The Four Layers Of Understanding

         There are too many topics to possibly understand all of them in the limited mind we carry with us. This plays into the effect of only certain people actually fully comprehending the topics that they are passionate about, while others (who have studied the effect but have not practiced or become passionate about it) merely believe that they do, and meanwhile, their true skill sets and knowledge lie elsewhere. This does not mean that these people under the assumption that they understand a topic are completely clueless, nor does it mean that they have subpar intelligence, but they likely have not unraveled as many layers of understanding on the topic as someone who is passionate about it and has been for a long time probably has. There are, of course, exceptions, like an old-timer who once understood their topics of choice, but these topics have since changed, and the person who follows them has not, or people who have unraveled many layers of understanding on a topic, but have not been receiving the correct information, and so it is believed that they understand fully, but do not. This also plays into the confidence of one discussing whichever topic you may choose; someone who truly and, to the best of their ability, fully understands a topic is held by the liability of nearly infinite possibilities, like perhaps someone discussing the likelihood of inheriting certain genetic traits - they will understand that there are only certain guarantees in this field and they are minimal - and a person who does not understand the aforementioned and therefore does not hold the liabilities and realize the complexities of the topic wholly will speak about the topic in an entirely different manner.
         Confidence in one’s knowledge in a topic typically only comes in ignorance of it or in true understanding of it. The lack of confidence in speaking on a topic only comes from the realization that there is still much to learn - sometimes, depending on the subject of interest, even those who really do understand what they’re talking about lack confidence in it. It all depends. What does not depend on any of these factors above is what fully understanding a topic entails, and all of the ins and outs of it - which, to be able to do fully, is practically impossible. So not only is it impossible to learn everything, with the above taken in stride, it is almost impossible to learn everything about one thing, but again, there are exceptions at play that prevent it from being entirely impossible, like simple math or the laws (not theories) of the universe and our planet, some of which may even have the potential of being disputed at a later date. To learn why it is nearly impossible to know everything, even on a singular subject, we must delve into the four layers of understanding, and this will help to get a glimpse into the depth even a very simple exchange between two average people holds.
         The first layer of understanding is exceptionally simple, and in almost every single interaction in our daily lives, it is achieved. It is the acknowledgement of an instance happening, or of something existing. To use an example, if I were to say, “I started my sentence with an I,” I have acknowledged that I used an I at the beginning of my sentence, hence unraveling the first layer of understanding. I now know that an I was used at the beginning of my sentence, but of course, saying that is unnecessary in most cases - anyone who reads English would not need to be prompted to acknowledge it. Again, the first layer is unraveled in almost every exchange of information we perceive. There is also plenty that we don’t perceive in an exchange with another person, like perhaps emotional queues or, if you were to be successfully pickpocketed, the fact that you were pickpocketed.
         The second layer gets marginally deeper, and in it is the understanding of why I used the ‘I’ at the beginning of the sentence. In this particular scenario, I used the ‘I’ because it was the first thing I could think of to demonstrate the first layer of understanding, and it is simultaneously a way to approach a sentence if you are speaking with yourself in mind, like “I don’t want to keep reading this,” or “I feel that this is exasperating.” This step is almost as simple, and is typically unraveled in the subconscious when we perceive, for example, someone else’s actions. If we know why they did it, then we don’t need to really ask them or ourselves to go deeper and into that second layer of understanding - it’s something normal, after all, like if someone were to scratch an itch on their leg. We know that they scratched, and we assume that it was probably just an itch, and it’s unlikely that we need to ask that person in order to know.
         Now abandoning the first example we used, we use the one just above to dig into the third layer of understanding. Why did that person have that itch? This is something that we will probably need to ask them due plainly to the unlikelihood that we watched what caused it happen. The most likely answers are that it is a hair follicle irritating them under their clothes, or a bite from a mosquito that they got yesterday, or maybe it’s a scab. Pretending that there are two universes we perceive in this example, let’s say in one of them, we ask the person, and they say that it’s a mosquito bite, and in the other universe, we watched the mosquito bite them there the day prior. Under both of these circumstances, we know that it is a mosquito that bit them, and that is why they are scratching their leg - it itches because of a mosquito bite. To get into the fourth layer of understanding, we must ask again, Why?
         In the fourth layer here, you must know why the mosquito bit them. Perhaps it’s because their blood type attracts them, or maybe they stayed out somewhere that mosquitoes are prominent. Under the right circumstances, you know that answer. Again, in the two separate universes we have, let’s assume in the one that you watched the person get bit in, that person had already before told you in passing that their blood type was one attractive to mosquitoes, and in the universe that you had to ask them whether or not it was a mosquito bite, you now have to ask them why they think that it bit them, and they tell you that they have a blood type attractive to mosquitoes. This clues us towards something unique about the fourth layer of understanding, and something interesting about the rest: an exterior source of information is almost always necessary in the fourth layer, and is more likely than not needed for the third as well, unless you are more intimate with the person or subject - one is even sometimes needed for the second. If you want to be technical about it, all four layers always require an exterior source of knowledge, but technicalities not included, an external source of information can be necessary in all four, or in the first, but not the second, but needed again for the third and fourth.
         Proceeding this layer of understanding, you’ll find yourself in a place already familiar - the first layer of understanding. The fourth is the deepest layer of understanding, but it is not the last until there is nothing left to understand. Now you reach the conglomerate of information, which can be picked apart in the same four layer process, starting with, of course, the first layer. In our first layer of understanding, we perceive the fact that certain blood types - and this person’s blood type, specifically - are attractive to mosquitoes. For example, now, to understand why this person’s blood is attractive to mosquitoes, you must peel apart the layers in an entirely new subject, and if you want to stay on the same subject, you can search to understand why this person has that blood type, starting with the genes of their parents. There are even more routes, too, like if you wanted to understand why they took their trip to the woods which resulted in the bite, and then the drawing board expands, whereupon you can explore the reason for their reason to go to the woods.
         This essay isn’t much new, as people have been subconsciously unraveling all of these layers, dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of times, across the spans of their lives, generation to generation for thousands of years; a truly grand feat of our mind’s capabilities, delving deeper than most of us could ever hope to realize, sometimes completely under our own noses - utilizing a total capability that most of us will merely think about in passing. The mind is an incredible thing, and such is true in any person that has one, a brain that performs miracles such as these four layers of comprehension. The fact that I sit here and write this affirms to me that I’m not the only one who has questioned our method of understanding, but with all of our unique qualities, it raises many possibilities, some of which are sure to be dismantled by that same method of understanding.
         Although this essay is merely food for thought, and potentially a guideline to better seek answers to questions (of which we’ll never run out), I do hope it serves one important purpose: to remind us of how small we are. No matter what effort we put into discovering ourselves, what’s inside of us, what’s around us, other people, the world and its many events, we will always be distant from a true grasp on what we experience. On a proportionate scale, most people on this earth rely on guesswork to form ourselves and the reality we live into something tangible, something capable of being understood, even if on a comparatively miniscule scale. It is also important to remember, however, that we play a distinct and important role in the world around us, just by doing the aforementioned; we are both small and distinct, and the patchwork in the world left by us will, in some way or another, always remain, left to be unraveled using the method that this essay was about by someone else, whether alive or yet to come.