# How understanding works

To understand is to grasp [reality](reality.md) by interpreting and deriving [meaning](meaning.md) through the [purposes](purpose.md) we interpret. This usually requires looking beyond whatever things [look like](image.md) to see how things really are.

All forms of [logic](logic.md), [math](math.md), [beauty](values-quality.md), [grouping](values.md), and [social groups](groups-small.md) compose together to create our understanding. We usually can't handle the [uncertainty](unknown.md) from not knowing, so we far more often tend to misunderstand than *not* understand.

Understanding is a form of [power](power.md). Like [any other type of power](power-types.md), the pursuit of understanding quickly becomes [evil](morality-evil.md) if it isn't directed to a [purpose](purpose.md) that *isn't* a form of power.

The [power](power.md) that comes from understanding can be deadly. The way we use [values](values.md) literally reshapes [entire countries](politics-systems.md), and we must stay vigilant of the people we may harm with extra information. Pay close attention to the [personal lives](goodlife.md) of the people who wield the values they hold to.

APPLICATION: Our learning must apply itself to a [meaningful](meaning.md) [purpose](purpose.md) beyond learning itself. Otherwise, we're sharpening a skill we're not using for anything useful and wasting our lives.

When we understand things to the point of [usefulness](purpose.md), we've acquired wisdom. Strong wisdom will consider *all* possible causes and effects of a thing. The extremely practical nature of wisdom means it always connects in some way with [morality](morality.md).

APPLICATION: There are far too many [unknown](unknown.md) things with elements we can't know to reliably reach the end of understanding anything. For that reason, knowledge is only worth gaining if we can direct ourselves to a tangible [purpose](purpose.md).

Our [perceptions](image.md) are limited, so we take perceived facts by [trusting](understanding-certainty.md) something. We always structure our beliefs [logically](logic.md), but they're not always rational.

- *Rational* thoughts, by contrast to logical ones, are tempered by intuition derived from [feelings](mind-feelings.md).

APPLICATION: We call things "intuitive", but usually mean "familiar".

One of the most profound limits to our understanding is that we *always* lock onto whatever we understand to be true.

- Nobody can ever sincerely and honestly say, "I believe differently than I know".
- We're forever stuck with [our bias](mind-bias.md) about [the truth](reality.md), even when we expand our views to accommodate others' beliefs.

Understanding isn't necessarily [logical](logic.md). It incorporates [feelings](mind-feelings.md) to give us a degree of [certainty](understanding-certainty.md) that we're correct. Then, we derive *more* understanding from believing we understand.

APPLICATION: To be fully sure we're not reacting to [feelings](mind-feelings.md), give any piece of information five minutes for it to percolate into our understanding.

## How we learn

We build our understanding through [learning/education](education.md), which always starts with gathered observations:

1. Performing something and witnessing its [results](results.md). This form gives the most information but is the most [unsafe](safety.md) without [creatively](mind-creativity.md) using [technology](technology.md).
2. Directly observing something, often by seeing or touching it. Often, [media](creations.md) will reproduce that experience.
3. Observing second-hand through [language](language.md). By reading or listening to other people who have experienced, we can [imagine](imagination.md) the experience for ourselves.

APPLICATION: We can't simply learn by [rote memorization](mind-memory.md) or [acquiring information](information.md). Instead, we must experience the information to know how to work with it.

With adverse experiences, we can only learn from them if we take [responsibility](meaning.md) to [change](people-changes.md).

We then process the information:

1. We assemble the information in our mind using [visual imagery](image.md) and [language](language.md).
2. [Our bias](mind-bias.md) filters the information to get rid of the useless parts.
3. If we're not sure, we'll either [analyze](logic.md) or [meditate](awareness-meditation.md) on what we've received, or will seek our environment for more information.
4. Our [soul](humanity.md) identifies when the remainder is sufficient that we can adequately [imagine](imagination.md) what we're observing.

APPLICATION: [Small children](maturity.md) often can understand, but don't have words for what they understand. A considerable portion of their [parents'](people-family.md) job to give them those words.

