparent in your imagination only.

[Singu]

The Socionics' view of what is considered "objective" (which is obviously a view that's collectively held by the members of the community) is "Te" or "S", which means something like "direct observation that is untainted by a theory". Anything else is just some unproven, speculative nonsense of an "N type" or a "Ti-valuer" that has yet to become a "fact". This is a view that's obviously been inherited from Empiricism and Logical Positivism.

Apparently, the Te types or perhaps S types just "know" what is considered objective and what is not objective, like say someone like Sol.

But in actuality, that is not at all what is considered to be objective, because that depends on the criteria used for what is considered to be objective. And that criteria is constantly changing and evolving over time through constant criticisms and rational arguments.

"Science", which is a kind of knowledge about the natural world that is considered to be the most objective kind of knowledge these days, admits that there's no such thing as "absolute truth", and say that all knowledge is tentative and is subject to change at any given moment. It also admits that all observations are preceded by a theory, that everything is theory-laden. There's no such thing as a pure, direct experience that's yet to be tainted by a theory. It's also the job of the scientists to come up with a theory using his/her creativity and imagination that can explain a fact, and not just to make an orderly organization of observed facts.

Therefore, science rejects Empiricism, Logical Positivism and Inductivism as invalid forms of thinking. This must also mean that Te and S are false or erroneous ways of thinking. Or even Ti is.

Does this mean that those "types" are doomed to think in erroneous ways? No, because people have the choice to be able to freely change their ways of thinking.

But if types don't just think in this or that predetermined way, then what becomes a "type"?

[Rebelondeck]

In primitive times, astute observers pointed out that the sun rose in a specific pattern that repeated. However, the observers likely didn't create the subsequent religions but rather people who thought the information could be used to influence or control a bunch of potential followers.

a.k.a. I/O

[Myst]

The Socionics' view of (...)

Trying to read all that hurt my head because I barely use this Socionics lingo these days inside the narrow and insufficiently lightweight Socionics model, especially not for topics where it's not even related to Socionics. Like here, I have no idea why you needed to involve Socionics... So I will admit openly that I did not try to fully read, let alone interpret the sentences where you involved Socionics in stuff where it does not belong. I skipped those reasonings of yours.

To me what's objective is just what's meant by it usually, i.e. independent of Socionics: see everyday meaning of the word, or more technical meaning in terms of scientific thinking/philosophy of science/etc. I do not think of Socionics when this topic comes up.

But in actuality, that is not at all what is considered to be objective, because that depends on the criteria used for what is considered to be objective. And that criteria is constantly changing and evolving over time through constant criticisms and rational arguments.

Sure, there is more than one view on it....

"Science", which is a kind of knowledge about the natural world that is considered to be the most objective kind of knowledge these days, admits that there's no such thing as "absolute truth", and say that all knowledge is tentative and is subject to change at any given moment. It also admits that all observations are preceded by a theory, that everything is theory-laden. There's no such thing as a pure, direct experience that's yet to be tainted by a theory. It's also the job of the scientists to come up with a theory using his/her creativity and imagination that can explain a fact, and not just to make an orderly organization of observed facts.

I agree that we do not know Absolute Truth and will not be able to, however this doesn't mean we cannot make a definite statement on things as we know them at a time. Science doesn't do that kind of uncommitted stance you do here to get away with inconsistency in your reasonings. As for the "theory-laden" stuff, that's tautology to me. And Jung and Augusta used creativity and imagination to explain facts...

Does this mean that those "types" are doomed to think in erroneous ways? No, because people have the choice to be able to freely change their ways of thinking.

But if types don't just think in this or that predetermined way, then what becomes a "type"?

Type is some general draft of a preferred way of cognition. You can use more than one way of cognition to come up with a reasoning or adjust to a reasoning like you said about (relatively) freely changing ways of thinking. I say relatively, there are constraints for everyone, and I'm not even talking about type but general cognitive constraints. There are type related constraints too though, yeah. It's not as rigidly set out though as you seem to imagine it. The brain still has some ability to be flexible (even if this isn't some limitless plasticity).

[FarDraft]

Actually we can categorise cognition without having to use Socionics's original model. It just would not be as incredibly simple, but that's just what reality is, not as simple - or simplistic - as that lol. I understand what you are saying about approximations, we think differently there though.

Again, I have no understanding of how we could do that since I haven't read into that area, so I'll just wait until you post your model.

I have no problem with making a model more complex. In fact, if we're trying to describe reality, then we should expect the model to be complex. However, for personal use, too complex a model becomes difficult if not impossible to accurately use. That's why I prefer socionics to, say, big 5 (even though this isn't that complex compared to what you're proposing). I could use the other model, but I'd be describing the same result with slightly more nuanced language and better predictive capabilities. Those aren't worth it for me in most circumstances.

