Smartest man in history?

Discussion in 'History' started by Killian_1_4, Dec 15, 2007.

  1. stratos Banned Banned

    Messages:
    81
    Except that "I know that I know nothing" is a contradiction in terms.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. razordude ouch. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    915
    It depends on many factors. Like what did they have to work with in thier time. Here's an example, is a guy who used something someone else came up with to discover something new smarter than the other guy for it because of that or not? That is what you sould adress first.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. toltec Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    119
    Other than myself, perhaps the guy who invented Solutrean parallell flaking.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. nitram22 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    79
    smartest person? Intelligence is relative.

    Not only that, it is a question not of what one may know, but how one is able to learn. Some may have years of education making them learned and full of knowledge. Others can look at a subject and know the answer.
    Then again, the "smartest one" may not have common sense. That would be a key factor in daily life, the lack of which would hinder in the subject of living.
    I built my first heathkit ham radio at age 14. I can play prolifically 4 instruments. Computers, astronomy, and a wealth of other subjects and abilities put my IQ at 167. The fist time I was 22 and fell in w/ a 156.
    I don't see myself as smarter then anyone that knows something I don't.
     
    river likes this.
  8. razordude ouch. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    915
    See though do you have a good education? Smart parents or siblings? Or did you figure it all out by yourself?
     
  9. Facial Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,225
    Sciences: Poincare, Einstein, Da Vinci, Leibniz, Newton

    Arts: Michael Jackson.
     
    ajanta likes this.
  10. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,707
    There are a lot to choose from. Da Vinci, Hawking, Einstein and even some of America's Founding Fathers were brilliant in their own right.
     
  11. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    humans
     
  12. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    or (computers)>(all humanity) in 2050
    and (a computer)>(a human) in 2020
     
  13. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,706
    Wrong.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    The processing power of a computer will be greater sure. But it's capabilities will be far, far, far less.

    Namely because it cannot feel emotion, happiness, anger, etc.

    While sure it seems silly to consider them so important. Consider for a moment how the only way for a machine to be intelligent is to rewire itself. Everything has to be dynamic. But the problem is that there has to be someway for the machine to follow a guideline to change it's wiring. the only way we have is with an algorithm. But the algorithm is not dynamic it is static. Because of that it cannot truly learn because its learning is quantifiable by the machine. Emotions are what we use instead of an algorithm and since they are not quantifiable than we can learn. A machine really cannot
     
  14. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,706
    Da Vinci in my opinion. Not so much for any single contribution, but simply because he was so significant in such a wide variety of ways, from the Mona Lisa to his drawings of the human body. From the arts to the future.
     
  15. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    .

    well, yes, but, what it more means, computers are smarter than humans, like when, you use super computers, like in NASA, you give it informations, and it do the rest for what you want, while if you use humans, it will take hundreds of years, but, on the other side, it can't have emotions, or, real emotions, not emotions that you can make them appear on a robot or a computer, and they wan't be free, if they became free, in their intilligence too, they can also have emotions, and then, they would be considered alive, wich it's not possible for machine to be thinking by it's own and live by it's own like humans, yes you can programm it to do that, you can program it to be like, kinda free, do random things, but that still doesnt mean free, that still be guided. so it's intelligence, is, the calculations and analazing intelligence, or, treating the informations and datas.
    oh, one more thing, the bee brain or the fly brain, is lot more complexed than any computer, it's almost imbeleivebal that a fly can do alot of analyses in less than a second, with a suck tiny tiny brain, a fly can make the plan, and analyze it, and do it, in less than a second, and alot of amazing things
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2010
  16. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    .

    any one remember al jazari? without him, we would be aloot behind in mechanic, and so other domains, and also industry, from what we are today.
    (since you mentioned da vinci and did not mention al jazari)
     
  17. Mickmeister Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    812
    William James Sidis hands down!
     
  18. Gremmie "Happiness is a warm gun" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,593
    I also have to go with DaVinci... Einstein is definitely worth mention as well.

    Oh, and my grandfather... the old man knew everything..
     
  19. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,706
    I dont care if it comes in 10 years or a hundred, no computer will ever be able to make sense of a lot of what you say.

    What do you know about a computer?

    your points are irrelavent. So what if a computer can do that many processes? It has no idea what it means, it has no conscioussness, no subconscious.

    It cannot think nor reason. It is literally just taking commands and doing them.
     
  20. keith1 Guest

    Both Da Vinci and Al-Jazari where influenced by predecessors. Archimedes (Greece) is one such influence, who too, was influenced by predecessors.

    Seems a mixture of "personal intellectual" input and "mutually-inspired group" input.
    A little murky to give out individual accolades in that arena.
     
  21. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    .

    isnt that what i said? i only said it's better than us in making calculs and automatic things, programmed
     
  22. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    .

    well, each scientist make the way for the one who's after him, right?
     
  23. camilus the villain with x-ray glasses Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    895
    Im talking pure intellectual brilliance and originality/creativity/imagination here.

    The smartest man ever was Isaac Newton, no one is remotely close. This guy unlocked the "system of the world", the laws of motion, law of gravity, and discovered calculus when he was 21 while taking a vacation from the university. And thats the beginning of his contributions. Such a roaring intellect makes him a giant among midgits.

    "Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time of Newton, what [Newton] has done is much the better half." ~ Leibniz

    Noteworthy runner-ups to Newton are Bernhard Riemann, James Clerk Maxwell, and Srinivasa Ramanujan.
     

Share This Page