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

[Ultrapenguin]

I guess. If you got abstract enough you could technically explain anything in the universe by saying at its foundation ____ is a matter of contrast.

What benefit will that be though? What's the goal of the explanation we're giving to these children? Is it philosophy? Then you could probably explain that to children, because it's meaningless so you can say whatever you want, or say nothing at all, and it'll be true.
That's why child explanations exist: you give some really abstract rundown of something and trust their understanding will become more dialed in as they develop.

For anything practical though which involves the actual physical reshaping of one's environment, where an explanation is intended to lead to the audience actually independently reproducing something, there will absolutely be things that are simply too complex, with too many relationships for an underdeveloped and unadapted mind.
You can "explain" it however you want but if the calculations aren't balanced and the measurements aren't right the explanation is worthless.

Beyond that it's sort of irrelevant. There's no criteria for what does or doesn't qualify as an explanation, so of course you could explain anything to a kid. If you have a mouth you could explain literally anything to any one. Doesn't mean it'll be of any practical value.

 

[HyperboreanRightsActivist]

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.

Muslims confirmed dumber than children for not understanding the Trinity.

 

[MadStan]

"This is kind of a shower thought I had". No, it was something you've heard a thousand times before and are shamelessly trying to pass it off as some wisdom you came up with while showering. Shameless.

And no, it is not true. Not at all.

 

[Cardinal Cardinal]

All I want little kids to know is to shut the fuck up when I'm having a tranquil moment.

 

[The Ugly One]

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.

> adults exist who literally cannot understand the concept of unintended consequences and second-order effects

"Kids can learn anything."

 

[Shart Attack]

Yes, complex ideas can be explained simply. There's an old, somewhat famous internet article attempting to explain the theory of relativity using only words with no more than four letters. See also Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, and Beakman, who were successfully explaining stuff like electricity and plate tectonics to kids for decades before you had this epiphany.

It's only true to a point, though. I could find a way to explain electricity in simple English words, right on down to what an electron is. If I deliver that explanation in simple English to someone who speaks no English, they will gain no understanding. I will have technically explained something by arranging symbols (words) in a way that explains electricity. The listener will have received those symbols into their ear holes with no way to extract meaning from them. An explanation will have been delivered, but the listener will have gained no understanding from it. You can certainly explain something complex in a simple way, but some people will lack the means to extract meaning from even the most simplified explanation. In my analogy it's a lack of understanding of the English language, but with a child or even an ignorant adult it would be a lack of understanding of some basic concept required to make any sense of a more complicated concept. It's why they wait until kids have learned to add and subtract before they try teaching them Fourier transforms.

I think that's what people are trying to explain to you in different ways.

 

[Brightstar777]

Children lack the necessary consciousness that helps to process cognitive tasks, as their cognitive and self-reflective abilities are still developing, at that age every thing will be much harder to explain, you can't explain general relativity to a child, they will not comprehend it.

 

[Nagato Kai Ni Surigao]

I tried to explain to a particularly dumb 5 year old that we live on a planet that's really big and there are multiple countries and he just couldn't comprehend it. I went step by step, do you understand you live in a house? many houses? neighborhood? city? okay? other cities? other countries? Nope couldn't get past other countries.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

I tried to explain to a particularly dumb 5 year old that we live on a planet that's really big and there are multiple countries and he just couldn't comprehend it. I went step by step, do you understand you live in a house? many houses? neighborhood? city? okay? other cities? other countries? Nope couldn't get past other countries.

I mean, 5 is...acceptable for that sort is incomprehension. Especially these days. If they were like, 7 then that kid is fucked.

 

[Nagato Kai Ni Surigao]

I mean, 5 is...acceptable for that sort is incomprehension. Especially these days. If they were like, 7 then that kid is fucked.

The only reason why I call him particularly dumb is because it was a school assignment where we, the older children were each assigned a really young kid and were told to teach them stuff, and the teachers thought it would be funny to pair me with the dumbest kid in the room because I was a troublemaker myself. The kid's probably doing fine today.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

You could explain a ton of difficult things with analogies, the issue is that by making things abstract you lose a lot of important intricacies that might make the listener reach wrong conclusions or have issues later on when actually researching the subject.

For example, Neural Networks emulating neurons is complete horseshit.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

What about vector calculus?