Perhaps. It would require having considered whether or not the bridge would support him at some time or other though, wouldn't it? A lizard crosses the bridge, but that crossing is not strong evidence that it believes that the bridge will support it. — creativesoul

I don't think belief requires much consideration. Hear the bell, start salivating. I'm not the lizard whisperer, but the folks that I know of, cats, for example, are sometimes unsure whether something will support them or not, and sometimes surprised when it does not. [insert cute video here]

But humans. Humans are largely opaque to themselves. I find I can not know someone's name, even though I know that I know it. It's on the tip of my tongue... And certainly I believe and act upon all sorts of stuff that I never consider, and that the ground will support me, whether it is a bridge or a cutting, is a trivial example. That the nearest shop is right, left, and on the opposite corner at the crossroads... I have never really thought about it 'til now.

This is how I go on when I'm not philosophising, and since I can not know things I know I know, and know things without knowing and believe things I've never considered whether or not to believe them, it becomes really rather easy to deceive myself if I have reason to want to. And one reason I might want to deceive myself that all this is not the case is that I like to consider myself a philosopher, who is much more insightful.

I don't think belief requires much consideration. Hear the bell, start salivating. I'm not the lizard whisperer, but the folks that I know of, cats, for example, are sometimes unsure whether something will support them or not, and sometimes surprised when it does not. [insert cute video here] — unenlightened

Rudimentary belief requires no consideration. Not all belief is rudimentary.

But humans. Humans are largely opaque to themselves. I find I can not know someone's name, even though I know that I know it. It's on the tip of my tongue...

Forgetting and remembering. We either know something or we don't. I find that regularly employing self-contradictory language perpetuates itself.

And certainly I believe and act upon all sorts of stuff that I never consider, and that the ground will support me, whether it is a bridge or a cutting, is a trivial example. That the nearest shop is right, left, and on the opposite corner at the crossroads... I have never really thought about it 'til now. This is how I go on when I'm not philosophising, and since I can not know things I know I know, and know things without knowing and believe things I've never considered whether or not to believe them, it becomes really rather easy to deceive myself if I have reason to want to. And one reason I might want to deceive myself that all this is not the case is that I like to consider myself a philosopher, who is much more insightful.

I can't make much sense of this, which is unsurprising given the inherent self-contradiction.

So, deceiving oneself is always being mistaken, but not the other way around. The difference between being mistaken and deceiving oneself is that one who is deceiving oneself takes being told that they're mistaken personally, so much so that they are incapable of correcting the mistake. This overly general parsing is good enough for now, I think. — creativesoul

Self deception comes in many forms. If you do what you know that you ought not do, and you have success, so that you later think that perhaps it's ok to do what you did, and now proceed to do this regularly, progressing to the point of having forgotten that you ought not do this, then you have deceived yourself. You have deceived yourself into thinking that it's OK to do what you knew that you ought not do.

So I use a snow blower. I know that when the chute gets plugged with wet snow I ought to shut off the machine before sticking my hand in there, to be sure to avoid injury. However, I realize that if I check the machine to make sure that it's not turning before I stick my hand in there, it's not a problem I can do this without shutting off the machine and there's no injury. So I deceive myself into believing that I need not shut the machine off before sticking my hand in there, to avoid injury. You might think that this is not deception, there really is no need to shut the machine off. But one time I mistakenly determined that the machine was not turning, when it really was, and there was injury. So I realized that I had deceived myself into believing that I didn't need to shut off the machine to avoid the possibility of injury.

I can't make much sense of this, which is unsurprising given the inherent self-contradiction. — creativesoul

But surely, self-contradiction is impossible?

Lots of Americans hold the view that all politicians lie.

Even those who hold the view that all politicians lie probably do not find it acceptable that they should do so, so the deceiving politician can still be deceitful on my account - your counterexample seems misguided.

Rational process can involve putting certain kinds of logic to use. Para-consistent logic qualifies. Para-consistent logic holds that a statement can be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. This logic has the ability to render any statement either true or false.

Do you see the problem?

Not really, but then perhaps there isn't a problem to see. First, paracconsistent logics do not render any substantive non-logical statement either true or false, they are just formalisms of different types of logicial consequence. Furthermore so-called true contradictions, even if acceptable within a paraconsistent logic, are limited to a special range of propositions (involving vagueness and the use of the truth predicate for instance). So the relevance of the existence of paraconsistent logics is unclear to me in the context of self-deception - particularly since on my account the truth or falsity of the belief concerned need not be relevant (as in the example I gave). Of course, if someone who appears to be self-deceiving were suddenly to start justifying their belief by quoting theorems from paraconsistent logics, then perhaps one would have to revisit the claim that they were deceiving themselves, but it would depend what belief they were trying to justify. You would need to give me a fleshed out example for me to see the real problem you are getting at.

