What do you do when something is interesting to you but you don't fully understand it?

[Boojatta]

By "interesting to you", I mean that it is not merely interesting because of some anticipated, near-term, practical value to you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. I find it interesting why someone would ask such a patently obvious question.

So, I research.

Why do you ask?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. anything that involves the opposite sex. naturally.

[madmusic]

3. Everyone is going to say...

"I study (think / read / experiment) until I have a good or at least better understanding."

Most will vote for this one. Are they lying? How many times do we take as gospel a news report or newspaper article we already agree with but condemn it if we already disagree? Though we could say we agree because we already researched the subject, there are still often major flaws easy to ignore. Rare is the flawless article about just about anything. That's the nature of the MSM.

Who wants to admit there were suckered?

EDIT: I don't mean to actually call anyone a liar. It it more like cognitive dissonance.

[Trillo]

4. I was thinking along similar lines,

but decided not to vote for it simply because part of that process involves writing. Apparently, writing helps me to consciously access my own inner (perhaps unconscious) thoughts.

At the same time I've been very disappointed in reading the works of others, even books before the Internet explosion: I have shelves of largely worthless books. Perhaps those authors were attempting to understand themselves, and a lot of dreck needed to come out first.

[madmusic]

5. The process of self-understanding can be facinating...

But a lot of dreck also comes from those who are not trying to understand themselves and think they don't need to. I'll take a flawed introvert over a perfect extrovert any day of the week.

That said, my shelves too are largely worthless books, but for a different reason: they are mere specks of sand on the beach of knowledge. Even if one of those specks of sand finds its way into an oyster and become a pearl, the oyster will eventually die and the pearl will get stolen. One was stolen just now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl">"The commonly held belief that a grain of sand acts as the irritant is in fact rarely the case."

Dammit. If only there really were absolutes.

[Boojatta]

7. I considered putting the word "writing" in there as part of the study process, but

I was trying to keep the options reasonably brief and perhaps we can include writing as part of a process of thinking. Alternatively, one could say that to attempt to write down one's thoughts is to engage in an experiment.

Let's suppose you wanted to use a calculator to perform some computations to fully understand something. Based on a narrow reading of the word "experiment", using a calculator might be excluded on the grounds that it's not much different from looking up values in a book of mathematical tables. One might discover some kind of mathematical pattern that way, but a reader who looks up a given individual entry in a table of numbers is not making what we would ordinarily call a "discovery."

If you are simply relying upon the calculator and not testing the calculator to see whether or not it is functioning correctly, then one might argue that the process is not an "experiment."

If we have to explicitly mention the use of paper or calculators as options, then we might get a very long list of things as we accumulate a list of devices or materials that one might use.

[Boojatta]

8. The first part of your post made me think it is more like "self-deception."

Subject line above is my answer to this:
"EDIT: I don't mean to actually call anyone a liar. It is more like cognitive dissonance."

Perhaps I should have included more options so that there would be some that have a true-to-life sound, but not an overly negative sound. The choice of an ideal person is not always the "right answer" on personality tests. For example, "I have never lied" is said to be true primarily by liars. There might be a few exceptions, but they are statistically irrelevant from the point of view of test validation.

[Boojatta]

9. Just to clarify

Someone who once or twice in his or her life lied is not someone I would call a "liar." Someone who gives a dishonest answer on a written test (but has enough time to answer honestly) is a liar.

[madmusic]

10. Those who answered...

"I always fully understand things right away. I've never needed to study anything."

Are probably telling the truth in their own ironic way, something like one who says, "I have never lied" right after admitting to a lie.

And the ones who say they research something are telling the truth as well, and are not lying. But for that to be a 100% true statement, we would always have to research everything and never trust anyone. It works like our perception filters: only the vital is processed and the mundane is ignored. And this is why propaganda works so well: because we don't have time or inclination to research all the facts. The current post on the cholesterol drug scam is the perfect example. Drug companies often do tell the truth, just enough to gain our trust, then bam! We don't have the time or inclination to dig deep enough. So we have to wait for "further study." If someone took the time to really research that, maybe there were enough studies already to raise doubt years ago, but how many took the cholesterol scare at face value?

Writing though can help form thoughts. Often during to process I stop to think what I'm really trying to say and if that is what I really mean. Surprisingly often, it is neither! And too often, when posting for example, posts are uncensored when they could be better worded to avoid misunderstanding. Come to think of it, if I were a slow typist, it would probably help a great deal to sort out thoughts and contradictions.

[eliphaslevi]

6. Take a break and retry

Sometimes examining code while trying to understand every aspect can be confusing. I usually take a small break to help provide clarity and relaxation for the next learning attempt.