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Comment by derekp7 | Hacker News Reader

I don't really think it matters if we can fully understand a theory, as long as that theory makes predictions that can be verified. For example, if a computer-generated theory gives the ability to build a radio that is a million times more efficient at spectrum utilization, and products can be built from it, that theory is still useful even if it is uncomprehensible.

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I very much agree that you don't have to understand the details of how something works for it to be useful. Whether that's a theory, a car or a computer, the world is full of things that are too complex for me to understand _fully_.

But if you don't truly understand something, I think you've given up control of that thing to someone else. Someone else has to do the thinking for you.

Once that happens, you'll have a hard time doing something new in that area, or even applying whatever it is you're supposed to know to new areas.

Understanding isn't the only thing that matters, but it still matters.

Nobody (well except for Chomsky maybe[0]:)) is arguing that incomprehensible is useless. This article is about a deeper question of whether or not we have reached our cognitive limits in terms of understanding the surrounding world, however we may have developed an incredibly powerful theory that can describe some aspects of this incomprehensible world to us.

[0]I actually don't know what I'm talking about.

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