Greatest Thinker, in Your Opinion

bronzmash · Sep 8, 2003

My 5 cents...

 I believe that the greatest thinker of all time was
 Socrates. At his time, the Oracle of Delphi (soothsayer of ancient Greece) said that he was the wisest man alive…

So puttin’ Socrates first, the list goes like…

 2. Einstein (only during the later stages of his life.) 
 3. Douglas Adams (read his works to appreciate true imaginative power.) 
 4. Gödel (for his amazin’ theories {math} that none else could think of.) 
5. Edison (that man,… he got it all right…!)

Some after these - top five would definitely include:

Marx
Gandhi
Swami Vivekananda
Max (Planck)
Maxwell
Aristotle
Euclid
Galileo
René Descartes
“Tupac” Amaru Shakur
Mozart

Now I’m gonna pick up on some old piece on this thread just to clear up some details.
This is, about Gandhi. 

Guthire : “India achieved a lot by the time Gandhi died.” 
 Too true. Freedom without him would have been impossible. 

Balder 1 : … civil disobedience is Thoreau’s innovation…
 That’s correct, but Gandhi brought in much more in his movements. e.g. Hunger strikes, Public marches (to spread awareness about non-cooperation.) 

Judas : * India is on the verge of a nuke war with Pakistan; would it have been possible under the British Rule.? *
 First of all..India isn’t on the verge of a nuke war with any country.. forget Pakistan. It’s actually making all the peace efforts as of now.
Secondly, if India was under Brit rule, technically so would be Pakistan, then there would be no question of war. As a corollary, such would be to the advantage of the imperial coffers and to the plight of the Indians. This area could never dream of following on the footsteps of Hong Kong, essentially because, Muslims and Hindus would be killing each other off; only difference being : that they wouldn’t have a country to fight from, run back to, or call their own. This anti-socialism will find it’s cause back to the time of British rule in India, when the British, somewhat apprehensive of the continuously rising unity and strength of the Indians, decide to use communal violence to ‘divide and rule’. The infamous religion war was spread and India still reaps the seeds that the British sow.
Consequently, India after gaining it’s freedom, had a pseudopolitical problem (it was personal at some levels…) Two men wanted the absolute control of this subcontinent, but none would give way, so finally, against the dream, will, and hard work of Gandhi; two countries were born. Pakistan and India. The two culprits in question are Nehru and Jinnah. The poor condition of the subcontinent can be credited entirely to their combined efforts.

That'll do for now...

Cya'

linus · Sep 8, 2003

shoppenhauer, aristotle, minor amounts of plato, heidigger, neitschze are the primary ones.

it doesn't work because it ignores one of the primary logical principals of existence and that is that there must be varying degrees. in order for something to be great, there must be two things one people who see it as great and two, something that is not great. when this is taken into account, it is obvious in a major way that her ideal, or what neitszhe called the superman, can't truley exist or work, because he's an oxymoron: he is said to be independent and do what he needs to do to accomplish his goals and loathes and has no use for those who do not do the same, yet he needs them to exist in order for what he doexs to have any quantifiable value.
but lets leave that aside. the majority of her work is based on the economic principles of adam smith (another one she ripped her ideas from) which is that the best possible outcomes in society economically and socially come from each individual doing what is best for themselves. this sounds correct although the math is not correct. john nash's governing dynamics disproved this idea mathematically which is just one more explanation for why it wont work.
next, the human mind cannot operate effectively when seeing itself as either better or worse than other human minds. it can for a while, but eventually, it begins to wear away just like frank lloyd wright (also known as howard roark) did. this pehomenon can also be seen in da vinci, brian wilson, mozart, neitszche. the list goes on and on.
logic dictates that it is truly the fool that sees any one person as more essential or more important than any other, despite that some may have the job that seems to be the most important (ie politician, rockstar, artist, business man, etc).
her ideas dont work, because they are based on an idea of black and white, an idea that some things have value while others do not, that one can assign value to soemthing based on arbitrary circumstances. life disproves this every waking moment of our day.
it should also be noted that even ayn rand said these things: that her ideas dont work, that it is not how the world operates, but that she liked writing about the world the way she wanted it to be, not the way it is. which is fine, it just should be taken as such and not made gospel by foolish people.

linus · Sep 8, 2003

i also wanted to point out that H.D.T. did not create civil disobedience. it was around for thousands of years before him. christ, buddha, moses, socrates, lao tzu, confucious. these people all did it first. he doesn't get credit just because he wants it.

zagen · Sep 9, 2003

First off guthrie, that website you listed was horrible.

I wrote a response to linus and you guthrie but decided not to put it in a reply here because that would detract from what this thread is really about. I'm making a new thread to discus Ayn Rand and anyone is welcome to join of course.

As for greatest thinker...
Bronzmash are you serious? Douglas Adams was a good writer and hilarious but third greatest thinker? And you actually listed “Tupac”??? I'm not even going to bother with that one.

bronzmash · Sep 11, 2003

linus : i also wanted to point out that H.D.T. did not create civil disobedience. it was around for thousands of years before him. christ, buddha, moses, socrates, lao tzu, confucious. these people all did it first. he doesn't get credit just because he wants it. 

