Jørgen Aasen Grydenland, elev ved Foss videregående skole i Oslo, oppnådde en imponerende 6. plass i Norgesmesterskapet i filosofi for skoleåret 2023-24. Dette skoleåret deltok 796 elever fra 41 skoler, og finalejuryen besto av Sara Kasin Vikesdal fra Universitetet i Oslo og Håvard Løkke fra Universitetet i Agder. Vi i FilosofiAvisen er glade for å kunne presentere det tankevekkende essayet nedenfor. For mer informasjon om Norgesmesterskapet i filosofi, besøk filosofiforeningen.no.
The wiser you are, the more worries you will have; the more you know, the more it hurts. For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1:18 Good News Bible. American Bible Society. 1976.
The inherit truth of this statement is very much debatable. Knowledge, in and of itself, doesn’t at all imply that one would grow sorrowful if one were to obtain it. In fact, it would indicate the opposite. Knowledge is a virtue (to most) and a goal to aspire to, something to strive for. Like the idea of power, as in the saying “knowledge is power”, that describe knowledge as synonymous with success. Like power it is not possible to gain absolute knowledge, but to have a lot of knowledge, relatively speaking, is very often a good thing. Yet there is something insisting and somewhat intuitive in this statement that makes it believable. Another common saying, “ignorance is bliss” would concur with the citation above. Why is that? Is knowledge simply one or the other? Is it guaranteed to cause suffering, or could it be the key to something else?
By all accounts, on a very technical level, all suffering does in fact come from knowledge (mental suffering that is, not physical). The knowledge that you missed the bus, the knowledge that your partner was unfaithful, the knowledge that your mother died, or the knowledge that you just missed out on your next promotion. All suffering, boiled down to its bare essence, is knowledge that simply comes with being conscious, aware and alive. If you have a functioning lifestyle that resembles most people on the planet, you will experience some of – or other things much like – the examples listed above. In examples like these, the phrase “ignorance is bliss” could be applicable. Like for example, if you never knew you were up for a promotion in the first place, you wouldn’t know or care that you didn’t get it. “What they don’t know can’t hurt them”. In this sense, the quote makes complete sense, however it also carries with it an implication that exposure to all truths, or all increase in knowledge, will cause us suffering.
Now its impossible to determine if all truths of the world would cause more suffering or more pleasure. Even if it were quantifiable, I don’t think that it would even be so cut and cry on an individual level. We all have different inclinations to suffering. Personally, I didn’t care very much when my great grandmother died. She was 97 years old, lived alone, and for the entirety of my life, I had only met her a handful of times. People pass away, they’re supposed to, at the time it wasn’t particularly upsetting to me. I could see the way that it effected the rest of my family, but apart from that it just felt like the natural end of a long lifetime, not something to be upset about. Now, to someone else, perhaps more empathetic than me, a death in the family could be quite upsetting, life altering even. Now how does this pertain to knowledge? The point is that the knowledge of a great grandparent passing away wouldn’t affect every individual the same. So even if we could determine if the universes truth was more painful than pleasurable, we’re not even on a level playing field amongst ourselves. Even so, knowledge has progressed our species incredibly far and saved many people from loss, disease, famine and death. That type of practically applicable knowledge hasn’t directly caused a lot of suffering. However, the quote seems to pertain to the individual level, not the historical and collective level of humanity as a whole.
So, how about we analyze the meaning of the quote. What knowledge is there that causes us more and more pain the more we know about it? The way I see it, the knowledge the quote is referring to is the objective truth. And by the objective truth, I mean the objective, indifferent, cold and lifeless reality of the world. The inherit meaninglessness of existence, the more we know about it, the more we come to understand how irrelevant our place in the bigger picture is. (For the purposes of this text I will be disregarding any theistic viewpoint, due to lack of ability to be a falsifiable theory, and lack of empirical substance).
One of the ecclesial parts of the human experience is the ego, the feeling of self. This feeling of self is somewhat reliant on the idea of a purpose. Humans always find, are given or imagine a purpose to sustain not only their ego, but also to sustain life. Such is evolution that the traits of the surviving species are the traits of a species that are best adapted to survive. For a conscious animal like us, we require a purpose higher than just reproduction, we turn to love (ironically another tool for reproduction), social life and friends, or some chosen “higher purpose” that more often than not come from the invention of society. Such a higher purpose could be the arts, music, religion, philosophy, or work like engineering, law, economics and such. To get back to the point I think what the quote is trying to convey is that we have a hard time dealing with feeling lost and without purpose. the truer it becomes to us that nothing truly matters, the more lost we feel to our purpose, our ego is weakened and we suffer. Knowledge causes suffering.
However, perhaps there could be more to it, another angle. Pain and suffering don’t have to be the end-all-be-all for humanity. In 19 th century existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of happiness and fulfillment, the unhappiest person is the comfortable and familiar person. A person who never challenges themselves, lives by the standards of their surroundings, and seek temporary short-term pleasures. In Nietzsche’s opinion, that is the person that will suffer the most. Paradoxically, he believes that the strongest person, the overman, is the one who seeks out suffering. Distinctly there is a separation between the happiest and the strongest here. The emphasis for Nietzsche was on independence and one’s ability to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. Achieving goals was, much like many philosophers and thinkers before him, his idea of fulfillment. His paradoxical theory about the overman is that the one who seeks out pleasure will suffer, and the one who seeks out suffering will grow strong, and therefor content and fulfilled. While is personally don’t subscribe to Nietzsche’s ideas completely, I acknowledge that they have a lot to them, and a lot of very good insights.
While “seeking out suffering” is a pretty vague guide to happiness – that also could have a lot of damage potential if taken too far – its guiding value shouldn’t be undermined. Humans adapt to their given situation, and given any situation that doesn’t actually kill you, you will come out a more adapt person, even if the experience was negative and caused suffering. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Coming back to the original point of knowledge and suffering, I want to point out that the knowledge of existential truth will cause suffering in most people, considering what we have now discussed, it could also be an opportunity for growth. I personally question if humans can actually comprehend what it truly feels like to be utterly meaningless. We can talk about how old the universe is and how big, in units of millions and billions, but the human brain lacks the complexity to understand truly how vast our observable universe is. That feeling of understanding how little effect we have and how small we are could probably not ever be truly understood. If it were, humanity would most likely seize to function, and people would either commit suicide or commit to absolute hedonism. However, perhaps just the acknowledgment of meaninglessness could give a chance to improve, to grow stronger, to strengthen ones resolve. I find it a compelling example of suffering, to acknowledge and surrender to meaninglessness. It provides a chance to not overthink consequences and emphasize for yourself how important it is to use the lifetime you have. I would posit that with all this in mind, knowledge, in combination with the right mindset and resolve, could be the key virtue to fulfillment.
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