Jan 4, 2013

Why this Blog is Now Called "The [Ex-]Socionist"

A major shift in my views on personality and relationships has been gathering steam over the past 6 months, with several years of prehistory coming before that. I am preparing a special article on the subject, but will lay out the main points and factors here.

Basically, what has changed is that I've gone from generally viewing personality and especially relationships within a socionics framework, with caveats, to viewing things from an entirely non-socionics perspective, with occasional mental exercises such as, "is there anything typically socionic about this situation?"

Compared to where I was coming from 8-11 years ago, this is a spectacular shift. But it has come on so gradually — except for the last part — that it's been barely noticeable. Earlier this year, I was still pretty sure I was interested in completing some socionics projects, such as making an online test and perhaps putting together some compilation of essays. But now I am almost certain that my work in socionics is done for good.

That said, my Socionics.us website will be preserved in its current entirety and moved to a sub-section of another of my websites, TryUkraine.com.

Problems with socionics

What made me stick with socionics up till earlier this year was the conviction that, despite an increasing number of caveats, the "core" of relationships was still determined by socionics. This conviction was based mostly upon my experience of a set of very meaningful relationships in my own life, which I attempted to extrapolate — carefully — to those of other people. This summer and fall, I realized that I could have been wrong about one of those key relationships. I had always typed this friend as SLI despite her self-typings of alternately IEE and ILE. Then a friend got to know this person as well and disagreed strongly with my SLI typing (which already didn't matter as much to me anymore). As I looked at things through his eyes and saw a fairly convincing case for another type, I could feel it was time to leave socionics behind.

If she was indeed ILE, then it was ridiculous that I had had my major "dualization" experience with her — upon which I had based my understanding and descriptions of the process that have helped other people looking for the same thing in their lives. If she was indeed SLI, then it was ridiculous that I was the only person out of a fairly diverse group who could see it. Either way, the situation was entirely ridiculous and discredited socionics.

Shortly before this, I had finished rereading Richard Feynmans book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! While reading, I had asked myself wryly, "what would Feynman have thought of socionics?" Feynman wasn't particularly perceptive when it came to psychology, but he had a very good B.S. meter. In one of his stories, he recalls his participation in a philosophical debate where the concept of an "essential object" was put forth, but none of the participants could produce a definition of what an "essential object" was, and so it could not be decided whether X was an "essential object" or not (read this short summary of Feynman's attitudes on philosophy). I couldn't help chuckling about this, since it is so reminiscent of socionics terminology (what does "inner statics of objects" mean? is X an example of extraverted or introverted logic? etc. etc.).

Granted, Feynman's attitudes on philosophy were no doubt rather extreme and misguided, since out of the mental exercise of philosophizing sometimes — occasionally — come ideas that flower into scientific fact and theory. However, there is no doubt that Feynman would have thrown socionics in the garbage heap of undefinable philosobabble after 3 or 4 questions posed to even the very brightest of socionists.

At the time I read this book, Feynman's invisible voice resonated powerfully with me. One of the reasons for this is that I had spent many months preceding it absorbed in modern research about the body and brain. The things science has taught us about ourselves over the past decade are truly amazing, and we are on the cusp of learning even greater things about where we come from, how we differ, and how our common neurophysiology operates.

Contrast that to the scientific output of socionics (none, basically). The main texts and premises were laid out in the 70s and early 80s and since then have been discussed to no end in a distinctly philosophical vein, with each socionist making tentative, non-confirmable, and non-transferrable conclusions based on personal experience alone. The "practical application" vector of socionics is following down the exact same path of Myers-Briggs Typology (whose influence, I believe, is already waning): personal counselling, forays into organizational management, courses for those who want to learn the typology, and of course numerous self-help books that all say roughly the same thing (and some splinter groups who mean slightly different things with the same terminology).

