Knowledge is interesting
You can classify it into 4 categories. It all depends on what you know and what you think you know.
A diagram might make that a little clearer:
There is stuff you know you know
I know I know the way to my front door. This is a safe place to be.
There is stuff you don’t know you know
I know the lyrics to a plethora of 1980’s pop songs, but couldn’t tell you which. I only know when I hear one played on the radio. This is a safe but unnerving sort of place to be.
There is the stuff you don’t know you don’t know
You feel confident, but that confidence is misplaced. This is a dangerous place to be. If you have ever caught yourself driving on the left hand side of the road on the continent you have had this realisation. One minute everything is in control then…
Finally there is stuff you know you don’t know
I know I don’t know any Spanish. This is also a safe place to be. I will have the sense to take a phrase book with me next time I go to Madrid.
Now a few observations:
A strange observation:
When you know you know something, you start to realise how little you actually know. Then you want to learn more. You no longer know you know, you know you don’t know.
A surprising observation:
The absolute safest place to be is knowing you don’t know. Known ignorance is a position of absolute strength. You cannot be surprised.
A worrying observation:
To look good in front of the boss we often claim to know something that we don’t. Then we start to believe our own press. We deliberately put ourselves in a position of not knowing what we don’t know. The most dangerous place of all.
If you only take one thing from this post
Admit to yourself how little you actually know.
Then you will learn something.
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Read another opinion
Image by Steve Chihos
It appears the top diagram is wrong… the lower two boxes are the wrong way round :)
Gary, thanks for your comment. You are the third person to tell me. But I think it is right and I haven’t explained it properly.
The worst place to be is when you believe you know something, but the reality is you don’t know it.
I.e. you don’t know you don’t know (because you think you do).
So I think I have coloured them in correctly, but in truth one of the other people to tell me I had it wrong has a degree in Mathematics from Cambridge, so I am very guilty of not explaining it properly.
How is that? Have I convinced you?
Of course I could be wrong, which would — if nothing else — prove my point :)
Thanks for reading and commenting, I appreciate it.
Very insightful… and you truly made me realize how little I actually know. Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss. :-)
James, the search for the beginners mind is a long and continuous one. Adrian