In Eternity, advanced mental technology enables memories to be implanted and personalities to be merged. Thus, this novel can be categorized either as psychological speculative fiction or as science fiction in which the "science" is psychology.
The character called "Olmy" "...detested deep intimacy...he did not want to know himself completely, or to have anyone else know him. He did not relish the thought of exploring his own mentality, as others did." (p. 99)
I share Olmy's detestation for being fully known by anyone else. In fact, Poul Anderson has a short story in which telepaths soon become disgusted with one another. However, what is wrong with Olmy knowing himself? A friend at University thought that those who want to find or know themselves make the questionable assumption that the self is something important. Well, maybe it is? But, if it isn't, then all the more reason to know what it is in order not to entertain any illusions about it. In Buddhist teaching, there is no permanent, enduring entity answering to the term "self" but there are causally related mental processes and states and it makes sense to understand them just as it makes sense to understand mechanics if you drive a car.
Preferring not to know yourself completely means preferring not to understand or control what you do or why you do it. I think that this is willful and culpable ignorance. It was encountering this psychological sf in the first novel, Eon, that got me into rereading Poul Anderson's Brain Wave in which intelligence overcomes instinct.
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