Ignorance

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Ignorance is a lack of knowledge or understanding. Deliberate ignorance is a culturally-induced phenomenon, the study of which is called agnotology.

Contents

The word "ignorant" is an adjective that describes a person in the state of being unaware, or even cognitive dissonance and other cognitive relation, and can describe individuals who are unaware of important information or facts. Ignorance can appear in three different types: factual ignorance (absence of knowledge of some fact), object ignorance (unacquaintance with some object), and technical ignorance (absence of knowledge of how to do something). [1]

Consequences

Ignorance can have negative effects on individuals and societies, but can also benefit them by creating within them the desire to know more. For example, ignorance within science opens the opportunity to seek knowledge and make discoveries by asking new questions. [2] Though this can only take place if the individual possesses a curious mind.[ citation needed ]

Studies suggest that adults with an adequate education who perform enriching and challenging jobs are happier, and more in control of their environment. [3] The confidence that adults obtain through the sense of control that education provides allows those adults to go for more leadership positions and seek for power throughout their lives.[ citation needed ]

In 1984, author Thomas Pynchon observed:

We are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for ruining a good story. [4]

Another effect of ignorance is characterized by the Dunning-Kruger effect, named after the scientists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999. This theory centralizes the behavior of subjects regarding their intellectual capabilities and social behaviors. The limited information or competence of people who possess the Dunning-Kruger translates into a feeling of intellectual superiority. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concept</span> Mental representation or an abstract object

A concept is defined as an abstract idea. It is understood to be a fundamental building block underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Expert</span> Person with broad and profound competence in a particular field

An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field or area of study. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study. Experts are called in for advice on their respective subject, but they do not always agree on the particulars of a field of study. An expert can be believed, by virtue of credentials, training, education, profession, publication or experience, to have special knowledge of a subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially rely upon the individual's opinion on that topic. Historically, an expert was referred to as a sage. The individual was usually a profound thinker distinguished for wisdom and sound judgment.

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people do all in their power to change either so that they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.

Moksha, also called vimoksha, vimukti, and mukti, is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, liberation, nirvana, or release. In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from saṃsāra, the cycle of death and rebirth. In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha is freedom from ignorance: self-realization, self-actualization and self-knowledge.

Avidyā is a Sanskrit word whose literal meaning is ignorance, misconceptions, misunderstandings, incorrect knowledge, and it is the opposite of Vidya. It is used extensively in Hindu texts, including the Upanishads, and in other Indian religions such as Buddhism and Jainism, particularly in the context of metaphysical reality.

Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding answers to the questions "What am I like?" and "Who am I?".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunning–Kruger effect</span> Cognitive bias about ones own skill

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. It was first described by Justin Kruger and David Dunning in 1999. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.

Buyer's remorse is the sense of regret after having made a purchase. It is frequently associated with the purchase of an expensive item such as a vehicle or real estate.

Avidyā in Buddhist literature is commonly translated as "ignorance". The concept refers to ignorance or misconceptions about the nature of metaphysical reality, in particular about the impermanence and anatta doctrines about reality. It is the root cause of Dukkha, and asserted as the first link, in Buddhist phenomenology, of a process that leads to repeated birth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnotology</span> Study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt

Within the sociology of knowledge, agnotology is the study of deliberate, culturally induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data (disinformation). More generally, the term includes the condition where more knowledge of a subject creates greater uncertainty.

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities compared to other people. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memory improvement</span> Act of improving ones memory

Memory improvement is the act of enhancing one's memory. Research on improving memory is driven by amnesia, age-related memory loss, and people’s desire to enhance their memory. Research involved in memory improvement has also worked to determine what factors influence memory and cognition. There are many different techniques to improve memory some of which include cognitive training, psychopharmacology, diet, stress management, and exercise. Each technique can improve memory in different ways.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is communicating with others, assumes that others have information that is only available to themselves, assuming they all share a background and understanding. This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise.

Ignorance management is a knowledge management practice that addresses the concept of ignorance in organizations.

Adarsana refers to the real non-seeing of objects which already exist; it refers to the ignorance of factual existence of things. This term figures prominently in the Yoga school of thought, and in Jain philosophy.

Mithyātva means "false belief", and is an important concept in Jainism and Hinduism. Mithyātva, states Jayatirtha, cannot be easily defined as 'indefinable', 'non-existent', 'something other than real', 'which cannot be proved, produced by avidya or as its effect', or as 'the nature of being perceived in the same locus along with its own absolute non-existence'.

Vidya figures prominently in all texts pertaining to Indian philosophy – meaning science, learning, knowledge, and scholarship. Most importantly, it refers to valid knowledge, which cannot be contradicted, and true knowledge, which is the intuitively-gained knowledge of the self. Vidya is not mere intellectual knowledge, for the Vedas demand understanding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of scientific ignorance</span> Study of ignorance in science

The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is the study of ignorance in and of science. The most common way is to see ignorance as something relevant, rather than simply lack of knowledge. There are two distinct areas in which SSI is being studied: some focus on ignorance in scientific research, whereas others focus on public ignorance of science. Sociology of scientific ignorance is a complementary field to the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK).

The illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) is cognitive bias or an illusion where people tend to believe they understand a topic better than they actually do. The term was coined by Yale researchers Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil in 2002. The effect was observed in only one type of knowledge called explanatory knowledge, in this case defined as "knowledge that involves complex causal patterns". The effect has not been observed in procedural, narrative, or factual (descriptive) knowledge. Evidence of the IOED occurring has been found in everyday mechanical and electrical devices such as bicycles, in addition to mental disorders, natural phenomena, folk theories, and politics, with the most studied effect of IOED being in politics in the form of political polarization.

References

  1. Nottelmann, Nikolaj. "ignorance." Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Robert Audi, Cambridge University Press, 3rd edition, 2015.
  2. [null Firestein], Stuart. Ignorance: How It Drives Science. Oxford University Press, 2012.
  3. Schieman, Scott and Gabriele Plickert. "How Knowledge Is Power: Education and the Sense of Control." Social Forces, vol. 87, no. 1, Sept. 2008, pp. 153-183.
  4. Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (March 29, 1984). "Books of The Times". The New York Times . Retrieved March 23, 2020.
  5. Duignan, Brian (2023). "Dunning–Kruger effect". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 30 November 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2021.

Further reading