Unknown unknowns are important in our lives, because there is always something we are completely unaware of. “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision” – Bertrand Russell (1951) But this study reveals that many of them were not truly unidentifiable.” (Kim, 2012). “Most unknown unknowns are believed to be impossible to find or imagine in advance.

Unknown–unknowns (unfathomable uncertainty).

Unknown–knowns (impact is unknown but existence is known, i.e., untapped knowledge),.

This leads to four possibilities (Cleden, 2009): “We might think we understand something in depth, but when it comes time to put our money where our mouth is, it often turns out our understanding leaves a lot to be desired.” (Brotherton, 2015).Ī typical classification of risks is based on the level of knowledge about a risk event’s occurrence(either known or unknown) and the level of knowledge about its impact (either known or unknown). However, life is riddled with unknown unknowns. It is not commonly a term used in everyday life. This terms is popular in project management, strategic planning, and business related fields. We don’t even know when and where to search for them. Unknown unknowns, therefore, are future outcomes, events, circumstances, or consequences that we cannot predict. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know… It is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.” (Rumsfeld)

We also know there are known unknowns that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

“As we know, there are known knowns there are things we know we know.