Is ignorance an absolute?

IVoyager

Consider this: anything we know we only have a partial understanding of. For if we had a whole understanding of anything, we would understand all its relationships - we would have achieved perfect philosophy and science. When we study anything we know we can only come to wholly understand that partial understanding, and then do further new study to create new information on that topic. This mitigates our ignorance but it never resolves it.

As we study we can choose to either specialize or study broadly. If we specialize we sacrifice understanding any number of things to have a good grasp of a partial understanding. If we study broadly we never attain a good grasp of anything, but a partial grasp of many partial understandings. Then we die.

As we study we come across barriers. Whether or not a barrier can be crossed is unknown - sometimes they can and sometimes they seem like absolute barriers. These "observational barriers" (such as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) may or may not be absolute, but there is a very real possibility that there are absolute observational barriers.

Of course we could in the future come to a whole knowledge by some fantastic advancement. Maybe the development of advanced AGI can amplify our intelligence millions of times over. But the unknown is unknown; the whole of the unknown is unknowable because it can only be analyzed with known methods. We can chink away its armor but we can never know that we've removed all the armor. But maybe intelligence scales forever, maybe the universe becomes an intelligent being and suddenly all knowable things are known. But then again that remote possibility is in an unknown future itself; its a null argument to postulate that all things can be known. But it is evident from all the past and present that we have never nor do know everything. We only know we can know less, and then more.

Therefore ignorance is an absolute.

Question: are there ethical virtues to be derived from this truth? For example: is fury against displays of ignorance ever justified when everyone is profoundly ignorant? If we are ignorant of the source of ignorance, isn't our reaction of disdain to ignorance itself an ignorant act? If we know not all the mechanisms for properly teaching an idea, and a person we have a dialogue with then fails to grasp our idea, isn't our ignorance of how to reach that person partially to blame?

Nils Loc

Ignorance informs or contextualizes knowing (or what can be known) in some way.

For instance if I know how the events of my life will unfold perfectly in the future how would that change me in the present (would I be a fatalist or determinist of some sort)? There could still be the option of ignorance as a value, ie. those who do not wish to know something choose not to know it.

IVoyager

↪Nils Loc

I would agree that ignorance isn't useless. But perfect ignorance doesn't work this way. As a philosopher I come to understand that I am very ignorance of things. But I can only know how ignorant I am. I can know I am X ignorant of physics.

I can explain what I know about quantum mechanics, and I can know what the avenues of study I need to take from that. But I still am not closer to knowing what I am ignorant of in relation to what we are collectively ignorant of in quantum mechanics. I have contextualized the knowledge "I must learn more about the Planck constant."

There may be purple teapots in the dark matter, but we are all ignorant of the dark matter, so ignorance doesn't contextualize those teapots.

Are you saying that there would be no difference between the you that knows the future of your life, and the you that doesn't? You just said ignorance contextualizes knowledge. Ignorance of the future contextualizes the choices you made in Future #1. Knowledge of the choices you make in Future #1 reveals to you your future self's ignorance. That knowledge of future ignorance gives context to the new choices you know you can make. But then Future #2 emerges, and you are ignorant of the conclusions of the choices you will now make during the path to Future #2.

Nils Loc

I'm just offering up an unexplored, free floating, hazy intuition.

A state of total knowing seems contradictory, since there is too much information, too much mutually exclusive conditions that could exist at any time. It seems as useful as its opposite state, a condition of total ignorance.

IVoyager

Hey man, we all do philosophy our own way. I don't dislike getting intuitive responses, but forgive me I can only do analytic philosophy.

I think philosophers need to be able to take for granted each other's style and method, and just talk about the problems and conclusions themselves as they must and in cooperative ways.

