Biography would be the only real factor I think could lead to an assumption of this kind.
My experience with each friend would inform me of two things:

1. The likelihood they would understand; and
2. Their behaviour in such a scenario.

It may be that A (your One) doesn't get it at all, and is simply entertained by my nerdiness. B might get it, and understand some implication that has pulled him away from the conversation.

I would look for already-known signs that someone is expressing their understanding to me.

One avenue for answering this is the behaviorist approach. Here, we'll put on our eliminative materialist hats, and look at the whole scene objectively. People are making sounds and gestures in a way they've learned. Social dominance may come into play in tonality and facial expressions. There is no meeting of minds because there aren't really any minds involved. I think the answer that arises from this line of thought is that no one ever "understands" what you're saying. You aren't actually saying anything, per se.

I would look for already-known signs that someone is expressing their understanding to me. — AmadeusD

I agree with this. It comes down to the assumptions you have about the audience. The better you know them, the more confidence you'll have in your ability to read them.

The one spanner I see is people dishonestly enacting what they know to be behaviours which would tell you they apprehend you - but they don't. That's a tricky one. Hijacking implicatures is a problem for all speech really.

I don't know how a behaviorist handles deceit. I'm guessing it would have to be written off as illusion?

Yep, roughly. The idea that there is no mind in which a 'lie' can actually arise would mean that they're just wanting us to see deceit as an illusion of of a set of dispositional actions.
They still seem to think conditioning leads to the tendency to lie, though, which is a weird position to me.

I was going to present that standpoint. In this case, "understanding" just means producing appropriate behavioral outputs given certain behavioral inputs related to some topic, right?

I do think there is a problem here though. What determines what constitutes an "appropriate" output? Sure, this seems obvious in simple cases. If someone radically misrepresents quantum theory, then we might suppose they don't understand it. However, it's also possible that they are a genius theorist and are the only one who does understand it, and are on their way to becoming the next Einstein. Did they not understand QM until their work changed the standards of "appropriate" responses?

We could say that "appropriateness" is dictated by the community. This won't always work though. It will fail in cases where the individual understands better than the community.

As another option: maybe someone is acting appropriately and "understands" when they act according to their own interests vis-á-vis some thing. That is, they understand when they can best pursue their ends, and they understand their ends when they pursue ends that truly benefit them and do so appropriately. But then the eliminitive materialist will have difficulties with the question of ends here, because there are, strictly speaking, no "better" ends, just ends called "better" as behavioral outputs.

IDK, it seems hard to disentangle behavioral markers of understanding from goal-directedness.

Tricky, tricky.

Forgive if this seems a bit of a leap-frog,

It seems there's no discussion of what constitutes an understanding here, and just what one could, as a third party, perceive as an output correlated with understanding. Is that right?

That seems to miss the point to me, in the sense outlined by my bringing in deceit as a spanner. You might get everything you've ever wished for in terms of your audience's behavioural outputs, but be none-the-wiser as to where they understand you.

It seems a bit pointless to me to talk about the (essentially) optics, rather than some connection between actual understanding leading to certain behavioural outputs, and our (the 3p) interpreting them. Without taking something to be understanding which would give us certain outputs, aren't we just pissing about hte place and then calling it what we want?

Probably lol, I think you're right. Strictly empiricist starting positions seem to make for bizarre anthropology in general. "Understanding" seems problematic so it's probably better to just eliminate it! People don't understand, they behave! :grin:

Ah, i see. Fair enough - certainly an easier way to do things.

Would this be a kind of "explanations stop somewhere" type of thing? No issues with that. I just have personal interest in understanding per se lol

How would you go about determining who understood you? — frank

They’re your friends, why don’t you ask them.

How would you go about determining who understood you? What would you take as evidence that some sort of meeting of the minds had taken place? Or do you think there is any such thing as meeting of the minds? — frank

Perhaps I don’t understand the question, but it seems like everyone is skipping over the obvious.

We have to assume everyone can understand at all, and each understands something in particular, to then ask how can we know the other one understands us.

And this raises a curious feature of the question. You asked, “how can we know if someone else understands you?” If you make this particular and ask “how can we know someone else understands the particular idea I just spoke about?” In such case, the same information is learned if you simply ask the other person “Do you understand the particular idea?” Or better, we both ask ourselves together “what idea do we both now understand?”
How can I know if another one understands me, is the same question as how can I know if the other one understands it (the idea in me), or do you understand the idea, or what do we both now purport to understand.

