When someone thinks of a word their mind automatically compares it to other things and makes associations with other words and other concepts your mind understands. It could be viewed that a word is a set of related mental nodes, and that similar or associated nodes are explored or activated when one thinks of the word. That is saying that a process of comparison occurs with each word that is thought about - which I mention in another article of mine - m52495- where I reference James Sully (1892) who points out that concepts have three parts - abstraction, comparison and generalization.
Other propositions about the word are inferred, of course - and those related nodes are also activated.
So then words and concepts are actually very simple when you think about them as computationally processed. However, when someone 'infers' something it isn't simple at all. They are making a guess as to what that concept is like and how it might be like other concepts.
'Inferring' then is basically analyzing levels of emotional subtlety. You get an idea of an idea or concept and this idea triggers you to think more about it and guess or infer other properties related to it.
Is understanding that simple then? How much of this 'inferring and relating' process is emotional? someone could do mathematical calculations, which would involve activating networks like a computer does - but it wouldn't process the information exactly like a computer at all. The nodes connecting the mathematical equations would be emotional nodes or nodes with feeling and the consequences of feelings attached, not like a computer that is programmed with 1s and 0s.
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