Thought and understanding

Philosophy over centuries has glorified the role of thoughts in our life. Thought however does not entail understanding. Thought pertains to the mind and is the beginning of understanding. Consider a child of grade III who begins to speak gravity. Consider also a student of grade 10 who begins to learn and think about gravity. Does it entail both understand gravity? Obviously not. Even a graduate student may not grasp the concepts of Newtonian and Einstein’s gravity. Even Einstein’s relativity theory fails to account for the increased velocities of stars in the large galaxies and hence new theories of modified gravity talking about dark matter and dark energies are being postulated. Without accounting for gravity, a unified field theory (of knowledge) will not frutify. Understanding is about grasping the concept in totality which may take many generations of hard work and effort. Understanding not only requires thoughtful effort but also appropriate experience, learning and measurements from nature. Science and philosophy therefore will have to work together in grasping the ultimate reality.