Talk:There are unknown unknowns

Did Rumsfeld coin this phrase, or was there a precedent?

Have any philosophers said what he said more precisely?

I believe it was a concept identified a long time before Rumsfeld used it; it's part of a basic 2x2 decision matrix. Saga City 12:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you know a reference?

I saw this in a recent journal article (European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 453–456. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000636): Also in Nucleic Acids Research

This quote may illicit the philosophical origins if the expression. "We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either" Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-philosophicus 5.61 Tjmssbp (talk) 15:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

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R.D. Laing put to words a useful set of distinctions, which I paraphrase and extend here:

   * We know what we know (good, because we are aware and confident).
   * We don't know that we know (bad, because we lack awareness and confidence).
   * We know what we don't know (good, because we are humble and motivated).
   * We don't know what we don't know (bad, because we are ignorant and vulnerable).

Sounds a lot like Rumsfield's quote. Here's the cite. I haven't looked up the book: Laing RD (1970) Knots. Random House, New York, p 55.

http://www.amazon.com/Knots-R-D-Laing/dp/0394717767/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/103-0227364-4067073

Removed Black Swan References

I have some problems with putting NNT's Black Swan references on this page:

1. An unknown unknown isn't a black swan event. Black Swan events are specifically high-impact, in fact you say that yourself in the next section. An unknown unknown is anything not known.
2. Second Black Swans aren't hard to predict, they can not be predicted. Grey Swans are hard to predict (September 11).
3. Third, The High Impact of the unexpected section should be on the Black Swan book page (And corrected. Reread the Ludic Fallacy chapter, or the wikipedia entry).
4. Fourth, it's fine if decision analysis wants to quote Donald Rumsfeld for the names of their procedures to make decisions (a highly ironic idea in the first place considering the man's decision making track record), but that hardly means that the theory that NNT laid out in The Black Swan should be attached to the man's drivel.
5. Fifth, NNT describes theories as "like medicine: often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion lethal". Therefore creating a page called Black Swan Theory, or linking black swan theory to this page, seems to be an invitation for scorn from the man himself.--Herda050 09:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed The Black Swan (book) and Black swan theory references because the topics are not the same. Besides the critiques above, I'm not even sure Black swan theory should be a page. Not that I think this page makes much sense either, as it is defining a phrase that was invented or stolen by Rumsfeld (or his PR hack) merely to get out of answering questions, but I'll leave that fight to someone else. The Black Swan (book) however is about randomness and not Unknown unknown. The book is about all uncertainty not an instance of uncertainty, which I gather is what this page is poorly attempting to refer to. Specifically the book is an essay by a man who is attempting, in the vein of the empirical skeptics, to claim that the world we live in is dominated by randomness and that we underestimate this randomness in our daily lives.--Herda050 07:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

So that is what the book is about, but what is the concept of black swan theory about if not uncertainty? The page doesn't make it clear. Should the page just be merged into the article on the book? - Grumpyyoungman01 04:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Grumpyyoungman01 I'm working on the book page at the moment. I will then turn to the Black Swan Theory and refactor that as well. The theory page should describe Taleb's arguments and any criticisims.Herda050 02:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Dubious

I looked for mentions of the King of Norway disrupting an election campaign in Oxford newspapers. While he did visit in 2006 [1], I can find no mention of electoral campaigns. Reliable sources needed. Grouse (talk) 14:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Still no source, so I've removed it. 86.147.20.238 (talk) 11:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Move Donald Rumsfeld section to popular culture

It is a nice quote, but it does not merit having an entire section to itself.

Include more about decision sciences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cook503 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate dedicating this concept to Rumsfeld

Don Rumsfeld did not originate this notion. His words were jumped on by critics too focused on the apparent inconsistency of the words without attempting to understand the underlying meaning.

In my doctoral dissertation completed in 1990, I postulated 4 groupings of information: 1. Quantitative data 2. Qualitative data 3. Known unknowns 4. Unknown unknowns

Without bothering to quote my original words, the first group was data to which quantifiable metrics could be associated. The second group was data that could be described only in qualitative terms, as quantifiable data was not available. The third group was data that we knew existed, but on which we knew too little knowledge to describe even qualitatively. This is the beginning stages of awareness of a concept. The final group was data associated with aspects of the universe or environment of which we were not yet even aware.

The general idea is that our knowledge starts out at the bottom in catagory 4, and as we continue to learn about our environment, we progressively work our way up from categories 4 to 3 to 2 to 1. At one point in time, the existence of the solar system was in category 4 (unknown unknowns) as related to planetary objects. Now we can describe their orbits with great precision (category 1).

As noted above, the term "unknown unknowns" is a term I used in a doctoral dissertation in 1990, but I doubt very much that I coined the term. I seem to recall having heard the concept in earlier years. I simply borrowed it to place it into a hierarchy of knowledge exploration and learning. Donald Rumsfeld did not invent the term, and this discussion is mistakenly focused on his inability to explain the term rather than on the actual meaning and context of the term. While interesting commentary, it is unrelated to the underlying meaning of the term. This listing should either be appropriately explained or deleted in its current form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Businessdr (talk • contribs) 20:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The tone of this article is *silly*

That's my main objection. There seems to be a rather excessive amount of fanboyism around Rumsfeld, rather than a serious discussion of the subject, and/or the popular culture phenomenon. I suggest the article be broken into distinct sections, one discussing the philosophical implications, and another describing the popularization of the phenomenon. RayAYang (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Recent vandalism

Obviously, this page has been undergoing some vandalism recently. I'm unsure which state to revert it back to - include Rumsfeld, or not? How far back should I go? I'd appreciate input. --Ericdn (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Epistemology

I don't understand why this should be a separate article. The "unknown unknown" concept is one example that could be cited under epistemology in the category of philosophy. Given the public hubbub created by Rumsfeld's comment, there should be a reference to him in that epistemology article (along the lines of "Donald Rumfeld's reference to 'unknown unknown' [reference] exemplifies the philosophical issue of ..."), but he (or the concept) doesn't deserve a separate article. --Molare (talk) 08:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Citations?

Can anyone provide a citation that "Unknown unknowns" is a term "in epistemology and decision theory"? I'm a little sceptical, but happy to be proved wrong.

If not, then I would suggest the lead be changed to reflect that this is actually an article about a Donald Rumsfeld quote and also move an more appropriate page per WP:COMMONNAME. I would suggest something like "There are known knowns", which is the opening of the quote.

Cheers. --FormerIP (talk) 01:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

An "unknown unknown" = "not known not known" is a double negative, and resolves to simply "known". Rumsfeld was no measure of Bertrand Russell, whose paradox is of a similar vein. User:danshawen 23:30, 27 January 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.42.78 (talk)

know and don' know

I know what I know, and I don't know what I don;t know. I always try to response people like "I know this, I know that, do you know this , do you know that. It seems like that I know everything, actually there still something that I don;t know, because there are still something I never known. I asked Mr. Wasabi " Do you know this?" "Do you know that?" He replied me that he does not know. Actually, there still something that he knows or he known, perhaps he just does not want to answer me or he is try to escape from the topic. know or do not know, I did not see there is any difference between them.