I agree that there can't be total ignorance and I don't think total knowing could work either. But I think there's a difference between "ignorance is absolute" and "ignorance is total". I think of "ignorance is absolute" as saying "wherever there is anything, there is also ignorance." But I don't think "there is only ignorance." This allows me to say "There is knowledge; and wherever there is knowledge, there is also still ignorance." It has to work this way because if you flipped it around it doesn't work as well: "There is ignorance; and wherever there is ignorance, there is still knowledge." Because it could be said a rock is entirely ignorant and without any knowledge. But no where that there is knowledge is there not some kind of ignorance. Hence "There is knowledge; and wherever there is knowledge, there is also still ignorance."

apatheticynic

I believe a general knowledge is more useful than a specialized pursuit. The interconnections that might occur from a more general knowledge base might enable us to be less ignorant, compared to a specialized knowledge base. Until humans achieve immortality, we simply try to understand what we can before death. Truth is subjective.I think recognizing we are mostly ignorant is knowledge that has value and may spur us on to lessen our ignorance. I feel there is some merit in this, yes.

Wayfarer

The issue you're commenting on is related to the fact (in my view) that science is not all-knowing (which is the meaning of 'ominscient'). Scientific knowledge is useful, scientific method indispensable, but as the OP says, for everything that is discovered through it, more mysteries present themselves. And besides, the proliferation of knowledge is nowadays so great that no individual can hope to be conversant with more than the smallest fraction of it.

But the question which I think this raises is: is knowledge in the sense of 'scientia', all there is to know? 'Ignorance' has another definition, variously given as 'avidya' (sanskrit) or 'nescience'. That has connotations of a vaguely gnostic or religious kind: not the absence of knowledge of some particular theory or set of facts, but of 'ignorance' as an existential condition, or the absence of some fundamental insight.

Now that attitude is fundamentally incompatible with most of what is understood under the heading of philosophy nowadays. Modern philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, sees itself as being a junior assistant to science, which does the real grunt work. And science, obviously, has a practically infinite, or at any rate endless, scope.

I am, however, sceptical about that understanding.

IVoyager

It's interesting that I don't find much of what you said disagreeable, Wayfarer, but I do consider myself to be part of that analytic philosophy camp with the responsibility of helping science do its job, and especially doing the job of clarifying ignorance. Maybe, somehow, this almost-axiom I am proposing is the bridge between your approach to doing philosophy and analytic philosophy?

Even if we could somehow elevate ourselves to comprehend the collective knowledge of mankind, we would accelerate our capacity to learn and study dramatically... But this doesn't mean we wouldn't reach new mysteries which are proportionately more difficult to understand, and reveal new kinds of ignorance we hitertoo couldn't even reach with philosophy.

I'm wondering if you can clarify the "nescience" approach to understanding ignorance? I feel like I could distill some principle from it, but I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Particularly I don't see how to differentiate knowledge/ignorance of theory/fact and knowledge/ignorance of insight.

IVoyager

↪apatheticynic

I generally agree with you. Actually, I'd say both kinds of knowledge are important. We need some specialists and some generalists. And when we have an over-abundance of one kind, we need a revolution of the other. Right now we have an over-abundance of specialists so we need a revolution of generalists. And one day if this leads to an over-abundance of generalists, we may need a revolution of specialists.

charleton

To know if ignorance is or is not absolute, one would have to have some knowledge, Thus the idea that ignorance is absolute is self defeating. knowing anything about anything, means ignorance is not absolute.
In the same way, asking if any truth were absolute refutes itself as having to ask the question implies that you do not know.

IVoyager

To know if ignorance is or is not absolute, one would have to have some knowledge, Thus the idea that ignorance is absolute is self defeating. knowing anything about anything, means ignorance is not absolute.
In the same way, asking if any truth were absolute refutes itself as having to ask the question implies that you do not know.

Respectfully disagreed. Absolute is not the same as total; you conflate absolute with total. Total refers to the whole of the thing. "Ignorance is total" states "the whole sum of knowedge-types are ignorance and not not-ignorant" or "there is only ignorance." Being absolute refers to being universally valid/never not applicable, "Wherever there is X there is also ignorance."

Therefore wherever there is knowledge, there is also ignorance.

