We Know We Know That We Don’t Know…
Even before this article, I was aware that I didn’t know everything. I completely understood that and was fine with it. I thought I knew quite a bit though, for a 20 year old. After reading the article however, I quickly began to realize how little I really know and just how much I think I know.In just one aspect of my life, I realized that I know about 5%, don’t know about 30% and I have begun to realize that I didn’t even kn0w I didn’t know the rest. Which was the basis from the article.
From this piece, we learned a new way of categorizing our unknowns: “de-risking.” The author sums up that what we previously thought of as knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns and converting the known unknowns (and the knowns) into knowns and converting the unknown unknowns into known unknowns. Too much knowing? Here’s a break down.
First 3 Categories:
Things We Know: knowns
Things We Know We Don’t Know: known unknowns
Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know: unknown unknowns
“De-Risked” into 2 Categories:
Things We Know: knowns & known unknowns
Things We Know We Don’t Know: convert unknown unknowns to known unknowns
The reason the known unknowns go under Things We Know in the “de-risked” category is because we are aware that we don’t know everything and so the only things we truly don’t know are what are unaware of that we don’t know. In other words, we don’t know that we don’t know the material or knowledge.
After you wrap your head around that, de-risking is a process that takes the unknown unknowns out of the equation, leaving you with only things you know and things you know you don’t know. Which really give you a platform to continue to learn about the things you know you don’t know.
To transition away from “knowing” everything, now that we know we don’t, I leave you with the Webster’s definition of knowledge and ask you, how much do you know?