tflex Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 (edited) Alright, first choose whom you think is the greatest genius to walk the earth, then explain why you made that choice, and what impact that person had in history and on our world today. For example: Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Heron of Alexandria, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Stephen Hawking, Darwin, Sigmund Freud etc. These are just some examples, you can choose from any field - military, science, mathmatics, musician etc. Choose your favorite. Edited February 22, 2006 by tflex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 (edited) Greatest- Einstein Greatest Classical mind- Aristotle Most Greatest/Deranged/Influential- Hitler ( you can't help but deny it...) Edited February 22, 2006 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 I'd nominate Aristotle--the "nous" or "intellect" of Plato's Academy. The father of logic and nearly all the sciences, Aristotle's naturalism, empiricism, and basically secular moral philosophy represented not only the apex of ancient thought, but these ways of thinking were also enormously influential during his own age, in the Arab world of the middle ages (where he had a strong influence on Averroes), and from there (via Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas), they played a supremely important role in bringing about the European renaissance. To Aquinas, Aristotle was simply The Philosopher. To Dante, "the master of them that know." Like Newton's alchemy or Galileo's wrong-headed notions about the tides and about how to calculate longitude, Aristotle certainly left us some howlers (like the notion that snakes have no testicles), but given the scope of his intellectual acheivements and the research programs that he started, I think almost all science and most of philosophy owe a tremendous debt to Aristotle. Even a scientist as late as Darwin could write of Aristotle (in a letter to a friend): You must let me thank you for the pleasure which the introduction to the Aristotle book has given me. I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. Not enough? Here's a personal anecdote attesting to Aristotle's continuing influence. A colleague of mine, when entering grad school in cognitive science back in the 1960s, was concerned that he hadn't taken enough courses to prepare him for the research he was to conduct at an Ivy League school. His mentor (a giant in the field) told him that if he had read Aristotle's De Anima that he had all the background he needed. (!) My colleague, I might add, did indeed go on to be hugely influential himself--nearly single-handedly defining a great many current fields of research within the disclipline. I hasten to add that Aristotle is not--as the medieval scholastics maintained--the be-all and end-all of human knowledge, but I do think that being the start-all of almost all science should suffice for title of "greatest mind". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullafelix Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 Diocletian....wow! just look at what he acheived, not only did he save the empire but he also reorganised it in a very visionary way. A very cool guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 Diocletian....wow! just look at what he acheived, not only did he save the empire but he also reorganised it in a very visionary way. A very cool guy Big fan of price controls and feudalism are you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullafelix Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 Diocletian....wow! just look at what he acheived, not only did he save the empire but he also reorganised it in a very visionary way. A very cool guy Big fan of price controls and feudalism are you? I know I know but you can't expect someone to a genius all the time can you?....Of course he also gave us the bureaucrat too eeek! But to have been able to pull the empire out of that hole and set it up for another century or so (in the West far longer in the East of course) was quite remarkable. The reform of the imperial cult etc all strokes of pure genius... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tflex Posted February 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 (edited) I have to go with Isaac Newton. He was way ahead of his time and so diverse in talent a physicist, chemist, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, artistic etc. I can't tell you how much it annoyed me when my professors back in school and some of my friends had to make the comment that Newton was somehow 'second to Einstein'. Newton was born approx. 250 years before Einstein, and did not have the benefit of the rapid scientific advancements that had occured during those 250 years. People always credit Einsein with having the unique ability to apply imagination to science(thinking outside the box). I think that term is better suited for earlier scientists like Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus and Newton ofcourse. They had to start from scratch with little to no data to work with, no starting point but rather they created their own data and scientific laws. I'm not saying Einstein didn't find his own laws independently, but just that he is no superior to Newton, even in the field of Physics. Besides I don't see Einstein accomplishing what he did without Newtons earlier research and findings. If Plato & Aristotle had to start from point A, then Newton had to start from point D, and Einstein 250 years later started from point G. In my opinion for his time, Newton had the most logical and imaginative mind rivaled only by the Greek scientists. Edited February 22, 2006 by tflex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Princeps Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 Diocletian....wow! just look at what he acheived, not only did he save the empire but he also reorganised it in a very visionary way. A very cool guy I said roughly the same thing when I first joing UNRV (in a different context - I didn't say he was the greatest thinker ever), I think it was my second post perhaps. Some people disagreed with me. I'm not entirely sure now, I still admire the man and his achievements, but I have been persuaded that his tetearchy, in particular, was flawed. As for answering the original question, I'd have to agree with the author tflex. Isaac Newton, easily, without any doubts whatsoever. Ok, some of his theories are now a little dated, but his brilliance, given his time and place, is beyond question. Calculus alone earns him the honour of greatest mind ever. If he'd