I strongly agree with where you're coming from, I'm just trying to be explicit about what introspection and metacognition can and cannot accomplish. For person

I strongly agree with where you're coming from, I'm just trying to be explicit about what introspection and metacognition can and cannot accomplish. For personal reasons not relevant to anyone not in my family, I've spent quite a bit of time considering how different people or sorts of people think. Not what they think, but how they think. And it is my sincere belief that the difference between a "second-level" and "third-level" thinker (to use the previously linked comment's charged but convenient terms) runs deep. Very deep. People of the "third level" really do exist, and they think very differently to the average person, in ways that are innate rather than learned. (Or, perhaps, were learned quite early.) The difference seems to be comparable in magnitude to the difference between a non-autistic brain and an autistic brain. Could you think yourself into having (or not having) autism? It may be a small difference, in absolute terms, but putting it like that makes it sound very difficult to do... and I think that's correct. It's akin to the difference between making a hardware change and making a software change. But I also think it's not very important. Because I would bet everything I own that the best "second-level-only" thinker would beat the worst "third-level-capable" thinker. That's why I say, be the best you that you can. Not the best someone else.