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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

#101

Post by throw2016 »

This is eternal. The expert paves the way to understanding. Its only because of their expertise that they can simplify and explain it in a way that others can understand. They have a firm grasp of the concept. Understanding is not equal to expertise, just the first step.

I think there are too many times when people affect a tone of authority and expertise and hide their lack of understanding in verbiage and complexity while making excuses for their inability to explain it to the layman.

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

#103

Post by sh87 »

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.

Unfortunately, that is what is expected more commonly these days where the audience being presented to a.k.a layman aren't users or domain experts or people who know whats going on. They're management "experts" tasked with getting "resources" to "get things done".

I've seen people from my domain making ridiculous, inaccurate analogies and oversimplify to hide the inherent challenges that a task usually involves. And they get away with that because they aren't the ones actually building the product. They just have to sell it. And the one's they are selling to aren't/won't be using the product either, they will tell someone else to use it.

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

#104

Post by jfoutz »

jknoepfler wrote: post #68

This strikes me as raw arrogance. Complexity is intrinsic to many systems that are subject of expert study. To tell someone who has devoted their career to understanding a complex topic that they don't understand their subject because they can't express it in layman's terms without doing terrible violence to the underlying phenomenon is ludicrous. This is the sort of thing you'd believe if you were an arrogant 20-som…

I dunno. I learned more about light from [1] than anything else i'd ever read or saw. Am i an expert? hell no. I do have a far, far better handle on how lenses and mirrors work though. I think you'd be hard pressed to claim that either qed isn't that complicated, or, this lecture does a bad job of describing it.

Although, i would agree that some experts do a bad job of explaining things. They're still experts. I think you'd agree that non-experts don't really have a chance at explaining things.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2atfqk2c

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

#105

Post by api »

rrdharan wrote: post #88
api wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Complexity is real, but understanding means being able to conceptualize a system at such a high level that it becomes possible to convey the most important key ideas simply. This may involve some amount of over-simplification (which should be indicated if present) and will undoubtedly leave out a tremendous amount of detail, but the conceptual essence should be there. The inability to do this is…

> This may involve some amount of over-simplification (which should be indicated if present) and will undoubtedly leave out a tremendous amount of detail, but the conceptual essence should be there. I think the disagreement hinges on whether you believe the snippets from the GP post e.g. the "rods and cones" or caffeine examples are fundamentally valuable or not. > There are fields where nobody can really do this. Th…

> Curious what you would consider an example of such a field?

The frontiers of physics always strike me this way. The names and explanations are incredibly strained and bizarre. This is probably the canonical example and is perhaps why The Elegant Universe doesn't quite achieve what it sets out to achieve.

Another one from my own academic past is "complexity theory" where hand-wavey concepts like "emergency" or "higher order causation" get thrown around with a lot of confusion. We can clearly see there's some "there" here, but I don't think we really understand what it all means yet. Put stuff together, interesting higher-order stuff happens, and so now let's create a combinatorial explosion of jargon around it. Publish or perish.

Finally "consciousness studies" or anything else semi-fringe probably counts. Again there's certainly some "there" there, but we don't even know the right questions to ask. Something is happening to matter that makes it wonder what's happening to it.

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

#106

Post by Jach »

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.

A math formula is one of the objectively simplest ways of expressing something. But it's not easily understood unless you know the math well, thus violating Gruber's rule. Feynman was honest about this, because magnetism can be explained very simply, but not in any familiar way to things most people already know about.

At least as good as math (and capturing the objective complexity better I think) is a working program. "What I can't program, I don't understand."

When people ask for a simple explanation, they usually expect it to be easy for them too, because we all want simple and easy at the same time, even though only one of those is objective. If your reply to "how do magnets work?" is to start by writing down Maxwell's equations, you're gonna get crap for it, but someone who uses the fake rubber band analogy will be well received. But who really understands magnetism better?

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

#107

Post by wellpast »

api wrote: post #84
jknoepfler wrote: post #68

This strikes me as raw arrogance. Complexity is intrinsic to many systems that are subject of expert study. To tell someone who has devoted their career to understanding a complex topic that they don't understand their subject because they can't express it in layman's terms without doing terrible violence to the underlying phenomenon is ludicrous. This is the sort of thing you'd believe if you were an arrogant 20-som…

I strongly disagree. Complexity is real, but understanding means being able to conceptualize a system at such a high level that it becomes possible to convey the most important key ideas simply. This may involve some amount of over-simplification (which should be indicated if present) and will undoubtedly leave out a tremendous amount of detail, but the conceptual essence should be there. The inability to do this is…

I strongly concur.

I suspect a so-called expert's ability to solve problems within a domain (i.e., how "expert" they are at that domain) would be a function of their ability to manipulate terms in that domain which to me is akin to their ability to those terms clearly.

I can't imagine someone easily solving problems within a domain wherein the terms they use are giant spaghetti balls of complexity. Anything can always be broken down into further levels of abstractions (or prove me wrong on that).

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

#108

Post by keithnz »

I think you can't explain something in simple terms if you don't understand it, is true, but the other way around isn't entirely true, or at least it's a bit more fuzzy.

Often, it takes a lot of awareness of what are the common mental models / mental blocks other people have when learning the concept you are trying to communicate. You have to structure things as a series of strategic progressions before tackling the most complicated form of something, all of that is more the art of teaching ( which of course requires good understanding )

Of course, if someone can do that, it's a brilliant proof they do understand something.

If they can't do it, then it can leave you with doubt what someone else understands. Which in Apples case may be considered entirely unacceptable.

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

#109

Post by specialist »

jknoepfler wrote: post #68

This strikes me as raw arrogance. Complexity is intrinsic to many systems that are subject of expert study. To tell someone who has devoted their career to understanding a complex topic that they don't understand their subject because they can't express it in layman's terms without doing terrible violence to the underlying phenomenon is ludicrous. This is the sort of thing you'd believe if you were an arrogant 20-som…

Nothing I do is intrinsically complex. It's just data processing. Copy a string from here, paste it over there.

Maybe, maybe, some times I'll do something clever.

Some times someone will have an insight, intuition. Like a market analysis. Or frame some useful questions for our recommenders.

Otherwise, all of the complexity that I encounter day-to-day is because of people's cognitive limitations. We make it hard. Misunderstanding, miscommunication, separation anxiety, dogma, arrogance, cya, whatever.

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

#110

Post by meanperson2017 »

jknoepfler wrote: post #68

This strikes me as raw arrogance. Complexity is intrinsic to many systems that are subject of expert study. To tell someone who has devoted their career to understanding a complex topic that they don't understand their subject because they can't express it in layman's terms without doing terrible violence to the underlying phenomenon is ludicrous. This is the sort of thing you'd believe if you were an arrogant 20-som…

May I propose, in contrast, that explaining is the art of simplifying the complex for others?
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