Wayfarer

I'm wondering if you can clarify the "nescience" approach to understanding ignorance? I feel like I could distill some principle from it, but I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Particularly I don't see how to differentiate knowledge/ignorance of theory/fact and knowledge/ignorance of insight. — "iVoyager

Where you find the idea of 'nescience' is as a translation of the Indian 'avidya', where 'a-' is the negative particle, and 'vidya' is knowledge..

Vidyā or Vidhya means "correct knowledge" or "clarity" in several South Asian languages such as Sanskrit, Pali & Sinhala.

However the nearest equivalent to 'vidya' in English is probably something like 'wisdom' or 'gnosis'. The latter also has counterparts in Indian languages, namely jñāna, and prajñā, which is the Buddhist term for 'wisdom'. So you could say 'vidya' is more lke an 'existential insight' or wisdom than knowledge of external or objective facts. So 'ignorance' as a translation of 'avidya'is more like 'un-wisdom' than 'lack of knowledge of particular facts'.

So 'nescience' is the negation of 'wisdom' or insight, rather than the lack or negation of scientific knowledge as such.

On the one hand, there is no end to knowledge - there will always be more facts to discover, and science is by its nature, a process of 'creative destruction', as new observations make old theories obsolete. But on the other hand, maybe science itself relies on particular cognitive abilities or the product of a certain mode of knowing, so has inherent limitations, no matter how much is known about empirical facts.

However, I also think a lot of what goes on under the name of science is actually 'techne':

Techne is a term in philosophy which resembles epistēmē in the implication of knowledge of principles, although techne differs in that its intent is making or doing as opposed to disinterested understanding.

As an activity, techne is concrete, variable, and context-dependent. As one observer has argued, techne "was not concerned with the necessity and eternal a priori truths of the cosmos, nor with the a posteriori contingencies and exigencies of ethics and politics. [...] Moreover, this was a kind of knowledge associated with people who were bound to necessity.

(Wikipedia)

I suppose, insofar as science is concerned with the discovery of first principles, then it might actually be something more than or other than techne, but, as I say, I think a lot of it is that.

Notice that the species designator for us is h. sapiens, where 'sapience' means 'wisdom', in a sense very similar to 'vidya'. Whereas, 'scientific man', man who makes, is arguably engaged in transforming him/herself through techne into homo faber.

IVoyager

↪Wayfarer

This is a fresh thread of thought, thank you very much for that.

In another forum I mentioned wanting to think about an objective definition for philosophy. I don't want to get onto talking about what it would be, but a gentleman replied "There are no objective meanings for words." In fact, I'm a firm believer that there are objective meanings for words, it's just that there are no objective words.

I wonder - is what avidya refers to a different object-entity then what I'm referring to with "ignorance"? While the dictionary doesn't distinguish great difference between nescience and ignorance, I think we as philosophers should question that.

When investigating concepts of good and evil I came to regard there as being a difference between what we're referring to when we talk about "good and evil" and what we're talking about when we say "good and bad", sometimes. When we are talking about methods in technae (I always want to use the ae for purely stylistic reasons) we can talk about "doing good engineering" and "doing bad engineering." But we aren't precisely saying "doing good morality" and "doing bad morality" when we say "doing good" and "doing evil".

I came to think there must be two sets of clear terms: fine and bad; good and evil.

Here too I see two object entities: knowledge and wisdom. I don't think either of these are predicated on each-other, neither is necessarily inherited from each other, and neither are mutually exclusive. But we can talk about "ignorance" in relation to either in the same breath. It may be philosophically apt to say "we are ignorant without knowledge and nescient(sp?) without wisdom". Even then I like avidya better then nescience, but I wonder how would you say the word in reference to someone, "You are avidya." I would declare the comparative term to my proposed "ignorance" as "ashikshit/अशिक्षित".

