No One Knows What They're Doing (2010)

http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing

by MattRogish • 12 years ago

125 61 12 years ago

great read, thanks for sharing.

Reminds me of Taleb's concept of epistemic arrogance, which is more prevalant than not among educated people in my experience.

never underestimate the vastness of what we don't know that we don't know.

arobbins• 12 years ago

Previous HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121775

saosebastiao• 12 years ago

This is amazing...I've been trying to explain this concept for a long time, but have never come to even a fraction of the eloquence of this author.

ruttiger• 12 years ago

Yep, and it seems the more experienced they are, the more likely they are to experience this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

DigitalJack• 12 years ago

The "types of knowledge" sounds like Donald Rumsfeld quote who was derided for speaking of the concept since 2002 and I'm sure before then even. "known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns

seivan• 12 years ago

I remember hearing that from Samuel L Jackson in one of The Boondocks episode. Best episode ever.

josefresco• 12 years ago

I believe it was also Rumsfeld who was derided for saying something along the lines of "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had" in response to casualties caused by IED's.

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

As much as I didn't care for most of the entire Bush administration it always bothered me that he was made fun of for that quote since it is actually incredibly profound (if not particularly original).

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

The concept of unknown unknowns far predates Rummy's use of the term. I'd run across it in the book Forced Options by theologin Roger Shinn, first published in 1982, which he attributes to engineers -- the "unk-unk".

wyager3• 12 years ago

I don't know if I agree with this. The author might be incorrectly projecting his feelings onto other people. There are a fair number of people in the world who know exactly what they're doing.

SubZero• 12 years ago

This falls under the "shit you know you don't know" category.

louthy• 12 years ago

Exactly. Two of the most powerful things you can learn in life are "There's so much more to learn" and "Nobody knows what they're doing".

Early in life you get the impression that parents know everything, then it's teachers, then it's bosses. When in fact they don't.

We're not robots with perfect abilities, understanding that everyone to a degree doesn't know what they're doing gives you a different outlook on the world.

Note, that doesn't mean everybody is incompetent.

wyager3• 12 years ago

This falls under the "shit you know you don't know" category.

Then so does the statement "Nobody knows what they're doing.". The author has no idea what people know or don't know.

SilasX4• 12 years ago

"Sure, it looks like I created a useful app that numerous people use, and debugged numerous API problems that popped up and impeded its successful operation, but the reality is I was just aimlessly groping through life, and people don't realize that every once of enjoyment or efficiency they got from the app was entirely fake."

... Er, no. There's only so much complex, useful stuff one can produce, before you have to conclude, "okay, that person understands something."

infruset• 12 years ago

The funny thing is, whether you're right or not, you're going to be perceived by people who agree with him as having been duped by the people in the second, dangerous category.

JangoSteve8• 12 years ago

There are a fair number of people in the world who know exactly what they're doing.

That seems like a very broad claim that can't possibly be true without some sort of qualification. Are you saying that there are people who know 100% what they're doing 100% of the time in 100% of endeavors across every category relevant to living life? I feel like what you mean to say is that there are people who know exactly what there doing when it comes to X, where X is a well-defined, specific subject-area.

Assuming that statement is true with the scoped qualifier, even that wasn't always true for this hypothetical person. They had to have learned how to do X and gained enough experience over time to know exactly what they're doing in the matter. Which means, there was a time when they didn't know what they were doing. And I'd say this hypothetical person at that hypothetical time before they knew what they were doing is really the target audience for whom the article was written.

js2• 12 years ago

I see no mention of the closely related four stages of competence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence#The_f...

JangoSteve8• 12 years ago

I hadn't seen that before. Having just read through the wikipedia article, I'd say that my post is less about the theoretical categories themselves and more about people's inability to distinguish how their own knowledge is divided between those categories in their own minds, versus how it's divided in others. But yes, that's extremely relevant and awesome, thanks for that!

stretchwithme2• 12 years ago

What about shit you don't know you know? There are many things we do and know that we don't understand. Very often it doesn't matter. A child does not need to be aware that their finger is narrower than their nostril to use one upon the other.

