/lit/ - Literature

Probably Terence Tao.

>>5457344

Terence Tao hands down

why do you think a smart person would be philosopher?

I mean probable the smartest person it's someone unknown.

Sam Harris

Jacob Barnett

>>5457380
yeah good point I vote for unknown guy no. 254

>>5457344
Stephen Hawking

I am.

>>5457344

i don't care about being smart, all I want is to have a hair like his when I'm 60, let alone 80+.

>>5457405

I mean, just look at it.

Arrow Girl

>>5457405
>>5457409
whats so good about it?
its just grown out hair

>>5457390
this

>>5457409
Why does he remind me of Hitler?

>>5457383
>mfw there are people much younger than you are that already possess Masters Degree is certain field.
>mfw you still have to rot in university for oh how many years doing essentially nothing.

Bauman obviously

>>5457440
What are you, still an undergrad??

>>5457595
Yes, unfortunately.

>>5457440
Sometimes, I miss rotting student university days

Most of my "successful" side projects started when I was a student, I just had so goddamn much time for everything...

>>5457585
Zygman or the linguistic anthropologist Richard?

>>5457344
>define smart

i heard someone else once say Habermas was the smartest person currently living today. Why do people say this?

his ideas don't seem particularly influencial, but maybe they are. where to start with him?

>>5457606
the liquid man, even tho that anthropologist seems interesting, thanks for the reference.

if all the hyper IQ 170+ ppl went into humanities/arts/social science we'd be so better off. really sucks why it is all wasted over in STEM building fucking computers that run faster and shitty social networking trash

Butterfly

But realistically, Thomas Pynchon

>>5457617

WOT?!

While I think that his history of the public sphere is his most famous work, I think Elizabeth Eisenstein's history of print culture is superior to that book in every way. However, Legitimation Crisis is a god-tier work of social theory.

>>5457624
how many geniuses are wasted running programs that day-trade securities and set up etfs

>5457624
"Hyper" intelligent people don't go into STEM either, they go into finance making millions of dollars cutting milliseconds off financial transactions, or coming up with novel scams.
You'd honestly be stupid to go into STEM when you're extremely intelligent, there's very little chance for a career in academia, and you'll make so much less than you can in finance.

>>5457632

>hurr durr you're only smart if you're interested in making lots of money!

>>5457632
in germany the genius jew becomes Einstein himself. In late capitalism, that same man buys a 40 million dollars house in South Hampton after running a hedgefund

Habermas is so overrated. I hear him getting hailed a lot, but I fail to see why...

In any case, I don't find many minds alive today to be all that staggeringly genius. Maybe Zizek because he's breathing new life into some serious study into the nature of ideology, but I wouldn't call him the "greatest of our times" either.

The objective and unquestionable answer is Christopher Langan.

>>5457646
I can't tip my fedora fast enough!

Me

>>5457649
it always unsettles me that the 'smartest' person alive,I'm closer to a downie than I am to him, actually believes in God.

>Habermas
>the guy can't write to save his life
>his most famous work wasn't even accepted in Germany
>became famous because anglos are fucking stupid

>smartest person alive

Ayy
Ayy
Ayy
Ayy lemonades!

>>5457651
really, it is true though and it is horrible. If they aren't in a hedgefund they doing some other shit like programming

Zizek

>>5457624

Most geniuses have the social intelligence of your average spergshit.
Hard time for them to identify with another's emotional dimension.

People inclined to study history, anthropology etc have a whole other psychological make-up that's more prone to analyze the social body than the hard sciences, which kinda require you to be so abstract in your cognitive processes that the actuality of life is too far removed from you.

Probably Saul Kripke. The guy is one of those types who is for all intents and purposes an autistic savant, except he can actually interact with the outside world (to an extent; life in general seems to be quite a difficulty for him), But he's a genius both in a mathematical sense and a verbal sense, and that's a bit of a rarity. I mean, I'm sure there's some unrecognized supergenius somewhere out there, but of the folks who've really made a name for themselves, I nominate Kripke.

>>5457663

>which kinda require you to be so abstract in your cognitive processes that the actuality of life is too far removed from you.

so they end up equally spergshit in a different way

mein gott zere iz so ezcape

>>5457671
> I nominate Kripke

isn't he the guy with the speech defect on the big bang theory?

That Korean dude with an IQ of like 210 who could speak four languages before he was 3, entered college at 8, and was teaching PHD students at 16.

>>5457674

Uhh, I dunno. I've never watched that abomination. But his speech is really fucking weird.

