WHO am I? The question resonates down to us from antiquity: the injunction 鈥渒now thyself鈥� was, according to the 2nd-century Greek traveller Pausanias, inscribed on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. 鈥淚t is a classical philosophical ideal,鈥� says philosopher Thomas Metzinger of the University of Mainz, Germany. 鈥淲e should expand our own knowledge about ourselves wherever and whenever we can.鈥�
But is it even possible to gain a true picture of our self that corresponds with reality? We are within ourselves, so any attempt to build a full picture is naturally fraught with our own cognitive biases and problems of self-reference (see 鈥�Knowledge: Why we鈥檒l never know everything鈥�). A big part of our self-perception is tied up with how others see us 鈥� yet we can never fully know the biases that cloud their perception.
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Inside knowledge: The biggest questions about facts, truth, lies and belief
Forget alternative facts. To get to the bottom of what we know and how we know we know it, delve into our special report on epistemology 鈥� the science of knowledge itself
Philosophical investigations, plus scientific observations of human behaviour, have at least allowed us to delineate the question of what the self is a little more sharply. And it turns out there鈥檚 not one way of doing so, but several.
First, there is the phenomenal self. This corresponds to our sense of existing, and that there is a distinct entity in our mind that experiences this existence. This self is very real to each of us: it鈥檚 a sense of being a body situated in the here and now, and also of being a person existing over time.
But it is not always a reliable source of true knowledge about who we are. Someone suffering from the rare neurological disorder Cotard鈥檚 syndrome, for instance, has the distinct and disturbing experience of non-existence 鈥� a subjective self-knowledge clearly at odds with the truth. And every night, most of us dream. 鈥淚n a dream we can have a robust sense of self while being completely deluded about who and where we are,鈥� says Metzinger.
鈥淎t night, we dream 鈥� we have a robust sense of self while being completely deluded about who and where we are鈥�
A more sophisticated type of self-knowledge comes with the epistemic self. This creates a sense of self that knows it knows. The epistemic self is aware of the working of the phenomenal self, potentially making us more aware of our motivations. 鈥淚t is simply the discovery of a new way of being related to oneself,鈥� says Metzinger.
The grand delusion
Suppose you are sitting in a mind-numbing meeting and start fantasising about an exotic vacation. Your phenomenal self wanders with you into this dream world, but as you snap back to the reality of your meeting and become aware you鈥檝e been daydreaming, your epistemic self flashes into action, only to disappear again as your mind focuses (or wanders) once more.
Enhancing the epistemic self is the aim of mindfulness and meditation. Doing so can give you greater mental autonomy, 鈥渢he capacity to stop or better control what you are thinking, feeling, doing鈥�, says Metzinger.
In assessing our capacity for self-knowledge, however, most of us suffer from a grand delusion: that our self somehow exists apart from our material body. Most philosophers and neuroscientists today think that this sort of 鈥渙ntological鈥� self is a fantasy: there is no self separate from the brain that interacts with it. The 鈥淚鈥� that we feel is an outcome of the material processes that constitute our brain and body: when the body dies the 鈥淚鈥� goes with it.
That may not be the desired end to our philosophical journey of self-knowledge. But then again, as Metzinger says, 鈥淣obody ever said that this will lead to enchanting or emotionally attractive results.鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淐an I know myself?鈥�
