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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

#51

Post by sh87 »

tgb wrote: post #43
sh87 wrote: post #21

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 sur…

"implies" and "because" are not equivalent. For example, "x is positive implies x^2 is positive" is true but "x is positive because x^2 is positive" is false.

exactly what I was trying to point out. It came out wrong I guess.

A statement like "if not a, then not b" is not applicable unless a "implies" b and a "is because of" b.

Correct me if I got it all wrong somehow.

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

#52

Post by outworlder »

mikebenfield wrote: post #27

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 i…

It's not nonsense. You are forgetting a very important detail: "explaining".

He was not talking about writing a research paper on the simplest possible terms. Rather, about "explaining" a subject. When we are explaining, we always have to deliberately omit details to get the basic idea across, so that the other person can form the initial mental image. Sometimes we also have to resort to metaphors and comparisons from entirely different fields, or relate them to real world concepts.

Once that is done, then the lengthily process can begin on improving the fit of that mental image to the subject. This will require more explanations, more focused, in a different level of detail.

Case in point: dimensions higher than three. Most people cannot conceive what the heck a tesseract is, or why it is usually drawn the way it is. But then you can tell them to watch Feymann's Flatland scenario, and they will be able to understand the basic concept.

Are they mathematicians now? Hardly. But now they have some understanding on the subject which they did not have before, even if it is on a very high level. And can try to absorb more details, if so inclined.

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

#53

Post by coldtea »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #40
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

A lot of people seem to be conflating the idea of explaining something to a layman, and explaining something using simple terms.

That's because those things are inherently tied. It's not about taking your time and making the layman an expert to understand some hard topic. It's about being able to relate it to them in simple terms.

Obviously, if you use the "hairy" physics etc terms, then the layman wont understand your explanation, because he is not familiar with them.

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

#54

Post by cxromos »

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

Neither if he was speaking about Quantum Mechanic. Feynman probably paraphrasing Bohr: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

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

#55

Post by s_ngularity »

mabbo wrote: post #33

Edit: apparently, I have been misinformed for a very long time. These are still excellent lectures to watch though! The Feynman Lectures are now on Youtube[0], and I like to watch them (all of them) every few years. I highly recommend that if you've never seen them, you take some time and watch them- really watch them. Close the other windows, turn your phone to do not disturb, and really watch these masterpieces of…

To be more clear, the lecture series you are talking about is called "The Character of Physical Law" and is not the same content that one would get from reading "The Feynman Lectures on Physics", which is a rigorous course in most of undergraduate physics. But I highly recommend the "Character" series. Just wanted to avoid having people think they're the same thing.

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

#56

Post by coldtea »

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?

The same thing that it means to hear a bad quality 8bit, 20kbps copy of a song. It's still better than NOT hearing it, and it gives you an idea about what it entails, even if you don't hear all the information in it.

Even in everyday language we make the distinction about understanding something fully and having a rough understanding of it.

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

#57

Post by shas3 »

lcnmrn wrote: post #11
scandox wrote: post #6

In job interviews I always zone in on the most complicated thing someone has worked on and then ask them to explain it to me. Often a thesis or a project or a large system or something low level to do with OS features etc... It is amazing how rarely people can get it across to me in basic terms. In fact even the idea of breaking it down into non technical concepts seems to be surprising and alien to many people. I re…

I fail all interviews when I explain complex things in simple terms. Must be some correlation here.

This has happened to me several times (not always in interviews). Especially when someone asks about machine learning and I start the explanation with regression, they get pissed. Nothing shows that you are trying to jump on a bandwagon than expecting needless complexity in explanations.

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

#58

Post by s_ngularity »

shas3 wrote: post #50
mabbo wrote: post #33

Edit: apparently, I have been misinformed for a very long time. These are still excellent lectures to watch though! The Feynman Lectures are now on Youtube[0], and I like to watch them (all of them) every few years. I highly recommend that if you've never seen them, you take some time and watch them- really watch them. Close the other windows, turn your phone to do not disturb, and really watch these masterpieces of…

These lectures are different from his famous Lectures on Physics. The lectures you linked to were compiled in "Character of Physical Law" and are not related to his Caltech undergraduate courses where he presented his "Lectures on Physics" content. You link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Character_of_Physical_Law "Feynman Lectures on Physics" are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physic...

Ah, you beat me to it

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

#59

Post by cortesoft »

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…

If you can't re-write it in assembly, you don't know how it works!

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

#60

Post by sh87 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #34

I can simplify how a car engine works, but that doesn't mean I understand how the air to fuel ratio is obtained. Opposite example: Simplify how walking works, and make sure to include the critical systems such as major muscle groups, stabilizers, vision, inner ear, thigh/knee/pelvis/hip construction, the curved spine and its connection to the head, and blood pressure flow/regulation.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler -Albert Einstein.
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