Quotes About Ignorance

the tendency to look at what confirms our knowledge, not our ignorance)

I recall how we were taught in school how far more civilized and wiser we were than those in the Balkan communities

True, our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit.

is the exact contrary of knowledge; one should learn to avoid using terms made for knowledge to describe its opposite.

Platonicity is what makes us think that we understand more than we actually do.

We certainly know a lot, but we have a built-in tendency to think that we know a little bit more than we actually do

our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit.

But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind:

I will only very briefly discuss the crisis of 2008 (which took place after the publication of the book, and which was a lot of things, but not a Black Swan, only the result of fragility in systems built upon ignorance—and denial—of the notion of Black Swan events. You know with near certainty that a plane flown by an incompetent pilot will eventually crash).

The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.

that we generally take risks not out of bravado but out of ignorance and blindness to probability!

Mi idea es que algunos resultados científicos no sólo son inútiles en la vida real, porque infravaloran el impacto de lo altamente improbable (o nos llevan a ignorarlo), sino que es posible que algunos de ellos estén creando en realidad Cisnes Negros.

What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors, but our absence of awareness of it.

he has no clue as to what he was talking about.

to show people how lacking in clarity they were in their thoughts, how little they knew about the concepts they used routinely

randomness, in practice, is what we don't know; to invoke randomness is to plead ignorance).

You are taking the joy of ignorance out of the things we don't understand.

The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know. Lack of knowledge and delusion about the quality of your knowledge come together—the same process that makes you know less also makes you satisfied with your knowledge.

should avoid engaging in an action with a big downside if one has no idea of the outcomes.

exposed to a major blowup without being aware of it

Expert problems (in which the expert knows a lot but less than he thinks he does) often bring fragilities, and acceptance of ignorance the reverse.

Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance. … Mother Nature does not tell you how many holes there are on the roulette table … In this book, considering that alternative outcomes could have taken place, that the world could have been different, is the core of probabilistic thinking.

People can't predict how long they will be happy with recently acquired objects, how long their marriages will last, how their new jobs will turn out, yet it's subatomic particles that they cite as "limits of prediction." They're ignoring a mammoth standing in front of them in favor of matter even a microscope would not allow them to see.

They only knew enough math to be blinded by it.