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Understanding is a purely artificial/subjective concept. "Understanding" only exists if there is a conscious observer, and "understanding" means whatever that

Understanding is a purely artificial/subjective concept. "Understanding" only exists if there is a conscious observer, and "understanding" means whatever that observer wants it to mean. A lot of people have found full understanding in religion. It takes off a lot of the stress from not understanding. You may call this understanding of understanding meta-understanding.

barrysteve 4y ago
Understanding is a word developed by humans, for humans. Of course it only exists because there's a conscious observer. That's the people who use and received the Word. That's no reason/excuse to describe it as purely subjective. We can all understand that objectively the Earth exists and (to a level or standard) one can be said to objectively understand the Earth and it's existence. Understanding relativism makes no sense, because the majority of the topics we wish to understand objectively exist and are empirically/scientifically provable. You didn't take the stress off understanding, you gave up and mangled the meaning of the word in the process. Please don't do that.
bjornsing 4y ago
> Understanding is a purely artificial/subjective concept. Not necessarily. It can be mathematically defined as the ability predict the future, i.e. to assign (relatively) high probability to events that occur.
rocketbop 4y ago
I think you can understand how for example an engine works, in a way which couldn’t be described as subjective or artificial. You might have a shallow or deep understanding of this depending on your profession. People who are religious tend to talk about belief rather than understanding. I don’t suppose many Christians claim to understand God’s mind or his will, quite the opposite. Also, claiming to know God’s will as zealots do is not the same as understanding it.
mistermann 4y ago
> "Understanding" only exists if there is a conscious observer, and "understanding" means whatever that observer wants it to mean. A lot of people have found full understanding in religion. It takes off a lot of the stress from not understanding. The same is very (but certainly not identically) true of science or most any ideology/framework, from the perspective of the average civilian.

barrysteve 4y ago

Understanding is a word developed by humans, for humans. Of course it only exists because there's a conscious observer. That's the people who use and received the Word. That's no reason/excuse to describe it as purely subjective. We can all understand that objectively the Earth exists and (to a level or standard) one can be said to objectively understand the Earth and it's existence. Understanding relativism makes no sense, because the majority of the topics we wish to understand objectively exist and are empirically/scientifically provable. You didn't take the stress off understanding, you gave up and mangled the meaning of the word in the process. Please don't do that.

bjornsing 4y ago

> Understanding is a purely artificial/subjective concept. Not necessarily. It can be mathematically defined as the ability predict the future, i.e. to assign (relatively) high probability to events that occur.

rocketbop 4y ago

I think you can understand how for example an engine works, in a way which couldn’t be described as subjective or artificial. You might have a shallow or deep understanding of this depending on your profession. People who are religious tend to talk about belief rather than understanding. I don’t suppose many Christians claim to understand God’s mind or his will, quite the opposite. Also, claiming to know God’s will as zealots do is not the same as understanding it.

mistermann 4y ago

> "Understanding" only exists if there is a conscious observer, and "understanding" means whatever that observer wants it to mean. A lot of people have found full understanding in religion. It takes off a lot of the stress from not understanding. The same is very (but certainly not identically) true of science or most any ideology/framework, from the perspective of the average civilian.