Making Connections

I think the ability to making connections is crucial. It's the mark of a truly educated/brilliant mind.

Can you define something unknown without making comparisons to something else that you do know?  Let's say you have to describe an orange.

"It's a sphere. It's orange. It's sweet, and grows in tropical climates."

You didn't describe an orange independently. You described four things I already know about (spherical objects, orange objects, sweet objects, and tropical agricultural products) and told me "an orange is like this."

If I didn't know any of those things, your description wouldn't help.

In order to understand something that you DON'T understand, you have to describe it in terms of something you DO understand.

That's why we invented math. To conceptualize difficult-to-grasp concepts.