You can read or hear something,

Let’s assume that thing to be true, or useful

Now there’s a number of things that can happen

 

One option is that you DON’T UNDERSTAND it

At which point — you can either be aware of this failure of comprehension,

OR NOT

 

The latter is of course undesirable

It’s rather impossible to learn if you think you ALREADY KNOW

If ideas and data challenging your position are just brushed off as irrelevant — then of course you’re not going to change your mind

If (counter) evidence is not going to change your mind then nothing is going to change your mind

And thus

you are guaranteed to be stupid, to be an idiot

You’re not wrong once, you’re wrong forever, stupid forever

 

The opposite of not understanding is, of course, UNDERSTANDING

If you truly understand that thing, then that is that, there’s nothing more to do

It may even be boring, a waste of time, to hear about it yet again

(Of course we rarely ever truly “fully” understand something. But it’s entirely plausible to understand something more than enough for the purposes at hand)

 

Then there’s the tricky middle

Where you partly understand

This is dangerous

 

The worst case is when you’re NOT aware of the extent to which you DON’T UNDERSTAND

In which case you’re the same idiot from the first scenario

Except worse — because you’re even harder to convince that you don’t get it… because you partly get it

 

The best case is of course the opposite — when you’re well aware of the degree to which you don’t understand

In which case you, hopefully, endeavour to EDUCATE yourself

Or else stay “humble”, meaning epistemically humble

Which means that you essentially undersell your understanding, underrate it

in the constant striving to broaden it, and complete it

 

The last common trap is the BORROWED COMPREHENSION

Which is a subset of incomplete comprehension

It essentially means that you really do get the GIST of it — but have NOT EARNED that understanding

This one is quite interesting

 

Borrowed comprehension is not so bad — for with it you’re at least directionally right

You’re not confidently wrong, you’re maybe cautiously, maybe arrogantly, but directionally right

The somewhat tragic feature of this existence is that we must ACT even when we DON’T know what the right course is. The world is probabilistic, we do our best with it

Borrowed comprehension allows you to cheaply acquire the necessary insight to take the right action

 

The one obvious flaw of borrowed comprehension is that it can quickly become delusional confidence, without any actual comprehension (the case where you think you know but are wrong)

 

The other obvious flaw is that it can also, similarly to the first case — make you more prone to INCURIOSITY

In which case you fail to develop full understanding — which could be useful

This is quite common

 

And the last caveat is that without FULL comprehension, and EARNED comprehension — a given TRUTH can often be taken for granted, UNDERAPPRECIATED

It may fail to be taken with due seriousness

 

It is therefore preferable that you always lean toward the MORE CURIOUS side

And the more humble and epistemically careful side

It’s hard to know too much. If anything, the main problem with knowing too much is indeed arrogance… which too is cured by ACTUALLY learning more, so that your confidence is not unearned, and your overconfidence is tempered

I like to recommend that you should put your ideas to test — or else shut your fucking mouth about them. You’re not so special

And in general, the rest of the time learn more, think more, and DO more

So that your incomplete comprehension never mutates into overconfidence

So that it grows and becomes more complete

And so that it never detaches from reality