I have a strong desire to comprehend stuff

[coberst]

I have a strong desire to comprehend stuff

 

I claim that comprehending is a hierarchy and can usefully be thought of as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid is awareness that is followed by consciousness, which is awareness plus attention. Knowing follows consciousness and understanding is at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

 

Two aspects of this comprehension idea deserve elaboration: consciousness and understanding.

 

When I was a youngster, probably seven or eight, my father took me with him when he drove to a local farm to pick corn for use in the café the family managed. We drove for a significant amount of time down local dirt roads to a farm with a field of growing corn.

 

We went into the fields with our bushel baskets and filled them with corn-on-the-cob. Dad showed me how to choose the corn to pick and how to snatch the cob from the stalk.

 

On the drive home I was amazed to observe the numerous fields of corn we passed on the way back to town. I can distinctly remember thinking to myself, why did I not see these fields of corn while we were driving to the farm earlier?

 

Today I have an answer to that question. I now say that on the way to the farm I was aware of corn-on-the-cob but on the way back home I was conscious of corn-on-the-cob. There was a very significant difference in my perceptions regarding corn-on-the-cob before and after the experience.

 

We are aware of many things but conscious of only a small number of things. We were aware of Iraq before the war but now we are conscious of Iraq. There is a very important distinction between awareness and consciousness and it is important for us to recognize this difference.

 

To be conscious of a matter signifies a focus of the intellect. Consciousness of a matter is the first step, which may lead to an understanding of the matter. Consciousness of a matter is a necessary condition for knowing and for understanding of that matter. Consciousness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for knowing and understanding to take place.

 

When discussing a topic about which I am knowledgeable most people will, because they recognize the words I am using, treat the matter as old stuff. They recognize the words therefore they consider the matter as something they already know and do not consider as important. Because they are aware of the subject it is difficult to gain their attention when I attempt to go beyond the shallowness of their perception. The communication problem seems to be initially overcoming their awareness and reaching consciousness.

 

Understanding is a long step beyond knowing. Understanding is the creation of meaning. Understanding represents a rare instance when intellection and emotion join hands and places me in an empathetic position with a domain of knowledge. When I understand I have connected the dots and have created a unity that includes myself. I have created something that is meaningful, which means that I have placed that domain of knowledge within my domain that I call my self. I understand because I have a very intimate connection with a model of reality that I have created. It is that eureka moment that happens rarely but is a moment of ecstasy. As Carl Sagan says “understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

 

When I read I almost always read non fiction. I have tried to read fiction and to learn from reading what is considered to be good literature. However, my effort to read good literature fails because I thing that learning by reading good literature is a very inefficient means for gaining knowledge and understanding.

 

I claim that I can acquire more knowledge in one hour by reading non fiction than I can while reading good literature for ten hours. That is, I claim that learning by reading non fiction is ten times more efficient than learning by reading fiction, i.e. good literature.

 

Do you agree that acquiring knowledge by reading non fiction is ten times as efficient as from reading fiction?

[Buffy]

Do you agree that acquiring knowledge by reading non fiction is ten times as efficient as from reading fiction?

I think you've answered your own question, but it might take some rethinking to see it...

I claim that comprehending is a hierarchy and can usefully be thought of as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid is awareness that is followed by consciousness, which is awareness plus attention. Knowing follows consciousness and understanding is at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

I'd argue that this view is entirely ex post facto. It says nothing about how you *build* that pyramid!

 

Building it is way more than:

Two aspects of this comprehension idea deserve elaboration: consciousness and understanding.

It seems like the crux of your argument is that its just the combination of consciousness and understanding together that creates "comprehension." But I think you're missing the real secret thats sitting there in your story:

When I was a youngster, probably seven or eight, my father took me with him when he drove to a local farm to pick corn for use in the café the family managed. We drove for a significant amount of time down local dirt roads to a farm with a field of growing corn.

 

We went into the fields with our bushel baskets and filled them with corn-on-the-cob. Dad showed me how to choose the corn to pick and how to snatch the cob from the stalk.

 

On the drive home I was amazed to observe the numerous fields of corn we passed on the way back to town. I can distinctly remember thinking to myself, why did I not see these fields of corn while we were driving to the farm earlier? [emphasis Buffy]

Take a look at what I bolded. What's there? Think about that for a minute.

I now say that on the way to the farm I was aware of corn-on-the-cob but on the way back home I was conscious of corn-on-the-cob. There was a very significant difference in my perceptions regarding corn-on-the-cob before and after the experience.[emphasis Buffy]

Think about what I bolded there for a minute more.

To be conscious of a matter signifies a focus of the intellect.

So, exactly what is it that "focuses our intellect?"

 

Experience!

 

Being there!

 

Doing it yourself!

 

est-folk will tell you that you can't "get it" unless you "do it."

 

I don't agree with a lot of what Werner says, but I do agree with that.

 

So, when you run into this:

When discussing a topic about which I am knowledgeable most people will, because they recognize the words I am using, treat the matter as old stuff....Because they are aware of the subject it is difficult to gain their attention when I attempt to go beyond the shallowness of their perception. The communication problem seems to be initially overcoming their awareness and reaching consciousness.

Exactly. But what you seem to imply is just an "unwillingness" on the part of your audience that's due to their lack of interest in "understanding."

 

The problem as I see it is that you need to *persuade* people that they should listen: just telling them that "they just don't get it because they're being obstinate and short-sighted" is abdicating your responsibility as an advocate of your world view to *convince* people that they *should* take another look.

