Today, I will be delving into the topic of knowledge and ignorance while trusting that my scattered thoughts will organise and structure themselves along the way. First, I will have to mention (gasp) some actual philosophy stuff! The reason is that I need to do so for the proper historical background of knowledge to be presented. In philosophical terms, epistemology is the study of knowledge… but feel free to forget that word right away! I will really be simplifying it as much as is humanly possible.
The main thing to know regarding the history of knowledge theories is a quick google search away. All you need to do, and I am literally also doing it right now, is type ‘Kant’s Copernican Revolution’. Ok, press enter… now time for an explanation. The actual Copernican Revolution was the discovery that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way round. Kant’s was the discovery that systems of knowledge must be processed through the self. Does this sound self-evident to you?
Basically, previous philosophers believed that knowledge exists as objective systems outside of people. Even today, some ‘rationalist’ philosophers hardcore love their logical principles and the like. In contrast, an opposing faction, the empiricists, firmly believed that knowledge comes from experience. Umm, personally, I always say that knowledge does not come from a vacuum. Thus, it must come from somewhere, which is experience. But then, can you claim that a triangle or a circle comes from experience? No, they should exist independently in this world as a sort of innate idea, which means rationalism wins! See, this is what philosophers tend to do – they confuse not just others but even themselves!! with wordplay and thinking within enclosed systems.
Anyway, this is where Kant’s Copernican Revolution steps in to break the enclosed systems thinking and clear the confusion. Basically, this so-called ‘knowledge’ which his predecessors had been worshipping to the high heavens – it was simply ridiculous! You see, these people were really just creating their own theories and pompously calling it knowledge. Yet, these theories of knowledge (how meta) could easily be like a blind man touching an elephant and trying to grasp it through its features before classifying that as its essence!
The philosophers simply could not consistently provide a satisfactory account for what was actually the case in the real world! Now, considering how scientific theories can be disproven too, the obvious conclusion is – this ‘knowledge’ must be demoted! Rather than objective systems outside of people, they are only makeshift projects at the very least (before their worth increases accordingly based on how satisfactorily they reflect reality)! So in sum, by emphasising how systems of knowledge are necessarily processed through the self, Kant imploded one of those stagnant, enclosed systems of philosophy.
So here we have a better understanding of knowledge. At worst, it’s but a makeshift project as we seek to process information and thus understand things better (see how meta this is…). At best, it properly matches what is the case in reality… no wait. Sometimes, we do not seek to wait and understand things better first as we simply integrate an immediate conclusion into our personal knowledge base. For instance, someone tells you that your friend is a horrible person. Based on your shared experiences with this friend, you simply trust in their integrity and stay convinced otherwise, vowing to get to the bottom of the matter. Now, this is just an example of people forming conclusions based on some past experiences. For a new, specific incident, they simply generalise and throw it into a category they can easily understand. Sometimes, this generalisation isn’t even tested as they willfully decide that ‘I already understand’. That knowledge as processed through the human mind – really, it’s tenuous at best.
Traditionally, some people tend to prefer knowledge that is more about cold, hard facts, such as scientific knowledge. However, it’s important to remember that knowledge can feel more speculative also like that aforementioned example, focusing on the humanistic aspects of life. For instance: I’m super anti-social because I’m afraid to talk to people. What should I do?
One would do well not to underestimate these kinds of knowledge. At face value, they are just about self-help and giving advice and nothing objective, really, can be said about them which applies across the board. However, is this really the case? Consider now not the processed knowledge of human beings but the ‘way things are’ (and can be, for things not yet in existence) existing independently out there. Rather than knowledge, term it ‘truth’ (or Dao or way or whatever). Generally speaking, when we delve into a certain domain, the experience will bring us insight which we intuitively grasp. Other people going through a similar experience can easily grasp the exact same insight. To be precise, we can say that said truth was evoked by walking said path. This is also why originality is so hard to come by – those who walk the same paths easily end up stumbling upon the same landmarks! But anyway, note that what this also means is – their guidance can serve to illuminate the path of those after them!
