Host Eric vs Jack: Socionics Debate

Jack's definition of Objective/Subjective: Objective communication does not require re-interpretation because it is based on something external (logic/sensing). whereas Subjective communicative does require re-interaction (ethics/intuition).
-Eric considers this abnormal, points out that you have to tell the truth about something like a shirt color for example so there is an element of objectivity that has nothing to do with the object at all, you can be wrong about an object and make false statement. Aren't we looking for people's ability to access the information equally?
-Jack: no, people don't necessarily have access to the information equally, but when they see the information they both see the same thing
-Eric: what is a subjective piece of information?
-Jack: requires re-interpretation, an abstract epiphany, whatever occurs in your head you can't communicate it to me without concretizing it
-Eric: so thinks that are abstract are subjective, and if you mean something different by subjective (like abstract), then why not just use the term abstract?
-Jack: because abstraction applies better to intuition vs sensation, but not as well to ethics vs logic
-Eric: so are all functions either objective or subjective?
-Jack: all IME's are either external or internal
-Eric: information doesn't have any quality implicit in it, we can access the same pile of data and draw totally different conclusions and from totally different parts of the data stream.  There's no information implicit to the data, rather qualities that you choose to make a certain way by attending to it in a certain way (i.e. an attentional manner/cognitive function), no information implicit in the data though so it doesn't work the other way around
-Jack: are you saying that people will reach completely different opinions on any information?
-Eric: no, rather you're ignoring the key difference between objectivity vs subjectivity (in normal parlance), which is disinterested vs interested calculus, people are objective vs subjective, data can also be objective vs subjective.  For data is means something else, can it be accessed by all people equally or not (e.g. only I can reference my feelings, objective data is something we can all reference)
-Jack: what do you mean by equal access of data?
-Eric: we can all access the data of your jacket equally, as opposed to your feelings.  I can't falsify claims about your feelings, but I can about things external to you.
-Jack: that's correct
-Eric: so do you agree that objective vs subjective as it refers to people refers to a different sort of thing?
-Jack: depends, where is the information being held?
-Eric: we're talking about attentional processes (cognitive functions), a process can be objective in which in case it executes a disinterested calculus, and not all functions are calculation functions
-Jack: what do you mean by a calculation function?
-Eric: something which draws conclusions about the validity or legitimacy as part of its process
-Jack: so it's assessing whether it is right, correct, legitimate
-Eric: right, it deliberates, Ti and Fi: Fi uses a subjective metric, Ti uses an objective metric.  Ti uses a disinterested calculus, we're using it now to make words which make objects in the external metaphysical field, the video will persist after we're done talking
-Jack: what do you mean by a metaphysical field?
-Eric: say we're digging a hole, it will persist somewhere in the ground.  We're not digging a hole, we're making a video.  You say functions metabolize information.  What do they metabolize them into?
-Jack: functions are ways in which information can be metabolized whether it's with capability, confidence, etc.
-Eric: but metabolism produces a context, right?
-Jack: information is a cyclical process of change, which involves acquisition of information, analysis of it, evaluation of what to do with it, and then the actual action which changes the source of where the information is coming from, and then new information comes in which the cyclical process happens to again
-Eric: what about the old information?
-Jack: it's gone, it's changed
-Eric: no, it's knowledge.  People have knowledge, right?
-Jack: people can store memories of what happened, yes
-Eric: and people can have intuitive knowledge that is not memory, like shape constancy (looking at an object from different angles, this is proto-Ni)
-Jack: why is it not memory based?
-Eric: you've not seen this lighter before!
-Jack: you've seen it changing
-Eric: sure, you can draw immediate contextual conclusions because you saw it change, but if I showed you different sides of it without showing you the change, you'd still draw the same conclusion, because you have something called intuition.  You seem to have divested this intuition word of its meaning
-Jack: If you're perceiving something which is not here, through your imagination and speculation on possibilities, or general sense of how things will develop, I call that intuition.  Is that unusual?
-Eric: how does that link to Ni as a cognitive function?  What is its process to you?
-Jack: It's about knowing the trends, how things will actually be turning out
-Eric: but what's the process?  tell me about the movement, metabolism and evolution of information in Ni
-Jack: if someone is considering an event happening, or something taking place, they are taking lots of specific instances and situations, but overall they'll see certain patterns come out of that which aren't explicit from any particular point
-Eric: so which way is information moving in this system of yours?  Is it a system, or just metaphor?
-Jack: it's a process
-Eric: which way is information moving, how many objects, how many fields, model the system meaningful!
-Jack: what exactly are you looking for?
-Eric: are you doing systems analysis, or something else?
-Jack: I think the part of Socionics which is systematic is Model A, not as much the taxonomy of information which supports Model A and helps build it but isn't the system itself
-Eric: does Socionics distinguish between these elements itself, or just a distinction that you are making
-Jack: it's hard to say what Socionics says about itself because it's a collection of different texts which are put together and which have to be interpreted and order, I've put in a lot of work into ordering and making sense of it in ways people can understand
-Eric: Then I won't hold you accountable for all of Socionics if your Socionics isn't most of it.  But it's important to make a distinction between the part of it that is mechanical and the part that is metaphorical, and we're breaking down because you're not making that distinction
-Jack: I think there is mechanical (aspects?), but I can talk about what that is, and we can discuss it if that's not what you wanted.  The systematic aspect is Model A, which is a clear set of priorities, and when things don't fit those priorities they move down to other functions.  Start with leading function, prime directive as it were for the system of that particular type.  That is a prime motivator, people do things for that leading function.
-Eric: prime directive of the system for the type is contradictory, because the system is either for the system or for the type, you can't have it both ways.  The lowest common denominator that you can collapse everything into, the machine code of the whole thing.  You have to have some collapsible machine code if you are going to represent the system as a dynamic system into binaries which is what Socionics and I am attempting to do.  Socionics has done a sloppy job of it from the get-go.  That's not how one models systems.  You have to define fields, objects and vectors if you want to model systems meaningfully and that's not what Socionics has done.
-Jack: so what part needs to be defined better?
-Eric: it needs to be scrapped and started over as I have done.  I took Socionics basic concepts, and said a lot of these make sense observationally.  There is good observational data to back up certain aspects of Socionics.
-Jack: are you saying if not good observational data to back up the division of information into external and internal
-Eric: I'm not disputing that data is objective or subjective. We're in agreement about that.  But remember: it's not just referenced, but validated by everybody independently according to their own metric.
-Jack: so data can be validated by people who reach different conclusions from data because of differences in knowledge which they have
-Eric: because it's not just the data that's objective, but the process that is objective or subjective.  You're not factoring in the disinterested vs interested calculus aspect.  We make disinterested calculi because that's our tool function.
-Jack: what do you mean by disinterested calculus?
-Eric: If I am an adult, and two kids are arguing over whose turn it should be, and one is clearly right and one is clearly wrong, the adult doesn't have an interest in seeing one kid over the other so you just adjudicate the things fairly, so you have no interest in that particular matter.
-Jack: so, impartial, in other word.  This is leaning more towards the ethics vs logic distinction.  That is an interesting one there as well because the ethics would be internal, more subjective, and also something felt rather than thought about (involved, rather than detached).
-Eric: Here's the thing, you're not being realistic about it.  We know that validity e.g. Te, the conditional logic aspect of the world, is universally so.  Things are valid or invalid regardless of the meanings associated with them.  We know that's a universal objective.
-Jack: Sorry, so things are valid or invalid regardless of the meanings associated with them?
-Eric: In other words, validity is contained within grammar, not within language, not within words.
-Jack: Do you mean that facts don't care about conditional schema?
-Eric: Grammar is underlying conditional logic, statement connectives (and/or/if/then/if and only if).  Something can be valid even if we replace words with A's, B's and C's, and invalid.
-Jack: So the underlying rules can be valid even if the content is switched around?
-Eric: The thing to note here is that it's universal, not particularist.  One's opinion doesn't matter, it has a universal validity.  That's not true for truth, but it is true for validity.
-Jack: What are the main differences between validity and truth?
-Eric: Truth is a separate question that is not incredibly relevant to get into for the cognitive functions at the moment, but I would say that truth is complicated.  There are several different heuristics that we use depending on the kind of statement that is being made.  Remember that truth is foremost the value that we assign to a statement.  That's the only meaningful definition of it.  Everything else is metaphor.  Whereas, validity is not something that we assign to a statement, but to a manner of argumentation which is different.  We can indisputably agree that there exists something called conditional logic which underlies the way you and I do business with the world that is universal and not particularist and objective.  And that's what Ti is.  What Jung got wrong is that he calls it subjective, and Socionics calls it subjective and those things are wrong.
-Jack: No, I don't call Ti subjective.
-Eric: Good, what do you call it?  Objective?
-Jack: Yes!
-Eric: And what do you call say introverted intuition? Objective or subjective?
-Jack: Ni would be internal, so subjective.
-Eric: But why Ti is subjective, if it is internal?
-Jack: No! That's the thing.  You can communicate introverted logic without re-interpretation.
-Eric: I agree with you, because you can make it an external object on the external field.  Because you can hear my words, I can make them into an object.  It's a binary object that is not real-time sensitive; it's specifically a turn based time object, which is to say.  I can take a certain amount of time to do this, I can pause, and words will mean the same things either way.  We can take that Ti and by Ne I can make it into an object on the external metaphysical field, which you can gather and bring to yourself and make meaning for yourself.  You agree that Ti is objective even though it is internal, right?
-Jack: No, I don't think Ti is internal.
-Eric: But I don't have to express my valid thoughts out loud.
-Jack: True, but that doesn't mean it's something based on structure... (unintelligible)
-Eric: Cognitive functions occur within a human being.  No cognitive functions occur outside of a person.
-Jack: Yes, that's true, but...
-Eric: So why is it that Ti is objective and inside of you?  It's an introverted function right?
-Jack: But if you take that rule, then everything is inside of us.
-Eric: I agree, and that's why I'm saying that you're not making a meaningful definition of objective and subjective
-Jack: You changed the definition of what I said... (unintelligible)
-Eric: Ni is subjective because it is inside, right?
-Jack: No, it's based on whether it has an external reference or not.  You can't have an external reference for intuition.  You can't have an external reference for ethics even.
-Eric: What do you mean you can't have an external reference?  That's not true.  Just because it's not reducible doesn't mean it's not universal.
-Jack: Can you point to a feeling?
-Eric: I'm not disagreeing with you about feeling (didn't you just disagree with him about it???), you said about intuition specifically
-Jack: Point to intuition, where is it?
-Eric: Even feelings as well, we can have external reference point.  If your best friend dies in front of you, it's going to make you feel something.  That's an external reference point, right?
-Jack: Yeah, it can make me feel something, but... (interrupted)
-Eric: Is it objective then?
-Jack: If there are no humans, there is no feeling?
-Eric: But it is objective then, because something happened outside of you?
-Jack: If something can happen outside of me, then it's objective.
-Eric: If your friend dies in front of you and this makes you feel bad, is that feeling objective?
-Jack: No!
-Eric: Then what makes something objective or subjective?
-Jack: I've already told you, if it can exist outside of us or not.
-Eric: No functions can exist outside of us!
-Jack: If you kill off all minds
-Eric: But you already said no functions can exist outside of us.
-Jack: I said all functions can be processes internal to us.  I never said no function exist outside of us.
-Eric: Cognitive functions are ways people pay attention.  Only people express cognitive functions, they don't exist outside of people.
-Jack: Eric, you're not listening to me.
-Eric: You're not listening to me or yourself.  You agreed with me that all cognitive functions are expressions of a person's being.  Right?
-Jack: I don't think I said that, no.
-Eric: Do you agree with that or not? Do you think cognitive functions occur outside of a human being.
-Jack: I don't think all cognitive functions occur outside of a human being.
-Eric: No functions occur outside of a human being!  They're attentional manners.  We agreed on that. Only human being pay attention (maybe only consciousness???).  Just because you're paying attention to something outside of you doesn't mean the attention is outside of you.
-Jack: I'm trying to tell you what I think, but you keep on not letting me explain it.
-Eric: Okay, go ahead, explain it.
-Jack: If you were to kill off all living organisms on the planet, if the information can still exist, then it's external.
-Eric: Information doesn't exist without an observer.  It's the observation which makes it information.
-Jack: I think that's a very specious claim.
-Eric: Why?  You can't conceive of anything not observed!  Definitionally you can't, it's an insane notion.
-Jack: If I'm not around to perceive the table I'm sitting at, it no longer exists?
-Eric: If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, then we don't know it's fallen.
-Jack: We don't know it's fallen, but it's still there having fallen.
-Eric: Not until it's observed! (lots of interrupting debate)  Why are we getting bogged down in this Jack?  Admit you have no meaningful definition of objective vs subjective.
-Jack: Why do I need to admit this?
-Eric: Where do cognitive functions occur?  Do they occur inside of a person, or outside of a person?
-Jack:  They CAN occur outside of a person.
-Eric: Can I go pick one up off the ground somewhere?
-Jack: Sensation, yes!  You're holding sensation at the moment.
-Eric: Where is the experience?  Is it inside a person or outside of a person.
-Jack: You being you occurs with you.
-Eric: Me paying attention isn't something outside of me paying attention.  I'm the one paying attention, right?  While I might pay attention to something outside of me, it's never something outside of me paying attention, is it?  It's always me.
-Jack: But at the moment we're looking at the information itself.
-Eric: No, you're conflating.  We're talking about the attentional manner.  Does a cognitive function ever occur outside of me?
-Jack: I'm not talking about a cognitive function, I'm talking about an information aspect.
-Eric: Well, why don't you answer the question?  Does a cognitive function occur outside of me.
-Jack: If you frame it as a cognitive function it's inside of me.
-Eric: You're dissembling.
-Jack: I'm not dissembling, I'm trying to say what is the source of the information?  Can it exist externally to us, or can it not?
-Eric: Obviously data can be external, but we're asking the question as to whether the function is objective or subjective.  And that's the question you are dithering on.
