Understanding (also called intellection) is a psychological Psychology is the field study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors, often making use of the scientific method in laboratory research . In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or process In philosophy and systems theory, basic processes, or logical homologies as they were termed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, are unifying principles which operate in many different systemic contexts. For example, feedback is a principle that figures prominently in the science of cybernetics. Natural and industrial processes utilize basic processes such related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person A person is any individual human being. The direct plural term is "persons." The term people is the general plural of "person," and is used to refer to person plurally in a range from 'a few persons' up to 'all people' (cf. humanism). "People" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group, and in this, situation, or message A message in its most general meaning is an object of communication. It is a vessel which provides information. Yet, it can also be this information. Therefore, its meaning is dependent upon the context in which it is used; the term may apply to both the information and its form. A communiqué is a brief report or statement released by a public whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology[citation needed] such as a single meaning of a term to deal adequately with that object.

An understanding is the limit of a conceptualization A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology[citation needed] such as a single meaning of a term. To understand something is to have conceptualized it to a given measure.

Examples

1. One understands the weather if one is able to predict and to give an explanation An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts of some of its features, etc.
2. A psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy. As part of their evaluation of the patient, psychiatrists are one of the few mental health professionals who may prescribe psychiatric medication, conduct physical understands another person's anxieties Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components. These components combine to create an unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry. Anxiety is a generalized mood condition that can often occur without an identifiable if he/she knows that person's anxieties, their causes, and can give useful advice Advice is a form of relating personal opinions, belief systems, personal values and recommendations about certain situations relayed in some context to another person, group or party often offered as a guide to action and/or conduct. Put a little more simply, an advice message is a recommendation about what might be thought, said, or otherwise on how to cope with the anxiety.
3. A person A person is any individual human being. The direct plural term is "persons." The term people is the general plural of "person," and is used to refer to person plurally in a range from 'a few persons' up to 'all people' (cf. humanism). "People" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group, and in this understands a command if he/she knows who gave it, what is expected by the issuer, and whether the command is legitimate, and whether one understands the speaker (see 4).
4. One understands a reasoning Rhetoric is the art of using language to communicate effectively. It involves three audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos, as well as the five canons of rhetoric: invention or discovery, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient, an argument In logic, an argument is a set of one or more meaningful declarative sentences known as the premises along with another meaningful declarative sentence (or "proposition") known as the conclusion, is asserted. A deductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises; an inductive argument, or a language Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so-called "natural languages" — the spoken forms of communication ubiquitous among humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of if one can consciously reproduce the information content conveyed by the message.
5. One understands a mathematical concept if one can solve problems using it, especially problems that are not similar to what one has seen before.

Is understanding definable?

It is difficult to define A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum (plural definienda). A term may have many different senses or meanings. For each such specific sense, a definiens (plural definientia) is a cluster of words that defines it understanding. If we use the term concept as above, the question then arises as to what is a concept? Is it an abstract Abstraction is a conceptual process by which higher, more abstract concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts. An "abstraction" (noun) is a concept that acts as super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category thing? Is it a brain The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals. Some primitive animals such as jellyfish and starfish have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all. In vertebrates, the brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary pattern or a rule In logic, a transformation rule is a syntactic rule used in a formal system which may be interpreted as a valid rule of inference for constructing true propositions. Rules of inference, along with any axioms or axiom schemata it uses to derive valid formulas, comprise the deductive system of the formal system? Whatever definition is proposed, we can still ask how it is that we understand the thing that is featured in the definition: we can never satisfactorily define a concept, still less use it to explain understanding.

It may be more convenient to use an operational or behavioural Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be definition, that is, to say that "somebody who reacts appropriately to x understands x". For example, one understands Swahili Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, Swahili is a national, or official language, of four nations, namely Tanzania, if one correctly obeys commands given in that language. This approach, however, may not provide an adequate definition. A computer can easily be programmed to react appropriately to commands, but there is a disagreement as to whether or not the computer understands the language (see the Chinese room The Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. It addresses the question: if a machine can convincingly simulate an intelligent conversation, does it necessarily understand? In the experiment, Searle imagines argument).

