Chapter 2

The Problem of Information Metabolism and Information Aspects

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again. — English nursery rhyme

One of the key concepts of socionics is the concept of information metabolism. This concept was first introduced into scientific use by the Polish psychiatrist A. Kępiński. He did so by analogy with the chemical metabolism of substances in the human organism. The analogy turned out to be not only logically correct but also productive. It is simply astonishing that philosophers never arrived at this concept — philosophers who thought their way, for example, to “symbolic interactionism” and “symbolic exchange” — are these not synonyms for information metabolism? And they used these concepts quite effectively.¹ But for the philosophers, the concept of symbolic exchange, alas, remained tied to the narrow domain of social relations and was not transferred to intrapsychic processes, as Kępiński did. Nor did the cyberneticists do this, even though all their concepts rest essentially on the notion of information — on its circulation and transformation not only in technical systems but in systems of any kind, which of course include living organisms and social structures. It is precisely to the cyberneticists that we owe the description of the full cycle of information transformation in systems, namely: perception, storage, processing, and output of information. But this is exactly the most general configuration of information metabolism! Was a mere indication of information processes in systems really not enough to carry this idea over into psychology? The Soviet ideological paradigm simply did not allow the possibility of such a transfer, relegating it to the category of mechanisms; and the cybernetic view of information processes lacked the breadth of scope that is present in the concept of metabolism.

The analogy with physiological processes is quite essential here. It points to significantly more diverse, subtle, and complex forms of the functioning of information in that complex system, so fundamentally important to humanity, which is the human being with its anatomy, physiology, and, of course, psyche. The concept of information metabolism is not reducible simply to an exchange of information. It also includes processing, assimilation, and storage — it is the systemic existence of information.

The point here is not merely that information flows are compared with flows of chemical substances, although that is certainly important and productive. The point is that here, for the first time in the history of science, information acquires the status of a universal entity, not reducible to material objects. It is precisely the particular way information processes unfold in the psyche of a concrete person that makes them a unique and unrepeatable being. A human being, as a person and a creature endowed with reason, cannot exist without information — to a far greater degree than they cannot exist without food. Information substantially changes the functioning of the human being as a thinking and social creature. The programming and reprogramming of human beings can be understood as the principal content of human history.

“The human psyche feeds on information. A person’s mental health depends on the quantity and quality of this information.” This phrase of Kępiński’s can, of course, be taken as a metaphor, but it is more than a metaphor. It is the key insight thanks to which the concept of information in psychology — and accordingly in socionics — acquires a special status, becoming a fundamental category that must be analyzed, adopted, and systematically used in practice. This is precisely what socionics does. And in this sense, socionics can be defined, first and foremost, as the theory of information metabolism in the human psyche.

Aušra Augustinavičiūtė named the new science she created socionics, or the theory of types of information metabolism. “With this name we will at least partly render due honor to the classic of Polish psychiatry, A. Kępiński, the creator of an original theory of information metabolism fully consonant with our typology,” she wrote [1].

Once the concept of information metabolism is introduced, it becomes possible to speak professionally not only and not simply about mental disorders, but about informational anomalies and illnesses, about informational hunger, deprivation, satiation, informational infection, informational poisons and viruses that afflict the human psyche. From this point of view, one can look in an entirely different way at such phenomena as, for example, ideology and religion.

The concept of information metabolism (IM) is a natural generalization of the concept of chemical metabolism, well developed in research on physiological processes in humans and animals. This concept presupposes and proceeds from the premise that information is, for the human being (and presumably for all living creatures as well), just as important an object of consumption as substance and energy. This is an entirely constructive analogy with the consumption and exchange of substance and energy. Information is perceived, accumulated, assimilated, stored, transformed, and partly output to the outside for interaction with the external world, while part of the information remains inside and constitutes the inner world of the person.

The concept of IM is a target both of scientific criticism and of critical attacks by representatives of other sciences, who apparently consider the transfer of the concept of metabolism from the sphere of physiology — where it was formulated and fully developed on the basis of biochemistry — to be illegitimate or inadequate. However, in the progressive development of science, the concept of metabolism can without doubt be generalized and transferred from one scientific discipline to another. This is not only ordinary but widespread practice. And the concept of physiological metabolism is all the easier to generalize to information processes because it points to only one particular — very important, but nonetheless limited — kind of metabolism. Here, by metabolism, we will understand the systemic transformation of an initial substrate into diverse products-metabolites, which constitute complex biochemical conglomerates within the human organism. Raw material is transformed into subsequent products not only in the physiological media of living organisms but also in technological production. Moreover, analogous processes occur everywhere in nature all the time. It is therefore not difficult to correctly broaden the content of this concept and begin applying it to all transformations of initial objects into derivative ones, where the objects are material aggregates. What is more, the concept is applicable to transformations of still more complex matter-energy-information complexes (MEI-complexes), in which matter, energy, and information may be represented not only in different proportions but may also change their potential and kinetic forms.

The body and psyche of a human being form an indissoluble unity (a hypothesis). However, if material-energetic processes predominate in the body, then energo-informational processes predominate in the psyche. And just as material food is necessary to maintain health in the body, so, to maintain mental health, a person must consume certain kinds of information.

The human being as a psychic structure cannot exist without the consumption, processing, and output of information, and information processes in the environment and in the human psyche have and perform a whole range of diverse functions. The analogue of the plastic function in information metabolism can be considered the filling of the psyche with specific programs (John Lilly, A. V. Bukalov), forming an informational array which ultimately determines the states, behavior, and all manner of manifestations of the human personality, including its character. Information metabolites can act as informational poisons, viruses, infectors,² vitamins, pleasure-givers,³ buffer systems,⁴ inhibitors,⁵ and so on.

A deep and fruitful analogy can be drawn between many social processes and the physiological states of an organism — illness and health. Thus, for example, allergic reactions of the organism can be compared with informational intolerance and incompatibility — the rejection and non-acceptance by society of certain informational complexes; while malignant tumors can be compared with the excessive growth of some single social complex, leading to the deterioration of the functioning of the society and, subsequently, to its death. An example of such growth is the total spread of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the Soviet Union, which suppressed all dissent and ended with the death of the old order. This analogy is not merely a metaphor — pursuing it consistently can suggest solutions using social technologies possessing “sanitizing” properties with respect to society. Socionics may become one such technology.

Physiological metabolism is closely and directly connected with the fixing of quite definite bodily forms, traits, and behavioral peculiarities. This is one realization of the informational component of food. The same can be said of information metabolism. The constant functioning of certain information metabolites in psychic structures is expressed and consolidated in behavioral peculiarities — body language, gestures, facial expressions, gait, character of speech, tempo-rhythm. All of this is ultimately fixed in bodily forms: thinness, fullness, muscular density, slenderness, stooping, facial features — and can serve as an element of the diagnostic indicators of the type of information metabolism. We are far here from crude straightforwardness in the unambiguous establishment of bodily (and behavioral!) diagnostic traits of the TIM — what should be at issue, rather, is a systemic combination of diverse indicators at various levels.

Between information metabolism and physiological metabolism there exists a natural and deep analogy. However, whereas the theory and details of physiological metabolism have been worked out in detail thanks to the successes of modern biology, the development of the questions of information metabolism is only beginning. Relying on this analogy, one can suppose that, like the numerous physiological metabolic processes, metabolic cycles, and metabolites, there also exist and function information metabolites, likewise forming metabolic chains and cycles, having as their source the informational influence of various objects and phenomena connected with particular information aspects (IA).

The analogy between physiological and psychic processes in the human body can be represented as two series of closely connected processes, one of which constitutes the exchange of substances called physiological metabolism, and the other the continuous transformation of information. Can this process be identified with the psyche, or at least with some aspect of its functioning? To answer this question with any confidence, further experimental and theoretical research is needed. Nevertheless, one can see here a full-fledged fundamental problem facing psychology, physiology, and psychophysiology.

Relying on the idea of IM, one can say that just as food products of various origins contain substances that are incorporated into metabolic chains, so various phenomena, processes, and objects contain informational components which, entering the structures of psychic systems, exert a specific effect on them. And just as physiological nutrition performs several functions — plastic (formation of bodily tissues), energetic (restoration and replenishment of the organism’s energy reserves), pragmatic (a person enters into interaction with food products, their procurement, preparation, consumption, forms a personal attitude toward them, etc.), social (the formation of relations between people on the basis of interaction with food products and their consumption), medical (the improvement or worsening of health connected with food consumption, since food can be beneficial or harmful), and others — so, or analogously, matters presumably stand with information. Such a supposition does not contradict the empirically observable facts of the processing of information flows both by individual people and by complex social structures and infrastructural complexes. Moreover, since the emergence and establishment of cybernetics, the transformation of information has become a generally accepted concept in science. Cybernetics identified the following generalized kinds of information processing: input, storage, processing, and output. True, in this list storage does not, in a certain sense, correspond to the concept of processing. At best it might be classed as a null variety of processing.

However, in cybernetics, in solving the technical problems of computing machines, the storage of information became a separate and rather complex problem, which apparently is what led to this process being singled out as a distinct variety of information processing. Therefore, although this process undoubtedly has exceptionally great significance in the functioning of information, it should nonetheless be taken “outside the brackets” as a common denominator in the series of information-transformation processes — simply because information must be preserved at every stage of its processing, and this process turns out to be invariant with respect to any of its transformations. In this sense, information storage — memory — should apparently be regarded as a standard procedure common to all living creatures, independent of the species-level or individual significance of the stored information. Taking this into account, we should single out the essential steps of the meaningful transformation of information by a subject. The most generalized steps of this process can be named as follows:

1. Detection and perception of information.
2. Input of information into the structures of the psyche and evaluation of its subjective significance.
3. Processing of it within the system of psychic structures as an element in the construction of an internal model of the external environment.
4. Output of an informational product to the outside, as a result of adaptation to the environment.

Having read this list, one may ask several questions. How does the detection of information differ from its perception? Can one detect information without perceiving it? Possibly, at the chosen level of generalization, these two processes are indistinguishable. Nevertheless, a subtle difference between these two concepts and the processes corresponding to them should be noted. It is known in psychophysiology that the process of perception has its own structure. In the most general form, this structure can be represented by three phases. The first phase is precisely the process of detecting the signal carrying the information. In highly developed animals it takes fractions of a second. This is undifferentiated perception, and it can be described as “something exists” — a mere registration of the existence of a potentially significant phenomenon, information about which is carried by the signal.

