How to Understand More

Important: GDPR Email Preferences

As you may already know, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be coming into effect on 25th May 2018. We take your privacy seriously and we are working hard to ensure we comply with the new data protection laws. You can find out more about how we're doing this in our privacy policy on our website.

We want to make sure you continue to receive the latest newsletters, blogs, special offers and more.

As someone who has opted-in to receive our emails in the past, we’d like to give you this opportunity to confirm what you wish to receive:

Just so you know, if you don’t let us know what kinds of emails you want to receive from us, we’ll stop emailing you on the 24th May 2018 - you'll be missing out!

You are of course free to change your mind at any time – just follow the link at the bottom of any of our emails.

How to Understand More

To understand more, remember this:

• Nothing is ONE thing. Everything consists of a larger number of component parts.
• Nothing is isolated. Everything sits with a surrounding context.

1. Nothing is ONE thing. Everything consists of a larger number of component parts.

In order to fully understand anything, break it down into its component parts; give each part a name; then figure-out the internal relationship that exits between the component parts.

Re-iterate the process; because each part you named, is itself made up of its component parts, and can be resolved into its subsets, then named, and their internal relationships established.

Each time you re-iterate this process of analysis, your level of understanding increases.

For example: The human body is not a single entity. It consists of a number of sub-systems:

• the skeletal system
• the circulatory system
• the digestive system
• the muscular system
• the nervous system, etc.

When you have resolved the human body into its component sub-systems, you have completed a first level analysis, achieving a higher level of understanding than you had when you started.

To increase your understanding still further, you could make a second level analysis.

For example, the nervous system is not a single thing either. It too is a system of systems: the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system.

And the third level analysis would take the central nervous system and resolve that into its component parts.

Each time you resolve something into its component parts and name them, you increase your level of understanding.

This is an endless process, since you wont live long enough to become all-knowing.

2. Nothing is isolated. Everything sits within a surrounding context.

Analysis is the act of "burrowing down" into a thing, or idea, to understand it in ever greater detail.

There is an opposite process, called synthesis.

Synthesis is about looking at the big picture.

Everything is part of a bigger whole. And you gain a full understanding only if you grasp how a thing fits into the bigger picture, (its context).

You must never think of anything as if it sits alone, in splendid isolation.

Everything is affected by its surrounding context. And everything forms part of the context for the other things that surround it.

For example, each individual human being is surrounded by a social, physical, historical, technological, political and economic context.

To FULLY understand what a human being really is, you must first figure-out how the human being fits into its larger context.

• Always take the context into account.
• Never take any fact or statement out of context.
• Your brain can perform both analysis and synthesis.
• Analysis is the act of breaking things down into their sub-set parts.
• Synthesis is the act of putting parts into larger wholes. (Larger holes?)

To understand anything better, practice the twin arts of analysis and synthesis.

Blogs by Email

Do you want to receive an email whenever we post a new blog? The blogs contain article 5-10 minutes long - ideal for reading during your coffee break!

Your Comments

Further Reading in General Development

• I have made an amazing discovery
  Apply this discovery and you will be better able to persuade people to accept your proposal, buy your products, and accept your ideas.
  Read Article >
• How do you know that what you believe is actually true?
  If something is trending on Twitter, does it make it true? There are various ways in which you gain and verify knowledge, not all of them are reliable. Which ones do you use, and which can you trust?
  Read Article >
• How to Understand More
  Improving your knowledge and skills comes with understanding more about a subject. To understand more you need to break things down into their component parts, whilst also considering the wider context.
  Read Article >
• Managers need additional skills
  Skills training for managers Managers need to develop their personal skills beyond their technical knowledge. Managers often are made managers by virtue of their technical knowledge: Managers know the technical details of their products, services and systems. But knowing the technical details of your products, services and systems is not enough...
  Read Article >
• How Can I Motivate Staff?
  Some people use threats and punishment to motivate staff, but praise and appreciation are one of the best ways to motivate staff.
  Read Article >

Advert