16 unchanged lines collapsedYou asked whether rational but false ideas must exist. That is what Rand means by “not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.” Blindness = being wrong on some issue, refusal to see = refusing to seek or recognize the truth on some issue. To her, blindness and the refusal to see are not the same thing, which answers yourquestion.↵ ↵ > If I get her right, one could in principle hold a rational belief which is false —a belief in god, say— so long as this belief stems from a sincere effort to explain the world and so long as the believer is ready to jettison his belief if he were to think of some reason why it cannot be true.question.
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You asked whether rational but false ideas must exist. That is what Rand means by “not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.” Blindness = being wrong on some issue, refusal to see = refusing to seek or recognize the truth on some issue. To her, blindness and the refusal to see are not the same thing, which answers your question.