I don't think that they have a correlation. I consider myself to be comparatively well-informed, and I am a very happy and optimistic person. Granted, I am Socratic in that I don't think I really know anything.

Request for elaboration is one thing, asking for elaboration but then shutting your brain down is one thing.

This all stems from an English lesson once, when our teacher wanted to point us Scotland on a world map. I did this quickly as I'm rather good with geography, but then this one girl experiences a jawdrop and, baffled, asks me how did I know such a thing. HOW COULD I NOT!? She was placing Scotland in South Africa, god damnit! Okay, I start quickly briefing main locations where English is spoken in. Y'know, pointing out where is Canada, India and all that. After my brief speech she still doesn't remember where Scotland is. All this time she focused her entire brain capacity, ALL OF IT, to process the amazing fact that I knew where Scotland is. And this was seventh grade.

That I call ignorance. Or all right, just one branch of it.

Those who refuse evidence and don't listen to opinions I just call mental defects and usually ignore them completely. I keep an open doors policy myself and am ready to give up my own principles if they are proven as fallible.

I'm not sure where this girl has been the last 7 grades but she probably is the kind that doesn't bother with learning.

Makes me sad knowing this.

Wasn't the only one. :cryvaultboy:

Ooh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Q_mZNiGQs&feature=channel_video_title

Nope. If ignorance was bliss, more people would be happy.

Ignorance is bliss; and if you mess with the ignorant's bliss, they generally tend to get angry.

Pretty much what I was going to say.

In other cases, no, I do not thing being ignorant of something makes you any more happy than being knowledgeable of it.

I used to try to look for the meaning of life. I think I did very well in finding "The warning before the path to the meaning of life". I was looking at Princes' Street Gardens in Edinburgh from a bridge that crosses it. I'd learned the previous day that once upon a time the whole park area was a loch, and I was trying to figure out where the water line was before it was drained - and each time I looked I imagined the water at different levels.

Now I'm sure I could have sent an email to some expert at the local university or asked some local historian and got an answer quickly - but I realised that would ruin the magic. Part of the magic of that moment was seeing a different possibility each time I blinked.

So yes, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Yes, ignorance is bliss

not really, because the ignorant is still troubled with what little they do know. compared to the horrors and bad things they do not know about it surely is bliss. however an ignorant person will still complain about the comparably small problems in their life and feel as if their troubles are as great as in the rest of the world.

Out of sight, out of mind, is similer. Also, its like Plato's Cave. Not to mention, you have to say the whole quote, which is:

where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

And before that, comes:

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more;

In this context, and a few others, ignorance truly is bliss.

Sigh, its people like you who make me really [censored] uncomfortable with the world, and who made me convert to religion in in the first place :facepalm:

For the sake of not getting kicked off of these forums I am not going to pursue this.

Must.....resist........philosophical..........rant........

If ignorance is bliss, you must be very happy.

Aside from that, this post in itself could get you kicked off the forums.

Ignorance begets confidence more than it does knowledge
- Charles Darwin

But in a nutshell, ignorance is like a cradle. But one cannot live in a cradle one's whole life.

Well said mate. :tops:

I'm also enjoying your sig.

I feel like this topic has some sort of.... well some of the posts have an aura to them which just screams elitism, where they're worded like "Everyone is ignorant but I am enlightened to this, and thusly am not."

Iunno, ignorance is, as stated before, a double-edged blade. Not knowing something like that your SO is committing infidelity, for example. If you don't know, you won't suffer the pain of going through the trust shattering, but if you don't know it, then you're being harmed without your knowledge.

I'd say, in the long run, it really depends on the person too. Some people simply cannot handle knowing a lot of stuff, it sets them into a depression. Other people will gain the knowledge and be the same or happier about it. I wonder if it's anything to do with learned helplessness; some people learn more about the world and they end up viewing it as an utter cesspit and feel like it's worthless to try and change it, for example. :shrug:

"Not giving a [censored] is bliss, ignorance is no excuse"
- Wyatt W.R.

Just like everything else, it isn't a rule. It depends on the situation. Some things are better not known, and others are good to know. I would say it's as simple as that, but it can be infinitely more complicated than that too.

i dont know, is ignorance bliss? is the aptitude of trivial knowledge really all that helpful? i can assure you its quite the dr. manhattan theory. the more you know, the less you begin to care

I really truly wish I could see the world as a perfect, pleasant place to live. I wish I didn't know about all the hate, greed and corruption. I wish I didn't know about famine, disease and war. Without knowing these things, I think I'd be happier, not only for myself, but for everyone. If I don't know people are starving, I could live my whole life thinking everyone is eating as good as I am (Everyday). If that's not bliss, I don't know what is.

Now what's worse...Ignorance or apathy?

I was blissfully ignorant before of the forum rules, I recently re-read them and have realized that I let my inner atheist get away from me and hereby apologize to all religious folk and to the moderators.

If the world was perfect, we wouldn't be alive to begin with.