Factual error: When Optimus is killed, the fight takes place in a mountainous forest with that was filled with extremely tall trees not indigenous to NJ, much less any surrounding state of the area portrayed in that scene.
Factual error: In the opening of the Shanghai scene, there's a helicopter in the scene of the transformers fight. The helicopter has words on it meaning "police" in Chinese. But Shanghai use "Gong An," not the "Jing Tsa" seen here. Both of them mean police, but different words are used in China than in other Asia countries.
Factual error: Scene of the submarine USS Topeka (SSN-754) shows an older version of the 688 class submarine. The Topeka does not have the planes shown above the surface, instead it has bow planes that would have been under the waterline.
Factual error: The Autobots/N.E.S.T. base is said to be on Diego Garcia, a real military base in the Indian Ocean. The island in the movie is not D.G. The movie version appears to have hills and sparse vegetation, the real island's a tropical climate, and the highest point is about 22ft above sea level.
Chosen answer: He knows from stories passed down to him from older generations of bots, not much unlike stories about the past passed down to us from our ancestors. His line about no one telling him anything is just a way to avoid being put back in the box or being tortured by Mikayla.
dablues7