Jargon and specialized notation is sometimes cryptic as an unintentional side effect of communicating efficiently between specialists. To suggest they should communicate findings in a less efficient way that's understandable by laymen who haven't put in the effort to learn the jargon / notation is silly.

But I think Bret's point isn't that every research paper should be as verbose as an introductory textbook, but rather that interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't.

"interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't"

This. I had such hopes for iBooks, but then making widgets is hard, and making a Microsoft Word for widgets, harder still.

Sorry, but that is not the point.

This is not just about simplifying scientific notation so it is easier to digest for an untrained audience: it is about using tools to remove as much cognitive "shit work" as possible, so that our minds (including those of experts) are free to think the "unthinkable thoughts" of the title.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying. The point I was trying to make is that this opens up new potential.

Years ago, before there were power tools, all furniture was crafted by hand. Painstakingly. It would take a craftsman years to develop his craft. Eventually though, power tools lifted a lot of the learning curve. It became easier and faster to create furniture. Eventually a lot of those power tools were replaced with automated CNC machines. With these machines you can pretty much throw anyone from the street who can read on the machine. Productivity has increased so much that you can pretty much buy furniture these days for not that much more than the cost of materials alone! It really is an incredible statement.

Now not to take the metaphor to far. I realize you can't turn science into an industrial process... it is a creative process as much as anything. The main point is that as you lower the learning curve, you enable a few more people to gain the new skills required.

Again, i'm not suggesting this was ACTUALLY the point which motivated him to come up with the concept. But to me, this is the really cool potential outcome.

Not a good analogy really. CNC requires careful programming of the machines; now you wind up with CNC object creators and people who work the assembly line feeding the machines.

Not only does it reduce the time to create, it reduces the skill required, the flexibility of product, and the overall level of craft.

Ignorance is not something we should aspire to or assist others in attaining.

But you see, once you get the point where no one can draw pretty pictures about what you are working on requires your mind to be trained in this cognitive shit work (imagination?). So we'll develop a generation of people who never really learn to think creatively. Everything is just handed to you in a pretty little interactive diagram.

Learning is hard, but that is a good thing. It's like exercise. The more you work at it, the easier it becomes.

Yours is a very sad comment.

The author gives a good example here, if you choose to read it:

http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable/note.ht...

Basically, Claude Shannon was able to create his information theory because he could use things like calculus, probability, stochastic processes and graph theory to aid his thought process. He needed those tools to be able to think things that would have been unthinkable without them.

Of course I read it. Just like I watched all of his videos. There is no substance. Of course he was able to create information theory because of calculus, probability, stochastic processes, and graph theory. Yet for none of those did he need Brett Victor's cute little animations. I am merely stating that Brett is adding nothing to the equation here.

Are you seriously saying that if scientific papers contain parts that lets us visualize their contents interactivity human being will lose the ability to think creatively?

What I am saying is that the intended audience of those scientific papers rarely need the interactive diagrams (the equations & math are enough - most of us for example can visualize logarithms quite trivially).

But those who do not have the necessary math background - this will not really help them at all. Sure they might have some understanding of this particular algorithm - but when it comes to abstraction and extending that knowledge to other problems I do not believe it will scale. You do not have the fundamentals to think creatively (in a mathematical sense).

The circuit for example. They might now understand how that circuit behaves. But if I show them a completely different circuit can they infer how it behaves? Likely no, they were not able to pick up on all the non-linear behavior that occurs within circuits.