-Jack: I'm not dithering, I'm talking about information aspects and information metabolism elements.
-Eric: Why is Ni subjective, but Ti is objective?
-Jack: Can you point to any source of Ni, any trends, any pattern which can be seen for everyone?
-Eric: It is true that not everyone is going to use Ti on a conditional logic problem.  That doesn't make it not objective data.  Just because some people don't interpret objective data according to what we consider the obvious mechanism to interpret it in, doesn't make it less objective.
-Jack: I was trying to talk about Ni.
-Eric: So tell me then, what makes it subjective?
-Jack: There's no external reference for Ni.
-Eric: So it's a lack of reducibility, right?  You can reduce exactly why it works.  There's a synergistic element to it.  For example, an engine works because all of the components work together. and it's reducible, that's exactly why, right?
-Jack: That's different, that's dynamic.  That's the difference between static and dynamic, whether there are clear boundaries or not.  That's not whether it comes from an external source or not.
-Eric: What is the distinction you're making if it's not reducibility then?  So it's not reducibility, and it's not system dynamism, then what is it?
-Jack: It's the source of the information.
-Eric: The source of the information is not going to determine whether the cognitive function is objective or subjective by any meaningful sense because the source of the information can be multiple places.
-Jack: We can't talk about things as cognitive functions, in Socionics we make a distinction between functions and IME, and IME's are simply how people and organism interact with... (information?)
-Eric: Don't even use the word information metabolism, if you cannot answer the simple question of what things metabolize into.
-Jack: As I said, it's a transferring of process.  There's no single thing it turns into.
-Eric: The answer is knowledge!  That is what information metabolism produces.
-Jack: I can say that it metabolizes from acquisition of information, through to analysis through to decisions and actions.
-Eric: Okay, so how does information move through the system, in how many does information move through the system.  What are the directionalities of information?
-Jack: There are infinite movements.  It's happening all the time.
-Eric: In other words, you're not trying to model the system, you're just trying to make a metaphor.
-Jack: No, I'm trying to explain the concepts through which...
-Eric: These aren't concepts, these are metaphors.  You aren't talking about something which can be actually reduced.  Your definitions are not operationalized, what that means is that they do not relate to each other in meaningful way.  I can't get anywhere with you because you won't define anything meaningfully.
-Jack: So you're claiming that there are quantifiable streams of information in the system you're using.
-Eric: I'm saying that there's directionality of information that's meaningful.  You don't have that in your system.  You've got two directions, object subject.
-Jack: I'm not sure that's a direction, that's a location of source, not a direction.
-Eric: So inside and outside doesn't imply any directionality?  What could you call it instead of directionality? Locus?
-Jack: Locus, sure.
-Eric: My mistake.
-Jack: I think we're confusing now the process of IM as a concept, and the distinctions made between external and internal information.
-Eric: What I'm trying to do is get you pinned down on a meaningful definition of objective/subjective.  You've tried to say that because Ti has an external reference point that it's objective.  But Ni has just as much of an external reference point.  The actual difference is that there is a universal reducibility to Ti and there's not for Ni.  Only one is objective, because only one is an actual deliberative process.  That's the answer to question you cannot answer.
-Jack: What do you mean by the reducibility?
-Eric: Ti is reducible, I can determine whether something is valid or invalid based on a universal metric.
-Jack: There are very clear distinctions made in Ti.
-Eric: Do not backpedal from this!
-Jack: No, I agree with you!
-Eric: This falsifies your notion that it has something to do with the external locus of the information, because Ni has the same locus of information, it's just not reducible.  So reducibility is the factor here, not locus.
-Jack: We've both 5 information dichotomies!  One of those is static and dynamic, which does deal with that reducibility.
-Eric: But you're trying to squirrel out of the fact that your definition is in contradiction with something else again.
-Jack: It's not in definite contradiction with something else again.
-Eric: It absolutely is, you're trying to tell me that objectivity and subjectivity have to do with the locus of the information, now you're trying to say it has to do with dynamism and system (dynamic and static?).
-Jack: Could you speak a little more slowly so I can keep up with you?
-Eric: You're shifting ground!
-Jack: I'm just trying to understand.  So you're saying that if something is reducible, that is what makes it external.
-Eric: No, I'm saying that's what makes it universal and objective.
-Jack: Why?
-Eric: Because I can get a right or a wrong answer on a conditional logic problem, but I can't on a question on a question about my feelings.
-Jack: Something can be reducible but still be about feelings.
-Eric: But it's not universally reducible.
-Jack: No, it's not UNIVERSALLY reducible
-Eric: You need to make the distinction between universal and particularist.
-Jack: Something can be external, but still not be reducible
-Eric: That's true, but that doesn't make it subjective.  That's the point I'm trying to get at.
-Jack: I'm not saying it is subjective.
-Eric: It's not subjective or objective!  The only two functions which are subjective or objective are Ti and Fi, because those are deliberative functions.
-Jack: The only things which are reducible are Ti and Fi. (?)
-Eric: There's no meaningful definition of objective and subjective that does not include some calculation of interested or disinterested approach to the question, and that's why only Ti and Fi are calculation functions, therefore they are the only one's which are either objective or subjective, the word is misused to apply to any other function
-Jack: I think it's well used for Fi vs Ti, but also Fe vs Te.  Ne vs Se and also Ni vs Si.
-Eric: This is why you need to make the distinction between objective data and objective process.  Fe and Te use both objective data and subjective data.
-Jack: But also you sort of run away with the definition I'm trying to make to make it something very different.  It's no longer recognizable from what I'm trying to say here.
-Eric: You keep changing your definitions!  What makes a given thing objective or subjective?
-Jack: It's the source, whether it can exist externally or not.
-Eric: But there is no disputing that one can make two different kinds of calculations about the same piece of information, either interested or disinterested calculation, and that is what people mean when they use objective and subjective.
-Jack: It does mean in terms of ethics vs logic.
-Eric: Why do you have two definitions for the same fucking word in two different contexts so you de-operationalize the whole thing,
-Taylor: People are asking me to come in and moderate Eric down because nobody can hear Jack.  The debate is a shouting match.
-Eric: Well, it's frustrating because he's not answering my goddamn questions!
-Taylor: Well, be an adult about it and try to have a debate about it.
-Eric: Okay, you've got Fe Eric now.  Let's pretend like we've got equal ideas.
-Jack: I'll need to work whether we have equal ideas, what do you mean by equality?
-Eric: I'll afford you the benefit of the doubt that this compilation of metaphors that you call a system is worth the treatment as such.
-Jack: Going back to that definition of external vs internal in terms of the source of information, I think it's reasonable in our common understanding, to say that external sensory objects are external to us, but the ideas which we're talking about now such as the idea of a system you're talking about, such as the word epiphany and how we conceptualize epiphany, that's something which is internal.  Do you disagree?  It seems simple to me.
-Eric: I disagree that abstract ideas are less objective or external than our external realities.
-Jack: Can you give me an example of where an abstract idea is external based on the parameters I set.
-Eric: Sure, what I'm trying to do is understand how someone would make something like the internet.  What you're trying to do is muse about how great it would be if the internet existed.  The difference between what you're doing is being like a science fiction back in the old days: what would it be like if the internet existed?  Whereas I'm someone like laying the groundwork for coding the actual internet so it actually works.  What I'm doing produces something like this where we're able to talk to each other.  What you're doing produces something like Jung's book which is a bunch of metaphor.
-Jack: Is that an example of abstract idea being objective?
-Eric: Sure, in other words the internet as an abstract idea as a fantasy could not be realized because it needed actual mechanics that would make it work.
-Jack: I think that's insightful because what you're doing is you're showing are the practicalities, the methodologies for how to make something work, now that is more objective, but that is going into logic rather than purely intuition
-Eric: The reason that the internet works is because it is conditionally logically sound, we know that because all I have to do is change my mind in code and everything gets all fucked up
-Jack: How things work on the logic side, I think is also external. The code which is written can be externally manifested, and also the processes, how things are actually working.
-Eric: I can have a lot of sound Ti ideas I never vocalized, but they're always inside of me, does that make them subjective?
-Jack: It's whether it can be externalized or not is what matters here.
-Eric: I can externalize my feelings, does that make them objective?
-Jack: Where do the feelings actually take place?
-Eric: If I'm crying or something?
-Jack: You can express a feeling, that doesn't mean it's actually taking place in the external world.
-Eric: Ah, I see.  But if I express an idea, it is actually external?  But not a feeling?
-Jack: When you express an idea, other people can get their own conceptions.
-Eric: But if I express a feeling, can't other people get their own conceptions of that?
-Jack: Yes.
-Eric: So that makes me feelings objective, right?  As long as I express them?
-Jack: It doesn't make them objective.
-Eric: But you just told me that what makes it objective or subjective is where the location of the thing was, right?
-Jack: Expressing a sign of your emotions...
-Eric: Hold on, when I express my emotions, or when I express my idea, they are now objects outside of me.  We can now access the pieces of information equally, so according to you, both functions are objective.  Now don't deny it or try to backpedal.
-Jack: I'm not sure that's true. How do they become an object outside of us?  You're creating a sign which people can then read, and they know based on their structures and norms what these actually mean.  That's why Fe and Ti are tied together.
-Eric: So it's objective or not?  Because you said the reason Ti is objective is because I can express my ideas externally.  I can, but don't have to.  So when I express my feelings externally, they are objective too, right?
-Jack: When you express your feelings externally, by for example having an expression on your face, there is a physical manifestation there, there's also preconceived rules on what these expressions mean.
-Eric: So which functions are objective and why?
-Jack: Sensation and logic, because sensation is clear physical reference, but logic instantiates externally, examples: my genetic code, etc.
-Eric: By your own definitions, Fe is also objective because it can externalize.
-Jack: I wouldn't say an expression on someone's face or saying how they feel is an externalization.  It's giving off a sign.
-Eric: How about tears going from my face and hitting the ground?
-Jack: smoke isn't fire
-Eric: words aren't necessarily ideas either, but that doesn't mean we don't treat them as such.  What is the difference that makes feeling subjective and thinking objective since they both can be externalized?
-Jack: Thinking and sensation would be externalized, yes.
-Eric: What is the difference that makes feeling subjective and thinking objective when both can be vocalized?
-Jack: No, it's more than that.  Whether they can be consistently shared, taken on board and learned from...
-Eric: Are you saying people can't learn from others' emotional responses to things?
-Jack: People can over time pick up people's emotions through signs which they show.  But you can't actually pick exactly what someone is feeling in the way that you are, you can try to empathize if you've experienced something similar.  You can't just write out what an emotion is an expect people to feel exactly the same way which you do.
-Eric: How do you draw this line between objective and subjective since it's not location anymore, it's some quality implicit in the thing
-Jack: it is location, for instance, we can find structure around us.  We can understand molecules through introverted logic.
-Eric: You've said multiple times now it's the location of information and whether it can be externalized, I pointed out that you can externalize introverted feeling, just like you can externalize introverted thinking.  You've agreed that it's some other quality, the distinction you've pointed to then.  Can you clarify what this other quality is since it's not longer location.  You've changed your answer.
-Jack: It still is location.  Look at my jacket.
-Eric: Externalized feelings are just as "objective" as data.
-Jack: Where's the feeling?
-Eric: We're talking about the example where I'm crying, there's tears falling on the ground.  That's externalized just like your jacket color is externalized.
-Jack: That could be a sign of something, that doesn't mean it's actually external.
-Eric: It's just as externalized as the Ti.  We can externalize both in the same way.  What makes the difference between them?
-Jack: I don't think we can externalize it.
-Eric: That's a lie, you can laugh, you can cry, externalizing your feelings.
-Jack: That's a sign of something going on internally.
-Eric: What's the difference if it's not location then.  You can externalize your feelings.  I can show you my feelings, I can say words about my feelings, just like I can say words about logical stuff.  So both can be externalized by words too.  What is the difference since it's not location anymore.
-Jack: There's a massive gap between the expressions on your face right now, and what you're actually going through inside.
-Eric: But my words too can also express my feelings.  So now that I've externalized my feelings with words, or thoughts with words, why is one objective and one subjective since it is not longer location?
-Jack: As I said, re-interpretation, I have to re-interpret your feelings.  It is location, and as a result there is also the re-interpretation.
-Eric: It's not location though right?  Because both can be externalized.
-Jack: It is location.  You're not externalizing the ethics.  You've had to completely re-interpret it.
-Eric: If I say to you I am sad, or A is A, I am using words to express two different concepts, both being externalized, one is still subjective data and the other objective data
-Jack: But you're no longer externalizing ethics, you've turned it into logic.
-Eric: I feel sad is not logic.  It expresses an equivalency between me and my emotions.  And it tells you about my experience.  It is not logic, when I say I feel sad I'm not expressing a logical concept.
-Jack: You're expressing it in framed language which is logic.  You're also expressing it with sensation, through how you move your face.
-Eric: Do feelings get expressed in words?
-Jack: Yes!
-Eric: So expressing your feelings externally means you are no longer feeling them right?
 -Jack: You're demonstrating what I'm trying to say here.
-Eric: If I am talking about my feelings, I'm not longer feeling, right?
-Jack: You could be feeling at the same time
-Eric: Can I feel by talking?
-Jack: What do you mean by that?  That talking can make you feel something?
-Eric: Is it possible that my feelings provoke expression in me?
-Jack: Your thoughts and feelings can cause to express, yeah.
-Eric: I'm not asking about my thoughts and feelings, stop changing the question.  Is it possible that my feelings provoke me to express?
-Jack: Yes
-Eric: So why is that expression not feelings?
-Jack: Because the expression has changed the form, it's no longer something which is being felt within you.  It's now taking a physical form like the contortion of the face.  Or it can be something expressed through language, I feel sad, that means something based on conceptual shared language.
-Eric: So crying is not part of feeling?
-Jack: I never said that, but...
-Eric: It's externalizing my feelings.
-Jack: Crying and sobbing is more to do with extroverted ethics
-Eric: You're just dissembling
-Jack: If you'd like a metaphor, I can give a metaphor.  He's just taking a breath of fresh air, or something.

