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A New Model of the Information Metabolism of the Psyche. The Internal Quantisation of Psychic Functions

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A NEW MODEL OF THE INFORMATION METABOLISM OF THE PSYCHE. THE INTERNAL QUANTISATION OF PSYCHIC FUNCTIONS

Bukalov A. V.

Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology, No. 5, 2001 — International Institute of Socionics — Section: RESEARCH

Abstract. A mechanism is described for the internal quantization of the functions of information metabolism (the psychic functions) into 8, 16 and more levels of functioning. The new quantum “layered,” or “crystalline,” model of the information metabolism of the psyche significantly broadens the scope of socionics. The proposed Model B(QL) significantly broadens the scope of socionics.1 In place of a rigid, fixed system of 16 types and their corresponding IR, there arises the possibility of deep modelling of an individual human psyche, the construction of a model of a concrete IM-function structure, and so forth. Aspects of social psychology and sociology and of psychotherapy, and equally the particularities of personality psychology — extending to the pathologies studied by psychiatry, to hypnosis, and so on — are described in a unified manner.

Keywords: socionics, psychic functions, functions of information metabolism, model of the psyche, informational model of an ethnos, subpersonality, sociology, hypnosis, psychotherapy.

When we consider the psychoinformational space of a collective or of an ethnos, functional cells corresponding to the 8-component Model A or the 16-component Model B [1] arise within it of necessity. This phenomenon explains what has been called the type of mentality of an ethnos, or the integral type of an ethnos, and has been described by the socionic model. It turned out that any psychoinformational space (as was shown on the example of simple collectives) is quantized and structured into cells analogous to Model A or Model B. And this quantization has a systemic character, whichever collective we take. Moreover, in the extended “layered” model of the ethnos which I proposed in 1998, a whole series of such cells arose — stratifications of the model, as it were [2] (fig. 1).

On examining the general psychoinformational space of an ethnos, it turned out that the functions of information metabolism of this general space also admit of internal quantization. What does this mean?

Consider some integral function of information metabolism — for example, intuition of possibilities (fig. 2). It turns out that we can distinguish 8 (or 16) states of this function, which occupy distinguished global cells within this functional space of intuition. The functional roles of these cells describe what, to a first approximation, Model A describes. This follows from the principle of fractality proposed by the author in 1988, applicable not only to the socion and to the IM types [3] but also to the internal structure of the functions of information metabolism.

If we then consider Model A as a whole, the states of these IM functions form layers within the model (fig. 3).

A fine “layered” spectrum arises, and with each layer — each state — a social structure may be matched. Since such a model of the ethnos describes ethnic and socio-political processes well, it can naturally be regarded as a psychoinformational model with a fine spectrum, and one may then consider the familiar Models A or B with such a quantization of states taken into account — their fine spectrum, a kind of “packet.” Each model here resides in a cell analogous to a cell of Model A. Model A is then stratified into 8 states — submodels. And the internal state of the model is quantized over eight states. In analogous fashion, further differentiation yields 16 states (for simplicity we consider only quantization by layers). Combinations of IM-function states from different layers — different “levels” of Model A — are admissible, and these describe the individual particularities of a personality.

Such a view of the model recalls the spectroscopy of atoms in quantum physics, where a fine spectrum of energy levels is observed within the atom. In the functions of information metabolism we discover a fine psychoinformational spectrum, showing the distinguished regimes of functioning of the human psyche, the dominant levels.

Consider the vital regime of functioning of a TIM — levels 5–8. Thus, if the 8th level dominates in a person, primitive needs are characteristic of them, and such a person is driven rather by instincts. A person at the 5th level of functioning is oriented toward passive consumption.2

Consider now the “mental” level of functioning. The 3rd–4th levels: the person is socialized, stands in interaction with society, and understands not only their vital but also their social needs.

At the higher levels, especially the 1st–2nd, the person is intellectually developed in the given IM function; they possess a fine intellect and developed cognitive and creative abilities.

Thus a person may be highly developed in some functions (to the degree that the model of their type permits), and in others (as happens) poorly developed — these functions may have a low level of differentiation. In this case a “gap” forms in the aspect corresponding to the weakly developed function. The person is characterized by deviant behaviour in some narrow domain — for example in the domain of ethics or of sensorics — which may show itself in intimate life or in certain predilections, hobbies and the like, extending as far as “eccentricities,” “manias” and “pathologies.”