 

I guess you do have some argument that they should simply because its good for them, but as a practical matter, that's not the way the world works!

 

Thus I'll bring in your last point because its so important to this issue of "persuasion":

When I read I almost always read non fiction. I have tried to read fiction and to learn from reading what is considered to be good literature. However, my effort to read good literature fails because I thing that learning by reading good literature is a very inefficient means for gaining knowledge and understanding.

What's "inefficient" about it? All that flowery prose? All the long descriptions of scenes and actions that tell you what you'd *experience* if you were there?

 

What *really* does fiction do?

 

It puts you there in places with all the superfluous elements to get you to *experience* something you have not or cannot experience!

 

And that's the *only* way to really "comprehend!"

 

To be recursive here, the main reason I stopped to respond to this post was *precisely* because it had a story in it. YOUR story! And its a *really* good one for getting the *essence* of what it means to "comprehend" that I really did "get" what you were trying to convey, much more completely and more *engagingly* than you could possibly have done so with endless phrases from a dictionary.

 

So while I'll agree that you might:

I claim that I can acquire more knowledge in one hour by reading non fiction than I can while reading good literature for ten hours. [emphasis Buffy]

You still won't *comprehend* it anywhere near as well. In fact you might not even crack the book at all if its not got a good story in it!

 

And thus:

Do you agree that acquiring knowledge by reading non fiction is ten times as efficient as from reading fiction?

Only efficiency insofar as you've noted some facts.

 

But I'll argue you have not gotten it *completely*--that is *comprehend* it--unless you do something to experience it either directly or indirectly.

 

And I can guarantee--having spent too many years in marketing--that if you don't use some stories of experience to "superfluously dress it up" that you won't get many people to listen!

 

It's misleading to suppose there is any basic difference between education and entertainment, :hihi:

Buffy

[Buffy]

Just one example from great literature as to what I'm talking about in my previous post.

 

In the middle of Moby Dick, there's a really long chapter--unfortunately, unwisely excised from the abridged editions of the book, so some of you may not have read it--that does nothing but describe turtles crossing the deck of the ship.

 

The CliffsNotes version of this is "being on a whaling ship is boring." That's all you can say you "know" after you've read it.

 

But if someone just tells you "being on a whaling ship is boring," pretty much your reaction is going to be "of course it is! So what?"

 

But after you've read that chapter--which is self-referentially excruciatingly boring to read--you *get* it. You've been there. You really *comprehend* how horridly, utterly, painfully, mind-numbingly boring it is to be on a whaling ship.

 

Were this world an endless pain, and by sailing eastward we could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage, :hihi:

Buffy

 

[and :doh: to Voytek Dolinski who is the source of this little academic point, with many thanks for having been my favorite English teacher!]

[coberst]

Buffy

 

Well said! I was hoping that I might find some responder who could make a good case for reading fiction, especially good fiction.

 

I agree that experience is a marvelous way to learn, however experience of the physical walking around kind is so limiting and slow. I think that reading must be considered as being an experience also.

 

I was discussing this idea with another reader and we thought that it would be interesting to take two high school seniors of equal ability and have one read Othello and the other go to Google and tell each that there would be an exam in one hour about the subject of tragedy and jealousy.

 

Of course what means do we have for examining understanding. Our problem here would be how to create an exam that would provide a good standard for judging this contest.

[Buffy]

...and tell each that there would be an exam in one hour about the subject of tragedy and jealousy.

 

Of course what means do we have for examining understanding. Our problem here would be how to create an exam that would provide a good standard for judging this contest.

 

"Exams" in the traditional sense mostly test ability to regurgitate facts.

 

"True understanding" is the ability to apply that knowledge.

 

Unfortunately its very hard to measure. Its one reason the Verbal SAT has gone to essays, but "grading" this sort of thing is a highly subjective task and the grading that is used places an almost equal emphasis on "really good regurgitation with some insights" and "application and relation to similar things."

 

That's what you spend a lot of time complaining about, and I think you've got a point. But at the same time, both senses of understanding are useful to society, and thus a strong argument can be made that punishing "ability to remember facts" by giving it only a B is actually not good for us as a social group. Its a topic that actually is discussed at length in Schools of Education, so its not a glossed over topic!

 

I personally am lousy at remembering exact facts, but a lot of the people who work for me (programmers) are obsessive about them, and I'd die if I didn't have them on my staff. I give them entirely equal weight to the creative types who come up with collisions of remote ideas out of the blue that mean great new product ideas.

 

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world,

Buffy

[coberst]

Good non-fiction books

 

The following is a quickie from Wickie regarding some of the best in non-fiction reading.

 

These books listed below are some selections from "Modern Library 100 best non-fiction" from Wickie.

 

An American Dilemma

The American Language

The Ants

The Art of Memory

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Civil War: A Narrative

The Double Helix

The Education of Henry Adams

The Elements of Style

Eminent Victorians

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

The Golden Bough

Good-Bye to All That

The Guns of August

Homage to Catalonia

In Cold Blood (book)

Mark Twain's Autobiography

The Mismeasure of Man

Notes of a Native Son

The Open Society and Its Enemies

Principia Mathematica

The Right Stuff

The Rise of the West

A Room of One's Own

Silent Spring

The Strange Death of Liberal England

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

A Study of History

A Theory of Justice

Up From Slavery

The Varieties of Religious Experience

 

 

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Category: Non-fiction books