There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.
It sounds like a riddle. It isn't a riddle. It is a very serious, important matter.
Donald Rumsfeld
That’s a good quote, and frankly, I agree with it, but that doesn’t dispute at all what the OP wrote.
Some things we won’t know until we try. Other things are very provable through (what I call God’s rule of) Math. Einstein’s work was based on that math.
However, there is more math to do to figure out on this issue for sure.
Exactly today’s unknown is tomorrow’s given
“Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.”
Donald Rumsfeld