A person may be an intellectual in one respect, and may have high, even spiritual aspirations, while at the same time being helpless in another; and this helplessness may be accompanied by aggression along those IM functions which operate in vital states 8 or 7.

Thus we obtain a fine spectrum of the functioning of a person’s psychic functions. And we can then determine, for each function, its level of functioning. So, for example, the first function works at the 2nd level (or functions in the 2nd state), the second at the 3rd level, the third in the 6th state, the fourth in the 3rd. If we consider the fourth, one-dimensional function, the difference in levels of functioning between people belonging to one and the same type will be very noticeable. Thus, if the fourth function works at the 1st or 2nd levels, we have the variant of a developed, cultured person, with a well-elaborated vector of personal experience and self-assessment along the corresponding informational aspect — that is, a person developed in the fourth function as far as is possible.

Thus the differential layered model, proposed earlier for the description of an ethnos, describes well the fine spectrum of the IM functions of an individual psyche. But in that case, to the social instances — the state, the force structures, the sphere of science and art, the church and so forth — described as structures of the psychoinformational space of an ethnos [2], there must correspond certain structures or instances of the individual psyche. What might these be?

In the model of the ethnos there exist governing instances — for example the state, and other socio-political structures. And the state as a governing structure may be adequate to its ethnos, corresponding to it fairly harmoniously (a democratic state), or it may suppress the ethnos to a significant degree, up to attempts at total control (totalitarian and authoritarian regimes). What does this mean from the standpoint of a model of the individual psyche? It means that there exist regimes of functioning of psychic instances within the type, including governing instances. Such governing instances may be formed above all in the space of pairs of IM functions, including those described by the blocks of Model A: EGO, SUPEREGO, SUPERID and ID, though other variants are possible too. The EGO* subblock of this governing instance corresponds to that distinguished conjunction of IM functions, and the other subblocks of the governing instance are formed accordingly. Thus, alongside the EGO block of the general IM-function system, there also exists another subblock EGO* (sometimes more than one).

What does this mean? It is nothing other than the structure of a subpersonality, empirically distinguished and described in the psychology of Assagioli.

In socionics this phenomenon is well known. Thus the type ⬥ (EIE) fairly often “mimics” its dual ⬥ (LSI): it tries to be logical, firm, decisive, and declares ⬥-values. From the position of our model this means that a person of type EIE has formed a governing psychic instance above the SUPERID block — more precisely, within the informational space of that block. Empirically this phenomenon has been given the name “self-dualization,” the formation of a “dual phantom.” However, analogous governing instances may be formed above the horizontal blocks SUPEREGO and ID as well as above the vertical blocks.

Thus the method of quantizing the psychoinformational space of the IM functions permits the phenomena of subpersonality to be described easily. Besides governing, dominant subpersonalities, others may also be distinguished, which form over the course of a person’s life.

Governing subpersonalities, acting within the psychoinformational space of the type, make use of its resources. The person is conscious of themselves as precisely this personality (or partly as this personality). A paradox then arises: a person belongs, say, to type EIE, and this is clearly noticeable in their manner of speaking, of moving, of joking, in their ability to perceive an interlocutor’s emotional state. But their psychological and mental attitudes, including verbal constructions, correspond in significant part to type LSI. The differences consist in a lesser differentiation in the manifestation of ⬥-attitudes and values.

On the other hand, such a dual subpersonality allows a person to be more harmonious and balanced and to have greater internal resources. A vivid example of this is the President of the Russian Federation, V. V. Putin. Being of type ⬥ (EIE), he possesses an ⬥-subpersonality. It is precisely for this reason that some psychologists and socionists have determined his type as ⬥ (LSI). Such an error is unsurprising: political leaders, as outstanding people, usually have a complex psychological structure. And from a purely psychological standpoint a number of V. V. Putin’s statements and speeches correspond to type LSI, whereas his informal behaviour testifies to the true type EIE. That this is so is easy to verify. It is expressed in his dynamism, in the mobility of his movements, in his ability to sense the state of people and his need to communicate with them,3 in his inclination to risk, even in his gait. There is a well-known utterance of V. V. Putin’s regarding terrorists: “We will waste them everywhere, even in the outhouse.”4 Verbs of this kind are not entirely characteristic of a differentiated IM function of “volitional sensorics” ⬥ in its higher (1st–3rd) states, which excludes its belonging to the EGO block. In this particular case it is a manifestation of the ⬥-subpersonality through the 5th function of type ⬥ (EIE).

