Oh, here we go again. If we had to try and list the shittiest, soppiest cliches of the century, surely "men are from mars and women are from Venus" would rank among the dumbest. Of course, I know what is like to stand lonely midst menopausal women who regurgitate trivial bullshit of various themes such as house cleaning or dress hunting, which, of course, they deem as stress-inducing. Yes, I've also seen women conjure the nine circles of hell and spew curses which would make any sailor envious just because another woman is wearing their same dress in a wedding. Of course, these are cute little stones which the most entrepreneurial of us men decide to leave unturned.
But of course we men have our demons. I've been to racing tracks and saw men swing handbags at each other just because their trashcan with wheels raises a couple of horses and ponies more than the other's. I've seen men grunt ala Sharapova at the gym, tilting their biceps at just the right angle so that the neon light can hit it in the most profitable ( revealing) manner. I can, hand on heart, say that the amount of shit that I don't give about the activity of wedding dress hunting is entirely equivalent to the same crock of shit that I don't give about BHP's or sweaty, testosterone-drenched biceps.
Jesus, is it so hard to understand? It is not that men don't understand women or vice versa; it is that humans are a messed up lot and impossibly difficult to comprehend even by their own twisted selves. Each and everyone of us orbits simultaneously around Venus, Mars, Jupiter... hell, Milkyway and Andromeda even. In any case this ancient argument has prompted me to write a little article on this idea of "understanding" whereby I try and make heads or tails of what it really is to understand something, and, more importantly, someone.
(Warning: It's a bit long winding and tiresome to read, so I will understand if you just click the x button and close to go and watch Kardashians or something. Should you decide to read, however, any comments would be greatly enjoyed.)
So let’s start from the term understanding; a term which becomes quite complex when applied to humans. So I’ll start with a machine.
How do I understand a machine? Generally I do so by being able to forecast deterministically all the combination of outputs, given a combination of inputs. Taking a car, I can say that I understand how to drive a car because I know what will happen when I use the clutch, the break and the accelerator, or when I pour oil, petrol etc. Of course, I just need rudimentary knowledge to drive. A mechanic on the other hand would typically need much more knowledge, but, and this is crucial, the combination of all outputs given a combination of inputs would still be finite. So a mechanic, given ample experience, would still manage to establish a reasonable mechanical forecasting power when dealing with cars and would be able, more often than not, to prescribe a solution for most technical problems. Thus, we can say, that me and you understand how to drive a car because I can forecast what happens when I press the accelerator, breaks, pour oil etc and a mechanic understands how to prescribe solutions to most car problems because he can forecast what happens when he fixes this or that object inside a car.
This example therefore depicts how understanding and forecasting are somehow related, and so, it begs the question: can I understand an object without being able to forecast its behavior? If I am to claim that I understand the intricacies of the weather for example, surely then the only way that I can prove my claim is by demonstrating that I am able to understand the complex mathematical models which forecast its behavior. If I say that I understand the laws of physics, then surely I must back my claim by showing how I can forecast the trajectory of a projectile given certain initial conditions. If I say that I truly understand the art of pastry, then surely I must be able to forecast the shape and texture of a cake given certain initial conditions like ingredients, oven temperature etc.
But can I claim that I understand the game of football and then fail to forecast the score of a match?
Can I claim that I understand how the human heart works and then fail to forecast a heart attack?
Yes I can. Why? Because there is human behavior involved.
With machines and natural phenomena, I believe, understanding is tantamount to forecasting to a certain degree of accuracy. But when it comes to humans I think it is fair enough to claim that it is impossible to forecast any behavior and this is because humans, unlike machines, display an infinite set of output combinations given an initial set of input conditions ( or even one input condition for that matter). Who is to say that the student will do well in an exam if he or she has studied? Who is to say that tomorrow a woman will wake up and still feel attracted to her partner? Of course, there are outcomes more probable than others (and thank God for that, otherwise relationships of any kind would be impossible) but truth of the matter is that no one can ever reasonably forecast another human being’s reaction, even if they are our loved ones.
Now of course, if I know that my mother is scared of rats, then I can predict with certain degree of accuracy that she will screech with all her might upon seeing the innocent creature. If I know that my girlfriend is sensitive than I know that there is a good chance that she might cry if we have a fight. So in what way is forecasting different from understanding when it comes to humans?
And here is where the driver/mechanic analogy comes into play. Similar to the way that I cannot say that I understand cars just because I know how to drive, I cannot say that I know and understand a person if I know him or her casually and can predict certain outcomes of his or her behavior. Can I claim that I really know and understand my mother just because I know that she will scream if she sees a rat? Or that I understand my girlfriend just because I know she is sensitive? To what degree is my mother scared of rats? Will she recover from this fear? Would she be able to kill one if her survival or her family’s survival depended on it? Would a person remain sensitive if he or she faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as a terminal disease? All of these questions involve a series of infinite combination of outcomes and it will take an infinite amount of time to analyze them all and an infinite amount of time is something that no one has.
But say we had an infinite amount of time, would we manage to forecast or understand a human?
NO! Why? Because humans evolve (Albeit the fact that some devolve.) That is what separates us from computer programs. (incidentally in a documentary I was watching on AI, they argued that they needed to create a computer program which is able to evolve itself if they wanted to have something which can think)
Thus not even if we have an infinite amount of time to analyze all possible outcomes and then try to understand a person we wouldn’t manage, just for the simple reason that those very same initial inputs and outputs evolve continuously. Thus I can forecast that you will cry if I shout at you, or that you will smile if you see the picture of a baby, but to be able and truly in a position to say that I can forecast your behavior and understand you, I need to be able to know more than that, in fact, much more and that is impossible. And that is why we might grow tired of a car or a mobile phone, but never of a person of whom we are genuinely interested in analyzing all the possible outputs of his personality.
So maybe that’s love....
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