Meanwhile, a very large portion of mental energy in the socionics community is devoted to analyzing the community itself, which I view as a dangerous intellectual trap: such analysis appears promising, but ultimately is a waste of time and energy and actually stems not from the truth-seeking instinct, but from the "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" self-assertion reflex. It shouldn't be engaged in too much to avoid self-poisoning. A few years back I was gifted perhaps the fattest book on socionics ever written (in Russian, of course), titled, The Smile of the Cheshire Cat, or the Possible and the Impossible in Socionics, which was basically a study of how socionists think about socionics, and whether their views were substantiated or unsubstantiated, in the author's opinion. I wonder how many people got through this book.

I have been acquainted with the socionics community long enough (12 years) to see how people's socionics "careers" have taken shape. I have to admit that I would not want to be in their shoes. Those that are still with it seem (to me) to be at an intellectual dead-end, trying to continue extracting some kind of revenue and recognition from what they have invested their entire adult lives for, and still doing the same things they were doing 10 years ago with little discernable progress. And it's not as if you can easily "switch careers" from socionics to some other field — say, stand-up comedy or business management. Those socionists that have left seem (to me) to have wasted years of energy doing... what? It's hard to pinpoint any concrete benefits from "doing socionics," unless it directly enabled positive relationships or tangible personal growth. In contrast, in more practical fields you can learn something, apply it immediately, and experience the benefits or lack thereof. Most or all of the benefit of socionics, in my opinion, comes from a few broadly useful realizations about people and their interactions that one tends to pick up very early in the game.

I also used to think that socionics would take hold in the West or East and develop basically along the same lines as in the former USSR. I no longer think this is the case. It is now very clear to me that modern psychology and neuroscience are developing along a very different path than socionics, and there will be little or no convergence. The scientific research coming out now is exciting and promising enough that it is capturing people's attention and imagination, and they are becoming less and less prone to take interest in more theoretical, less research-friendly perspectives such as socionics. The further neuroscience progresses, the weaker pre-neuroscience theoretical approaches like personality typologies become.

Also, I see no hint that psychology is discovering the kinds of discrete categories of people that socionics talks about, or that research on human interaction is tending to see things in an "information metabolism" perspective. Rather, we're seeing more and more research into hormones, attraction, relationship building, genetic difference vs. similarity, concrete predictors of relationship success, etc. And individual differences are almost always proving to be points on a continuum rather than lightswitch-type categories (either on or off). At least for the moment, science is definitely not moving towards socionics. My nose for trends tells me that the future is not with abstract or philosophical approaches to psychology (e.g. typology), but with our rapidly advancing understanding of the actual physical processes that shape the nervous system and human behavior.

On top of this, as I considered the types of other people close to me, I realized that, in many cases, I was no longer sure of their types. Rather than thinking that this was a temporary moment of reevaluation, I have come to see this as typical. When people are psychologically closer than a certain point, "contradictions" in their personalities become more and more apparent, making their types harder to identify. I see this is a big problem; it really shouldn't be this way if socionics is indeed accurate.

On a final note, my research into physiology, health, and lifestyle has led me to see many traits increasingly on a "better/healthier — worse/unhealthier" scale rather than in an "all traits are created equal" vein, which was partly inspired by socionics and partly due to my own egalitarianism. "Weak T" or "weak sensing," for instance, really is probably best seen as a weakness, and not as "the flipside of your strengths," as I would have emphasized in the past. Improve nutrition and lifestyle, and many of these weaknesses can go away, at least in part. It's often not the best approach to assume — as socionics suggests — that such weaknesses can only be compensated for through other people (e.g. complementary types), though there is merit in that idea.

That covers most of what I wanted to say. I will write more on these subjects later, and this blog will continue to live on.

24 comments:

Chrystal said...

Very fascinating perspective. I relate very much to the difficulty of typing some people I've known for a long time. I think sometimes my study of typology revealed areas in my understanding of a person in my life that had not received much attention. Do you see the trends and dichotomies of socionics/typology as no longer applicable? How can you account for the many people who find it useful and informative? I feel the theory does have great merit, despite it's lack of empirical evidence. And yet the inconsistencies that abound within the way the theory is applied is very frustrating to be sure. I have only just found your blog today and find it serendipitous that your 'ex' status post was made today.