So, deceiving oneself is always being mistaken, but not the other way around.

This might be right, but care needs to be taken to understand where the mistake lies. Deceiving yourself that some proposition P is true (or false) does not require that the mistake be about whether P is true (or false). In the example I gave John's mother believes that John did not murder Jane, and she is not mistaken about that because John really did not murder Jane, yet she is deceiving herself. If there is a role for mistake in that example it is her mistake of not taking the evidence stacked up against John seriously.

I can't make much sense of this, which is unsurprising given the inherent self-contradiction.
— creativesoul

But surely, self-contradiction is impossible? — unenlightened

Not at all. I've never claimed otherwise. Self-contradiction is not self-deception.

I'm still waiting on a criterion which when met by a candidate counts as self-deception.

So, deceiving oneself is always being mistaken, but not the other way around.

This might be right, but care needs to be taken to understand where the mistake lies. Deceiving yourself that some proposition P is true (or false) does not require that the mistake be about whether P is true (or false). In the example I gave John's mother believes that John did not murder Jane, and she is not mistaken about that because John really did not murder Jane, yet she is deceiving herself. If there is a role for mistake in that example it is her mistake of not taking the evidence stacked up against John seriously. — jkg20

What makes it go from being mistaken to self-deception? For that matter, what makes it either?

Your opinion?

I mean, she was right after-all.

Our belief system('mind', if you prefer) works in many ways that are autonomous. We've all experienced a gestalt, I imagine. We've all had something on the tip of our tongue. We've all remembered something 'out of the blue'. We've all forgotten things that we're sure we used to be able to remember, we used to know. We've all used poor reasoning at times. We've all been guilty of confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, etc. Why call these things "self-deception"?

When we talk about deception, particularly when we talk about someone deceiving an other, there are elements which make it what it is. Those elements are non-existent in all the sensible, reasonable, and/or coherent examples of self-deception put forth. What is the ground for changing this criterion? It's been shown to lead to self-contradiction, incoherency, equivocation, or just plain nonsensical talk.

We can all imagine a stick insect, or a moth, or any other type of camouflaged critter. Our choices are saying that it is deceiving it's predators(and changing the criterion or equivocating) or simply refrain from saying that it is deceiving it's predators(it has no intent after-all), and begin talking about it in better ways.

Squirrels...

Now they are intentionally deceiving others, by pretending to hides nuts when others are watching and they know it, or they do this by pure accident and the behaviour itself increases the likelihood of their survival, so it has been a trait/behaviour that has proven beneficial, and hence has transcended the individual squirrels.

What makes it go from being mistaken to self-deception? For that matter, what makes it either?

Your opinion?

I mean, she was right after-all.

Well, it certainly is my opinion that John's mother is deceiving herself, and the mistake she is making is not taking seriously evidence that ought to be taken seriously. You seem not to share that opinion, so perhaps - as in many cases of philosophical argument - we've arrived at a clash of intuitions. Of course, you might try to push the line that John's mother is not deceiving herself concerning the belief that John murdered Janet, but rather the belief that Johncould have murdered Janet and then start giving some counter-factual analysis of self-deception in terms of possible worlds - for all I know David Lewis has already done this. So in the end, perhaps the truth of falsity of the belief involved in self-deception might be argued to be an important concern.

When we talk about deception, particularly when we talk about someone deceiving an other, there are elements which make it what it is

However, even if my intuition about truth or falsity being a side issue in self-deception is misguided, I still insist that self-deception is not correctly modelled along the lines of one person deceiving another (although it would not be too hard to think of an example of one person deceiving another into believing a truth). John's mother is doing something wrong, she is making a mistake - ignoring evidence - that she, as a rational person, ought not to have made. Self-deception, in this sense, is as much (if not more) a moral issues as it is a metaphysical one.

Well, it certainly is my opinion that John's mother is deceiving herself, and the mistake she is making is not taking seriously evidence that ought to be taken seriously... — jkg20

So what does it take for her to deceive herself?

You saying so, or something that has nothing at all to do with you? I say, if the notion of self-deception is to be worth something, it has to be the latter.

She was right.

I think your example highlights the reasons why we ought carefully consider the sorts of evidence that are presented. You claim she didn't take it seriously enough, but it seems to me that you would've wrongfully convicted someone, and yet say that she was deceiving herself when she would've gotten it right.

:worry:

Doesn't what you've done here fit your own criterion of self-deception? It seems to me that it does, although on my view you're just simply mistaken(assuming sincerity).

@jkg20 is arguing the same as I did that self-deception is a violation of our norms of rationality, often related to the treatment of evidence, sometimes related to inference or other elements of reasoning.

What you're still missing is that reasoning is a process without a pre-selected outcome. You can choose to futz with the process in various ways, and this is quite intentional, but it needn't ever lead to direct confrontation with the outcome -- that can be endlessly pushed aside and never arrived at. So there's no issue of at once assenting to and not assenting to some proposition. You just make sure that proposition never makes it to the floor for a vote. You do this deliberately. You find ways to rationalize doing it, reasons that have nothing to do with your real motivation, reasons that allow you to give what you're doing the color of rationality. No doubt when confronted you will be able to defend yourself at length and explain how every step you took or didn't take was thoroughly justified.

The natural competitor for describing such a process is simply "being mistaken". But this sort of thing doesn't look much like being mistaken to me.

Hmmm...

That's an interesting take. Of course I'm reminded of conventional American politics. I'm not sure that I'd call what Senator Mitch McConnell does and what John Boener did(which you've just described perfectly) as either being mistaken or self-deception.

I'll think about this a bit. Got more?

It's very hard to judge which politicians are lying to themselves and which are soul-less tools.

I'd rather not do more politics, but I wholeheartedly recommend this excellent piece of popular philosophy by the estimable John Scalzi: The Cinemax Theory of Racism. I think it's on point.

Yeah, I'm all good for leaving politics out of the particular points raised. I just found it interesting... your word choice, I mean.

Read the article if you haven't before. I just reread it and it is as good as I remember.

That's a great piece! Brilliantly worded analogy.

Right? And it's a solid piece of philosophy, to my mind.

On the nature of abetting...

Yeah, pretty good.

You find ways to rationalize doing it, reasons that have nothing to do with your real motivation, reasons that allow you to give what you're doing the color of rationality. — Srap Tasmaner

As I've described self-deception, rationalizing is one step in the process. It is the cover-up. This is when one knows that what one is doing, or saying is wrong, but the individual produces a rationalization to make it appear as if it were right. Creativesoul insists that the only people who could be tricked, or fooled by the cover-up are people other than the one producing the rationalization. But this is not the case because all that is required is that the person who produces the rationalization becomes so focused on remembering and describing the cover-up, and enamoured by the cover-up, that they forget the thing being covered up.

What creativesoul doesn't seem to allow for is the fact that self-deception is a process which takes time. So creativesoul presents a logical argument in which a person cannot both believe and disbelieve the same thing at the same time, and dismisses self-deception as impossible. But this does not properly represent the temporal process of self-deception in which one belief replaces another over a period of time. The rationalization, or reason for replacement, is known to be unjustified when introduced, but the process of repetition and attention to the details of the rationalization, ends with the fact that the rationalization is unjustified, having been forgotten.

The point to notice is that memory requires mental effort, it is not automatic. Therefore, as we say, memory is selective. So when we do not choose to remember certain things they are forgotten and this is what makes self-deception possible.

What must be the case in order to successfully lie to yourself?

Simple enough question. But hard to answer. — Moliere

If by "successfully" you mean "genuinely", then I don't think it's possible to lie to oneself. You either believe A about X in situation Z or you don't. You can try to persuade or convince yourself to believe B about Y in situation Z even though you still genuinley believe A about X in situation Z. You can try to avoid thinking about, acknowledging, or denying a belief, but that's not the same as lying.

Lying involves holding a view about X as true but presenting it as false.

i am a tree.
i just lied to myself.
easy.

do i believe it?

no.

half the people i lie to don't believe me either.
but i'm still lying to them - intentionally.

so are you really asking how to lie to yourself and believe it?

i don't think you can - intentionally.

i think when people say "you are lying to yourself" the case is actually that you are mistaken in your perception of the subject and genuinely believe the wrong concept.

they can see the truth so clearly that it stands to their reason that you should see it equally as clear, but since you cannot it appears that you are "lying to yourself."

a lie is simply something that is false. which means it's not correct.

if you form a believable opinion, based on inaccurate information, you are basically "lying to yourself" by believing false data.

I suppose it's possible that one continue offering the same lie about themselves to others so often that they themselves begin to believe the lie. Unintentionally. Deception requires intent. Being wrong is accidental. Being wrong about oneself is accidental.

Taking another stab in a different vein...

So, there's two basic notions to consider with self-deception. The first is what is the or a 'self'. The second is what counts as deception.

There is no self without others. What one comes to think about oneself comes largely via language acquisition. We learn how to talk and thus think about the world and/or ourselves through language use. We adopt our first world-view in this way. However, it can be the case that one's innate personality/character is different in remarkable ways than what s/he has learned is acceptable within and to their immediate familial and/or social surroundings.

