Meta-cognition about ignorance. “Meta-cognition” is a term often used to refer to thoughts we have about our thinking. One of the most important tenets of cognitive science is to remain very skeptical of our own “introspections” of how it seems to ourselves we are thinking, and more concrete sources of empirical data concerning meta-cognition are also hard to identify. This is especially true of ignorance: knowing what it is that you don’t know. Any use of the term “awareness” in this context, therefore, should be interpreted loosely.