More  Detailed Orders of Ignorance (2)
Even more ignorance

More subdivisions of the 5OI.  

First Order Ignorance (1OI)

1OI is realized ignorance.  In its way, it is a form of knowledge; I do know something about what I don't know.  Maybe I don't know the answer, but I do know the question.  However, in order to get the answer, there are other questions that must be asked.  The subdivisions of 1OI deal with these questions.

First Order Ignorance Prime (1OIa): I have 1OIa when I know I don't know something, so I have the question,...
...AND I know where to get the answer,...
...AND I know to frame a sufficiently detailed question that will get me the answer

An example: I am new to my job as a facilities manager and I have to arrange a room to host an important meeting.  I have 1OIa if I:

• Know that I need to reserve a room and I know the parameters of the meeting (date and time, number of people, audio-visual, duration,...) and I...

• ...know how meeting rooms are reserved (who to call, how to log on the facility calendar, how to order chairs and tables) and I...

• ...know what other aspects need to be decided (what A/V equipment is needed, who sets up the room and tests the equipment, etc.)

Basically, with 1OIa I don't know exactly what I need to do to achieve the result/answer (in this case a fully conformed meeting room), but I do know the types of things I need to know and I do know where to find the answers to my questions.  Fulfilling my duties is then a matter of getting these answers and applying them to the problem.

First Order Ignorance Secondary (1OIb): I have 1OIb when I  know I don't know something, I do know where to find the answer, but I don't know enough about the context to ask a detailed question

Continuing the example above, I do know I need to set up a room and I do know the basics of booking the room, but I don't know who to ask about obtaining and setting up equipment.

First Order Ignorance Tertiary (1OIc): I have 1OIc when I know I don't know something, but I don't know where to find the answer and I don't know enough about the context to ask a sufficiently detailed question that will elicit the answer

Here, all I might know is that a room needs to be set up.  I don't know what kind of room, where, when, what facilities, etc.  And I also don't know who to ask.  The only type of questions I can initially post are relatively context-free:

• I might ask anyone I meet "how do I set up a room?"...

• Or, if that person doesn't know, I might ask the process-context question: "...who should I ask about the process of setting up a room?"

• When I start to resolve my ignorance, the questions can then become more contextual and more useful: "do we need A/V equipment?"

• As I start to work my way back from 1OIc to 1OIa my questions can become more and more precise and relevant to the problem at hand: "what kind of internet hookup do we need to broadcast the meeting?"

You can see that 1OI has levels of functional (what we need to know) and process (how we can find the answer) ignorance.  At the highest (lowest?) level of 1OIc we are very close to not knowing what it is we don't know.  Not knowing what we don't know is, of course, Second Order Ignorance.  

So 1OIc is right there, knocking on the door of 2OI.

FOOTNOTES