Review of Ignorance (It's a Book, just in case there's any doubt...)

Content Warning: Mention of Personal Regrets (Even though I shouldn't)

Some books are entertaining, some books are informative, on very rare occasions, some books are both.

This book, is both.

Ignorance is not purely negative, this was the line upon which I decided to read the book, and I was not disappointed in what I found within.  Split into four different types of ignorance, each one very different, but thereby pointing out eloquently that there are reasons whereby ignorance is a good thing.

Ignorances that we do not know.

This covers things like the Dunning Kruger effect, where people who are not skilled believe that they are better than they actually are.  The truth of this is that if you cannot judge that you are any good, then you cannot judge if others are any good, and you therefore cannot compare yourself to others and as a result, you cannot learn to improve because you don’t know that you need to.

I already knew about Dunning Kruger, but reading of something that I knew and finding it to be true allowed me to look at other subjects within the book and consider that there may be truth in them as well.  That they were backed up by references made it a lot easier.

Ignorances that we cannot know.

This covers outcomes that cannot be known, such as the Observer effect, where interacting (even to study) changes the results in order to get them.  How simply changing the wording of a possibility, despite not affecting the actual results, will change the perception of the results in such a way that most people will take the opposite of their first choice. 

If you don’t know the answer, you wouldn’t recognise the answer you get to be truthful, so why ask questions?

And then how to change that so that you can consider what you’re hearing, and why most people don’t do it (Hint: It requires going beyond your own bias, and doing a lot of checking).

Ignorances that Must not be known.

This for me was fascinating, If I’d read nothing else, this part of the book would have been enough.  This deals with the things that we don’t know, and in many cases, make our lives better for not knowing.  When do we die, of what will we die, and if you don’t know you’re dying, should someone tell you, or let you remain blissfully unaware till you die.  This for me on a personal note, my mum had cancer, and did not have long left, but she’d told me a long time ago, when the diagnosis first came about, that if I, the eternal optimist, ever said goodbye, she’d know that there was no hope.

And so I never did.

And that’s why this chapter in particular resonated with me, there are some things we’re better off not knowing, and there are many more examples within.

And finally, Ignorances that we refuse to know

This was perhaps the most abstract of the chapters, dealing with things such as Anticipated Regret, and the Sunken Cost Fallacy, where things could be much worse, but by equal turns, we could choose not to continue with them, or choose to try them anyway in the hope that what we think will happen, won’t happen.

Overall, this book was an excellent stimulus for thought, and one of the very few books I’ve ever given a top rating to. While it deals with complex subjects, it does so with clear and unambiguous language that does not presume any prior knowledge.  This in turn makes it ideal for anyone looking to expand their knowledge without feeling that they might not understand it.

But to sum up on that, if you’re undecided as to if you want to read it, the reason you might not start reading it in the first place is also included in the book, I’m just not going to tell you which chapter.

Thanks to Columbia University Press and the Author for the Free ARC, my views are my own, no incentive offered or accepted.