Keys to Socionics

[Aramas]

-Your dual's actions, regardless of intent, can lead to strength.
-Your conflictor's attempts to help you will destroy you.

It's possible to ascertain strong and weak functions according to the following principles:
-If they break the rules and succeed, they are using strong functions.
-If they break the rules and fail, they are using weak functions.
-If they follow the rules and succeed, it is ambiguous whether strong or weak functions were used.

So, one of the best ways to determine functional strength in behavior is to look at contexts where a person does not adhere to social norms (2D).

-There is no context that cannot be seen from the perspective of all the functions. It is thus incorrect to say that individuals of one type can do something while others can't. SFs can be great mathematicians and STs can be great psychologists.

-The descriptions are training wheels that depend on stereotypes. All of them. Most average people are not great artists or scientists. There are cashiers of every type.

-When in doubt, abstain from judgment to allow perception free reign. Most errors do not come from misunderstanding theory, but from lack of observation. There is no such thing as too much people watching when you're trying to learn Socionics.

-Tests are utterly futile and useless, prone to unconscious bias, and subject to different understandings of language. Learn Socionics for yourself.

-There is no such thing as proof in Socionics or psychological typology. If you want someone to believe you, you have to show them why you're right, not try to prove things to them. Demonstration is the highest form of proof.

-There are lots of people who are mistyped, even by good Socionists, because the people who type them mistake weak functions for strong functions, because those weak functions manage at least to reach the realm of social norms and gain wide respect.

-Language is just a tool for understanding Socionics, and is not Socionics itself. No verbal definition will suffice, ever, but each good definition will help people grasp the subject better. No definition should be seen as exclusively correct, because in practice, this perspective results in people stereotyping instead of doing actual Socionics.

-The objective existence of psychological type will never be proven or disproven in our lifetimes. Don't bother getting into arguments over this. It's just a waste of time.

[Aramas]

-People do not use the first function. They are the first function. What the second function obtains through conscious intent, the first obtains through samadhic union of the self with the thing understood. People are thus most prone to seeing reality as a reflection of their strongest valued function. Example: Aleister Crowley (SLE) and his doctrine of Will.

-This idea especially applies to actualized people, but neurotic people might see reality as a reflection of their superegos.

-Socionics is not moral.

-The strength of the first function proves in a way that seems self-evident regardless of actual validity.

[Sol]

Your dual's actions, regardless of intent, can lead to strength.

anything can lead to some good and bad consequences // cap Obvious
where "good" allows to be stronger in general

dual's help and influence may harm you too, as people make mistakes and are not perfect. duals have own weak regions, and partly ignore nonvalued ones. with bad intentions he will harm you almost definetely

Also one of hypothetical problems of good IR - they may accentuate your type, to make you more infantile in weak regions. In relations of friendship and love this should not happen, - there people introject, study and teach each other, make better.

> Your conflictor's attempts to help you will destroy you.

conflictor's help mostly goes from ego - his strong regions and hence gives quality information what is for good
for example, if SLI will say to EIE to wash hands before eating this should not harm him

Your idealizations are irrational and funny.
The Jung's type is just the shift of functions from their optimum position. All of 8 functions are equally important for the life of anyone, while types are psyche's distortion and degradation similar to personality disorders.

You seems have decided to role-play accentuated paranoid LSI type after rising of your doubts in having this type. The protection by overcompensation.

P.S. read Jung

[Aramas]

anything can lead to some good and bad consequences // cap Obvious
where "good" allows to be stronger in general

dual's help and influence may harm you too, as people make mistakes and are not perfect. duals have own weak regions, and partly ignore nonvalued ones. with bad intentions he will harm you almost definetely

Also one of hypothetical problems of good IR - they may accentuate your type, to make you more infantile in weak regions. In relations of friendship and love this should not happen, - there people introject, study and teach each other, make better.

> Your conflictor's attempts to help you will destroy you.

conflictor's help mostly goes from ego - his strong regions and hence gives quality information what is for good
for example, if SLI will say to EIE to wash hands before eating this should not harm him

Your idealizations are irrational and funny.
The Jung's type is just the shift of functions from their optimum position. All of 8 functions are equally important for the life of anyone, while types are psyche's distortion and degradation similar to personality disorders.

You seems have decided to role-play accentuated paranoid LSI type after rising of your doubts in having this type. The protection by overcompensation.

