"Ignorance is bliss"

Do you agree with that? Does knowledge bring you happiness?

Some argue that seeking knowledge and gaining a higher understanding of your existence is the only way to truly achieve happiness. I don't know, but my opinion is that knowledge and happiness have very little in common. A better understanding of society and the world around us only makes the problems of the world stand out more. I'm convinced that every time I learn something new I become more pessimistic about the future of our world.

I've seen so many stupid things today that I've developed a massive headache. <_< I'm currently sitting at a café in Iceland and I'm looking across the street at a shop for tourists and they are selling necklaces with a Celtic Cross on them as Icelandic souvenirs.

I'm not saying that knowledge makes us unhappy, but it certainly doesn't make us happy. I try to be optimistic about things and I would probably say that I'm quite happy in general... but it's hard when you are constantly seeing easily solvable problems created by either ignorance or the mind-numbingly stupid idiom "If it ain't broke don't fix it".

What do you think? Am I just pessimistic or do I have a point?

Ignorance is bliss....for the ignorant only.

I like this quote, mainly because it's always taken out of context

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise."
-- Thomas Gray

I don't find ignorance blissful at all.

I know the real quote, but I decided it could confuse people since it's not as well known as the shortened version.

Also I'm pretty sure that you have no idea what it's like to be ignorant so you can't say whether it's blissful or not.

I'm going to go with yes, ignorance is bliss.

The human condition is a very sad, very lonely thing. It is not bliss. I find those that understand it the least seem to be the happiest.

I'm not one with the Internet yet, so I still have plenty of ignorance

Anyway, I say go over there and inform the tourists of the truth. Also take some aspirin as stupid things will always continue to happen.

Wow talk about no faith in humanity. No ignorance is not bliss but its strange the older you get the less you know. knowledge is its own reward

Ignorance truly is bliss, there are countless examples of this saying proving true, but I don't have all of them in my head right now to type them out. I'll just say that yes I agree with that statement.

Simple example - You just bought a car, but there's an ad in the next day's paper advertising the same car for half the price. You are now pissed, but you wouldn't have been pissed at all if you never saw the ad.

More complex - Not knowing your adopted. :shrug:

If I knew I was going to die the next time I walked out the door, I'd probably be quite miserable. So yeah, to some degree the term "ignorance is bliss" can be proven true.

If you read the poem, you'd realize just how perfect of a response this is :hehe:

And now I did, and I didn't entirely get it. Too tired at the moment to think beyond the confines of my own mind.

I'm not sure if it's what the original (full) quote is alluding to, but I don't think there's a simple "yes" or "no" answer to this one. Sometimes knowing the truth is neither especially helpful nor useful, but the rest of the time I'm not a fan of being kept in the dark; though I sometimes think my curiosity is perhaps too curious for its own good.

Its an extremely general phrase "ignorance is bliss". I disagree with what Exorince said before about how someone can have no idea what ignorance is like. Everyone feels ignorant at one point or another and you can't truly know if ignorance is bliss without discovering the thing you were ignorant about, but I'm going to say what I seem to always say about these types of questions, it all depends on your perspective. I could tell you so much about woodworking or space and all of the things in it, but I don't have a single clue about how the electronics in my Iphone work. If I did know it would probably make me appreciate it a lot more and thus in some small way increase my bliss. I don't think the lack of a certain piece of information ever truly gives bliss because what would you feel happy about? You don't know if the thing you are ignorant about is good or bad therefore you have no reason to be unusually happy or sad. For example, I know so much about the immoral and (I hesitate to use the word)evil of blue chip companies like Walmart, Hershey's and Citi-bank, if I didn't know about all of this then I would be able to walk into a Walmart without getting a sick feeling, I wouldn't be overly happy since I wouldn't know that I had something to be happy about.

No, the world svcks, problems everywhere. Its the general phrase yes, most times out of this ignorance is better.

Yay......think of all the ill-informed people around you, they can accept it.

If we learned everything there would be no mystery left in the world......that would be boring.....good thing that can't happen.

IMO gathering knowledge does not make you any happier but it's the key element in living a good life. To understand your surroundings is to use your human capacity to a greater extent. I could never imagine myself as anything other than a knowledge-hoarding bookworm. It does make me a bit of an elitist though - I feel great disgust towards people who are amazed when I know where Scotland is and what is its capital. But to answer the above argument, I believe that I have achieved this "higher understanding of my existence". Some day I just realized that and I was a whole new person. It can't be put into words.

