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Ignorance Is Bliss

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Iraaj Majumdar
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Question 3 : Ignorance is Bliss “Ignorance is bliss” was first put into a phrase by Thomas Gray in is ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. When considering this, to me the key thing to understand is perception. “Comparison is the thief of joy” – Theodore Roosevelt. If we are to say that ignorance is bliss, then we are saying that knowledge is sadness. Turing and Russell, noted logicians, would say that of course ignorance is bliss. When we are unaware of the things that could make us unhappy, we are in a state of happiness. But is that to say we were happier? Ignorance is plainly then just ignorance. It is only through knowledge that we can understand that we were happier when we didn’t know. We do not know what we are ignorant of until we discover the truth. To the example at hand; Cypher would be neither happier nor unhappier being back in the matrix. The only way he would know that he was blissful would be by comparison, making this idea in itself a paradox.
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but the thoughts about it. Beware of the thoughts you are thinking” – Eckhart Tolle. Tolle’s view supports the idea that it is the knowledge that makes us understand whether or not we are happy. The idea that thinking is what makes us happy goes all the way back to Descartes, in a way. If the only thing we are sure about are our thoughts, then we are the masters of our own ignorance and our own bliss. Having a Socratic understanding of the limits of your own knowledge, and realizing your own ignorance does not mean to say that this is where the final thoughts will fall.
“Ignorance is bliss.” We would say in passing, when commenting on the apparent happiness of someone who we assume to be ignorant and happy. But this should not be confused with being happy because of their ignorance. The causality of the

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