Yeah I was doing that and ended up elsewhere as a result... what I already said above about changing the model.

Neat. You've been here a lot longer than me, so maybe I'd have gotten to the same place given enough time.

Agreed that it does deal with aspects other systems don't. I do think however that if you add other understanding for the rest, your predictions would be better... I do suggest that for everyone else, too. Instead of accidentally trying to apply Socionics for aspects where it doesn't belong and where a general understanding of people and the mind's / the psyche's general mechanisms works *better*.

Yes, that's true. I do do this on some occasions. For example, there are strong correlations between political ideologies and how one fits into big 5. Moreover, there are correlations based on sex as well. However, like I said earlier, this extra predictive capability isn't worth it (for most circumstances) since it makes typing someone a lot more difficult since there is no approximate boxing structure.

Forcing it in? The whole framework has to be changed like I already said, so it wouldn't be an issue.

Right. I misspoke.

[Singu]

Trying to read all that hurt my head because I barely use this Socionics lingo these days inside the narrow and insufficiently lightweight Socionics model, especially not for topics where it's not even related to Socionics. Like here, I have no idea why you needed to involve Socionics... So I will admit openly that I did not try to fully read, let alone interpret the sentences where you involved Socionics in stuff where it does not belong. I skipped those reasonings of yours.

Are you sure? You still regularly have Socionics discussions, so it's strange that you claim to not think much about it anymore. Anyway it doesn't necessarily relate to you, as I was describing how the Socionics knowledge affects the community's way of thinking, collectively. Some people do manage to think outside of the framework of Socionics, but many still find it incomprehensible or meaningless to do so. Some may even react with hostility, because they're so convinced that the Socionics' view of "objective" is what is truly objective. So they think, for instance that what I'm saying must be the subjective nonsense of a "Te-PoLR" or "N type" and so on. Basically they interpret things from the perspective of a Socionics theory or a Socionician view. So the irony is that that is also "theory-laden".

I agree that we do not know Absolute Truth and will not be able to, however this doesn't mean we cannot make a definite statement on things as we know them at a time. Science doesn't do that kind of uncommitted stance you do here to get away with inconsistency in your reasonings. As for the "theory-laden" stuff, that's tautology to me.

Well it only makes you uncomfortable, because you're still looking for "certainty" and a "foundation" that you can hold onto.

In reality, there's actually no such thing, because trying to "prove" the premise in pure logic or rationality will only lead to tautology or circular reasoning, and to "prove" something empirically, well that's just yet another theory about the world in disguise.

So what's to be done about it? The solution is to do a 180 degree turn and say that we don't need to "prove" anything. We don't need to have any "basis" that we can be "sure" or "certain" of. What we do instead is to throw a baseless conjecture, and criticize it so that it can be improved.

So that's what "science" actually is. It's about conjectures and refutations. The first theory or conjecture is going to be something completely baseless, and that gets continuously criticized, and the theory becomes more and more rigorous and closer to reality over time. In fact it's not just science, but you can say just about any kind of knowledge is like that process.

And Jung and Augusta used creativity and imagination to explain facts...

I'm not saying that Jung and Augusta didn't use any creativity and imagination, but rather their creativity was used in a completely different direction. In fact Empiricism and Inductivism forbids the use of creativity to come up with a theory, because all you do is to observe things and note the observations and categorize them in an orderly way. So ironically, their creativity was used to figure out ways to how not to effectively use their creativity.

That also affects the Socionics community's way of thinking. People's creativity is focused on how to "prove" some empirical observation, as in how to "accurately type" people. But as a rule, trying to prove an empirical observation does not allow you to come up with a new theory about the world.

Type is some general draft of a preferred way of cognition. You can use more than one way of cognition to come up with a reasoning or adjust to a reasoning like you said about (relatively) freely changing ways of thinking. I say relatively, there are constraints for everyone, and I'm not even talking about type but general cognitive constraints. There are type related constraints too though, yeah. It's not as rigidly set out though as you seem to imagine it. The brain still has some ability to be flexible (even if this isn't some limitless plasticity).

A "type" is a categorization. If you say that "a type can be either this or that", then the whole definition of type becomes too broad, and hence anything can fit into the definition of a "type". That defeats the whole purpose of having a type.

[Myst]

Are you sure? You still regularly have Socionics discussions, so it's strange that you claim to not think much about it anymore.

I don't regularly have discussions on it. Go to my profile and check my posts if you want. I didn't even visit the site for 5 months. I do still make a comment here or there but it's not regularly done.

