[coberst]

Will ‘Understanding” be Extinct by 2050?

McLuhan was, I guess, the first to express the insight that technology is an extension of the human body.

These hand-held gadgets for communication might very well represent the end of ‘understanding’ for almost all citizens by 2050. I can see it already on the Internet discussion forums where communication is becoming a stream of consciousness without coherent grammatical or thoughtful content or construction.

I am going to deal with numbers and ratios not that I think my numbers are accurate but I think they may be useful for comprehending certain things.

Suppose we establish a knowledge-to-understanding ratio K/U, i.e. the amount we know divided by the amount we understand (i.e. need to create).

I would say that a frontier family might have K/U ratio of 20/1. As time passes and there is less need for understanding (creativity) and more need for knowing because the demands of the frontier diminish and ‘civilization’ encroaches I would say the K/U ratio might go to 50/1.

After one hundred years I suspect the ratio might easily move to 100/1; after leaving the farm and moving to town and going to work in the factory the ratio might very well go to 1000/1.

Today’s modern man or woman may very well have a ratio of 10,000/1. The person with a PhD might very well have a ratio 100,000/1.

I have heard college professors say that you never really understand a subject until you try to teach it. I suspect a PhD who is also a long time teacher might have developed an understanding of many things and thus dropped the ratio back to 10,000/1.

I think that within the next 50 years ‘understanding’ will be only seen in a museum. Do you agree?

[ughaibu]

What do you mean by "i.e. need to create"?

[coberst]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

What do you mean by "i.e. need to create"?

I should first give you an explanation of what I mean by the word ‘understand’.

Understanding is a step beyond knowing and is seldom required or measured by schooling. Understanding is generally of disinterested knowledge, i.e. disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.

Understanding is often difficult and time consuming and the justification is not extrinsic but intrinsic.

These claims may be too general but I do not think so.

Understanding is a step beyond knowing and is seldom required or measured by schooling.

Understanding is generally of disinterested knowledge, i.e. disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application

I do not think understanding can be taught. Understanding is an act of creation and each of us must learn how to do it if we are every to recognize the "ecstasy of understanding".

[ughaibu]

I see, thanks.

[ronthepon]

Why is it nessecary that a large amount or knowledge compared to the same amount of understanding make it seem like a bad thing? Here, statistics is pulling it.

It is definitely true that the PhD people know vast amounts of info that are not quite understanding type (eg- the names of all the bones in the body, their parts, symphysis points, attachment points with muscle etc), but they will also have an amount of understanding along with it (eg how? why?)

Basically what I'm trying to convey is the fact that understanding will also be there, even though the ratio is different.

[ronthepon]

And, to your interpretation of understanding, I'd like to bring up the two little expressions I had heard in my young.

"Learn by heart"

"Figure it out"

I think that the second one corresponds to your understanding interpretation, no?

Maths. Physics. They are not a mere process of mugging up a bunch of formulas. True math and physics needs a good deal of understanding.

Biology. Physical chemistry. They do need a deal of mugging up, but even they have to be understood before mugging is the slightes bit significant.

And finally for chemical reactions and all that, though the basic processes are large in number and need to be learnt by heart, it needs understanding if application is in view.

So... a PhD does have to understand a good deal, and know 'by heart' a good deal more.

[coberst]

“In Mexico, farmers who noticed velvetbean growing wild in their fields used it to increase soil fertility and improve maize yields. In Northern Ethiopia, farmers reclaimed farmland from a river by constructing walls in the river bed and diverting the water flow. In India, an innovative farmer designed a tree plantation that successfully survived a severe three-year drought. Farmers' innovations have stood the test of time and hold the potential to meet the challenges of increasing production and managing the natural resource base.

During the last 40 or 50 years, however, many farmers have relied less on their own experimentation and innovation, and become more dependent on outside information provided through extension systems. This has had the effect of disempowering many farmers, as they became passive recipients of knowledge and technology.”

http://www.farmradio.org/english/pub...s/v2003sep.asp

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by coberst

“In Mexico, farmers who noticed velvetbean growing wild in their fields used it to increase soil fertility and improve maize yields. In Northern Ethiopia, farmers reclaimed farmland from a river by constructing walls in the river bed and diverting the water flow. In India, an innovative farmer designed a tree plantation that successfully survived a severe three-year drought. Farmers' innovations have stood the test of time and hold the potential to meet the challenges of increasing production and managing the natural resource base.

During the last 40 or 50 years, however, many farmers have relied less on their own experimentation and innovation, and become more dependent on outside information provided through extension systems. This has had the effect of disempowering many farmers, as they became passive recipients of knowledge and technology.”

http://www.farmradio.org/english/pub...s/v2003sep.asp

This is the equivalent in the political field of local and central goverment. Outside help of this type creates uniformity and leads to dependence, which turns everyone into clones of the mother society and just as helpless as real clones because they are without the necessary investigative and creative powers needed for survival, should something outside their experience occur. Pure research turns up unexpected results with equally unexpected applications and helps the progress of a society, whereas applied research knows what it is going after and dismisses everything outside that scope. It is like 'looking' as opposed to 'seeing'. By this I mean concentrated pursuit of the known versus accidental stumbling upon the unknown (Serendipity or fortuitous discovery - like penicillin or the telephone [found while trying to expand upon the invention of the telegraph, that is it started off as applied but stumbled into pure research through a couple of accidental side issues or discoveries, seemingly not relevant at the time]).

[TheFaithfulStone]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

I see, thanks.

I don't!

Knowledge - Knowing facts, like the names of all the bones in the body.
Understanding - Knowing concepts, like the relationship of all the bones in the body, why they are important, and what they each do.

Perhaps a word for your concept of understanding is "grok" Which means that you understand something intuitively.

For instance, I "grok" the beauty of Bessie Smith records, but I don't "understand" them because I don't know anything about how to put together walking bass lines or how to write lyrics. I have some "knowledge" of them in that I know what the words are, and kinda what the cords are.

Like that?

TFS

[coberst]

We have little comprehension of ‘understanding’ because our schooling has taught us only to know. Understanding is a step beyond knowing and our society which values production and consumption has little use for understanding. Those who make public policy do not want a population that cares about understanding. The bull that understands will hook at the Matador rather than the cape.

Understanding is generally not valuable in our society and so we have little comprehension of what it is. However there seems to be one application for understanding. I have on several occasions heard a professor say that “you never really understand a subject until you try to teach it”. Here is one occasion that people can begin to comprehend the meaning of the concept. I suspect we all have a sense of what the professor is saying. So here is a ‘use’ for understanding and in this example we who only value that which is ‘useful’ can begin to gain a comprehension of the concept.


We imply that reason can be depended upon as a guide but we do not help the individual understand what reason is. The problem is that our schools and colleges are only now beginning to teach CT (Critical Thinking), which is the art and science of how to think. We adults were never taught how to think we were only taught what to think. If we do not learn how to think and how to help others learn how to think then we are giving only empty words. We are as ignorant of what reason is as those we wish to give up dogma for reason. Until we learn the art and science of reason we cannot help others.