{"id":3728,"date":"2006-03-15T19:58:15","date_gmt":"2006-03-16T03:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2006\/03\/15\/to-grok-have-grokked-am-grokking\/"},"modified":"2019-12-20T09:21:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:21:00","slug":"to-grok-have-grokked-am-grokking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2006\/03\/15\/to-grok-have-grokked-am-grokking\/","title":{"rendered":"to grok, have grokked, am grokking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:6826,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/en.wikipedia.org\\\/wiki\\\/Robert_A._Heinlein&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260307071417\\\/https:\\\/\\\/en.wikipedia.org\\\/wiki\\\/Robert_A._Heinlein&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 09:39:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 03:07:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 10:24:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 10:24:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6827,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/en.wikipedia.org\\\/wiki\\\/Grok&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260304092414\\\/https:\\\/\\\/en.wikipedia.org\\\/wiki\\\/Grok&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 09:39:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 03:07:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 10:24:24&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-20 10:24:24&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6221,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Of the many contributions <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_A._Heinlein\" title=\"Wikipedia: Robert Heinlein\">Robert Heinlein<\/a> made to the world, I think the word &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grok\" title=\"Wikipedia: Grok\">grok<\/a>&#8216; is my personal favorite.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <strong>Grok<\/strong> (pronounced <em>grock<\/em>) is a verb roughly meaning &#8220;to understand completely&#8221; or more formally &#8220;to achieve complete intuitive understanding&#8221;. It was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel <em>Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em>, where it is part of the fictional Martian language and introduced to English speakers by a man raised by Martians.<\/p>\n<p>  It should be made clear that there is no exact definition for grok; it is a fictional word intended not to be &#8220;understood completely&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>  In the Martian tongue, it literally means &#8220;to drink&#8221; but is used in a much wider context. A character in the novel (not the primary user) defines it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n    &#8220;<em>Grok<\/em> means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed\u2014to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science\u2014and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.&#8221;\n  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m working my way through the last few chapters of my MAT097 (Elementary Algebra) assignments (factoring, rational expressions, working my way towards quadratic equations), and while it&#8217;s not <em>quite<\/em> as difficult as it was back in high school, and as long as I follow the patterns, plug all the numbers and letters in the right places, and don&#8217;t make any stupid mistakes swapping positive and negative signs around, then I end up getting the right answers more often than not.<\/p>\n<p>But I sure don&#8217;t grok it. Don&#8217;t think I ever will, either.<\/p>\n<p>Still&#8230;as long as I&#8217;m getting the right answers the majority of the time, then I&#8217;m doing okay. Not <em>great<\/em>&#8230;but okay. And that&#8217;s fine with me.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\" title=\"Get iTunes\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"iTunes\" border=\"0\" width=\"61\" height=\"15\" src=\"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/itunesaffiliates\/logos\/iTunes_sm_bdg61x15.png\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/ad.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/show?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;bids=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\" alt=\"\" \/> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DVarious Artists%2526songTerm=Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)' on the iTMS\">Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)<\/a>&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DVarious Artists%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Various Artists' on the iTMS\">Various Artists<\/a> from the album <em><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DVarious Artists%2526albumTerm=Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)' on the iTMS\">Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)<\/a><\/em> (1997, 1:13:46).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of the many contributions Robert Heinlein made to the world, I think the word &#8216;grok&#8217; is my personal favorite. I&#8217;m getting through my math class&#8230;but I&#8217;m sure not grokking it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2036,2043],"tags":[13,2407],"class_list":["post-3728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-personal","tag-life","tag-robert-heinlein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}