But maybe you are asking how to read people’s body language and prove their honesty?

Because the obvious answer is you could ask them to show they understand. They could repeat the idea you want to see that they understand, in their own words. Or provide their own example that shows they get it.

I could teach them how to add, ask them what the answer is to some new test cases and if they get the right answers, they show me they understand addition like I understand it. I know they get my idea of addition because they can add any new numbers up just like I would.

Or they might extend my idea showing me they understand it even better than me. This is real proof of understanding, when they not only display the same idea in their own unique words, but they show me something I hadn’t thought of about this idea that is new, but something only someone who understood it would come up with.

Like I teach you addition, you show me how you understand it, but also now see you can flip this process called additional and do subtraction. Wow, a genius at understanding what I thought was my idea. I learn something new from you the one who I was wondering if you understood me.

Does my answer above show that I understand your question? At least good enough to fire off an answer in the ball park you are playing in?

I will add that each one of us has at least a slightly, if not vastly, different vantage point. We probably rarely see things precisely eye to eye. But then, even when we are alone, we probably think the things we understand are one way and they may actually be another just as well. So actually, when it comes to all of the things we can understand, because we can ask other people to express their minds in words, two minds understanding the same idea may be the closest thing to actual knowledge of something we truly ever get. I mean, a rock can’t tell us we are correct in calling it hollow in the middle. We can’t confirm we understand a rock or the atom or my dog’s emotional state, as immediately as we can understand another person’s mind by simply asking them.

They’re your friends, why don’t you ask them. — T Clark

I should have said that.

They’re your friends, why don’t you ask them. — T Clark

These are my friends:

here

Brilliant!

This will be a short thread now that we have that all worked out. :rofl:

I could teach them how to add, ask them what the answer is to some new test cases and if they get the right answers, they show me they understand addition like I understand it. I know they get my idea of addition because they can add any new numbers up just like I would.

Are you sure you were teaching them addition and plus, not quaddition and quus? Or maybe it was laddition and luus?

I should have said that. — Fire Ologist

Since we now know about @frank’s friends, your answer is probably better

I just keep talking with them. I get my answer by continuing dialogue. If I understand what I'm talking about, it should be clear whether they understand it to me by continuing the conversations.

Getting them to understand is usually not a priority to me, I think most comes out in organic conversation.

When it comes to friends and family, getting them to listen is more important than understanding. If they are listening, they can understand within 1 minute or 50 years. There is no such thing as a conversation anyone would understand without listening.

Suppose you sitting with friends and you allude some technical issue in an offhand way. One of your friends shakes his head, smiles, and responds to the allusion appropriately. The other just stares in silence. — frank

The legendary (probably apocryphal) origin of Zen (Ch'an) Buddhism was the 'Flower Sermon' of the Buddha. The assembly of monks was gathered to hear the Blessed One speak as was usual practice, but on this occasion, He simply picked up a lotus flower from the pond next to which he was sitting and silently held it up. All the monks, save one, looked puzzled and whispered among themselves as to what the Buddha meant. Save one - Mahākāśyapa, who simply smiled, upon which the Buddha said

I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvāṇa, the true form of the formless, the subtle dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa.

Mahākāśyapa was thereby designated the first patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism. ('Ch'an' and Zen are the Chinese and Japanese, respectively, terms for the indian 'dhyana' meaning 'meditative trance'. Also worth noting that this 'special transmission outside the Scriptures' generated a massive number of volumes of commentary and instruction, which are housed in monastic libraries throughout the East.)

Social dominance may come into play — frank

One's place in the social hierarchy influences behavior, even among friends and siblings. People learn their place in a hierarchy through others' and their own behavior.

A lower ranking person is less likely to challenge or question the speaker. Less might be expected of the lower ranker. The non-responder might be (or consider himself) too low ranking to speak up, especially to ask "What the hell does that even mean?" You said the guy who spoke up responded appropriately -- we'll have to take your word for it. Maybe he got the benefit of friendship.

High ranking persons are heard; low ranking persons may discover that their voices have been (apparently) turned off. They speak and nobody in the conversation group responds at all. The content of the low ranked isn't a problem, and aural acuity isn't either -- it's that no one in the group were felt like noticing.

Hierarchical position is a factor along side content.

Sometimes people in (relatively) powerful positions seem to have learned how to say absolutely nothing at great length, lest clear statements give their bold enemies and competitors something to seize-upon and use against them. Most of us have no need to labor over meaningless comments--they just come tumbling out.

