http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/
A “known unknown” is a known question with an unknown answer. I can ask the question: what is the melting point of beryllium? I may not know the answer, but I can look it up. I can do some research. It may even be a question which no one knows the answer to. With an “unknown unknown,” I don’t even know what questions to ask, let alone how to answer those questions. But there is the deeper question. And I believe that Dunning and Kruger’s work speaks to this. Is an “unknown unknown” beyond anything I can imagine? Or am I confusing the “unknown unknowns” with the “unknowable unknowns?” Are we constituted in such a way that there are things we cannot know? Perhaps because we cannot even frame the questions we need to ask? *DAVID DUNNING:* People will often make the case, “We can’t be that stupid, or we would have been evolutionarily wiped out as a species a long time ago.” I don’t agree. I find myself saying, “Well, no. Gee, all you need to do is be far enough along to be able to get three square meals or to solve the calorie problem long enough so that you can reproduce. And then, that’s it. You don’t need a lot of smarts. You don’t have to do tensor calculus. You don’t have to do quantum physics to be able to survive to the point where you can reproduce.” One could argue that evolution suggests we’re not idiots, but I would say, “Well, no. Evolution just makes sure we’re not blithering idiots. But, we could be idiots in a lot of different ways and still make it through the day.” *ERROL MORRIS:* Years ago, I made a short film (“I Dismember Mama”) about cryonics, the freezing of people for future resuscitation. [9]<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/#ftn9> *DAVID DUNNING:* Oh, wow. *ERROL MORRIS:* And I have an interview with the president of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics organization, on the 6 o’clock news in Riverside, California. One of the executives of the company had frozen his mother’s head for future resuscitation. (It’s called a “neuro,” as opposed to a “full-body” freezing.) The prosecutor claimed that they may not have waited for her to die. In answer to a reporter’s question, the president of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation said, “You know, we’re not stupid . . . ” And then corrected himself almost immediately, “We’re not that stupid that we would do something like that.” *DAVID DUNNING:* That’s pretty good. *ERROL MORRIS:* “Yes. We’re stupid, but we’re not that stupid.” *DAVID DUNNING:* And in some sense we apply that to the human race. There’s some comfort in that. We may be stupid, but we’re not that stupid. *ERROL MORRIS:* Something I have wondered about: Is there a socio-biological account of what forces in evolution selected for stupidity and why? *DAVID DUNNING:* Well, there’s no way we could be evolutionarily prepared for doing physics and doing our taxes at the end of the year. These are rather new in our evolutionary history. But solving social problems, getting along with other people, is something intrinsic to our survival as a species. You’d think we would know where our inabilities lie. But if we believe our data, we’re not necessarily very good at knowing what we’re lousy at with other people. *ERROL MORRIS:* Yes. Maybe it’s an effective strategy for dealing with life. Not dealing with it. David Dunning, in his book “Self-Insight,” calls the Dunning-Kruger Effect “the anosognosia of everyday life.”[10]<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/#_ftn10>When I first heard the word “anosognosia,” I had to look it up. Here’s one definition: Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability. [11]<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/#ftn11> Dunning‘s juxtaposition of anosognosia with everyday life is a surprising and suggestive turn of phrase. After all, anosognosia comes originally from the world of neurology and is the name of a specific neurological disorder. *DAVID DUNNING:* An anosognosic patient who is paralyzed simply does not know that he is paralyzed. If you put a pencil in front of them and ask them to pick up the pencil in front of their left hand they won’t do it. And you ask them why, and they’ll say, “Well, I’m tired,” or “I don’t need a pencil.” They literally aren’t alerted to their own paralysis. There is some monitoring system on the right side of the brain that has been damaged, as well as the damage that’s related to the paralysis on the left side. There is also something similar called “hemispatial neglect.” It has to do with a kind of brain damage where people literally cannot see or they can’t pay attention to one side of their environment. If they’re men, they literally only shave one half of their face. And they’re not aware about the other half. If you put food in front of them, they’ll eat half of what’s on the plate and then complain that there’s too little food. You could think of the Dunning-Kruger Effect as a psychological version of this physiological problem. If you have, for lack of a better term, damage to your expertise or imperfection in your knowledge or skill, you’re left literally not knowing that you have that damage. It was an analogy for us. [12]<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/#ftn12> This brings us in this next section to Joseph Babinski (1857-1932), the neurologist who gave anosognosia its name. *(This is the first of a five-part series.)* ------------------------------ FOOTNOTES: 1. Michael A. Fuoco, “Arrest in Bank Robbery, Suspect’s Picture Spurs Tips,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 21, 1995. 2. Michael A. Fuoco, “Trial and Error: They had Larceny in their Hearts, but little in their Heads,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 21, 1996. The article also includes several other impossibly stupid crimes, e.g., the criminal-to-be who filled out an employment application at a fast-food restaurant providing his correct name, address and social security number. A couple of minutes later he decided to rob the place. 3. Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, vol. 77, no. 6, pp. 1121-1134. 4. David Dunning may be channeling Socrates. “The only true wisdom is to know that you know nothing.” That’s too bad; Socrates gives me a headache. 5. NATO HQ, Brussels, Press Conference by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, June 6, 2002. The exact quote: “There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are the things we do not know we don’t know.” 6. O.K. I looked it up on Wikipedia. The melting point of beryllium, the fourth element, is 1278 °C. 7. “Ctenoid” comes from one of my favorite books, “Jarrold’s Dictionary of Difficult Words.” I challenged a member of the Mega Society [a society whose members have ultra-high I.Q.s], who claimed he could spell anything, to spell “ctenoid.” He failed. It’s that silent “c” that gets them every time. “Ctenoid” means “having an edge with projections like the teeth of a comb.” It could refer to rooster combs or the scales of certain fish. 8. For the inner logoleptic in all of us, allow me to recommend the Web site: http://www.kokogiak.com/logolepsy/ One of the site’s recommended words is “epicaricacy.” I read somewhere that the German word “schadenfreude” has no equivalent in English. I am now greatly relieved. 9. Errol Morris, “First Person: I Dismember Mama.” 10. Dunning, David, “Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (Essays in Social Psychology),” Psychology Press: 2005, p. 14-15. 11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia. 12. A purist would no doubt complain that anosognosia has been taken out of context, that it has been removed from the world of neurology and placed in an inappropriate and anachronistic social science setting. But something does remain in translation, the idea of an invisible deficit, the infirmity that cannot be known nor perceived. I can even imagine a cognitive and psychological version of anosodiaphoria. The idea of an infirmity that people neglect, that they do not pay any attention to. ** -- You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole. -AMBEDKAR http://venukm.blogspot.com http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
