I believe a prudent place to start the conversation about thyself, or myself as the case may be, is attempt to define me. From a metaphysical vantage point, there is a quarrel to be had over what I am. As much as I have read about the idea of consciousness, be it dualistic (Descartes) or mechanistic (Dennett), there is very little clarity about what it is we are. The main problem in most writings, however the common point of agreement amongst the different sides of the issue, is that inside our physical skull is a brain that in one way or another, functions in a way that is beyond mere machine. There is an “us” in our heads that makes each person unique as an individual, that allows them to process different phenomenological occurrences in distinct ways, and somehow creates a consciousness (and certainly an unconsciousness) that humanity has come to associate with the metaphysical individual, whether or not this consciousness is via a “soul” or a function of the brain. The composition of my consciousness not being the crux of the question at hand, I’ll defer to expounding about it for the time being, however I think the idea of establishing that there is a consciousness, perhaps not separate, but somehow intertwined or a part of, the physical being that comprises our everyday, tangible selves. The first step in knowing thyself, I think, has to do with one’s idea of consciousness, which forms the view of the application of “thyself” in the world, and the minds interactions in context with its surroundings, and all that amalgamates into an individual.
To know oneself, is to understand ones own metaphysical composition, conscious and unconscious, how it interacts and interfaces with its surrounding environment, and why it does so. Myself is a very broad term. If I were talking about myself, I could very well be talking about my foot or my arm, however this is not the self I am referring to. Those objects may very well be important to my idea of self, but only in relation to the way I thought about them. The process, consciously and unconsciously, through which I think about different objects, ideas, etc, is an extremely important part of self. Predating that in the perpetual chronology of self-formation is why those phenomenological objects are thought of in the way they are, or what effects do they have on me. Let’s say I walk into a room with a friend, and suddenly, I see a giant ice sculpture of an ostrich. My friend remarks, “Is that not the most majestic, piece of avian grandeur that you have ever laid eyes upon.” Upon not hearing me answer, my friend looks over to me and sees that I have fled the room in terror at the sight of the frozen bird. These are clearly different reactions to the same object (let’s assume that we’re discounting the significance of the incredible ineptitude and subjectivity of our physical perceptions for the time being). My friend, quite puzzled, walks out of the room and finds me inconsolable on the ground, and asks, why did I have such an immediate and drastic repulsion to, what to him, seems like a benign piece of ice sculpture. The answer is differences in self. Upon viewing the ostrich, I processed the object in an incredibly distinct manner than my friend. Perhaps physically, our brains actually went through the same transduction of physical sights, however I ended up having a conniption while my friend was awed by the sight. My self, my unconscious brain, upon seeing the ostrich, recalled that when I was five, I has been mercilessly chased down by this vicious, Serengeti horror and was permanently phobic of the mere sight of it. When we say something scars us, like I would lament about this incident, it may have very well scarred our visceral being, however it molded the very malleable conscious and unconscious self which composes together to create the manner in which we will think in the future. That rundown in the desert created an imprint on my “self”, that was unique to my brain, and further shaped my thinking as to create the display of terror witnessed by my very confused friend. Clearly this is an extreme example, however, it represents my view on some of the formation of the self. In the hallway, being the meta-cognitive being that I’d like to think I am, can look back and see the origin of my manner of processing the phenomenological viewing of the ostrich, as well as why that manner of thinking exists. To understand why I have this reaction is a very important piece of my life and my understanding of self, as it is clearly the driving force behind all of my action and thoughts.
On a very functional level, there is importance in understanding that this ice ostrich isn’t going to hurt me and that I should reenter the room and face my frozen fear, so that I can attend this party and socialize like a normal human being. On a somewhat evolutionary and societal level of function, it is important that I understand that I actually should be afraid of live ostriches that have a very real ability to harm me, and not frozen ones, so I can socialize in this setting a be a member of society. Such a case is rare, however, and I think the real importance in understand oneself is to understand motive and meaning in ones life. I just didn’t decide one day, arbitrarily, that I would be liberal, or that I’m interested in Social Sciences, or that I have pragmatic tendencies. These ideas are meaningful and fundamental to my life because I have explored them internally, with hopefully some depth and my life is given a greater sense of meaning in understanding exactly how I interact with the world. By metacognitively dissecting exactly why I enjoy the things I enjoy, or like to study the subjects I like to study, I can stand on what I consider to be a legitimate grounds and defend my liking of certain objects or ideas, and consider the nature of my liking for them and the ethics involved with their resultant happiness or displeasure. I don’t mean to say that one can’t like something if they haven’t identified the exact moment in their life when it became important to them, or the exact protein in the DNA sequence that predisposes them to being liberal or conservative (if there is such a thing), however for any of those likes to have meaning, one must understand why they like them, why these things are important to them, and then go from there.
