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Caring is Necessary for 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.

Often I discover that the person involved in organizing some action is a person who has had a personal experience leading her to this action. Some person who has a family member afflicted by a disease becomes very active in helping support research in that disease, for example.

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”.

Understanding is "Being positive" in thoughts, words and deeds.

What you refer to as "a kind of ecstacy" is what I call having "an epiphany" -- that sucdden "Oh! I see!" -- when the "scales fall from your eyes" and we suddenly 'know' something. It is such an excitment and you start to wonder what else there is that you don't know and you want to know more and more and more.......

I agree with everything posted here. I have found myself sometimes caring only about a person, which makes me curious about whatever he is passionate about. I enjoy getting swept up in his passion (history, mechanics, religion, etc.) to the point that I find my self curious about the passion itself. Sometimes I just don't get it, but I understand the emotion, the caring, and I admire it and just bask in the feeling without the understanding. But sometimes, *wham* that epiphany! And suddenly I see why it's so important. I understand the connection, and it becomes my passion as well.



It always makes the original relationship immeasurably richer.

SOJOURNER wrote: What you refer to as "a kind of ecstacy" is what I call having "an epiphany" -- that sucdden "Oh! I see!" -- when the "scales fall from your eyes" and we suddenly 'know' something. It is such an excitment and you start to wonder what else there is that you don't know and you want to know more and more and more.......


My feeling exactly. I have had occassion when I have been searching for an understanding for a long time and one morning when I awaken there it is. Often so simple that I wonder why it took me so long.

In matters regarding knowing and understanding we are faced with the ubiquity of ambiguity. I think that understanding is generally associated with disinterested knowledge. How many people have every had experience with disinterested knowledge?

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.

We are motivated into action by the force of reason or emotion also pain I guess. But reason and emotion are both required for action I think. Just as reason informs us that the hurrican victims need help we will probably do little without the emotion of caring.

Coberst.. Your presented topic is one which inspires a reader to reply, as it evokes the senses to think. Understanding is the reason for going far and beyond the normal limits of helping someone. Outsiders often will not understand why one human will go to such lenghts for another. Ex: A child with emmotional, or psychological problems. My life has been a dissapointment to me in many areas. Fortunately, I stumbled into a career many years ago that required me to continually learn and understand. That excitement involving understanding has enabled me to keep a positive outlook despite the dissapointments. I have often found myself trying to make someone else understand a concept or a feeling. Most often it has been impossible to enlighten someone else. However, there are those thrilling moments when someone else not only understands,but also lets you know they have been changed, or enriched in some way, by considering a new understanding.

coberst wrote: Understanding is generally of disinterested knowledge, i.e. disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value.
You lost me here. To me disinterested knowledge is simply objective observation. I don't see the connection between this and caring. Help me out, please.

Accountable wrote: You lost me here. To me disinterested knowledge is simply objective observation. I don't see the connection between this and caring. Help me out, please.


I think that understanding and disinterested knowledge are the two sides of the same coin. I am sure that people on occasion bother to understand a domain of knowledge for reasons other than a desire to understand. Every specialist probably learns to understand his or her specialty and they have been led to do it because it is an instrument serving a career purpose.

I think that a person strives to learn disinterested knowledge because they wish to understand that domain of knowledge. I do not think many people bother to study something that does not have a valuable payoff in money unless it is to understand. I would not learn to “do” calculus except that it is necessary to being an engineer. I would, however, study calculus if it helped me understand mathematics. Every engineer, when asked if s/he could “do” math would respond yes. Every engineer if asked do you understand math would answer quickly, are you kidding me.

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 think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to 'see' and then to 'grasp' through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.

We often use the metaphors of 'seeing' for knowing and 'grasping' for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.

The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the 'truth', is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the 'truth' discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.

weeder wrote: Coberst.. Your presented topic is one which inspires a reader to reply, as it evokes the senses to think. Understanding is the reason for going far and beyond the normal limits of helping someone. Outsiders often will not understand why one human will go to such lenghts for another. Ex: A child with emmotional, or psychological problems. My life has been a dissapointment to me in many areas. Fortunately, I stumbled into a career many years ago that required me to continually learn and understand. That excitement involving understanding has enabled me to keep a positive outlook despite the dissapointments. I have often found myself trying to make someone else understand a concept or a feeling. Most often it has been impossible to enlighten someone else. However, there are those thrilling moments when someone else not only understands,but also lets you know they have been changed, or enriched in some way, by considering a new understanding.


Thanks for helping me to have confidence in my judegment. Self-actuated learning is a solitary activity and often I reach conclusions for which I have no one to agree with or disagree for guidance.

The fastest and most profound learning comes through solitary self examination and reflection. I didnt realize this until I unwittingly found myself in the unexpected position of spending two years quite alone. This arrangement would not have been so out of the ordinary for someone introverted... but for me it was astonishing that I not only survived this time..I flourished spiritually from the experience. The experience altered many of the ways I perceive life, living, and the actions of others. My attempt to understand many things is rarely influenced by there being any monetary gain for myself. Actually, understanding without the prospect of compensation is rich food for the soul. Caring is definately the catalyst that will make people go to great lengths not only to understand a subject, but also a concept,.. or the actions of someone else. The problem sometimes is that caring will cause a level of understanding that compromises principals. Thats understanding becomes conceeding, its a fine line that can only be assesed without emmotional attachment. Which leads us directly into another subject....... The value of friends and the incredible gift of being surrounded by those with our best intrests at heart.... which pretty much brings us back in a full circle.

Weeder

Would you elaborate on this part of your post? "The problem sometimes is that caring will cause a level of understanding that compromises principals. Thats understanding becomes conceeding, its a fine line that can only be assesed without emmotional attachment." An example might be useful.

Accepting unacceptable behavior, defining acceptance as "attempting to understand. When caring is actually denial ,and confusion hinders the ability to understand clearly. Attempting to understand a concept, or manuvering a concept to fit into a personal philsosophy so that acceptance is possible. It seems to me that with age, and of course depending on life experiences..... humans tend to care less, and are inclined to have less interest in understanding.