There are indeed cases where it does take someone who understands the subject, months of iteration to explain it. But when someone says, “I can’t explain it to you,” that can either mean:
a) the time to do so is genuinely cost-prohibitive or the listener very stupid
OR
b) the would-be explainer doesn’t really understand it and has been operating in a sort of “Chinese room”, manipulating symbols without understanding their connection to everything else.
In my experience, a) is the exception, not the rule.
There are indeed cases where it does take someone who understands the subject, months of iteration to explain it. But when someone says, “I can’t explain it to you,” that can either mean:
a) the time to do so is genuinely cost-prohibitive or the listener very stupid
OR
b) the would-be explainer doesn’t really understand it and has been operating in a sort of “Chinese room”, manipulating symbols without understanding their connection to everything else.
In my experience, a) is the exception, not the rule.