What it means Levels of explanation is the idea that a single phenomenon — in this channel's material, a psychiatric diagnosis or a mental-health condition — can be understood at more than one level at the same time, with each level offering its own valid description rather than one single answer replacing all others. The term appears in the conversation with psychiatrist and writer Awais Aftab, which explores how diagnosis and explanation work in psychiatry [^4caa6fda-b8ae-5bfd-ad34-331a298cb088@236]. How it is used here In the Aftab conversation, thinking in levels of explanation is connected to a larger story the channel tells across science and medicine: checklists and fixed rules are giving way to richer, more nuanced ways of understanding — in psychiatry, in how frontier models are trained, and in AI-driven discovery [^4caa6fda-b8ae-5bfd-ad34-331a298cb088@1539]. A diagnosis, on this view, is not one thing explained one way; it is something you can explore at several levels, each answering a different question. - Levels of explanation means the same phenomenon can be validly described at more than one level, each level answering a different question.- It appears in the channel's conversation with psychiatrist Awais Aftab on diagnosis and explanation in psychiatry.- It connects to the broader theme of moving from checklist-style rules to richer, more nuanced understanding across medicine and science.