Re: What is understanding?

[Ludwik Kowalski <KowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

JACK L. URETSKY wrote:

>         Ahhh.  All is now clear; Leigh and I have different definitions
> of "understand".  I find it astounding that so many phenomena,
> even at the atomic and nuclear level, fit simple pictures that grow
> out of my everyday experiences.
>         But do you "understand" the chaotic behavior of a pendulum
> on an oscillating support?

In the spirit of "there is nothing wrong to debate what has
already been debated" let me tell you that we had a thread
WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING about two years ago. Many
contributions were saved by me; you can access them at

http://alpha.montclair.edu/~kowalskiL/PHYSL/understand.html

There are about ten or more pages of contributions (arranged
more or less chronologically). By the way, it was a quick and
dirty job, as far as turning messages into HTML documents
was concerned. Sorry for this; I am not an artist.

I would very much like to hear what people have to say
about this important philosophical topic. We will never
all agree on what understanding is but hearing each
other may be stimulating. There is no need to read old
messages to restart the discussion.

Ludwik Kowalski