For example, one may be attracted to the same sex while being raised in a social setting where such a thing is condemned. All humans are interdependent social creatures by our very nature, and the need to feel accepted and/or fit into a larger peer group is evidently a strong one. If one's social group does not accept homosexuality, then one who is attracted to members of the same sex has to suppress any and all behaviours that may cause others to view them in a negative way.

Here, if the self is determined by others' moral values/beliefs about how things ought be, then one who would otherwise be prone to engage in homosexual behaviours and thoughts must alter the way they act and talk in order to conform and be accepted.

But is that who they are or who others think that they should be?

If one within such a situation were to intentionally suppress any and all homosexual thought as a means of self-discipline with the goal of fitting in, then their notion of self would be in conflict with who they would otherwise have been.

Sorry for the time delay on not tending the thread. I'm glad to see the discussion continue, though. There was the weekend, and family, and other things besides philosophy. But I'm back now.

Without introducing meaning, truth, and belief into the mix whatever theory of mind discussed will be utterly incomplete, wouldn't you agree? — creativesoul

Belief, sure. I'm not so certain about meaning or truth, though.

What is the difference between being mistaken and self-deception? — creativesoul

I'm still waiting on a criterion which when met by a candidate counts as self-deception. — creativesoul

I don't even know what "ruling it our a priori" is supposed to mean. If it is impossible for one to deliberately misrepresent their own thought and belief to oneself, then any and all arguments which assume or validly conclude that are themselves based upon at least one false premiss. — creativesoul

I'd say that "ruling it out a priori" means that you are ruling out the possibility that our minds are divided by means of some conceptual analysis of the concept of lying, or by declaring it to be impossible. Maybe you're not, but I'm not sure why it is impossible to deliberately misrepresent one's own belief to oneself.

I am fine with your notion of lying. So lying, rather than merely being mistaken, is when you deliberately misrepresent your own belief to yourself. Merely being mistaken is holding a false belief. Since falsity isn't in the notion of lying the two don't even have to relate. We may deliberately misrepresent some true or false belief to ourselves, just depending upon what we believe. By removing truth, in fact, there is a lot more wiggle room here -- the beliefs need not even have a factual component (EDIT: Or even be truth-apt). They merely need to be misrepresented to ourselves.

And such a thing would be possible -- conceptually speaking, here -- if the mind were in some sense divided. So let's just stick with @unenlightened's notion of commitment. I am committed to some belief. I come to believe something that is in conflict with this other belief. Here I can be honest with myself, realize that these two beliefs are not compatible, and try and think through that conflict and resolve it in some way. Or I can be dishonest with myself, act out of fear, and tell myself that the beliefs are not in conflict. However I might accomplish this -- it seems that this dishonesty is really what lying to yourself is all about. You aren't coming to terms with a conflict in beliefs, but rather accepting both beliefs in spite of having the niggling realization that they are in conflict. So you misrepresent your beliefs -- or meta-beliefs? -- by saying they can get along fine. Your commitment and your new belief that said commitment is somehow erroneous (not necessarily false) and your belief that they are not in conflict are all somehow simultaneously preserved. It seems a mental feat which would result in conflict of the self, and indeed I'd say that this is the case -- which really only makes sense if different parts of the self can actually be in conflict, which is easily understood if the mind is divided.

@numberjohnny5

so are you really asking how to lie to yourself and believe it? — Uniquorn

Bingo. Well, not exactly how I, personally, might do so -- I'm not after a step-by-step guide to lying to myself. But rather what would necessarily be true if it were possible to lie to yourself. So I'm not really assuming that it is possible to lie to yourself, even. I'm more interested in a conceptual analysis of lying to yourself -- exploring what is necessary under the assumption that it is true.

The benefit being that by so doing it might lead to a way of determining whether it is or is not true, but without simply assuming one way or the other.

All thought and belief is meaningful and presupposes truth. Mind consists in part at least(entirely on my view) of thought and belief(mental correlations). That's how truth and meaning belong here as well.

I'm not sure why it is impossible to deliberately misrepresent one's own belief to oneself. — Moliere

It's been explained and argued for several times over. I'm sure if you really want to know why I hold that view, you'll go back and see for yourself.

Thought I'd make it easier...

One cannot be tricked into believing something if they know both how they're being tricked, and that they're being tricked.

One who is performing the trickery knows both how and that they're doing it.

One cannot know how and that one is tricking him/herself and not know how and that one is tricking oneself(how and that it's being done).

The same applies to deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief to oneself. It's just plain common sense. It's not at all difficult to grasp.