Are you sure you were teaching them addition and plus, not quaddition and quus? Or maybe it was laddition and luus? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Don’t these other ideas have to come after addition, if they don’t actually include the idea of addition anyway?

But ok.

But doesn’t this just raise a version of epistemological problems with understanding anything independent of our minds?

It is true, there is the line between the other one’s behavior/ words, and the understanding mind behind that behavior/words. We are many layers divided from each other and the thing-in-itself.

And really, is it disrespectful to presume we could understand such a thing as what another one understands?

But how do we seek to understand anything?
We seek evidence.

So the question becomes how could we elicit evidence of another’s understanding?

And this question becomes what is it we understand that we are seeking evidence of, in another?
We seek evidence of an understanding out there, that matches our own.

To seek this, we must first put our understanding into words to give the other one something to understand.

Words are the fulcrum in this whole inquiry.

They are my words first, telling the other person what I want them to understand. So now there is my understanding, and then there are my words.

Then the other person takes my words and understands something of them.

At that moment I can ask “do they understand me?”, and I can seek evidence of what it is they’ve understood from my words.

So now, if they can speak back to me different words than mine, but nevertheless draw for me the same idea that I am understanding, we’ve both provided evidence (words behaviors) that in themselves don’t match each other (different words/behaviors). But, if we understand each other, we nevertheless demonstrate the one same idea understood in those different words.

This draws a line distinguishing our words which are different from each other, from the one same idea those different words both now convey. If I can gather the same idea from the different words, I have strong evidence that the other person who said those different words understands me.

We have isolated our two understandings from the two different words and the behaviors exchanged, a now can show those two understanding correspond and are the same.

This os all another a long winded way of saying, tell them what you mean and ask them to show you they understand.

Let’s do this right now. The “How can I tell whether you understand me?” example test:

What I understand is a number. A certain quantity, if you will. To be more specific, one way of understanding this single number is as “equal to 3.3 + .7”. That is enough to give you the idea about which I am asking ‘how can I know whether anyone understands me?’
If you do understand, you might say my idea is the same as “one and one and one and one”, or maybe “117, but after taking away 113 from it”. This idea helps organize a great golf outing, or a game of horseshoes.

I can tell whether you understand something of this idea I’ve spoken about, if you can say something I haven’t said about it.

And if you can, how does it not mean that we each now can tell we both understand each other?

The words are the fulcrum between two understanding minds, and what they each understand. Words are the best evidence we can gather to most intimately know what another understands. I need words for you to understand me, and can elicit words from you to see if you understand what I understand. And the test of the same understanding requires different words from each in order to strengthen the evidence of the same idea in each.

I’m sure this example is not perfect, and I’m sure it does not prove either of us understand anything, let alone understand each other’s mind. But if “4” crossed your mind, during the test, I bet you could explain to me what I am trying to say here, maybe show not only that you understand it, but how it is flawed, and how we might still not know each other at all.

But I still say we understand each other and so understand what each other understands.

In fact, IMO, it is precisely because people can speak their minds, and that people can admit words capture their own minds, that we can know people better than we can know anything else.

We can’t understand the-thing-in-itself; there is the brightlne wall never to be crossed. But people, can seek to know the other person’s understanding-in-itself in a different way, unlike people seek to understand any other type of thing. Because the other can make themselves vulnerable, sort of let down the wall between two things in themselves, and reveal themselves seeking to be completely known, to make clear in words and by questioning confirming, what is one’s understanding and whether the other one is listening.

Since we now know about frank’s friends, your answer is probably better — T Clark

:lol:

As a math prof I would give them a short written quiz. Or, I would discuss the topic with them, one on one, and discover how well they understood it.

This might not be appropriate in polite society. :cool:

When it comes to friends and family, getting them to listen is more important than understanding. If they are listening, they can understand within 1 minute or 50 years. There is no such thing as a conversation anyone would understand without listening. — Cobra

This is what I was about to post. It is not possible to understand someone without the act of listening carefully. Well, language also plays an important factor. Imagine two persons listening to each other, but they don't share a common language. Here, the act of understanding would be in trouble.

Hierarchical position is a factor along side content. — BC

Very true. This shows up dramatically in Korean and Japanese TV shows because expressing social rank and respect for elders is built into the language. Seniors are at ease and seem a little self absorbed. Juniors are humble and attentive, or they get bitched at for not listening.