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Gregory Chaitin, a noted computer scientist, propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of data compression[1]. In his essay [http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.html ''The Limits of Reason''], he argues that 'understanding' something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we 'understand' why day and night exist because we have a simple [[model]] - the rotation of the [[earth]] - that explains a tremendous amount of [[data]] - changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have 'compressed' a large amount of information by using a simple model that predicts it. Similarly, we 'understand' the number 0.33333... by [[thinking]] of it as one-third. The first way of representing the [[number]] requires an [[infinite]] amount of [[memory]]; but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses much less information. Chaitin argues that 'comprehension' is this ability to compress data.

Gregory Chaitin, a noted computer scientist, propounds a view that comprehension is a kind of data compression[1]. In his essay [http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.html ''The Limits of Reason''], he argues that 'understanding' something means being able to figure out a simple set of rules that explains it. For example, we 'understand' why day and night exist because we have a simple [[model]] - the rotation of the [[earth]] - that explains a tremendous amount of [[data]] - changes in brightness, temperature, and atmospheric composition of the earth. We have 'compressed' a large amount of information by using a simple model that predicts it. Similarly, we 'understand' the number 0.33333... by [[thinking]] of it as one-third. The first way of representing the [[number]] requires an [[infinite]] amount of [[memory]]; but the second way can produce all the data of the first representation, but uses much less information. Chaitin argues that 'comprehension' is this ability to compress data.

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