Thus, superficially V. V. Putin may be assigned to type ⬥ (LSI), whereas a deeper examination shows that this is ⬥ (EIE) with a governing and dominant ⬥-subpersonality. Observations show that some people are predisposed to the formation of subpersonalities, especially dual ones, along the SUPERID block. However, variants of subpersonalities along the SUPEREGO and ID blocks and others are also encountered.

Consider the example of Niels Bohr. Without any particular grounding, it was held that his type was ⬥ (ILE), since he was an outstanding theoretical physicist. Yet a careful study of Bohr’s biography shows that he may belong to the type dual to ⬥ (ILE), namely ⬥ (SEI). He knew how to work with his hands. In his student years he himself assembled an apparatus for measuring the viscosity of water and received a medal for it; he was a football goalkeeper; he assembled a team of talented physicists; he was very tactful, and to newcomers he would say: “We want to hear something interesting from you” — which is nothing other than a request of ⬥ (SEI) along the fifth function ⬥. At the same time he thought in a rather peculiar way: when he was asked a question, he would sit down, “go into himself,” his face would go slack and come to resemble the face of an idiot, and he would sit like that for a time. Then his face would assume a normal expression, Bohr would come back to himself and say: “Yes, now I understand it” [7]. Proceeding from this, one may say that for his theoretical work N. Bohr made use of a dual subpersonality of type ⬥ (ILE), operating at the “mental” 1st or 2nd levels. Let us add further that above these levels — the analogue of the mental ring — there may exist levels that are analogues of the supramental ring, while below the 8th level there may lie levels of the instincts — an analogue of the physical ring of the IM type [4].

Thus the presence of a subpersonality may be harmonious and may promote the development of the personality. However, it may also be disharmonious, if this subpersonality is parasitic — formed, for example, in the SUPEREGO block — or if, being a governing one, it functions at the lower levels. When a “parasitic” subpersonality arises which is bound to the lower vital levels of functioning and stands in unfavourable intertype psychoinformational interactions (intertype relations) with the person’s own type, one may speak of suicidal types, of an attraction to destructive actions, of asocial behaviour and so forth. All this is determined by the concrete subpersonality formed on vital states 5–8. Such a subpersonality draws upon the resources of the psyche (especially along the SUPEREGO), “sucks the juices out”; to sustain itself it attempts to draw off the greater part of the energy of the libido. And along the SUPERID the resources are there because the greater part of the informational flow passes through it.

Thus a subpersonal consciousness (or subconsciousness) may to a significant degree govern a person. In analogous fashion one may describe the process of hypnosis, where the role of the governing subpersonality takes in the external consciousness of the hypnotist, which switches over to itself the governance of the person’s psyche within the internal space of the psychic functions. Propaganda acts in an analogous way, forming in a person a governability with respect to an external subpersonality, which subsequently acquires a subpersonal instance within the person’s own psyche. Social or professional upbringing and training may form a subpersonality bound to a social, functional role: “the educator,” “the bureaucrat,” “the true Aryan,” “the staunch communist,” “the military man,” “the millionaire,” “the real woman,” “the real man,” “the macho,” “the salesman,” “the entrepreneur” and so on. The proposed model can also describe the formation of a stereotype of behaviour within an ethnic group, or among the adherents of some religious confession, as the formation of a subpersonality — for example “the Christian,” “the Muslim” and others.

The presence of such subpersonalities leads to a deformation of the psyche, including a professional one: the person habitually reacts through their functional subpersonality to this or that phenomenon of life outside their professional sphere. Individual fragments of the subpersonality’s functioning may here fail entirely to correspond to their true type. For this reason a person may, up to a certain point, behave within the frame of the subpersonality, but afterwards, when the threshold of complexity or significance — that is, of dimensionality — of the task or situation to be resolved rises, they behave in accordance with their real type of information metabolism. Therefore, in communication and in the testing of concrete people it is necessary to take into account the possible presence of subpersonalities modifying a person’s behaviour and thinking. Otherwise one may err seriously.

