Ignorance in the Information age

1. THE IGNORANT MAN IN
THE INFORMATION AGE

2. The information age forces each one of
us to consume far more information
than humanly possible. This has forced
many of us to master two skills:
perusing and presenting ourselves as
informed when in fact we aren’t.

3. “The gloss and comment have overtaken the
article and the book.”
Dr Ed Finn, Founding Director of Center of Science of and
Imagination, Assistant Professor in the School of Media
and Engineering at Arizona State University
“It’s never been so easy to pretend to know so
much without actually knowing anything…What
matters to us is not necessarily having actually
consumed this content firsthand but simply
knowing that it exists- and having a position on
it.”
Editor and Journalist Karl Taro Greenfield

4. This increase in information has forced us to
make a critical decision:
- We either pursue through as much as we
can, so that we can pretend to possess a
deep cultural literacy or
- We admit the wisdom in the saying of
Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.w), “indeed in
(the pursuit of) some knowledges there is
ignorance” and consciously choose to ignore
what doesn’t matter to us.
Unfortunately, generally speaking, we have
chosen the former.

5. Following the perspective of Prophet
Muhammad‫ﷺ‬ , there is a simple
solution to combat the rise of pretension
in knowledge and understanding.

6. Why do we share articles that
we even don’t read?

7. Because humans desire Social
Currency. Simply put, people want to be
liked. They want to be perceived as
smart, intelligent, hip, cool, and “in the
know” and the first to share.

8. An even more interesting phenomenon
is that social currency, like any other
currency, is only given value when
exchanged between two parties equally.
This is commonly known as “Equity
Bias.”
This theory holds that smart people will
pretend not to know something, while
dumb people will pretend to really know
a thing, with both doing so for the sake
of raising their social currency

9. The Prophet‫ﷺ‬ (peace and blessing be
upon him) called this type of interaction
mudaahan (sycophancy). Interestingly,
this comes from a root word that refers
to putting oil on something. This is
similar to a common English phrase,
“butter him up,” which means to treat
someone favorably in order to gain their
favor.

10. Other Factors Impacting Overall
Culture of Anti-intellectualism

11. The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (d.1111 CE),
in his well-known Ihya Uloom Ad-Din,
discussed this cognitive bias. This theory
states that the more ignorant of a subject a
person is, the more confident they are that
they are not actually ignorant of said
subject.
Human-beings all overestimate
themselves, but the less competent
actually do so more than anybody else.
All of us are experts in some areas and
completely ignorant in others.

12. Imam Al-Ghazali explained this bias very elegantly:
“There are four types of people,
 A man who knows something and is aware of his
knowledge, that is the true scholar so follow him.
 The man who knows something but is not
cognizant of his knowledge. He is sleeping so
wake him up!
 The man who doesn’t know something and he is
aware of his ignorance. This is a student so
teach him.
 The man who is unaware of something and is not
cognizant of his unawareness. This is an ignorant
man so run far away from him.”

13. Confirmation Bias
 Confirmation bias teaches us that we
often project our fixed ideas on the
subjects that we are researching or
reading about. The information that
supports what we already believe
naturally stands out to us, while the
information that goes against what we
understand as truth seems less
significant. It is for this reason that all
research and the conclusions derived
therefrom need one less invested in the
findings of the project to judge the
accuracy of those findings.

14. Stereotyping
 Stereotypes and generalizations are not
the same things. One is a judgment,
while the other is the result of scientific
research that should lead to further
exploration and analysis. This failure to
differentiate between the two is a
problem and hinders effective discourse.
Emotional detachment and an attempt to
remain completely objective are clear
and distinguishable signs of an experts
approach to intellectual discourse.

15. Where do we go from here?

16.  The desire for elevated social currency forces the
individual to constantly check how each action and
share will affect his or her status.
 The next time you share something ask yourself,
“Why am I sharing this?”
 Secondly, research in the area of cognitive bias
highlights that our ability to interpret events and
information is deeply affected by our cognitive
states, emotions and past experiences.
 We have a collective responsibility to re-center
issue discussions around the expert who are at
least attempting to reduce the influence of
cognitive biases and emotions on our conclusions.

17.  The Prophet ‫ﷺ‬ taught us the seek out beneficial
knowledge and emphasized that “seeking some
types of knowledge can be a source of ignorance”.
 Admitting ignorance is a sign of true intelligence,
and will bring back mental health.
 The Prophet Muhammad said, “Half of knowledge
is saying, I don’t know.” Perhaps this Prophetic
narration predicts the subsequent death of
established knowledge when everyone thinks they
know everything.