the abyss means...

Why is there a philosophical problem about self-deception? It lies in the apparent paradox that deceiver and deceived are the same. Deception seems logically to require that deceiver and deceived are distinct. If I deceive you, then I am deceiver and you deceived; I the doer, you the victim. The deceiver is one agent, and the deceived another. But in self-deception there are, it seems, not two agents but only one. The self-deceiver is both deceiver and deceived, both doer and victim. As deceived, he believes what is false. But since he knows the truth, he knows to be false what the deceived believes. But he is the deceived. So he believes what he knows to be false. How can this be so?

Who are you trying to kid?

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sadly a self-deciever can decieve and not know the difference becuase they are not sure of their own deceptions.

providing i'm not decieving myself.

eddie on September 1, 2003 01:16 PM

I'm glad I know my own mind. I wouldn't like to worry that I was deceiving myself.

You don't seem so sure.

joh on September 1, 2003 02:54 PM

sadly so

eddie on September 1, 2003 03:44 PM

Not much I can add to that really.

Well, except:

'You don't see what you see, and what you see, you don't see.'
- Shi Su Goong
(A particularly apt quote from Whiskey River)

joh on September 1, 2003 10:57 PM