If you wait until all the studies are complete before trying to do something, you will never take action. Life is more about trial and error than knowing how everything is known.

narag2• 12 years ago

I came here to say the same. There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why.

Most of the time I think it's a matter of spotting which the heavier factor is.

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

"There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why."

Sounds a bit like confirmation bias in action to me; there are almost certainly times you are crystal clear on what's going to happen and then it doesn't happen.

waps2• 12 years ago

In AI this is a little bit known as the rationality paradox. People generally agree that the following formula is the definition of acting rationally :

argmax(sum(probability_of_event * utility_of_event) given action)

So do you open a door ? There could be a bear behind the door that will eat you if you open the door. The probability of that is not zero (and even if it was, it would not matter). The utility of that is -inf. The utility of not opening the door is also -inf. There could be a bear behind you and the door could be your only way to safety.

So a rational actor would never do anything at all, as the rational function would never converge.

Ergo, nobody and nothing is rational (as soon as the world has a certain minimal level of complexity).

There are various suggestions given out of this conundrum, but none are even mildly satisfying. For example, one could claim that you don't know those odds, so you don't care. But that is the same as saying you can't really be rational, so it's not a solution.

FigBug2• 12 years ago

In "The Man Who mistook His Wife for a Hat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_fo...), a book on mental disorders, there is a case of a man who can only make rational decisions. He is unable to function, he can't get past what to wear or what to eat in the morning. Even this simplest decisions take him hours.

maxerickson• 12 years ago

I guess we get hungry for a reason.

(In that, at least in some sense, hunger is an irrational desire for food, it isn't reasoned out)

derefr• 12 years ago

I would think that this is the part that would need to be changed:

The utility of that is -inf. The utility of not opening the door is also -inf.

Humans don't value anything--even their own continued existence--at inf, just at pretty average-levels-of-high numbers. We seem to get "intelligent" things done despite this. What's wrong with building an AI this way?

stretchwithme2• 12 years ago

I disagree that the rational actor would never do anything at all. He has needs for food, protection and shelter and these cannot be met without action. So he balances the low risk of a bear against the 100% chance of starving and finds it best to open the door.

partomniscient• 12 years ago

Contrived experiment is contrived.

JangoSteve8• 12 years ago

Agreed. "Shit you don't know you know" is actually mentioned at the end of the article as a sub-category of the "shit you know you know" which delves into psychology and theories of hidden or repressed memories and/or knowledge, which I know little about from an academic point of view. Also noting that, just because you can't put all of your knowledge into words, doesn't mean you don't have it. Or is that essentially what you were saying?

joe_the_user• 12 years ago

I would mention that not-knowing-you-know something may not be a matter of hiding or repression but a matter of factors inherent to human "computation" - if we make the assumption that the most important kind of human knowledge does not come as static facts but as dynamic algorithms, ways to do things.

Assume a person has a bunch of algorithms available to them. They may not be able to tell if algorithm X works with problem Y until they start interacting with problem Y and find out that heck algorithm X does work.

With this approach, we can imagine knowledge that actually can only exist hidden within multiple of level not-knowing, at least if knowing is being able to fully characterize one's abilities.

waynecochran• 12 years ago

Well said. I am always very uneasy if I feel I am the most knowledgeable guy in the room -- because I know I don't know even a small fraction of what is known. Now I know why I feel uneasy -- because I am in a dangerous setting.

beat• 12 years ago

I often say that if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you probably aren't. And if you actually are the smartest person in the room, you need to be in a better room.

sb23• 12 years ago

That implies that someone always is the smartest, and that person always needs a better room. If they're so smart, how come they're in crap rooms?

JangoSteve8• 12 years ago

Hey everyone, crazy to see my article posted here again 4 years later (I can't believe it's been 4 years since I wrote that). I'm glad it's still relevant to people.

