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KrisC comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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I thought I'd pose an informal poll, possibly to become a top-level, in preparation for my article about How to Explain.
The question: on all the topics you consider yourself an "expert" or "very knowledgeable about", do you believe you understand them at least at Level 2? That is, do you believe you are aware of the inferential connections between your expertise and layperson-level knowledge?
Or, to put it another way, do you think that, given enough time, but using only your present knowledge, you could teach a reasonably-intelligent layperson, one-on-one, to understand complex topics in your expertise, teaching them every intermediate topic necessary for grounding the hardest level?
Edit: Per DanArmak's query, anything you can re-derive or infer from your present knowledge counts as part of your present knowledge for purposes of answering this question.
I'll save my answer for later -- though I suspect many of you already know it!
Can you teach a talented, untrained person a skill so that they exceed your own ability? Can you then identify why they are superior? If you have deep level knowledge of your area of expertise that you can impart to others, you ought to be able to evaluate and train a replacement based on "raw talent."
Considering that intellectual or artistic endeavors may have a variety of details hidden even from the expert, perhaps a clearer example may be found in sports coaches.
The main reason that coaches are important (not just in sports) is because of blind spots - i.e., things that are outside of a person's direct perceptual awareness.
Think of the Dunning-Kreuger effect: if you can't perceive it, you can't improve it.
(This is also why publications have editors; if a writer could perceive the errors in their work, they could fix them themselves.)