 Phunny!! Hey I didn’t know that, but it might as well be true. I always associate civil activities with modern governance systems. I would like to know from where you came to know this. (some reference, maybe.) In my knowledge, documented version of civil disobedience was conceptualized by, yours truly, Henry David.
He set forth the basic tenets of civil disobedience for the first time in his essay, “Civil Disobedience”. 

As for Confucius, I think he was a great thinker too, he claimed to be a restorer of ancient morality and held that proper outward acts based on the five virtues of kindness, uprightness, decorum, wisdom, and faithfulness constitute the whole of human duty. Reverence for parents, living and dead, was one of his key concepts. His view of government was paternalistic, and he enjoined all individuals to observe carefully their duties towards the state. He, as I know now, never had an inkling of what Civ. Disobedience was.

The same goes for Socrates, he was a realist, and only once in his whole life he stood up against the Imperial decision, when ten army generals were condemned to death for being irresponsible, as they could not save drowning soldiers – returning from the naval battle of Arginusae (post Peloponnesian War 406BC). He said it was immoral and unjust to condemn men in a group to death, even when the battle was won (the Spartans lost the battle.)

Buddha, I’m sure of was never involved in any form of civil disobedience; he hailed from the royal family itself,( Kapilavastu's Sakya warrior class) in northern India. He set out to attain nirvana, or true bliss. He left all his worldly possessions and found the Noble Eightfold Path. He did revolt to hedonistic, ascetic, and spiritualistic extremes, and the caste system, but only by preaching his wisdom, never by Civ. Disobedience.

Now Laozi, was a philosopher, and he literally developed the Tao (dao) religion. He said the world is best realized by relinquishing categories and values in favour of spontaneous perception. The sage seeks to “do nothing” (wu wei) and to let things take their natural course. His teachings were, of course, meant for the King but no evidence of disobedience of any kind is found in his life.

However, about Christ and Moses I couldn’t find much, so you might as well explain to me (with reference, of course!) how they were related to Civ. Disobedience.

Hopin to learn,…!

Cya’

bronzmash · Sep 11, 2003

But you did Bother : zagen

zagen : First off guthrie, that website you listed was horrible.

I wrote a response to linus and you guthrie but decided not to put it in a reply here because that would detract from what this thread is really about. I'm making a new thread to discus Ayn Rand and anyone is welcome to join of course.

As for greatest thinker...
Bronzmash are you serious? Douglas Adams was a good writer and hilarious but third greatest thinker? And you actually listed “Tupac”??? I'm not even going to bother with that one. 

But you did Bother...!

See Zagen, every word of yours here reeks of chopped onion… you’re kinda’ stale in expressing views there, aren’t you.?

Obviously -what you think is correct- is what you think. Let me tell you that’s a lousy way to think.

First of all see, that the thread is titled : <url> “Greatest Thinker, in Your Opinion”</url> . It allows me to state anybody, and I mean ANYBODY whom I feel to be the greatest thinker. (I might have even put your name on that list.!)

But seriously, I think DA was a great writer, and his tool was his amazin’ mind to have sprung such creative work. In MY opinion, his works are humorous and well thought out. I also do not associate great thinking necessarily to philanthropic thinking. This now brings me to Tupac.

In MY opinion, Tupac was the greatest rapper and poet; and he was a great actor. His work carried emotion, and he perplexed people who thought deep about his words, in the way that his public persona was that of a ‘nine’ wielding – badmouthin mo-fo. But he really was all that, while being a gifted rhymer. You may, if you want, look up the lyrics of the songs – “Brenda’s Got a Baby”, “Dear Mama”, and “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto”; if listening would be too much of a strain.(!)
Then if you want to see sheer prowess on ones vocal capabilities, you should ‘listen’ to The abovementioned songs plus, “Ghetto star”, “Two of Amerikaz Most Wanted”, and “Wanted Dead or Alive”. ( The last two are with Snoop Dogg … Bonus! )
You will figure out the staunch political overtone of these songs, against *blacks*, and administrative policies that made life difficult for them. The exquisite way in which Tupac presents his ideas, clubbed with the ideas themselves, is why, to me he is a great thinker.
Hope you get the message.

Peace. :m:

Cya’

candy · Sep 11, 2003

In reference to civil disobedience:

I would think that the Declaration of Independence is the ultimate act of civil disobebience. It is not so much orginal thought as a plan of action based on the writings of great thinkers that changed the world.

Cyperium · Sep 25, 2003

Nicola Tesla

He made his ideas real. (even the really big ones)

He more or less invented the modern society. And could see his inventions change the world.

Don't miss out on the latest discussions.

Greatest Thinker, in Your Opinion

bronzmash

Guest

linus

linus

zagen

Philophanian

bronzmash

Guest

bronzmash

Guest

candy

Cyperium

I'm always me