-Jack: for people who are listening, it's like if you're speaking on a telephone.  The sound waves of what you're saying can't be transmitted to someone else at such a long distance.  It has to be converted into electrical signals to be transferred along the wire to get to the other person.  In the same way, ethics and intuition can't be transferred as intuition and ethics, directly to another person.  It has to be converted into sensation and logic or either one.  When you are expressing how you feel, what are you doing?  You are finding a way to turn that stuff, that energy inside of you, into something physical and concrete, something on your face, or you can state it according to certain shared words and understandings and definitions which is more logical, and that's how people can share ethics.  It's not a direct, uninterpreted sharing.  It's very much a re-interpreted thing.

-Jack: I do think Eric is an ILE and that an ILE can easily lose their temper.  I'd say I'm a more unusual example of an ILE in that I'm very low in neuroticism, but plenty can get flustered.

-Eric: If I was going to falsify Socionics, how would I do it?
-Jack: I think you'd have to show there's not an actual psychological asymmetry in people.  If you could find someone who completely changes what we use to actually determine type, or we can find that there is no psychological asymmetry in a person.
-Eric: But that would falsify personality types.
-Jack: Yes, exactly.
-Eric:  How would I falsify Socioncs specifically as an interpretation of personality types, how would I go about doing that?
-Jack: I think Socionics places more of an emphasis on the psychological asymmetry, than say MBTI.
-Eric: Oh, Socionics is definitely better than MBTI, don't get me wrong.
-Jack: I think there are more ways you can falsify it as a result.  If they don't match their functional positions, that is a means of falsifying Socionics. It shows the connections between the functions in the model don't actually apply.
-Eric: how definitely do you test for 6th slot?
-Jack: I think that is a difficult thing, I think that it's possible but difficult.  Because when it comes to strengths they are intrapersonal not interpersonal.  I don't think you can give a test and if you pass it you're logical other than ethics.  So, you'd have to do two tests.  Then you'd have to calculated z scores finding out the bell-curve.
-Eric: Are these skills tests you're administering then?
-Jack: You could turn it into a skills test, but you'd also need to make sure that it's about handling an unfamilar situation, and that can be hard and vary from person from person.  The thing about IME is that they are a more fluid intelligence.
-Eric: PoLR really is a blind-spot that you can't learn how to do.  You can't learn how to fake it.  If you find an ENTJ, you'll find they can't recount for you small meaningless steps from their breakfast till their lunch.  It's a remarkable deficit.  So striking that you can barely believe it until you see it in multiple instances.  And you realize that these PoLR tests are the only way we can falsify personality types or cognitive functions in general and that I nailed it on this thing.  Ti PoLR is the same way, to conditional logic tests, if you ask then who's your mother's sister's kid?  They'll say: family?  That's Ti PoLR, and they cannot learn it.  It's like learning how to be left-handed, it doesn't work that way.  This is indisputable because I have so many instances of proof of this happening exactly in the way I'm saying.  You can back and reference these videos for yourself and see it in action.  We know for a fact these deficits exist?  How does Socionics explain them?
-Jack: What if you find someone who doesn't fail any of your tests?
-Eric: Unfortunately I don't have PoLR tests for all the types, so I'm not saying my system is complete, but I have two rock solid PoLR tests and a 3rd that's less solid.
-Jack: Until you have a PoLR test for every single vulnerable function, then you don't have it as being falsifiable.
-Eric: I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm saying it's better than yours.
-Jack: Well, it's not falsifiable.
-Eric: Well, it is falsifiable, all you have to do is find someone with PoLR Si and PoLR Ti and it's falsifiable, boom.  I was hesitant to put as much faith into this notion as I have, but time and time again it's been proven correct.
-Jack: I'm very open to taking this on board but I need to investigate it.
-Eric: Try it out, try giving Ti and Si tests, ENTJ tank the Si tests ridiculously badly, ENFJ can kind of fake it a little bit, but the PoLR is where it's at as far as falsification goes for our systems in general.  If we're going to meaningfully falsify, we have to establish a link between skills and a function.  The only skills that really link demonstrably, or testably in a really expressive way are Ti, Si and Ne.  Ne is a little bit more hit and miss though.
-Jack: I do find it a bit surprising though.  Let's take SEE and LIE, which exchange vulnerable and ignoring.  It would be unusual for me to say that SEE's consistently at the time of testing, given how much margin for error there are in tests psychologists are using, someone who has not passed or failed exactly as expected.  The ignoring function is quite similar to the vulnerable function; it can be used in a pinch, but it isn't something they place any valued emphasis or focus on and used as little as possible.
-Eric: I find that the 5th slot is not weak, in fact it's hard to distinguish between.  If I test an ESTP about Si questions, in outer words about basic memories about insignificant details of linear progression through time, they will not have much difficulty providing them.  Plenty of examples of story.  Same thing with Ni in an ENTP.  We have comfortable relationships with our intuition and evaluate the external world against truth.  So, it's like I have an understanding of how each of the slots value that is different from Socionics and somewhat more defensible perhaps, more observationally consistent but not as defensible from a Ti ground as I might want it to be.
-Jack: Wouldn't mind giving you the benefit of the doubt on it Eric, I wouldn't mind trying it out.
-Eric: Try out skills tests and see how they work for you. I get frustrated with the objectivity and subjectivity question because I've been fighting this battle for a long time with people saying Ti is subjective.  You came in here and say Ti is objective and agree with me.  But I can't really get from you a clear reason as to what the distinction is to be made, and you're not taking into account the obvious thing which is interested and disinterested calculus.
-Jack: I do think interested vs disinterested calculus does apply when we're talking about ethics vs logic.  And the reason why I think it does apply only there, and not sensation and intuition, what also comes into this is whether you are involved or detached, which is specific to ethics vs logic.
-Eric: I agree it's specific to ethics vs logic, that's why only two functions are objective and subjective because they are deliberative functions (Ti and Fi), using the word in any other way is messing it up because ultimately you have to go to locus of information, which we already agreed, doesn't work
-Jack: When it comes to abstract and involved, it is switched around.  Sensing is involved and intuition is detached.
-Eric: It's not objective or subjective though.
-Jack: Partiality is not just objective or subjective.  Partially suggests that something is felt.  Emotions can through off cool, calculated decision making.
-Eric: You're right that experience is a vector we need to consider, there is experience vs communication.  Two fundamental fields, communicative and experiential fields.  Divided into two fields, external and internal.  Shouldn't be in any despite because we have the internet which the external metaphysical field, we know what the external physical field is.  We know we have sensations inside of our bodies and thoughts inside of our heads.
-Jack: I'm just trying to figure out what these 4 fields are.  There is certainly a field of potentiality, rather than actuality.  Which would be like intuition and sensing.
-Eric: What's the difference between potentiality and actuality?
-Jack: Potentiality is not here.
-Eric: The answer is the kind of time that's used.  Real-time process has no past and future only present, if you have turned back time movement, in other words using language and things are collapsible into binary then you have turn based time environment which can have past and future. Socionics doesn't do that, and these things are important.  What is an actual human being, how do they interact in an actual environment.
-Jack: A lot of the terminology and definitions you are using is very arcane to me, so it's difficult for me to understand exactly why this is important.  It may take more patience on your part to make sure I understand.
-Eric: If we were to switch roles, and you were to start asking me a lot of questions.  You'd discover that I would have answers to all of them, I wouldn't dissemble, I'd give you clear cut answers, linked to other answers. In other words my terms and my definitions would be operationalized, I wouldn't dissemble.  If you want to change positions and try to negate me, I'd have answers for everything.  You've done an excellent job dancing, but that's what you've been doing the whole time.  On an objectivity and subjectivity questions you've provided no meaningful distinctions.
-Jack: I disagree
-Eric: How much of a factor is locus of information? Or display?  You were very clear it had to do with location of information, things that had to be externalized.  Exact quote from you, things that can be externalized are objective.  Were you misspeaking when you said that?
-Jack: What I think is that, I've tried to give my definition. And I can talk about it in two ways.  But I'm not sure you understand what I'm trying to say.  I need to make it as clear as possible.  When it comes to the locus of information, where it can exist, can it exist outside of not.  You talked about externalizing feeling.  And I said, you have to reinterpret it, you had to convert it into something which is more concrete.  If something is internal, it can't be externalized without re-constitution.
-Eric: Isn't proving something using logic, doesn't it start off, if I begin expressing something not yet proved, isn't the process of... If I say I feel sad I converted my emotions into words, if I cry I converted my emotions into tears.  Why is it that the physical experience of emotions, namely the tightening of the throat, expression of tears, part of the emotion?
-Jack: I think it's certainly created by the emotion, stimulated by the emotion.
-Eric: What is the emotion?
-Jack: What you are feeling inside.
-Eric: What if I'm feeling a tight throat and tears streaming down my face.
-Jack:  I think that's something people very weak in ethics can experience, I myself would also agree when I get emotions my body reacts without my mind registering how I feel.  There was a time when I once burst into tears, my body was reacting to an emotion that my mind didn't acknowledge.  Whereas when I talk to people better at ethics than me, they can talk about something which they are experiencing internally, which is not something which is just how they are physically reacting.  And we have a meaningful concept for that in our society.
-Eric: If I can express something externally without converting it from something else into words, in other words, if its extant state is words, then it is objective.  If I have an intuitive idea for something, it's complete, and I say that solution, I have to work forward from that convert it into a logical explanation, then it's no longer objective, no its subjective.
-Jack: Exactly, it someone wants to pick it up, it has to have been concretized and not just possible.
-Eric: Oh, I know what the answer is!  It's three red hats.  I intuited the answer.  I got a sense that I could parse it out once I lay it out there, but I haven't parsed it out yet.  Now, once I do lay out there I parse it out externally.  Has the logical truth of it been rendered from subjective to objective, or was it the same the whole time?
-Jack: I don't think the validity of it changed, I'm just trying to understand your example, the 3 red hats, what do you mean by that?
-Eric: Example logic question X, the answer is 3 red hats.  There's an explanation to the answer the explains why it's 3 red hats and not something else.  But I've intuited the answer.  But it's correct!  It's objectively so that the argument is valid with that answer.  But, I haven't explained it yet.  I explain it once I put it out there.  Was the conclusion subjective until I rendered the explanation, or was it objective regardless of the explanation being rendered?
-Jack: The conclusion was never intuition, the conclusion was logic.
-Eric: The conclusion was drawn intuitively as it often is by intuitives.
-Jack: You're saying it's a logic question though, right?
-Eric: A lot of NFJ's, especially INFJ's, will intuit the answer to logic questions correctly, and then struggle to explain using their Ti exactly why it is the case that they are correct.  That's something that Ni does.  When it's right, it's right.  What it's cued in are some objective heuristics it uses, because the objectivity of the heuristics relates to the accessibility of the data to everyone in this instance, and they've used a disinterested form of knowing, in other words they've decided to determine what is universally true rather than what is personally true, which is why we need to distinguish between the particular and universal.
-Jack: But you're still saying it's right or wrong, I'm not sure that's how intuition works by evaluating right or wrong.
-Eric: The question has a right answer, and every other answer is wrong.  The person has intuited the correct answer.  Was that intuition?
-Jack: As soon as you're saying something has a right answer or a wrong answer, you're already going into logic.
-Eric: Right, because the question exists outside of the person.  The question is object which exists outside of the person.  Now what we're trying to do is pin you down on the fact that processes are different than objects.
-Jack: Processes are different than objects, yeah I think that's fair.
-Eric: Nevermind, I just feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.
-Jack: I think we reached a bridge somewhere.
-Eric: You're still fighting me on some basic stuff you shouldn't be fighting me on, but that's fine, whatever.
-Jack: But if it's the case that I'm fighting you on them Eric, why am I fighting you on them?  I'm not trying to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, I'm trying to understand.
-Eric: No, because you're shifting ground and changing your answers on stuff, and you're not agreeing that we ought to have a meaningful definition of the terms.  I provided a much better definition, which is that we use the word objective and subjective in two different ways, one of them refers to data, data that is universally accessible, or essentially so, is data that we call objective.  Data that only an individual can access or legitimize is the data that we call subjective.  So your feelings comprise subjective data.  Nobody is disputing that, we're on the same page there.  Words outside of one comprise objective data, no one is disputing that.  Note here, crying also comprises objective data, that doesn't mean it's objective data about something that's an objective calculus within somebody because we need to make that distinction.  Once we realize that we use the word objective and subjective in two different ways, and we need to always distinguish which way we're using it, then we realize that agents can exercise an objective or subjective calculus, and they do so about data that can be termed objective or subjective depending on where the location of the data is.  In other words, I've incorporated the various mish-mash of things you're saying into an actual definition, but instead of saying "you're right Eric" about this definition, you continue to dissemble.
-Jack: No, I'm just having difficulty following you a lot Eric.  Because you speak quickly, and you use lots of arcane definitions of words.
-Eric: I'm not using arcane definitions, I'm talking about data, objectivity, subjectivity, locations of data and interested or disinterested of calculation.  That's not arcane at all.  These are the same words you're using.
-Jack: There's a lot of words you were using which weren't familiar to me, that's why I keep on asking you what does that mean, what does this mean, just so I make sure we're on the same page.
-Eric: I want to be on the same page too here.
-Jack: I'm not trying to piss you off Eric.
-Eric: You're not pissing me off, I'm just frustrated.  Frustrated because this is what I anticipated.  We're not making any progress because... whatever.

