Higher-level curiosity involves exploring unknown unknowns, not just fixed goals.

Use first principles thinking to strip away assumptions and discover hidden insights.

Let exploration's utility emerge naturally; curiosity thrives without fixed targets.

Georgia and Laura are both teachers at the same school. They're curious about AI and start to tinker with it.

Georgia wants AI to help her automate repetitive work, like giving the same feedback or fielding the same questions. She's interested in how she could get it to do what she already does, but faster or more hands-off.

Laura takes a different approach. She asks it increasingly broad, open-ended questions, like:

What are some ways I could become a better teacher that I haven't thought about?

"What needs and preferences might my students have that I might not be meeting?"

"What tools could be useful in a teaching context but are rarely used in education?"

"How might I be unintentionally pigeonholing my students or holding them back without realizing it?"

She feeds it one of her lesson plans and asks: "If someone unfamiliar with a standard school environment saw this being delivered, what might they think was strange about it?" Then she asks, "Which students does my current style favor, and which students does it disadvantage?" And, "What might my students not be telling me they don't understand?"

Georgia and Laura are both great teachers and curious people, but Laura's curiosity is a level above Georgia's. Georgia is interested in a fixed goal. Laura is interested in unknown unknowns.

Drive to Understand Unknown-Unknowns Is a Signature of Higher-Level Curiosity

The most curious people stand out in one signature way: They're curious about what they don't know they don't know.

When people mention "you don't know what you don't know" or when Donald Rumsfeld talked about unknown unknowns, the context is usually threats and risks.

However, the concept applies equally to opportunities we overlook.

Tools or approaches that are not even on your radar.

Ways of doing things you haven't considered.

Opportunities you've never looked for.

Helpful resources that are available to you but you've never sought out because the value hasn't occurred to you.

Things you don't yet know you like.

Use First Principles Thinking to Strip Away Your Assumptions

Laura's questions show that she engages in first principles thinking to strip away her assumptions. She does this with broad, open-ended questions, perspective shifts (e.g., the person unfamiliar with a standard school environment), and explicit attempts to see her own biases.

Stripping your assumptions away from observations or other objective truths should be an ongoing process. As assumptions creep in, you repeatedly strip them out.

Beyond adopting first principles thinking, here are three ways to elevate your curiosity by pushing yourself to explore unknown unknowns.

1. Let Utility Emerge from Exploration

Don't attempt to rigidly predetermine what will be most useful. Let the utility emerge from things you explore. Trust your inner "that's interesting" detector. You can't deliberately search for things you don't know exist. They show up when you're exploring without a fixed target. And they won't seem useful right away. They'll just seem interesting.

2. Tolerate the Discomfort of Exploration

Open-ended exploration comes with discomfort. You'll explore rabbit holes that go nowhere. You'll second-guess your instincts about whether what's interesting will also turn out to be useful. And, what you explore might raise other types of discomfort for you.

Become tolerant of waste, frustration, and anxiety in the exploration process. If you're too strongly put off by any inadvertent exposure to ideas that are wrong, useless, harmful, or unethical, you'll cap your curiosity. Apply your filters diligently afterward, e.g., to find ethical, safe, and compliant versions.

3. Use Your Emotional Reactions as Signposts

Realize your own reactions are where the gold is. If you react with anger, frustration, or anxiety during the course of exploration, use this as a trigger to do the deep cognitive and metacognitive work of understanding why.

For example, my writing is intended to be anti-hustle culture, but often when I try to make my examples simple and relatable, they start to sound like hustle culture slop, and the opposite of what I intended. This is an uncomfortable inner battle I have when trying to write better.

The fact that the trap is so difficult to avoid (even at my level of experience) is something I treat as a clue about the value of the battle. I know it's a mirror of the difficulties my readers face when trying to avoid being pulled in by the tropes of hustle culture. This observation has helped deepen my understanding of the way hustle culture acts like an Octopus, with arms that pull people in in a myriad of ways.

Go Beyond the Productivity Domain

Unknown unknowns exist everywhere. Curiosity, and a few principles and tools, is what helps you discover them.

A home chef asks what flavor combinations are out there that they've never considered or tasted.

A person seeking more sources of joy explores hobbies without prejudging what they think they'll like.

The gym-goer decides to try all the equipment in the gym without prejudging and makes unexpected discoveries about which workouts are most effective for them.

The insights we gain by exploring unknown unknowns are why a higher level of curiosity can make you better at everything and lead you to experiences you didn't know you'd love.

© Psychology Today