The second phase of perception, also taking fractions of a second, is an extremely generalized assessment of the signal by degree of potential danger. If the potential danger exceeds a certain threshold value, the signal is transmitted from the sensory neurons directly to the motor neurons, bypassing the interneurons, so that the perceiving subject can automatically perform actions adequate to the degree of danger without subjecting the signal to more detailed processing. And only in the third phase of perception does classification of the signal occur — that is, its comparison with a standard, if one exists, and its assignment to a definite category. This is how, for example, blinking occurs at the rapid and sudden approach of any dangerous object to the eye. The same applies to jerking one’s hand away upon accidentally touching something hot, or the instantaneous restoration of balance upon its unexpected loss. On the whole, this step can be matched to the work of the sensory system. This step carries an irrational characteristic, since the perceived signal does not depend in any way on the perceiving subject.

As for the second step in the list above, it too looks doubtful. Is the perception of information not already its input into the structures of the psyche? If information has been perceived, that means it has been entered into psychic structures. Therefore the description of the second step should be simplified, presenting it simply as evaluation. This step corresponds to the function of feeling and of relation, which are the extraverted and introverted forms of one and the same process. This step carries a rational characteristic, since the perceived signal is here evaluated by the internal means of the perceiving subject.

The third step here looks excessively abstract. After all, the other steps also constitute the processing of information in psychic structures. This step therefore needs to be made more precise by indicating the specific variety of processing. That variety is the transformation of the received information into an internal model of the external object about which the signal brought information. In its most general form, what is at issue here is the creation of an internal model of the external environment. In terms of human activity, one can speak here of the formation of a concept corresponding to the object of perception. This process is creative, and at its basis lies intuition. Creative processes are always perceived as something mysterious, which fully corresponds to the semantics of intuition. This step carries an irrational characteristic, since it essentially employs a capacity that does not depend directly on the will of the perceiving subject. It switches on spontaneously, as the result of a certain vital impulse, inspiration, an irrational surge. Although intuition is semantically closest to thinking, unlike thinking it does not lend itself to detailed structuring. Of all the psychological functions it has, perhaps, the most enigmatic character.

The fourth step — the output of information to the outside — also needs some concretization. It is clear that in technology, the output of the result of a device’s work is the final product. However, in a more general and at the same time more concrete sense, this step is the closing of the feedback loop. The obtained result, besides its consumer value, is a concretized evaluation of the work of all the links in the technological transformation of the initial material into the final product. One can say that on this step lies a technological accent, connected with the direct finishing of the product and giving it its final consumer form. The evaluation and re-evaluation of the entire chain of the metabolic process depends entirely on this last step. In a certain sense, in order to survive, the subject must try especially hard at this step. This step corresponds to the function of thinking in its introverted and extraverted forms. In the introverted form, it is the issuing into the environment of a certain message whose meaning is to test the degree of adaptation. In the extraverted form, it is the issuing into the environment of a concrete material product as the result of technological activity. Here the environment can always be understood as an analogue of space. Note also that both thinking processes and technological processes, unlike sensory, emotional, and intuitive ones, are characterized by heightened detail. This step carries a rational characteristic, since the finishing of the final product and the giving to it of its final consumer and commercial form can be almost completely controlled by the subject.

Thus, the concepts of rationality and irrationality can be connected with the degree to which the effectiveness and productivity of a process depends on the subject’s intention.

As a postulate advanced by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, one can assert: PEOPLE DIFFER FROM ONE ANOTHER IN THE QUALITY OF THE INFORMATION THEY CONSUME AND IN THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY CONSUME IT.

We can now add to this that each of the four stages of information processing presented above has its own typological coloring, determined by the IA of the corresponding function, and each of these stages constitutes precisely one of the maximally generalized psychic functions.

Aušra Augustinavičiūtė understood IM not as just any transformation of information whatsoever, but as a quite concrete mechanism of such transformation. This mechanism has a universal character in nature, and in the human psyche it merely receives a concrete embodiment. The information-metabolic process, according to Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, always proceeds from the accumulation of an informational potential, which becomes the basis of further transformation. In the scheme given above, this accumulation of informational potential corresponds to the input of information into the subject’s system. The next step — or, as Aušra Augustinavičiūtė says, the next information-metabolic stroke — is the mobilization of the accumulated informational potential. Mobilization is connected with the evaluation of the informational potential from the point of view of its possible usefulness. Here, in accordance with Aušra’s idea, begins the conversion of the potential form of information into its kinetic, active form. And since information never exists separately from its material-energetic carrier, one can speak — and this is precisely what Aušra says — of a joint energo-informational transformation. The energetic carrier of information in the psyche changes the form of its existence, passing from a potential state into a kinetic one, and together with this the informational processes take place. In the scheme given above, the mobilization stroke corresponds to the subjective evaluation of the significance of the received and accumulated information — to its emotional and “relational”⁷ perception.

Thus the energo-informational complex, set in motion in the functional circuits of the psyche, undergoes programming — that is, it is adapted to the internal parameters of subjectivity and directed toward the achievement of some concrete or generalized goal. This goal may then be formulated in terms of the Ego of the personality, and the personality perceives and realizes it as its own need and achievement, expressed in self-realization and self-affirmation. But since some part of the metabolic process (possibly the greater part) occurs at unconscious, subconscious, preconscious, superconscious, and postconscious levels, the personality may not be aware that it is, one way or another, fulfilling or failing to fulfill a social commission.

As a result of the work of the first two information-metabolic strokes, conditions are created for the formation of an internal model of all the conditions of the subject’s existence, which is synthesized as a result of the work of the program-potential function (PPF). After this comes the concluding stage (stroke) of the information-metabolic process — the obtaining of a concrete result, which is issued into the external environment and serves as a measure of the subject’s adaptation to the conditions of their existence.

Taking into account Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s thermodynamic heuristic connected with the image of a “four-stroke internal combustion engine,“⁸ one can speak of a universal thermodynamic “engine”⁹ that provides the dynamics of information processes. Information processes “mounted” on this engine can acquire the character of autonomously evolving entities. From the point of view of the evolution of the psyche, this may serve as a starting point for understanding the primary physical basis that could have been used for its development by a subjectivity that, presumably, objectively exists in this world. Of course, one must then suppose that subjectivity is by no means necessarily a product of the development of material aggregates, but is an original property, parameter, or aspect of a primary energetic entity. Let us add also that thermodynamic laws have unconditional priority over logical laws for the generalized description of natural phenomena. As for the systems paradigm, it appears that its rights, or its domain of applicability, lie beyond the domain of the thermodynamic paradigm — in the sense that the thermodynamic paradigm of existence precedes the systems paradigm of structural interactions. The thermodynamic paradigm makes it possible to explain the origin of complex psychic structures with support from natural laws, while the systems paradigm could make it possible to specify certain structural features of psychic entities. However, upon more careful investigation a deep connection between these paradigms can be discovered, which makes it unnecessary to oppose them, though a certain paradigmatic hierarchy may be presumed here.

In different worldview and scientific paradigms, information is assigned unequal roles and given various definitions. From the point of view of socionics as a scientific paradigm, information must be assigned to the fundamental concepts, and in this sense it is not subject to definition, since no simpler and self-evident concepts precede it by means of which it could be defined. However, we can discuss and refine this concept without insisting that the discussion will yield a strict definition. Moreover, intuitively supposing what information is, one could say in advance that it is impossible to define it at all. This is because a definition is itself an informational process, and whatever definition we give of information, we inevitably fall into a vicious circle in which the definition of the concept will explicitly or implicitly contain a reference to itself.

Note that information differs in principle from matter and energy,¹⁰ although it is apparently inseparable from them. Such an opposition of information to matter is tantamount to acknowledging that information is ideal — which, however, can be considered almost a tautology, since information can, albeit rather conditionally, be defined as the transmission of ideas, and ideas as that which is information. One could even say that for the ancient Greeks the concept of the idea included what has for us become the concept of information — though it is not excluded that, for historical reasons, this analogy is incomplete.

Note, incidentally, that cybernetics does not use the concept of the idea as a working term, leaving it to the philosophers and evidently justly considering that its subject matter differs from that of philosophy. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to compare the concept of information and the concept of the idea.

After all that has been said, one can give yet another definition of the subject: an ideal (read: informational) entity capable of changing its state under the influence of incoming information, displaying an activity that consists in changing behavioral parameters connected with a preliminary act of decision-making.

It is now easy to see that the subject is “opaque” to information, since the subject is itself the quintessence of informational processes. It is in the subject’s interest that not only perception (a passive process) but also the active processing of information occurs. To this must also be added the output of information for transmission to other subjects, as a result of which the basis appears for the emergence of a subject of a higher level — namely, society. Information turns out to be something that substantially influences the state of the subject and changes their behavior. Between the informational processes within the subject and the chemical processes within a living organism, one can discern a definite analogy, which is precisely characterized by the concept of metabolism — the sequential and purposeful transformation of an initial substrate into a final product. Moreover, these are not merely two parallel and independent processes: they have points of contact, where informational processes exert a substantial influence on physiological ones, and vice versa. It is clear, for example, that an athlete’s motivation by the goal of victory in a competition is an informational process, but it leads to physiological processes different from those that occur, say, during rest.

For further theoretical constructions we will proceed from the premise that, in the most general sense, the substrate of the world is energy, which does not contradict the generalized results of modern physics. Proceeding from the assumption that the hypothetical primary energetic substrate of the world presumably possesses the capacity for self-reflection,¹¹ one can obtain some working definitions of information. The forms of the manifestation and existence of energy are known from physics, and among them, in particular, is its wave-like, rhythmic, and vibrational character. In addition, physics speaks of frequency, amplitude, phase, diffraction, interference, and other features of energy fields. We will not go into the details of the metaphysical picture that could be built on these concepts; let us say only that such characteristics are quite sufficient to sketch a theoretical scheme of the evolution of the primary energy field up to the appearance of stable energy complexes manifesting in the world as substance. Let us note here that the plasticity, fluidity, and dynamism of the field does not prevent the appearance in it of modulations capable of reflecting its own states and the states of its individual parts — including those connected with the mutual influence of these parts — which can be regarded as the emergence of a primary code, or an objective model of the corresponding fragment of reality. A simple example of this is the appearance of waves on the surface of a pond from a falling stone. Here the waves constitute an objective model of the stone that fell into the water and carry information about the stone. A suitable organ would be capable of decoding this information, and a subject possessing such an organ could perceive an image of the stone — possibly a valuable one for the subject. It is perhaps astonishing that all the objects of our world are immersed in a medium capable, by its vibrations, of encoding their numerous parameters — that is, of turning the form¹² of objects into information. Note that this process, contrary to widespread opinion, does not at all presuppose the existence of subjects who could perceive this information. Thus what is asserted here is the objective existence of information as a more or less arbitrary code of the form of a material object. The primary codes of the objects of the material world, forming naturally according to the laws of nature, fill the surrounding space. In this connection one can say that the world is filled with information, and the subject evolving in this world develops suitable organs of perception. Such organs must be capable of transforming primary codes into codes that are, for one reason or another, convenient for the subject, and on the basis of which the subject creates an internal image of the object. This internal image is, properly speaking, the subjective model of the object. Whether the objectively existing code of a given object will be “claimed” by some subject is the subject’s affair. In the course of its evolution, the subject is capable of developing secondary codes on the basis of primary ones — and possibly codes of any other rank. In this way one can understand the existence of primary signal systems and the emergence of secondary ones. And the zero signal system should be taken to be the field of objective codes existing in the world independently of any subjective perception whatsoever.