-Eric: Let me take a break from this conversation to talk about the spite monkeys. I have got this group of people, who are just absolutely obsessed with hating me and thumbs downing my videos and leaving nasty comments and interfering with my shit like this.  They're such hateful little spiteful... They devote huge amounts of their life to me!
-Jack: That can happen, people can get hatred.  But why is there this hatred?
-Eric: They have their reasons.  People always have their reasons.
-Jack: If there are people who hate, I try to find out exactly why they hate me.  And if it's something I can actually fix, I usually try to fix it.  I try and have a conversation with them to try and bridge that.  Because otherwise it's just going to lead to trouble.
-Eric: I always try to have straightforward reasonable conversations with people, but some people can't handle me having a fair conversation.
-Jack: It's a question of losing temper though.  For me, I feel as long as I wait until I calm down and then I can have more of a conversation with them.  And eventually we can reach a point of honesty and being on the same page.  It takes a bit of time though.  Unless they have something to defend or they're on the defense about something.
-Eric: The thing is, I take a slightly different approach to it.  If the person is willing to be honest and work with me, we will get somewhere.  But like, with the objectivity/subjectivity question, I've given you a preferable definition, you've not said why definition is not preferable.
-Jack: As in its based on a shared reference for information.
-Eric: That we need to draw a distinction between how we use the term in terms of processes and how we use the term in terms of data; that we use the term in two different ways.
-Jack: I'm not sure where processes and data comes in here.
-Eric: For example, if I'm being objective about a question, I'm being fair about it, I'm using an impartial approach to it.  Whereas if the data is objective, that's a different meaning of the word.
-Jack: If you're being objective about the process, that's different than being objective about the data?
-Eric: Listen, I can say, you can access the objective data about this scientific experiment over here, and somebody has logged objective data.  Now I'm talking about data, I'm not talking about people, I'm not talking about processes, I'm talking about the data.  Like the size of this box, you can measure it yourself.  It's objective data, right?
-Jack: Yeah, exactly
-Eric: I might really want that box to be bigger than it is.  And my bias may cause me to not be objective about the objective data and take a subjective calculus on it and say: no it's actually a foot bigger than it is because I really want this thing to fit inside of it.  And I might try to force that thing in there, and tape it all big and round...  There's two different meanings to words objective and subjective, in other words, the data can be objective, but I can still be subjective about it.
-Jack: Yeah, you can have subjectivity interfere with your attempts to measure objectivity.
-Eric: In other words, people can be objective in their calculation, in other words, they are paying attention to the objective data, not to their subjective impulses.  And people can be subjective in their interpretations and calculations.
-Jack: But also an important point there is that you are detaching from how you feel.  To make a more unfeeling judgment, a dispassionate judgment, right?
-Eric: Correct, because Fi and Ti are two flip sides of the same process, which is a deliberative process, which is the only kind of process about which we can have objectivity, or objectivity being a meaningful qualifier.
-Jack: I think that yes it very much applies to thinking and feeling.  You see the division of objectivity and subjectivity as one where being external and detached are together, and being internal and involved (or feeling) is subjective.
-Eric: There's a third perspective though and that's why you keep running into trouble when I ask you this question.  It's agential.  There's objective, which is of the object, subjective, which is of the subject, that is a subject being one who takes action in the world.  And there is agential, which is being of the agent, which is the person that doesn't necessarily take action externally at all.  If we don't account for all three perspectives, as almost nobody does, then we're gonna fall short here because we need to account for all three perspectives.  It's not just objective and subjective, it's agential as well because we do have that proprietary plane, so to speak.  The privacy plane where we don't necessary have to externalize.  I can Ti all I want and not externalize it, and it's still objective.
-Jack: This is where it's getting a bit arcane for me.
-Eric: This is why I made very clear the distinction.  I didn't give you an arcane term and not define it, I gave you very clear distinctions to what those things are, and I used multiple terms so that I could not possibly be accused of that.
-Jack: Okay, so agential, let me just make sure I'm on the same page as you.  Agential is where someone is thinking about something and not taking action on it.
-Eric: Correct, when you think about language, subjects take some sort of action or engage with some kind of linking verb or some sort.  The questoin then is, is there another frame of reference in which we need to account for the distinction between I and he or she, namely, we often will ascribe to somebody else some internal motivation and that will be referencing sort of their agential claim.  You said this, but you meant that.  Given that we do really have another kind of subject that is an agent, for example, we know that we can't talk about like location because Ti is objective regardless of whether it occurs within me or outside of me.  So the locus of information is not relevant to the objectivity or subjectivity.

