We don’t have any better access to our own brain processes than we do to a random persons
The point of the linked article is that when naively thinking that we are good at introspection, we fail at it. For example, “When presented with the idea of cognitive dissonance, they once again agreed it was an interesting idea that probably affected some of the other subjects but of course not them.”
That only weakly implies “We don’t have any better access to our own brain processes than we do to a random persons.” We not only don’t know how trained people can do, we don’t even know how untrained people who would agree they are subject to biases would do!
If you define introspection as magically perfectly accurate self-knowledge gleaned without thinking, or even training, that is idiosyncratic.
I exaggerated a bit. The points I was trying to make: we can only weakly introspect; the term “introspection” is misleading (I think “reflection”, mentioned by another commenter, is better); we are in a strong sense strangers to ourselves, and our apparent ability to introspect is misleading.
I am only a dabbler in meditation and Buddhism, but I think an actual Buddhist would NOT characterize meditation as introspection. The point of it is not to have a self more aware of itself, but to reveal the illusory nature of the self (I’m sure that is a drastic oversimplification, at best).
I agree that “reflection” is the best term for what people can do. It does make sense to associate the strongest term, “introspection”, with the strongest belief, the naive one.
After posting that I felt even more unsure about my assertion about Buddhism and introspection than I had indicated, so did some Googling...here’s some support from an actual Buddhist, though I’m guessing there is a wide variety of opinion on this question.
The point of the linked article is that when naively thinking that we are good at introspection, we fail at it. For example, “When presented with the idea of cognitive dissonance, they once again agreed it was an interesting idea that probably affected some of the other subjects but of course not them.”
That only weakly implies “We don’t have any better access to our own brain processes than we do to a random persons.” We not only don’t know how trained people can do, we don’t even know how untrained people who would agree they are subject to biases would do!
If you define introspection as magically perfectly accurate self-knowledge gleaned without thinking, or even training, that is idiosyncratic.
I exaggerated a bit. The points I was trying to make: we can only weakly introspect; the term “introspection” is misleading (I think “reflection”, mentioned by another commenter, is better); we are in a strong sense strangers to ourselves, and our apparent ability to introspect is misleading.
I am only a dabbler in meditation and Buddhism, but I think an actual Buddhist would NOT characterize meditation as introspection. The point of it is not to have a self more aware of itself, but to reveal the illusory nature of the self (I’m sure that is a drastic oversimplification, at best).
I agree that “reflection” is the best term for what people can do. It does make sense to associate the strongest term, “introspection”, with the strongest belief, the naive one.
After posting that I felt even more unsure about my assertion about Buddhism and introspection than I had indicated, so did some Googling...here’s some support from an actual Buddhist, though I’m guessing there is a wide variety of opinion on this question.