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Article 2486 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: ian@cambridge.oracorp.com (Ian Sutherland)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Grasping concepts... is it polite?
Message-ID: <1992Jan2.221158.17575@cambridge.oracorp.com>
Date: 2 Jan 92 22:11:58 GMT
References: <1991Dec23.112144.6884@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec30.172852.3305@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> <1992Jan2.131048.18412@news.stolaf.edu>
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In article <1992Jan2.131048.18412@news.stolaf.edu> seebs@asgaard.acc.stolaf.edu (The Laughing Prophet) writes:
>In article <1991Dec30.172852.3305@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz writes:
>>Can your mind grasp, say, the base 10
>>representation of "10^10^10"? 
>
>I seriously doubt it. But, if you can, try this one:
>
>Can you *really* understand 10^10^10 *of* something? I.e., can you genuinely
>understand what 10^10^10 pennies are, relative to a single penny? How about
>just how much space they'd take up?

Folks, I would hate to make a trivial remark, but I'm 100% certain
that there are some reasonable senses of the words "grasp" and
"understand" that make the answers to your questions "yes", and some
other reasonable sense which make the answers "no".  Could you be a
bit more precise about how you're using these words?
-- 
Ian Sutherland                          ian@cambridge.oracorp.com

Sans peur