>mfw these geniuses are so far advanced on the evolutionary ladder that they're incapable to pass on their genes because "ewww what a nerd!!"

inb4 projecting

>>5457674

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE9m6Bu0RGI

I'd say he has more than a speech defect.

>>5457412

Underrated post.
Speaking of which: would you initialize it for Arrow Girl?

>>5457344

To answer your question, OP, I would say that probably Terence Tao. But that's kind of stupid: he is great at math, but not in many other things (although, had he the time and the will to excel in other areas, perhaps he could - who knows?).


It's a hard question. There is still a great debate about what constitutes intelligence and how do we measure all the different aspects that seem to compose the whole of our cognitive abilities.

But many scholars and scientists state that there is a general factor of intelligence (the famous "g") that works as some sort of inner potential. A person with a great "g" may do several things with great success, although there will not be time for that person to dedicate herself to many activities. That's why we have great minds in several different fields, but not a single great mind in every field.

Leonardo da Vinci is sometimes quoted as an example of supreme genius, but a closer look shows quite well that his inventions and machines are the product of an artistic imagination, and would not work in real life. Also, to call him a botanist and anatomist would be a exaggeration: what he did was to draw and analyze plants and bodies, but he didn't help to progress medicine or botanical sciences. His math knowledge was also not impressive, and the book about mathematics that he published with another man had the mathematical work made by this other mind: Da Vinci was responsible for the drawings. Leonardo was a supreme artist and a very curious man, but he was not a genius in several different fields. He dedicated himself for a time to some other thing, but after a while he would go back to his true passion and obsession: the arts. There probably wasn't such a person in the history of the world: a multiple genius.

The "g" theory, however, states that a person with great general intelligence could excel in several fields had she the time, the patience, the desire and the will power to work in any area. That vision, however, is not maintained by all the students of the mind (not even close).

This thread is slightly related to intelligence, so I figure I will ask something of a related question.

I have often read that 4chan is smart people pretending to be dumb, and reddit is dumb people pretending to be smart.

What is your opinion on the matter?

>>5457420

>implying you have better hair

>>5457700

I'd say the /pol/type might not be retarded in their own fields ( mostly STEM ), but they spout some insanely dumb shit about history and sociology.

As for the rest, yeah, I find going on here is more intellectually stimulating than reddit.

>>5457697

Why are you using female nonspecific nouns?

>>5457433
Because he is German.

>>5457606
Eric Bauman, duh.

>>5457752

Because my English is very poor and sometimes I make mistakes. Sorry.

>>5457700
eh they're both full of blowhards and /v/ and /pol/ are honestly just insane but the reason i keep coming back is because there are always good discussions to be hand and people to talk to

>>5457769

Well, you should know that everything is male unless it is specifically intended to imply something bad.

>>5457653
Pretty sure he said his conception of God is closer to Spinoza's than the average religious person's, so who cares?

Me

>>5457697

Well, I dunno. If I were as smart in mathematical matters as I am in verbal matters, I think I'd wanna try and do it all. I mean, not everything obviously, but in addition to philosophy and compsci I'd also probably wanna get a major (and a later a PhD) in mathematics.

>>5457680
my face when I'd fuck terence tao

>>5457691
You've overrated that post in your calling it underrated.

>>5457383
>>5457440

You realize the kid is a mega autistic savant? You realize he's functionally retarded at pretty much everything (including literature) other than theoretical quantum physics, a field that, it's hard to believe, is actually more pointless than literature.

My vote goes to Nial Ferguson. He's built a huge media empire out of an arts degree (another useless degree)

>>5457779
>>5457653
I've actually never heard a so-called "smart" person whose area of expertise is science or mathematics say anything insightful or interesting about the world or God or the human condition or anything like that. Being good at maths guarantees you no intelligence whatsoever with regard to questions about God or the like.

>>5457663
This.


>>5457676
Also who was this?

>>5457778
lol

>>5457801

Well, that's perfectly alright, but what I really wanna know is whether you'd initialize it. I sure would. I'd fuck some common sense into her.

>>5457680
>implying evolution has a direction
>implying people can be on different "levels" of evolution
>implying intelligence is 100% nature
>implying people don't choose their partners based on how money much money they make after high school

>>5457814
Furthermore, I cringe so hard whenever scientists/mathematicians like Hawking or Brian Cox or that Asian guy (but not Carl Sagan) try to say philosophical shit.

>>5457827
actually he has a very good point although he got it backwards.
it's true, most super autistic savants are incapable of reproducing or are gay faggots.

It's pretty clear that god doesn't want STEM fags to reproduce.

>>5457814
>Einstein

>>5457815
Kim Ung Yong

>>5457825
She hasn't even posted a pic of her pussy yet.