APPLICATION: We must understand what to do before we [start anything](results.md), since acting in the wrong direction will make things worse than doing nothing. With experience, we can become highly qualified at knowing what specific information we need.

The result of this process is a set of abstracted things we can quickly experience through our [feelings](mind-feelings.md) as we sense them.

APPLICATION: In a sense, understanding is like [philosophy](philosophy.md) or [investing](money-investing.md) knowledge: useless by itself, but severely magnifies [power](power.md) if it's applied to a [specialty](jobs-specialization.md).

After we've integrated those experiences, we tend to call those things "our ideas". They're mostly others' ideas adapted to our form of thinking, but we've worked with them them so heavily that we make them a part of our [identity](identity.md).

However, we can never fully attain a comprehensive grasp of [reality](reality.md). Most of the foundational things we [believe](understanding-certainty.md) exist on the periphery of our fullest capacity for understanding something.

## The method for understanding

We can only focus on 1 thing at a time. Every so often we can hold things in our memory to combine ideas together, but we're incapable of thinking 2 things at once without rapidly switching.

To gain more understanding of [something we don't know](unknown.md), we generally must maintain awareness that we don't know alongside [curiosity](purpose.md) about it (which requires a certain type of [fearlessness](mind-feelings-fear.md)). This forced paradox expands itself into several tracks of inquiry to investigate ideas further:

- WHAT asks about status.
  - It's meant to distill the answer down to "bottom-line" information that strips away as many details as reasonably possible.
  - "What" is the most basic question possible, and creates the simplest answers.
- WHO asks about individuals.
  - The questions typically allude to [relationships](people-friends.mdds.md) and [group affiliations](groups-member.md).
  - Asking "who" questions is always the means to *more* questions, though it's not always necessary.
- WHERE and WHEN ask for location and time, respectively.
  - Like "what", "where" and "when" shred away all details except the most relevant.
- HOW inquires more intimately with the matter.
  - "How" questions are strictly [logical](logic.md), analytical dissections of cause-and-effect.
  - "How" gives the most useful answers for [practical reasons](purpose.md), especially when the stay focused on the present (as opposed to cause-and-effect across [time](datetime.md)).
- WHY is a difficult question to define because it's a *very* open-ended large-scale domain:
  - Why is that? - broadly asking any form of basis
  - Why do they? - asking the [motivation](purpose.md) behind the known action
  - Why does it? - asking the cause behind the known effect
  - Why can/will it? - asking the [logic](logic.md) behind a [prediction](imagination.md)
  - Why won't it? - finding the [unknown](unknown.md) obstruction toward a [purpose](purpose.md)

APPLICATION: The types of questions we ask define most of the things we grow to understand. Asking "what" will never get anyone as far as asking "how" or "why". Curiosity is necessary to gain wisdom.

In particular, "why" questions generate the most information because they request the broadest possible range of information. They also help [bridge connections](https://gainedin.site/networks/) the easiest between things, since they most easily help us to detect [patterns](symbols.md) across domains.

We tend to be very accurate about *what* we're paying attention to, but often fail at explaining *why* it is that way or *how* it would respond to any [changes](people-changes.md) around it.

APPLICATION: The quality of our learning comes through the forms of questions we ask and how deeply we try to answer them. If we're particularly intelligent, we should ask "why", but *everyone* should be asking "how".

When we face complex questions, we tend to answer a far more simple question in place of it. Unfortunately, we tend to also not notice that we made that switch, and we'll commit a simple answer to memory about an inherently complicated idea.

Often, the best way to understand something is to [write it down](language-writing.md). It forces us to use the [logic-based](logic.md) portions of our minds to [order](understanding-certainty.md) our thoughts.

## The perspectives from understanding

There are *many* ways to [see something](image.md), and everyone who doesn't possess the [Cluster B neurodivergence](mind-neurodivergence.md) can [imagine](imagination.md) perspectives beyond their own. A [learned](education.md) person, in some way, avoids [judging](people-decisions.md) something strictly on their perceptions by leaning into how they [believe](understanding-certainty.md) that *others* understand things.

