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Who is the smartest person to have ever lived?
Topic Started: Oct 14 2011, 03:12 PM (4,200 Views)
Chocl8215
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Man of great chocolate
hjk561
May 11 2012, 03:47 PM
Chocl8215
May 11 2012, 07:02 AM
intelligence - noun. the ability to recognize, store, and use information. the more intelligent you are, the more options you have

this is as generalized a definition i could think of, and i'd say it fits our purposes well, all these people had to do just that, recongize what was around them, store the information, and then use it later.
But who did it the best? That is the question :P
... yeah, kinda the point.
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TheDukeofAnhalt
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Im just gonna sit in the corner...re-reading my old papers from university, that were about things like this. So many memories.
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Vosoros
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Whilst I vote for Socrates, technically there's no evidence the man actually exsisted. The only knowledge we have of the man is in Plato's writings.

^o)

So, truth be told, my vote is for Plato. I find much of his philosphies agreeable. Most noteworthy (IMHO) are his writings of the ideal society (with the philosopher king at it's apex), and his musings on the nature of reality and truth (vis-a-vi; his debate on the nature of reflections on a cave wall).

:unsure:

Plato's Republic is a darn good read!
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TheEdnar
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The sad thing is we probably don't even know about the person who would've been recognized as the most intelligent ever.

Genetically we haven't come all that far since figuring out that throwing stones at stuff makes it dead, and putting the meat in fire makes you not die so easily. So the potential has been there for a while.
Then we come to the question how long of a recorded history we have. About 6000 years, give or take. Of how large a persentage of people do we have any record from that time? Not very large portion i'd wager.
The smartest person in the history of mankind could at this very moment be living in in sub-saharan africa in a country which has been in constant state of war for his/her entire life. Or in china, where he/she gets put in prison because of being too smart for his/her own good saying something wrong about the way the country is run. Or maybe he/she is born to poor a farmer in a backwater town anywhere in the western world, where the only stimulus for his/her intelligence are the locals, who just think "oh, that's a smart kid" but do nothing to furher the kids chances, maybe even refusing to let the kid go to school where he/she might find the spark for learning and thinking.

I know what you're thinking. What about all those people who made it despite the difficulties mentioned above (or similar). Yes, well. That might've taken more than just intelligence, eh? They had to also have charisma, public speaking skills, good looks, wit etc.

I'm willing to bet we nowdays lose an Einstein every decade simply because he/she was born in the wrong place, at the wrong time and, dare I say it, to the wrong people.
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MUERTE
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I say it's Albert, 'cause the other would be smart like Socrates and Da vinci, but they lived in a time where there was much less known about the world, sure they discovered great things!
Like Newton, he had a great steam engine, but nowadays we don't use steam anymore.
Einstein maybe did the latest greatest inventions, and with much more nollege (or something close to that) about sience and how the world is based!
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Chocl8215
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Man of great chocolate
uh... James Watt invented the steam engine not Isaac Newton. newton developed theories on gravity and thermodynamics.
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Torabisu
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Sherlock Holmes... Batman... but truly I think that everything is intelligent in what they do best which not much others can be have the same way of iintelligence. For example a dog knows that if he poop outside wile not pooping in the house than he shall get a treat but a cat knows that if she does a trick to impress her oner than she'll get a treat. What I'm saying is that there are many ways of doing something that would inspire people that they are the smartest person to ever lived but to know what your best at and utilize that skill is what I find to be intelligent.

( That probily made no sense sense I just woke up. = D )
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