“Knowledge is power” is a familiar quotation attributed to Sir Francis Bacon a philosopher of the renaissance period. To a certain degree, this still holds true today. But in our time it is not that simple any more. Today, we have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. This is why not knowing and managing this lack of knowledge well is the new superpower.
What we do know
We have more knowledge than ever before
We do know for sure that humanity to this date accumulated more knowledge than ever before. And the amount of knowledge is still growing. According to Buckminster Fuller’s knowledge doubling curve the human knowledge was doubling every 25 years in the 1950s. This doubling rate is long since outdated. Today it is estimated that humanity’s knowledge doubles every 13 months.
Knowledge is now available to everyone
All kinds of media but foremost the internet made huge amounts of this knowledge accessible to large parts of the human population. Accessing even specialized information via the internet has become easier than ever before. This chips away the monopoly of experts or institutions over large parts of knowledge.
What we don’t know
Despite the vastness of the sea of human knowledge and the democratization of huge chunks of it, there is still a lot of things we do not know. Unfortunately, many of these white spots on our map of knowledge concern the future.
We don’t know exactly what expert knowledge will be the most relevant or sought after in the future. Sure, we can make an educated guess. Still, every generation sees some developments that could not have been foreseen by their parents. We don’t not really know what will happen or what we will be doing in the future.
Furthermore, today’s knowledge might not help with tomorrow’s problems. Knowing so much has shown us how much we still have to learn. We are going to encounter circumstances that come with unprecedented challenges. Due to their novelty, we do not have ready to use solutions for those challenges, yet.
What can we do in the face of not knowing?
What should you do now? Give up, throw your hands in the air and surrender to uncertainty and confusion? No, you don’t have to do that. Follow these three steps to make not knowing your new superpower:
1. Learn how to learn
In my opinion, it is much more important to learn how to learn something new than actually memorizing the content of lectures or lessons. Usually content can be looked up in the literature or online. Depending on the field, specialty knowledge can even be completely outdated in a couple of years.
What is much more important is the “how”. How to learn the ropes in a field or discipline that is new to you. How to interpret information correctly. How to acquire relevant information. How to apply it correctly. Master these and you will learn anything you want to learn in the future.
2. Accept your ignorance
Accept that you do not know everything. Not even in your field. Not even if you are an accomplished expert. Not ever.
We live in an increasingly complex world. Oftentimes we don’t have enough information about huge parts of the world around us. This can feel very uncomfortable.
However, withstand the temptation to fill in the gaps. It is better not to know than fabricating conspiracy theories or making false assumptions. An honest “I don’t know enough about this topic to comment” will earn your much more respect than wild speculations.
3. Embrace the need to constantly evolve and learn
Get used to lifelong learning. Embrace the need to adapt to an ever-changing natural and professional environment. Never stop expanding your skills and abilities. Keep asking questions. Not knowing forces you to listen and learn. This protects you from hubris and enables you to learn what really is needed in a particular situation.