My greatest weakness is that my mind tends to be inherently dogmatic. In a cliche way, I tend to be a “big picture” kind of thinker. In that way, I do not always validate or qualify certain “truisms” that I may come across, or accept them too quickly on initial positive reaction without further criticism. Its unfortunately to some degree a detached dogmatism that usually takes hold. When I read Ayn Rand, I found a great deal of validity in what she said because I looked at it as a dogma solely in the context of her book. However, when I further thought about her ideas in a relation to the my own inherent beliefs and in a much more pragmatic sense, in the scope of efficacy in the functioning world around me, her ideas were much more clear to me, and in many ways much less true for me or in the greater scope of humanity. Struggling with the inherent sense of dogmatism of my mode of thinking is an ongoing battle and requires much more than critically probing certain ideas to fit them with myself and pragmatically with the world around me. There is a large degree of finding myself in the process, in that I must figure our what in “myself”, what I am using as the standard against these ideas, do I really consider true, and true to me. Fleshing that out is certainly a lifelong process that involved the full scale of the every day experimentation that is life rather than a more abstract discussion of the ideas involved in it.
I would like to think that my biggest asset is a sincere intrigue in the world around me. The nature of that intrigue is one that is ever-changing as my epistemological and ethical views shift as a student and participant in life, however I have found that engagement, in one way or another, to be intact no matter its manifestation. For that reason, I have never relented in my own self-intrigue. I don’t mean this in a egocentric way, however my first and foremost academic goal is to apply my knowledge internally in an effort to understand myself, and then advance from there. Now clearly I cannot halt all understanding of the outside world, and admittedly considering the conditions of the stage of my life that I am about to enter, my focus has largely turned to external concerns, not just in college but in the subjects which I hope to one day have a profession in, or just have a general interest in getting a head start on for college. (That doesn’t nearly capture the entirety of my fascination with the non-self world around me, however it will have to do for now.) However, I am intrigued by ambiguity and questions, I have an instinctive need, good or bad, to chase that which eludes in an epistemological sense. Some may take this desire in a bad way, akin to the competitors consistent need to win at all costs, however I do not really see my greater understanding of the world, and its relation to understanding myself, as being some sort of contest deserved of its own entity with winning or losing. I consider its value inherent and in the overall process, as understanding that in and of itself leads to a greater understanding and greater meaning on an individual and contextual level.
Metacognition and comprehension of oneself in a complete sense in probably one of the most difficult tasks one can undertake. No study in general is without the inherent precondition of human ineptitude that comes with the nature of knowledge and subjectivity, however the study of ones own consciousness is especially so due to its involvement with the subject and the object of study being the same. No humanistic study, be it social sciences or humanities, is every without the folly of self-importance and narcissism in its own regard. I’ve always wondered what a brilliant psychologist thinks of himself? If he thinks him or herself immune to the silly foibles of those not intellectually as gifted as he? Does he, understanding what really happens to the brain in times of grief, not mourn for the loss of a relative? From a qualitative and quantitative apporach, we are heavily biased for ourselves, how could we not be? How far would we really get if we naturally believed ourselves to be so flawed and illogical, in an evolutionary sense? Looking at ourselves is equally as difficult because, in my opinion and in reference to my first point, there are not two selves in the brain. We are not looking at another self when we think metacognitively, I believe that it is the same brain. Even if there were a soul, whose cognitive function were delineated from that of the physical brain, it would still have to think about itself as the same entity, an almost paradoxical thought. Its a process akin to looking at ones own face. One can do it through mirrors, or a photograph, or scant glimpses of ones own nose if one goes cross-eyed, however they will never see it for it is them. A different perspective, the process to which I would attribute through inter-subjectivity to be about as “true” as perspectives get, is impossible from a first person vantage point. I don’t view this limitation as a deterrence, however. A truth understood solely in the context of the individual, his or her society, and humanity as a whole is in no way incomplete, rather it is lacking the unseemly idea that this truth can somehow transcend the humanity within which it was created, or from the individual from which it sprang forth.
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