Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
daveyboyz
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 12:08 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by daveyboyz »

Levels of genius cannot be quantified by how useful the ability is in my opinion.

I think that artistic genius's at least produce tangible and long lasting evidence of their genius and as such it is no great waste.

To me genius has an ability/gift that is far in advance of what most people of normal or high intelligence could learn to achieve/replicate. It might not be of much use, like the guy who can tell you instantly what day it was on any given calender date of any year but it still marks them as genius because it is beyond normal comprehension how they do what they do.

As to what impact they have on the world it is more relevant in which area their skill lays, how much they apply themselves to it and in what era/circumstance they live than whether their talent is in access of the normal populace.
User avatar
Carl G
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Arizona

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Carl G »

That's all well and good, so long as you realize the term genius is defined quite differently in this forum.
daveyboyz
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 12:08 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by daveyboyz »

Lets debate your definition of genius then because I think its flawed...
Albert Einstein, although gifted with a prodigious intellect, had a very poor relationship with Reality. The highest he ever reached in this relationship was a sense of awe and wonder at the Universe, which means that his connection with Reality was largely emotional and subconscious. It was, at bottom, little more than an emotional reaction to his own limited understanding of Reality as a whole. Einstein failed to take the all-important conceptual leap into full understanding of Reality, and thus he failed to reach the level of genius. The chief characteristic of a genius is independence of mind. This independence is attained through his having a clear and conscious grasp of the nature of Reality, which results in his mind being unmoved by the myths and fashions of his culture. Indeed, everything he thinks, says and does is performed with authority, a quality that arises when one's knowledge is permanent, complete, and beyond doubt.
Who amongst us has complete knowledge? No one.

Hitler performed everything he did with authority and I cant say I find it particularly admirable.

Who can say that having a connection with reality that is emotional as being a bad thing? Surely in musical fields or artistic emotional sensitivity is a good thing. If one always steps back from life and doesn't allow oneself to feel things one hasnt really lived and cant really understand it.

I think I like my definition better, and its far truer to a dictionary definition. Maybe we should think up a new word for your definition as surely dismissing the generally accepted meaning of this word and replacing it with ur own definition is perhaps a strange and some might say arrogant thing to do.
dysfunctionalgenius

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by dysfunctionalgenius »

Nice! I like the above opinion
dysfunctionalgenius

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by dysfunctionalgenius »

And now 4 my opinion. i appreciate that there is no concensus on wht genious means but i feel that a genious should always have an element of peace.

I am not goin 2 use the word enlightenment because if it does exist only someone that can reach it can know.

1. The Buddha
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?
8. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?
Slingshot
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:36 am

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Slingshot »

So... Are there any rules or guidelines to this list?
It's just that personally, the ideas that God(s) or Spiritual Leaders are supposedly above being classed as "genius" or as anything "human" apparently.
So classing & comparing them with "Humans/Us/(?)" is surely impossible right?

Unless of course your using them in a human condition, as in Jesus - as a man, not "Son of God"... But in most cases that kinda denotes any of the "genius" things they're credited with as pure madness or lies.

...I need Rules/Guidelines...
crusader
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:25 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by crusader »

FoolsJourney wrote:I guess I should mind my "netiquette" instead of opening too many threads.

Here's my list:

0. God +10
1. Lao Tse -5
2. Buddha -5
3. Jesus +10
4. Leonardo da Vinci -5
5. Einstein -5
6. Wittgenstein -5
7. babies ?
8. Sidis -5
9. Socrates -10
And your total score is? -20. Keep trying Fools, you'll get it some day.
Glostik91
Posts: 347
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:13 am
Location: Iowa

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Glostik91 »

My list of geniuses is:

1. Jesus the son of God
2. John the apostle
3. Enoch
4. The author of The Book of Hebrews (Maybe Barnabas)
5. Peter the apostle
6. David the son of Jesse
7. Jonathan Edwards
8. Paul the apostle
9. Heraclitus of Ephesus
10. Abraham of Ur
11. Siddhārtha Gautama
12. Solomon the son of David
13. Isaiah the son of Amoz
14. Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah
15. Ezekiel the son of Buzi and Daniel of Jerusalem (they were contemporaries)
a gutter rat looking at stars
User avatar
Tomas
Posts: 4328
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:15 am
Location: North Dakota

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Tomas »

Glostik91 wrote:My list of geniuses is:

1. Jesus the son of God
2. John the apostle
3. Enoch
4. The author of The Book of Hebrews (Maybe Barnabas)
5. Peter the apostle
6. David the son of Jesse
7. Jonathan Edwards
8. Paul the apostle
9. Heraclitus of Ephesus
10. Abraham of Ur
11. Siddhārtha Gautama
12. Solomon the son of David
13. Isaiah the son of Amoz
14. Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah
15. Ezekiel the son of Buzi and Daniel of Jerusalem (they were contemporaries)
None alive to carry on .. ?
Don't run to your death
Glostik91
Posts: 347
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:13 am
Location: Iowa

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Glostik91 »

Tomas wrote:
Glostik91 wrote:My list of geniuses is:

1. Jesus the son of God
2. John the apostle
3. Enoch
4. The author of The Book of Hebrews (Maybe Barnabas)
5. Peter the apostle
6. David the son of Jesse
7. Jonathan Edwards
8. Paul the apostle
9. Heraclitus of Ephesus
10. Abraham of Ur
11. Siddhārtha Gautama
12. Solomon the son of David
13. Isaiah the son of Amoz
14. Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah
15. Ezekiel the son of Buzi and Daniel of Jerusalem (they were contemporaries)
None alive to carry on .. ?
They live on in the hearts and minds of everyone who accepts their message.
a gutter rat looking at stars
User avatar
Carl G
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Arizona

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Carl G »

Kind of like a list of the greatest rock bands ever, huh, none from the last thirty years. No great statesmen lately, either. Looks like we're currently in a slump on many fronts.
Glostik91
Posts: 347
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:13 am
Location: Iowa

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Glostik91 »

Carl G wrote:Kind of like a list of the greatest rock bands ever, huh, none from the last thirty years. No great statesmen lately, either. Looks like we're currently in a slump on many fronts.
I would consider John MaCarthur to be a great theologian, but not a great philosopher. He is very passionate about exegetical exposition which I like.

I would also consider David Quinn and Kevin Solway to be great philosophers, but not great theologians.

To be a great sage one must be great in philosophy and theology.
a gutter rat looking at stars
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Carl G wrote:Kind of like a list of the greatest rock bands ever, huh, none from the last thirty years. No great statesmen lately, either. Looks like we're currently in a slump on many fronts.
Like artists and prophets, their stature or myth only starts to develop way after their death. Actually being dead used to be first requirement for hero status. Only when someone has died, the longer ago the better, we can finally bless, mummify and "iconify" him and his work. Alive he'd be too fluent, vague, confusing, messy, unfixed, "non-existent" if you will. It's like a form of stuffing although in the case of Michael Jackson one could see what happens if you start to do it before the actual death, as his icon overtook the person even before he could die, becoming a "living dead": a prophetic image of our modern world with its "metastatic resistances to death".
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

Genius is . . . . acute awareness of cause and effect. Almost always cause and effect of a specific field, be it music, math, physics, art, mechanics, human dynamics, even money-making, etc. The genius is the one who sees farther into the dynamics of cause and effect in any given field. Rare is the genius who understands the particulars of cause and effect in every field. A simple declaration of the supremacy of cause and effect does not a genius make. The genius works with the particulars; sees farther into them; brings them forth for others, whether these others can see them acutely or not.

All problem solving is, of course, an acute understanding of cause and effect. All art creation that moves the human viewer is a creation made by someone who knows how to do that, how to cause that effect in certain people with the manipulation of certain tones, colours, images. The 'everyday' genius is that person amongst them all who sees farther into the everyday materials and their effects; who is genius at solving the everyday problems with their acute attention to how things interact. Acute attention to the cause and effect of cosmic forces would be your physicist. This accounts for the human propensity to declare certain people geniuses in their field, but hopeless dolts in all others. Their attention to cause and effect is drawn to only one particular colony of phenomena and ignorant of many others.

I'd be inclined to revise the list-thinking presented here, even though in fundamental dynamic, you uphold this cause-and-effect acuity by listing people who have had an effect upon you (or historically, upon many others). Acute awareness of the entire body of particulars from cause and effect seldom, if ever, occurs. Name one. Instead, we must name "geniuses-of" this or that, thus or thon. In saying this, I would defend the phrase "genius for living," for this person has acute awareness of themselves and the cause and effect dynamic of their own doings. This is also a genius-of.

Folks seem to want their geniuses to be god-touched and shining; transcendent of the everyday physical. They are seldom pleased with such a nuts and bolts definition for genius. I stick by it. I have no vaporous rhetoric to define this most prized way-to-be, other than acute attention to cause and effect - attention which goes beyond all others, hence, showing us more. All of them are geniuses-of. I have yet to meet the genius of everything.


(the forum looks a little changed? been gone myself for a year's appointment; it's true I haven't completely caught up. I see a few familiar names still doing some serious work, but what has happened here? Whatever my fundamental disagreements with the Q the R and the S, forum caliber wanes without their whips and chains ;))
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Hey Pye, there you are! I thought my postmodern tinted phrases might lure you back, thanks to my total mastery of cause and effects :-) What's up?

Kevin and Dan seem to be very occupied with producing and discussing video's at their Youtube channels "Men of the Infinite" and "Men of the Finite". Although I don't care a thing about video, I can see from the responses there's some audience that might be in need for an introduction into thinking, not matter how crude. However, the fragmentary and visual exchanges however might create a whole different type of illusion and ideas might dissolve into the exchange.

Any chance you could silence the evil twins Carl & Tomas? They're all over the place, day and night.
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

Diebert - excellent to see you (and your good work). Indeed, linguistic genius belongs to you surely :)

Ah . . . the video work. I forgot, and have not had time yet to explore David, Kevin, and Dan's investment in it.

