A Basis of Understanding Phenomena

When we approach trying to understand anything, we bring to that process a lot of givens. These givens are not necessarily in the sense of a myth. They are assumptions and presuppositions that we don't question and tend to take for granted. An example of this is the notice of justice. We have a sense that justice should be the same for everyone. There is a presupposition of uniformity and equality in that notion. Is that notion, in part, derived from the industrial revolution meme of uniformity and replicability? This fairness/equality notion of justice is in one sense very unnatural. There is little uniformity in nature. Nature is chaotic and complex. The uniformity that we achieve is through extraordinary means with our technology and tools. In the larger sense this is quite natural as we are part of nature. From another perspective, this notion of fairness/equality in justice is rather unfair as it does not (and perhaps cannot) take into account the full complexity of the circumstances but applies an industrial model of uniformity to circumstances that are not unique. This can be seen as a great injustice.

In the process of understanding we can continue to uncover these assumptions / givens in our models. This uncovering can lend greater insight into the understanding of phenomena. For example, in the models we have in various disciplines from physics to the social sciences, what tends to be left out is that character and properties of the modeler. We have limited capabilities of handling complex systems. The way our perceptual systems work, we

• tend to favor one modality (sense system)
  
• can handle a very small number of variables simultaneously
• don't sense the implications of the dynamic interactions of these variables
• are limited in our capability to deal with non-linearity and chaos
• are influenced by our affect circuits - loyalty to a model or a person, ...

Yet these models and theories are presented as "absolute" in part because another property we have is a limit to the creative tension our neurologies can maintain in not selecting a final answer to give us direction.