Ignorance might be bliss for a short time but it tends to bite you in the ass later on down the road when you suddenly have serious problems that you should have dealt with earlier but didn't because you didn't know the problems were even there.

However as Nietzsche observed, people can only handle so much truth. That life continues to exist is enabled by our capacity for self-delusion which includes being willfully unaware of real problems.

Well, I could envision many cases where it would be, and many where it would not. But yeah, sometimes it's easier on the person to not know they way things are.

What does it mean to say that ignorance is bliss?

Either ignorance itself is joy-inducing or the truth is painful.

I don't think it's the former because investing emotions is mostly done on the basis of truth. For instance we hold back when given good news, asking ''really?'' Only upon being told that the good news is true do we enjoy the good fortune or fruits of our labor.

As for the latter, I think this is the curse of philosophy. Truth is hard to find and those that are within reach (crime, cheating, evil, catastrophes, climate change, etc) are just not the rainbow we're looking for. Perhaps this is pessimism talking but I've heard that optimists are commonly disappointed by reality.

So, I disagree that ignorance is bliss. Rather, knowledge is sorrow.

Thanks for your interesting answers

So, are you any clearer about whether you are better off discovering the truth, or not?

Life is unsatisfactory in many ways and sometimes one just doesn't need hourly updates on how unsatisfactory it is.

Life is unsatisfactory in many ways and sometimes one just doesn't need hourly updates on how unsatisfactory it is. — Bitter Crank

:smile:

1. "What you know can't hurt you."
2. "What you don't know can hurt you."

I agree with 2. A lot of our suffering comes from psycho-emotional stuff swirling around in our unconscious (beyond our field of internal awareness).

But I don't agree with 1. What we know about self and the world *can* hurt us, a great deal, particularly shortly after first coming to know it.

true but ignoring the unsatisfactory nature of life is ignorant. An ignorance of what is often the truth. I'm not saying it's bad to be ignorant, infact it's often good. In that it may be argued that ignorance may be seen as bliss.

not all ignorance is the same. There is the ignorance stemming from a lack of instruction. One has to be taught the multiplication tables and the Periodic Table. There is the ignorance stemming from having forgotten the elements listed in the Periodic Table. There is the ignorance of knowing that something exists, but not knowing very much about it. I know that Burma is sometimes called Myanmar; I know that it is located between Bangladesh and... Thailand, maybe. I know it is a predominantly Buddhist country. That is about it. There is the ignorance of avoiding information. People who avoid viewing sources of news are deliberately ignorant. There is the ignorance of those who can cite 100 things that President Obama did totally wrong, but have not heard of one fault in President Trump (and visa versa).

Then there is "invincible ignorance": Ignorance so firmly rooted, ignorance so well defended, ignorance so impervious to enlightenment, that nothing will ever get through to them. (It is my belief that Donald Trump is the exemplar of invincible ignorance in our time.)

Perhaps people who are ignorant through no fault of their own (innocent savages) are blissful. The rest of the ignorant have no excuse.

(For those who have forgotten, here is a list of the elements, presented by Prof. Thomas Lehrer, Department of Mathematics, Harvard University

thank you for your reply again. That was what I was suggesting, that those who are ignorant through no fault of there own are perhaps more blissful. It seems to me like being in a bubble. However, what is the difference between choosing to be ignorant and being inherently ignorant (innocent savages as you described). Both times we choose to carry out actions deemed to be ignorant, believing them to be right and not ignorant to our knowledge. Are you suggesting that someone of maybe a high IQ who chooses to be ignorant is more at fault than someone of a lower IQ?

Here is an interesting "long read" in The Guardian about denial and denialism.

Ignorance does not cause, or put one into 'denial', but denial and denialism can shift one solidly into ignorance. Why do people deny accepted truth? Like, "HIV causes AIDS"; or "Human beings are causing global climate change"; or "evolution explains how a myriad of specialized organisms arose"... and so on.

It might take a certain amount of psychoanalysis to determine why some people deny accepted fact. For instance, what is the motivation for denying the holocaust occurred? Something -- and I do not know what it is -- sends some people on a course from knowledge to doubt to denial to denialism. Get deeply enough into denial and one becomes ignorant about some aspects of reality. (But ignorance definitely is not a cause of denialism.)

No doubt, denialists who think HIV doesn't cause AIDS or that the US Government was responsible for 9/11 find comfort in their sealed off view of reality. They have "special access to the truth" which most people have been robbed of. For the denialist, most people are fools for accepting the commonly understood version of reality.

Denialists are more dangerous than the merely ignorant because they energetically defend their ignorance.

There is no attitude regarding relationships that correspond to truth: it's all about what we tell ourselves. So you might as well follow whatever path leads you to happiness.

It means, I think, dim people can be quite happy.