(one-year visiting prof.appt. at uni crippled by misplaced elitism. has renewed my institutional disgust, but I was able to perform under the radar my 'evil' deeds with the studentia before my time was up.)

As for Carl and Tomas, I, too, have to choose where to place my acute attention . . . and it wouldn't be there ;)

Any thoughts on this definition of genius?
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

While I'm thinking of it, this acute attention to cause and effect by one field at a time sometimes produces a sort of stupidity. One's picture of the world can become simplistically reduced to brute matter acting against brute matter. Such a view ends up in accordance with linearity, which is never the fullest picture of the phenomenological truth.
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Pye wrote:Indeed, linguistic genius belongs to you surely :)
Wouldn't it be important for anyone with interest in spirit or power to master the symbolic or semiotic? Which means understanding or at least standing under them!
Any thoughts on this definition of genius?
It seems similar enough to what I wrote here recently.
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

Diebert: Wouldn't it be important for anyone with interest in spirit or power to master the symbolic or semiotic? Which means understanding or at least standing under them!
Yes, thinking itself is an abstraction of the concrete, phenomenal world, so the mind is filled with stand-ins to manipulate toward clarity. You need the stand-ins, too, to communicate to others. You are more erudite - you call them the symbolic or semiotic. Stand-ins, abstractions, metaphor, sign or symbol - it's all the same. It's the stuff of thinking, but not the stuff itself!
Pye asks Diebert: Any thoughts on this definition of genius?
Diebert answers: It seems similar enough to what I wrote here recently.
(S'what happens when one doesn't do all one's homework before piping up :) )
User avatar
Carl G
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Arizona

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Carl G »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Carl G wrote:Kind of like a list of the greatest rock bands ever, huh, none from the last thirty years. No great statesmen lately, either. Looks like we're currently in a slump on many fronts.
Like artists and prophets, their stature or myth only starts to develop way after their death. Actually being dead used to be first requirement for hero status.
What about the Beatles, Elvis, Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, The Who, Eric Clapton, and The Allman Brothers? All have achieved 'hero' status while fully active. And in no case was their status heightened by their demise. Which current non-to-semi-famous musicians do you see becoming iconized only after their deaths? I think my point stands regarding this not being the golden age of music. Many great artists also achieve recognition during their lifetimes. The same is true, although less so, for statesmen. I think, for instance, people recognized a classic greatness in FDR and Churchill while they were in office. And in Kennedy and Martin Luther King as well, though they did grow in stature after death.
Only when someone has died, the longer ago the better, we can finally bless, mummify and "iconify" him and his work. Alive he'd be too fluent, vague, confusing, messy, unfixed, "non-existent" if you will. It's like a form of stuffing although in the case of Michael Jackson one could see what happens if you start to do it before the actual death, as his icon overtook the person even before he could die, becoming a "living dead": a prophetic image of our modern world with its "metastatic resistances to death".
Your observations are interesting, but seems quite flawed as a general theory.
User avatar
Carl G
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Arizona

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Carl G »

Pye wrote:As for Carl... I, too, have to choose where to place my acute attention . . . and it wouldn't be there ;)
Why not? Do you know me? What do you know about me?
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

Diebert ribbed: Any chance you could silence the evil twins Carl & Tomas? They're all over the place, day and night.

Pye answered Diebert: As for Carl and Tomas, I, too, have to choose where to place my acute attention . . . and it wouldn't be there ;)

Carl replies: Why not? Do you know me? What do you know about me?
Sheesh, Carl. You didn't want me to follow up on Diebert's suggestion, did you?
User avatar
Carl G
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Arizona

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Carl G »

No, but hypothetically, how would you silence me?
Pye
Posts: 1065
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Pye »

Carl asks: No, but hypothetically, how would you silence me?
Hypothetically or actually, I have no interest in silencing you, Carl :) I happen to like you overall. What I know about you is that you work in an office and sometimes "represent the pink" and that you sometimes write some very clever parody of others (Tomas does, too).

As for "knowing" anything deeper about you, well, you're right. I don't know you at all . . . .
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Top 10 Greatest Geniuses

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Carl G wrote:What about the Beatles, Elvis, Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, The Who, Eric Clapton, and The Allman Brothers? All have achieved 'hero' status while fully active.
With hero status I didn't mean just contemporary fame or having a large fan base as it's more the mythology around such people, not just the rumors. But there's indeed something interesting in the movie, rock and pop universes that transcends some of these artists into a world of 'stars' without having passed away yet. It's definitively something of these times, something necrophiliac to my mind.
Your observations are interesting, but seems quite flawed as a general theory.
The observations were meant to address the age of most religious or spiritual figures on some lists. They or their work appear to have been morphed into something a living breathing person will never be able to. Some of your pop star examples serve more as a simulation of this effect but with "artists" i was thinking more or art living on through the centuries and which people are in awe of because of the the authority the age and context has given it.
Locked