Quote Originally Posted by para View Post
@Singu
But are all theories not just based on appearances? Does the fact that Socionics, ostensibly at least, isn't unified theoretically make it more ''unreal''? I think my question is: What do you think the ''end game'' should be? What should theories do, and why?
Well theories make assertions about reality in terms of what can't be seen. If there were to be a theory of the mind, then obviously you can't see a model of the mind existing or floating somewhere or something like that.

So if you were to say, "You only say that because you want people to have things explained to you", then the only thing that's pertaining to is "Because it says so on Model A", and it's not at all relevant to how it actually is in reality. It says something about Model A, but it doesn't have anything to do with how my mind works or what my motivations were.

So the purpose of a theory is to make assertions about reality in terms of what can't be seen, and also in ways that it actually is objectively describing what's actually going on in reality.

And you might say, "Well how do you know that it's accurately describing reality?", and you don't really, perhaps until you can test it. The often used criteria is to predict something by assuming that if the theory is true, then we expect X to happen. If X doesn't happen, then there must be something wrong with the theory, because it means that the theory isn't accurately describing reality.

But predicting things can't be the main point, because it's possible to correctly predict something and still have a useless theory. For example, I could say that "I predict that virtually anything could happen", and then it does, so my theory is true. That might be so, but it's useless.

So another criteria is that it's solving a problem of some kind. A theory that can solve the problem better is preferred. And that criteria is going to be choosing a theory that can explain things better, and explain things more without complicating more things than necessary. As in, it solves more problems than creating more unresolved problems from the alternative theory.