IV. The Restless Animal  ↑

30. We figure out how things work.

Using observation, language and imagination we construct models and theories describing how things work, and why they work the way they do.

Figuring things out often involves two complementary activities:

1. Breaking large things down into smaller component parts, and studying the parts;
2. Building large things back up from a set of parts, and understanding the ways in which the components relate to one another, and interact with one another, in order to appreciate the ways in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts.