Re: what is understanding?

[twayburn@juno.com (Thomas L Wayburn)]

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 12:13:00 -0700 Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca> writes:
> Earlier I conjected:
>
> > I think understanding of physics is never attained.
>
> Unfortunately I now think I erred, committing implicitly the grievous
> error of reification against which I have railed so fervently in the
> past. That *is* what I said; what I *should* have said (and what I
> admit I meant) is this:
>
>     "I think an understanding of Nature is never attained."
>
> My arrogant equation of our knowledge of Nature, which we call
> "physics", with the object of our interest, Nature herself, is
> deplorable. It is an error I try hard not to make, but I certainly
> made it here. In this case the error is compounded by the fact that
> physics, *per se*, is not unfathomable. It has a finite depth. It is
> mathematically isomorphic to Nature, often to a degree that makes it
> only falsifiable in principle, but it admits only of a limited depth
> of understanding. Physics is our way of understanding Nature. We are
> limited to describing her, and we should never forget that. In this
> description, however, lies the great reward we call understanding.
> It is our privilege as physicists to perceive more acutely than most
> her underlying beauty.

I believe Leigh has gone astray here.   It is impossible to perceive
Nature.   We are aware of the phenomena spawned by Nature at best.   We
can never understand "the thing in itself".   

I digress to tell a pertinent story.   Prof. Gans, my first wife's
chemistry professor, asked, "Why is glass transparent?"   Well, you
relate the myth of absorption and re-emission of photons, etc.   But he
comes back with, "Why does that happen?"   Perhaps, you can give a
deeper explanation, Dave.   But, it's all on the surface - even if you
describe how the quarks do their thing.  You still haven't explained why
glass is transparent.  And, the transparency of glass is ONLY A
PHENOMENON.   The noumenon is unknowable!    Prof. Gans concludes,
"Magic".   Science can only put things "in other words".

Regards to all / Tom

P.S.  I am working very hard on my mathematical description of
understanding.   I will provide three alternative settings.