Anyway it doesn't necessarily relate to you, as I was describing how the Socionics knowledge affects the community's way of thinking, collectively. Some people do manage to think outside of the framework of Socionics, but many still find it incomprehensible or meaningless to do so. Some may even react with hostility, because they're so convinced that the Socionics' view of "objective" is what is truly objective. So they think, for instance that what I'm saying must be the subjective nonsense of a "Te-PoLR" or "N type" and so on. Basically they interpret things from the perspective of a Socionics theory or a Socionician view. So the irony is that that is also "theory-laden".

Alright, I do agree that Socionics's model has misleading parts.

I have yet to see anyone thinking that "Socionics' view of "objective" is what is truly objective", though. But yeah people do always commit the mistake of interpreting too much from the Socionics model pov.

Well it only makes you uncomfortable, because you're still looking for "certainty" and a "foundation" that you can hold onto.

I'm not looking for certainty, I have it. lol

I have a ground under my two feet, basically.

So you can stop making assumptions about how I think. Not the same way you do so your assumptions will easily fail. That's the only thing you can be sure of.

In reality, there's actually no such thing, because trying to "prove" the premise in pure logic or rationality will only lead to tautology or circular reasoning

I am simpler than this. Anchor concepts to the observable and stop worrying about pure logic.

I do use axioms for my worldview, and I don't have a problem with that. See: ground under my two feet.

and to "prove" something empirically, well that's just yet another theory about the world in disguise.

Whatever you mean by proving something empirically. A hypothesis can be checked if it checks out.

So what's to be done about it? The solution is to do a 180 degree turn and say that we don't need to "prove" anything. We don't need to have any "basis" that we can be "sure" or "certain" of. What we do instead is to throw a baseless conjecture, and criticize it so that it can be improved.

So that's what "science" actually is. It's about conjectures and refutations. The first theory or conjecture is going to be something completely baseless, and that gets continuously criticized, and the theory becomes more and more rigorous and closer to reality over time. In fact it's not just science, but you can say just about any kind of knowledge is like that process.

No, science doesn't just throw a random baseless conjecture.

Sigh. You sound confused.

I'm not saying that Jung and Augusta didn't use any creativity and imagination, but rather their creativity was used in a completely different direction. In fact Empiricism and Inductivism forbids the use of creativity to come up with a theory, because all you do is to observe things and note the observations and categorize them in an orderly way. So ironically, their creativity was used to figure out ways to how not to effectively use their creativity.

Okay, then I'm not simply a mix of empiricist+inductivist and I didn't think I was, either.

Same for Jung and Augusta.

That also affects the Socionics community's way of thinking. People's creativity is focused on how to "prove" some empirical observation, as in how to "accurately type" people. But as a rule, trying to prove an empirical observation does not allow you to come up with a new theory about the world.

Nah, it's not about proving an observation, now you started sounding even more confused.

But yeah we get it that you don't think Socioncis is a theory (regardless of whether a good or a bad one).

A "type" is a categorization. If you say that "a type can be either this or that", then the whole definition of type becomes too broad, and hence anything can fit into the definition of a "type". That defeats the whole purpose of having a type.

General draft of a preferred way of cognition. It's not "can be this or can be that".

Oh an example of how Socionics helps with discovering your cognition in a way that other theories don't... no, I'll make a new thread on that actually. Check it out. Here.


PS: Just to fuck around a bit with Socionics. Have you liked ILI for yourself. All this skepticism and criticism and being ungrounded and complete disinterest in consistent logic...

[jason_m]

The goal of our work is to try to penetrate into the models of the psyche projected by Jung, to show which positions and categories can be considered completely proved and irrefutable.

The problem with this is that socionics can only be roughly accurate. I proved this before with the pigeonhole principle: assume 1) there are only four quadras and 2) that each person from each quadra must get along with each other. Now, assume that by contradiction, we have five people each entering in to a bad relation with the other four - they could be mutually bad or something like supervision in which only one of the two types mind the other - but each relation is bad. Put the first such person in 'Alpha.' Let's take the second person. Now, because the relation with the first person is 'bad,' they cannot go into the same quadra as the first person, so they are now arbitrarily put in 'Beta.' Then, for the same reason as person two, person three cannot be in Alpha or Beta, so they are arbitrarily put into 'Gamma' and then the fourth person in 'Delta.' But wait, where does the fifth person go? If they are in any of the four quadras, they are in a quadra with a bad relation, and this can't happen, so, according to socionics, there must not be five people like this. But we know that this is not true! So assumptions 1) and 2) together must be wrong. (Apply this when you run into someone who types in your quadra, but, because they are a bad relation, they 'cannot be Gamma,' etc.)

