Many Perspectives Needed To be Understand

"If you understand something in only one way, then you do not really understand it at all. This is because if something goes wrong you get stuck with a thought that just sits in your mind with nowhere to go. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we have connected it to all the other things we know. This is why, when someone learns "by rote," we say that they do not really understand. However, if you have several different representations, when one approach fails you can try another. Of course, making too many indiscriminate connections will turn a mind to mush. But well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives, until you find one that works for you...

And that is what we mean" by thinking!
Marvin Minsky

Posted in: Poem and Words of Wisdom