I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word 'understanding.'

We often attribute 'understanding' and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions.

Some misunderstandings are hard to cure.

The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That's what we're all fighting for.

I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.

Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence.