Ignorance=bliss - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

YzermanS19 · 07-24-2004, 12:47 PM

The more I think about it, the more I feel as though the greater knowledge and understanding of the world I have, the more it hinders my own personal journey towards and view of happiness.

For example, imagine living in the middle ages as an indentured servant living under a noblemen. You have no concept of freedom, choice, or decision. You get up every day, work until night falls and do the same exact tasks.

One may say that this is monotonous and boring, but I say that if you don't know anything besides that, you wouldn't realize it.

Of course, there are flaws to the middle ages reference. I believe the allegory of the cave is a better example. I'm sure you can google it if you haven't read about it.

What I'm trying to say is that with knowledge comes a price. Theres always something else to strive towards, and happiness, when gained is short lived. Only when you no nothing better than what you have is when you finally are able to accept and live happily.

I guess I'm not yet a true philosopher. Plato said the true philosopher would leave the cave and return to inform the rest of the life outside of it.

I'm not so sure I'd leave in the first place.

wilbjammin · 07-24-2004, 01:50 PM

Yeah, if you don't know Plato's cave it is ripped off in the Matrix with the two pills metaphor.

I think the key is that once you see the absurdity and dark side of existence to then be able to life with something of your own. Philosophers have spent many centuries trying to determine how to live and why to live. The problem with choosing ignorance is that it is a Bad Faith way to live. That merely translates as severe cognitive dissonance.

The trick is to find something of value to you and to embrace it. Whether that is free will, God, defiance/rebellion, creativity, art, order/conformity, etc. it doesn't really matter as long as you find a reason to live (in fact, simply seeing suicide as not an answer may be enough). I can't tell anyone what to believe and to value, but I know that once I realized that I couldn't reason my way out of the absurdity of existence I'd have to find a way to live with it. And that is the second step... awareness first, coping with it second. Coping can be a much more difficult step.

ARTelevision · 07-24-2004, 04:15 PM

The way I see it, ignorance and knowledge are the same thing - when it comes to deep things.

Bliss is something else entirely.
It's the ultimate goal of selfish people.

YzermanS19 · 07-24-2004, 08:46 PM

Selfish? Perhaps, I won't deny it. But it is debatable if every action we do is selfish, that nothing we do is 100% for another person. This is basic philosophy as well. Psychological Egoism.

Whether or not you believe that, of course, is key. Bliss may be the ultimate goal of selfish people, however, if there are no selfless acts, then everyone is striving towards bliss--in one form or another.

Of course, this is all a moot point, because there is no possible way to "unlearn" what we already know....and even if we could, we'd re-learn it through other means--it's not possible in this modern world.

ARTelevision · 07-25-2004, 06:10 AM

YzermanS19, yes I do think we are programmed, hard-wired as good members of the animal kingdom to be motivated solely by self-interest.

I think it's worthwhile however, to take the time to state that so-called "spiritual" quests, such as the search for Bliss - are nothing more than the pursuit of selfish desire.

YzermanS19 · 07-25-2004, 10:02 AM

Ah, I see what your saying now.

Whereas other endeavors could help yourself and others, the quest for bliss is only for oneself, and noone elses benefit.

Very true.

Mantus · 07-25-2004, 05:26 PM

Are there any quests that arnt selfish?

YzermanS19 · 07-25-2004, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mantus
Are there any quests that arnt selfish?

Well, depending on your view of human nature, yes and no. If your an Ethical Egoist, then no action is completely self-less.

Others believe their is.

I am reminded of a story I read about Abraham Lincoln:

Quote:

Mr. Lincoln once remarked to a fellew-passenger on an old-time mud coach that all men were promted by selfishness in doing good. His fellow-passenger was antagonizing this position when they were passing over a corduroy bridge that spanned a slough. As they crossed this bridge, they espied an old razor-backed sow on the bank making a terrible noise because her pigs had got into the slough and were in danger of drowning. As the old coach began to climb the hill, Mr. Lincoln called out, "Driver, can't you stop just a moment?" Then Mr. Lincoln jumped out, ran back, and lifted the little pigs out of the mud and water and placed them on the bank. When he returned, his companion remarked: "Now, Abe, where does that selfishness come in on this little episode?" "Why, bless your soul, Ed, That was the very essesnse of selfishness. I should have had no peace of mind all day had I gone on and left that suffering old sow worrying over those pigs. I did it to get peace of mind, don't you see?"