>>5457832
surely you respect their stances on science and nominalism which are essentially the philosophical conceptions of our time?

Neil deGrasse Tyson

>>5457839
>Kim Ung Yong
I LOVE how he still ends up as William Stoner.

>>5457836

>implying the demiurge is on our side

>>5457840

>yet
So you're the type who holds out hope, eh? I can respect that.

>>5457854
>implying there are teams

Kripke

>>5457844
I respect their stances on science, but saying "science says this about the universe. That's so weird isn't it? Isn't the universe so weird?" offers me nothing

>>5457854
why does le demiurge look like a snake with lion head?

The only physicists I respect on a philosophical level are Bohmians

>>5457862
It doesn't offer you *nothing* it offers you a synthesis of their life's quest to understand confusing as fuck maths and esoteric dimensions and shit. Just because you don't understand the nominalistic aspects of the "weird universe" doesn't mean those aspects are without meaning. After all, the principals were arrived at BY HUMANS which tells you something about humanity at the very least.

tldr: zero must equal 100%

>>5457863

Lions are solar animals ( in ancient symbology ), but in this case he's also the devourer of souls. Keeping them in a constant cycle of destruction in the material world.

>>5457700

The thing is that in reddit most of guys take them too seriously, here in 4chan there are trolls over trolls, and you need to stereotype yourself to troll sucessfully

Who cares about the smartest people alive, i would like to see who is the most dumbass guy alive so I can mock him

>nothing but anglo-saxon hacks

Jacques Bouveresse is the only right answer.

>>5457827

>still believing girls will fuck you if you have 500k a year

You're gonna be so deluded when you're rich.

>>5457697

yeah it is very hard to determine intelligence, at least beyond basic abilities. are great musicians considered geniuses in the same league as great scientists or great writers or painters? was van gogh as intelligent as richard feynman? was wittgenstein as smart as glenn gould? or is it latent intelligence that then gets directed into a particular field? imagine if someone could paint like van gogh, play piano like glenn gould, do physics like feynman and do philosophy like wittgenstein. my idea of what a universal genius would be, which is to say impossible

>>5457875
i see... that's definitely not a christian idea of le demiurge

lion could be used as one of christian symbols though, but not a lazy ouroboros (who doesn't devour his tail) or a snake...

>>5457697

it is a very hard issue. are great musicians and artists in the same genius category as great scientists and writers? was kafka smarter than einstein? what about economists? how would john maynard keynes or hayek compare to say richard feynman or oppenheimer? was van gogh as smart or smarter than wittgenstein? was glenn gould smarter than darwin? how do measure genius? a true universal genius, someone who could paint like van gogh, play like gould, do physics like feynman and philosophy like wittgenstein, is probably impossible.

>nothing but anglo-saxon hacks

Jacques Bouveresse is the only right answer.

>>5457878
the thing with reddit is that it's overwhelming mass ideology is scientific positivism.

the problem with 4chan is that it's overwhelming mass ideology is hedonism. The terrible truth is that people on 4chan prefer hedonism to scientific truth.

>>5457901

reddit pls go

>>5457909
>implying value judgement based on observation

>>5457901
>hedonism
>4chan
more like unrepentant misanthropy bordering on nihilism

>>5457888

the pic is a silly derivation of the concept of a gnostic being called Yaldabaoth, who is traditionally depicted as a serpent with a lion's head. he is found within the sethian and ophite gnostic cults and mentioned in the "apocryphon of john." there is also a similar lion/snake figure in mithraism called the leontocephaline. cool article about it: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3269961?uid=3739928&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104713491433

>>5457888

Gnostics were a strange assemblage of dualist cults.
But they were definitely far ahead ( if one can claim such a thing contextually speaking ) in terms of morality than the Christians who won over the Councils and Rome.

>>5457901

>hedonism
>bad

>>5457912
that's only this board.

>>5457918

hmmm.... interesting post. I don't think the gnostics were more morally sophisticated than christians qua christians but I do agree they were more sophisticated than the basically ruling christians of the councils and rome. the christian elites of the time got corrupted and compromised the religion, in my opinion at least

>>5457921
>implying >not implying

Why there are deleted posts? It's the mods, it's a report, or it's the same user?

>>5457933
are you people stupid? Christianity is the most popular religion on earth? what are you talking about? your pseudo-narrative bullshit and gnostic knowledge conspiracy nonsense means nothing to me

>>5457914
oh, thanks
gnostics then. well, i was right that it's not a christian idea, since gnostics went way far from the conception of the god as le demiurge which christians have, for them the world was created by some clumsy entity which is merely a distorted shadow of the true god

Not the smartest man alive but hell, who else can claim to be both a rock star and an astrophysicist?