Zero-11 said...

Gosh NFs and their self-improvment bullshit I´m never going to understand that. Self-Improvment happens automatically its nothing to work on.

aestrivex said...

Hi Rick,

I think that this change, of not being deeply interested in socionics has been very obvious for a while now in your writings, and I respect all of the things that you are now doing with your livelihood.

That being said, I disagree and I have disagreed for some time with this idea you have that socionics and personality typologies are a backward approach because they are not based in neurophysiology. You may or may not know this, but since the first time we met I too have been studying neuroscience throughout my college education and now work as an RA in a neuroscience lab, hopefully to pursue neuroscience research in the future. As someone who works in neuroscience, I feel that neuroscience is indeed an exciting advancement in knowledge, but highly limited. Socionics, at best, is the same -- it is highly limited, but I feel there are many things that it has to tell us. Specifically, I feel that these things have more to do with quadra values as guiding motivations than the socionics model being "the core" of relationships -- which I don't think it is true, but I do think there is something worthwhile to understand about socionics relationships. It may even be measurable yet, just as behavioral measures in research paradigms similar to ones you have been thinking about for years -- we shall see if they ever come to fruition.

Consentingadult said...

Hi Rick,

be honest with us: who are you kidding? This blog post has IEE written all over it!

Ричард said...

Zero-11, re: "Self-Improvment happens automatically its nothing to work on."

If self-improvement isn't what you focus on, what is it you do focus on that automatically produces self-improvement?

Ричард said...

To answer the comments about socionics views, I'll continue posting in greater detail about things I've brought up in this post.

Consentingadult, okay, sure, it has IEE written all over it. But what good does that do me or anyone else? 10 years ago I would have written an article on the same subject expressing an opposing view, which also had IEE written all over it.

The actual content of our views/interests/lifestyles, I now believe, has just as much an effect on interaction/relationships, if not greater, than the "form" that our views/interests/lifestyles take, which is what is usually associated with personality type. As a socionist, I would overemphasize the importance of form; now, I will be focusing more on content.

Furthermore, there are other categories than socionics to which the author of an article such as this clearly belongs, depending on where you're coming from. At different times in life different aspects of life take on meaning. One way of thinking about oneself loses relevance, and others come to the forefront.

With this post I'm declaring that Socionics has more than lost its relevance for me (I think I said as much 1, or 2 years ago); it's actually become incompatible with my current view of myself and people.

I'm not saying now that I'm not IEE or that types don't exist. I will be explaining, though, why it is useful to think about and experience people and relationships outside of types, and what sort of things I find useful to think about instead of socionics.

On the one hand, I have simply "given up" on socionics due to issues raised in the post. Many intelligent people will acknowledge some of my points but explain that they continue to find it a worthwhile tool or viewpoint for X reasons. I don't dismiss those. On the other hand, I have thought about socionics beyond simply "it's too complicated" and have some thoughts about actual errors in the theory. I think these will be interesting to discuss.

Ричард said...

aestrivex,

>>Socionics, at best, is the same -- it is highly limited, but I feel there are many things that it has to tell us. Specifically, I feel that these things have more to do with quadra values as guiding motivations than the socionics model being "the core" of relationships -- which I don't think it is true, but I do think there is something worthwhile to understand about socionics relationships.

Personally, I have a bit different experience with quadras. As mentioned in my previous comment, the actual content of views/lifestyles/interests is often as definitive as the form. My ideas and interests being very important to me, I connect well with those whose ideas and interests are compatible, and not so well with those whose aren't. The quadra thing doesn't really seem to pan out, and the focus on a "basic feeling of comfort" that I would have placed on quadra interaction before is less important to me than before.

Comfort changes as we change. If we are comfortable with ourselves, interactions become more comfortable. The focus on static types of "comfort" is useful for a particular point in personal growth and inhibiting at other points. The things that produce discomfort are also specific things said, done, or conveyed. These things don't necessarily fit into valued or unvalued functions, and, once again, will change as the person changes. Admittedly, certain patterns will remain.