If we now take one of the cybernetic definitions of information — as a measure of diversity — then one can say that together with the modulations of any fields and their systemic conglomerates (substance and any material systems) there appears a reflection of the interacting elements, and all that is lacking is a subject to turn this reflection into subjectively significant information. However, we will not describe here the origin of the subject as a source of activity, since that lies beyond the bounds of the topic under consideration; we will take the possibility and fact of its existence as given.

The requirement of completeness of analysis demands the consideration of all possible situations connected with the informational processes arising in pairs between generalized communicants, which are the subject and the object. Since four combinations are possible using the terms subject (S) and object (O) — namely SS, SO, OS, and OO — there can be only four fundamentally different classes of situations; and it is easy to notice that this constant is directly connected with the four basic socionic categories corresponding to the four psychic functions: emotionality, thinking, sensory perception, and intuitive apprehension.

The various combinations of the interaction of subject and object in our world, giving rise to the four basic informational situations, inevitably had to give rise to psychic functions reflecting them, since this was necessary for the subject’s survival. The four distinguished types of informational situations, representing the result of the natural combinatorics of the agents of a single field of existence, can serve as the basis for the explication of the four information aspects without dividing them into extraverted and introverted.

Thus the SO situation, connected with the active behavior of the subject, corresponds to the thinking aspect of socionics. The OS situation, connected with passive perception, can serve as the prototype of the sensory flow. The SS situation is the basis of the emotional — or, in the socionic sense, ethical — information flow. And finally, the OO situation is connected with the existence of the object independently of the subject, and also with the objective existence of the subject as an agent of the single field. With a suitable choice of terms, this can be understood as the identification of the subject with the object, which fully corresponds to socionic intuition. However, an abundance of opinions is possible here.

Let us consider each of these situations.

The SS situation is connected with the interaction of people with one another. Here it is easy to fall into error, and an enormous number of people, including scientists, fall into it immediately and automatically. This error consists in believing that such a situation is structurally no different from the situations SO and OS — or at least from the first of them. A faint hint that this is not so can be obtained by comparing the case where some random object is reflected in a mirror with the case where another mirror is reflected in the mirror. This hints that when a person deals with a thing, it differs in principle from the case where one person deals with another person. Of course, in many cases — and they are widely known — one person may treat another as a thing, but that is an inhuman treatment of a human being. That is the case where the SS situation is perceived as an SO situation. The temptation to perceive the SS situation as OS leads people to consider other people to be the same as themselves; therefore, encountering incomprehension, they are surprised and indignant, and then proceed to impose their own opinion and their own will on the other.

The SS situation — the transmission of information from subject to subject — is apparently the most important and most complex for the human being, since here the subject interacts with a subject and thus, in the final analysis, with themselves. In socionics this situation is connected with the information aspects e (relations) and E (emotional reactions), or e\E. One subject enters into definite relations with another and in doing so experiences, or evokes in the other, various emotions. Note that in this case emotions are primary, while relations, being the informational code of the emotional reaction, are secondary.

SO: information is transmitted from subject to object. The subject actively acts upon the object. As a result of this process the object is transformed, changed, reshaped; new objects are generated. In socionics this process is connected with the information aspects L (power, work, technology — extraverted logic) and l (the determination of the objective characteristics of things, the construction of theories, substantiation and proof, the processing and output of information — introverted logic). The SO situation is realized in human practice, roughly speaking, as the active cognition and transformation of nature.

OS: information is transmitted from object to subject. Any object is a source of diverse wave processes (vibrations) — optical, acoustic, gravitational, and possibly others. The mechanism generating wave oscillations is contained in the physical nature of things themselves.

Material media (water, air, solid substance) and energy fields, interacting with any objects, are in one way or another excited in their presence, as a result of which wave oscillations of a definite nature arise. These oscillations are precisely the signal (the signal process) whose modulations carry the message about the object. In sensory systems, some signal processes are transformed into others until they reach the informational-energetic system of the subject. It is entirely natural that part of the information about the object may be lost, since the signal transformations proceed with certain coefficients of distortion.

Note that although, from the subject’s point of view, the object is a passive source of information, being included in the system of natural processes it not only continuously sends, along with the modulated signal, information about its presence, but together with this there comes to the subject an imperative demand to reckon with the presence of objects in this world. And the subject satisfies this demand within the framework of a kind of law of conservation of the subject, realized in the striving for self-preservation, which leads to the subject’s adaptation to the objective environment of its existence and to its evolution. As a result of the struggle for survival, the subject begins to change, adapting to the surrounding world, becoming ever more complex. Thus one can conclude that the object, despite its apparent passivity, turns out to be quite active, displaying indomitable resistance (recall Nietzsche’s will to power!) and acting upon the psycho-informational field of the subject.

OO: information is transmitted from object to object. Such a use of words may seem a stretch, since it is unusual. In physics it is assumed that only force interactions exist between objects. However, if one looks at the situation more broadly and understands force interactions as signal processes whose modulations carry information about the interacting objects, then one can see that besides force influences there is also an informational interaction between objects, expressed in the system of the laws of nature — which can certainly also be formulated as informational imperatives.

These informational imperatives determine the statics, kinematics, and dynamics of objects, and are perceived by the subject as the presence of a world reason, reflected in the harmony (a homeostatic process) observed in Nature. In socionics this process is connected with the information aspects I (the potential possibilities of an object — extraverted intuition) and i (the assessment of possible changes of an object over time — introverted intuition). The subject does not perceive these processes directly through the sense organs, and information about them has an intuitive character.

The connection with intuition in this process can also be underscored in another way, by calling the OO situation, in the spirit of Kant, the thing-in-itself. Thus the sensory-natured OS process can be linked with the Kantian thing-for-us, since the object is here given in sensations, while the OO process, connected with the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself, can be correlated with intuitive apprehension.

The OO situation is perhaps the most difficult to understand, although it is easy to formulate on the basis of the symbolic notation. We will not consider it in more detail here; let us say only that to participate in it the subject must merge with the object, enter into the system of objective relations, and act proceeding not from egoistic or momentary impulses but on the basis of accepting the single correct decision — the one that increases the harmony of the world rather than destroying it. The subject must act as an object.

The OS situation is connected with the passive influence of the object on the knower — this is another name for the activity of the object. As a result of such influence the world compels the human being to change, and here other programs are possible — programs connected with the capacity to perceive, for which one must become passive and attune oneself to the informational flow coming from the object.

---

In attempting to make sense of the nature of the information aspects, individual socionics researchers have proposed theoretical schemes by means of which their semantics could somehow be clarified — the essence of these categories, or the reality standing behind them, comprehended. Priority here belongs to Aušra Augustinavičiūtė [9]. For a deductive description of the IA, the founder of socionics proposed three polar constructs: “body – field,” “statics – dynamics,” “external – internal.” Combining the poles of these constructs, we obtain eight combinations, each of which can be put into correspondence with one of the IA (see Table 2.01).

Table 2.01

Aspect	Pole 1	Pole 2	Pole 3
I — extraverted intuition	internal	statics	body
i — introverted intuition	internal	dynamics	field
S — extraverted sensing	external	statics	body
s — introverted sensing	external	dynamics	field
L — extraverted thinking	external	dynamics	body
l — introverted thinking	external	statics	field
E — extraverted emotioning	internal	dynamics	body
e — introverted emotioning	internal	statics	field

In this case we are dealing with the representation of a set of categories through an ordered system of semantic multipliers. This is one of the powerful techniques of modern methodology. However, in the present case two problems can be pointed out. First, the choice of the basic polar constructs; second, the interpretation of the corresponding poles as applied to the categories being explained.

Of course, a researcher may choose the basic constructs as their intuition suggests; nevertheless, sufficient grounds must exist for this. First of all, it is necessary to consider why such an explication is required at all, and to note its status — that is, whether such an explication is used merely as a clarification, preliminarily disclosing the semantics of the terms under investigation, or whether its aim is to give a strict definition. As for the necessity of the explication itself: however self-evident it may seem, before proceeding directly to the explication one must indicate the level of abstraction of the concepts we intend to explain and the level of the concepts by means of which we intend to do so. This is needed in order to observe the usual logical requirements and not fall into standard logical traps — for example, so that the explication or definition does not turn out to be too narrow or too broad. It is also necessary to clarify the most general features of the categories being explicated and those doing the explicating. This includes indicating the subject domains to which these categories belong. Evidently, in the present case it is assumed that the IA belong to the subject domain of psychology, while the named polar constructs belong to the subject domain of physical phenomena, since Aušra in her work [9] speaks of the IA as units into which “the human psyche dissects the surrounding reality.” Thus Aušra explains psychic processes by their correspondence to objective phenomena.

An essential methodological requirement in solving the problem under consideration is that the level of fundamentality of the basic constructs must be higher than the level of fundamentality of the categories being explained. In the case at hand, however, this cannot be asserted. For example, on what grounds can one consider the construct “field – body” more fundamental than, say, extraverted sensing? Extraverted sensing, being an information aspect, can itself be regarded as a semantic multiplier of the concept “body.” Generally speaking, in order to choose a construct as basic, it must itself be at least somehow explicated. In the present case it is necessary to clarify what the researcher understands by “body” and how “body” differs from “field” — unless, of course, these concepts are taken by default. That is, it is necessary to identify the semantic multipliers to which intuition apparently appeals. A body, unlike, say, a geometric figure, is something material, accessible to direct perception by means of the sense organs. Here we already discover a sensory multiplier present in the concept of body. It is natural to match the body with the meaning of extraversion. The field can be matched with the meaning of introversion — but apparently only because it is located between bodies. However, such a matching is not sufficiently obvious: after all, inter- is not intro-, and between is not within, though there is a certain parallelism between these semes. The field might, perhaps with even greater justification, be regarded as something outward, extraverted — after all, it is opposed to the body precisely as that which is located outside and between bodies, not within them. On the other hand, physics does not hold that fields are located between bodies. Bodies are immersed in fields, and fields permeate bodies, so that fields are both outside and inside bodies. But then, bodies too are inside fields.

