Ideal Understanding

Back in the day, I recall a conversation with a colleague about Virial Coefficients, corrections to the Ideal Gas Law which are needed because gases are not ideal.  We disagreed about the implications of the Virial Coefficients for molecular potential and kinetic energies.

By now, you understand three things: (1) this is about physics, (2) I misspelled 'viral', and (3) you don't want to read the rest of this note.  You are wrong, wrong, and maybe wrong.

(1) This isn't about physics. It's about how you think you understand when you don't.
(2) The word is actually vir-i-al, not viral.
(3) Maybe you want to keep reading.

If you're wondering how I was wrong, read the article about Virial Coefficients and ask yourself how I could think I was right when my friend thought otherwise and this topic is so complicated we were probably both wrong. Here's how. The mind is bent. It doesn't understand things as they really are. In particular, it doesn't understand its own limitations. Psychologists (Tversky and Kahneman, 1972) named this sort of deviant thinking cognitive bias. One of many cognitive biases is being sure we understand when we don't. 

In reality, you and I never quite understand. Like the ideal gas, ideal understanding doesn't exist (with maybe one exception) and what we think we understand is biased. To understand things better, we need to correct biases, which isn't easy since ~200 of them have been identified. Time permitting, we should check and correct for every one. 

You don't have time for that until you are a geezer,
and then it's too late to bother. You and I are never quite right and we are wrong in different ways,
alone in our personal misunderstanding,
unless we are wise enough to share the unique ideal understanding: that we do not truly understand. 

I mean, 
we do not truly
understand.