-Jack: Sorry, I'm a bit distracting as I've had my first ever super sticker, I've never got a super sticker before so that's just excited me a little bit, my subjectivity is interfering with my objectivity at the moment.  Although I love super stickers, this is going to excite me and make me look less good in the debate.
-Eric: I'm tired of trying to pin you down.
-Jack: The thing is, I don't think I've been shifting that much.  I feel that I'm trying to wade through the shifting sands of what you're saying to me.
-Eric: Then why don't you ask me questions, and see how a proper answer sounds.
-Jack: I'm just trying to pin it down, so I remember when you put together your document for the subjectivity of extroverted thinking.  And you said it was situational, is that right?  The reason Te is objective is because it's based on situational practices.
-Eric: I would say it uses the subjective calculus to determine whether it has achieved legitimacy.  Namely, whether or not you've achieved your own goal is a subjective calculus.  I say that it incorporates objective and subjective data in its interface with the physical dynamic system.
-Jack: I see, right.  So because it's about what works for you, rather than what works for others, that makes it more subjective.
-Eric: The ultimate validity, in other words whether the Te has worked, achieved the desired outcome, is determined against your own subjective goal.  So in other words, it may work for me, for example, when I was asked to build a chicken coup at my last house, I built a chicken coup, but what I considered to be adequate for a chicken was not perceived adequate for the other person who prioritized how it looked more. so my Te was inadequate because my ultimate goal was to make her happy, not really to have a good chicken coup.
-Jack: I see, so it seemed to work for you but didn't work for her.
-Eric: I didn't keep in mind my actual goal.
-Jack: I think someone could hear that story and decide whether it worked or it didn't work.
-Eric: No, they'd have to ask her because my goal is subjective, it's making her happy.
-Jack: Alright, the goal was to make her happy.
-Eric: Te goals are always subjective.
-Jack: Someone can then say, looking at the story, you did the thing making the chicken coup, and it didn't make her happy.  I then know objectively that didn't work.  You tried something, it didn't work. These mechanical processes seem to me to be objectively verifiable.  It didn't make her happy.
-Eric: Well sure, if I define my subjective metric clearly enough for other people, then they can check to see whether I've met my subjective metric or not.  However, the ultimate adjudicator of that is me, if I'm happy with it then I'm happy with it.  The thing is, some Te solutions are going to need to validate more universally than others but then that's the subjective goal in that instance.  The thing about it is, if I want to make a ramp for a wheelchair, my desired goal is for it to be universally accessible to people in wheelchairs.  If it's too steep or something, then it's not a good outcome.  It's true that some things that are Te can be externally validated more than others which is why it's still not necessarily subjective or objective.  It's subjective in its validating but objective in its data.  It's a mix things. Just like the other interface function Fe is a mix of things.  The only two functions which can meaningfully be called objective and subjective really are Fi and Ti.
-Jack: When I'm listening to that, I can see someone using something objective for subjective or personal reasons.
-Eric: Sure, which is why we can only really talk about deliberation functions as objective or subjective.
-Jack: I'm not sure...
-Eric: If we're talking about functions.  If we're talking about other things like objects, then we're misusing the terms and we're being metaphorical.
-Jack: I would just say there that the Te being the objective side is being used for subjective Fi.
-Eric: Right, they are always linked.
-Jack: Your intentions are going into how something is being done.  In the same, I'd say you can structure define something in a way which is also being informed by your intentions.  You can sway an argument to your advantage that way.
-Eric: I agree, but you haven't done that.  In other words, you could define things differently.  And it would need to stand up in the way that my definitions stand up against each other within the system.  The problem is, you haven't defined things differently in that fashion.
-Jack: Well I defined it the way you've defined it.
-Eric: In other words your definitions don't interact with each other in meaningful way where you can say this is inconsistent with that.  You just shift ground and you say that's a dichotomy, that's not a mechanics.  It's just willy-nilly.
-Jack: I don't think it's willy-nilly, I can very clearly work out what is external and what is internal.
-Eric: You've already agreed that locus of the display is not the deciding factor in objectivity and subjectivity.  You've already agreed with that.
-Jack: No, but that's the definition which I gave at the beginning, Eric.  I said I was trying to explain what I meant, that was something which I used.  It could be displayed externally.  The definition I used is whether it can be expressed without being re-interpreted.  Whether it can be directly transferred to someone else, without re-calibration.
-Eric: But what are you describing as objective or subjective then?
-Jack: I say that ethics and intuition are both subjective, logic and sensation are both objective.
-Eric: So you're saying that the function is objective or subjective?
-Jack: The information aspect.
-Eric: So, not the function?
-Jack: No, that's what I tried to say, Eric.
-Eric: The information doesn't have meaning extant of people (outside of people?).  We're observers, we've already gone through this.
-Jack: Well, I know you said something doesn't have meaning without people.  I think if you were to get rid of all human beings...
-Eric: Okay, then we've got down to the basis of the disagreement, we're not going to get any further.  No, we're not going to get any further than this.  If you think meaning exists without people then we're not going to get any further.
-Jack: No, I don't think so.  That's not what I'm saying.  Eric, for us to have a meaningful conversation about physical things, we treat them as if they exist without us to perceive them.  If we don't, then...
-Eric: We don't have to treat them like that.  To have a meaningful conversation about this, we have to exactly not treat them like that.
-Jack: If you bury a momento in the ground, and you return to it 30 years later, you're treating it as though it exists without you being there to observe it.  That's how sensation has meaning for us.  We have to treat as though something exists without us to observe it.
-Eric: We've observed it going into the ground, Jack.
-Jack: But that's an example.
-Eric: Object permanence is not a negation of observation, it's a proof of observation.  You have to observe it in the first place for object permanence to be meaningful at all.
-Jack: So you're saying that anything which is physical...
-Eric: If you're gonna say these meanings exist outside of people observing them or creating meaning about them, then we're not going to get any further than that, because it's simply not the case, and I can't argue any further than that.  You've already dissembled me all the way down to the bottom here, we're arguing about whether meaning exists without people, in order for you to avoid acknowledging that you don't have a meaningful definition of subjective and objective like I do.  My definition is definitely preferable and I've given you a clear definition and you've not argued why yours is preferable.  Mine actually lines up with how people use the words.
-Jack: The reason I don't think yours is preferable is because it's conflating how something is felt with whether something is communicable without re-interpretation or not.
-Eric: Okay, but all meaning is interpretation of some sort.  That's what an attentional manner is.  We're not getting any further.  Let's just call it.  If you want to insist that meaning exists without people, then we're not going to get anywhere, sorry.
-Jack: But we have to treat it as if it does.
-Eric: No, but we don't have to.  That's exactly what I'm doing, I'm not treating it like that.  I'm being smart.
-Jack: But that's not being smart, because then you can't actually relate to physical objects in the way which actually...
-Eric: You need to treat it as though it were what it is, and attentional manners exist within people, not outside of them.
-Jack: Can you explain to me a bit more about object permanence then and how you approach it and how you approach it in a way in which something still exists.
-Eric: Object permanence is proto-Si, and what is says is that my experience can be used to anticipate the future.  In other words, I can successfully map out the future by anticipating that things that are not agents will not move unless acted upon.  It's a basic heuristic that I learned, and it's form of proto-Si in the same way that shape consciousness is a form of proto-Ni.  Understanding that things have identity beyond your perspective on it.
-Jack: I'm not sure I'd agree with that being assigned to Ni and Si.  But just saying that object permanence is something which... Are you saying that by being Si is that subjective now?
-Eric: Si is neither subjective, nor objective, as we discussed.  However, it is the case that if you were going to divide the functions into subjective and objective, in other words those that are fundamentally an interested approach vs those that are fundamentally a disinterested approach, then the subjective one's, the interested calculus functions, or the interested angle functions would be Fi, Si, Se and Te.  But note that would be a bastardized reduction because reality is Fi is subjective, Ti is objective, the other functions are neither objective nor subjective, but they are all necessarily either on the experiential or communicative domain.
-Jack: That's taken us to a slightly different tangent.  I'm just trying to understand...
-Eric: Keep asking me questions, you'll keep getting clearer answers.
-Jack: When you're cooking say, food, you can leave a room, and the object exists.  You have object permanence.  Is that correct?
-Eric: Yes
-Jack: So, how do you have a conception of object permanence without treating objects as they're something which exists without you to observe it.
-Eric: Because, as an observer, I understand that's one quality of objects in the sensory world that I exist in.
-Jack: Right, okay
-Eric: That doesn't mean those objects exist without observers, it just means that because I'm in a world of observers, objects exist.
-Jack: But if objects don't exist without observers, but when you're not observing it, how can you have object permanence.
-Eric: I didn't say objects don't exist without constant observation, I'm saying objects don't exist without observation. I'm still an observer, I've still observed them at some point.
-Jack: Alright, so it doesn't exist until someone has observed it at some time.
-Eric: Look, nothing exists in my reality until I've experienced it in some fashion or another.
-Jack: Well, it might as well not exist.
-Eric: Nothing exists in MY reality, until I've experienced it in some fashion or another.
-Jack: In which case, I didn't exist until I first stumbled onto your appear-in chat.
-Eric: No, I didn't exist in your reality until you stumbled upon me.
-Jack: By the same logic.  I'm willing to show some courtesy tell you that I think you did exist before I was born.
-Eric: And that's a good conclusion to have drawn based on the data you've observed.
-Jack: For me to sort of be able to treat you as someone who's my equal, rather than my inferior, I need to assume that your existence is independent of my observation.
