Notes to a Future Self

No original thought, no real additions to the global corpus of knowledge, just three lists I think of every so often, and need to look up again.

The first is from Jorge Luis Borges' book within a book. The outer book is The Analytical Language of John Wilkins, the inner book is Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge.

These ambiguities, redundances, and deficiences recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into

(a) those that belong to the emperor;
(b) embalmed ones;
(c) those that are trained;
(d) suckling pigs;
(e) mermaids;
(f) fabulous ones;
(g) stray dogs;
(h) those that are included in this classification;
(i) those that tremble as if they were mad;
(j) innumerable ones;
(k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush;
(l) etcetera;
(m) those that have just broken the flower vase;
(n) those that at a distance resemble flies.

The only disappointment for this list is that (h) is not "those that are not included in this classification". Apparently Dr. Kuhn was a real person, though Borges was fond of mixing fact with his own fictions. Splendid stuff.

The next is the Five Orders of Ignorance from Philip Armour in ACM 2000:

• 0th Order Ignorance (0OI) — Lack of Ignorance I have Zeroth Order Ignorance (0OI) when I know something and can demonstrate my lack of ignorance in some tangible form, such as by building a system that satisfies the user.
• 1st Order Ignorance (1OI) — Lack of Knowledge I have First Order Ignorance (1OI) when I don’t know something and I can readily identify that fact.
• 2nd Order Ignorance (2OI) — Lack of Awareness I have Second Order Ignorance (2OI) when I don’t know that I don’t know something. That is to say, not only am I ignorant of something (I have 1OI), I am unaware of that fact.
• 3rd Order Ignorance (3OI) — Lack of Process I have Third Order Ignorance (3OI) when I don’t know of a suitably efficient way to find out that I don’t know that I don’t know something. So I am unable to resolve my 2OI.

The Fourth Order of Ignorance is:

• 4th Order Ignorance (4OI) — Meta Ignorance. I have 4OI when I don’t know about the Five Orders of Ignorance. I no longer have this kind of ignorance, and now, neither, dear reader, do you.

Cute.

The various taxonomies of the unknown are very worth looking at too.

Finally, one currently making the rounds, from a 1944 CIA manual on speech quoted at Enterprise 2.0, and linked to by Boing Boing:

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
2. Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions.
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

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J