The Five Orders of Ignorance
An overview

The Five Orders of Ignorance (5OI) is a meta-model of ignorance—or lack of knowledge—that I developed years ago to help explain certain characteristics of software development to software engineers.  While, originally, the model explicitly referenced building software systems, that was simply because building software systems was my vocation and my job at the time was teaching people about it.  

However, I believe the model applies to all knowledge acquisition.

The 5OI start from Zeroth Order: [1]

Zeroth Order Ignorance (0OI)—Lack of Ignorance:
I provably know something. 

This is extant knowledge.  But note the provable criterion [2].  There must be some way of proving it—I cannot simply assert I have knowledge without being able (and willing) to provide some clear demonstration.  Without this, the Dunning-Kruger Effect  might pertain, and I might think I know something but I don’t.  So, if I were to assert that I have 0OI about how to play a piece of music I must be able to actually play it.

First Order Ignorance (1OI)—Lack of Knowledge:
I know that I do not know something. 

This is acknowledged ignorance.  To convert 1OI to 0OI, I would have to resolve my ignorance by acquiring this knowledge from somewhere (and then be able to prove that I have it, of course) [3].

Second Order Ignorance (2OI)—Lack of Awareness:
I do not know that I do not know something. 

Here we are getting into both metacognition (to be aware of what I know and don’t know) and metaknowledge (including the domain knowledge).  Here we also see the recursion clearly appearing: this lack of knowledge (about what is known) is itself a lack of knowledge.

Third Order Ignorance (3OI)—Lack of Process:
I do not know of a suitably effective way to find out that I don’t know that I don’t know something.

Possessing and maintaining this level of ignorance results in a knowledge trap.  If there are things I don’t know I don’t know and I don’t have a way to find out what they are, I will stay in this state of ignorance.  The “suitably effective” qualifications are important in practice.  Repeated exposure to some source of knowledge will usually bring home to us what we don’t know.  Discovering and learning to use an efficient process to do this is really important.  Software testing is one such process—while it does attempt prove that the knowledge we put into a system is “correct”, its primary function is to expose those things we didn’t know.

Fourth Order Ignorance (4OI)—Meta Ignorance:

I do not know about the Five Orders of Ignorance.

Is ignorance of ignorance.  To be honest, I initially put this in the Five Orders of Ignorance simply through a love of recursion.  But it is meaningful and is at the core of what Kruger and Dunning were measuring.

But What About Lady Burton's "Third Man"?

Notice that of the four kinds of “men” referenced in the Arabic proverb documented by Isabel Lady Burton in The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (see Dunning-Kruger), the 5OI only references three kinds.  This model does not mention the "third" man—the sleeper: "...who knows, and knows not he knows..."   It does not cover if I actually know something, but I don’t know I know it (so called “unconscious competence” ). It was left out intentionally for a couple of reasons:

• If I truly don’t know that I do know something, then IMO it’s simply another example of 2OI.  Except the knowledge I don’t have is that I actually do have the knowledge.  I am lacking the awareness knowledge about the knowledge I own.

• Conversely, I could simply state that if I do have the knowledge and I am competent (even though I’m not aware that I am), then I do ipso facto have the knowledge and can, presumably demonstrate it; so, therefore, I have 0OI.  The basic definition of 0OI doesn’t necessarily require awareness, simply the ability to prove I have the knowledge [4].

The difference is that I have 0OI about the “primary” knowledge (whatever it is I am competent about) but I have 2OI about the “second-order” knowledge which is what I know about my knowledge.  Since I felt this unconscious competence was already dealt with, I didn’t see a need to incorporate it in the 5OI.  I also think this further illustrates the self-referential nature of knowledge.

What follows are a few observations we can make about each of the 5OI:

FOOTNOTES

[1]  For software folks the first number is not "1" it is zero.  But this is the same in describing the age of children—generally, when born a child is considered to be zero years old.  Except in China and certain other east Asian countries where, at birth, a child is considered to be one year (sui 嵗/岁). 

[2]  An internet search for "Five Orders of Ignorance" might bring up some copies of the original statement of 1OI where the word provably has been switched to probably.  This was probably caused by a spell-checker, through I cannot prove it.  "Probably" is not just probably wrong, it is provably wrong: for 1OI to be 1OI, we must be able to prove it, not just probe it.

[3] An observant reader might note an issue here: what if I don't know how or where to acquire this knowledge?  Suppose I don't know how or to whom to prove it to?   Clearly, the knowledge of how and where to acquire the knowledge I need is related to, but different from that missing knowledge.  We will address this later.

[4] This lack of cognitive awareness of knowledge is actually quite common, particularly in demonstrations of physical abilities.  Highly competent athletes can routinely perform spectacular physical feats without necessarily being able to effectively describe how they do it.  The term often used for such skills is "muscle memory" implying that the ability is not resident in the brain (though it is, of course), but in the parts of the body performing the physical act.  What it means is that this knowledge, while clearly present, is not accessible to the conscious, intentional mind.  However, much of our body's functioning (such as how our pancreas works) is also not accessible to our normal thinking process.