{
  "id": "known-unknown.model",
  "term": "known unknown",
  "sense": "model",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 14,
  "arena": "epistemic",
  "domain": "model and trust",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A parameter that a model treats as part of its boundary, though the model cannot act on it because its range is not mapped.",
  "folk_gloss": "Something we know we don't know.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "model.representation",
      "parameter.condition",
      "boundary.limit",
      "range.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "The phrase reports a failure in a self-model to represent its own limits — the thing is not just unknown, but structured as unknowable within the model's current frame.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "model boundary misalignment",
      "unmapped parameter range"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Hubble Space Telescope corrected its spherical aberration after engineers identified the flawed mirror's known manufacturing error.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The 2008 financial crisis exposed banks' reliance on credit default swaps whose risk parameters were acknowledged but not bounded.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Mars Climate Orbiter burned up because NASA teams used metric units while Lockheed Martin used imperial, a discrepancy known but uncalibrated.",
      "domain": "computing"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "known unknown"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — model and trust"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-known-unknown.model"
}