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The Philosophy of Understanding
Picture a child running around the house,
banging on pots, screaming at the top of his lungs and jumping on
you while you are trying to read. Such a display would seldom keep
anyone’s blood pressure from rising or keep anyone from
putting an end to the chaos. We are taught,
mainly through negative reinforcement, as children to abstain from
such “bad” behavior. Parents and teachers alike inject fear into our minds
in the form of threats. These threats are used as a deterrent so maybe the child will think twice
before writing on the walls or eating mud. Children are threatened
that their cherished belongings or luxurious activities could be
taken away unless they stop “misbehaving.” Additionally, when
pressured to give justification for household or classroom rulings,
many of us recall being told by our parents or teachers, “Because I
said so.” Throughout all my years of formal education, this is one
disappointing similarity that I noticed that appeared from teacher
to teacher and ranged from subject to subject. Being a curious
child, I asked “Why?” very often with regards to both commands as
well as subject matter. I was constantly fed this lazy mantra for
any question I asked that had to do with understanding
something, as opposed to blindly doing or remembering. For me,
elementary and high school strictly dealt with memorizing facts or
acquiring knowledge. There was no stress on curiosity. Was this all there was to life?
More often that not, people nowadays
across the globe are not raised to be actively skeptical toward
traditions or authority, and perhaps this is why the average person
knows so little about what he or she encounters and the technology
that's taken for granted on a daily basis - the microwaves, cell
phones, televisions, computers, automobiles, etc. All these things
are extraordinarily integrated in so many people's lives; yet,
what percentage of the people who use them have the slightest
idea about how or why they make life so less complicated (most
of the time)?
All right, so a lot of people are fairly
ignorant with regard to the "technical" or "scientific"
side of life. But unfortunatly even more so, is that so many of
these people don't even possess a will to change their
state of naïveté and obtuseness. Should we leave all
the “technical” stuff up to the scientists and engineers and just
leave the general public simply ignorant users of the products?
Is this a good idea especially when so many things can and do
go wrong? Is it really a sin to attempt to understand or fix things
ourselves? In the event that a computer or car does something
even remotely different than what is expected, I see people respond
very negatively and curse the technology because this “problem”
requires fixing, and they'll be damned if they are going to even
attempt to fix it themselves. People panic when something like
this arises because it is foreign - the unknown causes fear. This
fear and apathy is what keeps and always will keep computer repairmen,
car repairmen, and other "problem solving" jobs in high
demand. Why should we care, though? Well, ignorance about technology
leads to ignorant consumption. Virtually all businesses rely on
a certain degree of consumer ignorance when we are buying that
new car or computer. Ignorance is bliss? Hardly. Nobody should
promote mass ignorance. What is so repulsive about the hows and
whys of the things we deal with on a daily basis? If someone has
a good answer, please email
me.
To this day, I am in rapid pursuit
of not exclusively knowledge, but an understanding of why
things happen. I am still very concerned with the what,
but much more so with the how and why behind reality and
the way things work. Knowledge is nothing without constructive
application. The only good thing that has ever come from a person
who simply memorizes facts is a good game show contestant. There
is simply no way to ever make progress or to benefit mankind by
simply knowing everything. Ultimately, applying knowledge
often leads to an understanding or mastery. Certainly you need
a degree of knowledge on which to base your understanding, but
why stop there? It would make sense for every student’s goal,
regardless of discipline, to be an intuitive understanding
of the subject, and the more knowledge gained on the journey,
the better.
The main advantage of an understanding is that it helps us explain, improve, and predict. Let that one sink in. I'll give a few examples so perhaps you can understand what I mean:
- Mere knowledge that airplanes can fly is fantastic. But does it help you explain how and why it is capable of flying to an inquiring child? Does it enable you to help design and build new and improved planes that are more fuel efficient, reliable, and aerodynamic? I think not. But an understanding of the phenomenon will. - Mere knowledge that a nuclear meltdown occurred at Chernobyl in 1986 is fine, albeit useless. By understanding why the meltdown
happened, there is hope for preventing another one in the future.
- Mere knowledge of
the flu will not help prevent it or predict outbreaks...an understanding
will.
An understanding of civil engineering
and architecture enables us to build sky rises, space stations,
and huge, vital bridges. Knowing facts is fine, but understanding
implications is much more profound. Implications of facts comes
from applied knowledge, which comes from an understanding. The
How and Why deals with just that.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss your thoughts here!
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