7forever
VIP Member
- Mar 24, 2010
- 1,756
- 26
- 71
Willful ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict ones inner model of reality. At heart, it is almost certainly driven by confirmation bias.
It differs from the standard definition of ignorance which just means that one is unaware of something in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them. Indeed, calling someone "ignorant" shouldnt really be a pejorative, but intentional and willful ignorance is an entirely different matter. In practice though, the word "ignorance" has often come to mean "willfull ignorance", and indeed, in many non-English languages, the word based on the same stem actually carries that meaning.
Depending on the nature and strength of an individuals pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet ones expectations. Often excuses will be made, stating that the source is unreliable, that the experiment was flawed or the opinion is too biased. More often than not this is simple circular reasoning: I cannot agree with that source because it is untrustworthy because it disagrees with me.
In other cases, slightly more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the persons worldview. With regard to oneself, this can even extend to fake locked-in syndrome with complete unresponsiveness. Or with regard to others, to outright censorship of the material from others.
Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to only seek out information that conforms to their pre-existing view points, and subsequently ignore information that goes against them. It is a type of cognitive bias and a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study. Avoiding confirmation bias is an important part of rationalism and in science in general. This is achieved by setting up problems so that you must find ways of disproving your hypothesis (see falsifiability).
Readers should be aware that willful ignorance is a mechanism that actually protects the brain from becoming unable to function in situations that it just cant handle. An individual can never accept its whole own reality being meaningless or making no sense, as that would make it impossible to act towards any goal. Forcing an individual into such a state has psychologically been found to be comparable to the death of the higher developed parts of the brain from an outside perspective.
It differs from the standard definition of ignorance which just means that one is unaware of something in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them. Indeed, calling someone "ignorant" shouldnt really be a pejorative, but intentional and willful ignorance is an entirely different matter. In practice though, the word "ignorance" has often come to mean "willfull ignorance", and indeed, in many non-English languages, the word based on the same stem actually carries that meaning.
Depending on the nature and strength of an individuals pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet ones expectations. Often excuses will be made, stating that the source is unreliable, that the experiment was flawed or the opinion is too biased. More often than not this is simple circular reasoning: I cannot agree with that source because it is untrustworthy because it disagrees with me.
In other cases, slightly more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the persons worldview. With regard to oneself, this can even extend to fake locked-in syndrome with complete unresponsiveness. Or with regard to others, to outright censorship of the material from others.
Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to only seek out information that conforms to their pre-existing view points, and subsequently ignore information that goes against them. It is a type of cognitive bias and a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study. Avoiding confirmation bias is an important part of rationalism and in science in general. This is achieved by setting up problems so that you must find ways of disproving your hypothesis (see falsifiability).
Readers should be aware that willful ignorance is a mechanism that actually protects the brain from becoming unable to function in situations that it just cant handle. An individual can never accept its whole own reality being meaningless or making no sense, as that would make it impossible to act towards any goal. Forcing an individual into such a state has psychologically been found to be comparable to the death of the higher developed parts of the brain from an outside perspective.