A not particularly bright person can be easily distracted by simply constructed, cheaply produced, models of entertainment. Happy, perhaps, to watch many reruns of Disney films.

that's a good point regarding denialists/conspiracy theorists. I find it funny how many look down upon the general public and judge them to be naive and ignorant due to their inability to believe the conspiracys, but ironically it is them who become ignorant as they become incapable of believing anything accept conspiracy.

the US Government was responsible for 9/11 find comfort in their sealed off view of reality. — Bitter Crank

This is the conspiracy I heard on that. Some bearded guy in a cave on a yak had the sophistication to get around every highly evolved trillion dollar security protocols to achieve what was achieved on that day, and ALL during this:

" Operation Northern Vigilance, was a NORAD operation which involved deploying fighter aircraft to locations in Alaska and Northern Canada. In order to simulate a hijacking situation including terrorist pilots.[1] The operation was a response to a Russian exercise, in which long-range bombers were dispatched to Russia's high north. The operation was one part simulation, one part real world. It was immediately called off after NORAD received word from NEADS that the Federal Aviation Administration had evidence of a hijacking. All simulated information (so-called "injects") were purged from computer screens at NORAD headquarters in Colorado. On receiving news of the attacks, the Russians promptly canceled their exercise as well." (wiki)

When exercises such as the NORAD one are carried out two teams are formed. A red team and a blue team. One team is attacker and the other defender.

During the actual attack security had been stood down prior. Security NEVER gets stood down whether their are exercises or not.

All above are facts (although "caves and yaks" are for theatrical and sarcastic value).

Added to above;

So to further examine the red teem vs blue team exercise protocol, it seems obvious, therefore, that on that day the defender team was STOOD DOWN.

It is admitted as such, in that security was stood down.

So what are the benefits for this?

Keep everyone in fear - great for keeping those tax funds being increased towards security business which ultimately is used to control a nation's own citizens and not to so much defend from other nations.

Other nation's citizens do not contribute the sort of money taxes do to the military industrial government. complex. (yes, it's a thing)

Maybe ignorance of the above is bliss......for those you want to believe everything their government does is for their personal benefit.

Another conspiracy theory I have heard:

If you do not buy the government explanation of 911 you must believe in a flat earth and the holocaust by the Nazis did not happen.

This excerpt from same wiki page is more relevant.

"National Reconnaissance Office drill
Aside from military exercises, a National Reconnaissance Office drill was being conducted on September 11, 2001. In a simulated event, a small aircraft would crash into one of the towers of the agency's headquarters after experiencing a mechanical failure. The NRO is the branch of the Department of Defense in charge of spy satellites. According to its spokesman Art Haubold: "No actual plane was to be involved -- to simulate the damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building." He further explained: "It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility, as soon as the real world events began, we canceled the exercise." Most of the agency's personnel were sent home after the attacks."

And so during this drill the defender team is stood down?

Who really, therefore, WAS the attack team?

The ultimate attack team certainly wasn't in "stood down" mode.

Wow! What a coincidence, eh? Our bearded "Yak-back rider" knew(?) of this exercise for the same day.

Above will be ignored, because..........Ignorance is Bliss.

It's too easy to claim others to be insane by accusing them of conspiracy theory.
We all have heard many ridiculous conspiracy theories. This empowers a few grandstanders to make sweeping jestures about what all is true or not true.

Liberal media. The "me too" movement. Russia muddling in the election. These are theories about conspiracy.

True ignorance, not denial, can be seen in Alzheimer's patients and the mental retarded. They are blissfully happy, they don't have the capacity to worry.

Ignorance cant be bliss for the wise.

It's too easy to claim others to be insane by accusing them of conspiracy theory.
We all have heard many ridiculous conspiracy theories"

I would say, in my case, I read them because there is something drowing me to them, yet to not wrongly concider them "true" or "right" without serious pondering and research first. you may also never "find the answer" or learn the "truth" or what was "right". but it dosent hurt to know them. or is it?
It does make feel a bit paranoid and that cant be good. but I never jump train that quickly. or a metaphor I enjoy better; "I feel obligeted to sit on the fence until I know without question witch side has the greenest grass. and if I jump prematurly to discover I was wrong I hope I acknowledge that I was wrong and climp back on the fence and ponder some more."

Ignorance stands in the way of the truth and the truth is reality and reality IS and should be accepted by all.

so thats a "no" hehe :)

Of course ignorance is bliss! We waste so much of our time wringing our hands, gnashing our teeth, and giving ourselves migraines as we ruminate on the tsunami of insensibilities that washes over us every wretched day.....

a little light relief, enjoy! Oh well, don't enjoy! I can't paste a song from this Mac :lol: If curious it was going to be 'I saw a UFO but nobody believed me by Sneaky Sound System....

:rofl:

lol, the funny thing was that it was a picture with the words: Knowlegde is power! haha..I obviously need some knowlegde in this!

my ignorance did not feel like bliss...