AnalyticalEngine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 03, 2022 2:42 pm
This strikes me as the reason subpersonalities are offered as a therapeutic tool. If behavior is entirely intersubjective, a technique to notice it within yourself is to deliberately project the behavior onto something else. This projection of the intersubjective components of one's behavior becomes a sort of mirror to see things one would have never seen before because the rules contain no meta-awareness.
Nice! This also explains why subpersonalities doesn't work for me. My intersubjective arsenal is entirely model-based, so I don't know Ann, Bob, and Carl as much as I know (F41, Kegan4, ENFP, formal, ...), (M55, Kegan3, ESTP, conventional, ...), and (M19, Kegan2, INTP, systemic, ...).
This might also pertain to some of what AxelHeyst and Scott2 has said about model building of social dynamics(?)
For me MBTI was a shift in intersubjective thinking. The naive intersubjective [theory of mind] assumption is that "everybody is like me". This works if the "me" is normal. However, insofar one has been blessed/cursed with e.g. a high degree of logic-based introspection, which is relatively rare in humans, the presumption that "everybody is like me" is mistaken. Something that becomes apparent as one grows up.
However, for minds closer the norm of humanity, the presumption of
bijection of mindspaces holds up---all a person has to do is to add slight variations explaining other persons' quirks(*) ... but otherwise the mental operations can be assumed to be analogues.
In this language, this is where subpersonalities pop up. This then becomes a
surjection: There's subjective understanding of one's own person. The presumption that other minds are variations of one's subjective understanding of oneself. E.g. the "warrior" is a braver version of myself---my own subjective sensation of bravery dialed up. The "planner" is myself with a better executive function, etc.
But lets say I'm trying to understand emotional behavior in others despite not having much subjective experience of emotion in myself. In this case I can not construct an emotional subpersonality from a variation of something I know---because I don't have much to build it on. This is where the subpersonality strategy doesn't work. And this is where the categorization-type theories shine.
In that regard, the categorization-type theories provides an [objective---basically the behavior I can see in others] meta-awareness where little or no subjective awareness exists.
Of course, running this theoretical machinery is mentally hard. One has to remember who the other person is and calculate what they would say or do. "What would I do in this situation" does not work. For outliers, talking to one other person operates at the Compute state. Talking in a group operates at the Coordinate state. Being the life of the party is at the Create stage. Whereas for normies, every situation operates at the Copy, Compare, and Compile stage.
(For example, it takes me much longer to get comfortable in a group of normal people than it does with just one normal person. Also, if I'm in a group with EREmites, I actually can be if not the life of the party then at least quite mingly.)
With experience, e.g. sales or management or another outgoing activity, one may become unconsciously competent at the calculate and coordinate thought. Ditto with familiarity with the people in the room. Whereas an engineering-type or a younger person is at best consciously competent but more likely consciously incompetent (wall flower). (The unconsciously incompetent tend not to be invited again.)
Summary: Each theory is simply a way to make a connection from where someone is subjectively. The theory must fit the subject. (This is also why there are so many different therapeutic methods.)