What's Wrong with Socionics - Take Two

[Myst]

@Singu


1.
"Model A is a detailed model of human information metabolism named after Aushra Augustinavichiute who has created it by incorporating Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism.

The Ego block is a socially demonstrative, creative block that forms the core of the TIM and is usually associated with an individual's ego - their inner "I". This is an area of conscious competence and individualism, as well as conscious and active observation and influence on the world. A person is usually the most confident, informed, and energetically active on their Ego block functions. On this block, we rarely experience feelings of remorse, doubt, and shame; neither does this block shift responsibilities or blame onto others."

I will not copypaste further, read the rest here: http://www.wikisocion.net/en/index.php?title=Model_A

Do not try to claim that all this is just classifications lol.

I do want to emphasise OTOH that Socionics does get classifications wrong. (So it's barely a detailed model like it claims. But still a model, just a shitty one where people can easily take it and not even use it as a model anymore, which is its own separate problem BTW.) It oversimplifies, like, when many different classifications would be necessary and justified, it tries to use only two (say, a dichotomy, or an IE pairing, etc).



2.
I dunno about how taxonomies were created in the science of biology, but I highly doubt that people felt confused and highly overwhelmed while doing it LOL. Where the fuck do you get that from? Omfg...



3.
Yes there are structural/hardware differences for computers... for a simple example: nowadays some types of computers include very sophisticated GPUs. This will result in very different functioning for certain things. Like compute certain things better.

Or embedded CPUs are also very different structurally.

Supercomputers is an even simpler example of all this.

Or go back to early computers that worked on some different principles. (Mathematically not different but in hardware very different and that did result in different capabilities.)

You do have to understand that just because some elementary mathematical operations are shared on the low level, it does not mean whatsoever that on the high level there are no fundamental differences. By the time you get to the high level, there will be a lot of other elements and components added so yes there can be many fundamental differences on the high level. Compare a RTOS to Windows if you don't want to compare Linux with Windows. A real time OS would be fundamentally different enough for your liking too if Windows vs Linux is not a good enough example.

And possibly there are differences on the low level, in hardware as well, yes. Even for the RTOS vs Windows example there are.

[Singu]

1.
"Model A is a detailed model of human information metabolism named after Aushra Augustinavichiute who has created it by incorporating Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism.

The Ego block is a socially demonstrative, creative block that forms the core of the TIM and is usually associated with an individual's ego - their inner "I". This is an area of conscious competence and individualism, as well as conscious and active observation and influence on the world. A person is usually the most confident, informed, and energetically active on their Ego block functions. On this block, we rarely experience feelings of remorse, doubt, and shame; neither does this block shift responsibilities or blame onto others."

I will not copypaste further, read the rest here: http://www.wikisocion.net/en/index.php?title=Model_A

Do not try to claim that all this is just classifications lol.

I do want to emphasise OTOH that Socionics does get classifications wrong. (So it's barely a detailed model like it claims. But still a model, just a shitty one where people can easily take it and not even use it as a model anymore, which is its own separate problem BTW.) It oversimplifies, like, when many different classifications would be necessary and justified, it tries to use only two (say, a dichotomy, or an IE pairing, etc).

Okay, then say that the explanation is "This behavior is explained by Fi". What is this explaining?

Fi, as an Jungian function, is a classification of observations. Model A is just a particular way of organizing those classifications. It may say something like conscious or unconscious, but again, that's just a classification.

What we're really saying is, "This behavior fits into the Fi classification". Not that it's actually explaining anything. An explanation would be something outside of "Fi".

Say that those biologists were creating taxonomies. But no amount of taxonomies would have ever come up with Darwin's theory of evolution. The theory of evolution was something completely outside of that. It could have potentially came from outside of biology.

[Myst]

Okay, then say that the explanation is "This behavior is explained by Fi". What is this explaining?

Fi, as an Jungian function, is a classification of observations. Model A is just a particular way of organizing those classifications. It may say something like conscious or unconscious, but again, that's just a classification.

What we're really saying is, "This behavior fits into the Fi classification". Not that it's actually explaining anything. An explanation would be something outside of "Fi".