The best way to understand other perspectives isn't from simply understanding what someone believes, or whether it's [right or wrong](morality.md). To understand another viewpoint, you must understand *why* they came to that conclusion, and the implications of that set of ideas.

- In effect, thoroughly understanding a viewpoint means you can think with exactly the flow of [logic](logic.md) they're thinking *before* they tell you.

APPLICATION: To gain the greatest understanding, we must push to find new experiences. Living in a cloistered environment without new experiences that confront our [values](values.md) never gives us enough variety to fight bad ideas.

Technically, we can't think of two perspectives at *precisely* the same time, and have to swap between them. For that reason, we tend to combine both those perspectives into a third perspective, which is a remix of the first two. That third perspective will slowly [associate](https://gainedin.site/networks/) with further beliefs that the first two value systems wouldn't have developed. Eventually, there will be enough experiences that the third perspective can *steeply* diverge from the other two.

Thus, people with the greatest understanding also tend to have the most diverse minds across any group of them. They keep extracting truth from the world until they can understand precisely how others [think](logic.md), [feel](mind-feelings.md), and [behave](results.md), then have a broader range to [choose](people-decisions.md) how they want to [see things](image.md). This also bleeds into the range of their [identity](identity.md) as well.

We also must revisit the same expression multiple times to accurately capture it, often through [self-reflection](imagination.md). For that reason, people with heavy understanding are often very ponderous and thoughtful, and sometimes very slow to act.

Of course, when people *don't* want to understand, they build [relationships](people-friends.md) with each other over that ignorance. We tend to [associate](people-friends.md) others who share our level of [passion](purpose.md) for understanding far more than [specific disciplines](jobs-spcialization.md) we share.

## The depth of understanding

We experience degrees of understanding as we become familiar with something. It's not always conscious, and often involves [habitual](habits.md) methods, both in our mind and (often) with the [physical world](reality.md) around us. When this set of habits applies to the physical world around us, they're also known as "skills".

There are three broad classes of things we can understand:

1. First, at the most shallow, we can understand other people. By drawing connections across shared [feelings](mind-feelings.md) and [experiences](humanity-universals.md), we [trust](trust.md) we understand others' [thinking](logic.md), [perceiving](image.md), and [doing](results.md). Usually, it's proportional to [perceived](image.md) [authority](power.md), which is why we trust the [opinions](stories-storytellers.md) of [scientists](science.md), [analysts](logic.md), [doctors](body-4_health.md), and [journalists](stories-journalism.md).
2. Second, we can understand things. Those things are always [perceptible](image.md), usually [measurable](math.md), and often things that directly [respond](results.md) to our interaction. We're usually only familiar with a part of that thing, since we can't observe that thing with *every* possible interaction with every other thing. We tend to draw "context" about things:
   - Physical context - [location-based](logistics-navigation.md) attributes
   - [Cultural](people-culture.md) context - human beliefs and perceptions
   - [Historical](stories.md) context - period of time and events
   - [Situational context](https://gainedin.site/networks/) - event-based things that are "not normal"
3. Finally, we can understand ideas. Ideas are constructed [values](values.md) in the mind and can be as concrete or abstract as we need:
   - General understanding routes through our [feelings](mind-feelings.md), and isn't very specific but is moderately useful in *many* domains (e.g., [philosophy](philosophy.md)).
   - Technical understanding requires conscious thought, and isn't that applicable to anything else, though it's far more [useful](purpose.md) than general understanding (e.g., technical specs). Thankfully, it can cross domains if we [convert it](philosophy.md) to general understanding.
   - Outside certain unique [personalities](personality.md), we gain technical understanding through firsthand experience, *then* build out our general understanding via [intuition](mind-feelings.md) or [desire](purpose.md).

Further, we tend to climb a type of ladder of understanding that builds on itself cumulatively.