P.S. read Jung

That's an incorrect understanding that's been passed down from Gnosticism. Teachers of Enneagram make the same mistake when they say type is a flaw. It's unfortunate that so many people see life as fundamentally a degraded form of existence, but it's very common in some mystical traditions. Crowley corrected that idea of a fundamentally fallen nature in manifested reality. I think Buddha did the same thing when he rejected asceticism.

[The Reality Denialist]

You are the base sounds true. It is something you carry all the time. Hard to let it go. You are true to it. You might play with creative and it might anger your mirror type as the application is not pure and has biases tied to their respective base.

[golden]

Regarding the idea of people being imbalanced, that’s a good point @aramus that the flawed-psyche concept falls in line with gnosticism. I prefer not to think of everyone as necessarily unbalanced, but of everyone having strengths that are best supported by other particular strengths, and I am a Buddhist though not a very active one.

I do think that my conflictor and superego can help me in some ways, just not over the long term, and not if they have control over me. I’ve picked up all kinds of useful things from people of “wrong intertypes,” but psychological support and validation, and timing of actions, can work out poorly for me with less favorable IRs even when good intent is present.

[Bertrand]

lots of good stuff here, totally agree with the point on tests. I feel like tests are interesting, but they need to be understood as a product of interpretations that are themselves shaped by psychological factors, and never so straightforwardly that such factors can be captured within the test. they always run outside it. it doesn't mean tests can't provide interesting data points on a person when they come back with results, but its always just one data point. I don't want to discourage anyone from taking tests or making tests, because I think they do some work, but it never comes down to just test results there's always something behind it

[EvilTomatoe]

So far, it is the most helpful piece about socionics I have read. Write more of it.

[domr]

I'm sorry but most of what you wrote is oversimplified to the point of being wrong.

Your dual's actions, regardless of intent, can lead to strength.
-Your conflictor's attempts to help you will destroy you.

No one is born with life experience. People (hopefully) develop themselves through life. Hence if your dual is an unhealthy, immature person, then they will not help you but will hurt you. This is the prime reason duality relationships can fail. Likewise, a very mature and healthy conflictor relationship won't be that bad. Both you and your conflict and your dual all have the same 4 blocks in your psyche so at a high-level both of you will have the same word view, aristocratic vs democratic. The problem with conflict is just that you don't value each other approach and would rather do your own approach, that causes the conflict but ultimately you are trying to achieve the same world.

Internally, I rebranded conflict as master but that is a more accurate description of the relationship. It's a relationships of 2 masters, both that have an advantage and a weakness over the other.

So, one of the best ways to determine functional strength in behavior is to look at contexts where a person does not adhere to social norms (2D).

Differentiation in function strength is necessary for the model to work but there is no evidence each strength = a dimension. All that can be said is function strength is ordinal. 2d = social norms is highly speculative.

-There is no context that cannot be seen from the perspective of all the functions. It is thus incorrect to say that individuals of one type can do something while others can't. SFs can be great mathematicians and STs can be great psychologists.

100% wrong. The functions tell you how a person gathers information and how they make decisions. Math is a result of thinking or logic, not feeling or ethic/morality. An SF type will NEVER be a great mathematician because their math function (L) is only level 1 or 2. The best mathematicians are always people with Introverted Logic Level 4 and Extraverted Intuition Level 3.

-The descriptions are training wheels that depend on stereotypes. All of them. Most average people are not great artists or scientists. There are cashiers of every type.

This is true. Most people are average and it's difficult to see type traits in average people.

-The objective existence of psychological type will never be proven or disproven in our lifetimes. Don't bother getting into arguments over this. It's just a waste of time.

1) Objective is a grammar (linguistic) term, not a philosophical term.

2) Read the part above about mathematicians. If you understand the model then you realize that psychological types are rationally true.

