Connecting Dots

The 9/11 Commission was constituted by Congress and the President to "examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations to safeguard against future acts of terrorism".

The 9/11 Commission Report determined that our intelligence establishment had gathered sufficient facts to have prevented the catastrophe if those facts had been understood and acted upon in a timely manner. Many people in the government had failed to "connect the dots".

Metaphors are useful means for learning and for communicating. In this scenario ?'dot is knowledge' and ?'dot connection is understanding'.

As humans evolved I suspect that the ratio of knowledge to understanding was small. In other words in the beginning we knew little and understood much. I suspect that we might consider such knowledge necessary to track and kill prey was small relative to the understanding necessary for such a task. We started out as rich in understanding and poor in knowledge.

Today the ratio has changed dramatically. We are filled with knowledge but poor in understanding. We have lots of dots but we are unable to connect those dots. This problem was shown dramatically in the fall of the buildings in NYC.

Knowing is easy, understanding is hard and very time consuming. A society built on the values of production and consumption does not have time to understand.

What are the consequences of such a dramatic change? Evolution has prepared us to be creatures who knew little and understood much and now that ratio is dramatically changed.