A. Awareness

- Knows a term, idea, or procedure exists.
- Skills are unconscious incompetence: we don't know what we don't know.

B. Grasp

- We intellectually understand how a thing exists, but don't understand how it exists in reality.
- Skills are conscious incompetence: we don't understand it, but are also aware we don't.

C. Feeling

- We have an [emotional](mind-feelings.md) connection to that thing and grasp it beyond merely a concept to the point that we can feel its [practical use](purpose.md).
- Skills are conscious adequacy: we understand it enough to feel broadly sufficient at it (i.e., past the "frustration paradox").

D. Familiarity

- We understand the necessary [values](values.md) of that thing well enough that we can [separate it](logic.md) into its components and understand which ones matter most for [various purposes](purpose.md).
- Skills are interchangeable adequacy: we've broken it apart and can work on our weakest points.

APPLICATION: There are far too many [unknown](unknown.md) things with elements we can't know to reliably reach the end of understanding anything. For that reason, knowledge is only worth gaining if we can direct ourselves to a tangible [purpose](purpose.md).

E. Rebuilding

- We have so much intimate connection with that thing that we [imagine and predict](imagination.md) it relatively well, and can [create](creations.md) new ideas by combining multiple sources together.
- Skills are consciously competent: we know how to do it if we focus.

F. Integration

- We have complete understanding of something, with all its [facts](reality.md) and [implications](image.md).
- Skills are unconscious competence: our muscle memory does it well [without our conscious thought](habits.md), and we often even [identify](identity.md) with it.
- Once we've integrated understanding, we judge other ideas and methods from this basis of understanding.
- If we can stay in this domain, we continue mastery on the subject.

APPLICATION: What you think isn't as unique as how *far* you think. To fully understand the capacity for just about anything, take it to its farthest and most ridiculous [logical conclusion](logic.md). Most people are [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of what they may discover.

G. Simplification

- After enough time using it, we've thrown out most of the useless information and converted only the critical information into [habits](habits.md).
- Literally *all* the understanding is a reflexive skill, connected both as a mental and muscular experience.
- Unfortunately, at this level we won't be able as much to [explain](people-conversation.md) or [teach](education.md) it, and it becomes *much* easier for our skills to fade.
- At its farthest, we often attribute a complete understanding at this level to [deities](religion.md) and heavily [identify](identity.md) with our performance with it.

APPLICATION: To fully understand something, we should be able to use [language](awareness.md) that defines something, then be able to define its opposite.

Generally, the farther we understand things, the more complicated they become in our mind to capture the complexities inherent to it. If we stop using the information before reaching the final stage of habitual simplification, we slowly slide back down that ladder, but *always* retain small [patterns](symbols.md) that we can [use](purpose.md) for the rest of our lives.

To apply understanding, there are three major ways we can gain skills:

1. We can conceptually understand the raw information (though we won't necessarily be skilled with *working* with it)
2. We can train toward it (i.e., "nurture")
3. [Nature](reality.md) or [culture](people-culture.md) can grant it automatically, which often works as a multiplier for the rest

APPLICATION: The only difference between understanding and skill is whether we know something consciously or subconsciously, which isn't always clearly defined.

The most abstracted form of wisdom represents as proverbs, which have the following characteristics:

- Short enough to be memorable
- Direct or blunt enough to evoke strong [feelings](mind-feelings.md)
- Clear and [certain](understanding-certainty.md) about what is being indicated
- [Patterned](symbols.md) after [general realities of life](humanity-universals.md)
- Poetically paced, or with a poetic choice of words

APPLICATION: You can only understand something someone else says when you can say a statement back to them in your words in a way they can agree is accurate. This is *very* difficult to do, requires *tremendous* [emotional intelligence](mind-feelings.md), and most people will never do it.

## Specialized understanding

Assembling our perceptions and experiences together presents us with a [decision](people-decisions.md):

1. Heighten our knowledge to broaden all known possibilities.
2. Test our theories to reduce the likely possibilities.
3. Stop engaging because we've run out of patience, [passion](purpose.md), or resources.

