Re: What is understanding?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> > To "do" science, we must, I think, believe in the *existence* of an
> > objective reality, but there is no reason to think that we can ever know
> > its "true nature"...

Good one!  I would add that objective reality has many partially-
contradictory facets.  It is a serious problem that if we concentrate upon
one particular part of physics, we often become unable to understand other
parts.  The mental tools we use to "understand" one part of a problem will
simply not work when applied to other parts.  Yet we cannot expect to
"understand" the whole problem by slicing it up into tiny pieces.

Here's one of my analogies for "understand":  if a scientist is like a
musician, then a complex new concept is like the music of an orchestra.
The musician can only play one instrument at a time.  "Understand" means
"hear the whole orchestra in one's head."


((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits          science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA   206-781-3320          freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L