But perhaps what annoys me most is people who intentionally reject information. People who just stand there dumbfounded, eyes wide and head tilted when you explain a very simple matter such as "what is NATO". And then they just say, "huh?"

IMO it is every human's duty to gather more knowledge. It saves lives, improves lives and humans tend to care more about environment when they know more about it.

What exactly does this mean? There listening you talk on in your explanation but rejecting, it seems there listening? The only people that I hate are people who think they shouldn't learn anything or think learning is....stupid.....(I know right?)

But some people are ignorant due to their economic or geographical area or didn't have the fortune to have an education, or for some individuals they aren't the brightest. I would prefer a hundred times more over to have a willing slow student than some know it all who thinks they have all the answers.

I would say that it isn't technical wrong, but it isn't really right imho. Being ignorant about some things helps to keep people safe within their "imaginary bubble" helping them feel secure. Kind of like the movie Men In Black where there's always some threat people go about their daily lives blissfully ignorant of the dire situation. Sadly this "Ignorant Bliss" is a double edged sword because a person maybe caught unaware of something. This inattentiveness could cost someone their life or some around them their life be it physically, monetarily, psychological, or what have you.

Personally I think there are some things that people need to be blissfully ignorant of in order to keep them safe. However there are some things that they need to have common knowledge of to keep themselves safe in return. It is one thing to have ignorant bliss while it is completely different to be downright stupid.

Personally, I love the knowledge I have acquired. The smattering I know of quantum mechanics isn't just dry facts, it's all this cool mind-bending stuff about what we are actually made of, about how our universe is, from the perspective of our senses, utterly bizarre. I honestly think the more I know, the happier I am. Yes there are things you learn about the depths humanity can sink to, but they would still be there if you didn't know about them. If we didn't know, for example, about the endemic greed and lack of accountability in the world's banking systems, we would still be feeling the effects of the global recession.

Ignorance about the end of your favorite game you haven't finished yet?

Yes, it is blissful.

Ignorance about things affecting the world and your community and making ill-informed opinions or decisions about them?

No, get your [censored] straight.



On a side note, my girlfriend is overly sensitive to bad stuff happening that in no way is related to her. If she drives by a car accident, she'll call me later and sound overly concerned about them. I'm not saying I don't hope for the best, but it doesn't involve me at all. Her mom is the same way, yet whenever they hear their town's fire siren go off, they hop online and track it. I'll get calls like "The such-and-such building caught fire" or "There was a 3 car accident where 2 people were killed." In those situations, ignorance is definitely bliss. That sort of stuff doesn't have anything to do with her, yet she brings it into her life and her knowledge. I would be happy not knowing those things had ever happened.

i find that knowing things makes me happy, so no, I do not agree that ignorance is bliss.

I'm bad at explaining my own beliefs, I admit that. But my point is that when someone hears something new, they don't just take it as a new fact but focus their brain capacity on the very thought of "huh?" You know, in from one ear, out from the other?
So basically: the so-called stupid people.

I think most people use the expression in situations where they were content before being made aware of a problem or being happy before discovering another/better option, etc... In that case, yes, ignorance is bliss.

Here's another quote : "If ignorance is bliss, then knock that smile off my face!" (Rage Against the Machine), which I prefer.

Saying "Ignorance is bliss" is like saying "What you don't know doesn't hurt". There are silences worst then murders... I'm sure you experienced some of them.

Knowledge, to my experience, can't stop imagination, and bliss. When I was a kid, I wondered why the sun turned red in the evening, imagining any kind of (childish) reasons. Now that I know it has to do with the thickness of the atmosphere on the horizon, I'm still amazed. Doesn't mean I can't look at a sunset and still imagine whatever I want.

I'm an optimist. Knowing about the world doesn't make me think it's in poor condition. It just is its condition. That's the way it is. You can't change the whole world, you can change you own world, at a smaller scale, then the whole thing is in proportion to my potential, and I feel better.

The only people I would consider dumb are the people who will not accept fact no matter how much evidence is proven against them or will not even hear someone out on their ideas. If they wish for you to elaborate, well I don't consider that a mark of non-intelligence.

I don't know what I believe, so I guess Ignorance is bliss.