[Bertrand]

I think the idea is even if a dual "hurts" you, its a "conflict" you will have at least framed correctly in your own mind thus can extract whatever "lesson" there is to be learned, whereas with conflict one is far more likely to go down assuming the other person was just wrong/evil and its far more likely then to essentially end up being an interaction of wasted or negative energy... this can be overcome through extensive psychological insight, but the status quo is its a negative, or at least inefficient, interaction in terms of energy and information over time, all else being equal. in other words, you could put your dual or conflictor in the exact same situation and you're far more likely to come out ahead if its dual on the other side. even if its an adversary to begin with (MacArthur Hirohito and post WW2 Japan are a good example). this assumes all else is equal, obviously there are situations where despite duality and in spite of conflict the context may be such so as to create a better outcome despite the negative ITR. i.e.: duality does not guarantee a good result irrespective of context, its simply an ideal ITR. in the same way conflict does not guarantee a negative outcome, it is simply an uphill ITR by definition. thus they are a single factor to the whole situation which in its entirety is a set of many many factors, some of which naturally offset one another. but the idea is if you compare ITR to ITR duality is the best. another way to put this is there's always the potential for assistance from dual, because the information itself is requested, even if its in its negative form. duals fight on equal terms so to speak. conflictors even when they try to help aren't giving you information in the negative, they actively negate information flow, which means even when they're trying to be of assistance it is received wrongly by default. this is how duals can be of assistance even in a adversarial position and conflictors can't help but harm even in a cooperative scenario. this is just the nature of the human drama, if it weren't the case that many people hurt when they try to help we wouldn't need psychology. meanwhile if duals couldn't teach you something even when opposed to one another, all human conflicts would be extremely linear and duality would lack all depth, it would be akin to little more than friendship. ITR is something deeper than whatever terms you happen to be on with that particular person

[golden]

Internally, I rebranded conflict as master but that is a more accurate description of the relationship. It's a relationships of 2 masters, both that have an advantage and a weakness over the other.

This interests me because this is exactly how I tend to see my conflictor, as someone who is masterful. Communication is like quicksand but I don’t lose that feeling that they have strengths I really respect.

[Adam Strange]

This interests me because this is exactly how I tend to see my conflictor, as someone who is masterful. Communication is like quicksand but I don’t lose that feeling that they have strengths I really respect.

I also feel that my conflictors have strengths I really admire, but don’t have myself. An SEI-Fe whom I work with not only has incredible Si (she has fabulous taste in clothes and the most attractively decorated office), but also is unfailingly friendly and considerate of others (Fe).

The problem I have with her is that she seems to be all surface and no depth. This is fine for business relationships, but it means that the depth of feeling (Fi) that I seek would be sorely lacking in intimate relations.

You can see the source of this attraction/repulsion if you compare the dimensionality of the valued and unvalued functions between a dual and a conflictor. (In this case, an ESI and an SEI, dual and conflictor to LIE, respectively.)

.....Dual, v.....Dual, uv......Confl, v......Confl, uv
4D...Fi............Si...............Si............ ...Fi
3D...Se...........Fe..............Fe.............. .Se
2D...Ni............Ti...............Ti............ ...Ni
1D...Te...........Ne..............Ne.............. Te

From a dimensionality standpoint, duals and conflictors are exactly the same. However, they value and devalue different functions. Thus, a conflictor is going to be exactly as good at the functions you seek as your dual, but they won't value them. They won't think that the thing you value most is important, and will even tend to make fun of it in a derisive way.

Finding someone who is as good as your dual at the thing you value most, but who disregards it as valueless, is incredibly corrosive if you are looking for validation of your own values.

[golden]

@Adam Strange, a minor point. Do you really think dimensionality = “exactly as good at” even though the IE is unvalued?

I mean, I don’t, because part of being good at something means you develop it through use.

I doubt you’ll disagree, but then how do you think those unvalued strong elements are actually coming through in conflict interactions?

[Adam Strange]

@Adam Strange, a minor point. Do you really think dimensionality = “exactly as good at” even though the IE is unvalued?

I mean, I don’t, because part of being good at something means you develop it through use.

I doubt you’ll disagree, but then how do you think those unvalued strong elements are actually coming through in conflict interactions?

@golden, I don't disagree that conflictors and duals differ somewhat in the competence of their use of the functions. I haven't entirely figured this out yet.
As an example, I have unconscious dual-seeking. I married an SLI with 4D Si, partly because she always looked terrific and because the furnishings in her apartment were impeccable. ESI's, of course, also have 4D Si, but they use it mostly for health concerns to keep their duals from working themselves to death. The artistic abilities I see demonstrated by ESI's aren't exactly like those of SEI's. Both can dress very well and both can make a space clean and comfortable, but there are some subtle differences which are hard to quantify but easy for me to see. I'd say that SEI's are more about making a place superficially attractive and ESI's are more from the heart. Bad description, I know, but that's my subjective feeling about it.