invented this and then lay around doing nothing for the reat of his life it would have been fine by me. And it's not just the maths, as you say tflex, his physics and inventions also give him much credit as far as I am concerned. Compared to his contemporaries, Hook etc, and even those that followed, his is the greatest. If I may stop being serious for a second, he was also a total nutter. I remember watching a documentary about him a while ago and bursting out in laughter (exactly why I cannot remember, unfortunately). If only he hadn't spent so much time on alchemy, who's to say he wouldn't have achieved even greater things. The world could be a very different place today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted February 23, 2006 Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 If I may stop being serious for a second, he was also a total nutter. I remember watching a documentary about him a while ago and bursting out in laughter (exactly why I cannot remember, unfortunately). If only he hadn't spent so much time on alchemy, who's to say he wouldn't have achieved even greater things. The world could be a very different place today. I wonder if there is a single great scientist in history that wasn't spectacularly wrong at least as often as he was spectacularly right. The nice thing about science though is that only the hits count; the misses are almost always forgotten! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sextus Roscius Posted February 23, 2006 Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 two people are rivals for me. Cicero-a personal idol and a man who I strongly respect and who's philosophies I follow in daily life. A genius in terms of politics, oratory, philosophy, and law. He truely loved democracy and supported the republic, and faught Caesar's rise to power every step of the way. A truely ideal man. Motzart- A saddly misunderstood genius who was obviously too smart for the world around him. I also admire his cunning and wit, as well as his obvious talent as a musician and a composer. One of the greatest if not the greatest man to ever walk the earth. The one and only true prodigy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted February 23, 2006 Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 I wonder if there is a single great scientist in history that wasn't spectacularly wrong at least as often as he was spectacularly right. The nice thing about science though is that only the hits count; the misses are almost always forgotten! Indeed, much of Darwin's theories have certainly needed additional revision as science has advanced (and of course is still highly debated), but it doesn't alter the fact that his studies laid the groundwork for the field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tflex Posted February 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 (edited) Most Greatest/Deranged/Influential- Hitler ( you can't help but deny it...) His influence on our world is ever lasting. Maybe the state of Israel would never have existed if it wasn't for Hitler and his henchmen. His derangement shaped our world today. I can't help but think what would have happened if he decided not to break the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty which opened a war on two fronts, or if he had decided to annihilate the British at Dunkirk as they retreated, or maybe started the war 2 years later, that way the Germans would have had more time to develop their already superior weaponary technology and mass produce it. They would have missiles(secret weapon at the time), much faster and more advanced fighter planes than the allies, it's also possible they would have been first to develop the Atomic bomb, the outcome of the war might have been different. Hitler should have yielded to his generals when it came to military strategy, its possible that the outcome in Normandy would have also been different. Hitler made Nazi Germany but was also responsible for its demise through his interference in military affairs. Edited February 23, 2006 by tflex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pertinax Posted February 23, 2006 Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 I have to go with Newton as the greatest of all-the reasons have been given above -most importantly because he is the best representative of the polymath and an unfettered mind. Now we all trudge in our narrow specialisations but the great mind is omnivorous, questing, not afraid of conjecture ( and therefore error) and thereby able to travel mentally "out of the box"-over it and back in the other side. I indulge my Britishness by naming Churchill also -old,rude and fat with a brain like a razor. Ruthless, clear sighted , unwavering and a hero in a narrow time frame- but what an analytical mind. The moral fulcrum of a now unfashionable world that would not bow to wrongness. Linnaeus gets an honourable mention as you would expect but it is Aristotle who is the great light bad guys? will Stalin prove ephemeral as a mass murderer on a huge scale-Mao? or perhaps people who shaped continental destinies by default? Cortez? Timur The Lame I suggest as a candidate for top bad guy in terms of numbers killed to total population. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tflex Posted February 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 (edited) I indulge my Britishness by naming Churchill also -old,rude and fat with a brain like a razor. Ruthless, clear sighted , unwavering and a hero in a narrow time frame- but what an analytical mind. The moral fulcrum of a now unfashionable world that would not bow to wrongness. Churchill has to be the man of the century. Prime minister, master politician, soldier, historian, author and a painter. He sure screwed up Hitlers plan of dominating Europe. He also had an uncanny ability to predict the future. "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Sir Winston Churchill Edited February 23, 2006 by tflex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pertinax Posted February 23, 2006 Report Share Posted February 23, 2006 I was initially undecided to nominate Churchill or John Duke of Marlborough his great ancestor-I decided on Churchill because he triumphed in totally adversity in the blackest of moments, Marlborough was just a stunningly great soldier and statesman ! Also because Churchill represents the lost Britishness of utter , grumbly, cussed unrepentant, dogged , uprightness . As Dr Johnson said " a person with Bottom" . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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