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This is fascinating, Jason.

I think you are drawing on some interesting insights, AND it is the case to be sure to understand them, we need to be sure we are not mixing up different conceptual threads based on association.

First, for anyone following, let’s be clear that extraversion-introversion in Jungian theory is different than extraversion in Big Five trait theory. The latter is surgency, positive affect and general activity levels (especially social/gregarious activities). The Jung conception is focused much more on the character and direction of conscious/phenomenological attention.

To understand the Jungian extraversion-introversion distinction, it is helpful to consider the classes of sensation we have access to. There are “exteroceptive” senses that are the traditional five+ senses that bring in information from the outside. There are also “interoceptive senses” which refer to attention to the senses coming from the organs, like one’s gut. One can also consider one’s intuition here, potentially. Finally, there is proprioception, which refers to how one is aware of one’s position in the world, and pertains to things like balance and coordination.

Extraverted folks have conscious attention dominated by exteroceptive sensation, whereas introverted folks focus more on the interoceptive senses. John Vervaeke’s emphasis that the mind is all about the “agent arena” relationship is helpful here. You can pay attention to the objects in the arena (extraversion) or the mental contents in the mind of the agent (introversion).

With that said, I think interesting reflections can be made regarding what you note about object and field, but much of that is associative and, as I suggested above, is in danger of confounding across meanings.

The argument that I am making about behavior is perhaps best understood by placing it in Ken Wilber’s analysis of the different epistemological quadrants (see here for a brief overview). The argument both Wilber and I would make is that modern science shifted the meaning of “empirical” from observation through the senses into observation grounded in external measurement. This is crucial because it shifts the frame of reference from a first person phenomenological view to a general third person view. I make the additional argument (very consistent with Wilber) that we can characterize the basic conceptual frame of scientific epistemology as behaviors (i.e., observed/measured changes in object-field relations) in systemic contexts. Attached is my view of Wilber’s quadrants seen through the lens of the Unified Framework.

I think I will pause here and then see where we might want to go.

Best,
Gregg

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of nysa71
Sent: Saturday, February 1, 2020 10:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Extraversion vs. Introversion, Mental Behavior, & the Object-Field

Hello ToK Society,

Just some thoughts on the concepts of extraversion (i.e., "outward-turning") and introversion, (i.e., "inward-turning"), and how they might relate to the ToK conceptualization of "behavior" as "a change in the object-field relationship"...

Specifically, I'll be referring to the analogy made by Lithuanian sociologist, Aushra Augusta, between extraversion & introversion on the one hand, and bodies & fields (or objects & fields), on the other. And this could be particularly relevant to the ToK insofar that behavior itself is a change in the object-field relation:

"...introverts think not in terms of objects and what happens to them, [as extraverts do] but in terms of relationships between objects, especially the relationship between the subject and the external world. To refer to relationships, [Augusta] utilized the concept of a field, taken from theoretical physics. This association should be considered metaphorical and can be easily explained. Celestial bodies interact mostly from afar due to fields. The field is a sum of relationships of one body with other bodies. It becomes clear if we imagine a particle. We cannot say if it has an electric charge (and therefore an electric field around it) unless we put another charged particle nearby and see how it reacts.It may move closer, drift away or stay in place. Only then can we say something about the relationship between the charges of these particles. Other physical fields work in the same way. Therefore, the concept of a field is somehow akin to the concept of a relationship." [Source]

Furthermore, (and bearing in mind from the last sentence in the citation above that "the concept of a field is somehow akin to the concept of a relationship"):

"It seems necessary to answer why [Augusta] decided to rename Jungian extraversion/introversion dichotomy to objects/relationships. According to Jung, the dichotomy was made to distinguish between subjective and objective attitude towards reality (Jung, 1921). Even though all experience is subjective, Jung found that some people prefer one attitude, while others prefer the other. The distinction is based on the degree to which perception or judgement of objects is influenced by subjective and idiosyncratic contents of one’s inner life. Objective (extraverted) attitude is characterized by the submission of the subject’s perception to the experienced objects. Introversion, on the other hand, is characterized by greater distance between the object and the subject. Talanov proposed a model according to which the conscious metabolism of information in extraverts is inhibited by low intensity stimuli and excited by strong stimuli (Talanov, 2006). This model suggests that extraverts need strong external stimuli in order to orient themselves in the world. The internal stimuli (interoception, daydreaming) are presumably not enough to excite them. Information metabolism of introverts, on the other hand, is inhibited by strong stimuli and stimulated by the more subtle ones. Therefore, introverts are more likely to concentrate on the internal stimuli which are produced in response to external excitations, and not on the external excitations themselves. Let us notice that such internal stimuli express the relationship between the introvert and the external world, which explains how introversion is linked with the perception of information about relationships [i.e., fields]." [Source p. 10]

So, in short, it is suggested that extraversion refers to a focus on objects, and introversion as a focus on fields, in object-field relations. Gregg has written before that we can think of humanistic and scientific perspectives as first-person and third-person perspectives, respectively --- which to me, could just as easily be called introverted and extraverted perspectives, respectively. So perhaps --- in object-field relations --- we could say (particularly in regards to psychology) that a scientific perspective focuses primarily on the object, and a humanistic perspective focuses primarily on the field. Thoughts? ~ Jason Bessey

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