Let us try to compare the semantics of the concepts of field and body — but for this, let us give them preliminary definitions. A body is an individualized object having more or less definite boundaries that specify its form. This object is in principle accessible to perception by the sense organs and to diverse instrumental influence capable of changing its parameters, including the coordinates of its geometric elements. This means that a body can change its form and its position in space. A field is a medium of arbitrary nature, which may possess unlimited or indefinite extent, though many cases can be found where such a medium is bounded. However, the understanding of boundedness here depends heavily on the initial definitions. For example, in the case of fish in an aquarium or a bacterial culture in a test tube, the habitat is severely limited — but fish and bacteria are capable of living in other places as well. It is also important that the field, as a medium, has essential significance for the bodies immersed in it. The latter means that bodies do not exist outside of fields. Judging by the results of physics and everyday experience, there are many grounds to hold that many fields are quite accessible to sensory perception. This applies to electromagnetic, gravitational, thermal, and acoustic fields, and it applies to any media, for example the air. A field can be regarded as a concretized space — that is, a space which, beyond the geometric parameters characterizing its extent and dimensionality, possesses parameters that directly influence the existence of the bodies located in it. We will not for now specify what “existence” means, but let us clarify what has been said with an example.

The sea is a medium for the creatures living in it. It has geometric parameters determining its extent and dimensionality. But its principal substance — water — possesses a definite density, salinity, and oxygen saturation, which is important, for example, for the life of fish. In this sense, the sea is a field for its inhabitants. Of course, the agricultural field where cows graze is also a field — and not only in the literal but also in the abstract-theoretical sense. But the concept of the field can also be connected with social environments, geopolitical spaces, and cosmic expanses.

The fields of human relations can also be assigned to this category. But here one may ask: what is the substance of such fields? Undoubtedly, many people sense these fields perfectly well, though as yet no physical instruments exist by which these fields could be detected. Whether fields of human relations exist in the same sense as physical fields, or whether they are some kind of subjective projections of people onto one another and onto their environment — or perhaps simply imaginary entities generated by the intellect — is a question requiring special proof. Such indicators of these fields as the emotional states of their agents, people’s behavioral acts, and the event-content connected with people can be assessed as evidence for the existence of such fields.

If, however, the concepts of body and field used by Aušra are intuitively employed abstractions of the human being, their individuality, and the totality of their relations to the world — including the people inhabiting it — then their semantic composition will be somewhat different. In that case, it seems, the body should be associated with the notion of an individualized mass possessing relative impermeability, limited volume, and some generalized form. Moreover, such an abstract body is endowed with more or less definite typological valences, thanks to which these bodies are capable of entering into definite relations. And the field, most likely — judging by the character of Aušra’s thinking, insofar as I understand her — is an energetic substance modulated by informational codes. If my hypothesis is correct in this case, then the concepts of body and field are used by Aušra in the same terminological key and at the same level of abstraction as the concepts of the IA. And this may mean that her attempt to carry out a decomposition of the concepts of the IA and to express their semantics through the semantics of the polar constructs she chose can be regarded as a tautology. This tautology is undoubtedly of interest for understanding the creative process of this remarkable thinker, but at the level of a definition of the IA it looks merely like the substitution or juxtaposition of one hypothetical object with another. Attention should also be paid to the fact that if arbitrary objects are matched to the concept of body, this means that Aušra, without special reservations or clarifications, transfers the typological features of people onto objects of arbitrary nature.

Behind Aušra’s constructions lies yet another shade of meaning, connected with the fact that, as she said more than once, the extravert’s attention is focused on the object (body), while the introvert’s attention is concentrated more on relations (field) — which can be regarded as an implicit definition of extraversion–introversion. But this too is subject to further analysis.

Regarding the second polarity — “internal – external” — without clarification it is unclear how its content differs from the content of the polarity “introversion – extraversion.” One might say that “introversion – extraversion” belongs to the psychological plane, while “internal – external” belongs to the plane of objective phenomena. The relation to this plane, and manifestation in it, are precisely what determine the psychological type. But this could be said of personality traits, not of the IA, which are by no means exclusively modalities of psychic functions but constitute entities objectively present in the world, forming by their combinations the plane of phenomena which we can describe in terms of the IA. Therefore one can say that in describing the modalities of psychic functions, we are describing not the IA themselves but one of their projections — one of the projections of the archetype standing behind the IA.

The polarity “statics – dynamics” is entirely valid in relation to the topic under consideration, but, as became clear after the development of the theme of the Augustinavičiūtė–Reinin traits (ART), it has no particular advantages over any other trait polarity. Of course, here too one must be aware that, within the framework of the explication of the IA, this polarity is assigned to the plane of physical phenomena, by whose parameters an attempt is made to calibrate the IA.

Analogous remarks can be made regarding those researchers who tried to improve on Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s attempts at explicating the IA. Let us consider, for example, the approaches to this topic of R. Sedykh, V. Filimonov, M. Gut, and T. Prokofieva.

R. Sedykh in his book [10] essentially repeats Aušra’s reasoning regarding the IA, merely popularizing it somewhat. Alongside the polarity “body – field” he introduces, as identical to it, the polarity “object – interaction.” However, these polar constructs have semantic values that do not permit an equals sign to be placed between them. The construct “body – field” has a physical modality, while the construct “object – interaction” has a philosophical-epistemological one, though there is a partial semantic overlap between the two constructs. This construct allows extraverted manifestations to be connected with the object, and introverted ones with interaction. And yet the same logical error analyzed above is present here — namely, that the IA belong to the ontological, not the psychological plane. And on the ontological plane, the reduction of the IA to relatively arbitrary polar constructs likewise looks not only accidental and non-obligatory, but unfounded.

V. Filimonov in his exposition of the topic [11] repeats R. Sedykh almost completely, so the remarks made above apply to him as well.

T. Prokofieva [12] made her own attempt to improve the explication of the IA. Interestingly, she formulates the problem as follows: “How should we approach the division of information into aspects so that it reflects the work of the psychic functions described by Jung? There is a very important point here which has so far not been explicitly noted in the socionics literature.” The fact is that the information aspects were discovered not by Jung but by Aušra. It was she who first in science recognized the objective existence of these entities and, as far as possible, gave their explication. From the objective existence of the IA it follows that information is already divided into aspects, and the task can only consist in refining their semantics as far as possible.

Of course, one can take an entirely different philosophical position and hold that no division whatsoever exists in the world, and that it is only the human being who, in perceiving, cognizing, and transforming the world, dissects it — or, more precisely, sees it as dissected. This is a very lofty point of view, appealing to the unity of the world, and there exist intuitive-logical means allowing it to be defended consistently; but from the point of view of sensory experience, the world obviously has numerous divisions and looks multiple. These two points of view need not be opposed — each has its own working zone where it should be used. In attempting to solve this problem, Prokofieva used the approach of Aušra and Filimonov, but considered it necessary to refine the choice of polar constructs adequate to the problem. As the first polarity she chose the pair “objects – relations.” Although the deviation of this pair from where Aušra stopped may seem insignificant, in fact it is not. Aušra’s corresponding pair belonged to the subject domain of physical phenomena, between which, according to the ordinary use of words, interactions take place, not relations. The construct “objects – relations” belongs to the subject domain of mathematics, and only with a stretch can it be readdressed to the sphere of physical phenomena. In psychology, the category paired with “relations” is the category of “types”; in the subject domain of philosophy, the category matched with “relation” is that of the “subject.” Aušra and Sedykh use the term “relation” in their reasoning on this topic, but they do not elevate it into a polar construct.

If the choice of “objects – relations” was made by Prokofieva deliberately, then it needs at least some clarification. Indeed, can psychological semantics be matched with mathematical semantics — for example, with the aim of clarifying psychological concepts by means of mathematical ones? From the further exposition, however, it becomes clear that what is meant is the physical world, any phenomenon in which “can be looked at either from the point of view of the properties of objects or from the point of view of relations” [12]. What relations? Between objects, is it? Or toward objects? But objects do not relate to one another — they interact with one another. It is people who relate to objects and to one another. In this sense, the concept of “relations” belongs to the subject domain of psychology. Of course, this case can be connected with the conditional synonymic closeness of the concepts “relation” and “interaction,” but this must at least be recognized and stipulated. And of course, in that case one would have to speak not of objects but of subjects. I wish to draw attention here to the fact that in unfolding a logical justification or proof it is necessary to adhere to all the logical rules. But in the present case this condition is not met. Therefore, when suddenly, out of nowhere, as in Greek tragedies, in the style of “deus ex machina,“¹³ two assertions appear in Prokofieva [12] that claim fundamentality but are precisely what stand in need of explication, this causes bewilderment. Here are the two assertions:

• Aspects of information about objects are called extraverted.
• Aspects of information about relations are called introverted.

Just like that — they “are called,” and that’s all. Who called them that, why they must or may be called that — this remains unclear. If the author had used the expression “we shall call,” this would be understandable as her own decision or as a kind of ostensive definition, when one points a finger at a thing and says what it is called. And after all, Aušra’s semantic correspondences are quite understandable — would it not have been better to stop at them? In other respects, the same considerations apply to Prokofieva’s use of the first polarity as applied to Aušra’s choice.

Prokofieva’s second polarity coincides with that of her predecessors. But the third polarity not only differs from her predecessors’ — there is also the author’s explanation of this choice. Prokofieva writes: “At first I too wanted to call the aspects of information about relations external and internal, for unity of terminology, as R. K. Sedykh did, but it doesn’t work. A simple question causes perplexity: is a sensation external? And how one feels? One can get even more confused this way.” Prokofieva runs through several polar pairs — “concrete and abstract,” “factual and presumed,” “objective and subjective,” “tangible and ephemeral” — and settles on the pair “manifest – non-manifest” (“явное – неявное”). This is a good example of scientific search, where it is evident that the final decision was preceded by intense preliminary work. Prokofieva does not insist that this is the most felicitous choice, and offers it as a working variant. And this is understandable. But it is not clear how, in the end, the chosen polarity “manifest – non-manifest” is better than the polarity “external – internal.” Let us conduct a semantic comparison of them. Manifest – manifested – discovered – having come out — outward – external. This chain of concepts, where each two neighboring concepts are synonyms, suggests that its two extreme members have at least a common part of their semantic field. And in this sense, exchanging one for the other seems pointless. What their similarity consists in is clear. But how, after all, do they differ? It is quite plausible that the pair “manifest – non-manifest” gravitates toward the cognitive process at the stage of perception and answers the question “is something accessible to perception?”, while the pair “external – internal” relates to positional parameters and is connected with the answer to the question “where is something located?” — that is, the question of place, which can be regarded as a generalized geometric parameter. Proceeding from what has been said, one can assert that the two pairs under consideration are not identical, and therefore sufficient grounds are needed to choose one of them as valid for the task at hand. Apparently this choice depends on the accents the researcher singles out in the concepts used. If the accent is on the cognitive process, the pair “manifest – non-manifest” corresponds to it; if the accent falls on spatial location, preference should be given to the pair “external – internal.” The process of cognition is a subjective process, while spatial location belongs to the objective parameters. Since the solution of the problem under consideration, as done by Aušra, is based on using the objective situation to calibrate psychic parameters, it turns out that preference should be given to the polarity “external – internal.” This is precisely what Aušra did. Therefore, when Prokofieva motivates her rejection of this pair by the fact that the terms external–internal might be confused with extraversion–introversion, what is not taken into account is that the latter terms, within the framework of the problem being solved, may be considered unknowns — and thus are precisely what stand in need of explication; and this is the very point of the problem.

Further, Prokofieva says that “extraverted and introverted aspects are respectively external and internal with respect to the observer,” whereas if we are speaking of “the manifest and hidden properties of the object itself (or of relations), then we are already speaking of the external and internal properties of that object (or relation), i.e., with respect to the object under consideration” [12]. Here it is unclear how such an opposition can be made and what it consists in. What are manifest and hidden properties? Presumably this is an assessment of the object’s properties from the point of view of their accessibility to observation. And the object’s properties will be manifest or hidden for the observer precisely because, with respect to the observer, they turn out to be on the outside or the inside of the object. Of course, in conducting reasoning of this kind one must take into account the level of abstraction of the concepts used, and since the problem under consideration is formulated in an almost maximally abstract form, the competing pairs of concepts can be distinguished here only by subject domain — whether we place the accent on the cognitive capacity of the subject or are interested in the objective parameters of the environment.

Using the same methodology, M. Gut approached the problem in his own way. As basic categories he adopted the concepts of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Combining these concepts, he likewise obtained eight information aspects. It is difficult to object to categories of such a high order, so I will confine myself to a single remark: from the methodological point of view, the concepts used to build a scientific theory should belong to subject domains having a direct empirical relation to the scientific field in question.

In connection with this distinctive attempt to develop the theoretical construct that the IA constitute, one may recall the mathematical proposition that any three polar and orthogonal entities generate an eight-element set. There is a complete analogy here between the three spatial axes and the eight regions of space that can be matched with them. One can therefore attempt to construct the set of IA by choosing three more or less well-grounded pairs of polar categories. However, some socionics researchers took a different path.

One of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s earliest followers, N. N. Medvedev, proposed a somewhat different but quite solid scheme, which V. D. Ermak later adopted and brought to logical perfection. In the constructions of Medvedev and Ermak, the basic categories chosen are matter, energy, space, and time. This set looks very convincing. Relying on these categories, Medvedev quite convincingly derived the eight socionic aspects. The constructions of Medvedev and Ermak are almost impeccable, and it is difficult to find a logical breach in them even if one wants to. But let us look at them more attentively.

Before going further, let us note that at one time physics discovered a substantive analogy between matter and space, on the one hand, and energy and time, on the other. This analogy is far from accidental and deserves close investigation. Briefly put, the essence of the matter is that physics studies the phenomenology of matter and energy in our world, but describes it in terms of space and time. In this one can discern a hint that space and time are the introverted analogues of the extraverted entities that matter and energy are. And it is precisely for this reason that the phenomenology of matter and energy can be described in terms of space and time.

From this one can conclude that the four chosen categories are not independent — contrary to how Medvedev and Ermak intuitively assessed them. And this must entail an unjustified interdependence of the IA.

Medvedev proposed a correspondence between the IA and generalized physical categories, presented in Table 2.02.

Table 2.02

Aspect	Category
I — extraverted intuition	Time
i — introverted intuition	Temporal relations
S — extraverted sensing	Space
s — introverted sensing	Spatial relations
L — extraverted thinking	Matter
l — introverted thinking	Relations of material objects
E — extraverted emotioning	Energy
e — introverted emotioning	Energetic relations

Let us note at once that Aušra Augustinavičiūtė never matched extraverted intuition with time. She always matched it with potential possibilities. It is not entirely clear what the concept of “temporal relations” might mean. Later, earlier, afterward, present, past, future? Are these concepts not too concrete, from the point of view of the level of generalization chosen in socionics? But if this is precisely what is meant, then what is invested in the very concept of time?

Aušra connected extraverted sensing with form, the outward appearance of objects, wealth, and forceful pressure; therefore, with some stretch, space can be put into correspondence with it — but something here gives pause. And to connect spatial relations — for example, nearer, farther, big, small, and so on — with introverted sensing is altogether illogical, since, in accordance with the explication of this concept tested in socionics, the concepts of comfort, an aesthetic attitude to life, and usefulness should relate to it. And if that is so, then the category of space cannot be matched to the extraverted form of sensing either. It would seem more logical to put matter into correspondence with extraverted sensing — but then the logic of the theoretical construct is violated. For if irrational intuition has been matched with time, then irrational sensing must be matched with space. And here begins the foreboding that something in these correspondences does not hang together.

Further: if you are asked which of the remaining aspects — thinking and emotioning — the categories of matter and energy can be connected with, then, in accordance with the logic of “what’s left,” the answer will be unambiguous, as shown in the table. And having made the choice presented in the table with respect to matter and energy, we will have to resign ourselves to space being matched with extraverted sensing, because there is nowhere else to go — it does not work out otherwise — although we are dealing here with a logical error. A very subtle one, admittedly. We will return to this topic later. But let us note preliminarily that while the four IA are orthogonal, there are dependencies among the categories of the physical four, since matter and space, on the one hand, and energy and time, on the other, relate to each other as the extraverted and introverted varieties of one and the same entity, one and the same archetype. That is, one can say that no space separate from matter exists; space coincides completely with the contours of matter. Space is an abstraction connected with matter. The habitual understanding of space is connected with the idea of it as a large empty place in which material objects are arranged — something like a storeroom stuffed with things. But space is only the introverted image of matter. That is precisely why the abstraction of space is convenient to use for describing material objects.

Analogous reasoning applies to the pair energy – time. These are the extraverted and introverted forms of one and the same entity. No flow of time separate from the world exists. Time is the image of energetic processes.¹⁴ That is precisely why it is a convenient means for describing them. Description is a process establishing a correspondence between a directly perceived, objectively existing form and its informational representation. Description is the transcoding of objective, first-signal information into a subjective, second-signal form.

Therefore, in attempting to match the four extraverted IA with two extraverted and two introverted entities, a hidden theoretical contradiction arises. However, not everything is so simple.

Let us try to project the IA onto the elements — in the spirit of “well, why not.” Many socionics researchers have already performed this operation more than once, though in different ways. Personally, I could propose the following variant:

• Sensing — fire — time
• Intuition — air — space
• Emotionality — water — energy
• Logic — earth — matter

Why is fire time? Because everything burns up in the flame of fire, and time, like Uranus devouring his children, proves stronger than everything. Everything passes, and nothing remains. Time heals all. And why is sensing fire? Because sensing is active and connected with consumption — and fire cannot exist unless it is given fuel.

Why is air space? Because air fills everything, penetrates everywhere, and is almost imperceptible. For this reason it can also be matched with intuition — after all, intuition penetrates everywhere, no barriers stop it, and it is, moreover, almost elusive.

Why is earth matter? Because it is solid. And why is logic earth? Because logic is “iron.” Logic consists of very rigid formal rules which no one can violate without loss of meaning. Clearly, if we match logic with earth, then it will be natural to match thinking with it as well. Behind logic and thinking stands one and the same archetype. The difference lies only in the verbal-conceptual dressing.

And why is emotionality water? There are many arguments in favor of this comparison, but I will give only one. Emotionality, like water, is very plastic. It is capable of taking on various modalities and shades: murmuring like a gentle brook, sweeping one along with the powerful current of a stream, breaking ships against a wave as against a knee, or dashing them against the rocks. And why is water energy? This is easy to understand if you stand on the seashore during a storm. But the sea does not rage always. So too energy can be potential, when you will not even suspect its existence. But there are very sensitive people who feel hidden, unmanifested energy very well.

All this sounds quite plausible, but something here gives pause. First of all, the preceding reasoning is built on analogies, and an analogy cannot serve as proof. It can raise your degree of trust in a statement, make the statement plausible, but it does not make it true. The same shortcoming is present in N. N. Medvedev’s constructions. Although his reasoning is speculative in character, it looks very plausible — which, of course, does not mean it corresponds to reality.

V. D. Ermak preserved N. N. Medvedev’s scheme but changed some details in it. For example, he replaced matter with objects. How substantial is this? A more general category has been replaced with a more particular one, and its semantics is somewhat different besides. Matter is everything connected with the concept of objective reality, whereas objects are only that with which a subject comes into contact. An object can also be part of subjective reality. For example, if a person begins to investigate their own dreams, we will call those dreams the object of their investigations. So the replacement of matter with objects cannot be considered equivalent. Incidentally, V. D. Ermak includes among objects even non-material entities: “objects are people, things, planets, information files, speculative constructs endowed with material properties, and so on” [13]. True, it is unclear how speculative constructs can be endowed with material properties, since he himself says that “objects are substance bounded by form” [13], and speculative objects, presumably, do not consist of substance. Of course, one does not argue about definitions — one either accepts them or not. I hold to the definition that substance bounded by form is a thing, and a thing can acquire the status of an object — but only when it undergoes study or transformation on the part of a subject. But from different definitions, different consequences follow.

Let us see how V. D. Ermak grounds the essence of the IA.

