Is the concept of understanding an illusion?
Language allows us to understand the world around us and communicate our understanding to others. But what is “understanding” and is it possible that the belief that we understand reality is actually just an illusion?
To begin, let’s consider a time when language first started to emerge and let’s consider the process of communicating to others a concept that we recently became aware of. For this example I’ve chosen the concept of wind and what it would be like to communicate the idea to others.
When the wind blows it gives us a bodily sensation that we can observe. This observation suggests that we are surrounded by an invisible substance. Now at this point we have no idea as to what the substance is, but we are none the less excited by our new realization and we want to share it with others. In our brilliance we come up with the word - “wind,” and we use that word to communicate to others the experience of the sensation of blowing air. So when we feel air moving around us we look to others and say the word “wind.” At this point we still do not have any true idea as to what is actually taking place around us but over time the word eventually becomes associated with the specific body sensation and is adopted as common knowledge. In other words, the association between the word and the sensation becomes familiar and this familiarity gives us a sense of understanding.
Continuing on we eventually realize that the wind itself is simply a process and that the wind is actually made up of some unknown substance. For instance, we may begin to observe our own breathing and break down the breathing process into smaller and smaller parts of our understanding. First we may observe the movement of our chest and the sensation of something passing through the hairs in our nose which brings about the realization that we are surrounded by an invisible substance that is able to enter our body. Continuing on we recognize the unpleasant feeling associated with holding our breath and we realize that the substance is needed for our survival. At this point we give this new unknown substance a name of its own - ‘air.’ With this same process, we break up the world into smaller and smaller parts and over time we begin to understand our world. In this way, each new discovery starts out as an unknown phenomenon which is then given a name and over time each new phenomenon becomes familiar. Our familiarity in turn leads us to the belief that we understand the world around us.
With all of this in mind, consider the following:
- We are brought into an unknown world.
- We give each experience a label that we ourselves have created.
- Over time labels become associated with concepts or sensations.
- Associations become familiar the more they are used.
- Familiarity results in our belief that we understand the world around us.
It seems that understanding may actually be nothing more than familiarity. So what this suggests is that understanding is actually just an illusion created by the human mind in order to give us a sense of knowing something that is unknowable. However, we should consider that the world is actually a mystery, regardless of how far we break it down and to say that we understand something is simply indulging in a self-created illusion.
Though words are a great tool to help us communicate and share the experience of life, they can also show us that reality may just be a learned description which we all agree upon.
What are your thought? Are we just indulging in a self-created illusion that we call understanding? Please feel free to comment if you agree or disagree or wish to add something. I like conversations.
Image source:
http://diamantecenter.com/the-tyranny-of-language/
http://www.theeventchronicle.com/metaphysics/spiritual/top-20-articles-of-2015-for-spirituality/#
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Nice piece i must say. There are some arguments on the true substance of air. Some have actually argued that it is not material.
To equate understanding with familiarity is to limit 'its' scope. When someone had an experience, understood it and communicate such experience to another person, can it be called 'familiarity'? In this case, the other person have not had the experience and the explanation does not strike a 'resemblance' but yet it was understood without linking it to any past experience. When we try to 'charge' a statement with our personal interpretation, it is better we avoid affirmative or universal claim so as to be on a safer side. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comment I'm interested in hearing more if you are up for it. I am using this definition of familiarity: the quality of being well known; recognizability based on long or close association. I would argue that in order for a person to understand a concept that they have not experienced they would indeed need to rely on a previous understanding. When we see something that is unknown, our brains immediately try to make sense of it by relating it back to previous experience. We form prototypes and associations in our mind in order to make sense of things. For that reason, I do not think that an individual could understand something independent of previous knowledge. This article is actually a bit of a sequel to a previous article I wrote but basically what I am arguing is that it doesn't matter how many words a person uses to describe something or how far they break something down into its fundamental parts, the world starts off as a mystery and our belief that we understand the world is just an illusion.
I was wondering where you were going (or went) with this. Now that I "get it"... challenge. :)
I have a belief in money. Is it an illusion? If not, why not? If so, how so?
I would say that money is an illusion in that it is just an idea. It's an agreement. We could give value to anything really (which is what we do), but the value only exists in our mind or our collective mind. We could function as a society without money. It would require the development of an entirely new system of resource control and distribution of course but its definitely possible. Money is a relatively new ideology when considering the entirety of our human evolution. It quite obviously did not always exist.
I had hoped that my challenge would require a bit of thought but at this point, it's kind of obvious at this point that you've already been there, done that. :)
Next. :)
From the above quote it appears that money serves some purpose in a way that if you take away the money, it MUST be replaced by something else. What's the necessity? (If money didn't always exist, then what did? [or has?])
I would say that money serves a function if resources are scarce or in general if individuals need to be limited in what or how much they consume. Everyone cannot consume endlessly if we wish to survive as a species, that much is certain. In fact, I think that we will see an evolution of our monetary system in the near future, possibly to a carbon based monetary system in which individuals are limited to their consumption based on how much carbon is generated by the products manufacture and use. As for the question "if money did not exist, then what?" I think we would need some sort of cooperative system in which there was no competition or greed. People would need to work together rather than compete with one another. They would need to be united. I have faith that it is possible but I think we are a long ways away at this point. What do you think. You have an idea in your mind - what is it, I'm interested?
You're right, but to be honest I'm more interested in understanding your ideas on the subject first.
So, this begs the question: how does money stop people from consuming endlessly? What stopped the cavemen, supposing that no money of any kind existed in the caveman days?
Sorry for the delay in response, I thought I replied to this question already.
Money stops a person from consuming endlessly by limiting them. People tend to have a finite amount of funds so they have to choose to spend their limited resource on what is most important to them. In comparing cavemen to modern man (woman) the answer is complex but I think it has to do in part with a hierarchy of needs. Cavemen focused the majority of their energy on basic survival. Only when their basic survival needs were met were they able to day dream or to engage in leisure activities. Cavemen likely only took what they needed in their present moment because it would be wasteful in terms of energy expenditure to take more. Today, survival is easy and most people do not have a worthy purpose which consumes their time and gives their life meaning. Today, most jobs are meaningless to people so they combat their boredom by satisfying their ego. They consume. Basically, people work at jobs that they find meaningless simply to acquire money which allows them to survive and buy crap that satisfies their boredom and takes their mind off of the fact that their life is meaningless and they are unhappy. If a persons life had true meaning then I believe that they would consume less. My brief thoughts on the subject.
I am still interested in what you have to say though.
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Thanks. I appreciate the support