Info Rich, Wisdom Poor
What is essential to make the leap from knowing to understanding?
One of the digital age paradoxes that frustrates me the most is the inverse relationship between expanding access to information and decreasing levels of literacy across a host of domains (civics and media especially). We are rich in information – the whole of human knowledge fits in our pockets on web-enabled devices – but increasingly outsource our thinking to said web-enabled devices. For example, we are not only asking chatbots about science and history but also about the meaning of life. Many of us are consulting chatbots as teachers, experts, philosophers and therapists.
It's easy to “know” if we define “knowing” as a binary of either possessing the information and facts or not. Computers and AI agents are really helpful in helping find answers to familiar problems or patterns based on an accepted fact base. (Whether we can trust what is accepted as a common set of facts is another ball of wax.)
It’s a lot harder to “understand” if we define “understanding” as coming to deeper comprehension through processes of reasoning, synthesis, intuition and interpretation.
The promise of AI and superintelligence is that artificial brains will not only help us know, but also show us how things connect, why they matter, and what they mean. (Whether we can trust how AI arrives at understanding if it can’t rely on lived human experience is debatable, as is the larger question of if we should outsource this function to AI at all.) Setting aside questions of what the role of AI is or should be, I’m more concerned with what outsourcing understanding means for the human experience itself and how we can protect human ingenuity in the long-term. That starts by deconstructing the process of understanding.
What is essential to make the leap from knowing to understanding?
While humans are not the only creatures to exhibit deep learning, empathy and self-awareness (all foundational to the larger capacity of understanding), these superpowers are innately part and parcel of our shared humanity and ingenuity. To date, no big, complex problem has ever been solved without the aid of people thinking deeply in ways both novel and complementary. Human ingenuity plus AI power, depth and breadth could be awesome indeed, but what happens in one or two generations when the human ingenuity part has eroded? Machine learning and AI problem-solving defined by and for the benefit of artificial systems could bypass human considerations altogether.
Understanding relies on our ability to combine critical thinking skills with emotional and social intelligence. (AI can help with the former, but the latter is up to us.)
Now might be a good time to double down on thinking, deep learning and strengthening our capacity to understand, both intellectually and interpersonally. There are many ways to expand strategic capacity and invest in reflexive practices that hone empathy and other so-called “softer” skills. And it’s advised to explore different ways of leaning and personal growth because they all become the interconnected scaffolding for the whole as we expand our capacities. But if you are looking for a place to start, the art of noticing is both practical and propulsive. The more you look, the more you see.
RESOURCE: Look at More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth, And Change by Andy Stefanovich
Besides his role as chief curator and provocateur at consultancy Prophet, Andy serves as a thinking partner for leaders exploring big ideas. In 2011, he published Look at More, a slim but powerful volume on how to find inspiration by following the directive to “look at more stuff; think about it harder.” It’s a book I return to often to remind myself how to think about deep thinking, connecting dots and finding new perspectives on old problems. Andy calls this a “museum mentality” and you can hear him put this in a context in this TED talk.
The book is organized around a specific framework, but beyond that roadmap, there are three themes that inform thinking as a springboard to understanding:
Curate for focus. Attention is a finite resource (at least for humans). There is a lot of noise in the world, both online and off. Curating what you pay attention to and organizing the information and signals you want to explore helps you focus on what matters and protects your energy.
Marinate for depth. Understanding comes from both circling a question or topic from different perspectives and also going deep to see the layers and factors that aren’t obvious from the surface. Build on curation by exploring the archives, marinating yourself in the domain, and leave room for randomness and serendipity.
Integrate for wisdom. Getting to wisdom requires us to reflect on what we’ve learned, synthesize what it means and then integrate it into how we navigate, interrelate, lead and solve.
Thinking deeply is an endless process of curation, marination and integration. Each phase resets your starting point so you can go further every time you confront something or someone new. This process helps us balance skepticism and compassion as we try to make sense of the world and our place in it.