-Eric: I agree, but I did not exist in your reality until you encountered me.
-Jack: In the way in which I've been able to make sense of my reality.
-Eric: I didn't exist at all in your reality until you encountered me, correct or incorrect?
-Jack: You didn't exist in MY reality, if you frame it as my reality, but why are framing it in terms of my and your reality rather than reality.
-Eric: Because we're talking about observers and how observation impact ontology.  Your reality comprises the entirely of your experience plus other linkages, but not things entirely outside of your experience.
-Jack: Are you suggesting that everything which you haven't encountered yet, although it doesn't exist in your reality, there is no other reality for it to exist in, it just doesn't exist until you experience it.
-Eric: No, I'm saying that it exists in all the realities of those who have experienced it.
-Jack: But how do you know about those people if you haven't experienced them?  If no one you've experienced it has experienced it, then how do you know...
-Eric: We can't talk about anything at all until we've both experienced it or hypothetically experienced it like we have now.
-Jack: Yes, but it seems to me that something only exists if you can actually talk about it if you've had some sort of observation, and I think that is...
-Eric: In your reality, yeah that's true.  Something only exists if you've had some experience of it.
-Jack: That does lead to problems.  We do treat things as though they've existed before we've experienced them, and that they will continue to exist after we've experienced them.
-Eric: Right, once we've experienced them we treat them like that, right?  But critically, not before we've experienced them.  You didn't treat me as anything until you experienced me, right?
-Jack: No, I didn't treat you as anything.  But the moment I've experienced you, I treat you as if you've always existed.
-Eric: Correct, good, because that's the power of observation.
-Jack: Not always existed, but I treat you as if you've existed at least since the sixties.
-Eric: Not since the sixties!
-Jack: The seventies fine, the seventies!
-Eric: Okay, so we're in agreement that things don't exist in your reality until you experience them.
-Jack: In your reality, yes.  But, a major departure, perhaps, from your model to Socionics does look at things not confined to a single person's reality.  We're talking about the reality of something separate.
-Eric: Right, it mistakes the object of analysis for something that can exist independently of existing experience, which is one of the mistakes of yours.
-Jack: Existent experience?
-Eric: In other words, we can talk about these hypotheticals, this is our experience or the experience of the people listening to this, or whatever.  But we have to remember that in each of the hypotheticals, if they were to actually be executed they would no longer be a hypothetical and no longer retain the qualities of a hypothetical.  They would cease to be a hypothetical, they would be a reality, right?  So the problem is we get stuck on the fact that we're talking about hypotheticals, and we imagine that they retain hypothetical qualities when we convert them into realities, but they don't.  And that's where we're going astray here.
-Jack: I just think the hypothesis that what we experience until we've experienced it doesn't exist is a hypothesis which doesn't seem to intuitively align with...
-Eric: It doesn't exist in your reality.  In other words, the existence of a thing is something individual people make happen with their experience of it.  It doesn't happen outside of someone's experience.
-Jack: I think there's a slight impasse here, but we can move past it while still having a useful conversation.  If we've talking about how the definition that I was using that information can be communicated without being re-constituted, and that would make it external, I don't think that question of object permanence really gets in the way.
-Eric: The distinction of re-constituting, in other words converting something, it's contingent on you making a distinction between what is felt internally as an emotion which is non-physical and between the physical manifestations of those emotions.  We've gotten that part down.  Now I'm going to take exception to that.  But I can't exactly explain why.  I just say that in my understanding of things, Fi has a physical component to it you cannot extinguish from the non-physical component to it, or draw a distinction meaningfully and say that one is really the feeling whereas the physical manifestation is really not the feeling, it's some sort of converted feeling.  I don't agree that Fi are fundamentally metaphysical and must be converted into physicality, I think they're as much physical as they are anything else.  At that, we might just be at an impasse, I don't know how to prove that point.  I bet Fi users would agree with me though.
-Jack: Well, I don't know.  I'd need to speak to some of them.
-Eric: I'm not really making claims that they would, I'm guessing they would agree that it's physical, but I'm not sure about that. On that point, we can say, we've got a different understanding of Fi that neither of us can win this point about Fi right now.
-Jack: I can clarify further what I think Fi is, which may be quite different as well.  Cause I don't actually think Fi is about an emotional state that you go through.  I think it's more static, more set and actually reducible.  So I think it's more about relationships, how people relate to one another.  Say, if I like you as a person, I think that is Fi.  Whereas if I am experiencing incandescent rage at something you're saying, because it's dissembling, I think that's more Fe.
-Eric: Well, I would agree with you about my displays of emotion, which link rather weakly to emotions I'm actually feeling.  Those would be more for display or communication purposes rather than expressions of actual emotion.  But I would say that there are expressions of actual emotion that comprise the engine of that relationship's logic.  In other words, we don't understand it, neither of us do, because it is our PoLR.  But these feelings that people have, and we have too, and that sometimes make our heart jump and such, that there's a very rich and thorough logic of its own to it that's subjective, that links different kinds of feelings against each other, compatibility between the feelings and I might have to give up something I want but get something I want more.  Those kind of trade-offs, or I want to protect this person's feelings but I also want to tell them something that's kind of harsh.  Those kind of decisions are decided by Fi in my understand of it.  That's a pretty clear definition of it.  It tells you how and why Fi links to feelings, not just to ethics, and I don't think it links really with ethics at all.  I think it links to personal valuing and interest.
-Jack: I do think that ethics can be a confusing word.  You can have ethics of a system, which has nothing to do with ethics like Kantian deontology, for instance, which is Ti.  I do think there can be something confusing about those definitions, at the same I also find feelings to be confusing because you can also feel things which are physical through sensation.
-Eric: I agree that feelings can be confusing in that fashion.  A lot of people talk about Si feelings as feelings, and a lot of people talk about Fi feelings as feelings, however I think the distinction is pretty clear.  And I think it makes sense to call Si feelings, Si feelings, like sensations of the body. And Fi emotional feelings.  I just don't understand why we are excluding the physical expression of feelings from Fi.
-Jack: Well, in terms of Fi specifically, the way that I would define it is more about certain attitudes, doesn't mean it has to be expressed at all.  We don't usually express attitudes through emotion on our face.
-Eric: What attitudes?  Then what are emotions?
-Jack: For instance, attitudes is where someone doesn't like someone, someone wants to stay away from someone they don't like.  That's not an emotion, it lasts longer and doesn't just change through how you are feeling that day.
-Eric: It's not an emotion?  Dislike is not an emotion?
-Jack: I think it falls under something which is felt, it is a feeling.  I'm not sure I'd say it's an emotion.  It's an attitude.
-Eric: My Fi PoLR is bad, your Fi PoLR is shockingly bad, you have no concept of feelings whatsoever.
-Jack: I manage to make it work though.
-Eric: That's not feelings, talk to a feeler about feelings.  What you're talking about is not emotions, and if you don't want to call emotions Fi, then what are emotions?
-Jack: Emotions are based on different hormones going through your brain, different chemicals.  It's how you feel in the moment, and how people will feel at some other point.  It's not a more stable attitude towards someone.
-Eric: When you value someone a lot, and they die and you feel sad, that doesn't involve an emotion because it's a stable valuing...
-Jack: When you feel sad, it's emotions, yes.
-Eric: But that is temporary.
-Jack: You value them a lot and you just know regardless of how you feel in that moment, if you're angry with them, if you're sad with them, if you're very pleased with them, they're still your friend and you're loyal to them.  That concept is not something you and I are very familiar with, but it is how Fi types in Socionics at least will approach things.
-Eric: Well that sounds like a system made by an Fi PoLR person.  Alright, I'm tired of this now, I think it got more cordial (?)
-Jack: Let's finish for now, but I think I have other points to discuss and maybe we can have future debates about these other points.
-Eric: Yeah, but look.  The thing is this, I don't want to play this game where I negate and you scramble.  If you want to debate this again, you come in and negate my system.
-Jack: I don't think I have scrambled.  If anything, I feel that you've changed what you're saying a lot more than I have.
-Eric: I disagree with you, because here's why.  I've really tried to pin you down on what things mean.
-Jack: I've tried to give very clear answers to what things mean.
-Eric: So we agree then that we've reached an impasse on the Fi.
-Jack: We've reached a few impasses.  But I think now we're going to also have a meta-argument.
-Eric: If we've reached an impasse and you agree we've reached an impasse, then we've successfully communicated, right?  We've gotten to where we can't go any further, right?
-Jack: I think for the first time, yes.  I think we have reached an impasse on this particular point.
-Eric: So we have successfully communicated.
-Jack: Yeah, I think now we have.  It took a while, but I think we have.
-Eric: It did take a while, but to say that you have not scrambled and dissembled here
-Jack: I don't think I did.
-Eric: Then Jack listen to me, next time you come and negate my system.
-Jack: Okay, I need to be as familiar with your system as I can so I know what questions to ask you.  I've looked at documents to help me, but I'm still struggling to get a clear coherent view of your system.
-Eric: All you need to do is ask me questions.  There's two kinds of answers to questions.  There's answers that are definitive and designed to help the other person parse, and there are answers to questions that are non-definitive and designed to prevent the other person from parsing.  You're giving the latter kind of answer.  It's frustrating to me.  I will give you the former kind of answers so you can do the logical work you need to actually test my system.  You're preventing me from testing yours logically.
-Jack: I don't think that's the truth.
-Eric: Go, start asking me questions so you can see what answers look like when they are good kind of answers.
-Jack: Well Eric it's good to talk to you, and I wish you well.  Thank you everyone for also watching the debate today.  Bye everyone!