There's not enough time to understand *everything*. Every answer gives a few more questions, so we only gather enough information to answer [what we're asking](purpose.md). Over time, the easiest questions for us to answer often become our [specializations](jobs-spcialization.md).

APPLICATION: An expert is someone who has failed (and learned) many times in a very specific domain.

Great [communication](language.md) (and [teaching](education.md)) requires finding patterns that convey ideas simply, which is its unique specialization and usually more work than most people are willing to do.

Understanding scales [exponentially](math.md). A person will know 1 thing now, 4 things tomorrow, 50 things the next day, 300 the day after that. This pattern comes from how each new node in a mental network can potentially connect to *all* the other existing things, and each connection is the beginning of a thought.

APPLICATION: Someone's understanding can easily transfer to other disciplines, which is why successful people in one field can so rapidly adapt to other unrelated fields.

We generally attain the peak of our understanding on a subject when we can maintain the maximum number of possible perspectives on a subject that can potentially exist. However, we never really finish understanding something because we tend to forget many basic elements in the pursuit of our mastery, losing our "generalist" capacity in the process.

## What intellect is

Whether our understanding *is* [truth](reality.md) depends on the range of the experiences we've gathered and how much we've tested them. The thoroughness of that testing is often called "[intelligence](personality.md)". This comes through both our abilities to [observe](image.md) our environment alongside [introspection](conflicts-inner.md).

Intelligence is our raw ability to work with things, but understanding is the ability to know *what* to do with the things we observe. Wisdom takes it a bit further about knowing *when* it's a good idea to do those things.

We tend to integrate what we understand slowly, so there's always a lead time between when we perceive the information and when we've converted it into something [useful](purpose.md) in our minds.

Understanding is more useful than raw intelligence, since it's the difference between [power](power.md) and [focus](purpose.md). We can train understanding, but intelligence is mostly genetic. Intelligence is sometimes useful, but understanding is *always* [useful](purpose.md), even if it's not always wise to use it.

In a sense, the [virtue](morality.md) of honesty or integrity directly corresponds to wisdom because it indicates how much someone will work to understand. More intelligence means more *opportunities* for wisdom, though that person's [decisions](people-decisions.md) dictate how far they actually go.

APPLICATION: If an intellectual has been able to easily comprehend their environment, that person is often less wise because they never had to learn the patience necessary to understand the fullest aspect of the things they observe.

We often gain the most wisdom from things we [disagree with](conflicts-inner.md) and hate, since they're so diametrically opposed to our [way of life](people-culture.md) that we're immediately [purposed](purpose.md) to [disprove it](conflicts-inner.md) or discover [the truth](reality.md).

## Confidence in understanding something

As we're trying to understand things, we often discover what we don't know and feel *less* certain about it. This is only natural since we're unfamiliar with new things, but anything "new" [only seems that way to us at the time](image.md).

Wise people know how little they understand, but also aren't afraid to [look](image.md) stupid in their [search](purpose.md), so they're still [confident](trust.md) they *can* attain understanding and that it's worth at least some sacrifice of their [reputation](image.md) to get it.

APPLICATION: The wise and foolish are the most confident, both of them from believing they've discovered the end of things. The difference is in whether they have. Wise people typically consider [culture](people-culture.md) and [conflict](conflicts-inner.md), but fools often disregard them.

APPLICATION: Question obvious things. The more mundane and obvious, the more likely everyone else overlooks an apparent fact. The same rule goes for [taboo](morality-taboo.md) subjects.

At a certain point, increasing our understanding will simplify things and create more clarity. Once we've grasped the full [image](image.md) of that thing as far as it can go (which happens eventually because everything but [God](religion-answers.md) has finite components), we find [certainty](understanding-certainty.md) in what we understand.

APPLICATION: The more we know, the more possible perspectives we see we may be able to have, and the more we realize we don't know. The pinnacle of understanding is to see how little we ultimately know while also enjoying the journey.

