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I love Feynman and have read the books since I was a kid. Lately though I think a lot about this:
> As a rule:
> If someone uses a lot of acronyms, complexity, and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it.
This is really common in write-ups about Feynman and his "use an example I can understand," in which he asks for a comparison to an orange or something.
I've found a lot of exceptions to this concept over the years, especially if it's used to gauge someone's expertise or competence. It could easily lead to this fallacy of "I couldn't understand your explanation, therefore you're wrong."
And IMO one of the simplest case examples is this: When the expert has no interest in getting you to understand the thing (corollary: And may benefit from a situation in which you respect how deep and complex it goes...), that is one situation when someone who really understands a thing deeply may--consciously or unconsciously--not explain that thing to you in a way you can understand.
Could be motivated by a simple "nope, not interested in summing up for you"; could be more complex. But those situations are really common.
In addition, there's another angle: People who understand a thing tend to be able to create more models to explain it. Or at least they have more opportunities to do so, as new cases and relations unfold within their understanding. This will also naturally raise a certain sense of modeling-conflict. Maybe instead of using a car, they could compare their thing to a relationship, or to a dream, or a hot dog, and more.
It's a good thing, IMO, because different models yield different types of leverage. But it also may compromise the ability to simply explain a thing, especially insofar as one may have a vested interest or alternately a disincentive in being understood.
Finally I'd add that in studying personality differentials in learning, I found that there are people who get enraged when things are explained logically, because it takes too long and they're in a hurry; they can pick up a lot through imagery and the intuition. But at the same time there are people who will become enraged when there is no deep logic to follow, and ask why the given, simple model has all these easily-spotted flaws (all models are broken). So depending on your audience, it may not matter how you chose to explain the thing. With any given approach you may have somebody wondering about your expertise.
> If someone uses a lot of acronyms, complexity, and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it.
It also somehow frame someone who maybe so deeply involved in a subject that, although understanding everything about that subject, still cannot more clearly explain it to someone else. I don’t think this is like “they probably don’t understand it” as much as “the listener can’t understand it”.
Yes. Plus, beginners are sometimes more likely to attach to jargon they don't understand. But even that says a lot about their _desire_ to understand, which is also laudable and worth encouraging in many cases, not exactly a failure of competence.
...a tongue in cheek example :-)
That’s some “anxiety”. Up to a point it was understandable though :)
The Tomer's technique - Be as smart as Feynman and you to will be able to learn anything