As for how the unvalued elements come through in conflict interactions, I can say that I get a glimmer of a sense that the SEI deeply cares about people, but when I discussed this with her this morning and said so, she just gave me this squinty toothy smile which implied "Don't even go there.", so I assume she treats expressions of Fi caring as a joke. Which works out very well for the ILE's, but terribly for LIE's.

[domr]

This interests me because this is exactly how I tend to see my conflictor, as someone who is masterful. Communication is like quicksand but I don’t lose that feeling that they have strengths I really respect.

The problem with the standard discrption of ITR is that they don't take into consideration Quadra or Hierarchy values. From what I understand, Augusta created the ITR based on Jung's original model, not her own Model A. Jung's model was 2/4 functions, depending on how you want to interpret him. Hence ITR like Semi-Dual (complementary dominant function) and Kindred (same dominant function) are defined in terms of only the ego block. By doing this, she made relationships like semi-dual and kindred seem better than they really are and likewise relationships such as conflict and quasi-identical worse than they really are.

With regards to conflict and quasi. On a micro-level (ego-block) these relationships are problematic so they are difficult to maintain as just-friends relationships but on a macro-level (Model A), these are pretty good work relationships if you are in a situation that allows both people to use their strengths. It's a lot easier to work with conflictor than semi-dual because in conflict, you share all 4 blocks so while their may be conflict initially, you can resolve it, albeit difficultly, and get a mutually acceptable vision. But in relationships like semi-dual or kindred it's impossible to get unison on the same vision because the 4 blocks are different (aristocratic blocks vs democratic blocks) in the psyche (Model A).

One last thing, the most interesting relationship IMO is quasi-identical. I call it the rival relationships because they are like your eternal rival. Just like conflict, they are difficult to maintain but they provide the most growth experience in terms of personal skills because they have the exact same skills as you.

[golden]

@golden, I don't disagree that conflictors and duals differ somewhat in the competence of their use of the functions. I haven't entirely figured this out yet.
As an example, I have unconscious dual-seeking. I married an SLI with 4D Si, partly because she always looked terrific and because the furnishings in her apartment were impeccable. ESI's, of course, also have 4D Si, but they use it mostly for health concerns to keep their duals from working themselves to death. The artistic abilities I see demonstrated by ESI's aren't exactly like those of SEI's. Both can dress very well and both can make a space clean and comfortable, but there are some subtle differences which are hard to quantify but easy for me to see. I'd say that SEI's are more about making a place superficially attractive and ESI's are more from the heart. Bad description, I know, but that's my subjective feeling about it.

As for how the unvalued elements come through in conflict interactions, I can say that I get a glimmer of a sense that the SEI deeply cares about people, but when I discussed this with her this morning and said so, she just gave me this squinty toothy smile which implied "Don't even go there.", so I assume she treats expressions of Fi caring as a joke. Which works out very well for the ILE's, but terribly for LIE's.

Thanks. To toss in a couple of anecdotes ...

Decor: my great aunt was ESI and she had fine taste. The objects in her house had personal importance to her, but she also thought of them in terms of which grandchild she would leave them to, where she got them and why she got them there and who was with her at the time, etc. Her house was the extended-family epicenter. It was very stable, she didn’t change the decor much over time. This is in part a generational thing, but I always felt extremely reassured by the sameness and regularity of her household. Every year she put the exact same elves and lights in the exact same places, same perfect ham, same perfect cake. My sense memories of her world are indelible because of this regularity.

(My ENFp grandmother didn’t change her household much, but there was no precision about details like that, same age cohort, so it’s not just about generation.)

By contrast, I have a longtime SEI friend who is an artist and has amazing taste. Her space can be very tidy, but sometimes it’s really messy. It also changes a fair amount over time. The style is very consistent, but not the placement of objects or which objects are collected. She has thrown out or given away some of the things she owned thst I loved the very most, something I’d have a hard time doing.

She has many objects of personal significance to her, but they are exactly that, significant to her, to her private world. Fascinating, lovely, but just less about the stable connections that my great aunt created. SEI’s stuff expresses who she is. ESI’s stuff expressed what she did and whom she did that for.

Also, thst SEI has done some really kind things for me, both material and emotional, and I count her as kind and caring, but yeah it feel weird to me to bring that topic up to her as an inquiry. I could validate her, though, by telling her how much the things she’s done for me mean to me.