Ah, philosophy.

roachboy · 07-25-2004, 08:50 PM

the idea of this thread seems kinda romantic--in hegel-like speak, you start off in an immediate relation to the world; you grow, acquire knowledge and your relation becomes more mediated; one result of this is that you get the sense that you lost something when you passed out of the immediate, and you make a festish of it.
there's no going back.
unless you go the route outlined in that fine film "pi" which involves an electric drill and a forehead. after that, the birds are quite lovely. of course, you cant tell anyone about it.....

on the other topic at hand, i am not sure that self-preservation can be mapped onto self-interest--one being a category used to formalize and explain certain types of responses to a phycial environment, and the other being a kind of vague term for types of action (a kind of mitve for huamn acts, a way of bundling cognitive acts)--is not obvious.

just wanted to point out a problem.
back to watching blow up.

kinsaj · 07-25-2004, 11:00 PM

I think true ignoranve would be bliss, but that is just about impossible in reality. With knowledge, less hapiness seems more common, but I value knowledge just about more than enjoyment.

CoachAlan · 07-26-2004, 01:27 AM

I read this post when it was originally put up, and I have to tell you that I got something entirely different out of what YzermanS19 wrote. To me, it was a treatise on what it takes to be happy, and wheter in knowing as much as we seem to know makes us unhappy.

My contention is that it doesn't. Happiness is, largely, independent of conditions. Consider all that we have in this world, yet so many people are unhappy. In YzermanS19's example, the indentured servant is happy despite his condition becuase he knows of nothing else. To me, this is evidence that we can be happy regardless of our condition. It's more about attitude.

"I'm convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it." - Charles Swindoll

ManWithAPlan · 07-26-2004, 04:44 AM

wow, i agree entirely with yzerman....

on the note of not being able to unlearn... but we sure as hell can block out ;-)

thing i've always hated about myself is how sensitive and perceptive i am to human behavior..... i always pick up on when people start acting differently, or see alterior motives.... not a happy place to be...

As for psychological egoism... the pain we go through for someone can be 100% unselfish, although the goal in the action might be to attain appreciation. In other words, the desire to attain appreciation, and the acknowledgement that someone is worth the pain are unselfish.

roachboy · 07-26-2004, 07:38 AM

if you are aware that you were in a cave, you have already left it.

there is no going back.

heraclitus was right.

CSflim · 07-26-2004, 11:04 AM

To perhaps get the thred back on track;

Earthworms seems pretty ignorant. I wouldn't trade places with them any day of the week.

Perhaps intelligence does allow you to see some of the darker things in life; most notably its inevitable end. But intelligence allows us to appreciate the things that make life actually worth living. It allows us to appreciate the beauty of nature and of art and participate in the many other joys of life.
Perhaps we have to face up to the 'unbearable' realization that we insignificant and powerless in this unimiaginably vast universe; but oh what a tiny price to pay to get a life that is worth living.

Ignorance isn't bliss; ingnorance is apathy.

Mantus · 07-26-2004, 02:21 PM

Ah Plato’s Cave.

As with the Matrix, once you take the pill how do you know you are in the real world? There is no turning around to see what makes the shadows. So there will always be ignorance. There is no returning to the cave because you can never leave it.

