Is knowledge a curse?

Knowledge is only a curse when I get headaches.

Originally posted by Quark_666
Some suffering leads to happiness.

Which eventually leads to greater suffering.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Which eventually leads to greater suffering.

Originally posted by Quark_666
I don't really see the connection.

To be happy you have to do something, that alters something else and far enough down the line you'll cause suffering.

Originally posted by Quark_666
Just to bring it to my level, can you convince me that in the long run I'll be happier if I drop out of college?

I can't, nor do I know enough about you make an argument if I could. The ability to think intelligently isn't what results in suffering, it's the ability to think at all.

I believe knowledge is very much a curse. If you are unaware, then you're blissfully living in oblivion. Adam and Eve were unknowledgable when first created, and were happy that way. Once given knowledge, hardship began. If you look at it from a Christian perspective, just an example, God did not mean for humans to contain knowledge. When they gained it they were punished for it. From a Christian perspective I believe God very much meant knowledge to be a curse on humans, punishment.

So by using technology you're perpetuating the curse . . .

You should definitely drop out of school. Soon.

"Knowledge is a great power. Lack of it is darkness"!!!!!I completly agree with this proverb.

ignorance is bliss. i remember the matrix scene where cypher can't taste the steak

He could taste it. He just lamented that he couldn't in the real world.

if u mean like scholary knowledge,then no,but if u ean like secrets and personal stuff,then hell yes.one of my ways is the simple qoute "ignorance is bliss"

That dude^ just said that.

knowlege is a blessing and a curse

if you use the knowlege to do harm others its a curse
knowlege is a blessing if it prevents you and others from harm.

Originally posted by Nemesis X
Knowledge is only a curse when I get headaches.

I argee! 😉

Of course it's a curse! When youre surrounded by stupid people what do you expect.

I wish I had never read a freeken book! 🙁 😂

Originally posted by inimalist
man, people keep making threads like this

knowledge = power. I don't know where we lost that....

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Athens vs Sparta

PhD Candidate vs Man with Club

Rome vs Germanic Tribes

Fundamentalist Christianity vs Science

Extremist Islam vs Stock Brokers

Abraham Lincoln vs John Wilkes Booth

It's fairly stupid to claim that knowledge is power in anything but a very small number of circumstances. Technology is power. Influence is power. Knowledge is exploited by those who want actual power and then cast aside.

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
Right, so if we have this equation proven or disproven as the case may be, what is power?

Energy per unit time.

Or in a more abstract sense the ability to get the things you want done when you want them done (which ties right into that scientific definition).

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Energy per unit time.

Or in a more abstract sense the ability to get the things you want done when you want them done (which ties right into that scientific definition).

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
What of irrelevant and trivial knowledge? That is still knowledge, but it does not help to achieve goals. For example, if there is a meteor plummeting toward the earth, and you want to stop the meteor from crashing in to your planet, and you know that the sun is made of hydrogen, does that bit of knowledge increase the likelihood of you stopping that meteor. Or, is that bit of knowledge power?

There are, in a quick analysis, two major elements to knowledge: breadth and depth. Your example implies that deep but narrow knowledge is the only useful kind. However broad but shallow knowledge means you're more likely to be useful in a randomly selected situation.

No knowledge is totally useless all of the time for everyone. Little bits of trivial can end up altering your whole view of the world (the planets don't quite seem move properly, photons are waves but have discrete energy levels), though you obviously shouldn't depend on that happening.

So what I'm saying is while the knowledge that the sun is made of hydrogen is of no use when you want to stop a meteor it is of use when you want to calibrate your instruments in astrophysics (I assume) then it is of use, then it is power.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
There are, in a quick analysis, two major elements to knowledge: breadth and depth. Your example implies that deep but narrow knowledge is the only useful kind. However broad but shallow knowledge means you're more likely to be useful in a randomly selected situation.

No knowledge is totally useless all of the time for everyone. Little bits of trivial can end up altering your whole view of the world (the planets don't quite seem move properly, photons are waves but have discrete energy levels), though you obviously shouldn't depend on that happening.

So what I'm saying is while the knowledge that the sun is made of hydrogen is of no use when you want to stop a meteor it is of use when you want to calibrate your instruments in astrophysics (I assume) then it is of use, then it is power.