/ thread derail

[FDG]

The problem with the standard discrption of ITR is that they don't take into consideration Quadra or Hierarchy values. From what I understand, Augusta created the ITR based on Jung's original model, not her own Model A. Jung's model was 2/4 functions, depending on how you want to interpret him. Hence ITR like Semi-Dual (complementary dominant function) and Kindred (same dominant function) are defined in terms of only the ego block. By doing this, she made relationships like semi-dual and kindred seem better than they really are and likewise relationships such as conflict and quasi-identical worse than they really are.

With regards to conflict and quasi. On a micro-level (ego-block) these relationships are problematic so they are difficult to maintain as just-friends relationships but on a macro-level (Model A), these are pretty good work relationships if you are in a situation that allows both people to use their strengths. It's a lot easier to work with conflictor than semi-dual because in conflict, you share all 4 blocks so while their may be conflict initially, you can resolve it, albeit difficultly, and get a mutually acceptable vision. But in relationships like semi-dual or kindred it's impossible to get unison on the same vision because the 4 blocks are different (aristocratic blocks vs democratic blocks) in the psyche (Model A).

One last thing, the most interesting relationship IMO is quasi-identical. I call it the rival relationships because they are like your eternal rival. Just like conflict, they are difficult to maintain but they provide the most growth experience in terms of personal skills because they have the exact same skills as you.

So just because one is aristocratic and the other is democratic, say a EIE should find it easier to work with a SLI than with a LII?

You´re basically saying that aristocratic-democratic (so, basically, club complementarity) as a dichotomy is more important than the base function.

[domr]

So just because one is aristocratic and the other is democratic, say a EIE should find it easier to work with a SLI than with a LII?

You´re basically saying that aristocratic-democratic (so, basically, club complementarity) as a dichotomy is more important than the base function.

Aristocrat-Democrat IS THE BASE. You start at JP then you decide S with L or E and that forces the other decision. So the real base is complementarity clubs: IE/SL and IL/SE.

In their psyche, every Aristocrat has the following intellects:

Sensible Logical Empiricism
Sensible Logical Rationalism
Imaginable Ethical Empiricism
Imaginable Ethical Rationalism

While every Democrat has

Sensible Ethical Empiricism
Sensible Ethical Rationalism
Imaginable Logical Empiricism
Imaginable Logical Rationalism

Deciding which intellect goes into which of the 4 blocks and whether the introverted or extraverted function in each block is dominant is of LESS importance than intellects.

[FDG]

Aristocrat-Democrat IS THE BASE.

For you. For Jungs or Augusta not really?

I think your theory is a degeneration of socionics.

[Bertrand]

once you start talking about conflict and quasi being good relationships and so forth it makes me wonder if you didn't just start from your idea of conflict and quasi and then orient the system around them rather than realizing its not that they're hopeless, its that all else being equal theyre not as good as other relationships and thats what ITR measures. it seems like you're developing an entire typology around what offers "growth" irrespective of "hard way" calling it good and ordering the system that way, whereas it simply turns on a different definition of good, but rather than simply address that basic definitional difference, in true fashion of preferring things the hard way, you'll do everything but that. what socionics does is build in a certain flexibility that allows for these differences of good, since it frequently talks about precisely these sorts of issues in ITR. but what you're doing is making this issue a built in "hard" feature of the system, without realizing how this distorts the theoretical structure in other ways

further socionics captures this dynamic if people would only realize it, a lot of your confusion domr is just mistyping yourself. the very people you get the most out of communicating with are the ones you have the favorable ITR with. it seems to me you don't understand how socionics builds ILE as the integral, but that the entire thing is a hologram that shifts based on the type at the center. so for example the politician is the relationship between ILE and SEE, i.e.: super ego, these are people that can help you with your political issues. but to EIE and LSE that relationship is also there, there is a kind of political relationship. the stuff you're talking about with aristocratism and democracy is already there in the system, you have just approached it from a viewpoint that first missed it and is now trying to reinsert it, but making it the centerpiece so apparently no one else makes the same mistake, without realizing the theoretical trade offs that entails. at best its a way of accenting certain features of socionics from a different point of view, but I wonder how well you can really do that if you don't understand what it is you're messing with in the first place. maybe it doesn't matter, and this is just how you work, but it seems like working from ones weak side when applied to a theoretical construct of this kind