I can only guess at why people suffer from knowledge. Perhaps the search for knowledge is like turning of the light and being in left in darkness. At first one is almost blind, seeing a shape there, a movement here and none of it makes any sense. So one panics and runs turns the light back on. But as one delves into darkness patterns start to appear or perhaps the eyes start to adjust and things don’t seem all that frightening anymore. But that's a very rough sketch.

filtherton · 07-26-2004, 06:58 PM

Bliss is overrated. Kind've along the lines of what csfilm said, bliss is apathy.
Anyways, it's not information that is holding anyone back from happiness, it is how said information is dealt with that holds people back from happiness. Even then, i don't think happiness can last, regardless of ignorance or knowledge. Even the most ignorant human beings knows of something that makes them unhappy.

Unright · 07-26-2004, 07:59 PM

I used to believe that "Ignorance = Bliss", but now I don't.

Because we all live in a state of ignorance in one way or another. Tomorrow we will know more than we did today. Does that mean that each day we get older, the more miserable we become?

Of course, mood and knowledge are not entirely seperate. The first poster, (Yzermans19), mentioned that the life of a Medival servant wouldn't be bad because they would be ignorant of a better life. I disagree. The indentured servant would be frustrated by the difference in quality of life. It may cause him to wonder why the world is so.

Ignorance = frustration.

YzermanS19 · 07-26-2004, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Unright

Of course, mood and knowledge are not entirely seperate. The first poster, (Yzermans19), mentioned that the life of a Medival servant wouldn't be bad because they would be ignorant of a better life. I disagree. The indentured servant would be frustrated by the difference in quality of life. It may cause him to wonder why the world is so.

I realize it wasn't a good example, the allegory of the cave is much better. Of course you'd be frustrated that the Lord living in his castle above you didn't have to work as hard and gained more. Imagine for some reason you didn't know of a better life....including the Landlord.... bah, the allegory of the cave works better.

Quote:

Originally posted by roachboy
if you are aware that you were in a cave, you have already left it.

there is no going back.

heraclitus was right.

The point of the allegory of the cave is that you're not aware that you were in a cave. To you, your surroundings is reality. The dark walls of the cave was the world. There is nothing better.

I'm saying is that the moment you do realize something better, you become aware that there must be something better than that....and you work towards it.

Perhaps it is attitude like CoachAlan said. If you can accept your reality, you can be happy.

I'm just in the stage where I think that it would be a whole lot easier to accept my reality if there wasn't an awareness of improvement.

Its a chain reaction though really...once you say yes to an instant is when you say yes to all of reality.

YzermanS19 · 07-26-2004, 09:46 PM

In another remark.....one to surely blow some minds, I thought of this:

How do we know we've ever "left the cave"? When did we escape?

Now thats a tough one to answer.

CoachAlan · 07-27-2004, 12:03 AM

That's the direction I hoped the final Matrix movie would take. When Neo, at the end of 2, used his superpowers to destroy the robots that were chasing them, I took that as a sign that he had figured out that the world of Zion was a matrix world also. His apparent coma was because he had awakened in yet another "real" world. Then the movie would end with the core group in the new "real" world, and the camera would pan back and you'd see the lines of code making up this world, too. And you'd never know "just how deep this rabbit hole goes."

Just as we can never know.

roachboy · 07-27-2004, 09:02 AM

i would think that you know you have left at the moment you can consider the environment that was previously simply given as a discrete entity.
when the cave, to stick with this, goes from being your world to being a cave.
like the ways in which your relation to the world shpaed for you by your parents, say, changes as you age--from being the horizons of the world itself to beng the framework fashioned by two people (or more) that determined the point of entry you had into this bigger, more complex space you call the world.

you dont have to physically move at all.

as for the assumption that pleasure (bliss) would lie only in immediacy---well if you really think that, then you cram your life into a loop of compensatory nostalgia.

your image of immediacy would be rooted in displacements and projections about the content of that mode.

but your ways of thinking about this lost immediacy would have nothing to do with that "lost mode"....

you could spend your life there, too, because there would be no reason for you to ever encounter the gap that seperates your beliefs about the lost state from what that state was.

even if you could go backward in time, which you cant, what you would be looking for would never have existed.

better to do something else, no?

YzermanS19 · 07-27-2004, 10:20 AM

roachboy, I'm with you on this one.

