Contemplating Conceptual Understanding

[quan]

Here is the understanding I reached on the method we use to understand things conceptually:

1. Observe phenomena

2. Remember associations between similar phenomena

3. Re-live memory to reach desired phenomena by trusting the association

This is an indirect method of understanding. You know that certain phenomena trigger certain other phenomena based on your memory, but ultimately you don't know how this happens. It is simply that phenomena are linked, and you trust that so long as it produces results. This is why science is so intimately tied with material progress.

Here is an example:

1. You experience hunger pains

2. You remember an association between a memory of tasting and chewing food and a memory of later being relieved of stomach pain

3. You re-live the memory to remove the hunger pain

I have yet to contemplate other methods of understanding, but they include instinct, intuition, direct observation, etc.

Please let me know what you think 

[JosephKnecht]

21 minutes ago, quan said:

1. Observe phenomena

2. Remember associations between similar phenomena

3. Re-live memory to reach desired phenomena by trusting the association

This is a method for pattern discovery in reality. Your mind is trying to understand reality through observation and finding associated links between observations. 

The more intelligent you are, the more patterns you can discover in reality. The more patterns you discover, the more predictable you make your reality.

To gain a higher conceptual understanding, you have to find meta-patterns. Meta-patterns are patterns that exist on higher level of abstraction. The best way to discover meta-patterns is to extricate yourself from the observation. 

 

[quan]

I think describing it as pattern-recognition is a really succinct way to explain it.

Can you talk more about meta-patterns? Can you give an example?

And how would you extricate yourself from the observation?

[JosephKnecht]

9 minutes ago, quan said:

Can you talk more about meta-patterns? Can you give an example?

And how would you extricate yourself from the observation?

Every embodied act is affected by higher metaphysical values.

The embodied act you can see, but the values are something that you can't see, so you must infer them. 

Meta-patterns usually describe the values that guide your embodied acts.

For example, all big corporations typically have a hierarchical structure. That means that the CEO of the corporation is on the top of the hierarchy.

The CEO can execute his personal will to the greatest extent. (Meaning the CEO can make any decision that he wills, and his decision trickles down the company ranks). If you work for the company and you are 5 levels below the CEO, this means that probably someone tells you what you need to do, and you have to do it regardless of your personal will. (otherwise, you lose your job).

If you don't learn how to extricate yourself from the observation, you might get angry at the CEO for making you do a useless job that you don't want to do. The anger and disappointment will keep you stuck in your situation. 

But if you don't get angry and extricate yourself from your situation, you will realize that the CEO is probably smarter than you and if you ever wish to exercise higher will in the organization, you too need to become smarter so that one day you can become the CEO.

Something like that.