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Or is it? In this article I attempt to point out that there's no way of knowing, making it a devoid utterance. And even on levels a valid conclusion about this statement can be made, the conclusion is a negative one. This on two levels: on the general conceptual level it's usually firstly perceived at and on the more specific concrete level it's displayed at on second attempt towards proving its truthfulness. Let's take a look at the saying as what it truly states: a lack of knowledge is cause for being in a state of extreme happiness. The one implies the other. Does it? Well, how can one know? If one is ignorant, how could one know what bliss is (like)? Or ignorance for that matter. And if (s)he qualifies for both notions. And if one isn’t ignorant, then one can't possibly conceive the state an ignorant person can or –as the saying implies– must be in. (Which makes him ignorant about how ignorant people feel, which takes us into a paradox. But this is besides the question.) No way of knowing thus on a general conceptual level. On an other (general) conceptual level, the statement is to be considered total bullcrap. For ignorance and bliss are two different concepts the verb 'to be' refers to equality on all aspects, where this equality is far from the truth on –at least– the turf of semantics. The saying might also be perceived as being specifiable to knowledge on a certain subject. One might be intelligent enough to grasp the concepts of bliss and ignorance and one might have been able to deduct (by process of elimination of due qualifications or other similar methods) one isn't overall ignorant. Nevertheless that same person might know that (s)he knows next to nothing about a certain subject, by confrontation with the lack of memory consisting such knowledge. Moreover one might consider one’s self blissful and assign the cause of said bliss to said lack of knowledge on the concerning subject. One can even conduct an investigation on two classes of people; one with knowledge on said subject, another lacking this knowledge; and establish the conclusion that the former class is considered without bliss and the latter class is considered blissful (in ignoring the fact that there are no 100% foolproof scientific implementations existent of these or any concepts, for argument's sake). Though how certainty could be implied that the one causes the other? The same conclusion could be made about green and red apples having a slight, yet distinct difference in taste; ergo said distinction in taste has to be caused by the observed colour. This latter conclusion seems less plausible than the former, since colour pigments on their own aren’t 'known' to cause gustatory stimuli. Correlation never implies cause, it merely suggests a 'likelihood' (another ill-constructed –read: artificial, ergo inexistent– concept, fabricated by man) of plausible cause. The single justified mean of assessing the statement at hand on a specific concrete level, would be introspection of one person containing all four conditions consisting of an ignorant or savant state towards the concerning topic and of a state of bliss or lack thereof (again ignoring the fact that there are no 100% foolproof scientific –introspective– implementations existent of these or any concepts, for argument's sake) at the same time. This to eliminate all other possible variables of influence on either of both dimensions. Sadly, such a –hypothetical– being defies by its essential containing of contradiction all human mental grasp and thus proves to be inaccessible, if existent. |