Understanding Stuff

[coberst]

Understanding stuff

 

I imagine comprehension to be a hierarchy, resembling a pyramid, with awareness at the base followed by consciousness, succeeded by knowing, with understanding at the pinnacle.

 

I am a retired engineer and my experience in the natural sciences leads me to conclude that these natural sciences are far more concerned with knowing than with understanding.

 

Understanding is a long step beyond knowing and most often knowing provides the results that technology demands. Technology, I think, does not want understanding because understanding is inefficient and generally not required. The natural scientist, with their paradigms, is puzzle solvers. Puzzles require ingenuity but seldom understanding.

 

I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding.

 

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

 

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

 

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

 

Understanding an intellectual matter must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

 

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

 

I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model--like a papier-mâché--of the meaning. Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not understanding.

[Jehu]

Most eloquently said! I must agree with you whole heartedly. Understanding is indeed a creative act, and no two creations are precisely the same. This is primarily what makes communicating such a hit and miss affair.

 

I have always thought of understanding in its most literal sense, to stand beneath something, to see what it is composed of, and how it is put together. Knowledge is a very superficial way of seeing things, being concerned with only form and function, but it is not understanding, it is not wisdom. Knowledge makes one powerful, while understanding makes one vulnerable. Those who would manipulate knowledge to gain power may be clever, but they are not intelligent. Those who seek to understand do so, not for the want of power or prestige, but for the simple love of it. These are the true philosophers.

 

But tell me, what is it that you would most like to understand?

 

Jehu

[coberst]

Jehu

 

It appears to me that humans are very good at matters of instrumental rationality and great benefits and great dangers result from this capacity. You mentioned that “Understanding is indeed a creative act, and no two creations are precisely the same. This is primarily what makes communicating such a hit and miss affair.”

 

I guess off hand I would like to understand this problem you refer to and some have called communicative rationality.

 

I must say that I have been roaming these forums for several years and I have seldom received a response from a person who displays your understanding.

[Jehu]

Coberst

 

You are very kind, but you may have judged my capacity to understand too hastily. Nevertheless, lets see if the two of us can create something that is sufficiently similar that we might be able to say that we understand one another.

 

The problem that I referred to is inherent in the nature of language. By this, I mean that our mental concepts are entirely private entities, and so are completely inaccessible to other cognizant agents. The communication of our concepts is only possible because we have developed a system of signs (designations) whereby we can direct another to a similar concept that is already present in their own memory. Consequently, the concept that one has in mind when we use of a particular designation (e.g., understanding) may be significantly different than the concept that is called to mind by the one who hears that designation. Now, although we have codified the various meanings and associations of a given designation, in dictionaries or lexicons, this is not how a concept is generally develop. Most of our concepts evolve as a consequence of our personal experiences of a given thing (designation), and although similar to those held by others who have experienced comparable things, they are not identical. In fact, they can be quite different indeed, and these difference can result in misunderstanding.

 

Would you agree?

 

Jehu

[DarkColoredLight]

I think I see where you're going with the first post.

 

So I'll raise a question.

Do you appreciate someone else's creations more, when you understand the process it takes to create said creation? eh?

 

Ex: I play guitar, I learned how hard is was to memorize just one song. Then, to be able play it flawlessly, like it was ment to be played. That's when I realized how skilled any guitarist is. At least I think I do.

 

 

I don't really know how to get my point across, but I'll work on that.

 

It takes hard work to make it look easy, type of thing.

[hallenrm]

Dear Coberst,

 

I can perhaps understand the reason why you started this thread, because I did the same a few months ago, to discuss almost the same topic.

 

Perhaps you may want to go through the psts in that thread. It was titled the chains inside human mind.

[coberst]

Jehu

 

I am not disagreeing with your analysis but am trying to communicate how I view that analysis.

 

If “reasoning together” requires the ability to communicate understanding in a fairly precise manner then I would judge that our self destruction is just a matter of time and that it would have already happened except for the fact that in the early part of the last century we did not have the technology of total destruction.

 

It seems to me that communication of understanding is never going to be very accurate.

 

Thomas Kuhn developed the phrase “normal science”. Normal science was one that was guided by a paradigm and paradigms were an understanding and as such were like a gestalt switch. A paradigm was a ‘way of seeing’. Kuhn went on to say that even in closely allied natural sciences scientist with differing paradigms found that they could no long communicate clearly, their world view had been switched.

 

As I view the matter ‘understanding’, i.e. creation of meaning, is personal with little possibility of communication except with fellows with the same ‘world view’ ‘paradigm’.

 

It appears to me that all humans, being human and sharing the same type of body, start with the same basic structure for their concepts. From this basic structure there are an infinite number or permutations such that the final concept, i.e. the ‘understanding’, can be communicated only in the most fundamental aspects.

 

Your comments have started me thinking about this problem of communicative action from a different perspective.

[coberst]

Darkcoloredlight

 

In regard to your question “Do you appreciate someone else's creations more, when you understand the process it takes to create said creation”—I answer, absolutely!

 

I have been trying to understand ‘understand’ for a very long time and developing this understanding has caused me to appreciate the act of creation much.

 

In fact, this accomplishment has changed my world view. It has given me a paradigm, a purpose.

 

After understanding ‘X’ ‘X’ seems so obvious. Before understanding ‘X’ ‘X’ seemed so mysterious. I think that one very important task for all of us are to help other adults understand ‘understanding’. This is what has led me to posting this thread. I have never before run into a forum with so many people who already understand. I am generally welcomed with scorn and ridicule.

