Know Thyself

A friend of mine started a great little discussion and gave me permission to repost it. So here it is! I've grammar checked her, so any mistakes are mine, not hers.

At the risk of getting in over my head - I've read your debates on your blog - but I completely do not agree with 'You don't know yourself as well as those outside you can know you.' how is that possible?

Awww, what a sweet thing to say.

This one is easy. What I meant is that perfect introspection is a doomed process, or put another way as the truism says, knowing yourself is the hardest thing a person can do.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fjbWr3ODbAo

He explains it better than I, but just so you don't accuse me of copping out I'll give it a stab.

You can't know your mind because you are infinity bias, and you're infinitely close to the problem.

I think you can know your own mind better than anyone else and that is it possible to have unbiased introspection. sure you probably can't have it all the time but I think it's possible to have moments. why else do people change aspects of themselves that they don't like or seek to better themselves? I know you'll probably say it's because of societal pressures or something like that and maybe I'm way too naive but I do believe that I know myself better than anyone else. mostly because I live here inside my own head.

what about Buddhism and enlightenment? the way to nirvana is through perfect self-knowledge. I seriously do not want to get into a debate with you - mostly because you'll kick my arse. I'm really curious about what you think

"sure you probably can't have it all the time but I think it's possible to have moments."

But that's the perennial question isn't it. How do you know those moments when they come, from delusion? The only way you actually can know is through evidence, and for evidence you need a control group or some objective reference and since your mind and perspective are unique and infinitely subjective, that will be a tough find. Without evidence your opinion becomes faith, or philosophy, which is fine, but you also surrender any right to say "I'm objectively correct."

It's like rolling dice and guessing what comes up, sure you're gunna be right sometimes, but knowing when isn't possible, unless you're psychic of course, at which point knowing would merely be a different way of seeing and thus wouldn't be a guess at all.

"why else do people change aspects of themselves that they don't like or seek to better themselves?"

As you predicted, I say largely because of the information they glean from others' reactions to them. However. How much of that self knowledge is truly self derived? We spend our lives surrounded by other people. That said, just because you have accurate self data, does not mean it originated with you. Perhaps someone told you something about yourself and you just later found it to be true via exterior evidence.

Or of course maybe its not true at all and you're laboring under a false assumption in the first place, that something about you needs to be changed. Just because you think you should do something doesn't mean you actually should, even with regard to your own goals.

The question is how do you know? And the answer is always outside yourself. And before you ask, how I know is by logic and inference. In much the same way as I may not know what the 60 billionth digit of pie is, but I know it's a positive number between 0 and 9.

"what about Buddhism and enlightenment? the way to nirvana is through perfect self-knowledge."

Much like people misunderstand the light speed barrier, people misunderstand what is meant there by "self knowledge". Consider, Buddhism also teaches us that all things are one, and thus what we call the outside (outside of our body, not outside the universe) is merely a part of a greater singularity. In that context yes one could have perfect self knowledge without the aid of an "outside", but only because from a Buddhist perspective outside is inside, or put another way there is no "outside".

Thank you for your time and simulation :)

What about those moments when you realize that something you're doing or have been doing for a long time just doesn't 'feel' right anymore? is that feeling influenced by the 'outside' world or by others' input? You seem to understand a lot more about Buddhism than do most western people I know. That makes me happy

Only in so far as their reactions to you influence your perception of yourself. My intention is not to invalidate anyone's emotions. What you feel is genuine, but it also does not exist independent of the world. Relationship is by definition mutual impact, but granted that impact can have wide variety in terms of degree. Analogy: The nail also effects the hammer.

"You seem to understand a lot more about Buddhism than do most western people I know. that makes me happy"

Heheh you'll love this.

http://innomen.blogspot.com/2008/04/American-buddha.html

The End.