Anyway, why are assumptions 1) and 2) wrong? The simple answer is that socionics is not a hard science. If this were hard science, then we would not get something like this, but we do, and it's because this is not hard science folks. Anyone attempting to pretend that this is a hard science in any sense is severely misguided...

[Singu]

I'm not looking for certainty, I have it. lol

I have a ground under my two feet, basically.

So you can stop making assumptions about how I think. Not the same way you do so your assumptions will easily fail. That's the only thing you can be sure of.

I am simpler than this. Anchor concepts to the observable and stop worrying about pure logic.

I do use axioms for my worldview, and I don't have a problem with that. See: ground under my two feet.

Well it's ironic really, since "science" calls this top-down processing, which means that we use models, assumptions, inferences and expectations to interpret sensory perception:

Gregory (1970) and Top Down Processing Theory

Psychologist Richard Gregory (1970) argued that perception is a constructive process which relies on top-down processing.

Stimulus information from our environment is frequently ambiguous so to interpret it, we require higher cognitive information either from past experiences or stored knowledge in order to makes inferences about what we perceive. Helmholtz called it the ‘likelihood principle’.

For Gregory perception is a hypothesis, which is based on prior knowledge. In this way we are actively constructing our perception of reality based on our environment and stored information.

Summary

A lot of information reaches the eye, but much is lost by the time it reaches the brain (Gregory estimates about 90% is lost).

Therefore, the brain has to guess what a person sees based on past experiences. We actively construct our perception of reality.

Richard Gregory proposed that perception involves a lot of hypothesis testing to make sense of the information presented to the sense organs.

Our perceptions of the world are hypotheses based on past experiences and stored information.

Sensory receptors receive information from the environment, which is then combined with previously stored information about the world which we have built up as a result of experience.

The formation of incorrect hypotheses will lead to errors of perception (e.g. visual illusions like the Necker cube).

https://www.simplypsychology.org/per...-theories.html

No, science doesn't just throw a random baseless conjecture.

Sigh. You sound confused.

Like I said above, there will always be a more primitive explanation to the answer of "why", so it will only lead to an infinite regress or circular reasoning.

So for instance, Newton answered the question to the problem, "Why do apples fall?" with "Because objects are attracted to each other". But when he was asked, "Well why are objects are attracted to each other?", he couldn't answer that question, because that was a baseless conjecture of his. He didn't (yet) know why were objects attracted to each other. And he didn't need to justify it, because he was only answering to the current problem-situation of "Why do apples fall?", which was an adequate enough answer. Besides, Newton was later proven wrong by Einstein.

So you sound worse than being confused. You don't know what you're talking about.

[Finaplex]

Well it's ironic really, since "science" calls this top-down processing, which means that we use models, assumptions, inferences and expectations to interpret sensory perception:


https://www.simplypsychology.org/per...-theories.html



Like I said above, there will always be a more primitive explanation to the answer of "why", so it will only lead to an infinite regress or circular reasoning.

So for instance, Newton answered the question to the problem, "Why do apples fall?" with "Because objects are attracted to each other". But when he was asked, "Well why are objects are attracted to each other?", he couldn't answer that question, because that was a baseless conjecture of his. He didn't (yet) know why were objects attracted to each other. And he didn't need to justify it, because he was only answering to the current problem-situation of "Why do apples fall?", which was an adequate enough answer. Besides, Newton was later proven wrong by Einstein.

So you sound worse than being confused. You don't know what you're talking about.

Bottom up processing would be totally idiosyncratic and subjective.

[Finaplex]

In primitive times, astute observers pointed out that the sun rose in a specific pattern that repeated. However, the observers likely didn't create the subsequent religions but rather people who thought the information could be used to influence or control a bunch of potential followers.

a.k.a. I/O

the good ole’ religion is just a form of control fallacy. Special points for: this form of control stretches all the way back to far antiquity.

Love it. Revision every past cultural mindframe with materialist relativism. Super cool. We’ve got a true Cosmology now, and a flashy TV series hosted by Tyson to give us cosmological wonder, not that silly control system that came from Sun worship.

[Myst]

Well it's ironic really, since "science" calls this top-down processing, which means that we use models, assumptions, inferences and expectations to interpret sensory perception

Yeah, everyone's brain does that. That's just how the brain works in this world. I'm not sure what you thought was ironic in that.

Like I said above, there will always be a more primitive explanation to the answer of "why", so it will only lead to an infinite regress or circular reasoning.

