It seems to me that “I don’t know” in many contexts really means “I don’t know any better than you do”, or “Your guess is as good as mine”, or “I have no information such that sharing it would improve the accuracy of your estimate”, or “We’ve neither of us seen the damn tree, what are you asking me for?”.
This feels like a nothing response, because it kind of is, but you aren’t really saying “My knowledge of this is zero”, you’re saying “My knowledge of this which is worth communicating is zero”.
It seems to me that “I don’t know” in many contexts really means “I don’t know any better than you do”, or “Your guess is as good as mine”, or “I have no information such that sharing it would improve the accuracy of your estimate”, or “We’ve neither of us seen the damn tree, what are you asking me for?”.
This feels like a nothing response, because it kind of is, but you aren’t really saying “My knowledge of this is zero”, you’re saying “My knowledge of this which is worth communicating is zero”.