It's also perhaps predictable that a person who at this life stage is focusing more on his broader circle of relationships (that would be me) may take less interest in intertype relations than someone who is focused more on relationships with a much higher level of interaction. I recognize this bias.

My final thought is a kind of intellectual challenge. Regarding the part of your comment in bold above, what you're saying basically challenges socionic theory. Basically, you're saying that there's something erroneous about the theory. Can you identify what?

I'll post my thoughts about this, hopefully, soon.

Consentingadult said...

Hi Rick,

I understand your point completely. In fact, I have written some blog posts that might actually answer some of your questions, e.g.:

http://mavericksocionics.blogspot.nl/2012/07/successful-application-of-socionics.html

or

http://mavericksocionics.blogspot.nl/2012/06/problem-of-recognizing-duals.html

These blog posts show the relevance of using other social sciences in relation to Socionics.

What I see in your articles, also those on e.g. neuroscience or Peak oil, is that you have an all-or-nothing tendency to such subjects. You either accept such theories wholeheartedly and uncritically, or reject them totally. Above all, I don't see any attempts to falsify your own beliefs, i.e., not until you are ready to completely reject certain beliefs. I think that is where you went "wrong" in your application of Socionics.

You should not ask yourself if Socionics is wrong, but if your particular interpretation of it is. It is my believe that when proper attempts at falsification are made, a workable and valid construct of Socionics insights can be arrived at. It is pity that you let all this investment go to waste.

aestrivex said...

"My final thought is a kind of intellectual challenge. Regarding the part of your comment in bold above, what you're saying basically challenges socionic theory. Basically, you're saying that there's something erroneous about the theory. Can you identify what?"

There are many, many things erroneous about socionics theory, for a variety of views of what is meant by socionics theory, and for a variety of reasons. I am not sure I can read your mind and tell you which problem you are focusing on, but I can talk freeform about the subject of problems with socionics and what I think it does and doesn't tell you.

The way you seem to read it, interpersonal compatibility is the core subject in socionics -- in responding to my point about quadras you basically suggested that quadras are not all they are cracked up to be because it is the content of interests and views that has more to do with interpersonal compatibility than shared quadra values. I agree -- but I have a different emphasis as to what quadra values mean, and why they are important in interpersonal compatibility.

One of the largest and most obvious flaws with socionics -- and perhaps the challenge you are referring to -- is its assumption that interpersonal relations can be rigorously interpreted through typology. I have been saying for years this is not so -- where the classical literature in socionics finds an interpretively useful set of characteristics to describe say, benefit or illusion or business relations, I think these relations "in the middle" are largely a wash and very little can be said about them. A better but not-exactly interpretation is to say that they are governed by quadra values, which as you point out is also missing.

The issue is that quadra values are hardly deterministic either. We should be thinking of these relations in the sense of quadra *dynamics* rather than merely shared values. For instance, a business relation between an ESI and an LSI could go a variety of ways, just from the information of these types -- maybe these types are the best of friends largely because of shared interests or a shared "energy" in their lifestyles -- maybe they are bitter enemies because both of them are oriented to be challenging and confrontational in their quadra values. Most likely, they are some mix of both worlds.

Another challenge to "shared quadra values" as a boon for interpersonal compatibility is the degree of intra-quadra conflict that is more common among Se valuing types who judge each other negatively for e.g. differing ideology. From my comprehension of quadra dynamics, I make a prediction, that beta types have the most intra-quadra conflict, and then gammas, that could in principle be rigorously tested.

That is to say, where intertype compatibility is concerned, socionics has something important to say, but what it has to say is universally inexact and guides us towards various possibilities rather than certain compatibility.

Ричард said...

