Knowledge knows what to say. Understanding knows when

Throughout time, particularly the Buddhist and Hindu faiths, and epistemologists as eminent as Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Plato, Bertrand Russell, Kant, Nietzsche, Fichte, Ballatthiputta, Descartes, Kuhn, Confucius, Averroes, Socrates, Rand, Friere and Kant have all been attracted to that very question, so why shouldn’t I?

To identify the mechanics of the question we should first acknowledge that our functions are the end responses to messages from two amazingly complementary, yet very separate, parts of our brain. The cerebrum does my thinking for me, and the cerebellum makes those things happen.

As an example, my cerebrum is thinking of the next word, or words, I want to write, while the cerebellum is telling my fingers which keys to hit on the keyboard. As a two-fingered typist, my cerebrum is always waiting for my cerebellum to catch up, in a stunning exhibition of tolerance. My intellectual capital is accessed via my cerebrum, however just because I want, and need, and have the mechanical capability to type more effectively, there is what I call an ‘intuitive reluctance’ to ‘let go,’ of the level of skill I have attained as a twofingered typist, for something that is undoubtedly better.

I know that the alternative is better, but I also have a fear of failure that I cannot understand, let alone making anyone else understand, and therefore I fear there is a vast difference between knowing and understanding.

The discussion therefore raises the question as to why logic is rarely a part of knowledge, yet is a necessary part of understanding?

Maybe knowledge is based around comprehension? I’m uncertain, but I feel that a teacher cannot dispense knowledge (teach), and know that they have, as the receiver, learned it without checking their understanding by checking their comprehension of the topic, by using, assessing through the use of parallel situations, seeking students’ or pupils’ acceptance of the knowledge. When they bridge the gap to understanding is when the concept is ‘understood’.

Alternatively, the intuition I mentioned earlier, and empathy, would appear to be basic requirements of understanding, an embracing of the knowledge. When you gain a conceptual understanding of something you don’t simply embrace it however, you also empathise with the concept and it becomes an element of your intuitive responses. We can understand then that we learn by getting the ‘meaning,’ through interpreting the knowledge, each in our own unique manner.

I guess the end result of that little exchange is that we don’t absorb knowledge as a voice recorded type of information, but rather by challenging, testing, and interpreting it. So the learner is not a receiver as it first appears, but more legitimately fabricators, or constructors of their knowledge.

I’m convinced that, as new learning, new knowledge or information is again intuitively tested by the latent understanding of the individual, subject to their stored myriad of insights, ideas, idealisms, concepts, emotions, theories, beliefs, even societal norms to achieve acceptance, as knowledge.

I embrace the thinking of Professor Y K Ip, an award-winning Biological Science lecturer at the National University of Singapore, who wrote, “There is a personal commitment to learning, which means that you will relate the content to personally meaningful contexts or existing prior knowledge,” as he convinces me that we derive our understandings from emotionally challenged knowledge, which undergoes further contextual, conceptual and theoretical examination while ‘in situ,’ leaving us a level of developing knowledge and understanding that will continue to evolve limited only by the physiological limitations of age and infirmity.

Knowing is certainly different from understanding, as Donald Miller almost said, “Knowing who you are and knowing where you are, will help you understand your life.”

Knowing is certainly different from understanding, as Donald Miller almost said, ‘Knowing who you are and knowing where you are, will help you understand your life’