TinyBubbles
anarchist
- MBTI
- ^.^
- Enneagram
- .
I read a quote once which said "other people are the lenses through which we see ourselves" meaning we realize who we are from the perspectives of third parties... & implying we cannot see ourselves directly. Like the reflection in a rusty mirror we'd have a picture shone back to us in the form of the attitudes and perceptions of other people - the accuracy of this picture (the shininess of the mirror?) would depend on:
1. The number of third parties you're involved with
2. The accuracy of their judgment
3. Your ability to accurately interpret their judgment
Since we're limited to the number of people who we know and CAN know and interact with, that would affect no.1 (also by third parties I don't mean actual people - even a paragraph in a book describing personality types had to come from a person who had a certain image of the person you believe yourself to be. I guess a better way of saying it is, the number of opinions of yourself you're exposed to, in whatever format.)
The accuracy of their judgment would always be put into question, as human beings are not unbiased creatures - age, mood, personal history, past events, etc.etc. would affect our motivation and ability to directly express what we see of others... it's like taking a paintbrush to the mirror and scribbling all over it, messing up what is there with what YOU are (and what you want).. also certain judgments would be out of our direct control, such as subtle changes in body language when you're around a person you really like.
no.3 - your ability to interpret others' judgment accurately and thus see the picture in the mirror as, say, a lion and not a kitty cat, would also be subject to your own psychological biases; you won't necessarily see what's there as opposed to what you are. Do you know what I mean? Your focus would already be on a certain part of the picture based on everything that's already happened to you, based on the way your brain is wired, based on what gets your endorphins flowing and what doesn't - so what is THERE (what they see) and what your eyes can see might be two very different things.
Also it might not be true that we can't know ourselves directly, after all personality theories like the one this forum is based on are founded on that very premise - that individuals know their own minds better than anyone else (and some part of our ego I'm sure would agree with the notion - nobody wants to feel like somebody else knows them better, do they? Or maybe they do?)
Uh.. getting off track again. Anyway, what do you think, can people truly know themselves? And what does "knowing yourself" really mean, anyway?
1. The number of third parties you're involved with
2. The accuracy of their judgment
3. Your ability to accurately interpret their judgment
Since we're limited to the number of people who we know and CAN know and interact with, that would affect no.1 (also by third parties I don't mean actual people - even a paragraph in a book describing personality types had to come from a person who had a certain image of the person you believe yourself to be. I guess a better way of saying it is, the number of opinions of yourself you're exposed to, in whatever format.)
The accuracy of their judgment would always be put into question, as human beings are not unbiased creatures - age, mood, personal history, past events, etc.etc. would affect our motivation and ability to directly express what we see of others... it's like taking a paintbrush to the mirror and scribbling all over it, messing up what is there with what YOU are (and what you want).. also certain judgments would be out of our direct control, such as subtle changes in body language when you're around a person you really like.
no.3 - your ability to interpret others' judgment accurately and thus see the picture in the mirror as, say, a lion and not a kitty cat, would also be subject to your own psychological biases; you won't necessarily see what's there as opposed to what you are. Do you know what I mean? Your focus would already be on a certain part of the picture based on everything that's already happened to you, based on the way your brain is wired, based on what gets your endorphins flowing and what doesn't - so what is THERE (what they see) and what your eyes can see might be two very different things.
Also it might not be true that we can't know ourselves directly, after all personality theories like the one this forum is based on are founded on that very premise - that individuals know their own minds better than anyone else (and some part of our ego I'm sure would agree with the notion - nobody wants to feel like somebody else knows them better, do they? Or maybe they do?)
Uh.. getting off track again. Anyway, what do you think, can people truly know themselves? And what does "knowing yourself" really mean, anyway?
i think some people might object to being referred to as a thing tho 
although i guess if you don't specify a difference between living and non living matter, then everything's a thing. XD technically maybe we are things, since we break apart physically and react to physical stresses like every'thing' else. is consciousness a thing?