Consentingadult,

>>What I see in your articles, also those on e.g. neuroscience or Peak oil, is that you have an all-or-nothing tendency to such subjects. You either accept such theories wholeheartedly and uncritically, or reject them totally. Above all, I don't see any attempts to falsify your own beliefs, i.e., not until you are ready to completely reject certain beliefs. I think that is where you went "wrong" in your application of Socionics.

It's always easy to label as "uncritical" people whose views conflict with your own.

Thanks to the mentioned trait, I created a website about classical socionics in the first place, rather than some personalized, eclectic mix of idea systems.

For the first time in my life, I'm at a place where no fundamentally unprovable idea system is affecting my thinking significantly. I enjoy the feeling that space is being freed up in my left hemisphere to entertain new kinds of thoughts.

That said, I'm still a purist and like to present ideas in their ideal form. That's how I think.

BTW, my views on Peak Oil have changed, and if you're interested I can send you some links to the kinds of information that influenced them. But Peak Oil isn't really an idea system — it's a [range of] prediction that will prove either accurate or inaccurate. Ultimately, it has a correct answer, as do scientific questions.

>>You should not ask yourself if Socionics is wrong, but if your particular interpretation of it is. It is my believe that when proper attempts at falsification are made, a workable and valid construct of Socionics insights can be arrived at.

I have a problem with your thinking here. Socionics is an attempt at a scientific theory, or at least a set of ideas that attempt to describe reality. Perhaps you would also see it this way if you had had access to Augusta's original texts on the subject. It's not something to be interpreted as you please.

If socionics is so inaccurate as to only be useful as a "metaphor" to be interpreted and gain insight from, then I (with my purist thinking style) would say it has failed as a description of reality, and that what needs to be done is to isolate the parts of it that produce useful/accurate insights, hold onto those, and identify the parts of it that are erroneous or likely to be erroneous. And do this, rather than working on my particular interpretation of socionics.

Also, in my post here I've mentioned one key case where socionics was falsified for me. I have drawn my conclusions from that and other cases.

Ричард said...

Thanks. My question was entirely open-ended.

>>The way you seem to read it, interpersonal compatibility is the core subject in socionics...

Well, it was at least. It's the whole idea around which Model A was created in the first place. It's the lens through which functions and their places in Model A are interpreted and elucidated.

I get what you're saying about quadra values and the possibilities for different paths for relationship dynamics. But looking back on my own experience, the same multiplicity of relationship types exists for every single intertype relation.

Furthermore, the multiplicity is too great, in my opinion, to be explained simply by "differing information content" of the functions from person to person of the same type. It's as if the functions themselves are different: one IEE has one "variety" of Ne, another has another. You can introduce subtypes, but that's not a sleek solution since it doesn't in any way address Model A. At some point the "essence" of the types and intertype relations shrinks so much, or the complexity of additional theoretical constructs used grows so much, that you may wonder if it's time to do some slashing with Occam's Razor. That's where I'm at.

aestrivex said...


>>The way you seem to read it, interpersonal compatibility is the core subject in socionics...

>Well, it was at least. It's the whole idea around which Model A was created in the first place. It's the lens through which functions and their places in Model A are interpreted and elucidated.

Yes, it was. And it is, kind of -- except it isn't because it clearly is less rigid than it is made out to be in the classical literature.

Maybe interpesonal compatibility is the core of socionics -- but what certainly isn't true, that you view(ed) as so, is that socionics is the core of interpersonal compatibility. And I think interpersonal compatibility is an important part of socionics, but I don't think it needs to be the core.

>>But looking back on my own experience, the same multiplicity of relationship types exists for every single intertype relation.

You find the multiplicity of relations too confused to be interpreted in socionics. Yet, other people find socionics an obviously "convenient" way of thinking about these relations -- even if highly inexact.

In principle, socionics could still be useful even if it explicitly makes the wrong predictions some of the time. To say this with any confidence, we'd need to make better measurements. And in principle, the "goodness of fit" of these relations, and the likelihood of them fitting a particular dynamic (say we specify a small number of representative dynamics to choose from) is something that could be measured.

Until then, your skepticism is by no means unreasonable.