He begins with the premise that the material world is represented for the human being by substance and field. This premise does not contradict scientific ideas. The sense organs extract from the world information about matter and energy. This premise likewise does not contradict scientific ideas. The information thus extracted constitutes the content of the IA “Objects” and “Energy.” Here one can already see a distortion of terminological compatibility. On the philosophical level, objects are paired with subjects, and energy with substance. But such a remark might be dismissed as petty nitpicking. In the end, everything is decided by definitions: however you define a concept, that is how you will use it. Still, Medvedev’s pair Matter and Energy looked, at the very least, more fundamental. However, a subtler point here is that something in this combination does not satisfy V. D. Ermak, and he attempts to optimize the concepts proposed by N. N. Medvedev. But in the pair Objects – Energy, energy is no longer perceived as a fundamental entity juxtaposed to Matter, but rather as a household source of power that gets plugged into household appliances. And the four categories Objects – Space – Energy – Time, from the point of view of the logic of concepts, already looks incommensurate, slightly limping, as it were. As in the well-known psychological test: refrigerator, kitchen stove, dishwasher, clock — remove the odd item. There is something in this lowering of the level of abstraction in the replacement of Medvedev’s Matter with Ermak’s Objects.

But let us go further. Unlike N. N. Medvedev, V. D. Ermak introduces the concepts of space and time not directly — in the sense that science discovers such realities in the world alongside matter and energy — but in a mediated way, as “computed” by the psyche after receiving information about objects and energy. “One can suppose the presence in the psyche of some virtual ‘processor’ which, from the arrangement of objects, on the basis of the information about objects delivered to us by the sense organs, computes space — that is, forms the informational characteristics of what we subjectively consider space” [13]. Ermak has an analogous line of reasoning about time. Here my position partially coincides with V. D. Ermak’s. However, from such an understanding of space and time the conclusion suggests itself that the four orthogonal information aspects of socionics are being matched with four non-orthogonal physical entities. Moreover, one can see that Ermak, in trying to improve on Medvedev, in fact worsens his constructions, since with the former the basic categories were coordinate, parallel, whereas with the latter they are sequential. That is, Matter and Energy in Ermak precede Space and Time, which contradicts the assumption of the coordinateness of the IA. In short, something here does not add up. And it does not add up because categories inadequate to the task at hand have been chosen.

Trying to sort out this problem, I came to the conclusion that the whole matter lies in choosing categories that would be at once maximally fundamental and adequate to the task. As such categories I propose matter, energy, and information.

Accepting the three fundamental entities common to many modern scientific schools — matter, energy, and information — as points of departure, within the framework of the field paradigm (FP) one can take the next step in defining generalized matter-energy-information complexes.

The concepts of matter, energy, and information, though not understood unambiguously, are nonetheless generally accepted. Science knows a fair amount about them — indeed, it does nothing but investigate their phenomenology — yet the usual definitional procedure cannot be applied to them, since it is difficult, if possible at all, to find concepts to which they could be reduced.

However, although the concepts of matter, energy, and information cannot be defined with support from more general semantic units, they can certainly be discussed and endlessly refined — which, properly speaking, is the content of science. It would therefore be entirely natural, in accordance with the status of these concepts in modern science, to accept them as primary and to define all other concepts through them.

The concept of information was introduced into scientific use together with the developments in cybernetics and communication theory (N. Wiener, C. Shannon). It arose in connection with the needs of the theory of message transmission over communication channels and information networks — the commission at the time (the 1940s) came above all from telephone companies, and the theory developed by C. Shannon yielded an enormous economic effect.

Shannon took 1 bit as the unit of information, corresponding to one choice out of two possibilities, with the quantity of information expressed as the binary logarithm of the number of available alternatives. Shannon’s formulas worked splendidly in calculating the capacity of telephone networks; however, it soon turned out that the definition of information as a measure of the inhomogeneity of a medium given by Shannon did not satisfy all the specialists representing various scientific fields. This concerned the humanities above all. It became clear that simple quantitative definitions of information by no means exhaust the possible scope of the concept.

In this connection arises the problem of defining information, and with it the paradox of the definition of information, which can be formulated as follows.

Since a definition is itself an informational process, a difficulty arises: how can one make use of an informational process without knowing what information is? The answer to this question is not as simple as it might seem. For example, one might say that people effectively use many things without necessarily knowing their construction and operating principle thoroughly, as is often the case with a refrigerator, a car, or a computer. But to this one can object that these devices were built by specialists who guarantee their reliability and effective operation. These devices have passed social certification, and they can be used provided the necessary precautions and safety rules are observed. Dramatic incidents connected with the use of uncertified devices are well known. In the case of using concepts behind which no scientific grounding stands, the consequences may be no less dramatic — and is it not perhaps because certain concepts still remain inaccessible to humanity that it still cannot emerge from the dramatic stage of its existence? However, there is a standard way out of this situation, found by people back in the days of Ancient Greece.

Since Euclid and Aristotle it has been a commonplace that an unknown object or concept must be represented, explained, or expressed through known ones, and that a small number of well-tested and reliable concepts or objects must be adopted as the latter. This can be done on the basis of self-evidence, of plausibility accepted on faith, or simply as the result of a volitional decision. Euclid placed at the foundation of his geometric constructions the simplest geometric images — the point, the line, the plane — whose properties and definitions he considered self-evident. However, his Fifth Postulate on parallels for many centuries provoked numerous doubts and attempts to prove it as a theorem — several hundred were made, but all contained errors. The problem was solved only after the investigations of Lobachevsky, Bolyai, Gauss, and Riemann.

The centuries-long experience of the development of scientific methodology suggests that such fundamental concepts as information, energy, and matter are better not defined through others — less fundamental ones — but, on the contrary, accepted as initial, basic, intuitively understood, and extensively explicated, with everything else then defined through them.

Of course, one could also say that we all understand perfectly well (?!) what information is and use this concept effectively (?!) in our theoretical work, so why all these subtleties and intricacies. Perhaps one could indeed stop there — if humanity had attained perfection and were absolutely happy.

Within the framework of socionics one can postulate a monistic view of this world, at the foundation of which lies a single absolute entity having diverse manifestations, whose substance is energy. More precisely, some form of energy — some Higher Energy or Absolute Energy — but this changes little, since science does not know what energy as such is. In other words, one can say that energy, the energy field — whatever meaning is invested in this — is primary. The human being observes energetic phenomena, can study them, classify them, discover the laws connected with them, use them for their own purposes, in the end — but cannot comprehend this entity in its selfhood. The hypothesis of the ontological properties of the primary Energy Field could be formulated on the basis of the ideas about energy fields of arbitrary nature known to modern physics. However, for the purposes of this work it is sufficient to assume one single property — the capacity for quantization. Regardless of what the mechanisms of quantization may be, what is important is that as a result of this process, new objects appear in the primordially homogeneous field, violating this homogeneity. Recall that, according to Shannon, information is a measure of inhomogeneity, and since inhomogeneity appears as a result of the quantization of a homogeneous substrate, information appears together with it. The set of elementary objects arising as a result of quantization can itself be the substrate of a field of the next level. And this field too can be quantized, generating elementary entities of the next level, and together with them inhomogeneity of the next level.

The reasoning just given does not contradict what is known to science at present. If elementary particles are the result of the quantization of the field corresponding to them, then the chemical elements generated by them form the substrate of the next level, which generates the whole diversity of the objects of the macroworld. In the macroworld, planetary systems unite into galaxies, but whether associations of a higher level exist is not yet known. The hierarchy of substrates can also be seen in the transition from living cells to multicellular organisms and, further, to their communities. An example of a unique community of living beings is humanity, which itself represents a hierarchy of human groups of various levels and sizes. At present, science does not know whether hierarchical levels of substrates exist below what physicists have meaningfully named the vacuum. However, proceeding from the experience contained in spiritual teachings, one may suppose that such levels exist. And the most astonishing thing here, apparently, is that there are very few such levels. The problem is whether science will prove capable of identifying these levels.

For the disclosure of the topic of information aspects, what is important for us here is that, for some reason, inhomogeneity of the medium arises at each hierarchical level. Inhomogeneities are easy to understand as the basis of forms, or even to identify with the diversity of forms. Form is the inhomogeneity of any substrate. Form is what is directly perceived by the sense organs or by instruments. Form is an extraverted entity, while the encoding of form by the modulations of a signal of any character constitutes information — that is, “messages about form.” Information is an introverted entity, something folded up and hidden. Thus one can say that information is form introverted, hidden in the modulations of a signal, while form is information extraverted, materialized, put on display. For further discussion we will fix this fact with the notations: form by the letter f and information by the letter i. Taking into account the connection between form and information, their notations can be unified by introducing, purely conventionally, signs for extraversion (+) and introversion (−). Then we denote form as +f and information as −f, which is fully equivalent to +i for form as extraverted, materialized information, and −i for information as encoded form.

Of course, the above reasoning about the properties of the primary field is metaphysical in character — that is, it is a subjective generalization of the physical knowledge available at present. We will therefore not insist that this reasoning reflects the deep realities of the world with absolute precision, but we will accept it as a more or less plausible hypothesis, which of course needs verification and elaboration. This hypothesis makes it possible to form a notion of a maximally generalized productive¹⁵ energetic process, whose roots go back to the primary features of the hypothetical energetic substrate of the entire phenomenology of the world.

If, in the field substrate of any level, in its various parts, energetic potentials differing in power can accumulate, this can become the basis for the emergence of energy flows. A good example here is the atmosphere with its zones of low and high pressure, which determine the strength and direction of the wind. Flows moving in an inhomogeneous medium become the cause of the emergence of vortices — objects possessing a stable form. In the atmosphere, this corresponds to cyclones, to the much smaller tornadoes, and to quite small whirlwinds. These objects can be regarded as the product of an energetic process, since they turn out to be stable wholes capable of relatively independent existence. Observations of nature show that at various substrate levels there are conditions for the repeated recurrence of productive energetic processes, many of which, recurring regularly, acquire a cyclical character.

An important idea following from the above reasoning is that a productive cyclical process on a fundamental substrate can be regarded as a universal energetic engine — an energy machine, a primary energetic automaton possessing spontaneous productive activity. If a secondary informational process capable of becoming a reflection of the environment external to the automaton can be superimposed on such an automaton, then from there it is not far to purposeful behavior.

