Random Musings on a Slow Workday

With all the progress that has been made in the maths and science over the last century, it is increasingly important to have writers who can explain these, oftentimes complex, new ideas to the lay public in such a way that real understanding can be had by all.

Better communication of these ideas can more easily result in individuals or groups working in other fields becoming aware of these things which may turn out to have implications for their field and vice versa.

As specialized fields develop more and more obscure jargon to explain more and more complex concepts, the need for 'translation', as it were, back into more universally understandable language increases. This can allow for the possibility of interdisciplinary cross-pollination. In other words, we need more James Gleicks.

Random thoughts

When holding a conversation with someone on a topic of which you know little or none, approach it from the standpoint of learning something new. I don't think I so much as understand better by way of metaphor, but I do prefer to attempt to find metaphors to clarify in the speaker's mind what exactly they mean when they speak of whatever it is they are speaking of. This leads them to more clearly understand what it is that they think of in regards to a particular subject; they are forced to clarify the concept in their mind in order to pass it on to me with even sufficient clarity. This allows for higher fidelity in the attempted transmission of the meme(s)(plexes) from their mind to mine. You, the presently benighted party, are more likely to get more information and less noise via the channel of communication than you might otherwise have.
Those who attempt to transfer knowledge to others without fully understanding what it is they are talking about ultimately do themselves a disservice by (memetically) misrepresenting concepts due to their (at least implicit) claim to contextual expert authority. This further can lead to an internal reinforcement to themselves that they grasp those concepts better than they actually do, therefore digging themselves into the proverbial hole.
To combat this one might say that it is possible to think and speak in E-prime in such circumstances, avoiding generalizations ('All generalizations are dangerous, even this one - Dumas) and admitting fallibility as well as fully reasoning something through whilst not insisting on and taking the tacit approach of not being wrong at all costs, being honest with oneself as well as others for, as they say, 'The truth heals clean.'