Thales and the Hooked-Up AI and Phone Fans

Bringing the ancient philosopher into dialogue with the digital world.

Anyone who has dipped even a toe into ancient philosophy will have crossed paths with Thales of Miletus. I first met him, not in the dusty textbook pages, but in a philosophy classroom in a small town called Urakwo, nestled in the outskirts of Owerri, Nigeria. It was over three decades ago; the teacher, Professor Uwalaka, a man whose spectacles caught sunlight like a lens focused on eternity and whose mind carried the solemn weight of centuries.

Under the corrugated roof of a classroom with chalky air, I was introduced to this strange, fascinating figure, Thales; the man who declared, with audacious simplicity, that all things come from water.

The following debates rippled through my imagination like stones tossed into a philosophical pond. Others had their own claims: air, fire, earth, even dirt. It all sounded absurd and brilliant at the same time. I came to see that philosophy was a magnificent quarrel about what may or may not be, but one that demanded a strange and joyful rigor of the mind. I found it fun, and I still do.

But Thales stuck with me, not just for his watery worldview, but for his disposition. He was one of those early thinkers who became so entangled in his thoughts, so loyal to the hidden structure of things, that he wandered into poverty almost without noticing. He often appeared dazed, his eyes fixed on the sky as if auditioning for a role in the cosmos. Some critics claim that on one such occasion, he famously fell into a ditch while stargazing.

Now fast-forward to our time.

Picture a group of twenty-first-century citizens walking down a crowded street. Heads bowed, eyes locked on glowing screens, ears plugged into a soundtrack of someone else's life. Fingers racing across the keyboard at over 160 words per minute, through the canvas of an AI chatbot. Few would notice if a pothole opened up beneath them until their phone hits the pavement.

I saw this a few times, during the Pokémon Go frenzy. A young man, eyes blazing with digital excitement, marched into a tree while chasing an augmented Charizard. I laughed and many with me, but we were actually laughing at culture as it evolves right in our presence. The irony was delicious.

And suddenly, I thought of Thales.

He, too, was hooked not on pop-ups and notifications or the thrills of generative AI. His addiction was that of wonder, the gaze. The kind that bubbles in the cerebral hemispheres probing, "Why are there things rather than nothing?" He was intoxicated by ideas, suspended in the magic of intellection.

Today's screen-gazers are also hooked, though their gaze is pulled not toward the heavens, but into a glowing rectangle that vibrates every few seconds with breaking news, birthday reminders, intriguing AI outputs, and videos of cats falling off furniture.

Still, what do Thales and the phone-fixated have in common? Perhaps a shared yearning to know, experience, and be absorbed into something more significant than the self. The difference lies in the type of knowing. Thales chased principles; phone fans pursue pixels and rapid response. He was rarely sociable, and neither is the person whose phone is their best friend.

Yet we remember Thales. His questions echo still, like water dripping from a cave ceiling deep in thought. Will the digital, AI generation be remembered similarly if the phone is the only material vessel of their mind's attention?

Some might argue yes. After all, the smartphone has become the new gaze, the portal through which billions now peer into knowledge once glimpsed only in darkened mirrors and whispered dreams. Why not celebrate this age of information? Why not embrace a world where the entire Library of Alexandria fits in your pocket, and even your wristwatch and eye specs have opinions?

But there is a small, flickering problem.

The gaze is scattered. Our attention, like shattered glass, reflects too many things at once. The stillness required for philosophy, the slow, wandering gaze that falls into ditches, is becoming rare. Deep, rigorous, and glorious thinking is more challenging when your pocket buzzes every few seconds with a new reason not to.

That could be where Thales comes in.

Or perhaps it's where we step into Thales, not to abandon our phones, but to reimagine them. To make the device, not the destination, but the telescope. To let the scroll become a stroll through questions that don't need answers to matter. To look again, as Thales did at what is on the screen, but most importantly, at what lies behind it, beneath the thing, at the watery wonder of existence itself.

Would Thales have used a phone? Enjoyed AI tools? Maybe. But he'd have fallen into the ditch anyway.

And he’d have laughed about it, eventually.