Hence, it would be too quick to dismiss knowledge about life and people as just giving one of many possible answers out there. We may feel that an answer is only based on a personal interpretation stemming from one’s own experience. And as a philosopher would scream, how could we possibly allow something so subjective to be part of our framework? Many people have different opinions about things. How can we rule someone’s opinion to have more worth as compared to someone else’s? And wait (low move, philosopher)! If granting select opinions higher status is impossible, how can we judge murder as bad without everything being senseless noise?
Hm. How did I end up here? BIG deja vu. Ok sure, I’ll give an answer. So, the question is fundamentally unsound. How can we justify that an ‘opinion’ is more valid than another? Well, we just do it. Hey, I think using the word opinion is confusing. Let’s call it ‘worldview’ instead. So people have their own worldviews. To use an analogy from my Five Elements Theory, these are like trees, rising from the ground…This worldview-forming process happens naturally for us. So, we easily form judgments in a flash. If something someone says fits snug into our worldview, we accept it. If it – the horror! – rejects our worldview, why then, we must reject it! So, it is not impossible for us to judge a differing worldview as pitifully misguided. Nah, we do it all the time, as easy as ABC! But how do we overcome the ‘senseless noise’ thing?
So, one thing that these bothered people are doing is unconsciously feeling that the world is a scary place with a lot of terrible and dumb people. Ok, basically: Who will listen to good ol’ me if I cannot prove beyond reprehensible doubt that good is good and bad is bad? This innate lack of self-esteem and need to be right, I feel, is what is truly holding them back. How do we combat the problem of identifying between truths and delusions when both seem self-evident to a beholder? Now, after you have stopped being so fearful and curled up defensively in your fetal pose, this is the practical problem ahead.
In my opinion, the best way to break down the problem is by using a specific example or two. Let’s do racism and sexism. So, basically, the limited perspective of those who discriminate seems to be the culprit here. In sociological terms, they proudly band together under one shared identity, viewing the other group with less power as an ‘other’. Basically, they never think of the other side as equals, attempting to empathise with their perspectives. Rather, they impose their will on the other side while feeling that it’s perfectly justified for them to do so (that’s for sexism). For racism, they treat the other side with suspicion, thinking of them as outsiders who may do them harm and wish them malice. Therefore, it seems that the way to go is really just to transcend our limited perspectives and just try to stand in the shoes of the other party for once, cliched though this may seem… an insight may sound unoriginal, but just remember that that’s because truth is not so hard at the end of the day! People will always arrive at them; it’s just that many are just too self-absorbed for self-awareness and such. Protip: Fiction helps transcend perspective, because it allows you to live through an entirely different circumstance.
Wow! That sure took long! Ended up with stuff I never expected I would touch on. Better to make the next part a quick one then… so, ignorance. By definition, ignorance is but a lack of knowledge. Yet, I would rather draw attention to the root of the word ignorance – to be exact, ignore. What do I mean by that? Well, in an internet era, knowledge is readily available online. That means that if we wish to find out about something, we should theoretically be able to do so. I am ignorant of something – what is the implication? Well, more likely than not, would it be wrong to say that I am not so interested in this domain, thus ignoring information about it by default? I don’t think so.
I know quite a few people who are interested in food. They take photos of their food, maybe even write reviews. They say that this place is famous for this food, that place is famous for that food. So-and-so place just opened! So-and-so food is available for takeaway! And so on and so forth. Meanwhile, for people like me, food is good when it tastes good, but satisfaction comes easily and we never need to go out of our way to accumulate knowledge about such stuff. This random food information we hear from the first group is really like the wind on our faces – it’s generally never something we would integrate into our systems as knowledge. Now extend this same principle to other things. Basically, ignorance is a choice that is dictated by your interests! Btw, respect what others like, okay. Participation is optional and only for if you are interested, but even if you aren’t, don’t go disrespecting it – that’s a real sign of immaturity!
