I'm thinking of the way a lot of people (myself included) remember information out of a history book: You superficially understand that the information is true, but remembering it doesn't feel like understanding an actual part of reality, it feels like retaining an abstract piece of information. Like you know it's real, but you don't feel that it's real.
I suppose it's generally the kind of extremely shallow awareness you have of something if you've been told about its existence, but haven't observed or experienced it yourself.
Best Answer
The word you're looking for is
know:
to have knowledge of, regardless of the level of understanding.
It's the deeper levels of understanding that have other vocab words: understand
comprehend
appreciate
grok
Expressing the lack of those is as simple as appending a don't or can't.