As time passes, we lose the context for where we got the information. It blurs itself into a broad and (often) well-placed [certainty](understanding-certainty.md). People with less understanding will often [interpret](people-culture.md) that understanding as arrogance. Depending on the [quality](values-quality.md) of what they understand, they may or may not be.

APPLICATION: Confidence is a lousy indicator for [quality work](results.md), which is why [interviews](jobs-5_interview.md) rarely determine successful candidates for jobs. Instead, soft skills are far more reliable, but there's no easy way to [measure](math.md) them, so great workers can only be [chosen](people-decisions.md) through a wise interviewer's [intuition](mind-feelings.md) (which requires that interviewer to have experience, [which isn't always a prerequisite for management](mgmt-badsystems.md)).

At the same time, confidence for wise people is granular. For example, someone may know they're an expert in commercial interior plumbing, but will know how little they understand in other plumbing-related disciplines.

APPLICATION: Often, true understanding doesn't come in what you know, but in knowing intuitively that something is wrong or worth ignoring. The only way to find it out is through very close observation.

APPLICATION: Since we must accept how little we know, more [information](image.md) makes wisdom harder to maintain. The only way to stay wise *and* intelligent is with many [inner conflicts](conflicts-inner.md) over what we'd conventionally [perceive](image.md) and [believe](understanding-certainty.md).

When someone tests experience against [reality](reality.md), they will discover truth. They know with [absolute certainty](understanding-certainty.md) they've found it, so they don't need to reassess it, and it becomes a [mental habit](habits.md) that slowly moves to the subconscious. People often describe tested experiences as "experience" or "enlightenment", but it's also known as "common sense" when most people in a [group](groups-member.md) automatically believe it.

APPLICATION: Common sense is the set of experiences that made their way into a group, but that doesn't mean the group understands *why* those experiences are good. This means there's always a push for [new ideas against tradition](politics-conservativeliberal.md) within any social group where nobody really knows what's going on.

APPLICATION: While extreme beliefs aren't generally accurate, having a wide variety of extreme beliefs that are *highly* contextual is essentially the quickest way to live the [good life](goodlife.md).

As we [age](maturity.md), we either build new understanding to build more assertion or will let our [past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) scramble our understanding and erode any confidence we had.

## Social understanding

As we continue to mull over the things we understand and make [conversations](people-conversation.md) with others, we start discovering [patterns](symbols.md) that keep arising throughout existence. Those patterns represent certain [universal characteristics](humanity-universals.md) of human experience.

Small, trite experiences that veer close to feeling like a paradox represent these shared sensations the most accurately:

- Epigrams ([written statements](language-writing.md)) that express as [axioms](lawsaxioms.md) or proverbs
- Simple drawings or animations that visually depict what we [imagine](imagination.md)
- Verbal statements that employ body language to magnify a concept

Most [creative works](creations.md) and [leadership](groups-small.md) harness these shared experiences to [influence](influence.md) others toward [purposes](purpose.md), usually sprinkled throughout a larger body of work. When those purposes are grandiose, the individuals engaged in it attain a type of [religious fervor](religion.md) driven by a collective understanding and unified purpose.

Of course, the idiosyncratic details of those [values](values.md) are partially lost in the process, but the shared [effects](results.md) of everyone's belief (along with the [conflicts they're engaged in](people-conflicts-war.md)) obscure that fact.

We never entirely understand *each other* fully, though. The domain of others' minds is always partly off-limits to our deepest capacity to know and experience.

## Measuring understanding

We tend to measure others' understanding by *their* [confidence](understanding-certainty.md), but it's a double-edged sword:

1. Increasing understanding often creates *less* confidence as we gain awareness of the sophisticated components of the thing.
2. People can [fake](image-distortion.md) confidence, so they'll exploit the [image](image.md) of confidence to gain [power](power.md) with what they're not showing (sprezzatura).

Understanding is difficult to measure because that measurement can come through various [results](results.md) that vary wildly:

- How easily or simply they can put those ideas in [words](language.md) or [explain](people-conversation.md) things.
- How well someone can [imagine](imagination.md) easily [believable](understanding-certainty.md) [stories](stories.md).
- Capability of mentally [rebuilding](imagination.md) the form of something and dividing it into [logical](logic.md) components.
- Understanding the connection of something to other things that may be seemingly unrelated at first.
- How well someone can [feel](mind-feelings.md) the things around something when they don't understand (i.e., "soft skills").

APPLICATION: We only understand something when we can articulate the opposing views to that idea so well that believers in that opposition will agree. The best thing we can do is frequently [disagree](conflicts-inner.md) with what we read and hear even when it [feels](mind-feelings.md) like sound reasoning, just to see what happens when we do.

However, civilized society requires that people be [educated](education.md). For that reason, they create various [precise](logic.md) ways to [measure it](math.md) that aren't entirely [reliable](results.md).

And, since we have *much* more information over how little we really know versus everyone else, we tend to believe others' image more than our own knowledge, even when we are *much* more knowledgeable than they are (impostor syndrome). This issue can scale with [self-awareness](awareness.md) combined with [intelligence](personality.md).

## Drawbacks of understanding

Gaining understanding often rearranges our view of the world. There's no consequence for changed understanding when we don't have much power, but gaining [power](power.md) increases the [risk](safety.md) of losing that power if we [change](people-changes.md). In many [cultures](people-culture.md), [Large-scale leaders](groups-large.md) have so much [power contained in their understanding](power-types.md) that the slightest change in how they see the world could shift their power enough that they may entirely lose their authority.

APPLICATION: If we're constantly learning (which is a product of [living well](goodlife.md)), we must *constantly* rebuild our [language](awareness.md) to redefine what we understand more accurately. Otherwise, we'll become [set in our ways](habits.md) and won't [adapt](people-changes.md) to [environmental changes](trends.md).

Understanding certain things can also become tremendously risky for successfully integrating into the hierarchy of many [social groups](groups-member.md): one key bit of information can make a member more knowledgeable than the leader, which creates an [uneven power dynamic](power-types.md).

More understanding takes work to maintain, proportionally to the intellect aspect of our [personality](personality.md). We tend to focus and filter other perspectives through whatever it is we already know because it's the easiest way to link things. Every [specialization](jobs-spcialization.md) will possess its opportunity cost of not being able to see things in the plain way that a [child](maturity.md) would be able to see things. Thankfully, this changes after we leave that specialization and start forgetting information.

APPLICATION: If we trust others' understanding, we must mind the [culture](people-culture.md) that surrounds the people who understand something. Most experts spend so much time being [safe](safety.md) in their specific domain that they've experienced *many* unlikely circumstances and are [terrified](mind-feelings-fear.md) of those things happening (e.g., a doctor who [prescribes](body-4_health.md) an unhealthy treatment to stave off a horrific but unlikely illness, a [police officer](legal-safety.md) who fires a gun on someone rapidly reaching for their phone).

[Past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) or [fears](mind-feelings-fear.md) of what things may imply will often make us sidestep having to understand certain things. With enough experience, some people find [creative](mind-creativity.md) ways to avoid understanding something entirely!

Possessing understanding creates a severe blind spot because it makes us [certain](understanding-certainty.md) of specific things, which will slowly develop as presumed [patterns](symbols.md) of how [reality](reality.md) works.

- If someone else has a differing [viewpoint](image.md), even with a similar scope of logical rigor, it's *extremely* tempting to dismiss the person without considering their ideas.
- Since understanding is effectively a composite of finely-tuned [bias](mind-bias.md), there is a strategic advantage to having no knowledge, especially as [reality changes](reality.md).
- Rational people can be susceptible to dumb ideas proportional to how much they [trust](understanding-certainty.md) their intelligence.

APPLICATION: The elderly have lived so long in their [habits](habits.md), so they either possess some of the strongest understanding of all humanity or some of the worst. There's very little room for them to be in the middle.

## Additional Reading

[Mental Models](https://fs.blog/mental-models/)