You don't know your in a cave until you realize that it is a cave, a completely independent state from something greater.

And perhaps the whole concept is impossible to achieve, that a state never existed like that in the first place.

Unright · 07-28-2004, 04:58 AM

At the time Plato wrote the Allegory of the Cave, there was (mostly) a polytheistic culture.

Now we have (mostly) a monotheistic one. And people call this progress.

(Agnostic)

Master_Shake · 07-28-2004, 12:49 PM

That's definitely progress Unright, we've managed to get rid of dozens if not hundreds of them. Now there's only 1 to go!

CoachAlan · 07-28-2004, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Master_Shake
That's definitely progress Unright, we've managed to get rid of dozens if not hundreds of them. Now there's only 1 to go!

That is fantastic, Master_Shake! That is going right into my little notepad of internet brilliance.

07-24-2004, 12:47 PM	#1 (permalink)
YzermanS19 not your typical god-fearing junkie Location: State of Confusion	Ignorance=bliss The more I think about it, the more I feel as though the greater knowledge and understanding of the world I have, the more it hinders my own personal journey towards and view of happiness. For example, imagine living in the middle ages as an indentured servant living under a noblemen. You have no concept of freedom, choice, or decision. You get up every day, work until night falls and do the same exact tasks. One may say that this is monotonous and boring, but I say that if you don't know anything besides that, you wouldn't realize it. Of course, there are flaws to the middle ages reference. I believe the allegory of the cave is a better example. I'm sure you can google it if you haven't read about it. What I'm trying to say is that with knowledge comes a price. Theres always something else to strive towards, and happiness, when gained is short lived. Only when you no nothing better than what you have is when you finally are able to accept and live happily. I guess I'm not yet a true philosopher. Plato said the true philosopher would leave the cave and return to inform the rest of the life outside of it. I'm not so sure I'd leave in the first place. __________________ the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly

07-24-2004, 01:50 PM	#2 (permalink)
wilbjammin * * *	Yeah, if you don't know Plato's cave it is ripped off in the Matrix with the two pills metaphor. I think the key is that once you see the absurdity and dark side of existence to then be able to life with something of your own. Philosophers have spent many centuries trying to determine how to live and why to live. The problem with choosing ignorance is that it is a Bad Faith way to live. That merely translates as severe cognitive dissonance. The trick is to find something of value to you and to embrace it. Whether that is free will, God, defiance/rebellion, creativity, art, order/conformity, etc. it doesn't really matter as long as you find a reason to live (in fact, simply seeing suicide as not an answer may be enough). I can't tell anyone what to believe and to value, but I know that once I realized that I couldn't reason my way out of the absurdity of existence I'd have to find a way to live with it. And that is the second step... awareness first, coping with it second. Coping can be a much more difficult step. __________________ Innominate.

07-24-2004, 04:15 PM	#3 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	The way I see it, ignorance and knowledge are the same thing - when it comes to deep things. Bliss is something else entirely. It's the ultimate goal of selfish people. __________________ create evolution

07-24-2004, 08:46 PM	#4 (permalink)
YzermanS19 not your typical god-fearing junkie Location: State of Confusion	Selfish? Perhaps, I won't deny it. But it is debatable if every action we do is selfish, that nothing we do is 100% for another person. This is basic philosophy as well. Psychological Egoism. Whether or not you believe that, of course, is key. Bliss may be the ultimate goal of selfish people, however, if there are no selfless acts, then everyone is striving towards bliss--in one form or another. Of course, this is all a moot point, because there is no possible way to "unlearn" what we already know....and even if we could, we'd re-learn it through other means--it's not possible in this modern world. __________________ the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly

07-25-2004, 06:10 AM	#5 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	YzermanS19, yes I do think we are programmed, hard-wired as good members of the animal kingdom to be motivated solely by self-interest. I think it's worthwhile however, to take the time to state that so-called "spiritual" quests, such as the search for Bliss - are nothing more than the pursuit of selfish desire. __________________ create evolution

07-25-2004, 10:02 AM	#6 (permalink)
YzermanS19 not your typical god-fearing junkie Location: State of Confusion	Ah, I see what your saying now. Whereas other endeavors could help yourself and others, the quest for bliss is only for oneself, and noone elses benefit. Very true. __________________ the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly

07-25-2004, 05:26 PM	#7 (permalink)
Mantus lascivious	Are there any quests that arnt selfish?

