According to Descartes we have infallible and complete knowledge of what goes on inside our minds. This is just common sense—all we need to do is turn our attention inwards and introspect. However, this is not entirely right. There is more to the mind than we can consciously access. Experimental evidence suggests that while people might knowwhatmood they are in, they are very bad at knowingwhy他们就是那种心情。相反，他们会用一种现成的文化解释来解释自己的情绪，比如“雨天和周一总是让我感到沮丧……”而实际上，情绪和天气或星期几并没有关系。也许这样的解释只是让我们觉得好像我们了解自己，包括我们情绪的原因，但实际上这些解释完全是虚构的。

In fact, the prediction of moods is much more accurate when it is applied to others, rather than to oneself. (Ken, for example, can predict his wife and son’s moods very accurately based on observation.) Perhaps a similar third-person, observational approach to one’s own internal goings-on is the way to gain knowledge about one’s own mind. As Flannery O’Connor says: “I don’t know what I think until I read what I write”. However, Ken worries that this third-person attitudes wreaks havoc with our immediate experienced living of life. If the way we seem to ourselves is so out of sync with how we really are, Ken suggests, doesn’t that imply that we are buffeted about without control, in ways over which we have no control, into which we have no real insight?

为了对这种潜在的令人不安的情况获得一些关注，肯和约翰邀请了弗吉尼亚大学的心理学教授、《陌生人:发现适应性无意识》一书的作者蒂莫西·威尔逊(Timothy Wilson)参与讨论。他认为，虽然我们拥有丰富的意识生活，但还有很多东西是我们无法企及的。While Tim admits that we may have some privileged access to certain feelings, such as knowing that we are in pain or in a good mood, he holds that this asymmetry of access breaks down once we try to identify thereasonsfor these feelings or emotions.

在第二部分中，蒂姆认为我们对自己情绪或行为的原因的了解实际上是通过观察得来的，也就是说，我们对他人情绪和行为的原因的了解是一样的。他认为，我们会对自己进行推断，因为我们有很多关于自己的观察信息，考虑到我们总是在自己身边，我们很擅长预测自己的行为和情绪。但我们并不比别人更善于解释自己。蒂姆引用了一项研究，在这项研究中，大学生试图猜测是什么影响了他们的情绪。他们得到的原因和完全陌生的人被要求做出同样的猜测一样正确。蒂姆认为，我们可能会被引入歧途，因为我们会对自己的某个事实如此感兴趣，以至于我们把它看得过于重要。一个外部的观察者可能更善于判断我们为什么要做我们所做的事情。

John makes that the point that evolutionarily speaking, it makes a lot of sense to invest resources in gaining knowledge about others. We need to be able to predict whether another animal is going to try to eat us, or whether they are hostile or friendly. Perhaps this way of gaining insight into a mind originally came about in order to allow us to explain and predict others and only secondarily became applied to the self. Tim agrees. He argues that the function of the mind is to understand others. That is so critical that that comes first. Only as an afterthought, so to speak, do we apply it to ourselves. Moreover, culture supplies us with a number of theories about why we do what we do and we take those theories indiscriminately and apply them to ourselves. These theories are not always wrong, but they’re not always right either.

Ken takes issue with this view. He argues that even from a natural selection perspective, making sense of oneself is similarly important, since one needs to be able to predict how one oneself is going to act! For instance, in order to be a good partner in transactions, I need to be able to understand why I do what I do, so I can figure out what I am going to do in the future. But Tim replies that this view assumes that we need to understand ourselves in order to guide our behavior, but that is not necessarily true. Not all action, Tim maintains, is the result of thoughtful introspection. We can act in ways that are regular and in accordance with our goals and personalities in ways that operate entirely unconsciously.

At this point John cites the example of how most of us knowhowto ride a bike, but very few knowwhatexactly it is we know. Similarly, John suggests, we need to be good at knowing how to deal with ourselves, but we don’t need to know how to put that knowledge into words. Tim agrees and adds that, of course, for some of our higher goals, such as plotting our futures, deciding what professions we want to pursue, or which partners we want to spend our lives with, knowing something about our preferences is important. Here our conscious storytelling part of ourselves needs to be a good observer, otherwise those choices won’t be optimal. But even in these cases it is not a matter of direct access to the unconscious.

In the final segment, John, Ken, and Tim discuss to what extent we can confabulate explanations about ourselves. Arguably, overestimating ourselves slightly has evolutionary payoffs. However, to some extent we need to see the world the way it really is. After all, no one is well-served by disregarding an oncoming truck and neglecting to get out of its way. Too much confabulation about the self, such as pretend reasons or being blinded to one’s real motives, makes for a toxic public space, as Ken and Tim agree is the case in politics. Often, we think others find ourselves more interesting than we really are.

肯现在很担心。那自我呢?如果自我是真正自主和自治的，它必须是透明的。如果不是，如果它是不透明的，我们不能看到它，难道自我管理的想法不就消失了吗，至少自我是负责的想法?如果我们大部分时间都在虚构自我解释自我的概念不就开始瓦解了吗?蒂姆的回答想必不会让肯完全放心。蒂姆把自我比作骑着一匹野马，试图驾驭一切。一个人有一点影响，但很大程度上是无法控制野兽的方向的。

So how do we improve our self-understanding? Ken and John ask Tim if he can provide some advice? Tim suggests we practice seeing ourselves through the eyes of others, and coming up with better stories about ourselves. He assures Ken that this should just be a matter of tweaking our self-conceptions, not of shattering them entirely. After all, if our stories about ourselves are not at least roughly accurate, i.e. if they are wildly out of synch, we would be institutionalized.

Roving Philosophical Reporter (seek to 5:30):Roving Philosophical Reporter Caitlin Esch investigates a patient who exhibits spontaneous confabulation. Rather than remembering the past the way it really was, he produces false memories that render his life better, driving a more expensive car, married to a younger and more attractive wife, and making more money. Turns out, this kind of confabulation might actually be good for us!

60 second philosopher (seek to 49:35):Ian Shoales takes us on a mad-dash tour of history from the origins of farming to a world controlled by digital overlords.