Now, from my last post, I may not have explained the concept of
Aha! quite clearly. Now what I am differentiating between is, a moment of clarity, and a moment of understanding.
An
Aha! moment, I believe, is a moment of clarity. Now, an example of this is a little friend of ours, a monkey called
Sultan. Now Sultan is fed every day, her food placed in a bowl, and passed to her in her cage, or protective environment.
One day, her bowl is placed beyond her reach. She is given two sticks, and left to her own devices. Sultan immediately throws the sticks aside, and aims to reach for her bowl. But unfortunately, her arms are too short. So, she looks at the sticks she has just cast aside, and picks up one of them, and tries to hook the bowl using the stick. but unfortunately, the length still isn't enough. Now Sultan tries, and tries, and tries and tries to get to the bowl, in as many ways possible to her. And then, Sultan gives up.
She sits there, when suddenly, a moment of clarity appears. There is fission, adrenaline pumping, body shaking, moment of clarity, that each and everyone of us has had.
Sultan realises that she can put the two sticks together, to extend towards the necessary length, to hook the bowl of food, and pull it towards her.
Now this moment, this moment of realisation, is completely different to understanding information.
Say, if I were to inform you that the European Court of Justice is the highest court in the European Union on matters of European Law. The comprehension of this information is completely different to the realisation of Sultan's two sticks. You're response to this, rather dull piece of information, would most likely be
Okay then. There is no
Aha! moment in it's comprehension.
Sure you can say that the mind opened up to allow this statement in, just like it allowed Sultan to put the two sticks together.
But it's the realisation of concepts that are unknown so far, that results in an
Aha! moment.
Hopefully that clarifies things.