DIKUW - Definitions (cont): Understanding

Understanding can be thought of as a kind of knowledge; it's knowledge that can be used/applied to do such things as:

• Explain, elaborate, interpret, uncover/discover, or gain insights into the nature of things, such as interactions (relationships, patterns, cause & effect, etc.) and implications (inferences, consequences) of phenomena
• Question/challenge assumptions, conclusions, interpretations, hypotheses
• Notice contradictions, ambiguity, inconsistencies, surprises
• Support decisions through logic and evidence
• Make high-probability predictions
  
• Judge/evaluate/assess/appraise things rationally and sensibly
  
• Create and imagine
• Emerge intention, including focusing attention and motivating actions
• Justify or negate beliefs/hypotheses/assumptions/predictions.

Understandings may or may not be valid and reliable, depending on the underlying knowledge.

Understanding is directly related to intelligence: Greater intelligence enables deeper understandings.

Understanding a phenomenon in multiple ways has the benefit that different well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind and envision things from many different perspectives.

The emergence of understanding can be a totally private/tacit process, e.g., when logical connections between concepts and new intuitive insights spontaneously emerge through private contemplation/reasoning. Understandings also emerge through direct conscious activity of an individual or group.

A key difference between knowledge and understanding is that knowledge exists simply by recognizing and recalling certain pieces of information. Unlike "lesser" forms of knowledge, understanding requires that the information be relevant, clear and complete enough to enable one to explain why things happen, interpret nuance, find patterns in complexity, gain insights, make critical-thinking judgments, create, motivate, justify, etc. For example, consider the difference between knowing a joke and understanding it. Knowing it means people can recall and repeat the joke’s information (words and actions); but if they don’t understand it, then they won’t find it funny because they fail to notice the absurdities, word-play, etc. that make the joke funny.