07-25-2004, 08:50 PM	#9 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the idea of this thread seems kinda romantic--in hegel-like speak, you start off in an immediate relation to the world; you grow, acquire knowledge and your relation becomes more mediated; one result of this is that you get the sense that you lost something when you passed out of the immediate, and you make a festish of it. there's no going back. unless you go the route outlined in that fine film "pi" which involves an electric drill and a forehead. after that, the birds are quite lovely. of course, you cant tell anyone about it..... on the other topic at hand, i am not sure that self-preservation can be mapped onto self-interest--one being a category used to formalize and explain certain types of responses to a phycial environment, and the other being a kind of vague term for types of action (a kind of mitve for huamn acts, a way of bundling cognitive acts)--is not obvious. just wanted to point out a problem. back to watching blow up. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-25-2004, 11:00 PM	#10 (permalink)
kinsaj Psycho Location: somewhere out there	I think true ignoranve would be bliss, but that is just about impossible in reality. With knowledge, less hapiness seems more common, but I value knowledge just about more than enjoyment. __________________ boom

07-26-2004, 01:27 AM	#11 (permalink)
CoachAlan Psycho Location: Las Vegas	I read this post when it was originally put up, and I have to tell you that I got something entirely different out of what YzermanS19 wrote. To me, it was a treatise on what it takes to be happy, and wheter in knowing as much as we seem to know makes us unhappy. My contention is that it doesn't. Happiness is, largely, independent of conditions. Consider all that we have in this world, yet so many people are unhappy. In YzermanS19's example, the indentured servant is happy despite his condition becuase he knows of nothing else. To me, this is evidence that we can be happy regardless of our condition. It's more about attitude. "I'm convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it." - Charles Swindoll __________________ "If I cannot smoke cigars in heaven, I shall not go!" - Mark Twain

07-26-2004, 04:44 AM	#12 (permalink)
ManWithAPlan Addict Location: M[ass]achusetts	wow, i agree entirely with yzerman.... on the note of not being able to unlearn... but we sure as hell can block out ;-) thing i've always hated about myself is how sensitive and perceptive i am to human behavior..... i always pick up on when people start acting differently, or see alterior motives.... not a happy place to be... As for psychological egoism... the pain we go through for someone can be 100% unselfish, although the goal in the action might be to attain appreciation. In other words, the desire to attain appreciation, and the acknowledgement that someone is worth the pain are unselfish. __________________ In the end we are but wisps

07-26-2004, 07:38 AM	#13 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	if you are aware that you were in a cave, you have already left it. there is no going back. heraclitus was right. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-26-2004, 11:04 AM	#14 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	To perhaps get the thred back on track; Earthworms seems pretty ignorant. I wouldn't trade places with them any day of the week. Perhaps intelligence does allow you to see some of the darker things in life; most notably its inevitable end. But intelligence allows us to appreciate the things that make life actually worth living. It allows us to appreciate the beauty of nature and of art and participate in the many other joys of life. Perhaps we have to face up to the 'unbearable' realization that we insignificant and powerless in this unimiaginably vast universe; but oh what a tiny price to pay to get a life that is worth living. Ignorance isn't bliss; ingnorance is apathy. __________________

07-26-2004, 02:21 PM	#15 (permalink)
Mantus lascivious	Ah Plato’s Cave. As with the Matrix, once you take the pill how do you know you are in the real world? There is no turning around to see what makes the shadows. So there will always be ignorance. There is no returning to the cave because you can never leave it. I can only guess at why people suffer from knowledge. Perhaps the search for knowledge is like turning of the light and being in left in darkness. At first one is almost blind, seeing a shape there, a movement here and none of it makes any sense. So one panics and runs turns the light back on. But as one delves into darkness patterns start to appear or perhaps the eyes start to adjust and things don’t seem all that frightening anymore. But that's a very rough sketch.