Say that those biologists were creating taxonomies. But no amount of taxonomies would have ever come up with Darwin's theory of evolution. The theory of evolution was something completely outside of that. It could have potentially came from outside of biology.

Ah now I see where you got hung up before Yeah some people just categorise like that. But the model isn't about categorising like that. And not everyone sticks with just doing these simple classifications.

If you say that x observation is because Fi for the person is unconscious, that is a logical statement within the model that you can check for whether it really holds up in the way the model claims it will - and other statements can also be deduced from it within the model and then those other statements can be checked too to see if they lead to good predictions. All those do count as explanations that can be correct or incorrect.

That's how I worked through Socionics really and dropped its model in the end a while ago. By now I not only dropped the original model (which I did 1-2 years ago, I can't remember when) but I took the valid ideas and I use them in other understandings now. I originally tried to keep those parts of the model in a new model using ideas from Socionics, but I moved past that model too.... and so I don't even use IEs or whatever anymore.

Anyhow, if your issue is how most people who are NOT scientists think then well, sure keep bitching about it. But it won't lead anywhere. Basically. Don't expect everyone to do scientific research.

It sounds like your issue is that, rather than Socionics itself. Maybe accept that it's just how human beings work by default?

[Singu]

Ah now I see where you got hung up before Yeah some people just categorise like that. But the model isn't about categorising like that. And not everyone sticks with just doing these simple classifications.

I don't think people categorize, Socionics does. People seek explanations.

People ask, "Why does he do this, why does she do that, what does that behavior/action mean?", etc.

The Socionics "explanation" is, "It's because of Fi" or "That's Fi-related behavior". But what they're really saying is, "That behavior fits in with Fi classification". They expect an explanation, and what they get instead is a classification.

Am I saying that classification is wrong? No, what I'm saying is that people are seeking explanations, and not just classifications.

[Myst]

I don't think people categorize, Socionics does. People seek explanations.

People ask, "Why does he do this, why does she do that, what does that behavior/action mean?", etc.

The Socionics "explanation" is, "It's because of Fi" or "That's Fi-related behavior". But what they're really saying is, "That behavior fits in with Fi classification". They expect an explanation, and what they get instead is a classification.

Am I saying that classification is wrong? No, what I'm saying is that people are seeking explanations, and not just classifications.

But you quoted from the people, not from the Socionics model.

These quotes: "It's because of Fi" or "That's Fi-related behavior".

So you are criticising the people, not the model.

[Singu]

But you quoted from the people, not from the Socionics model.

These quotes: "It's because of Fi" or "That's Fi-related behavior".

So you are criticising the people, not the model.

Well I'm criticizing the classification model.

And if Socionics claims to "predict" human behavior via ITR, then well, obviously you can't predict people by just classifying things. You're just expecting people to be overall consistent and predictable all the time, which is not true.

You obviously can't also claim to be able to classify an entire population and entire modes of cognition into just 16 types and 8 functions.

[Myst]

Well I'm criticizing the classification model.

And if Socionics claims to "predict" human behavior via ITR, then well, obviously you can't predict people by just classifying things. You're just expecting people to be overall consistent and predictable all the time, which is not true.

You obviously can't also claim to be able to classify an entire population and entire modes of cognition into just 16 types and 8 functions.

The model is not simply a "classification model" is my point... The examples you quoted are NOT the model. They are people's very simplified interpretations of the model or something. But not the model itself.

You can classify the entire population and cognition in various ways. That's not the problem. The problem is that the way it's done in the model is no good yeah. The only thing I am arguing with you about here is that it does have explanations and these can be checked in a scientific way (and yes I do think it would disprove the model pretty goddamn fast lol) while you think it's just categories...

[Singu]

A phylogenetic tree is basically a diagram of relationships, something that comes from observation and making categories. Iow, from taxonomy patterns developed and were noticed which then became an explanation and theory later. And this is how things typically progress or have progressed in Biology. It's how things have progressed in Astronomy, Physics etc and so on as well. Humans are good at noticing patterns, and organizing those patterns into a system gives you a basis from which to work. Why does the sun rise northeast in the summer and southeast in the winter? You start asking why, and that's where theories are developed.

