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If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

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Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#21

Post by sh87 »

This is an interesting logic fallacy here. Consider this example.

Monkey eat => Monkey live.

Monkey live => Monkey eat.

Monkey not eat => Monkey not live.

Monkey not live => Monkey not eat.

Here "=>" is used as in "implies"/"because". The last statement is weird. There are more ways for monkey to "not live" than to "not eat".

Not being able to explain does not imply not being able to understand. Not understanding surely implies not being able to explain.

Correlation, Causation, get it ?

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#22

Post by usuallybaffled »

ivanbakel wrote: post #7

The problem I find with this outlook is that it takes technical terms being jargon at face value. If you can't fall back on progress in language which allows you to express more complex ideas, you're not going to reach the same depth of understanding in simpler words without it taking a lot longer anyways - with most of your time spent reestablishing what you just threw out the window. If you rehash it in smaller wor…

Maybe a refinement of this approach is to FIRST explain in simple terms to establish basic understanding and SECOND going deeper with technical jargon.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#23

Post by ComputerGuru »

simlevesque wrote: post #14

In french we have a saying which translates to: whatever is well conceived is clearly said... and the words to say it flow with ease

Ce qui est bien pensé se dit clairement ?

Edit: nevermind. I was way off.

Ce qui se conçoit bien s'énonce clairement, et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#24

Post by moomin »

freddref wrote: post #13

Feynman also said: "Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize." [1] Showing a limitation of the maxim or Feynman's hubris? [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

Listening to Feynman talk about magnetism fails to answer that question definitively one way or the other.

But seriously, if you can't explain what a complex-valued "probability" is to a layman, apparently you don't understand quantum mechanics?

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#25

Post by azag0 »

freddref wrote: post #13

Feynman also said: "Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize." [1] Showing a limitation of the maxim or Feynman's hubris? [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

Some parts of physics might stretch the ELI5 to its limits. I like to explain science to my non-science friends, but I'm always hitting the issue that parts of the specialized knowledge become intuitive, and then it's difficult to go back. Say, my understanding of how electrons behave in matter is a category on its own (let's call it quantum), and it's difficult to translate to common terms.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#27

Post by mikebenfield »

I think this idea is basically nonsense. Some things are complicated. To "explain" them in simple terms you necessarily leave out a lot of information. If all that information isn't crucial to the core idea, maybe that's worthwhile. But sometimes that information is crucial.

Some people look at advanced mathematics or physics and wonder why it has to be so complicated and so full of jargon. It's complicated because it is. The jargon, believe it or not, is mostly an attempt to make it easier to communicate. It would be very, very difficult to wade through these ideas without introducing new words with precise definitions.

Then again, John von Neumann said, "In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." So maybe the title is true for trivial reasons after all.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#28

Post by marknadal »

Ah, I love Feynman. I see some other people in this thread arguing against even bothering to do this, which is sad.

We've started doing Explorable Explanations / Animated Explainers, here are some we've done and some that others have done:

- Explaining how GIT works: http://gun.js.org/explainers/school/class.html

- How neurons work: http://ncase.me/neurons/

- How end-to-end cryptography works: http://gun.js.org/explainers/data/security.html

- How gerrymandering works: http://polytrope.com/district/ (by a friend of mine!)

- How sorting on partial data / data streams works: http://gun.js.org/explainers/basketball/basketball.html

And more! It is possible, it can be done. But it is hard. That is no excuse for not trying though. Big shout out to Bret Victor's work for starting a lot of this, and thanks to Feynman for encouraging and practicing what he teaches.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#29

Post by scott_s »

ivanbakel wrote: post #7

The problem I find with this outlook is that it takes technical terms being jargon at face value. If you can't fall back on progress in language which allows you to express more complex ideas, you're not going to reach the same depth of understanding in simpler words without it taking a lot longer anyways - with most of your time spent reestablishing what you just threw out the window. If you rehash it in smaller wor…

"Education is a series of small lies." Spoken by my intro to computer engineering professor, upon telling us that most real processors actually have some ternary logic.

The notion here is that educating beginners about a subject is different from communication between experts. Yes, experts use jargon because it is more efficient. But, the notion here is that if you truly understand something, you should be able to find a way to explain it to a non-expert, building up from words and concepts they already understand. And, further, if you can't do that, then perhaps your understanding is not as deep as you thought it was.

Re: If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it

#30

Post by lm_nop »

ivanbakel wrote: post #18
jlg23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you rehash it in smaller words, just by information density alone, aren't you guaranteed to be losing some detail? Of course, but when explaining something to another person, one should strive to optimize for being understood, not for the highest information density.

But then what does it mean to be understood? If you skip out the part of the analogy where you actually return to the complex terminology you're simplifying, you haven't produced understanding - you've only made a just-so story which is a reflection of the reality, not a justification for it.

"But then what does it mean to be understood?"

Great epistemological question for the ages. Vectors for the response include audience type, previous knowledge context, goal for how much needs to be conveyed...

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