Ibrahim Tencer said...

> The actual content of our views/interests/lifestyles, I now believe, has just as much an effect on interaction/relationships, if not greater, than the "form" that our views/interests/lifestyles take

I agree that the content of our minds is important, and maybe equally to sociotype, and maybe more. Hopefully most people who have seriously studied socionics realize that it's important.

At the same time, I wouldn't say that I have the same kinds of relationships with ESIs that I do with SEIs. There is definitely a difference in quality overall, even if it can be overshadowed in particular circumstances by interests and background. They're like Bell distributions that have different centers (say, one centered around 3 out of 10 on the quality scale and the other centered around 7, which can move closer together depending on self-development).

There are some Alpha types that I just plain don't like, and I tend to have closer relationships with SEIs than I do with ESEs. I have no idea why that is. But at the same time, I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater and say that Socionics is useless.

Also, regarding the retyping issue. I can understand if you never reach a firm conclusion about most people's types that you might think that socionics is all bunk (this happens to a lot of amateurs on socionics forums who don't have a real-life teacher to work with). But, there have been times when I re-typed somebody that I too was "sure" about. Every time that happened, it only improved my understanding of socionics and that person's personality; there was always that lightbulb that went off and told me "ooh, so that's why they do X and Y and Z..."

Perhaps you have thought more deeply than me about psychology in general, and in the grand scheme of things socionics is just a tiny aspect of a person...but from where I'm standing it's definitely significant.

aestrivex said...

>> But, there have been times when I re-typed somebody that I too was "sure" about. Every time that happened, it only improved my understanding of socionics and that person's personality; there was always that lightbulb that went off and told me "ooh, so that's why they do X and Y and Z..."


Yes, what sam said.

Rich said...

Socionics is intellectually crude and pointless. It says very little about who we are and how we should live.

Thank you for realising this. I can now take you off my pompous moron list.

Rich said...

I couldn't give shit about anyone's "views on personality" - the entire subject appears flawed to me.

Marjorie Jean said...

Typology in general, I would say, is very Ti/Ni heavy. I don't think it's a coincidence that you, as an IEE Ti PoLR, have come to your wits end in regard to Socionics. Of course it was going to happen. Particularly when your emotions became invested. You thought you experienced duality. The reason you thought that in the first place was because you had made your own calculations and convinced yourself that a certain individual was a certain type. What really did it was when others (Te) reproached your Ti with a, "Are you blind?" Now let's throw in the mix powerful NeFi idealism coming to terms with reality. It comes down to a lack of trust of your own conceptual framework. See how I used Socionics to explain your experience? That's how Ti (and NiFe understanding, in my case) works, it finds ways to make things fit. It's an adaptive organization thing vs all things individually laid out on a tabletop. Now, should one base their whole life off of Socionics principles? Of course not, it's a theory. It just happens to be a dynamic and therefore interesting one. I'd also like to mention the recent generated interest and advancement of the neuroscience behind personality (Dario Nardi). For me, personally, I don't need that kind of hard information to consider the validity of a theory (Te PoLR), but I understand some do (especially if I want someone to explore the theory with me).

Ричард said...

Marjorie Jean, I don't identify with the IEE type, be it type descriptions or socionic functions. But there are plenty of IEEs who are active in socionics year after year who haven't yet "come to their wits end."

"Te reproaching my Ti" is a good example of the unprovable socionics babble that I have criticized extensively. I imagine it makes sense to you, but by using this language you are putting a screen between you and other people and effectively making sure that the only people you can talk deeply to about people and interactions are socionics aficionados who speak the same variety of socionics babble.

When I got into socionics, I saw myself as a future leader of the field. I was (am) extremely ambitious and am passionate about personal growth. My experiences in Kiev showed me that was not going to happen. Things were too far gone for me to redirect the development of the field. So I took up the less developed English language socionics community and was successful. However, different experiences with people, relationships, and the socionics community continued to erode my convictions. Eventually, my views on science and reason came into direct conflict with my views on socionics, and socionics lost. I would have to either compromise on reason or give up on my socionics ambitions and find another way to realize my ambitions.

