comprehension comes in degrees. At one extreme we have the bacterium’s sorta comprehension of the quorum-sensing signals it responds to (Miller and Bassler 2001) and the computer’s sorta comprehension of the “ADD” instruction. At the other extreme we have Jane Austen’s comprehension of the interplay of personal and social forces in the emotional states of people and Einstein’s comprehension of relativity. But even at the highest levels of competence, comprehension is never absolute. There are always ungrasped implications and unrecognized presuppositions in any mind’s mastery of a concept or
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