It's like students learning for the test, not really understanding. Or like regular people who don't always understand, just follow the memorized steps. How man

It's like students learning for the test, not really understanding. Or like regular people who don't always understand, just follow the memorized steps. How many times do we really really understand and how many do we just imitate? I have a suspicion that humans often use abstractions or methods they don't understand. We frequently rely on heuristics, mental shortcuts, and received wisdom without grasping the underlying principles. To understand has many meanings: to predict, control, use, explain, discover, model and generalize. Some also add "to feel". In one extreme we could say only a PhD in their area of expertise really understands, the rest of us just fumble concepts. I am sure rigorous causal reasoning is only possible by extended education, it is not the natural mode of operation of the brain.