07-26-2004, 06:58 PM	#16 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Bliss is overrated. Kind've along the lines of what csfilm said, bliss is apathy. Anyways, it's not information that is holding anyone back from happiness, it is how said information is dealt with that holds people back from happiness. Even then, i don't think happiness can last, regardless of ignorance or knowledge. Even the most ignorant human beings knows of something that makes them unhappy.

07-26-2004, 07:59 PM	#17 (permalink)
Unright Crazy Location: Florida	I used to believe that "Ignorance = Bliss", but now I don't. Because we all live in a state of ignorance in one way or another. Tomorrow we will know more than we did today. Does that mean that each day we get older, the more miserable we become? Of course, mood and knowledge are not entirely seperate. The first poster, (Yzermans19), mentioned that the life of a Medival servant wouldn't be bad because they would be ignorant of a better life. I disagree. The indentured servant would be frustrated by the difference in quality of life. It may cause him to wonder why the world is so. Ignorance = frustration.

07-26-2004, 09:46 PM	#19 (permalink)
YzermanS19 not your typical god-fearing junkie Location: State of Confusion	In another remark.....one to surely blow some minds, I thought of this: How do we know we've ever "left the cave"? When did we escape? Now thats a tough one to answer. __________________ the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly

07-27-2004, 12:03 AM	#20 (permalink)
CoachAlan Psycho Location: Las Vegas	That's the direction I hoped the final Matrix movie would take. When Neo, at the end of 2, used his superpowers to destroy the robots that were chasing them, I took that as a sign that he had figured out that the world of Zion was a matrix world also. His apparent coma was because he had awakened in yet another "real" world. Then the movie would end with the core group in the new "real" world, and the camera would pan back and you'd see the lines of code making up this world, too. And you'd never know "just how deep this rabbit hole goes." Just as we can never know. __________________ "If I cannot smoke cigars in heaven, I shall not go!" - Mark Twain

07-27-2004, 09:02 AM	#21 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i would think that you know you have left at the moment you can consider the environment that was previously simply given as a discrete entity. when the cave, to stick with this, goes from being your world to being a cave. like the ways in which your relation to the world shpaed for you by your parents, say, changes as you age--from being the horizons of the world itself to beng the framework fashioned by two people (or more) that determined the point of entry you had into this bigger, more complex space you call the world. you dont have to physically move at all. as for the assumption that pleasure (bliss) would lie only in immediacy---well if you really think that, then you cram your life into a loop of compensatory nostalgia. your image of immediacy would be rooted in displacements and projections about the content of that mode. but your ways of thinking about this lost immediacy would have nothing to do with that "lost mode".... you could spend your life there, too, because there would be no reason for you to ever encounter the gap that seperates your beliefs about the lost state from what that state was. even if you could go backward in time, which you cant, what you would be looking for would never have existed. better to do something else, no? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-27-2004, 10:20 AM	#22 (permalink)
YzermanS19 not your typical god-fearing junkie Location: State of Confusion	roachboy, I'm with you on this one. You don't know your in a cave until you realize that it is a cave, a completely independent state from something greater. And perhaps the whole concept is impossible to achieve, that a state never existed like that in the first place. __________________ the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly

07-28-2004, 04:58 AM	#23 (permalink)
Unright Crazy Location: Florida	At the time Plato wrote the Allegory of the Cave, there was (mostly) a polytheistic culture. Now we have (mostly) a monotheistic one. And people call this progress. (Agnostic)

07-28-2004, 12:49 PM	#24 (permalink)
Master_Shake Addict Location: Pennsylvania, USA	That's definitely progress Unright, we've managed to get rid of dozens if not hundreds of them. Now there's only 1 to go! __________________ ------------- You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.