Let us consider one further aspect of the functioning of a subpersonality. Where a governing, dominant subpersonality is present, a modification of intertype relations is also possible. Between the types of the subpersonality and of the partner, relations may arise and develop which are capable of modifying the intertype relations. For an unstable subpersonality conditioned by the “values” of contemporary subculture, this leads to short-lived interest of one person in another, to hasty marriages and so on — hence the high statistics of divorce. In the case of stable subpersonalities, relations may develop over a long time, but within definite limits. Crossing the boundaries reveals the true psychoinformational interactions and the intertype relations (IR) corresponding to them. This explains how it is that some people collaborate while standing in formally unfavourable IR. Even among duals there occur variants of contact with a conflicting, supervisory, fully opposite and so forth subpersonality of the partner, which is not the governing one but is activated under certain conditions. In this case quarrels arise between people who would seem ideally suited to one another.

From the standpoint of the proposed model, the external communicative models introduced by V. D. Ermak [8] — more precisely, communicative psychoinformational structures — may be regarded as external communicative structures5 with respect to the surrounding environment, to society. Whereas the internal layers of the model and their instances — the subpersonalities — may be regarded as internal hierarchical communicative structures with respect to the “I,” to consciousness, formed so as to secure the internal stability of the system and to protect the function of consciousness.

Thus two kinds of structures arise, and models corresponding to them. An external structure arises when the psychic functions resist internal transformation under the pressure of society and the environment. It is then protected by a communicative structure which is external with respect to them. If, on the other hand, the psychic functions respond to some informational impact by internal self-organization, which may be described by the methods of synergetics, then one or a series of subpersonalities is formed, which are governing instances with respect to the reaction of the IM functions to that external favourable or unfavourable impact. And we are dealing, as it were, with internal communicative structures joining consciousness and the information-processing IM functions.

Let us note, however, that external communicative psychoinformational structures may likewise be regarded as a consequence of the quantization of the psyche (of psychic space), in which the basis level is the system of IM functions described by the 8-component Model A or the 16-component Model B.

Just as in a hen’s egg, under the influence of an internal genetic programme and under definite conditions, a chick is formed out of an outwardly homogeneous yolk and white, and its internal organs, skeleton and so forth are differentiated — so too do structures arise within an ethnos. They may be called integral governing social subpersonalities. Thus contemporary Ukraine has two integral governing social subpersonalities. The first, along the SUPEREGO — ⬥* — was formed under the influence of the bureaucratic, administrative-command apparatus of the USSR (⬥ (LSI)) and continues to exist at the level of the vital (7th–8th) states as a semi-autonomous parasitic, repressive, fiscal structure, sucking out internal resources and retarding the country’s economic development. The second, along the SUPERID — ⬥*. It functions at the lower (7th–8th) levels, reflects the oligarchic system, and parasitizes upon the flows of external and internal resources (energy, finances and so forth).

Analogous processes take place in the human psyche as well: psychic instances are formed, including subpersonalities of various levels, above all under the influence of society. The governing subpersonality of the Ego subblock is capable of capturing the focus of a person’s attention and consciousness, and for this reason a person often identifies themselves with a particular subpersonality. Archetypes may also be transmitted through a subpersonality — for example the Ego, the Persona, the Shadow, the Anima, the Animus and others, which are projected onto the blocks of Model A [5, 6]. At the level of society, an integral social subpersonality is capable of capturing public consciousness and the consciousness of the individual personality, and people begin to identify themselves with the state, the party, a social stratum and so on.

Supramental subpersonalities are formed in an analogous manner, and probably also subpersonalities connected with the physical plane.

In cases of supramental subpersonalities there arise the stable states of deeply believing people, of the “enlightened” and so forth. Thus the religious states well known in human culture are connected with the formation and realization of supramental or superconscious subpersonalities. Sometimes certain subpersonalities, forming upon separate, resonant states, may acquire autonomy. What does this mean? It is nothing other than the classic case of the splitting of the personality, that is, schizophrenia.6 And our model can describe this easily. The autonomization of a subpersonality occurs because unacceptable information is blocked or displaced from the region of consciousness, and a splitting of that consciousness into subpersonalities takes place.