To avoid misunderstandings with philosophical definitions of matter, of the kind “objective reality given to us in sensations” (Lenin), let us define matter in the present context as “substance in atomic-molecular form” — although a more general and more precise definition of matter would be its understanding as “vortexed energy,” “looped energy,” “knotted energy”; and matter, from the functional point of view, can also be defined as that of which objects are “made,” and so on. Of course, such assertions cannot be considered definitions — they are merely attempts at explicating the term. Matter can here also be understood as the totality of material objects, as the molecular conglomerate and substrate of all the concrete things that exist in this world. One measure of this substrate is mass.

The connection between energy and mass is described by Einstein’s well-known equation E = mc². If one compares the right-hand side of this equation with the right-hand side of the equation expressing energy through Planck’s constant, E = ħν, then, obtaining mc² = ħν, it is easy to understand that matter, as that which possesses mass (m), constitutes energetic vibrations (ν) confined within definite spatial limits. One may also suppose that spatial characteristics themselves appear as a measure of the magnitude of energetic vibrations.

Matter as the substrate of an infinite diversity of forms is an extraverted entity, while in the encoding of matter by the modulations of signals of various natures, only the image of matter remains. If we compare, for example, a real cliff on the seashore with its poetic description, painted depiction, empirical protocol, or physical formula, it is obvious that matter will be present in the first and second cases in different quantity and quality. For further reasoning we denote matter by the Latin letter m, its extraverted form — that is, real matter — as +m, and its introverted form as −m.

Recall also that energy in this world is represented by its kinetic, manifested, extraverted form, and by its potential, hidden, introverted form, which can correspondingly be denoted as +e (kinetic energy) and −e (potential energy).

Regarding matter, energy, and information as fundamental entities standing at the base of the phenomenal world (and this does not contradict the ideas of modern science), one can describe their various maximally generalized combinations, in which they act as system-forming factors. These maximally generalized combinations of the three basic entities of the phenomenal world are the information aspects (IA). These aspects belong to the archetypal plane and admit verbal description only with great difficulty and strain. All possible combinations of the three fundamental entities are presented in Table 2.03, and the verbal designations of these combinations (IA) must be regarded as preliminary and approximate. In other sections of the book these descriptions will be corrected and refined.

Table 2.03

m	e	i	Information aspect
+	+	+	The real object, reality
+	+	−	The state of the object, level of energetic activity
+	−	+	The process of transformation of the object
+	−	−	The potential possibilities of the object
−	+	+	The parameters of the object’s form
−	+	−	The relations among the object’s parts
−	−	+	The parameters of the object’s position in space
−	−	−	The temporal parameters of the object

Commentary on Table 2.03.

+ + + : an extraverted (materialized) entity connected with kinetic energy and a directly (possibly instrumentally) observable form, which corresponds to S, or reality, and in the functional field to extraverted sensing. That is in current socionic terms; in ordinary language, what is meant is a really functioning object exerting a force influence on its surroundings, on other objects — really asserting its presence and existence.

Here matter is extraverted, since real rather than abstract objects are at issue. Energy is in kinetic form, since the object acts actively, playing the role of the subject of observable changes in the environment. Information is in extraverted form — that is, real forms are at issue, not their encoding by means of the modulations of signals of various natures.

+ + − : an extraverted (materialized) entity connected with kinetic energy and introverted form, or information, which corresponds to the IA E, or the state of the object; in the functional field this corresponds to extraverted emotioning, or simply emotions. These are active energetic processes connected with the object and indicating its current state.

Here matter is extraverted: really existing objects are at issue, not their codes. Energy is in kinetic form — it “seethes” — but its work does not have an extraverted character; that is, its result is not material but has an indicative, sign-like character, serving as a source of information about the state of the object and the possible cause of that state.

+ − + : an extraverted (materialized) entity connected with potential energy and extraverted information, or form, which corresponds to the IA L; in the functional field this corresponds to extraverted thinking, and in ordinary language to technology, the performance of real work, manipulations with the object.

Here both real and abstract objects may be at issue. Information is present in extraverted form, since technology leads to the real transformation, reshaping, change of form of objects — to the obtaining of new objects from the initial ones, which here act as substrate. Energy is present in potential form, because the potential product of the technology will pass into a kinetic state only after the completion of the technological process and the connection of energy sources to it.

+ − − : an extraverted (materialized) entity connected with potential energy and hidden (potential) manifestations — that is, an object with unmanifested (potential) possibilities — which corresponds to the IA I, and in the functional field to extraverted intuition; in ordinary language, this is the understanding of the object’s regularities, penetration into its essence, comprehension of the laws of its existence and functioning.

Here the object is real, material, extraverted, but what is at issue are its unmanifested, non-obvious, hidden possibilities.

− + + : an introverted (non-material) entity connected with kinetic energy and extraverted form, which corresponds to the IA s, or value. In the functional field this is introverted sensing; in ordinary language, usefulness, aesthetics, practicality, well-being, and generally any parameters of an object essential for the consumer — which can also be understood as value.

For the entities standing behind these concepts, the absence or minimality of the material component is characteristic, since these are abstract concepts expressing the subject’s attitude to what they consume.

Information in this IA is extraverted — that is, a really existing form is at issue, not its description. And this is not hard to explain. What is evaluated here is the real object itself, its concrete form; we are dealing here with first-signal perception of a material situation, an anticipated result, the state of the organism, an object of art, and the like. One might object that a work of art, say, is a code of some life situation, and a code is an introverted form of existence. However, works of art in themselves, as objects of consumption, are entirely material, since their carrier is always concrete expendable materials — paints, sounds, paper, canvas, film, etc. But there is a subtler point here, connected with the fact that works of art also have a more ephemeral material, specific to each art form. In painting, for example, these are line, color, and patch. And although line, color, and patch as objects of perception are non-material — despite their substrate being concrete substance — their form itself exists really, and is not encoded as it is, say, in a review or a critical article.

Energy here is also in extraverted, that is kinetic, form, since its real consumption is at issue.

− + − : an introverted (non-material) entity connected with kinetic energy and information, which corresponds to the IA e, or wholeness. In the functional field this is introverted emotioning; in ordinary language, relation. Unlike emotioning, which represents something brought outward, relation is encoded emotions — emotionality in introverted form, that is, an ideal object. The two remaining components here are the same as with emotionality, but I personally find it difficult to interpret them adequately, since the character of the corresponding abstractions lends itself with difficulty to translation into ordinary language. From the deductive formula of this aspect it follows that energy in relations must be in kinetic, active form, just as in the case of emotioning. Presumably this can be reduced to there being an energetic connection between objects standing in a relation. But this is hard to elucidate. If in the case of emotioning the kinetic form of energy is obvious, in the case of relation the energetic component may be imperceptible. Can one say in this case that the energy of feelings is held in potential form and is thereby introverted? Such an answer suggests itself, but the deductive formula of relation indicates that energy here must be in kinetic form. Might this manifest itself in the fact that a relation is always definite actions, definite behavior, whose energy is precisely in kinetic form?

As for the informational component of relation, it is clear that it is in introverted form, since a system of relations constitutes a kind of macro-language — an informational code of communication — and a code takes us from materialized situations and objects to non-materialized ones. By means of relations, definite meanings are encoded whose denotata lie beyond the relations and to which the relations point. One can also speak of the informational field of relations.

− − + : an introverted (non-material) entity connected with potential energy and extraverted form, or simply form, which corresponds to the IA l, or space; in the functional field this is introverted thinking. Interpreting this deductive formula as thinking, one can conclude that introverted thinking is non-material — that is, it operates not with material objects, as is the case with extraverted thinking (technology), but with the codes, the images of these objects.

The energy of the objects of thinking is in introverted form, since these objects are still only being “manufactured,” constituting the project of a future materialized something to which, only then, energy sources can be connected and it can be set into active operation. We should not be misled here by the fact that thought objects can be thought of as actively operating, since the thought object in that case is the aggregate of the object and its action.

As for the informational component of thinking, in this process it possesses its own form, immanent to it; therefore, although thinking itself, as an introverted transformation of reality, is non-material, its form, as adequate to its essence, must be acknowledged as extraverted.

In introverted thinking, matter is introverted — or, what is the same, in potential form. The same, as was done above, can be said of energy. But form in thinking is extraverted — it is the form of equations, descriptions, theories, and the like, which here are themselves present not in encoded form but in the adequate reality corresponding to them.

This same deductive formula can also be interpreted as space, since space is non-material and energetically passive, yet possesses a real, manifested form. This form can be called empty or absolute, but it is real, directly embodied as an empty receptacle, and can be filled with any content.

The identity of the deductive formulas of thinking and space is heuristic and significant. By virtue of this identity, thinking can be called the space of the ideal transformation of reality. It is the space for modeling the subject’s habitat. Clearly, modeling here constitutes a sign-based, informational imitation of the subject’s real life. Moreover, thanks to this symbolic identity, thinking can be defined as the modeling of spatial forms and spatial relations — and one can even insist that there is nothing in it besides this. One might object: can we not think, for example, emotional forms? To this one can answer that an emotional form is also a certain object localized in conceptual space. That, at least, is how emotional forms look from the point of view of thinking, which gravitates toward objectivity.

Thinking, as reflection, as the sign-based reproduction of reality, gravitates toward objectivity. Objectivity here can be understood as the reproduction of the life situation of the subject of thinking that is maximally close to the real state of affairs. For the subject this is essential, since such thinking must promote their survival. Derealized and fantastical thinking constitute two different forms of non-objective thinking. The first is a pathological case, while the second can perform various functions, among which one may count, for example, play, training, and psychological defense.

− − − : an introverted (non-material) entity connected with potential energy and introverted information, or simply information, which corresponds to the IA i, or awareness of the subject’s inner world. In the functional field this is introverted intuition.

In customary scientific concepts, this complex corresponds to time, which can be regarded as pure potentiality, where everything either already was or is yet to be — there will be substance, there will be energy, there will be form. Heuristic here, too, is the negativity of time, expressed by the three minuses in its deductive formula.

The eight MEI-complexes thus obtained can be understood as one of the groups of basic, primary archetypes. Being archetypes, they by definition cannot be fully expressed by the means of natural languages, but can have various semantic projections depending on the subject domain. Thus, in the epistemological and ontological field they can be understood as information aspects (IA). In the semantic field of information metabolism (IM), these archetypal meanings acquire the character of the eight psychic functions, and in the subject domain of intertype relations (IR) they impart a specific character to each of the sixteen socionic transactions. The set of these eight archetypes can be accepted as an axiomatic basis sufficient for constructing the basic concepts of socionics.