So for instance, Newton answered the question to the problem, "Why do apples fall?" with "Because objects are attracted to each other". But when he was asked, "Well why are objects are attracted to each other?", he couldn't answer that question, because that was a baseless conjecture of his. He didn't (yet) know why were objects attracted to each other. And he didn't need to justify it, because he was only answering to the current problem-situation of "Why do apples fall?", which was an adequate enough answer. Besides, Newton was later proven wrong by Einstein.

So you sound worse than being confused. You don't know what you're talking about.

Okay, *pats ILI*

That last sentence of yours is totally ILI

To be more serious. If you are not using words according to their everyday meaning, don't expect to be understood. If "baseless conjecture" doesn't actually mean a baseless conjecture in your head in the sense people usually mean that phrasing, good luck getting your ideas across to others. With the everyday meaning of the phrasing, Newton's idea was not baseless, he picked this idea on the basis of something, and not some other idea instead.

You could say that he already started gaining knowledge about the world earlier, with that brain of his building the understanding of the world. But even babies are not totally out of touch with how the world is.

[Beautiful sky]

I don’t see it as a religion.
But maybe someone else does.

So many possibilities

[Singu]

Well anyway, this is what Karl Popper said:

The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to prove hypotheses like "All swans are white" or to induce them from observational data. The Inductivist methodology supposes that one can somehow move from a series of statements such as 'here is a white swan', 'over there is a white swan', and so on, to a universal statement such as 'all swans are white'. As observed by David Hume, Immanuel Kant and later by Popper and others, this method is clearly deductively invalid, since it is always possible that there may be a non-white swan that has eluded observation (and, in fact, the discovery of the Australian black swan demonstrated the deductive invalidity of this particular statement). This is known as the problem of induction.

One solution to the problem of induction, proposed by Immanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason, is to consider as valid absolutely a priori the conclusions that we would otherwise have drawn from these dubious inferential inductions. Following Kant, Popper accepted that we have to work with unproven hypotheses, but he refused that we have to justify them in any way and he wrote (Popper 1959, p. 6): "I do not think that his ingenious attempt to provide an a priori justification for synthetic statements was successful." However, if one finds one single swan that is not white, deductive logic admits the conclusion that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them or trying to view them as valid in any way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Overview

[Myst]

Well anyway, this is what Karl Popper said:

The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to prove hypotheses like "All swans are white" or to induce them from observational data. The Inductivist methodology supposes that one can somehow move from a series of statements such as 'here is a white swan', 'over there is a white swan', and so on, to a universal statement such as 'all swans are white'. As observed by David Hume, Immanuel Kant and later by Popper and others, this method is clearly deductively invalid, since it is always possible that there may be a non-white swan that has eluded observation (and, in fact, the discovery of the Australian black swan demonstrated the deductive invalidity of this particular statement). This is known as the problem of induction.

One solution to the problem of induction, proposed by Immanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason, is to consider as valid absolutely a priori the conclusions that we would otherwise have drawn from these dubious inferential inductions. Following Kant, Popper accepted that we have to work with unproven hypotheses, but he refused that we have to justify them in any way and he wrote (Popper 1959, p. 6): "I do not think that his ingenious attempt to provide an a priori justification for synthetic statements was successful." However, if one finds one single swan that is not white, deductive logic admits the conclusion that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them or trying to view them as valid in any way.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Overview

I have never read this "classical view" of the philosophy of science. Are you joking??? Was it "classical" like in the 10th century or something? You smell like you are from that 10th century actually lol. Who cares about that century here. The problem with Socionics's model has nothing to do with the issue of inductive observation anyway. I think as far as the inductive approach goes regarding some Socionics fans, it's more an issue of mixing inductive and deductive reasoning at will/whimsically. But there are other issues too (that lead to illogical apophenia for the model).

Again, basic scientific methodology works with hypotheses yeah but not with inductive statements like that. That's just crazy, I'm sorry, what "classical scientific" experiment would you design to "observe" that x will always happen in y way. That makes 0 sense. No one tries to work with this kind of "experiment" or "hypothesis" in science. I don't really think the common methodology is pure Popper either but falsifiability is a very basic element of the accepted methodology I've always had to work with.

How about you step past the issue of induction vs Popper and whatever the hell you call "classical view". This isn't a bad introduction https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/

[Ryan]

Which book of his did you read specifically?

The Logic of Scientific Discovery

[Singu]

I have never read this "classical view" of the philosophy of science. Are you joking??? Was it "classical" like in the 10th century or something? You smell like you are from that 10th century actually lol. Who cares about that century here. The problem with Socionics's model has nothing to do with the issue of inductive observation anyway. I think as far as the inductive approach goes regarding some Socionics fans, it's more an issue of mixing inductive and deductive reasoning at will/whimsically. But there are other issues too (that lead to illogical apophenia for the model).