My thoughts:

For example, right off the bat, Jack claims that abstraction applies better to Sensing vs Intuition than it does to Logic vs Ethics. But I don't agree with that: logic is clearly more abstract than ethics, as those terms are often used. One can use abstract to mean something like Socionics intuition, but also something like Socionics thinking (theoretical, removed from personal experience, emotions, etc. which are more immediate, visceral and concrete). Emotions and sensing require embodiment; you can't abstractly feel something. Granted, you can feel something ABOUT the abstract, but that's not the same thing as the feeling BEING abstract

Jack also claims that Socionics is a collection of texts which have to be interpreted and ordered. That is a very odd assertion. It seems to me that Socionics isn't just a collection of texts in the same way that mathematics isn't just a written symbol for a number. Texts can be used to communicate ideas about Socionics, but the texts are communicating about something beyond themselves

Eric's requirements for system building are interesting, but seem to be asserted rather than argued for or given evidence for

He makes an interesting point though that Jack's information metaphysics doesn't make a clear distinction between the objectivity and subjectivity of the process of (say of Ti) and the objectivity of the information that is out there which it is just metabolizing (i.e. he treats the Ti information like it's out there already objective and Ti acquires and metabolizes that kind of information, rather than that Ti is an objective process analyzing more general data).  The information which is produced by the processes of our psyche is, as it were, projected onto the world, ready-made for our psyches to just acquire and gobble up.

Eric's disinterested calculus also seems to relate a lot to the Role Te function of the Mentor, refusing to choose sides, not just applying rules objectively which of course is something Ti does

Eric's notion of Te as the conditional logic aspect of the world seems to relate to logic with situationality, that is, irrational logic types

I'd like to hear more about why Eric thinks there is only one meaningful definition for truth and everything else is metaphor.  It sounds like there is a kernel of truth to his claim, but it seems too categorical and simplistic as stated.  In particular, the way conditional logic underlies the way we do business with the world gets at the priority of Te over Ti and energy over information.

I'm not convinced of Jack's definition of external/internal as requiring re-interpretation or not.  Languages are systems of symbols which are heavily based in logic, but often require re-interpretation from one language to another.  You might say though: the logic helps CARRY OUT the very process of reinterpretation, which is one reason that takes a meta-position when it comes to certain interpretations (such as mathematics being valid in all cultures). But I wouldn't say that logic doesn't require re-interpretation in the general case.  Rather it itself carries out certain re-interpretive processes.  For sensory, maybe you could say that, but there is still the problem of the subjectivity of the nervous system which perceives phenomena.  But it's more true for sensory.  Then again, maybe re-interpreting logic somewhat changes the subject.  Reminds of Quine's debates about the possibility of quantum mechanics revising logic.  So maybe it is true that logic itself isn't re-interpreted, but rather that concrete usages of it have to be.

Eric's definition of Ne is pretty odd though. It's like he thinks Ne puts things out into the external metaphysical field: so Ne is speaking? Seems like even people without using much Ne are capable of externalizing information into the communicative space

kouhaiToday at 5:26 AM

He seems to present slightly different definitions of it in some of his videos

[5:28 AM]

Like he demonstrates that Intuition is internal bc if you communicate an idea to another person there's no guarantee that whatever comes up in their consciousness is the same as what comes up in your's

1

[5:28 AM]

similarly with Ethics that if you tell someone how you felt the experience of the feeling can't be guaranteed to be identically experienced if experienced at all

[5:29 AM]

and with sensation he uses a specific example

[5:29 AM]

'if u point at a tree stump say its stumpy ppl can agree with u having an identical experience of its stumpiness'(edited)

[5:29 AM]

which sure but that doesnt apply to all sensations

VarlawendToday at 5:30 AM

Yeah, he's sort of getting into language and ideas there, which happen to be about sensations

"I agree with you, because you can make it an external object on the external field" (Eric, referring to logic): this is specifically Ti into Si, process logic

"It's a binary object that is not real-time sensitive; it's specifically a turn based time object, which is to say.  I can take a certain amount of time to do this, I can pause, and words will mean the same things either way." (Eric, referring to the process of doing logic and verbalization)... words are embodied objects for meanings to be associated with in coherent ways, so yes they are not very time-sensitive, but since there is also a process of association, words can change in meaning (but we can still use other words to try to refer to what we mean)

"We can take that Ti and by Ne I can make it into an object on the external metaphysical field": So Ne is basically any speaking?  Seems like even people without using much Ne are capable of externalizing information into the communicative space

"No, it's based on whether it has an external reference or not.  You can't have an external reference for intuition.  You can't have an external reference for ethics even." (Jack, talking about external vs internal)... but Ti also doesn't have an external reference, it is the ideal realm of eternal objects which deals with the very process of interpretation/information itself.  We project structures onto things by necessitiy and these are always idealized.  Te sort of has an external reference because it relates to movement and benefit, but it is abstracted based on aim.  Sensory is what is mostly external/embodied because it is literally what our sensory apparatus picks up.

I feel like the bit about external reference was forced in by eric

[5:34 AM]

In other sources where jack defines it he doesn't mention reference

[5:35 AM]

Instead it's more about the experience of an element itself rather than some reference it's linked to

VarlawendToday at 5:35 AM

I agree with Jack that Ti is objective in a sense, I just don't think external reference is a good way of going about that

[5:36 AM]

At the very least, he'd have to clarify it. I wonder if a better term could be used for external vs internal. Maybe explicit vs implicit is better, which I have also seen

Eric is right that cognitive functions occur inside people, or at least consciousness, and that Jack is not taking this point into account in his metaphysics of information

I partly agree and partly disagree with the idea of a function as an attention manner: functions can be used unconsciously or subconsciously, and they are also energetic processes that affect the body and interface with the world, but they definitely affect our attentional manner
-Also more than human beings pay attention.  Consciousness pays attention.

Eric makes a good point that Jack fails to make a distinction between the cognitive function of sensation which perceives an object like a cigarette, and the cigarette itself just BEING sensory which Eric is holding.  Eric is in the process of SENSING the cigarette, but the cigarette isn't itself sensory: it also has structure, energy, patterns, etc.  "Cigarette" itself is an abstraction, a concept.

Eric is right that Jack keeps on conflating between the cognitive process inside of us which deal with information and the information just being magically out there projected onto the world.  He may be dodging the question, or trying to argue that IME's aren't really cognitive and just directly deal with the world and the question as to their process is not very meaningful, but that is an odd position.

Also, if internal function don't come from an external source, then how does Ni see trends and patterns?  Aren't those trends based on events that are observed externally from oneself.

In Socionics, the choice to split information elements and functions to the point where we can't call them "cognitive function" is a maneuver that puts us in danger of simply being hypnotized by language.  What if they don't all deal with information?  And it also makes the system not have to consider things from the prospective of the process itself, so it is lacking in holism and perspective.

I agree with Jack that statics vs dynamic relates well to these ideas of reducibility and irreducibility.

It's odd to say that Fe isn't externalizing our feelings.  People talk about externalizing feelings all the time and this also relates to extroversion vs introversion,  Jack is too focused on one particular meaning of external vs internal, and just doesn't acknowledge any other.  Plus, Ti isn't external really, so explicit vs implicit is perhaps a better distinction.  Also, people rarely understand others emotions through explicit signs: they can feel the condition of the other instinctively

Ti isn't external but it is objective in a sense: models of molecules are idealizations that are projected upon reality, they aren't literally external though

They are both too hung up on something: Eric is too hung up on not seeing the difference between the sign of the emotional and the fact that it is literally an internal feeling which is distinct from the sign itself like crying/laughing (which aren't feelings but behavior), and Jack is too hung up on not understanding external vs internal in any other way than logic vs ethics even though they aren't really about location per se but how we understand our external and internal worlds (not the literal location of the information or the direction it is going which relates to extroversion vs introversion).  Eric is failing to understand the difference between explicit vs implicit which Jack did not explain well, and Jack is failing to understand any meaning to external vs internal that isn't logic vs ethics.

Yeah, a lot of this debate is just obsessing over what words mean though. Eric is failing to understand that by external vs internal, Jack really means explicit vs implicit which has to do with our clarity in understanding anything in any picture once you break it down in freeze frames and labels, not the literal location of the information that we then interpret. But Jack is making that harder by insisting on using external vs internal to mean this and only this since those words have many other meanings, relating to extroversion and introversion, which Eric is talking about and those are legitimate uses of the words external and internal. What, so when I share my feelings with someone now, is Jack going to correct me for saying I externalized my feelings? That’s just semantics and obviously absurd. Yeah, you can say I display signs of my feelings when I cry or laugh or whatever, but that’s just another way of framing it. I’m also expressing the feeling in a way that can make another feel too, or put emotional pressure on them, if they don’t make efforts to stay dispassionate. They are just different interpretations of the same thing contained in more inclusive models. They are both talking past each other when on this location and externalization issue.
Jack is right that there is logic involved in interpreting signs of feeling into something you can also put into "correct" words to eliminate ambiguity based on shared language or semantic systems, but words are not purely conceptual.  They can have emotional associations, directly with the sound or experience. That attitude never acknowledges anything more than the semantics, avoiding the actual experience of the words and the sounds of the words and the emotional/experiential associations the words invoke which also exist in our experience alongside logical structure.  Yes, the word "sad" exists in a logical system of language and grammar, but you wouldn't know what the word means without direct emotional associations also.  Words can also have associative relationships with emotions, which is not necessarily processed logically, though it can be.  Is there where the assertion that Socionics is just a bunch of texts, no mention of the living, dynamic things those texts actually refer to, comes from?  Hearing the words of another can give a direct emotional experience without analysis according to logic.  He's saying something like a symphony is just a series of notes, leaving out the actual plucking of the strings, the experience of the notes themselves and the emotions they evoke directly in the stream of consciousness of our experience.  People can be moved by music without understanding the first thing about its logical structure or about sound waves.  Of course music HAS a logical structure, but that's not all of what it is and you can't necessarily reduce emotions to logical structure (though it has a strong relationship to it).

