Can knowledge be ignored forever?

Question

To each of us as individuals, I mean.

Answer 1

As an individual, if you have the force of will to ignore knowledge presented to you, and never seek to retain or examine it, I think it is quite possible to "ignore" knowledge within your lifetime (forever is a long time).

As a society however, it is very hard to suppress knowledge once it is out there. It is like a virus that can not be stopped by conventional means. Even if you could remove some knowledge, at some point somebody knows enough to remove it, which is enough to have the knowledge still be present and out there for dispersion.

Answer 2

Once an idea gets out, it is out of the bag and there is no putting it back in. It can take years, even centuries for an idea to come to fruition, but the best ones are bound to. Once the knowledge that smoking was bad, for instance, almost everyone ignored it and kept right on smoking. But today, you only occassionally see someone smoking, and in another hundred years, probably no one will smoke. So knowledge can't be ignored forever by an entire population, but I'm not really sure what to say about individuals.

Answer 3

First you have to define knowledge, and then you have specify whether or not knowledge has to be fact. Like the gentleman that commented about President Bush. I don't accept his knowledge as fact, but I do accept that he knows what he knows and as a result has formed an opinion. Opinions differ from knowledge.

What's the criteria for knowledge? To have knowledge all five senses should be engaged. Knowledge is the result of perception and learning and reasoning. Acquiring knowledge is a process; steps must be taken to acquire knowledge.

Again, using the gentleman and his opinion of President Bush. Evidently, he perceived something about President Bush that he didn't like. Possibly from hearing neighbors, or family members voice their opinions, or perhaps something he saw on TV or read online. So in order to have knowledge about what he speaks, he took the next step and learned the facts as best he good. Maybe he went to the library, or consulted some non-biased, nuetral texts and learned what he could about the subject. The last step is to process the information--test what he's just learned against what he already knows.

And the result is that the gentleman gained knowledge on the subject and can speak with some authority.

However, if any of those steps are left out, then how can we say we know anything? If we don't touch it, hear it, see it, smell it, and taste it? In other words, experience it?

So the answer you seek is yes. Obviously. People have a tendancy to stop the process after the first step and not follow through. Of course, that never stops them from speaking up, or voicing half-truths. We can look at the media and see that knowledge is very rarely engaged before reporting.

Answer 4

I think people can pretend, and make a conscious effort to live their lives in defiance of knowledge, but it's not truly ignored. Look at people in the Church, take something like the earth revolving around the sun: they made a conscious effort, even as individual to kill understanding, but it took great effort. They knew and tried to ignore it. How well did that work?

Answer 5

Knowledge can be ignored forever, if we are talking about a retard, yes he can ignored it forever and just live oblivion of it. Though the Intelligent being shouldn't have such a luck, though acknowledge he can ignored but not his own knowledge, or at lest the mean of such knowledge that to me and my perception, signified God gift of Intelligence to man, or the gift to see a/o perceived something which could be good and positive to learn.

Answer 6

Yes it can be ignored. As long as people continue to follow the ignorant that lead all of us, knowledge will be lost. It is the skeptical, the open-minded, and the true leaders of thought that will save knowledge. When individuals allow others to make decisions for them knowledge is lost. When individuals allow themselves to be sidetracked by materialism, wealth, fame, and competition they allow themselves to become lost in ignorance. Small-minded ignorance, its contributors, and side-effects will lead to the fall of our present civilization.

Answer 7

Just because you have knowledge does not mean you are smart. I've met many an educated idiots.
Just look at some of the questions and answers on this here site.

Besides you can look at it this way.
You're losing your sense of humor when you can't imagine the number of laughs you give God.

Answer 8

Indeed do most people ignore knowledge up to their deaths.

Answer 9

Knowledge should never be ignored in any way, and too many people do it. Here is one of my favorite quotes, my sixth grade teacher taught it to me:

"Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them" ~ George Santanya

That, for me, would apply to all forms of history as well, both worldly and personally.

Answer 10

Yes.

Some people never feel the need to look 'beyond' and seek knowledge for itself.