From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!dclsic!stork!tutkie!tutgw!nitgw!orion!todd Mon Mar  9 18:36:08 EST 1992
Article 4349 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!dclsic!stork!tutkie!tutgw!nitgw!orion!todd
>From: todd@ai08.elcom.nitech.ac.jp (Todd Law)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <TODD.92Mar7185013@ai08.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
Date: 7 Mar 92 09:50:18 GMT
References: <1992Feb18.153833.10164@oracorp.com>
	<1992Feb18.200220.21192@psych.toronto.edu> <_adhkplnagle@netcom.com>
Sender: news@nitgw.elcom.nitech.ac.jp
Reply-To: todd@juno.elcom.nitech.ac.jp
Organization: Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya ,Japan.
Lines: 31
In-reply-to: nagle@netcom.com's message of 19 Feb 92 16:50:44 GMT


In article <_adhkplnagle@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:

>Understanding is the ability to predict the consequences of one's
>actions.

This sounds more like 'modeling' to me.
This is probably only a part of understanding (a big part, I admit).

There are lots of things that I can understand quite well, but
can't predict very well.  Dice, for example.
There are also things that we can predict, but cannot understand
completely, such as when a child, without knowing anything about
the solar system, can predict that the sun will rise each morning.
This reeks of cargo-cult culture, but it is inevitable for common
sense reasoning.

Perhaps understanding is any form of modeling (however incomplete)
and the use of models to conjecture, relate, reason, and update
the models i.e. learning.


Todd Law


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nagoya Institute of Technology,
Itoh Laboratory,			"Be excellent to each other."
todd@juno.elcom.nitech.ac.jp
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


