There’s an old quote by Ibn Al-Haytham — Alhazen as he’s known in the West — where he declares, “The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads.” Now, Alhazen is mostly known for his groundbreaking work on optics, the study of the human eye. But as it turns out, he wasn’t just dissecting eyeballs, but also the very fabric of what we hold as “truth.” His point was if you want to uncover the truth, you’d better be ready to cross-examine every word like a hostile witness.
In my not-so-humble opinion, science isn’t some shiny, separate entity floating blissfully apart from philosophy. The ancient Greeks understood this. To them, science was just another branch of philosophical inquiry. So, when I stumbled across Alhazen’s little nugget of wisdom, it felt like finding a handy lantern that’s already lit for me at the outset of a dark passageway. Naturally, I considered diving headfirst into an extensive exploration of these ideas. After all, why settle for light reading when you can write an intellectual treatise, right?
Now, for a bit of context: my early days of academic misadventure had me pegged as a future social sciences instructor. Those early inclinations betray the fact that I have a somewhat scientific approach to intellectual pursuits. So, it’s clear to me that the Greeks were onto something when they used science to answer philosophical questions. Therefore, I’ve adopted the same method. It’s given me some pretty bizarre insights into everyday nonsense, and occasionally it even makes me sound smart.
If this approach has taught me anything, it’s that being unpopular is a sign of independent thought—assuming, of course, that your unpopular opinions aren’t just you being an insufferable contrarian. Then again, even contrarianism has its place. Herd mentality is the enemy of progress, and mob rule is just a recipe for disaster. Thus, I’d still rather hang out with the contrarians, even if it means enduring the occasional whiff of self-righteousness.
The most crucial takeaway here, though, is that misinformation isn’t a modern problem. We didn’t just wake up one day in the 21st century and decide to invent fake news. The origins of alternative facts and truth-bending go back millennia, long before social media gave every idiot with a smartphone a platform. The tragic irony is that we should be the most educated generation in history, but instead, we’re stumbling around like intellectual toddlers in a world that suddenly requires us to be philosophical giants to solve even minor problems.
So, let’s take a page from Alhazen’s book. Rather, we should tear that page out, scribble angry notes in the margins, and toss it across the room in a fit of academic fury. In any case, be an enemy of all that you read, watch, or hear. It’s the only way to find out if what you’re reading deserves your trust, or if it’s just another piece of well-packaged but low-nutrition nonsense.
~ Amelia Desertsong