According to the independent socionics Socionics is a theory of information processing and personality type, distinguished by its information model of the psyche (called Model A) and a model of interpersonal relations. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism researcher Rostislav Persion:

In the cognitive Cognition is the scientific term for "the process of thought." Usage of the term varies in different disciplines; for example in psychology and cognitive science, it usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of model presented by MBTI The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.:1 These preferences were extrapolated from the typological theories proposed by Carl Gustav Jung and first published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (English edition, 1923, the process of introverted thinking Thoughts are forms conceived in the mind, rather than the forms perceived through the five senses. Thought and thinking are the processes by which these concepts are perceived and manipulated. Thinking allows beings to model the world and to represent it according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires. Similar concepts and processes include (Ti) is thought to represent understanding through cause and effect relationships or correlations. One can construct a model of a system by observing correlations between all the relevant properties (e.g. The output of a NAND gate In Boolean functions and propositional calculus, the Sheffer stroke, named after Henry M. Sheffer, written "|" or "↑", denotes a logical operation that is equivalent to the negation of the conjunction operation, expressed in ordinary language as "not both". It is also called the alternative denial, since it says in relative to its inputs). This allows the person to generate truths about the system and then to apply the model to demonstrate his or her understanding. A mechanic for example may randomly, or algorithmically probe the inputs and outputs of a black box In science and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings, that is, its implementation is "opaque" . Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human to understand the internal components through the use of induction. INTP INTP is an abbreviation used in Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to refer to one of the sixteen personality types. The MBTI assessment was developed from the work of prominent psychiatrist Carl G. Jung in his book Psychological Types. Jung proposed a psychological typology based on the theories of cognitive functions that he developed through, ISTP ISTP is an abbreviation used in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to refer to one of the sixteen personality types. The MBTI assessment was developed from the work of prominent psychiatrist Carl G. Jung in his book Psychological Types. Jung proposed a psychological typology based on the theories of cognitive functions that he developed, ESTP ESTP is an abbreviation used in the publications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to refer to one of sixteen personality types. The MBTI assessment was developed from the work of prominent psychiatrist Carl G. Jung in his book Psychological Types. Jung proposed a psychological typology based on the theories of cognitive functions that he, and ENTP ENTP is an abbreviation used in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) publications to refer to one of the sixteen personality types. The MBTI assessment was developed from the work of prominent psychiatrist Carl G. Jung in his book Psychological Types. Jung proposed a psychological typology based on the theories of cognitive functions that he all use Ti and are usually the best of the 16 types at understanding their material environment in a bottom-up manner. These types may enjoy mechanics Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment. The discipline has its roots in several ancient civilizations (see History of classical mechanics and Timeline of classical mechanics). During the early modern and digital electronics Electronics is the branch of science and technology which makes use of the controlled motion of electrons through different media and vacuum. The ability to control electron flow is usually applied to information handling or device control. Electronics is distinct from electrical science and technology, which deals with the generation, because of the 1 to 1 correlation between cause and effect relationships in these fields. Understanding is not limited to these types however as other types demonstrate an identical process, although in other planes of reality; ie. Social, Theological and Aesthetic. A potential reason for the association of understanding with the former personality types is due to a social phenomenon for asymmetrical distribution of gratification. In the field of engineering Engineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific, and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or invention, engineers probe or study the inputs and outputs of components to understand their functionality. These components are then combined based on their functionality (similar to computer programming Computer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language. The code may be a modification of an existing source or something completely new. The purpose of programming is to create a program that exhibits a certain) to create a larger, more complex system. This is the reason why engineers attempt to subdivide ideas as deep as possible to obtain the lowest level of knowledge. This makes their models more detailed and flexible. It may be useful to know the formulas that govern an ideal gas, but to visualise the gas as being made up of small moving particles, which are in turn made up of even smaller particles, is true understanding. People who are understanding (through the use of Ti) usually value objects and people based on usefulness, as opposed to the people who use extroverted thinking The trait of extraversion-introversion is a central dimension of human personality. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and interested in seeking out excitement. Introverts, in contrast, tend to be more reserved, less outgoing, and less sociable. They are not necessarily loners but they tend to have smaller circles of friends and are less (Te) who view people or things as having a worth. In order to test one's understanding it is necessary to present a question that forces the individual to demonstrate the possession of a model, derived from observable examples of that model's production or potential production (in the case that such a model did not exist beforehand). Rote memorization can present an illusion of understanding, however when other questions are presented with modified attributes within the query, the individual cannot create a solution due to a lack of a deeper representation of reality.

