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The bit about unknown knowns does not make sense to me, also it seems to change the point of reference. It is referencing things from third party perspectives whereas the original ones are referencing from first party.

That is, you are talking other things other entities might not know about me that I know myself which makes them, from my point of reference, known knowns. And in the event that I don't know those things myself they just become unknown unknowns.

If you don't change goalposts and keep the point of reference constant, unknown knowns wouldn't exist.

Personally, if I actually had to define unknown known from the individual entity's point of reference it would most probably refer to derived or calculated values. For example, do I know the product of 171 and 342.45673. Do I know I could calculate it? Yes. But do I know it by head? No. Which means it is eventually a known but right now it's still unknown. But even that is a stretch of a definition.

I am convinced Rumsfeld's initial proposition covers the entire space of knowledge. Maybe you could give actual examples of unknown knowns from the individual's perspective.

If your parents are in town and ask where the nearest weed dispensary is, you might pretend not to know, even though you know. That's an unknown known.

But you still know it. Pretending not to know doesn't render it unknown knowledge.

To the other person/parents they don't know that you know, but that's looking at knowledge of party a vs. party b, which is mot quite what all this is about. Yo your parents it's still a known unknown (hence why they ask you).

I believe the closest to unknown knowns would be temporary loss of knowledge, where at a given moment you don't manage to make the right connections between the known knowns. So it's a "could know" given the right moment or prerequisite calculation step/thought, but right there you don't so it's an unknown known.

Yeah, I think the add-on is more of a cheeky social commentary.

Biases could also be unknown knowns.

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Is nicotine addictive? Was this reviewed by management? What the meaning of the word is is?

https://youtu.be/j4XT-l-_3y0

Edit: and from a completely different realm, sadly - why is the baby not moving?

When I read "unknown known" I thought that it was going in this direction:

"I apparently know how to parallel park - I didn't know I could do that". And other stuff like it. "Oh, I could manage this project, never thought I'd manage."

The stuff in our brains not immediately accessible to our conscious thoughts. But OP didn't go there which surprised me.

> A while after someone (which I can’t trace back) made an interesting (and equally brilliant) observation - there is a fourth option - unknown knowns

Gary Bernhardt uses this in his "Ideology"[1] talk.

[1] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology

You can be surprised by yourself. Going to ski lessons and finding yourself good at it because your parents took you when you were five years old and you had forgotten you knew how to do it. You can be questioned by police as a witness and uncover details you didn't realize you knew. You can meet with old friends from high school who you didn't recognize.

Unknown knowns is not a sensitive category by default, though it can be triggering uncovering painful weaknesses.

This concept dates back to Socrates. It is reported he saw mr. Rumsfeld as a great inspiration.

I thought you were going in a different direction with this. To me, sensitive questions are very much in the first observation you pointed out (known unknowns). i.e. things we know we don't know about somebody. These things are often sensitive and therefore avoided in casual conversation. Not every known unknown is a sensitive questions, but a question by definition implies an unknowing. You ask so you can discover (unless you're perhaps asking as a conversation starter in a particular topic).

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "unknown knows". How is a sensitive question an unknown known?

A sensitive question is one for which the answer is an Unknown Known.

Put differently, answers in that quadrant are the ones the questioned individual would like to avoid. As long as you, the asker, avoid asking them, there is a peaceful equilibrium. Once you ask such, you become a hostile.

Or put in the original context - Unknowns Knowns are coverups.

I do not get this classification. The answer is fully known to the person who tells you, just has emotional valence such that they'd prefer not answering. Or you will prefer to not having heard the answer.

Most of the time it is also possible to deduce it partially. (but careful about that) Unless it is something very unusual.

> A while after someone (which I can’t trace back) made an interesting (and equally brilliant) observation - there is a fourth option - unknown knowns - that is, things we don’t know we know. In most cases, that person pointed out, the category contains, things we actually know, but prefer to pretend that we don’t.

That's an interesting interpretation, though with a rather negative connotation.

I've also seen it described as unconscious competence, or the highest level of competence -- effortless mastery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

It's not an interpretation, it's a subset. Unconscious competence would be another subset.