Understanding: a way of seeing

Great Debates
#1

Understanding: a way of seeing

Know is see. Understand is grasp. These are rather common metaphors. Such metaphors help us comprehend.

Empathy is a technique for understanding. We can try to understand another person by creating a means whereby we can ‘walk a mile in her shoes’. We can create analogies of what the other person experiences as a means for us to ‘put on their shoes’.

An artist may paint in the manner of Picasso, or perhaps in the manner of a Rembrandt, or perhaps in the manner of a Monet. These different forms of painting represent different ways of seeing. They represent a personal understanding which provides us with a prism for seeing.

Mathematics is a way of seeing. Mathematics is the science of pattern. Imagine a very elaborate Persian rug. Imagine that you have only a small fragment of that rug. Mathematics offers a means whereby you might be able to construct the rest of that rug to look exactly like the original. Math can perhaps create a formula for the pattern in the rug such that you can, by following that math formula, exactly duplicate the pattern from which that rug was created.

Understanding is a stage of comprehension whereby a person can interject them self into the pattern through imagination. ‘Understanding is math’ because it helps the individual to ‘walk in the shoes’ of some other entity.

Understanding might correctly, in my opinion, be considered to be a personal paradigm. Knowledge is about truth but understanding is about meaning. Understanding is a means for placing the individual within the picture including the entity about which the individual wishes to become very familiar.

Understanding is a creative process that extends knowing. Understanding may or may not enhance the truth quality of comprehension. Picasso and Monet may paint the same object but have they captured the truth of that object.?

Is truth anything beyond what is normally considered to be truth?

Is truth anything beyond what humans have normalized (standardized)?

Does understanding aid or deter normalization?

Are you normal? Would you rather be normal than right?

Dare to be abnormal, but not foolish!

#2

If a tree falls in a forest, don’t be standing under it.

#3

Replace half-true Socialist-fluoride poison & tax-slavery with full-truth, work-speech-press & profitsharing Socialaction! All-One!

#4

He’s baaaaaaaaaaack!

#5

I see a lot of platitudes and six different questions here. Do you want to narrow this down to a single question, or do you want this moved to MPSIMS?

#6

Czarcasm

Change this

Is truth anything beyond what is normally considered to be truth?

Is truth anything beyond what humans have normalized (standardized)?

Does understanding aid or deter normalization?

Are you normal? Would you rather be normal than right?

Dare to be abnormal, but not foolish!

To this

Is truth anything beyond what is normally considered to be truth?

#7

Hell, man. That’s easy. Truth is that which is true. It’s a tautology. Finding the truth is the tricky part.

What’s your point?

#8

We all see truth. But do we *really * see truth? …Yes, we do. But do we really see truth? Well, yeah. But do we really see truth?

#9
  1. Define “Normal”
  2. Define “Truth”
  3. Do try to be a bit less vague.
#10

I disagree.

#11

Given that we haven’t yet discovered all knowledge, no doubt. What undiscovered truths are you talking about ? The fact that a particular undiscovered collection of proteins makes a dandy headache cure ? The fact that a particular mathemetical concept that won’t be thought of until 2045 is true ? The fact that a small red star a thousand light years away has an asteroid orbiting it that looks like Donald Trump if viewed by the right angle ?

Normalize what ? Standardize what ? And I assume that understanding helps . . . whatever you are talking about. It helps everything.

Norm is the name of a guy in Brooklyn.

What kind of normal ? In what areas ? No one is perfectly normal ( by definition, since being perfectly normal is abnormal in itself ).

A platitude. Or a slogan for mutants.

#12

I think coberst is actually colbert and is trying to define ‘truthiness’.

#13

As Forest Gump would say normal is as normal does. Normal is what most people consider to be correct. We can determine what is normal by taking a poll.

Truth is what we consider to be true. There is a thing-in-it-self as Kant would say but it transcends our ability to know it. We can only know what we can perceive so that truth may or may not be like the thing-in-it-self.

#14

Gibberish: a way of communicating.

#15

I had forgotten why I had stopped posting on this forum–now I remember.

#16

You speak of Truth.
Is Truth unchanging law?
We both have Truths.
Are mine the same as yours?

#17

No we can’t. People are perfectly capable about being wrong about what most people do or don’t do, or believe or don’t believe. And people don’t all agree anyway, nor are the majority of people “normal” by your definition, which make it somewhat paradoxial, or abstract.

Who would be normal, in your opinion ? The gay Christian ? The atheist straight ? The left handed straight Christian ? The WASP who happens to be a genius, or a moron ? A black person ? Someone who’s 10% taller than average ? Normal is either an abstract average, in which case few or no one is “normal”, or it’s broadly defined enough as to be fairly meaningless or it’s a nonsensical concept.

Nope. Some things are objectively true, or untrue. Our opinions don’t matter on any number of things.

#18

Too many smart people?

#19

In that case, we have that truth as far as we know it. In the future, this will become the truth as far as we know it now.
The truth changes as corrections and updates are applied, and “normal”, such as it is, changes by the second.

#20

Because the title of this forum is “Great Debates”, not “Great Lectures I Will Give To The Unlearned”?