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DEHORTATIO
My friend Vincent is on TV again. Disseminating knowledge. I like the new series, – if I’m allowed to invent: Vincent’s Vivacious Vent – for its bashing style. Rumsfeld’s famous epistemology blunder gets dissected, grand formal style, and in a rapid fashion that it makes my head spin. I hold my eyes fixed on Vincent’s hands. However, the cameraman didn’t do a very good job – he kept cutting most of his fingers thus leaving it up to the imagination to fill in the gaps. Thank God for the split in the sleeve! Now, there was a saving mind line to follow! Straight as an arrow and, very, how shall I put it, well, what do I know? Now, yes, what did Vincent say in the very short five minutes? He anticipated my question, though formulated in a breathless anaphora: “what do I know?” In the face of Rumsfeld’s statement – “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don’t know” – the reflective thought that must befall us is that knowing the “unknown unknowns,” which is a contradiction by assertion, should be valued for its potential to open our minds towards the kind of wisdom that Homer likes to deliver with a lot of dehortatio: “Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.” Jolly good job.
My friend Vincent is on TV again. Disseminating knowledge. I like the new series, – if I’m allowed to invent: Vincent’s Vivacious Vent – for its bashing style. Rumsfeld’s famous epistemology blunder gets dissected, grand formal style, and in a rapid fashion that it makes my head spin. I hold my eyes fixed on Vincent’s hands. However, the cameraman didn’t do a very good job – he kept cutting most of his fingers thus leaving it up to the imagination to fill in the gaps. Thank God for the split in the sleeve! Now, there was a saving mind line to follow! Straight as an arrow and, very, how shall I put it, well, what do I know? Now, yes, what did Vincent say in the very short five minutes? He anticipated my question, though formulated in a breathless anaphora: “what do I know?” In the face of Rumsfeld’s statement – “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don’t know” – the reflective thought that must befall us is that knowing the “unknown unknowns,” which is a contradiction by assertion, should be valued for its potential to open our minds towards the kind of wisdom that Homer likes to deliver with a lot of dehortatio: “Never say anything, unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.” Jolly good job.
Comments
However, I sorely missed Vincent engaging with the excluded fourth axiom (which Rumsfeld skipped too): Are there things we do not know that we know?
-1=x^2
Here -1 is the known known and x is the known unknow. But no real number can satisfy this equation! So there must exist an unknown unknown. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just a part of our imagination. An imaginary unit.