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What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

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Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#21

Post by aerhardt »

The fact that Hegel is not there is ridiculous. Perhaps the most influential philosopher since Aristotle.

Not only did he influence the young hegelians and Marx, he continues to influence many philosophers across all kinds of schools and ideologies.

Marx not being there is an implicit moral judgement - if “great” means good in some ethical sense subjective, then OK. But if “great” means impactful or influential, that’s a problem.

Then no Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Tocqueville, Watt, Ramón y Cajal, Ford, Schumpeter, Cervantes…

On the latter, not a single mention of literature. Not even Homer. I find this list problematic in an innumerable amount of ways.

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#22

Post by Asraelite »

towledev wrote: post #17
jmrodgers wrote: post #12

Development of zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0

Is it though? All languages have the word 'nothing'. Better candidates: a) place-value numbering aka the positional numeral system, b) the Cartesian coordinate system. Forced to choose, I would pick (b).

"nothing" is not the same the same as "zero". "zero apples" means something different to "nothing", but that difference is subtle and difficult to explain, which is what makes the invention of zero such an achievement.

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#24

Post by smokel »

I find it a bit depressing that this list is tied so closely to individuals. Obviously these individuals did great things, but it is typically by standing on the shoulders of giants (Isaac Newton) that any of this has been possible.

It might be a nice exercise to describe the larger waves of ideas that follow certain cultural currents. To list some random examples, capitalism has spurred many developments, as did religion. Setting up universities, introducing law, being able to replicate documents, all seem more relevant than some individuals taking credit for the cherry on top.

To contradict myself once more, where is Gutenberg in this list?

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#25

Post by lukan »

uncanny2 wrote: post #19
lukan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The difficulty lies not in finding “Truths”, the difficulty is undeceiving the self." So what makes you think you successfully undeceived yourself? The voices in your head told you as much? Besides, of course the voices in our head are real. (What would be a unreal voice in our head?) But if you believe they are coming from aliens or whatever it is you are claiming, I would recommend therapy.

Read my threads. The Aliens are the nice guys, the Americans and their Thought Control are spreading pedophilia and running a rape war. They are the voices in our heads. They are Jesus Christ in the minds of the White Nationalists. I came to be a person of interest due to my ideals. As a person of interest I have been indoctrinated (press ganged) into the greatest secret of our humanity. I am not here to “prove” to y…

"You have trained yourself to see the world as you expect it, and the world you “think feel and believe”

Or of course, you know nothing about me, but your root problem is that you believe you are enlightened? You are not the first, though. Also I engaged with various philosophy, meditation, and chaos magic since quite some years and to be honest, I read way more convincing text about the topic of seeing through the illusion and going beyond our self censor than your rants. So if you do not want to take my advice about therapy, maybe take this about modesty?

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#26

Post by hwhehwhehegwggw »

Advaita (non duality) is the highest intellectual achievement of the human civilization.

The list itself mentioned is interesting but it focuses on content of consciousness and not consciousness itself. The contents keep changing. Consciousness doesn't.

In other words humans appearing in consciousness discovering consciousness is more interesting than what appears on consciousness like laws of motion.

This is not to say Pythagorean laws are not cool.

It's cool. But it's just a ripple in consciousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta

Close your eyes. Where does the darkness appear?

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#27

Post by keiferski »

smokel wrote: post #24

I find it a bit depressing that this list is tied so closely to individuals. Obviously these individuals did great things, but it is typically by standing on the shoulders of giants (Isaac Newton) that any of this has been possible. It might be a nice exercise to describe the larger waves of ideas that follow certain cultural currents. To list some random examples, capitalism has spurred many developments, as did rel…

Well, there are at least two presuppositions to a post like this:

1. That individuals are capable of unique achievements separate from their context, trends, etc.

2. That doing some intellectually impressive thing is "great", in a values or ethics sense. There are many things listed here that other intellectuals have argued as having extremely negative consequences for human society, culture, etc.

Which is why I think a list of the "greatest" is inherently a bit flawed, and you're better off looking at a list of "influential" people or ideas instead.

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#28

Post by uncanny2 »

lukan wrote: post #25
uncanny2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read my threads. The Aliens are the nice guys, the Americans and their Thought Control are spreading pedophilia and running a rape war. They are the voices in our heads. They are Jesus Christ in the minds of the White Nationalists. I came to be a person of interest due to my ideals. As a person of interest I have been indoctrinated (press ganged) into the greatest secret of our humanity. I am not here to “prove” to y…

"You have trained yourself to see the world as you expect it, and the world you “think feel and believe” Or of course, you know nothing about me, but your root problem is that you believe you are enlightened? You are not the first, though. Also I engaged with various philosophy, meditation, and chaos magic since quite some years and to be honest, I read way more convincing text about the topic of seeing through the i…

How very interesting.

It is nice to meet you, know that I am not your savior, I am your undeceiver.

Many hundreds of thousands of us have tread the paths for virtue as you have.

You were not wrong, you were right! In a way. In a way you could not explain to yourselves coherently, to maintain the civilized stability of your daily existence.

Reasons and rationalizations are a well barbed trap in Man’s mind.

I am telling you the greatest secret of our humanity, the conspiracy of all conspiracies against our natural destinies is that we are not alone in our own minds.

A vast culture predates our generations, the signs have always been there, they led you to occultism, yet you could not accept the simple truth.

Consciousness may be entangled and navigated, manipulated by widely varying ranges of skill.

There is a secret war. Those taking it most seriously are the same lines Satanic sacrificing in the 80s, voices in the minds of children shooting up their schools, and now are Jesus in the thought controlled American mind.

Re: What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)

#29

Post by contingencies »

Overall this list skews ridiculously to western classicism, and misses a great many more significant intellectual achievements. Here's some nobody's mentioned.

Mechanics: wheel, lever, screw, gear trains, cam/follower, crank‑slider, water/wind mills, mechanical clock, printing press, and the steam engine.

Every advance in basic metallurgy. Controlled smelting, casting, hot forging, alloying to make bronze, carburising to make early steel, blooms and bloomery furnaces, quenching/tempering, wrought‑iron forging, large‑scale iron production, advanced steels.

Coinage.

Sail.

Plumbing.

Refrigeration.

Plastics.

If you take the position these are not intellectual achievements, I think you under-appreciate how revolutionary they were at the time.

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