Another thing that comes to mind is the thinker-feeler dichotomy. Now, some feelers are more likely to think about the feelings of others by default while some thinkers love to think impersonally, rationality being their go-to instinct. To this feeling observer, the thinker sometimes seems like they just cannot read the mood. However, we could view it another way too – the thinker’s ignoring the mood because they feel that they are doing the right thing, doing the other party a favour even by going all impersonal to provide an objective analysis. However, this may backfire when the other party could not care less about the objective analysis (and basically ignores it) or was looking for something with the bare minimum of empathy and tact (yet ended up being judged!!). Of course, this doesn’t mean that objective analyses are bad! Sometimes, people just wanna hear an honest opinion and just having the truth said to their faces can be refreshing and a breath of fresh air… as a general rule, self-awareness + other awareness = win.
Philosophers have some sort of thought experiment for happiness that seems related to ignorance – I think it’s called the experience machine. Basically, someone has lived a happy life. However, the truth of the matter is that he has been duped by everyone around him… what then? Some people would immediately rank his life lower because it was fake. Yet, I feel that it really made no difference since the person experienced the same happy life – in other words, what’s outside of your experience cannot make your life any worse off. One may also invoke the common saying – ignorance is bliss. Let me, just for a little bit, dissect this saying.
At its core, ignorance is bliss because it is comfortable. Consider this – a child is usually sensible when faced with many hardships early on in life. They have no choice but to be so, ceasing to be willful, instead becoming considerate (as seen in the novel I translated, SWFM). Even so – would a parent want their child to face hardships and suffering early on in life just so that they will mature faster? I believe that it really is a straight out no for most parents out there, who would surely prefer for their children to enjoy their childhoods, being under their umbrellas at least at the start. Thus, at the very least, we cannot point towards ignorance having a negative connotation because it can also be preferable.
Ignorance is easily harmless. Take those philosophers playing around with make-believe in their enclosed systems of knowledge, blissfully ignorant of the fundamental fatal flaws in their worldviews. Society can survive with a great degree of make-believe – after all, its core function is to focus our energies someplace as a reality at our feet. One might rank blissful ignorance and their resultant make-believe no different from stuff like role-playing and writing fiction, practical usefulness aside. Delusion, on its own, is perfectly fine – one can just hope that the person in question will have an epiphany and return to the shore one day. However, there is a deal-breaker!
When someone’s delusion is directly to the detriment of others, that is a sign that they have become too comfortable in their ignorance. For example, a gambling or drug addict who has gone overboard, their family suffering at their expense… they have chosen to ignore the implications of their acts, their delusion the sole reality in their eyes. Those people who discriminate – their delusions of grandeur overwhelm them as they truly believe themselves to be on a moral high ground… and they reject the worldviews in conflict with theirs with actions manifested in the outside world.
How can we call this ignorance bliss? Let’s go meta and examine the word bliss. Basically, if you are happy, you are blissful. We cannot call all ignorance bliss because not all ignorance will result in happiness. I know, we all know that it can result in misery too. So, ‘ignorance is bliss’ is only valid when it makes people happy. When it instead makes people miserable, ignorance is a scourge! Thus, while ‘ignorance is bliss’ rightfully noted that ignorance can be positive, it was grammatically wrong. I believe what they meant to say was that ‘ignorance can be bliss’. You see, from my limited EN knowledge, ‘is’ categorises a subject under a category… but we well know that a positive spin just doesn’t encompass all the connotations of ignorance.
As a whole, my stance towards ignorance is not to jump easily to conclusions regarding things that I am not sure of. Some questions I may choose to ignore (like whether we are living in a simulation or not), since they are of no import to me whatsoever and I see no reason to be bothered with them. Otherwise, I will reserve my judgement for when I have a greater understanding of things (experience bestows this). In my opinion, this is the surest, ideal method that properly affords things their rightful consideration.
And that’s the end of this post which took unreasonably crazily outrageously long to type! I ended up with one picture between every three paragraphs (for no particular reason) and overall nine plus twelve paragraphs on ignorance and knowledge! And so, with this lil’ 22th paragraph, I hereby end my post.