Field of Science

Unknown unknowns

David Dunning on the Dunning-Kruger effect:
ERROL MORRIS: Knowing what you don’t know? Is this supposedly the hallmark of an intelligent person?

DAVID DUNNING: That’s absolutely right. It’s knowing that there are things you don’t know that you don’t know.
Okay, knowing that these things exist is one thing, but it seems more crucial to know what they are. If you don't know what they are, then how can you even know that there are such things that evade your knowledge?

So, what things don't you know that you don't know, do you reckon'?

I'd make a list, but Denmark-Japan is up.

Via Sandwalk.


Update 2 hours later:
Well, Denmark lost, and that's too bad. Two great, great Japanese goals on free-kicks from 30 and 27 meters made it watchable, though.

As for the list, I know there are things that I don't know. And since I keep learning new things that I didn't previously know, including some where I hadn't even known that there was something there to be known, clearly there were things that I didn't know that I didn't know. By inference, most likely there are things that I now don't know that I don't know as well.

2 comments:

  1. By inference, most likely there are things that I now don't know that I don't know as well.

    And if there aren't any things left that you don't know that you don't know, you wouldn't know that either!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This makes me giggle. Clearly, compared to the puny powers of the individual human mind, even a finite universe is *functionally* infinite. It's a comforting thought, when on occasion one is confronted with new depths in one's own ignorance.

    ReplyDelete

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