67、The Otherness of People’s Understanding

We meet and contact with a lot of people every day. However, the degree of awareness of people on object has nothing in common with each other.

Take driving as an example; more and more people are learning how to drive, and when we go to the driving school, we shall understand the coordination operation of the steering wheel, the throttle, and the brake. Knowing this can help us to drive in accordance with our desires. It can be regarded as applying and using the car by us. We call this driving skill and cognitive level on handling the car as application-grade level.

If the car broke down on the road, and I just can’t fix it by myself, I would call for the maintainer for help. The cognitive level of the maintainer on the car is much better than most of us. At least they know the function and principle of each part of the car. Also, they know the way how all the parts work together in a car system. When a certain part of the car breaks down, or in another word, the system won’t work, the maintainer can check out the faulted part and test and replace it based on the fault phenomenon and by testing method. Then the car system can run normally. And it can be handed to the customer. We call the cognitive level of the maintainer on car as maintenance-grade level.

We know that the cars are manufactured by the car factory. And the cars are designed by the designers in the car factory. They could design and produce the cars based on existing technology and market demand and in accordance with their designing level and desires. The degree of cognition of them is the highest in the world. We call the cognitive level of the car engineer on car as design-grade level.

In fact, everything in the world has a process of cognition similar to that of cars. We have more than three layers of level of cognition on cars: use-degree, maintenance-grade, and design-grade. Almost all the things in the world have a three-degree level of cognition like that. Of course, the division of level of cognition on an object is a simple method. There could be a more exquisite division method or simple method. I just want to show that the level of cognition of everyone on an object differs one from another like that of this case.

Besides, even the cognition of the same type people on the same object differs from each other. Take the car as an example, for the drivers, someone may be dedicated in driving and some others just learn from it not long ago, and the others can drive and solve some small faults. Those who can fix problems are the one close to maintenance grade. And there are also some car fans, they can both drive and even modify a car by themselves. So for all the drivers, the beginners, regular drivers, and car fans have different understanding and cognition on cars.

Everyone has different levels of cognition on the same object. And the cognition of different people on the same object is different from one another as well. There are numerous types of objects in our daily life. Although we live in the same world, the cognition of us on all the things in the universe has a great deal of diversity.

The statement above shows that, when we look upon all the things around us, we should keep one concept in mind—the conclusion made by all the people in the world for a single matter might be different from your understanding. The understanding of you on things can only stand for no one else but yourself. You couldn’t wish that everyone could follow you. This is absolutely not possible. Making the Procrustean bed is a sign of obstinacy.