How can knowing be wrong? The closest we get is the knowledge that begets ill consequences for the wielder. Lovecraft explored this with his creatures so incomprehensible that merely gazing at them brought one to madness. What is this but an example of the consequences wrought by knowledge? In this case, it is a piece of knowledge so grand and so beyond anything that we have ever once known, an outlier so far beyond the points of human knowledge and simultaneously beyond the point of deniability that one has no choice but to accept this absurdity as true; truer than any truth, knowledge beyond all knowledge.
But this is the brilliance of it, for there is no such thing we know of that exists. It is left to one's imagination to generate what such a perception must look like to illicit that effect. Lovecraft's otherworldly gods are a postulation of the consequences of knowledge, a forbidden knowledge that carries a consequence that cannot exist without such absurd beings existing. But I digress.
My point is that there is no other reason humans choose ignorance other than fear of what knowing might reap. Forgoing the idea that knowledge is an external concept to the mind, that is to say, knowledge is a concept of the mind alone or just a set of assumptions about the universe, then knowledge can be described better as a feeling about truth rather than the measure of your access to truth. To know something is to have an insight into the subject matter that behooves you to have. The knowledge aids in the decision-making processes that you might make with it. It also influences further knowledge one might develop as time goes on and new experiences are had. So, armed with knowledge, we are better equipped to make good decisions and build stronger foundations of ideas or construct more complex ones. It serves to spur our sense of self.
So when, then, is knowing something ever wrong? Even great religions struggle with this idea. In the Bible, Adam and Eve eat from a tree of knowledge, a sin that is only a sin by God's arbitrage. This same arbitrary nature of the sin of knowledge is reflected in God's grandiose rant against Job, where God spouts fulminating questions against Job about the order, witnessing, and structure of the world. (Passage below for context.) This demonstrates the high standing that knowledge holds among God's values. The knowledge he has of truth, sin, and the order of the universe. One could say this seems to be a point of pride he is splaying to Job, but I digress. It should be noted that God, after doing all this, reinstates everything Job had lost in his test against his abetted God.
God's Whirlwind Defence
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Beae with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
36 Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?
39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
39 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
2 Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?
3 They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.
4 Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
they leave and do not return.
5 “Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied its ropes?
6 I gave it the wasteland as its home,
the salt flats as its habitat.
7 It laughs at the commotion in the town;
it does not hear a driver’s shout.
8 It ranges the hills for its pasture
and searches for any green thing.
9 “Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will it stay by your manger at night?
10 Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
Will it till the valleys behind you?
11 Will you rely on it for its great strength?
Will you leave your heavy work to it?
12 Can you trust it to haul in your grain
and bring it to your threshing floor?
13 “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
though they cannot compare
with the wings and feathers of the stork.
14 She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,
15 unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.
16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,
17 for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.
18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
she laughs at horse and rider.
19 “Do you give the horse its strength
or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
20 Do you make it leap like a locust,
striking terror with its proud snorting?
21 It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
and charges into the fray.
22 It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
it does not shy away from the sword.
23 The quiver rattles against its side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
24 In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
25 At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
It catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.
26 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
28 It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is its stronghold.
29 From there it looks for food;
its eyes detect it from afar.
30 Its young ones feast on blood,
and where the slain are, there it is.”
40 The Lord said to Job:
2 “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!”
Ignorance, then, can only be perceived as a value if one considers only the ramifications to oneself for knowing. Perhaps your current understanding of the world would be undermined, or you could no longer find the will to endeavor toward your goals. Knowledge is a deeply personal concept, a thing that shifts the underpinning perceptions of truth with which we make decisions upon every day. One piece of knowledge is all it takes to change the values we hold for anything. A beloved son becomes a vile wretch. An empty universe becomes an infinite consciousness. This kind of knowledge is often accompanied by exquisite or devastating experiences. But this all seems now to describe something more than mere knowledge; there seems to be an incorporated sense of zeal, a feeling of its truth that can only be described in part by its compelling nature. You no longer wonder if trees can communicate with their surroundings, but you know it.
(We see this similarly demonstrated in Interstellar as well, where one of our protagonists "just knows" which planet they should land on. Power of love, etc.)
So here we see a difference in the semantics of knowledge. Where some mean by knowledge the truths that never shift, others mean the compulsion of feeling something is true. Those of the former camp call the latter's knowledge "belief." The latter retorts against this claim by dismantling truth altogether. "For what can any man truly know of any thing?"
Note:
It should be addressed that the means by which I value knowledge in this essay are from the point of view of determining whether or not a person should ever wish to know something or acquire knowledge themselves. In the determination of whether or not others should have access to some other piece of information is itself entirely irrelevant, for one could quickly see the steep ramifications of knowledge put to use in the wrong hands: nuclear weapon schematic access codes, military base operation locations, personal home addresses, etc., etc.
That's all from me for now. Subscribe and stay tuned for more. Please reach out if you ever want to talk. I'm glad you're here.
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