“I get it!”

When learning a new idea or concept, often it doesn’t make a lot of sense at first. The various descriptions may seem dubious, and we might fail to …

Talking across the boundary of the epiphany

—- wonderful exploration of tue issue!

My added contemplation considers that such epiphany is just a function of the human being, and not a function of what is “getting anything”.

I’ll explain.

I think the most poignant example could be the reverse case, which I think is more significant than whether or not the person who “gets it” is actually the one that’s deluded.

Anyone who has raised a child through their teenage years should know what I’m talking about. Because one of the main things about being a teenager is “you don’t get it”.

Get what? I ask.

What it’s like. She says.

Hmmm. 

Is not this is a perfect example of the exact same situation of any sort of condition of knowledge?

And if we remove the idea that we are actually coming upon a progression of knowledge into true scientific theories as opposed to not understanding those great theories —

It seems to me that what is actually happening is that as human beings grow they develop this “first sense”, a kind of primary function of consciousness, where the growing human being comes upon this great sense of self that no one understands, or, that only some people understand, but they understand in such a way that really they don’t even have to talk about it. It seems that only the people that “get it” are people that don’t really have to talk about or itemize or be specific about what they’re actually getting.

Then perhaps as we grow older and just the plain ability to have concepts grows in complexity, this shift becomes more idealistic, it becomes more about something that is “out there” that you don’t get or I don’t care. It becomes more of an abstraction . Instead of just this individual human being that no one understands, as our brains develop we become more abstract about what there is that we are “getting” or not. Such that all sorts of shifts in the manifestation of ability to conceptualize occurs.

And then we could even take the step to find out that there is all sorts of “learned concepts” that anyone at any particular time “does not get”, and that fall into the condition about this author describes it well. Such as being a christian or adherent to any teligion of culture. Or that dolphins are more advanced than us. Or that the democrats are part of a liberal sex trade conspiracy.

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landzek

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3 responses to ““I get it!””

  1. microglyphics Avatar
    microglyphics

    This is an interesting space for me. Some of the ‘you don’t get it’ is valid. You are missing a piece of information or context. But it’s also likely the the person making the claim is referring to some misbelief of misunderstanding. In this case, dialogue may lead the claimant to realise their faulty perspective, or ‘you’ may gain the missing piece. Unfortunately, it’s just as likely this is an intentional misdirect, and the claimant doesn’t want to admit that is no ‘it’ to get.

    As for the ‘eureka’ moments, sometimes the pieces just fit. Many times, I’ve decided to sleep on a topic, and the pieces come together in my sleep. Of course, sometimes when I awake even more pieces are missing or are differently arranged.

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    1. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      I think it’s just something that the being that is human does . It comes upon “aha, I get it”. moments. But the awareness is the same. It’s just because we have a physiological situation that corresponds to a sense that something is changed. But it’s just what the human being does.

      As an analogy, since you brought up their cognitive scientist who came up with the idea that I approved that nothing that we are perceiving has anything to do with reality-

      The cognitive model, of cognitive behavioral therapy, says that there is an event or a situation, we have thoughts about it, we have emotional reactions to it, and we behave. That’s it. That’s all we’re dealing with. Nothing more.

      And it suggests that the problem if someone has a mental health issue is that that cycle happens so quickly that they call it “automatic”.

      This system is so automatic that we think that it is “I”. We think that our thoughts and our emotional reaction and our behaviors constitute me. As some sort of being.

      And health perspective, what we try to do is slow the process down.

      But the thing is, is the rest of the world never slows down. For most people, we just automatically “go with our gut”. Most people feel that their thoughts, but also their emotional reactions to things are normal, justified and natural.

      My point of bringing this up requires of you I kind of thought and experiential experiment.

      Imagine some point in your life or some situation, perhaps the beginning of an argument with your wife, say. If you’re married. lol. Or just a partner a good friend.

      Your emotions start to stir. And most people I don’t think even notice what’s happening. It’s so automatic that we start thinking about things as if we are being rational. But what is happening is that the emotions are fueling the very way that were able to think about things.

      But, because most people get through such anxious moments, such arguments, relatively unscathed, can apologize afterwards, can reflect upon how they were in that moment, such that they may decide that they didn’t behave the way they wanted to, or whatever.

      But my point is is that there’s no choice in the matter whatsoever. And this is just hypothetically speaking. It may well be that the only thing that is happening is that our bodies are creating an experience. That choice itself is just a physiological condition of emotions and various types of chemistries that come together to mean to us, or to create a situation where meaning can even arise, such that we have this subsequent or precipitate meaning that we understand as “choice”.

      So I’m saying that really these “a-ha“ moment, or not any realization of some underlying substance, or suddenly I grasp the what this discourse is really saying. Rather, perhaps it is just that we are just having an experience around this thing.

      I’m saying that this can happen regardless of what it is, whether or not it’s science, or religion, or some culture in the middle of Cyberia or South America, or whether I took drugs, or whether I looked at the moon at a particular moment. It doesn’t matter. Human beings just have these experiences and it feels like I’ve come upon some deeper meaning. But I’m not really sure if there is a deeper meaning. I think having some sort of deeper meaning, some sort of fuller understanding of the situation, is a sort of human ability. It’s what the physiological being that is human does. It creates a physiological state where some sort of deeper meaning has been suddenly come upon, or some sort of paradigm shift in someone’s conception, such that now I understand the deeper meaning, whereas before I didn’t really understand what this philosopher, what the science test was really talking about.

      But what I’m suggesting is that there is no deeper meaning. That the shift is just a physiological chemical interaction. And that what actually is going on is a retaining of one’s orientation upon what is real. Such that the individuals truth is confirmed through these a-ha moments. No actual conceptual lies Asian of things has changed, it is merely a physiological reaction, and emotional reaction if you will, that makes one feel like something is changed.

      And so I’m suggesting that is it is a reliance upon this orientation upon viewing what oneself is in the universe that constitutes reality itself. But that this reality is not true.

      Anyways I’m rambling.

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      1. microglyphics Avatar
        microglyphics

        This fits into my worldview that emotion precedes logic—and then we backfill and justify. It also reminds me of Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. The ‘fast’ System 1 operates on heuristics. It isn’t very very precise, but it’s good enough and reliable. Part of system 1 is the reflexive (automatic) response. It includes emotional reactions. The analytical follows.

        System 1 has a sort of right of first refusal. It assesses inputs and take a stab at it. In some cases, System 2, chimes in and demands to evaluate the output. In other cases, System 1 ‘thinks’ it’s got things covered and renders some output. It could be correct or not, but System 1 isn’t very picky.

        Some things mature from System 2 to 1. When children first learns in maths that 1 + 1 = 2. At first this is an analytical function of System 2, but not long after it’s relegated to System 1. No longer needing to calculate 1 + 1, it is now identity knowledge. It just ‘is’ 2. System 1 has this archived for quick access.

        In any case, I can define my perception as real, but this doesn’t make them real anymore than labelling a car as a chicken renders the car into a chicken.

        Liked by 1 person

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