If this were one of my open source projects or programming articles, I'd say, "Let me know if you have any questions." But I'm not sure I could answer anyone's questions on this subject. I'll sure try though if you do have any.

porter• 12 years ago

I see what you did there.

SilasX4• 12 years ago

While this is often true, I can't accept it as being as universal as claimed. Many projects, with visible success, pretty clearly require someone that knows what they're doing, or else they will noticeably fail. And they happen in environments that don't care how good your model is, and throw all kinds of kinks in your plan. Buildings, aircraft, software.

Nor does it ever connect the "recognition of what you don't know" ability back to the nurse's situation: how does that account for why she got such praise? What observable shortcomings did the other students have, and she lack, that are connected to the unknown-unknown problem?

JangoSteve8• 12 years ago

I'll be honest, that article was written by someone not long out of college (me). In that situation, I'd say it's more true then, than when you get older and have a more experienced peer group. But of course, that more experienced peer group also tends to be much humbler and aware of their shortcomings as well, so I'd say the article still addresses that.

The way it was meant to be brought back around to the nurse's situation was that, she actually was really good at what she was doing for her level of experience and progression through schooling, despite knowing that she had a long way left to go. As to what observable shortcomings other students had compared to her, I cannot say. I wasn't in the class or at work with her. The point was that her professors and supervisors, all of which gave her praise, were probably better able to see that than she was, given their experience and level of context within the field of nursing and teaching.

The real issue, though, was in the cognitive dissonance between what she felt she was capable of and what others knew her to be capable of. This was an attempt to give at least some small explanation for that cognitive dissonance. It is possible to know more than anyone else about a given subject, and still know practically nothing about it compared to the amount of information about that subject contained within all of mankind or even the universe.

SilasX4• 12 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to reply to these questions.

But of course, that more experienced peer group also tends to be much humbler and aware of their shortcomings as well, so I'd say the article still addresses that.

I have to disagree: however humble they might be, someone on the projects I mentioned has to have a deep enough understanding to know how to handle the cornucopia of problems that can derail it: unexpected soil problems, dependencies not working like intended, aerodynamic lift not being as high as the model.

I compare it to my understanding of long multiplication, which I've tested against students new to it. "How do you do it?" Here's how. Why is it done that way? Well it's an expansion of this formula. "Why in this order?" If you don't do it that way, you're actually multiplying these other numbers; you have to correct for it like so. "What if I forget some of the entries in the multiplication table?" Then here's how you multiply single digit numbers; here's multiplication as a version of addition. "What if I forget how to add?" Break out the number line, let's review.

That kind of understanding is revealed in any large-scale, finished, working product.

The way it was meant to be brought back around to the nurse's situation was that, she actually was really good at what she was doing for her level of experience and progression through schooling, despite knowing that she had a long way left to go. As to what observable shortcomings other students had compared to her, I cannot say.

Then I don't understand how this was supposed to reassure her; if I offered an explanation, I would test its implications against the rest of the scenario: is there a way overconfidence manifests in the typical student? Is she returning the (correct answer) "I'd have to ask someone" more often than the other students? As it stands, you've just listed something that might be consistent.

Remember, the problem is not that "she was good for her level of experience"; the problem was that "she was called the best student they'd ever had".

(I note with some irony that, for you claim to know general competence levels just after college is itself seemingly outside your knowns!)

benched• 12 years ago

Have you ever received praise, or even an award, for being great at something despite having no clue what you’re doing?

No. I have to know years worth of mountains worth of knowledge and skills to get even the slightest nod from anybody. Most software people don't give away praise for free.

Do you feel like a fraud...?

No. I'm a good programmer, my job is to program things, and my employers seem to have agreed. Like many people here, I've made lots of shit that works, and made lots of customers happy.

Shit you don't know you don't know only matters when it matters. And when it starts to matter, it moves into the shit you know you don't know category, and hopefully with some effort into the shit you know category.