Again, basic scientific methodology works with hypotheses yeah but not with inductive statements like that. That's just crazy, I'm sorry, what "classical scientific" experiment would you design to "observe" that x will always happen in y way. That makes 0 sense. No one tries to work with this kind of "experiment" or "hypothesis" in science. I don't really think the common methodology is pure Popper either but falsifiability is a very basic element of the accepted methodology I've always had to work with.

How about you step past the issue of induction vs Popper and whatever the hell you call "classical view". This isn't a bad introduction https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/

Well I hope you realize that what you have been promoting so far, as in "evidence-based" and all that, is actually Inductivist and Empiricist.

If you BASE something on observational evidence, then you have no choice but to say "we have observed X, therefore X should repeat again in the future".

You can't come up with BASELESS conjectures and hypotheses, which is what science actually is.

[Singu]

Mmm, if observation is a base, then there's no such thing as baseless conjecture because as soon as you're born you start observing and experiencing, and you cannot remove those experiences from your mind to create out of thin air. Everything in life and every thought then has a basis in all that came before it. So, if science was actually baseless conjecture (it's not) then there'd also be no such thing as science.

Well we're not basing it off on observations, but rather we're explaining the observations. Or we're making claims about observations.

And if the top-down processing is true, then our observations and sensory perception are also a kind of theories and conjectures about the world, that are automatically generated by our brain.

So this is what we mean by saying that everything is theory-laden or the theory-laden nature of science.

Besides, we can't either deductively or inductively justify conjectures, as that will only lead to either infinite regress or circular reasoning. There's no guarantee that our conjectures will not change or be proven wrong in the future.

And that's exactly what we mean by Falsficationism, as we're not trying to prove something right, but we're trying to prove something wrong. Falsficationism was created in response to Inductivism and Empiricism and even Rationalism, as they were all found to be invalid and inadequate forms of creating knowledge about the world.

Science has nothing but error-correcting mechanisms to correct our baseless conjectures. We try to prove wrong our unproven, baseless hypotheses and conjectures, so we can make better ones. That's what we mean by "conjectures and refutations".

[Singu]

You have a few elements that are right, but your thinking isn't quite there yet, so you're mixing errors in with truth. It's funny, because the things you have right are things I told you years ago.

Put aside any of the vocabulary or philosophies that you've picked up, and just think things through. . . What do you use to explain an observation? Imagine observing something, and now you're going to try to explain it, what tools do you reach for? Do you make a comparison, drawing an analogy between it and something else you've seen before? - That would mean drawing on prior observations. Walk through the steps you'd take to try to explain something . . . try to do it without using anything you already know, no other observations you've ever made of anything . . . can you do it?

What I mean is that we don't "derive" anything from observations when we come up with a theory, because you can't "see" explanations. You can't "see" cause and effect. There are so many things in scientific theories that you can never see or touch or hear. And you certainly can never see any claims being made about the future, which is what scientific theories frequently allude to. Those things will essentially have to be made up by human creativity and imagination.

Anyway yes, this used to puzzle me because I thought "Well how can you PROVE it to be true? How can we know something is right?". It turns out that that is not possible.

You have to start somewhere, with something, ideas don't just float through the air unattached to any previous experience or knowledge and land on a person fully formed, you build from the materials you've collected - those other ideas, other observations, other experiences that you've encountered personally, or heard or read about elsewhere. So yes, our ideas about the world are theories of the world we've created and processed, but the theories don't arrive out of nowhere, they're collections, ways of putting things together that make sense.

We even do this in our sleep, images going through our heads become processed into a story that makes sense. You could suggest that we create the story first and then find the images to represent it . . . but does that actually make any sense to your own experience of dreaming? And that's the thing right there "your own experience" - that is the first and foremost basis for each person, those things they've taken in through their senses, the images and sounds and sensations, and sure we create stories about our world from those, but the stories come after the experience. I don't believe that people are born with beliefs about the world before they've opened their eyes or taken their first breath, because they have no experience to base those beliefs upon.

They do start from somewhere, and they do have a base, but they start with previous theories, or other theories. But they're not based on any observations. And if we go all the way back, then we arrive at things like myths and legends, which are again baseless and not based on any observations. They're explanations, they're bad and false explanations about reality, but they're explanations nonetheless.

