“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

-Daniel Boorstin/Stephen Hawking

This is certainly interesting to think about! Intuitively, ignorance seems to be the “enemy” of knowledge. The word ignorance itself is literally defined as a lack of knowledge! If you stop to think about it though, ignorance itself isn’t the enemy of knowledge. Being ignorant means you have a lack of awareness or understanding, but it doesn’t harm your ability to learn if you choose to do so (as long as you have enough foundational knowledge). In other words, ignorance doesn’t always quench your curiosity.

However, having a false perception of knowledge quenches your curiosity because you think you have the answer. The illusion of knowledge is ironically the enemy of knowledge because there are multiple theories or possibilities for nearly all subjects of study. This means being too firmly rooted in your own opinion hinders your ability to realize that another theory is closer to the truth. You know longer look for knowledge, even if you don’t have the truth, because you cannot “fill a cup that’s already full.”

Ignorance is an empty cup. The illusion of knowledge is when you think you have a full cup. Which cup is worse? Daniel Boorstin and Stephen Hawkings believed that the belief that you have a full cup is more detrimental to knowledge than an empty one. This means that learning something incorrectly is worse than not knowing it at all.

In countries ruled by dictatorships, oftentimes some scientific books will be banned. Why do you think that is? To prevent people from thinking, so that they blindly follow their leader. The citizens of such countries may develop a false perception of knowledge because they could end up believing that certain forms of rational thinking are unneeded or even damaging.

There are plenty of reasons why learning is important, but there are two main reasons I personally like to focus on. The first is that learning is the key to change. The second is that when you learn new things, you will eventually realize that what you know is never carved in stone, as each generation grows a little wiser and rethinks their ideas.

If the illusion of knowledge is the enemy of knowledge, then realizing you know little or even nothing is true knowledge. To sum up a quote with another quote, Socrates once said, “True knowledge exists in knowing you know nothing.”