From a physical standpoint, the internal structure of the IM functions described here resembles a crystal lattice with quantum states and levels. It is known that in crystals there often arise so-called dislocations — sites where crystalline order is violated — and this violation may migrate through the crystal. In the present case, through the “crystalline” structure of the psyche.7

Thus the proposed Model B(QL) significantly broadens the scope of socionics. In place of a rigid, fixed system of 16 types and their corresponding IR, there arises the possibility of deep modelling of an individual human psyche, the construction of a model of a concrete IM-function structure, and so forth. Aspects of social psychology and sociology and of psychotherapy, and equally the particularities of personality psychology — extending to the pathologies studied by psychiatry, to hypnosis, and so on — are described in a unified manner by means of the quantum layered Model B(QL).

References

  1. Bukalov A. V. The Phenomenon of the Quantization of the Informational Space of a Collective. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1998. — No. 1.
  2. Bukalov A. V. A New Model of the Ethnos and the State. The Psychoinformational Space of an Ethnos. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1999. — No. 5.
  3. Bukalov A. V. The 16-Component Model of the TIM and the Socion. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1996. — No. 4.
  4. Bukalov A. V. On the Four-Level Model of the Type. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1996. — No. 3.
  5. Bukalov A. V. On Male and Female Models in Socionics. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1995. — No. 2.
  6. Gulenko V. V. An Archetypal Interpretation of the Model of the Psyche in Socionics. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1998. — No. 2.
  7. Danin D. V. Man of the Vertical. (A Narrative of Niels Bohr) / in the volume Selected Works — Moscow, Sovetsky Pisatel. — 1984.
  8. Ermak V. D. The Interaction of the Human Psyche with the Surrounding World. The Informational Aspectual Structure of Subjective Representations of the World. // Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology. — 1997. Nos. 5–6.

Footnotes

Figures

Fig. 1 — the layered model of the ethnos. Model-A cells paired with social strata:

CellsSocial stratum
1, 2popular mentality
4, 3the commercial-industrial stratum
6, 5the state as administrative apparatus, including the force structures (army, police, …)
7, 8the intelligentsia, religious structures

Fig. 2 — a single integral IM function (intuition of possibilities), internally quantized into the same eight numbered cells (1 2 / 4 3 / 6 5 / 7 8) — the fractality principle applied inside one function.

Fig. 3 — “Quantized states of the IM functions for ⬥ (LII).” A vertical stack of levels 8 (bottom) to 1 (top), each level carrying a full row of the eight aspect glyphs, with ellipses indicating continuation.

Fig. 4 — nested schematic: External environment → communicative layers → IM-function model → psychic substrate, with the Self at the centre.

Translator’s notes

Footnotes

  1. The original abstract states twice that the model “significantly broadens the scope of socionics”; the duplication is in the source and has been kept. The model designation in the original is Б(КС) — Б is Model B, and КС almost certainly abbreviates квантовая слоистая, “quantum layered.” I have rendered it B(QL) throughout; if you’d prefer the untranslated Б(КС) or a different expansion, it’s a single find-and-replace. ↩

  2. Let us note that the general hierarchy of a person’s values, depending on the level of development and without reference to the IM model of the psyche, has also been described phenomenologically by T. N. Prokofieva (in press). ↩

  3. Thus, for example, while a guest at J. Bush’s house, V. V. Putin, surveying the views of Texas, asked: “But where are the people of Texas?” A question entirely natural for an ethical extravert, and far less natural for a logical introvert. In response to this question, incidentally, J. Bush pointed at himself. ↩

  4. The Putin quotation is «Мы будем их мочить всюду, даже в сортирах». Bukalov’s argument turns entirely on register, which does not survive a neutral rendering: мочить is criminal-underworld slang for killing (literally “to wet”), and сортир is a coarse word for a latrine. English press versions vary between “rub them out in the outhouse” and “waste them in the shithouse.” I have used a middle register; adjust to taste, but note that a polite rendering destroys the point he is making about the function’s level of differentiation. ↩

  5. It must be clearly recognized that only psychoinformational structures — the IM functions, for example — are real, whereas a model constitutes only a theoretical description of their functioning. ↩

  6. At the artistic level this is well described in E. Remarque’s novel The Black Obelisk, where the protagonist converses with a girl in whom two subpersonalities manifest by turns. On recovering, she returned to a third, real personality. ↩

  7. On another interpretation, within the framework of the physics of consciousness, the phenomenon of the quantization of the IM functions is comparable to the quantum Hall effect — the appearance of fractional (!) electric charges in certain media. The discovery of this effect was recognized by the Nobel Prize of 1988. ↩

Graph View