Btw, completely off-topic, but this is why I think that some myths and stories and gods could be based on actual events. Because if you pass down knowledge in the form of oral history, and you've witnessed some event - a fire, flood, comet, volcano, or even just noticed interesting patterns in the sun, moon, and stars, the easiest way to pass on that knowledge in a way that can be remembered and preserved is through a story. A meteorite flies through the air and hits a mountain becomes Zeus hurtling someone down from the heavens or what-have-you. Memory devices often turn things into songs, rhymes, or stories gathering the parts together in a new way to make sense of them and recall them later. And like in dreams, people draw things together that don't make any sense on their own, or that are confusing and turn them into a narrative. Even a weird narrative that itself doesn't hold together that well is better than scattered and disjointed pieces that don't fit anywhere. And sometimes all that's missing to bring things together more coherently is another observation . . . so you can go from the idea of spontaneous generation of flies from meat to realizing that leaving meat uncovered allows flies to lay eggs on meat to hatch into more flies.

It seems more that scientific theories are essentially based on myths and legends. Newton did get his ideas of gravity from things like astrology and the occult, which even he himself thought was absurd, but he went with it anyway because he had no better way to explain gravity.

So if we go all the way back, then we essentially start with baseless myths and legends. Some people think God exist, even though they've never seen a God - why?

[Myst]

Well I hope you realize that what you have been promoting so far, as in "evidence-based" and all that, is actually Inductivist and Empiricist.

If you BASE something on observational evidence, then you have no choice but to say "we have observed X, therefore X should repeat again in the future".

You can't come up with BASELESS conjectures and hypotheses, which is what science actually is.

(...)

So if we go all the way back, then we essentially start with baseless myths and legends. Some people think God exist, even though they've never seen a God - why?

Nah, it's nonsensical to try and create a hypothesis and an experiment to test it based on your idea of "x happened now so it will happen again".

That is just so terribly shallow and completely devoid of any deductive logic or systematic understanding.

You really terribly and disgustingly oversimplified my way of thinking and the scientific thinking as well.

I personally do not go simply for evidence or for a repeated pattern of observation, there has to be a more encompassing understanding than that, where the rules do all have to hold up in cross-checks too.

What you mean by the word "base" is very very different from what I mean by it. See above as to what I mean by it, it has to be making sense from understanding of other things, that is what I mean by a basis.

And science is not about completely randomly picked conjectures.

And that thing with myths and legends. My god.

Have you ever conducted any research in science? Doesn't sound like it. I have.

Well we're not basing it off on observations, but rather we're explaining the observations. Or we're making claims about observations.

And if the top-down processing is true, then our observations and sensory perception are also a kind of theories and conjectures about the world, that are automatically generated by our brain.

So this is what we mean by saying that everything is theory-laden or the theory-laden nature of science.

Besides, we can't either deductively or inductively justify conjectures, as that will only lead to either infinite regress or circular reasoning. There's no guarantee that our conjectures will not change or be proven wrong in the future.

And that's exactly what we mean by Falsficationism, as we're not trying to prove something right, but we're trying to prove something wrong. Falsficationism was created in response to Inductivism and Empiricism and even Rationalism, as they were all found to be invalid and inadequate forms of creating knowledge about the world.

Science has nothing but error-correcting mechanisms to correct our baseless conjectures. We try to prove wrong our unproven, baseless hypotheses and conjectures, so we can make better ones. That's what we mean by "conjectures and refutations".

1. Sensory perception is not the same kind of conjecture as a myth. The aim of sensory perception is to line up the perception with actual things in the tangible world, even with errors in this process it largely lines up to the point of organisms being able to survive in the environment rather well. A myth is simply imagination running free beyond a point where it's no longer trying to ground the idea with the information conveyed by the senses from the tangible.

So your idea that sensory perception is as theory-laden as random imagining, is really false and was derived from pure wordplay ignoring any real anchor in anything specific and concrete. This is why I say I can't respect your intelligence anymore at all.

2. You are trying to take one fad or something and try to base all your thinking in it? Inductivism or Falsificationism or any other "ism" alone cannot achieve the aim of reaching the most refined way of scientific thinking.

3. It is sad that based on some other fad you got into, you equate sicence with pure error-correcting. This is what I call terribly and disgustingly shallow.


End of story. I'm done with this thread lol, I really can't respect your intelligence any more in any fashion whatsoever if you really meant what you said here.

[Alomoes]

Two answers. One, no. That's just an unscientific opinion based on broken logic. Just because someone is right (edit) most of the time, doesn't mean they can't commit a logical falacy.

Second answer is it still doesn't qualify as a religion. "A particular system of faith and worship." >>> I prefer this definition. We're not worshipping anyone, so no. It's not even the main one, that's more strict. ("the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.") >>> Nothing supernatural about having the same thought patterns as someone else, although it might seem supernatural and spooky, perception and reality are not the same thing.

The last one, which it would qualify, I consider informal, kind of like calling the Beatles a religion.
"a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance."
"consumerism is the new religion" >> Obviously consumerism isn't a religion.

