Update: Doing is Not Understanding

“You are awarded no points for simply being present,” sounds something like what I say at the start of the Hold the Standard Summit. It’s a call for participation. I think, at times, we over use the old saying, “Showing up is half the battle.”

Showing up to the battle is closer to 0% of the battle than 50%. 

Part of the trouble with this notion is confusing doing with understanding. There is a massive gulf of space between being present to teachings and integrating them. While the former idea (presence) is necessary, it surely isn’t sufficient to the latter (understanding). 

The fitness industry is so ripe with this idea that it’s rotten. Credentials mean nothing without integration. Maybe the best way to credential someone in the future is by proving that the learner could teach the learnings to other learners. 

I became reinvigorated on this topic after reading Jeff Hawkin’s impactful text, On Intelligence, where he challenges the validity of what artificial intelligence proports to be. He shares UC Berkeley philosophy professor John Seale’s thought experiment called the Chinese Room.

It’s a metaphorical example of an English speaking man behind a wall with a slit in it. The man has a set of rules that provide a painstaking process for translating Chinese characters into English, basically how to copy, erase, transcribe, reorder, etc. 

On the other side of the wall, a Chinese speaker slips a paper through the slot with a story and questions about the story. After a painstaking process of toiling with the rules to resolve the note written in a foreign language, the transcriber follows direction to push the paper back through the slot revealing all the work done. 

On the other side of the slit, the Chinese speaker reads the page with correct answers. The question, though, is despite the “success” of this operation did the transcriber really understand anything that happened?