[coberst]

Hallenrm

 

I am about to reread your "chains" thread and will post a reply on that thread. I like my first reading.

[coberst]

Dear Coberst,

 

I can perhaps understand the reason why you started this thread, because I did the same a few months ago, to discuss almost the same topic.

 

Perhaps you may want to go through the psts in that thread. It was titled the chains inside human mind.

 

 

For some reason the system will not allow me to post a reply on your thread so I will post my remarks here.

 

Hallenrm

 

As I try to work this through my brain I will analyze your original concepts.

 

Receptivity requires one to be conscious—to focus the mind--on some thing.

 

To move on to knowing I would say there are two types of knowledge; knowledge of matters of extrinsic value and knowledge of things of intrinsic value, occasionally they combine and we have a matter that has both intrinsic and extrinsic value. Matters of extrinsic value seldom lead to understanding because curiosity and caring are necessary for understanding. Matters of intrinsic value are on rare occasions taken to a point of understanding.

 

Wisdom is a tuff word for me. I do not understand this word; I do not even have a sufficient knowledge of this word to speak coherently about this concept.

 

Intuition I would say is that lump of knowledge, character, and understanding that stands as a foundation for our attitude. Intuition is a kaleidoscope that produces an attitude depending upon how that intuition is twisted and viewed. Attitude indicates the nature of intuition but intuition, as a complete entity, is a very tuff something for me to have much direct knowledge of.

 

Creativity is understanding in my book. When we understand we are creating meaning. That creation may be E=Mc^ or may just be my papier-mâché like intellectual model of something mundane that I understand.

 

That begins my thoughts. I shall now go back and reread the replies to your OP.

[CraigD]

For some reason the system will not allow me to post a reply on your thread so I will post my remarks here.

In order to keep it a quiet and relaxing forum, the Lounge can be viewed by anybody, but requires membership to post in – see 1469.

[DarkColoredLight]

Darkcoloredlight

 

In regard to your question “Do you appreciate someone else's creations more, when you understand the process it takes to create said creation”—I answer, absolutely!

 

I have been trying to understand ‘understand’ for a very long time and developing this understanding has caused me to appreciate the act of creation much.

 

In fact, this accomplishment has changed my world view. It has given me a paradigm, a purpose.

 

After understanding ‘X’ ‘X’ seems so obvious. Before understanding ‘X’ ‘X’ seemed so mysterious. I think that one very important task for all of us are to help other adults understand ‘understanding’. This is what has led me to posting this thread. I have never before run into a forum with so many people who already understand. I am generally welcomed with scorn and ridicule.

 

Be careful, there's a fine line between wanting to understand, and being just plain snoopy. If you play your cards right, people will only see you as wanting to understand.

 

You'll rather scare people, or surprise them. Do the right* thing and have fun on all of your "quests" to wisdom.

 

 

*double meaning LOL

[Jehu]

If “reasoning together” requires the ability to communicate understanding in a fairly precise manner then I would judge that our self destruction is just a matter of time and that it would have already happened except for the fact that in the early part of the last century we did not have the technology of total destruction.

I agree with Kuhn when he says that paradigms are a way of seeing, although I would add that they are not, in my opinion, a way of seeing clearly. I say this because it is our worldview that provides the “point of departure” from which all of our reasoning must subsequently proceed, and given that any scientific enquiry is only as good as its founding principles, and given that these founding principles are not themselves required to be demonstrable (logically) with that science, we are left with an inherent uncertainty. Now, many scientists and philosophers will claim that they can be certain of their founding principles because they are “self-evident”, but this is not a logical argument; but a rhetorical one.

 

You are right to fear for the continued survival of mankind, given the dominate materialistic/physicalist worldview, for this view conditions us to think of the natural world as a sort of mindless brut that must be subjugated and exploited. As a result, we have lost our reverence, not just for the inanimate aspects of the natural world, but for living things as well. Unfortunately, the proponents of knowledge (vs. understanding) have gained the high ground, in natural sciences as well as in philosophy, and, like matter itself, will resist any attempt to be moved.

 

Jehu

[HydrogenBond]

Understanding is very fluid while the knowing is often more carved in stone. The first is the basis for creative and inventive extrapolation. The second is stuck at the state of the art.

 

Understanding is harder to convey because it often require building up background to set the stage for the understanding. Knowing only requiring repeating what one has memorized. If one hits an area where knowledge is limited, the understanding can still extrapolate meaning, while the knowing become a critics. Criticism is knowledge's way to create the illusion of understanding without having to understand.

[coberst]

Hydrogenbond

 

Says--"Criticism is knowledge's way to create the illusion of understanding without having to understand. "

 

I agree 100% with your remarks except for the above. I would make one slight change to make it read:Negativity is knowledge's way..etc

 

It seems to me that too many people think that criticism means 'to be negative'. I like to use the word 'criticism' to apply to the attitude of the mother who cautions her son about his behavior. I suspect the son thinks his mother is being negative while his mother recognzes she is being critical. I think there is a world of difference between negative thinking and critical thinking.

[coberst]

Jehu

 

I would quibble a bit with your understading of 'paradigm' but not too strong a quibble.

[Jehu]

Jehu

 

I would quibble a bit with your understading of 'paradigm' but not too strong a quibble.

Hey, I’m not apposed to a good quibble! Besides, it is the only way to bridge the understanding gap. What does the term “paradigm” mean to you, and what sort of paradigm do you utilize in making sense out of the things that you encounter in the world?

 

Jehu