You can't understand the word sad without semantics, you need the ethical experience of what that word means.  So just as logic can help transmit ethics, ethics can help illuminate the meaning of something in a logical system (like sadness).

What Eric means by "dissemble" is that Jack stops considering the holistic abstract context of how he uses words and definitions and they aren't linked together or used consistently throughout the context and don't take all of it into account

I agree with Jack that the conclusion to Eric's red hat logic question was logical, intuition only sprang the content to mind but it didn't come to a conclusion.  Intuition doesn't evaluate the right or wrong, but it can suggest ideas.

I also agree with Jack that the Te goal Eric set to make his girl happy with the chicken coup was also objectively verifiable to have failed, more or less.  Logic does deal with objective metrics in various ways, and for Te that is mainly achievement, success or failure to do work.  Though I agree with Eric that the goal arose due to a subjective calculus.

Eric's thoughts on the arbitrary objective/subjective nature of Te defending on its goals are interesting and relate a lot to Gulenko's ideas about how the meta-function of our most sophisticated function is Te which has greater arbitrary flexibility and partly is what makes us human and self-conscious.  Our goals are not really subjective or objective, whereas Ti is more purely objective and seems to be more a metric for any goal (Ti) which is what Jack is referring to when he says goals are measurable objectively once known (yes, to some extent, if we can apply the appropriate Ti to them).  Ti is the essence of information which is what clearly informs us about anything (external or internal).

The idea that intuition and ethics can't expressed without being re-interpreted as logic and sensory seems like some reductionistic positivist philosophy.  In the noosphere, ideas and ethics can expressed without causal link with sensing and logic, but of course sensing and logic occur in parallel with that in ways which display them (but the sensing and logic are not their reductionistic essence).  Archetypes are not reducible to Sensing and logic, and they do express themselves but they do remain implicit and hidden to some degree (they are never fully visible).  To reduce ethics and intuition to the purely visible sensing and logic is to misunderstand them.

It seems to me that Ti is the most objective function, and Fe is the most subjective.  Irrational functions are neither subjective or objective but experiential, having objective and subjective aspects (they have objective existence inasmuch as they intersect with logic, but we have subjective experiences with them in both preference, habituation, ability to perceive, and experiential exposure).

I think Eric is wrong that meaning/information doesn't exist without people, but he has a point that info is meaningless without observers.  Information is relative to something and is encoded to a point of observation.  This is even true in physics.  Only energy is absolute.

Thoughts about object permanence: Once we observe an object, that changes it and it becomes tied to our physical reality in a certain sense.  Ultimately, it already was, but just not by the particular metric by which we have just observed it.  So yes, things exist when we aren't looking at them, but observation was necessary to have any information about it and to make it a known (something we have information about) feature of our world.  It wasn't information before then, but a complex energy entity tied with the rest of the universe via waves and stuctures.

Both Eric and Jack are wrong about this question of existing in each others reality or independent of observation. Eric is wrong that he absolutely didn't exist in Jack's reality before Jack observed him because reality is something holistic and all-inclusive, so Jack is right that it's more that he wasn't able to include Eric in his picture of reality until he made certain observations of Eric in his experience.  But, Eric is right that objects don't exist apart from observation because we don't have any information about them until we've observed them in certain ways in our experience and the very act of observation affects reality and ties us and our understand to it in certain irreducible ways.  The information that Eric existed before Jack was inferred by Jack's psyche post-observation based on many regularities in experience which are not absolutely reliable but very reasonable heuristics.  The information is created in our psyches drawing conclusions and is capable of being mistaken.

Jack's ideas about Fi and attitudes not being emotion are rightfully questioned by Eric.  Attitudes and dislikes certainly are emotions unless you are using a technical definition of emotion which defeats the purpose.

Eric makes the point towards the end of the debate that genuine truth-seeking is more important and more effective for reaching common ground than debating which is mature and I agree with it

In disagreement with Jack, emotions are correlated with certain hormones, but not necessarily based on them.  There is a more emergent, participatory aspect to reality than mere positivist reductionism.  Emotions and hormones possible arose together with certain associated behaviors.



Responding to Jack's further comments:

To say that Socionics doesn't have a framework suggests that you are using a definition of 'framework' that is different to what is commonly understood. A system with a taxonomy of information into 8 distinct aspects and elements, which then is arranged according to 8 function slots in a hierarchy of priorities, motivations and strengths.... how is that not a framework?

I agree that it is a framework and Eric is using pointlessly non-standard language to suggest otherwise. However, it is still a more important question as to whether it is a good frameworl.

The reason the debate proceeded, or rather didn't proceed, was that we reached an impasse over whether Objectivity/Subjectivity applied to Intuition and Sensation or not. You said that Objectivity/Subjectivity must be understood in terms of whether someone is calculating something in an interested or disinterested manner. I said that Objectivity/Subjectivity should not be limited to that, but rather can also be understood as relating to our physical reality (Sensation) or to what we imagine (Intuition), and that Objectivity/Subjectivity should be defined as whether information can be shared without re-interpretation or not. Both Logic and Sensation can be communicated without re-interpretation, we all can acknowledge and share our understanding of the facts, what we can see, what resources there are, what the rules are to any context as all this information is innately explicit. In contrast, Intuition and Ethics are not innately explicit, they both occur within the mind, whether as abstract mental imagery or personal sentiments and have to be converted into Sensory and Logical information in order to be shared, whether through rules, statistics and set definitions, or through physical signs and expressions, with no guarantee that other people will experience the same qualia of the Intuition or Ethics following re-interpretation in their own minds.

That is a strawman of Eric, since he had a dual-aspect definition of objectivity/subjective, one in terms of people and functions (deliberative functions), and another in terms of data and its accessibility.  I don't find his idea of deliberative functions being the only possible bearers of objectivity and subjectivity clear, but I do like the way his definitions distinguish between objectivity in people versus objectivity in data.  WSS really does lack this distinction and just projects everything onto this mama matrix of information.  It's a very passive worldview.  In some ways, sensing requires more re-interpretation than intuition (different species/physiologies, cultures/sensibilities, geographies/locales, etc.), whereas intuition is more universal and cross-cultural... feeling can also be more universal whereas logical languages can be more plural and re-created, lack of need for re-interpretability may apply to Ti though since it is the most objective and basic in the distinctions it draws but is also only usable if we are in a relatively similar circumstances where similar structural concerns occur, whereas functions like Te/Se don't require as much interpretation at all since they forced themselves on you and make themselves felt (same as Fe, Fe is often not interpreted at all but simply affects).  So overall, the relationship of functions to objectivity and subjectivity is quite complex and although both have an important piece of the puzzle, I don't think either Jack or Eric remotely captures the complexity of this idea.

We got caught up in a philosophical debate where you maintained that Sensation is no more independent of our existence than Intuition, and I was trying to say that even if you hold this very questionable scepticism to be true, we still treat and act like Sensation is independent of ourselves and something others can share the same perceptions of, while we don't treat our ideas or other mental imagery the same way. If you tell someone to "take a seat" if they visit your house, you are assuming that they see the chair that you can see. That doesn't require you to explain to them the ins and outs of the chair which you can see in front of you, like you would an idea in your head.

This seems simplistic and contradictory for a few reasons.  One is that we only treat certain aspects of sensation as shareable, such as structural features of the environment like chairs.  But we don't assume people will have the same tastes or sensory preferences though which are huge aspects of sensation (also ethics, but very much mixed with sensation).  Physiology, culture, sensibility, geography, etc. all impact how we relate to sensation with one another.  And Jack often refers to empirical facts as Te, not sensation, so even he admits to a logical aspect of this universality though I'm not sure I'd assign it to Te.  Also, Jack himself corrects people with concepts all the time, sees them as true and universal even if people don't understand them right away, such as in this very debate saying that Eric has created his concept wrong, and Jack bases his argument on nothing but abstraction.  Abstract mathematics and ideologies are some of the things that can most easily become cross-cultural, but sensory things often have a harder time doing this unless they are a universal human necessity or desire.

I should also say that yes, this kind of objectivity vs. subjectivity for Intuition vs. Sensation appears different to that of Logic vs. Ethics, more about concreteness vs. abstraction, rather than interestedness (partiality) vs. disinterestedness (impartiality), but it still shares in re-interpretation parameter. The reason why there is still that difference is due to a further dichotomy: Detached vs. Involved, whether something is thought about, or else, felt vivaciously. Because Logic is Detached and Ethics is Involved, being 'interested' vs. 'disinterested' applies, with the Objective information being disinterested and the Subjective information being interested. When it comes to Intuition vs. Sensation though, the subjective Intuition is Detached, while the Sensation is Involved. You can feel a pin prick, you can't feel a Platonic form. For this reason, the idea of interestedness vs. disinterestedness can be shown to be a conflation of External (objective or explicit) vs. Internal (subjective or implicit) and Detached (thought about) vs. Involved (felt vivaciously). It is not a fundamental concept but a composite concept.

I don't think concreteness is considered objective, whereas abstraction is considered subjective. There is no argument for this and it is very non-standard.  The re-interpretation thing is way more complicated than Jack thinks, as I already argued, and it is also very convoluted.  A pin itself could be platonic form, and the idea of a platonic form is not only intuition but also logic (it is a FORM).  So, I don't quite agree that we don't use something like platonic forms to understand basic objects.  It's just an abstraction, basically, and even our understanding of objects partakes in that, at least in a sense of folk understanding.  This calculus of concepts is very subjective and dubious in its associations: external, explicit and objective all mean different things.  But I do agree that logic is the most objective in a sense.  However, just because you can do this calculus of concepts doesn't mean you've proven this is the only interpretation, which is what Jack acts like here.

This is a clear, and consistent framework for understanding information using consistent rules that apply equally across each kind of information. Yours comes off to me as more higgledy-piggledy, rules apply in some places, but don't apply in others. Ideas of subjectivity/objectivity only apply to tell apart Ti and Fi, but can't be used by you to tell apart, say, Ne and Se, or even Te and Fe. It's too ad hoc to be a framework in the way I understand a framework to be. Rules should apply across, and if they currently don't via your definitions, maybe you've conflated something in your defintions.

There are a lot of problems with it that I pointed out and good questions Eric asked which Jack indeed avoided answering to defend a viewpoint rather than to reach a more complete, fundamental understanding.  It is true that Eric's system has less uniform rules than Jack's, but that in itself isn't a weakness as it mirrors the real complexity of reality.  But it doesn't mean that Eric is correct either and maybe Socionics could help him improve his system.  Jack's idea of a framework is too uniform and simplistic but maybe he can point out real flaws with Eric's.  Rules may apply across, it depends on their nature and what the framework is actually modeling.  Jack tends to focus too much on texts and abstractions not tied to reality, as you can see from his comments in this debate.