But of course, I don't think the word matters, only its definition ;)

I do think science is something more than techne, which includes some acts that are techne. Consider that it is sometimes the role of a scientist to debate in defense of "round earth" against "flat earth". This debate is a techne harnessed to advance scientific interest and knowledge. But the science itself is ideally "disinterested understanding."

IVoyager

↪Wayfarer

@Wayfarer Did you have a chance to think about my response?

Wayfarer

↪IVoyager

Sorry, I have been caught up with other things.

I wonder - is what avidya refers to a different object-entity then what I'm referring to with "ignorance"? While the dictionary doesn't distinguish great difference between nescience and ignorance, I think we as philosophers should question that. — iVoyager

'Avidya' is the noun form, not the adjective - I'm not sure what the adjective would be.

The situation is complicated by the prominence of science in Western culture. There are many (see for instance here) who would insist that there is no wisdom to be had apart from science, that the kind of 'wisdom' that I am referring to belongs to archaic traditions such as the Vedic culture of India. What I am referring to has religious connotations - the wisdom, or 'sapience', that is the opposite of ignorance, which is more like 'spiritual illumination' than knowledge of specific facts.

I do think science is something more than techne, which includes some acts that are techne. Consider that it is sometimes the role of a scientist to debate in defense of "round earth" against "flat earth". This debate is a techne harnessed to advance scientific interest and knowledge. But the science itself is ideally "disinterested understanding." — iVoyager

I think you're right in essence - but the situation is very complicated. Not only do we have the actual empirical facts to deal with, but also the question of meaning. Whereas for the ancients and medievals, 'the heavens' were literaly the dwelling place of God and the spirits, we have now been out there and we know its basically mostly empty space, radition, stelar debris, and so on. This is more than simply a scientific discovery, it also affects the idea of 'anthropos', of what humanity's meaning and place in the universe is. The discovery of the'appalling vastness and emptiness' of the Universe was also a turning point in the history of consciousness.

At this point in time, the major sciences, like cosmology and physics, are faced with a very large number of enormous conceptual difficulties. I won't try and list them all here, it would take pages to even describe them. But suffice to say, I think the prospect of science reaching any kind of 'unitive vision' in my lifetime is basically zero. That isn't to say there won't continue to be breakthroughs and discoveries as of course there will, but I don't think it will add up to a vision of the cosmos ('cosmos' meaing 'a unified whole'). So in that sense, your original post is pretty accurate - the knowledge we have through scientific means will always be partial and limited.

Wosret

While technically correct, not really a big deal in my view. Most things aren't worth knowing, most details are insignificant, unimportant, adds nothing of consequence. Sure, there are plenty of things that I don't know that I'd like to, but the ones people go on about makes up a list of like ten things tops -- and there may be many things that I don't know that I know that I want to know but don't, or whatever, but it certainly isn't an indiscriminate list that wouldn't be satisfied with any less than omniscience perfect knowledge of every single thing. It would be a fairly short list.

IVoyager

↪Wosret

I get what you're saying. I mean, I'm ignorant of interpretive dance and I don't really feel a great need to not be ignorant of it. Same with Baseball. I really couldn't give a shit about the guy going up to bat, where he's from, how well he's doing this season.

But the more I learn, the more I feel like I know the scope of my ignorance. This informs my decision making process.

Other people who seem to know less, who are then more confident in their knowledge and less aware of their ignorance often act differently then me. Look at Twitter, nine times out of ten someone has said something which came from their ignorance very confidently. Someone else is very angry, "how could you possibly be so ignorant!?" It is as if there is a profound ignorance of the implications of ignorance. The dialogues that follow are almost always unhealthy. All these people are profoundly ignorant of their own ignorance, but it's not because they haven't studied something important. It's because no one is looking at ignorance in depth.

Looking at the philosophical literature on knowledge there seems to be a heavy bias towards studying knowledge over ignorance. What are we missing by way of doing this? How can you be sure the absolute of ignorance doesn't carry heavy implications you could only know by doing philosophy on the subject? I think there are many important ethical implications to ignorance as an absolute.

Is ignorance an absolute?

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