Another significant^{[citation needed]} point of view holds that knowledge is the simple awareness of bits of information. Understanding is the awareness of the connection between the individual pieces of this information. It is understanding which allows knowledge to be put to use. Therefore, understanding represents a deeper level than simple knowledge.

Gregory Chaitin Gregory John Chaitin is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist, a noted computer scientist, propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of data compression.^[1] In his essay "The Limits of Reason", he argues that understanding something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we understand why day and night exist because we have a simple model—the rotation of the earth—that explains a tremendous amount of data—changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have compressed a large amount of information by using a simple model that predicts it. Similarly, we understand the number 0.33333... by thinking of it as one-third. The first way of representing the number requires an infinite amount of memory; but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses much less information. Chaitin argues that comprehension is this ability to compress data.

The concepts of comprehension, thought and understanding are also used in the short science fiction Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature . Exploring the story Understand by Ted Chiang Ted Chiang is an American speculative fiction writer. He was born in Port Jefferson, New York and graduated from Brown University with a Computer Science degree. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, near Seattle, Washington. He is a graduate of the noted Clarion Writers Workshop (1989).

In programming

In a Thesis Book called A study of Quality Improvements By Refactoring Code refactoring is the process of changing a computer program's source code without modifying its external functional behavior in order to improve some of the nonfunctional attributes of the software. Advantages include improved code readability and reduced complexity to improve the maintainability of the source code, as well as a more expressive made at the University of Antwerp The University of Antwerp one of the major universities located in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. The name is sometimes abbreviated as UA on 2006 by Bart Du Bois (Phd) and promoted by many notable professors, the author explains that for a programmer to understand how to work with a new piece of code or a new system, five levels of abstraction have to be understood.

This is done by simply asking these five questions: (the following table was first plotted by Nancy Pennington in 1987 in a book called Comprehension Strategies in Programming)

• Function – What is the overall functionality? (i.e. Will an average be computed?)
• Data Flow – Where does a data object get updated? (i.e. Will the value of variable x affect the value of variable y?)
• Control Flow – Describe the sequence of execution (i.e. Is the last record in file x counted in variable y?)
• Operations – What does a particular line of code compute? (i.e. Is variable x initialised to zero?)
• State – What is the content of a data object at a particular point in execution? (i.e. When label x is reached, will variable y have a particular known value?)

The study defines understanding as conquering of all of the five abstractions. Since this model works for any type of software, as it is more about the programmer's mind than about the computer functionality, and software can repeat almost anything human, this model is very close to the ultimate definition of understanding of anything thinkable.

Lack of awareness of this pattern for evaluating abstractions, may bring about many cognitive biases A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations . Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable facts. The existence of some of these cognitive when complex ideas are explained. The idea of refactoring Code refactoring is the process of changing a computer program's source code without modifying its external functional behavior in order to improve some of the nonfunctional attributes of the software. Advantages include improved code readability and reduced complexity to improve the maintainability of the source code, as well as a more expressive in software is similar in the cognitive field to the repetition of an argument, with minor focus changes/enhancements to the argument each time.

Religious perspectives

In Catholicism Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole and Anglicanism Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. Anglicanism forms one of the principal traditions of Christianity, together with Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, understanding is one of the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit These should not be confused the charismatic gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:8-13, nor with the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:22-23.

See also

• Awareness Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is
• Chinese Room The Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. It addresses the question: if a machine can convincingly simulate an intelligent conversation, does it necessarily understand? In the experiment, Searle imagines
• Epistemology Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:
• Knowledge
• Meaning (linguistics)
• Perception
• Thought
• Binah (Kabbalah)
• Informational listening
• Active listening

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