In a message dated 7/24/08 8:57:39 AM, Lslbsc2 writes:
> Can you explain what you think the boundary between seeing a thing and
> understanding it is and how clear that boundary is?
>
> The initial difficulty here is that you have faith that the notion arising in
my mind when I read 'understanding' is effectively identical with the notion
in your mind.
In fact all sorts of fuzzy notion arises in me with that word. My guess is
that the notion in you is somewhat like what I'd label as "recognizing". A
shepherd in the Andes might see a cell phone and have no idea "what it is".
I.e. he
doesn't "recognize" it. He doesn't "realize" "what it is for", "what it can
do".
I might recognize it, but have no idea how to make it work. My ignorance
might prompt me to say I know what it is supposed to be for, but I don't
"understand" cell phones.
Or I might know how to make it work it work -- the way, for example, I know
"how to use" a tv remote -- but have no idea WHY it works when I do this or
that.
Notice: It isn't a question of what "understanding" IS; it's solely a matter
of what you want to CALL "understanding". As soon as you ask the question
this way, you're on your way to trouble: "What IS "understanding"? IS it
recognizing? IS it knowing how to use? IS it knowing why it works?"
Notice further that all these "understandings" are a matter of DEGREE.
At base what's at issue is the notion(s) produced by our ASSOCIATING mind. I
might "see" a sentence written in Korean, but claim I don't "understand" it at
all. But if I repeatedly see the "same" Korean scription on the window of one
deli after another, I might associate that scription with deli's. I might
(too loosely) say, "That sign means deli!" But then suppose a Korean tells me,
"No. That's the name of the family that runs a chain of deli's."
I called it "too loosely" because I sneaked in the word 'means'. When we talk
about "understanding" a gadget or object, we may have a variety of the
notions of the kind I describe above. But when we talk about "understanding" a
language, we're likely to say (far toosely in philosophical terms) we
understand a
language when we know what its words and sentences "mean".
But words and sentences don't "mean". A language's scriptions and utterances
are solely the occasion for associating action in our minds. Take the word
'fork'. If someone at dinner says, "I have a knife and spoon but no fork," the
context limits the associating scope a good deal. But if the speaker is a
politican, and he says, "We are approaching a crucial fork in our campaign,"
different associations will arise in our minds. We see on our forum many
allusions to
"metaphor". Interesting books have been written about metaphor, but all
there's room for here is somethng like this: When an association comes to mind
that
is much removed from the most common or concrete notion but we can still
serviceably grasp the comparing notion in the speaker's mind, we are likely to
call it a "metaphor". When we talk of a "strained metaphor", we are asserting
that the association is unworthy. "Mixed metaphors" are when more than one
associated notion have crept into the comparison.
>From all this, you may "understand" why Kate's assumption of a "boundary" in
her phrase "the boundary between seeing a thing and understanding it" gives me
trouble. I don't clearly "understand" her notion of "boundary" but I'll try
this: When we receive raw sense data -- in, say, the form of a vision or sound
-- there is a millisecond before the first association arises in our mind. The
line between those two may be considered the "boundary" between "seeing" and
(to a degree) "understanding".
**************
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