[dusted]

Is there even any suggestion that people are capable of self-understanding?

I've heard some people claim that they know themselves, but I don't believe they do, at least their own description of themselves seem vastly different from how I'd describe them (not that I claim to know them very well either). I kind of attribute the claim of self-knowing to a lack of reflection on the topic, and maybe mistaking ones values and ideals for ones actual behavior.

[Viliam1234]

> Is there even any suggestion that people are capable of self-understanding?

We certainly can improve at that, even if we never become perfect. Here is what I use to understand myself better:

* Reflecting on my past behavior. No matter how much I may hate to admit it, if in situation X I repeatedly did Y, it is fair to describe me as a person who "in situation X does Y". This is probably too humiliating for most people to do properly.

* Related: noticing long-term trends in my thoughts and behavior. What I feel today may be strongly influenced by what happened to me recently; tomorrow I can feel differently. But if I feel the same way or do the same things as I did 20 years ago, that probably means something important about me.

* Comparing my past behavior to other people's observed behavior. This is important, because many traits are relative to the population. Like, if you were the only person alive, you couldn't really classify yourself as "tall" or "short", even if you knew your height precisely to a millimeter; it is the comparison of your height to other people's heights that makes you "tall" or "short". By reflecting on my past behavior, I know what I am, but by comparing it to other people, I know what I am in the context of the society I live in. The context is important, if I want to communicate who I am to other people.

[dusted]

Hmm, I wouldn't describe that as knowing oneself though, it's very external, very much like looking at any other person (with a slight bit of additional knowledge of internal state)..

I mean, I can certainly say some things about how I react in certain situations, based on past observations, and I can also point out where those behaviours conflict with my own ideals, and how I will try to recognize and change that.

But I can't tell how I react in radically different and new situations, I can base it off of old observations and mix in some wishful thinking about how I would WANT to react based on my values, but in reality, I don't _KNOW_, I don't know it the way I know math or the way I know how a piece of code will execute, even without executing. There are unknown variables and just too many variables in total.

You know the phrase "you think you know people", it's the response to someone acting outside of your expectations, because we certainly also can't know other people, only their past behaviours and the pieces of their situations that we can observe or infer.