That sounds more like phenetics, which is a classification of organisms based on observable similarities. Which is also pretty much what Socionics is.

A phylogenetic tree is not necessarily based on observations, since it requires an interpretation of what the DNA means. Which is a theory, not an observation.

So yeah, a category isn't an explanation, and if your categories are wrong, your explanations are likely wrong as well. Imagine if frogs were lumped in with fish because they both can swim, and otters and diving ducks . . . the categories themselves would be so wrong that you couldn't make heads or tails of anything. Darwin's theory developed from taxonomy, not outside of it. It isn't something separate, but rather a natural evolution itself: patterns --> theory behind the patterns. You can't start with a theory, or idea to explain patterns if you don't know what the patterns are.

I think you have the cart before the horse. We make categories because we have explanations of some kind (which may only exist in our heads) in order to categorize them in a certain way. We may rely on observable similarities, or we may rely on non-observables, such as interpretations of what the DNA means. And those require theories to do so.

The point is that you couldn't possibly have come up with Darwin's theory of evolution by just categorizing similarities. No amount of categorizing would have come up with that. It required a completely new way of thinking that things gradually evolved into something different, as in, there are similarities, even though there are no immediate similarities between them. You'd have to take a guess and imagine how things were in the way back before time. This required a bold guess to make that giant leap.

It couldn't have been done with an observation, but it could be done with a theory. This is why Darwin made a guess, and not just recognize some patterns or categorize a bunch of organisms.

[Myst]

That sounds more like phenetics, which is a classification of organisms based on observable similarities. Which is also pretty much what Socionics is.

I think Socionics's model goes beyond that... the problem is it's far outdated nowadays. While socionists in Russia or wherever just never moved on & never tried to use the theory in the scientific way.

And that's why I said I think your problem is more that.

Like, why do you get hung up on it even. Something about how it's being used is what seems to bother you.

And I will give it to you - the model is too easily interpreted in a way that makes scientific investigation of it impossible.

It actually is possible though. But I see no point to doing so, since I believe science moved way past Socionics by now in recent years especially.

And even though yeah psychology research could do with more of a focus on individual differences and both interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics between those, theories in applied psychology areas do deal with this somewhat, just not in a "neat" way like Socionics attempted to do it. Which is understandable, i.e. that it's not in a neat way, because it is actually very hard to do it that way since we lack some of the understanding for that still.

Socionics tried to provide some of that but it eventually doesn't hold up.

A phylogenetic tree is not necessarily based on observations, since it requires an interpretation of what the DNA means. Which is a theory, not an observation.

But the theories on DNA also had to come from observation. ... : P

Maybe not as direct as just see things in front of you with your two eyes right away but it's still observation, not just something out of thin air.

I think you have the cart before the horse. We make categories because we have explanations of some kind (which may only exist in our heads) in order to categorize them in a certain way.

Happen to agree with this

The point is that you couldn't possibly have come up with Darwin's theory of evolution by just categorizing similarities. No amount of categorizing would have come up with that.

Who the fuck tries to do just that for a theory?

It required a completely new way of thinking that things gradually evolved into something different, as in, there are similarities, even though there are no immediate similarities between them. You'd have to take a guess and imagine how things were in the way back before time. This required a bold guess to make that giant leap.

Well okay bold guesses....often don't survive scientific scrutiny. Sometimes it helps science move forward sure, but science is not really bold guessing lol.

And I don't think it was just imagination anyway lol in the case of creating evolution theory

It couldn't have been done with an observation, but it could be done with a theory. This is why Darwin made a guess, and not just recognize some patterns or categorize a bunch of organisms.

Uh... while I said that yeah, I happen to agree that categories are determined by the explanation or system, for me it works like, while working out the system, I do notice categories and patterns and whatever. It is hard to say which is the chicken and which is the egg in creating the explanation. In coming to the insight to create it. You could say it's creation of hypotheses from the noticing of patterns that suggest categories etc. But when the explanation is created it definitely determines the categories in a strict way.

It's like in maths too... you can find the solution to the problem in any way you want to, the important thing is that you are able to prove it concretely too.