So yeah, I know I came to this late, but uh... Hope that clarifies what religion is.

[Singu]

Ugh, Myst can't even do basic reading comprehension. Typical emotionality of F type with weak logic.

Nah, it's nonsensical to try and create a hypothesis and an experiment to test it based on your idea of "x happened now so it will happen again".

That is just so terribly shallow and completely devoid of any deductive logic or systematic understanding.

You really terribly and disgustingly oversimplified my way of thinking and the scientific thinking as well.

Which I keep saying was the *wrong* approach, and you said science is "evidence-based". That's what evidence-based *is*: "X happened so X will happen again". How else could you logically conclude an "evidence-based" premise?

1. Sensory perception is not the same kind of conjecture as a myth. The aim of sensory perception is to line up the perception with actual things in the tangible world, even with errors in this process it largely lines up to the point of organisms being able to survive in the environment rather well. A myth is simply imagination running free beyond a point where it's no longer trying to ground the idea with the information conveyed by the senses from the tangible.

So your idea that sensory perception is as theory-laden as random imagining, is really false and was derived from pure wordplay ignoring any real anchor in anything specific and concrete. This is why I say I can't respect your intelligence anymore at all.

It's really amazing how you can't read that I just wrote "error-correcting mechanisms" after it. Indeed myths and random imaginations are wrong, but you *correct the errors* of such myths and random imaginations. Biological organisms throw out these random hypotheses via random mutations of the DNA, and those errors get corrected via natural selection. It works the same way with scientific hypotheses.

[Myst]

Ugh, Myst can't even do basic reading comprehension. Typical emotionality of F type with weak logic.

Lovely and of course ridiculously mistaken passive-aggressiveness. I at least type you correctly

(Please, do get upset over this lolol)

Which I keep saying was the *wrong* approach, and you said science is "evidence-based". That's what evidence-based *is*: "X happened so X will happen again". How else could you logically conclude an "evidence-based" premise?

I'm not going to get into arguments on semantics. Which is what most arguments with you are. Because you cannot see beyond your peculiar word usage and look at the actual logical meaning of what's being said. Evidence-based generally doesn't mean what you claim it to mean. As for what I specifically meant by it, I already said what I meant by it in the very same post, so go back and figure it out, I'm not going to help you anymore.

It's really amazing how you can't read that I just wrote "error-correcting mechanisms" after it. Indeed myths and random imaginations are wrong, but you *correct the errors* of such myths and random imaginations. Biological organisms throw out these random hypotheses via random mutations of the DNA, and those errors get corrected via natural selection. It works the same way with scientific hypotheses.

No, my point was that scientific thinking is not to be reduced to be equated to just being error-correcting mechanisms. It is an important part of the most refined way of objective thinking possible for humans, but it's far more than about correcting errors and hypotheses are NEVER *random* imaginations. Imagination maybe, but not random.


BTW the argument on infinite regression and question-begging is wrong. The original premises the rest of our thinking is based on come from how this world is. With some errors that get rectified over time. The point is, there is no need for infinite regression and the initial premises are valid, the way the world is where the chain of reasoning stops eventually.

(This is why I wanted to come back here and post, not because I want to argue with you any further lol, I just remembered that this is the problem with that argument and that I didn't explicitly note this yet.)

[Singu]

Myst: "Science is this and that" - but can never actually manage to explain what "that" is.

Science can't be anything other than an error-correcting mechanism. Its theories and hypotheses that are creations of pure human imagination and creativity can never be proven or justified. Nor is it "based" on evidence. Tested by evidence, yes, but not based.

*Knowledge* exists as information encoded in the DNA, and yet they're not based on any kind of sensory perception - they're randomly generated by random mutations of the DNA, and then the errors get corrected over time via natural selection.

It works the same way in science. It's not random and unguided like the process of evolution via natural selection, because it has the purpose of being guided by the rationality of human beings.

[Myst]

Myst: "Science is this and that" - but can never actually manage to explain what "that" is.

Science can't be anything other than an error-correcting mechanism. Its theories and hypotheses that are creations of pure human imagination and creativity can never be proven or justified. Nor is it "based" on evidence. Tested by evidence, yes, but not based.

*Knowledge* exists as information encoded in the DNA, and yet they're not based on any kind of sensory perception - they're randomly generated by random mutations of the DNA, and then the errors get corrected over time via natural selection.

It works the same way in science. It's not random and unguided like the process of evolution via natural selection, because it has the purpose of being guided by the rationality of human beings.

It's not the same in science, this sounds like a cute parallel but nothing more than that. If you can falsify stuff, that means there is such a thing as "true" and "false" at any given point in science. True or false under a finite number of defined conditions, specifically.