The Known as a Tool for Investigating the Unknown
New understanding rarely arises from a vacuum. Almost always, a person already possesses a part of the system: familiar objects, words, actions, patterns, verification methods, causal links, or previously mastered concepts. Therefore, the unknown can be investigated through the known.
This does not mean that any new knowledge can be mechanically deduced from the old. Rather, the point is that already mastered elements of the system become tools with which one can localize a gap, build a hypothesis, test a connection, or reconstruct a missing part.
If the input, output, and part of the transformation between them are known, one can investigate the unknown elements of this chain. If the cause is known, one can study the consequences. If a consequence is observed, one can search for possible causes. If part of the structure is familiar, one can use it as a key to the rest of the structure.
This principle is especially important in learning. Instead of giving a person even more new information, it is useful to first determine:
- what they already understand;
- what they are able to do;
- which connections between known elements are already stable;
- precisely which gap is hindering the next step;
- which known part of the system can be used as a foothold to close this gap.
This reduces not only the volume of explanation, but also the actual cognitive complexity of the task: new information is attached to an already functioning system rather than creating a parallel set of unrelated facts.
An example is reading. A child may know an object, its image, meaning, and spoken word, but not understand the written form. Then the task of learning is not to explain the entire object and language anew, but to build the missing connection between the already known content and the written code.
The same principle works in mathematics, programming, diagnostics, and research. A known formula helps derive an unknown quantity; known program behavior helps localize a bug; an observed symptom helps search for a possible cause; a familiar task structure helps recognize a new special case.
It is important to be able to change the direction of reasoning. For a system, it is useful to ask:
- what is known at the input;
- what is known at the output;
- which transformations between them are already understood;
- what from the known can be used to reconstruct the unknown;
- can a known connection be used in the reverse direction;
- which part of the system can be transferred to another context.
In this sense, the known is not just an accumulated stock of knowledge, but an active tool of investigation.
The development of this ability can go beyond learning and become one of the mechanisms of progress, where known connections not only help understand the unknown, but are also used to create new systems, methods, and opportunities.
This principle is also closely related to systems thinking: to use the known as a tool, one must see which parts of the system are connected, what roles they play, and which elements are truly relevant to the current task.
