The Framework of Human Understanding

If you toss a ball, you expect it to fall down. What if it doesn’t? Then this violates your model of how the world works. This unexpected event highlights something your current knowledge cannot explain. This discrepancy, this lack of explanation, is precisely what sparks curiosity. Curiosity is the inherent human drive to understand, acting as the signal that something in your current Framework of Understanding is unsatisfactory or needs explaining. The ball defying gravity triggers that signal.

Once curiosity is sparked by the unexplained event, your mind seeks to find an explanation to make sense of it. This is where creativity comes in. Creativity is the ability to make guesses, to find patterns and connect dots, and to form new explanations. When the ball doesn't fall, you start guessing... trying to come up with different scenarios based on your past experience. You might guess there's an invisible string. These guesses are the product of your creativity, drawing on your existing knowledge (your Framework of Understanding) as a canvas of dots to connect. The quality of these guesses depends on the accuracy and range of your Framework of Understanding.

Having generated potential explanations (guesses) through creativity, the next crucial step is to see if they hold up against reality. You might test the "invisible string" guess by looking for it. Adaptability is the essential willingness to perform this testing and, crucially, to change your beliefs and understanding based on the outcome. It is the readiness to accept being wrong and replace your existing (bad) explanations with better ones. If your test shows there's no invisible string, you must be adaptable enough to discard that guess and form new ones, rather than clinging to a flawed explanation. This continuous process of testing and revising your understanding based on reality is central to improving your Framework of Understanding and is the core of adaptability.

Curiosity: The drive to know, learn and improve.
Creativity: Ability to understand requires creativity.
Adaptability: Being able and willing to change your mind.

My understanding and views on the FOU are derived from the work of David Deutsch, Daniel Kahneman, Nassim Taleb, and countless other authors whose ideas I have read and understood over the years. I have done my best not to claim other people's ideas as my own and have given due credit to the original creators of those ideas. However, I understand that I am prone to making mistakes, so if you find any errors, please feel free to point them out so I can correct them. I only share things that I have personally implemented in my own life and found useful. In the end, I hope my writings will provide a framework for learning, a path to authenticity, and freedom that is closer to the truth. I hope this helps you make a better sense of the world the way it helped me.

This Framework is work in progress... I will continue to post out additional content and new findings so please stay connected...