There is no idea or concept so complicated that you could not explain it to a child

[skykiii]

This is kind of a shower thought I had.

One thing I realized a long time ago is that a lot of "complicated thoughts" really aren't complicated, they're just badly explained.

And when a thing is badly explained, there tends to be one of three causes:

1. The explainer themselves does not have a sufficient grasp of the thing they are trying to explain.

2. The explainer just plain is not a good communicator in general and regularly fails to make things clear no matter what.

3. The explainer actually wants the explanation to be complicated for whatever reason. This usually takes the form of either the explainer has some (possibly subconscious) need to show off how smart they are, or else they're the kind of autist who thinks some tiny details are all-important when really those could be glossed over and clarified later when/if they turn out to be relevant.

This in mind... in theory, there is no idea or concept in existence so complicated that you could not potentially explain it to, say, a five-year-old kid of average intelligence.

This isn't to say that I can explain everything--just that in theory its possible. You just have to find someone who A) knows what they're talking about and B) isn't a socially inept autist.

 

[The Ugly One]

No, you can't. A five-year-old's frontal cortex is not very developed at all, so it's not capable of handling abstractions. Can I explain how gears transfer energy to a small child? Maybe. Can I explain point-set topology? No. Much damage is done to childhood education by ivory tower idiots who do not understand that your mind is a product of your physical brain, and there are things a tiny human with a still-developing frontal cortex simply cannot learn.

 

[Chieftain Coke Peanut]

Five is a little too young, I think anywhere from 12-14 is more reasonable.

If you had someone who really knew what they were talking about and had a gift for explaining things, I think it would be possible. You would have to include a number of simplifications to your explanation that would render it sort of inaccurate though.

For example, I think you could reasonable get a twelve year old to understand the basics of circuitry, such as how to find the voltage, resistance, and current in series and parallel circuits. You might even be able to get them to understand more complex things like logic gates and components like timers, Minecraft did it after all. You're really stretching it if you think you could teach them how electron flow works and how to construct complex and functional circuits.

 

[skykiii]

You're really stretching it if you think you could teach them how electron flow works and how to construct complex and functional circuits.

Yeah, once you're at the point of teaching them how to make computer parts, that might be a little much for a five-year-old unless you're just soldering a bunch of pre-fab stuff together (and I'm not sure I'd let a five year old play with a soldering iron).

But just for a real-life example, a kid once asked my dad what computer memory actually does. Now, my dad was someone who fell heavily into problem #3 I mentioned at the top--he could not leave anything out and always had to explain things in the same technical jargon a manual or manufacturing plant would use.

The same kid then asked me. Now, at the time I had just moved into a new house and had a lot of my stuff in boxes, but anything I was actually "about to use" (books I was reading, movies I thought I'd watch, etc) I would put on a usually-blank shelf so they're within easy reach. I thus used this situation as an analogy, explaining that the stuff in boxes is like a hard drive, and the shelf is like memory: when you run a computer game, it puts what it can from that game in memory so that whenever the game needs a certain piece in play, it can quickly grab it from the shelf. When you turn the game off, it goes back in the box.

It may not have been accurate, but he at least understood now why me and my dad both obsessed over having lots of memory.

 

[Preacher ✝]

You can take a complicated concept and put it in simple terms in an effort to convey it to a child, true.

However children typically lack the necessary understanding to fully appreciate the details that make complicated things complicated, and they shouldn't be expected to. There is value in a child's innocence and it's wrong to rob them of it by trying to force them to understand things they aren't ready to understand and don't need to understand until they're older.

 

[Pedophobe]

It may not have been accurate, but he at least understood now why me and my dad both obsessed over having lots of memory.

So you can explain anything to a child as long as your explanation is essentially bullshit?

 

[Otterly]

I’m not sure you can. I say this having owned some fairly intelligent five year olds myself.
You absolutely can explain a lot more than people think, if you’re good at breaking things down into simpler or more relatable concepts. And kids come up with some absolutely belting question.
Yes but what IS gravity?
Why am I in my head and not yours?
Why can I hear music playing in my head?
What are dreams?

I think you do run up against limits though with kids in a few ways.
1. There are things you SHOULDNT explain to them. These are generally emotional, sexual or disturbing concepts that are too much for children.
2. You run up against a lack of knowledge and experience which limits their ability to relate, use metaphor etc and link into a wider understanding of the world so . you end up on explanation chains. ‘Well it’s a bit like a so and so. What’s that? Well it’s..’
3. A five year old is generally not capable of understanding certain concepts yet unless they are simplified to the point of being not really right. The very complex stuff goes here. The set point energy. You could explain that simply and a smart kid would get the simpler explanation. What the child lacks is the wider experience to truly understand it in the context it’s in.
4. You can run up against linguistic barriers. This is something that differs a lot with kids. Mine I’ve always used ‘big words’ (not adult concepts, but I’ve never dumbed words down for them and they like big words) but I’ve noticed a lot of their pals have never used a lot of vocabulary.