A single human being can't know much, so out of necessity we act like a cache. We also tend to work in teams. I frequently encounter problems I can't solve, that a 3-minute back-and-forth discussion with the two nearest coworkers does solve.

dbtc• 12 years ago

I think when talking about confidence or success these categories of knowledge don't account for the whole picture.

Knowledge isn't the only thing required to be successful at something, it doesn't account for skills. When I say skills I mean something that requires training over time to be able to do.

I know I don't know how to balance on a rope, if I learned successful methods for balancing on a rope I still probably wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be successful until I put in the hours to dig those deep trenches between feedback and response. I might know how to finger a chord on a guitar, kick a soccer ball or make a compelling argument but I probably won't be very good at those things until I practice them

Maybe my interpretation of the word 'know' is too narrow but it seems like these 'learned skills' would fall under a seperate category of things that you can only get better at with experience.

RankingMember• 12 years ago

I feel like Richard Feynman always had a good take on this:

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Fasebook• 12 years ago

So what analogs can we draw between the universe and the commercial web? How is it that we don't know what we're doing when working with documented and supported tools? It's almost like some kind of separation of duties to keep us blind to the big picture. God must really hate us!

robbyking• 12 years ago

Donald Rumsfield summed this up nicely:

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns

qwerty_asdf• 12 years ago

It's quoted in the article, and the article draws a good rationale for why our own confidence shrinks in the face of awkward self-awareness.

Nevertheless, whenever I feel like I'm confronting bullshit artistry on a profound and deliberate scale, Donald Rumsfeld is my yard stick, and a distorted image of his smirking face is conjured in my mind's eye, and replaces the bullshit artist's face, and that quote rings through my head with lots of reverb and phased, flanged echo.

The next unit of measurement in scales of bullshit artistry, in terms of greater precision and smaller units, is Bill Clinton's debate regarding the meaning of "is":

  It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 
  the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is 
  not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that 
  was a completely true statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton#In...

The conversion ratio between Rumsfelds and Clinton-Lewinskies is 1 Rumsfeld = 1 Mega-Clinton-Lewinsky.

d23• 12 years ago

It'd be a nicer quote if it wasn't tainted by the fact that it was used to bullshit a nation into a war we didn't need to fight.

primitive_type• 12 years ago

I can't see why Rumsfeld is given credit for this, when Plato / Socrates essentially summed up the same idea thousands of years prior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing

9999• 12 years ago

An interesting addendum to Rumsfeld's categorization of knowledge is Slavoj Zizek's notion of the unknown known:

What he forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the "unknown knowns," the things we don't know that we know-which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the "knowledge which doesn't know itself," as Lacan used to say.

If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns," that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns" - the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values."

http://www.lacan.com/zizekrumsfeld.htm

I agree with Zizek's assessment that unknown knowns are even more dangerous than unknown unknowns.

jagath• 12 years ago

Reminded me of what my grad advisor used to say -

If you ask an undergrad student, the answer is always a "yes" or a "no".

If you ask a master's student, the answer is always a "may be".

If you ask a doctoral student, the answer is always "i don't know".

atmosx• 12 years ago

Looks kind the Socratic way of perceived knowledge: "You are not able to judge me, because I know I don't know shit, while you don't know you don't know shit (yet) and I'm here to prove to you that you really don't know shit".

But of course Steve's analysis is easier to apprehend.

nathanallen• 12 years ago

"Expose your Ignorance" is a phrase I like from the book Apprenticeship Patterns. I think it cuts two ways: admitting to yourself what you don't know, and admitting to the people around you that you don't know. It's hard enough to admit to yourself that you're falling short and need to dig in and come to a better understanding of a subject, but it's way more discomfiting to confess this to your team/clients (especially if you're afraid they won't be receptive).

For this reason, I've come to love the phrase "developer". I am someone who develops, and keeps developing. I am not a fixed point. And this is why you hire me. [See Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset]

No One Knows What They're Doing (2010)

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