You can try all you want to somehow code my experiences in socionics terms, but it's a hopeless task. My ambitions and intellect do not fit into a type model, nor does my interest in personal growth, nor do my views on reason and the philosophy of science, or my personal principles.

Marjorie Jean said...

I suppose we each have our ways to understand the world and grow as individuals. I have no doubt that your experience with Socionics contributed to your personal development, even if only to set you on your current course. "Babble." That was particularly harsh. I guess I understand too well that admonishment--as if it isn't hard enough to relate to others or they to me. Take care.

Ричард said...

I apologize. In socionics discussions I'm unfortunately used to personal attacks and adolescent behavior and projected this onto you when you began to psychoanalyze me using socionics.

Marjorie Jean said...

It struck a chord, but only because it rang true and I'm not opposed to truth.

Unknown said...

Thank you, thank you. I'm not very knowledgeable about socionics yet what I've read about personality type compatibility was very discouraging in my endeavour in certain things. I was like: a person that invents such a big thing and this being based on mbti which is highly successful and kind of convincing (at least when it came to my gut feeling) I started nihilating other aspects of relationships in the way that if yhe essential (mbti or socionics) is lacking there can be no happy together.
I am myself a cery independent woman living her dream and i found someone i am highly attracted to (every problem boils down to the same thing^^) and who is basically living the same dream who is equally intelligent as me, equally attractive (okay in my eyes he is more atteactive), fitting in age and we tend to have the same stupid, non-living matter, fantasy world inclination to liking it. He is a "hard" guy while i'm the typical warm person but we're both friendly, good hearted I guess. I feel the former could be an obstacle but I only think like that because I've read about it. I know a lot of "hard" people that are very open and I can kind of live with that.
Also a thing that isn't captured by any of these mbti-thingies is me being a hsp. Hsp is kind of a proven personality dimension and I guess this changes a lot of my personality that would be if I could be described by socionucs/mbti only. So yeah, I try to encourage myself in my endeavour and think about your view on the whole issue. Regards from Germany

John Paluska said...

Thank you for taking the time to write a drawn out explanation of why you've left socionics. However, I cannot help but feel that you are leaving a very intuitive theory over personal opinion instead of verifiable fact. Firstly, so what if other people saw something differently than you on your SLE friend? It's possible that they were all wrong and you are right, too. The majority has been known to have been wrong multiple times, ESPECIALLY in academia and in areas where "experts" are concerned. In addition, who cares if there is no scientifically testable aspects of socionics. Is it more important that something is correct, or that it is testable? Did you know that over 80% of studies happen to be proven wrong by multiple other studies? That being said, I think you are putting much to much weight into the scientific method as being a valid method of veracity. I would tend to side with Socrates who argues that something is not true unless it can be proven in real life through observation of the environment. With that being the case, Socionics has plenty of evidence. Now, another thing you bring up is that people have stopped making money in Socionics. So what? That doesn't disprove the theory. It just means that we haven't crossed a needed threshold yet. It is possible to make money with other careers, as you very well know. You final major point is that psychological study is not discoving anything related to socionics. Again, I reply with the previous response that most studies are actually incorrect. The only thing we know for sure is what is logically sound and replicable in the real world, and socionics is defnitely replicable in the real world and is verified by the real world. I don't care what any study says. If it doesn't happen in the real world and there is very little eivdence of it happening in reality, then that study is obviously wrong. So, I would advise you to keep thinking about Socionics and not abandon it because other people have problems. Socionics is not about "other people's aspects" it's about inter-object relationships. Who cares what some psychological study says, the system is valid in the real world, which is what it was made to analyze and interpret.

Ричард said...

John, two questions arose when reading your comments.

1) What do you consider to be verifiable evidence supporting socionics?

2) What evidence, proof, or experiences would it take for you to conclude that socionics was invalid and abandon the field?