Now you can explain a lot. How cells work was one we did, and with a good picture of a cell we went though the idea that the cell has a place where it stores DNA , an engine, bits that transport stuff and bits that attach it and let it move and all that. They can get very complex concepts for SOME things and those things seem to me to be more mechanistic ones.

Oh and another category, which is ‘I haven’t got a clue how that works myself.’
(The latter to be noted as humbling and for you to go look it up…)

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

This in mind... in theory, there is no idea or concept in existence so complicated that you could not potentially explain it to, say, a five-year-old kid of average intelligence.

Have you ever interacted with a kid?
No matter how well you may think you explain something there is no guarantee their underdeveloped brains will understand your explanation let alone internalize and follow it.
If you could just explain stuff to kids well enough you wouldn't need to know how to help a kid puke up something they swallowed that they shouldn't. Kids will sometimes not listen to you no matter how smart you may be. It's just how they are.

I think the technical problem with sex ed for kids(ignoring the moral and practical issues with it for now). Is that it's pointless. Until they hit puberty they will have no drive to learn about it and no use for it. It's a deeply boring and dry subject about something you will not even want to experience for about a decade. It's like trying to get kids excited about doing taxes. I also think it's gilding the lily. Biology will teach you animal sexual reproduction by about the mid point of grade school. At which point you will most likely be in puberty or around those who are in it. You will also absorb pertinent information through cultural osmosis. And as a kid in puberty you are liable to ask questions and your parent and peers are liable to answer them. Sex ed for kids was not extant for 99% of human education yet even populations that didn't understand fully the mechanism of reproduction figured out how to have kids.

So in a vacuum sex ed is a superfluous, tedious and likely fruitless endeavor.
But we don't live in a vacuum, we live in reality. Predators often seek employment in places where children are. If sex ed is part of the curriculum that gives said predators an avenue to victimize children and get away with it. And even if we remove bad actors. We do not know if the act of trying to teach kids about it will not somehow traumatize them. What may appear innocuous to you will not necessarily be perceived as such by the kids, especially with the passage of time. You may think you are doing the right thing only for the kid 20 years later to look back on the incident with dread, it being one of a series of incidents that will change a mind for the worse. So with all these flaws and risks what do you likely gain at the end of the day?

That's not an end piece but a genuine question. What is the benefit even if we ignore the risks and flaws?

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Do it, successfully teach a 3 year old quantum mechanics.

 

[Vecr]

Do it, successfully teach a 3 year old quantum mechanics.

You can't. Not even the outdated and simplified Feynman Lectures stuff. A 13 or 14 year old would probably be able to get that, but I think they would still have issues doing practical calculations.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

You can't. Not even the outdated and simplified Feynman Lectures stuff. A 13 or 14 year old would probably be able to get that, but I think they would still have issues doing practical calculations.

I know, that was my point. There's lots of stuff even many adults can't understand the explanations of, that's why Democrats exist.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Do it, successfully teach a 3 year old quantum mechanics.

No problem, it'll just take 20 years.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

as a proof of concept, try explaining Shinichi Mochizuki's (望月 新一) inter-universal Teichmüller theory to me

this is so deep in theoretical mathematics that I don't even know where to start wrapping my head around it, you're genuinely welcome to try

 

[Necrosan]

How do I explain KF to my 4 year old?

 

[Squishie PP]

Try explaining multi-head attention to a small child

 

[skykiii]

How do I explain KF to my 4 year old?

Its a video game series for the Playstation 1 that for some people see as a predecessor to Dark Souls even though its nothing like Dark Souls...

Wait, wrong KF.

......................

So I'm noticing recurring responses:

"Okay, try explaining X." ... X runs up against the problem I mentioned in #1 where I have to know the subject. I could just as easily ask you "explain why Weebles wobble but they don't fall down" and you might fail because you don't know what a Weeble is. That doesn't make it unexplainable--it just means you're not familiar with an obscure Canadian toyline.

"Okay but sex--" nobody's advocating explaining sex to kids.

Really what I was getting at is there's a lot of autists who claim to have some secret knowledge that is hard to explain and requires years to master, but in reality almost all that "knowledge" could be broken down and explained easily, they just choose not to... or they can't because memorizing a bunch of facts is not the same as being smart.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

How do I explain KF to my 4 year old?

"A website where we say funny things about weird, bad people"

Its a video game series for the Playstation 1 that for some people see as a predecessor to Dark Souls even though its nothing like Dark Souls...

And PS2.

 

[jertzog]

I distinctly remember at the age of ten being confused by the phrase, "discovering America", used by a travelling family who'd lived in the US presumably their entire lives. Some things kids just need time to get their heads around. Doesn't mean you have to ignore their questions if you can give them simple enough answers. They won't remember what you tell them anyhow.

 

[Angry Alt Right Nerd]

I dunno OP, have you ever seen advanced math?

 

[skykiii]

I dunno OP, have you ever seen advanced math?

As it happens, math was a subject I was never good at.