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I read this blog post by Steve Schwartz recently and thought I’d share it as it presents a really interesting angle on what our goals in life should be with regards to learning. Since I’m always looking at new stuff (as most people are) its important that I know what my goal should be at the end of it all. Previously I was of the opinion that this goal should be to know as much as possible, but after reading this I’ve changed my mind.

Steve starts the post with the often talked about idea that there are different types of knowledge – things we know we know, things we know we don’t know, etc etc. I won’t go into this since I’m sure most people have heard about it before, but suffice to say it is generally accepted that there are four kinds of knowledge (although Steve only mentions three):

1. Things we know we know
2. Things we don’t know we know (Steve has 1 and 2 as the same category)
3. Things we know we don’t know
4. Things we don’t know we don’t know

Only one category of knowledge is ‘dangerous’ – things we don’t know we don’t know. These are the things that lead to screw ups, incorrect assumptions and failed projects. Steve goes on to say that most of us believe that out goal in life is to maximize the amount of stuff we know, categories 1 and 2, and reduce the amount of stuff in category 4. Certainly that was my goal prior to reading his post. He then goes on to point out that since there is so much knowledge in the world and our heads can only hold so much at once that what our real goal should be is to maximize the amount of stuff in category 3 while reducing the amount in category 4. This makes a great deal of sense.

It takes a lot more mental capacity to know how do to something than it does to just know that we don’t know how to do something, so trying to bung loads of stuff into 1+2 is pointless. I have experience of this first hand – lots of stuff I could do 5 or 10 years ago I’ve forgotten how to do due to disuse of the skills. If I was to try and keep everything I ever learned in category 1 or 2 I’d be spending all my time going over what I already know so I don’t forget it. However if I’m content to let that stuff fall into category 3, I’ve still reduced category 4 but at a much smaller mental expense.

The only thing I’d really add to Steve’s post is that once we start putting things in category 3 we should really split that into two sub-categories – things I know I don’t know, and things I know I don’t know but I know someone else who does know them. Just being aware that we don’t know something isn’t enough, we also need to know who can help us out when we get confronted that particular something!