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Who is the Greatest Genius of All Time?

Who is the Greatest Genius of All Time?


  • Total voters
    27

RaptorWizard

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My Top 20:
1. Giordano Bruno
2. Baruch Spinoza
3. Nikola Tesla
4. Gottfried Leibniz
5. Leonardo da Vinci
6. Athanasius Kircher
7. Johann von Goethe
8. Friedrich Nietzsche
9. Georg Wilhelm Hegel
10. Immanuel Kant
11. Rene Descartes
12. Plotinus
13. Plato
14. Socrates
15. Aristotle
16. Sir Isaac Newton
17. Albert Einstein
18. Charles Darwin
19. Galileo Galilei
20. Stephen Hawking
 

Rasofy

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1- Da Vinci
2- Newton
3- Einstein
4- Seneca
5- Nietzsche
 

Mole

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The greatest is Charles Darwin who showed us that life is not designed and so has no need of a Designer.
 

Zarathustra

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"The safest general characterization of the philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

Even Nietzsche was just Thrasymachus and Callicles.
 
Last edited:

Thalassa

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Jesus. He predicted future societies and political systems as far as I can tell. No one except die hard Christians want to give him credit, but dude was all like "there is neither man nor woman, Jew nor gentile" and all that about helping the poor. Now we live in a world where people are expected to ignore race and biological sex in the name of rational fairness, and they want to attribute it to some kind of Western philosophy, but I don't see this as being plausible in the slightest, since Romans were so keen to murder and enslave other people, and were deeply patriarchal.

I've noticed a lot of religious people "just knew" things before modern science proved it, though, like how we're returning to more natural medicine, herbs, and preventative methods of natural healing like massage, and so many odd things.

I think anyone who mentions Nietzsche in the top twenty probably needs a huge wake up call that they're reading the egotistical ravings of a lonely, misogynistic mad man.
 
R

Riva

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Their fields differ. Maybe if people of different fields were categorized differently?
The greatest is Charles Darwin who showed us that life is not designed and so has no need of a Designer.
C.D broke the back of god. While many others did it with logic and reasoning he did it with facts.
 

Rasofy

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I think anyone who mentions Nietzsche in the top twenty probably needs a huge wake up call that they're reading the egotistical ravings of a lonely, misogynistic mad man.
Hey, at least he existed.

 

FDG

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Tesla was clearly (imho) the best brain among all of those, a real genius both in the practical and theoretical realms.
 

Thalassa

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Hey, at least he existed.


Jesus existed. There's historical evidence.

Of course you may not think he was the son of god, and just some kind of genius of emotional/social intelligence, or in other words, an NFJ.
 

Rasofy

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Jesus existed. There's historical evidence.

Of course you may not think he was the son of god, and just some kind of genius of emotional/social intelligence, or in other words, an NFJ.
:thinking:

Anyways, I've already derailed another thread by calling Jesus an imaginary friend, and I'm not planning to do it again.

It's not like I'd be able to convince you anyways. :D
 
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Ginkgo

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All things considered, the first organic compounds. My God, they were diamonds in the rough. :D
 

Ene

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Genius is in the eye of the beholder. A genius in one area can be an idiot in another. The question eventually means which of these guys do you prefer. All of them. Moe Howard of the three stooges was a great genius. And I agree with Mar that if I made a list of my preferences, Jesus would top it, then Moe, Confuscious, Plato, Di Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Newton, Lewis, Hemmingway....and the list goes on. There is no such thing as a greatest genius, but it's fun to name off the ones we like. Seriously though, I think Moe was a genius.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Where's Christopher Hitchens?

In all seriousness, I was tempted to pick DaVinci, because he was a polymath. I decided on Isaac Newton, because it hit me how hard it must have been to actually come up with gravity. The concept of gravity is something we take for granted, and still don't entirely understand, but it must have taken a lot of brilliance for someone to think... "Wait, is there a reason things fall down?"

I've noticed a lot of religious people "just knew" things before modern science proved it, though, like how we're returning to more natural medicine, herbs, and preventative methods of natural healing like massage, and so many odd things.

Worked for Steve Jobs!
 

Magic Poriferan

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When I saw the title, I thought this was a silly thread. When I saw the poll, I thought this was a sillier thread.

While it seems to me that there are all kinds of problems both with the concept of this question as well as the poll in particular, here's just one problem. No one on that list is East of Greece. Does that seem probable?

EDIT: If I had to pick from that list, accepting the limits on one's ability to rank so-called geniuses, I suppose I'd pick Newton.
 
I

Infinite Bubble

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It's rather a shame that a lot of people only see scientific/philosophical thinkers as those capable of genius. It's merely one type of intelligence. And John Stuart Mill is nowhere to be found! Nevertheless, from the list, my top 5 would be:

1. Isaac Newton
2. Nikola Tesla
3. Leonardo
4. Johann von Goethe
5. Charles Darwin

But I'm really just being biased to my own valuation of each of their achievements.
 

Magic Poriferan

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Our idea of genius and influence is highly distorted by what information we access. If the wheel is invented, and then forgotten, and then re-invented by someone else later, we give all the credit to the person who re-invented the wheel and little or none to the person who originally invented it, in spite of the fact that they likely deserve more credit for inventing something on the basis of cruder technology, scarcer resources, and a smaller body of knowledge.

Think of Heron of Alexandria. Does he not deserve to be on this list? His actual influence on history seems very limited, but does that mean his works were not works of genius? He was possibly too ahead of his time.

What about all the untold advancements during the Islamic Golden Age that lived and died with that period before they could have significant influence on Europe? Perhaps Rhazes and Alhazen should be on the list?
 
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