in the end if you had a correct self typing and understood the nature of ITRs, there would be no need to rebuild an entire system just to find yourself. I get the distinct feeling that once you finally near the end of your work on the issue you will arrive at the realization of what im saying about socionics and how all this is built in and its not all riddled with mistakes or whatever. this is the most convoluted way of teaching oneself socionics ive ever seen in other words. but then again you have to ask, what type would draw their entire environment into the process of learning a system this way. i mean is learning socionics really an attempt to conquer it or what. who assumes they can fix what they don't even understand first as if they're naturally surrounded by idiots. "I don't need to read Jung I already know it all" brb fixing your system. this sort of stuff is absurd when viewed from the outside. the person on the other side that benefits from this is a master manipulator who recognizes its simply easier to fool someone again than convince them they've been fooled. just imagine if you had someone at your side smart enough to see whats what and smart enough to manipulate you into doing it. suddenly you'd be charging headlong into useful projects. now tell me if this doesn't sound better than conflict, although on the surface it might sort of look like it. and if you can see this you can see how duality has its merits and even a semi version of this could be more productive than conflict, despite your own willingness to continually engage in conflict.. there are in fact better ways, at least for other people, so its not enough to just orient oneself at the center and naively build in all those assumptions as the starting point

[domr]

For you. For Jungs or Augusta not really?

I think your theory is a degeneration of socionics.

What you're low IQ so you can't think for yourself and you can only parrot the incomplete work of other people?

Jung grouped types by the dominant function. As a result, he couldn't see any patterns in the types besides the dominant function; he couldn't see the clubs or the quadras. In hindsight it was a mistake. Augusta discovered model A but she never analyzed the model and explained how the blocks worked. In hindsight people will say that was a mistake too.

[woofwoofl]

Aristocrat-Democrat IS THE BASE. You start at JP then you decide S with L or E and that forces the other decision. So the real base is complementarity clubs: IE/SL and IL/SE.

In their psyche, every Aristocrat has the following intellects:

Sensible Logical Empiricism
Sensible Logical Rationalism
Imaginable Ethical Empiricism
Imaginable Ethical Rationalism

While every Democrat has

Sensible Ethical Empiricism
Sensible Ethical Rationalism
Imaginable Logical Empiricism
Imaginable Logical Rationalism

Deciding which intellect goes into which of the 4 blocks and whether the introverted or extraverted function in each block is dominant is of LESS importance than intellects.

sensible ≠ sensory

base (domr) ≠ base (socionics)

you ≠ me

human ≠ automaton

"real" is a tangled can of worms -- maybe the emptiest word in English, at least

[FDG]

What you're low IQ so you can't think for yourself and you can only parrot the incomplete work of other people?

Jung grouped types by the dominant function. As a result, he couldn't see any patterns in the types besides the dominant function; he couldn't see the clubs or the quadras. In hindsight it was a mistake. Augusta discovered model A but she never analyzed the model and explained how the blocks worked. In hindsight people will say that was a mistake too.

I don´t know about IQ, what I actually still don´t understand is how your new approach to socionics improves or at least fundamentally changes the usage of socionics´ in a psychological and psychiatric way.

Do you belive f.e. that knowing people´s type it´d be better to match them with a random aristocratic or democratic fellow rather than with someone with a compatible base or creative function?

[Exodus]

So many proclamations...

-Your dual's actions, regardless of intent, can lead to strength.
-Your conflictor's attempts to help you will destroy you.

It may be more difficult for a conflictor to help you (and painful for you to accept their help) but it is possible. I find the relationships are far more flexible than they are classically understood to be.

It's possible to ascertain strong and weak functions according to the following principles:
-If they break the rules and succeed, they are using strong functions.
-If they break the rules and fail, they are using weak functions.
-If they follow the rules and succeed, it is ambiguous whether strong or weak functions were used.

Roughly yeah. If they make the rules they're also using a strong function.

-There is no context that cannot be seen from the perspective of all the functions. It is thus incorrect to say that individuals of one type can do something while others can't. SFs can be great mathematicians and STs can be great psychologists.

Yes but it's extremely unusual for some types to attain greatness in certain areas.

-The descriptions are training wheels that depend on stereotypes. All of them. Most average people are not great artists or scientists. There are cashiers of every type.

Type descriptions that aren't strictly based on the theory, yes. I.e. most of them.

-When in doubt, abstain from judgment to allow perception free reign. Most errors do not come from misunderstanding theory, but from lack of observation. There is no such thing as too much people watching when you're trying to learn Socionics.

