In 'An essay concerning Human understanding', John Locke suggested that the humans capability for understanding is like his eye. What he was trying to convey, I forget. The comparison, put in appropriate context, was probably accurate, and given Locke's unbelievable capability to put in lucid words, that which is apparent to all, and yet hidden; the comparison probably conveyed one of the inherent truths of life.

Yet, splendidly out of context, as my memory would have it; it seemed remarkably silly. Almost laughably so. Staring out the little rectangular window, its glass tinted, my eyes betrayed my smile to the clouds below, who seemed to be in a land of nirvana, what with all the floating and fluffiness. 

The way I see it, understanding and vision (in this out-of-context sense) have little to do with each other. Understanding is a very unique, and variable sense of perception, if it can even be considered as such. Vision and the other sensory perceptions, however imperfect, are constant. They are imperfect in the sense that while we may not perceive the entire truth, we all perceive the same falsehood (ignoring impairments). For instance, you and I would both see that white cloud for what it is. A white cloud. God alone knows what it would be like, if the human eye could perceive all wavelengths of light, or what things would sound like, if we could perceive all wavelengths of sound, the fundamental truth. The thing is, they are perfectly functional. They bring us to a common denominator. The white cloud. It is then our dear friend, understanding, with a little help from his minion, imagination, that makes me see it as a turtle, and another person see it as a . . . bald eagle, for instance.

We gained speed, and the turtle sped away into the distance, as I looked down below upon the sprawling landscape. The height confers a sense of detachment. Not in the Vedic sense, no. For some reason, I just felt detached from my species. I would wonder why that happened, later, when I sit down to write this. I guess the height makes you realize the insignificance of those little specks of buildings, those minute fields our civilization, and our pride, in some grander scheme of things that you feel yourself to be a part of.

Funny species, the homo sapiens. It has always been assumed amidst human society, that all their developement is derived from their capability to understand, their advanced thinking skills, and that it is therefore the pinnacle of evolution. I grant the former, but I still am not convinced about the latter. A beautiful concept, evolution is; simplistic, intuitive, and extremely accurate. It reminded me of bioethicist Paul Wolpe's  talk on evolution, and specifically the part about the three phases of evolution observed until date.

According to him, the first wave of evolution is what is thought of as Darwinian evolution. Species lived in particular ecological niches and particular environment, and the pressures of those environments selected which changes, through random mutation in species, were going to be preserved. Then human beings stepped out of the Darwinian flow of evolutionary history and created the second great wave of evolution, which was when they changed the environment in which they evolved. Ecological niches were altered by creating civilization. And that has been the second great -- couple 100,000 years, 150,000 years -- flow of evolution. By changing the environment, there were new pressures on human bodies to evolve. Whether it was through settling down in agricultural communities, all the way through modern machinery, humans have changed evolution. Now they're entering a third great wave of evolutionary history, which has been called many things: "intentional evolution," "evolution by design" -- very different than intelligent design -- whereby they are actually now intentionally designing and altering the physiological forms that inhabit our planet, through biological engineering. These aside, I think there is even a fourth wave, if you will, that coexists with the third wave. With the improvement in medicine and healthcare facilities, in today's world, humans have neither reason to evolve, nor a niche to evolve into. Any evolution that occurs today, in humans, is purely economical, or political, never biological. I  And where did all these requisite capabilities come from? Our understanding, or at least that of a few brilliant, pioneering scientists. So, I'd like to believe that we've curbed evolution. Or are we all that we can be, anyway?

Cutting through my increasingly random rant, the radio crackled on, and the monotonous drawl of the air-hostess filled the cabin. We began to descend, and I felt at one with the crowd, the civilization, once again. It was a 'Bootstrap' Bill Turner moment, if you know what I mean. The countenance despondent, while accepting its fate, with chanting in the background, 'Part of the ship, part of the crew!', to convince the victim that there was no escape. Escape from what, anyway? From being human? Immediately, I found myself thinking about Calvin and Hobbes. In particular, the strip where Calvin, looking down at the base of a chopped tree, observes, 'Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us'.  Why this was happening, I didn't know. This sudden disappointment in being a human was surprising, and as I pondered over it, I seemed to be hitting a dead end. Staring at my face in the media player screen in front of me, I realized something else. Locke popped up again, along with his seemingly quixotic comparison. Vision lets us perceive everything around us, but never ourselves, at least not without an external aid. Human understanding, is almost the precise opposite. If humans truly understand anything, it is themselves. If at all. It is never the next person. A human can be fully aware of his shortcomings, his difficulties, and yet ignore identical symptoms in the very next person. Smiling blankly at the air hostess, who, based on her gesturing, clearly seemed to want me to do something, I tried to return to what I was thinking. Her persistence got through finally, and I started to wear my seat belt, or something like that. Whatever it was, it was distracting enough to tear me away from that bizarre loop of thought, and bring me back to my senses.

The entire train of thought was random, crazy even. I guess what I was trying to say, is that our thinking skills, and understanding capability are probably overrated.

And that's just my understanding of it.