Analyzing the table of IA considered above and everything said before, one can conclude that the term information aspect (IA) does not fully express the actual state of affairs, since besides introverted information there exists extraverted information, or form. Therefore, more precisely and in accordance with the essence of the matter, one should speak of matter-energy-information (MEI) aspects or complexes, with which the human being, as an agent of the MEI-field, constantly deals. One can say that information metabolism constitutes only part of a more general metabolism in which, besides information, energy and matter in its atomic-molecular form take part. Therefore the maximally general form of universal transformation in our world is MEI-metabolism — the process in which matter, energy, and information are transformed. Of course, in a working, simplified, or jargon variant, the term information metabolism may be used instead, but this term, like physiological metabolism, has its own concretely delimited meaning.

Within MEI-metabolism two parts can be distinguished — extraverted and introverted. Its extraverted part is connected with practical activity and directed at the transformation of the surrounding world. In this case one can speak of external metabolism, and then the human being need not be represented only as an individual person: one can speak of humanity as a whole, whose enormous “organism” consumes, transforms, and creates all observable material objects. The introverted part of MEI-metabolism is connected with reflection — the mental and psychic modeling, in the human psyche, of the external MEI-world and of one’s own external transformative activity.

The deductive construction of the IA carried out above allows us to assert that there exists a level of eight IA constituting abstractions maximal for this level, and that their set satisfies the methodological requirements of completeness, necessity, and sufficiency. The categories thus distinguished belong to the ontological plane. In other words, of these categories one can say that they constitute projections of the eight basic archetypes into the field of ontological semantics. In this field the obtained categories can be explicated as follows:

• S — reality, the real object in the fullness of its manifestations.
• E — state, the energetic characteristic of the object.
• L — transformation, the process of transformation of some objects into others.
• I — potential, the potential possibilities of the object.
• s — value, the aesthetic and consumer parameters of the object.
• e — wholeness, relation.
• l — space, the parameters of the form and position of the object.
• i — time, the flow of process, processuality.

Despite a certain non-coincidence of the obtained list of categories with the lists proposed by other philosophers,¹⁶ it undoubtedly has a right to exist — at the very least because it is derived deductively from well-grounded basic categories. Why, for example, should the accent be placed on the object as something real, rather than using the classical concept of the object in general? Here one can answer that the category of the object in philosophy is opposed to and paired with the category of the subject. In the proposed list, however, the real object is a maximally concretized thing, a whole fragment of reality. And such a rendering of this category can no longer be denied appropriateness.

It may perhaps seem strange to some that the energetic state of the object is singled out as an independent category. Why not speak directly of energy, a more fundamental category? After all, an object may have all sorts of features, properties, or parameters — so why was precisely this side of the object singled out? This can be partially clarified by pointing to the opposition of phenomenon and essence, or of external and internal. Then the archetype S points to the external side of a thing’s existence, and E to something internal. However, it appears that this internal is not the innermost, to which the archetype I points. Could one not, in that case, dispense with the archetype E and simply operate with the concept of energy? This is formally prevented by the use of the concept of energy at the higher level of the three basic categories. At the level of the eight IA, the concept of energy is concretized by its combination with the modifications of the two other ultimate entities — matter and information. On the ontological plane, the category E performs an entirely definite role, pointing to the energetic reaction of the object when something other than itself acts upon it. The indicator of this action may be a change in energetic state. True, a change of state is easily explained by the particular construction of the concrete thing, as an immanent process of internal transformations. However, at the level of ultimate generalization, the “particular construction” can be understood precisely as the result of the adaptive reflection of external influences. The energetic characteristic of an object is something more than the simple registration of its external energetic indicators. What should rather be at issue here is a certain total energy of the object — but this topic requires further research.

In the list of the four extraverted entities, the category L stands somewhat apart. If the three other categories are connected among themselves by the concepts of internal and external, then how is the archetype L connected with them? This archetype can be understood as the process of the appearance of new objects on the basis of the transformation of previously existing ones. And even if the transforming object can, by a whole series of formal indicators, be considered the same, still, at the level of ultimate generalizations, any quantitative changes can also be regarded as the appearance of a new quality. And in that case the transformed object can be regarded as new. In this archetype, the internal turns into the external. At the level of functional semantics, this archetype can be regarded as the technological activity of the subject.

The archetype s, as the introverted form of the archetype S, is easy to understand as value — that is, a generalized image of reality from the point of view of its ultimate importance for the subject.

It is harder to explain the understanding of the archetype e as wholeness. However, if one takes into account that in the subject domain of psychology this archetype is realized as relation, then the projection of this archetype into the subject domain of ontology as wholeness becomes understandable. To this end, let us analyze the concept of relation. First of all, let us note that a relation is an effect of a pair. We say that two objects stand in a definite relation if their behavior and/or state causally depend on their interaction. And interaction can be understood as the unification of objects into a system in which each of them is a subsystem. If we now take into account that the concept of system and the concept of wholeness prove identical at the level of ultimate generalizations, then the ontological interpretation of this archetype also becomes understandable. Additionally, so as to leave no unclarities, let us define the concepts of behavior and state, since they were used in the explication of relation. Behavior is the trajectory of an object in the space of its external parameters. State is the trajectory of an object in the space of its internal parameters.

As for the archetypes l and i, on the ontological plane they are easily correlated with the concepts of space and time. If this hypothesis can someday be confirmed, then the question of the conceptual status of the concepts of space and time will be settled.

Summing up, one can say that one of the most important theoretical and practical achievements of socionics is the refinement and deepening of the concept of information. The primary field presumably lying at the base of our world is polarized into information aspects, which are the subjective images of its complementary dichotomies. One may argue about the order in which these dichotomies appeared in the quantum-mechanical substrate of the primary field, but it is not excluded that this phenomenon has a timeless character and, belonging to the primary archetypes, lies beyond the sphere of awareness. However, an abundance of opinions is possible here.

Conclusions to Chapter Two

1. Information metabolism — one of the key concepts of socionics — constitutes the processes of perception, processing, assimilation, accumulation, storage, and output of the information circulating in the psychic structures of the personality.
2. Information metabolism leaves its traces at all levels of the functioning and structural organization of the personality, including its anatomical, physiological, physiognomic, mimic, plastic, kinesic,¹⁷ and praxic¹⁸ manifestations.
3. Information metabolism is part of a more general joint metabolism of matter, energy, and information.
4. The concept of information metabolism compels a refinement of previously existing definitions of information and raises the question of the axiomatic concepts that may be placed at the foundation of a deductive construction of a picture of the world on the basis of a synthesis of all the knowledge bases accumulated in science.
5. As the fundamental concepts lying at the foundation of the scientific picture of the world may be taken the ultimate scientific abstractions of matter, energy, and information, which have two forms — extraverted and introverted. The combinatorial combinations of these ultimate entities generate eight matter-energy-information complexes, accepted in socionics as the IA.
6. The MEI-complexes, being archetypal entities, can be realized in various semantic fields. In the ontological field, as things-in-themselves, they remain themselves — that is, MEI-complexes. In the epistemological field they manifest themselves as IA — maximally generalized informational wholes. In the semantic field of information metabolism (IM), these archetypal meanings acquire the character of the eight psychic functions, and in the subject domain of intertype relations (IR) they impart a specific character to each of the sixteen socionic transactions.

References

1. Augustinavičiūtė, A. The Theory of Intertype Relations, in the monograph Socionics, St. Petersburg, 1998.
2. Churyumov, S. I. The Possible and the Impossible in Socionics, or the Smile of the Cheshire Cat, series of articles in SMiPL 4–6, 1998; 1–3, 1999.
3. Ermak, V. D. An Explanatory Dictionary of the Aspects of the Information Flow, SMiPL 2, 1998.
4. Bukalov, A. V. Socionics, Kyiv, 1990.
5. Kępiński, A. Psychopathology of Neuroses, 1975.
6. Nietzsche, F. The Will to Power, Moscow, 1990.
7. Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, Moscow, 1998.
8. Baudrillard, J. Symbolic Exchange and Death, Moscow, 2000.
9. Augustinavičiūtė, A. The Theory of Intertype Relations, manuscript, 1980.
10. Sedykh, R. Informational Psychoanalysis, Moscow, 1994.
11. Filimonov, A. V. Extension of the Informational Model of the Psyche, SMiPL 6, 1996.
12. Prokofieva, T. Socionics: The Algebra and Geometry of Human Relations, Moscow, 2004.
13. Ermak, V. D. How to Learn to Understand People, Moscow, 2003.

Notes

1. See, for example, J. Baudrillard [8], as well as the concepts of G. Mead and T. Shibutani.
2. Informational units leading to the emergence of informational illnesses.
3. Informational units that deliver pleasure.
4. They compensate for the excessive negative impact of information flows.
5. These are informational units that stop, neutralize, or paralyze the action of previously operating programs.
6. Parts and products of metabolic processes.
7. Unfortunately, a more euphonious term cannot be found here. Perhaps “relational perception” would fit, but it too is perceived as a neologism — only an even less comprehensible one.
8. Many socionics researchers (V. D. Ermak in particular) assessed this metaphor of Aušra’s extremely negatively, apparently failing to understand the thermodynamic heuristic standing behind it.
9. In the modern technical sense, this means a universal dynamic device onto which suitable technological attachments can be mounted, allowing a concrete product to be obtained.
10. This question has been discussed repeatedly in the cybernetic and philosophical literature, and there seem to be no major divergences among scientists here, although, if one wished, one could defend some more extravagant position.
11. This is apparently difficult or impossible to establish with physical instruments — “psychic” instruments would be needed; but since such have not yet been invented, only people are for now capable of acting as such “instruments.” However, because of people’s subjectivity, scientists cannot use them for the investigation of objective phenomena.
12. It would be too simplistic to reduce the form of an object solely to its geometric parameters. A more general definition of form is its understanding as the totality of all the parameters of an object.
13. “Deus ex machina” — “God from the machine,” i.e., the god who appeared on stage by means of a special contrivance to resolve the difficult situation into which the heroes of the play had fallen.
14. Cf., for example, Aristotle’s position: “Time is the number of motion.”
15. It is natural to call an energetic process productive if it concludes with some result — for example, the formation of some object. But of course the result may also be negative, if the object is destroyed. A productive process may be opposed to a non-productive one, where nothing occurs beyond the movement of energy flows.
16. For example, Aristotle’s predicables, supplemented by Porphyry and analyzed by Kant.
17. Kinesic — pertaining to the motor component of behavior.
18. Of course, “praxic” is not the same as “practical.” The latter concept characterizes socially approved effectiveness, while the former characterizes behavior in the subject domain of practice.