People definitely need to do this more IRL.

-Tests are utterly futile and useless, prone to unconscious bias, and subject to different understandings of language. Learn Socionics for yourself.

Idk if I'd go so far as "utterly futile" but there are almost always better options available (interview, video questionnaire).

-There is no such thing as proof in Socionics or psychological typology. If you want someone to believe you, you have to show them why you're right, not try to prove things to them.

For now, maybe.

-There are lots of people who are mistyped, even by good Socionists, because the people who type them mistake weak functions for strong functions, because those weak functions manage at least to reach the realm of social norms and gain wide respect.

I agree with the bolded part, not so much with the rest.

-Language is just a tool for understanding Socionics, and is not Socionics itself. No verbal definition will suffice, ever, but each good definition will help people grasp the subject better. No definition should be seen as exclusively correct, because in practice, this perspective results in people stereotyping instead of doing actual Socionics.

-The objective existence of psychological type will never be proven or disproven in our lifetimes. Don't bother getting into arguments over this. It's just a waste of time.

You don't know that.

[Aramas]

So many proclamations...



It may be more difficult for a conflictor to help you (and painful for you to accept their help) but it is possible. I find the relationships are far more flexible than they are classically understood to be.



Roughly yeah. If they make the rules they're also using a strong function.



Yes but it's extremely unusual for some types to attain greatness in certain areas.



Type descriptions that aren't strictly based on the theory, yes. I.e. most of them.



People definitely need to do this more IRL.



Idk if I'd go so far as "utterly futile" but there are almost always better options available (interview, video questionnaire).



For now, maybe.



I agree with the bolded part, not so much with the rest.



You don't know that.

Technically, no one knows anything, but here we are!

[Sol]

Technically, no one knows anything, but here we are!

in this case you may also know anything and do not notice this

[Aramas]

in this case you may also know anything and do not notice this

One thing I know: you do not know English.

Lol!

[Capitalist Pig]

- it's all make believe

[Aramas]

- it's all make believe

Maybe it's make believe!

<3

[Exodus]

Technically, no one knows anything, but here we are!

...no, not really. Nice cop out though.

[Bertrand]

the point is saying "you don't know x" is trivial. if you go on to say, "we absolutely can know things" then its means taken together with "you don't know x" means you should explain why, or not have bothered wasting your breath. really the cop out was yours. if we can know stuff and you know he doesn't know x, you should be able to support that with more than an empty assertion. after all, we can know things, and you know that. if its self evident, there's no reason to state it either, because he's either a crazy person and talking to him in general is pointless, aka: all the aforementioned dialogue, or he's not crazy and reasonable people can disagree, therefore in virtue of making the effort, you've demonstrated a stance with you either wasting your time or it clearly not being self evident, hence, once again, some support is required. anything is possible is just the corollary to we can't be sure we actually know anything, thus technically we don't know anything. you said essentially he was wrong for making a claim about what is possible or not, but if you take that premise, that we can't reduce out that possibility, there's also the fact that we can't reduce out the possibility of knowledge itself being illusory. except that you do draw the line somewhere, the line being that knowledge is possible but Aramas was overextending. my point isn't that you're necessarily wrong on that point, so much as it demands an explanation not an assertion in order to support itself, because it is only self evident if you already believe it. otherwise you're just trying to play a power game and that's unlikely to pay off for other reasons, which is to say, you want to see if you can simply lay down base principles. to achieve success in that domain requires more than a freestanding relationship of ideas, because people can adopt all sorts of different configurations, there's no reason to adopt yours, unless you give them one. thus if you come in here and rattle off a bunch of faith based proclamations in response to Aramas, you're deceiving yourself about what you've accomplished, which is to say, if you think its anything more than very little. you've told us a little about yourself, but not very much about socionics

[photon]

So, one of the best ways to determine functional strength in behavior is to look at contexts where a person does not adhere to social norms (2D).

And that would be a 1D function

[Bertrand]

not necessary, it depends on how narrowly we want to interpret "adherence", since one could exceed the norm and not technically be said to be adhering to it. I think this is one of those things that people recognize differently, so like for some people they will recognize that a lack of strict conformity to norm can nevertheless take it into account and therefore exceed it, but others will view lack of lockstep conformity as a failure. this is what gives many people so much trouble in unsympathetic environments: their strong sides are being punished as failures, when the failure is in the environment to recognize better from worse because the group is itself hypnotized by norms