Ignorance, Knowledge, Wisdom

Agent Smith September 12, 2022 at 01:36 1125 views 2 comments The Lounge

Socrates:I neither know nor think I know.

The Delphic Oracle:No one is wiser than Socrates.

Q&As, exams, quizzes, etc., we've been measuring people (sizing them up) on the basis of what they know (knowledge). I'm not in any way opposed to this, but would like to put up for discussion a new measure of a person's worth/value by assessing how much s/he doesn't know (ignorance).

To illustrate, supposing there are 4 questions in an exam and you don't answer any of them correctly, your knowledge score is 0% but your ignorance score is 100%. Since Socrates knew nothing (knowledge score 0% and ignorance score 100%) and he, as per the Delphic oracle, was the wisest, a person who gets an F[sup]-[/sup], an euphemism for a 0% knowledge score on one's test, is, hasta be, wise too!

We've been holding the wrong end of the stick all this while. :chin:

A penny for your thoughts ...

Comments (2)

180 Proof September 12, 2022 at 06:13 ¶ #738607 0 likes

I gave it a go last year with this proposal ...
Quoting 180 Proof

SQ (stupidity quotient) tests taken at the end of primary school, again at the end of secondary school and then lastly at the end of professional school (e.g. law, medicine, finance, a research science) would be, IMO, far more useful to society as a criterion for disqualifying idiots from being allowed to squat in high places since, apparently, it is the well above average level of stupidity endemic in the intellectual (bureaucratic) & decision-making classes that is chiefly responsible for the persistently deplorable state of many developed societies (re: climate change, WMD proliferation, human trafficking, neoliberalization, etc). :mask:

AFAIK no takers yet here or abroad.

Agent Smith September 12, 2022 at 06:51 ¶ #738617 0 likes

Reply to 180 Proof

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This [math]\uparrow[/math] isn't an anomaly then - the less one knows the wiser one is! Squares with ignorance is bliss, hedonically that is.

Mahatma Gandhi:[s]Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.[/s]

Gandhi was loco!