>>5457933

Well in terms of what they believed they resonated more with the permissiveness of this day and age ( abortion, promiscuity, euthanasia etc ) than what the encratites for example endorsed.

Although theirs, of course, stemmed from hardcore religiosity and fervent dislike of the material world.

>>5457946

you got it. if you want a trippy read that is chock full of gnostic themes and ideas check out "VALIS" by Philip K Dick. And "The Gnostic Religion" by Hans Jonas if you want a scholarly run down

>>5457624
maybe that's an indictment of the humanities more than anything

high iq people will always be more attracted to the abstract pursuits like physics and maths because they don't have to deal with fucking humans there

>>5457961
> implying you haven't read the exegesis of P K Dick

> implying you haven't read the Gnostic gospels

Looks like its back to the greeks for this pleb

>>5457885
>Jacques Bouveresse is the only right answer.

Why did you deleted this?

only correct answer:

zizek


/thread

:)

>>5457957

yeah, there were some gnostic cults (whose names i forget) whose rationale was something like: the world is inherently evil, man can never be truly good and our salvation is out of our hands and up to God, so fuck it lets party and have a good time.

>>5457963
they also pay better.

Talk about mutual reinforcement: be autistic, no bitches, get rich

bitches anyway because rich and famous

>>5457975

Which kinda makes sense.
If you think the material world is just one illusion/prison of the soul, than engaging in sexual activity or any debauchery of what soever, then it's just playfulness with the unreal and in due time your infatuation with it will die.

I think it's the extreme logical conclusion one can come to when one REALLY believes real life begins in the Jenseits.

I've thought about this and it's kinda what happened in the story of the Buddha as well.
He too was a wealthy man with all the riches of the world and all the carnal pleasure he could get. Him getting desensitized to it made him open to another level of desire, for something more profound.

>>5457968

>back to the greeks

even when this meme is directed at me, i still laugh.

>>5457995
Being this supreme gentleman.

>>5458011
pic isnt lippy enough

>>5458011

But the supreme gentleman never engaged in sex?

>>5457995

this is funny because i did a lecture on buddhism today for a class i am a ta for. buddhism is fascinating and it is unfortunate in the west that we mostly have a very hippy dippy understanding and interpretation of it. you should do some research on the cathars and the albigensian crusade. a (comparatively) modern gnostic movement and an interesting and tragic example of the interplay of orthodoxy, heresy and power in religion

>>5458024
>implying someone hasn't studied the history of world religions

>>5457995

and yes the buddha go desensitized to luxury and carnality but then he swung in the opposite direction and lived a brutal ascetic life for years. traditional stories say that he got so emaciated he could touch his backbone through his stomach. many statues depict him during this time. he had to almost die from starvation before he realized that neither extreme works

>>5458024

At the moment I'm reading Onfray's work on the gnostics.
Even though he's obviously in favour of their religion as a self-proclaimed hedonist, it's a nice exposé of this religious current even though he spots gnosticism where there isn't really any ( like Montaigne and Erasmus ).

>>5458039

And after that he realized that didn't help him out either.

So he got a hot Dakini girl and they fuuuuuucked 'till enlightenment boiii.

>>5458051
true fact: Siddhartha- once a playa, always a playa

>>5458039
I find it funny how Buddha gave all this shit up, yet he STILL got to experience it before hand. Sex with everyone (probably gay too), spending money like a real baller. And yet he expects people to just sit and meditate without getting to experience ANYTHING at all in life.

tldr: live life before giving it all up

>>5458051

Tantric Buddhism motherfucker! Vajrayana to the max

>>5458065

Saint Augustine: "Oh Lord, give me chastity, but not yet"

>>5458046
can you comment about the gnostic critiques of erasmus? I'm fully interested in early modern humanism but have not read Erasmus, so I'm not clear about his position here. Would love to know.

>>5458065
because he already found that it's a waste of time and don't want you to waste the time yourself

>>5458065
That part really bothers me too because most people don't get to experience that stuff, so how can they reject it?

>>5458073

this

>>5458073

No, it's not a waste of time, by being ascetic you are creating meaning of your hedonistic actions, it's just creating meaning in a stupid way

>>5458065

That's exactly how I feel.

The Buddha's teachings are too ambitious and not that self-reflective.
He gave the methods for a degree that most don't have reached already.

I think Vajrayana, which is largely seen as a massive derivation of the 'original' Theravada, is truer to how the Buddha actually lived and to have an outlook where the flesh and other material pleasures are given a proper place while still pursuing/aiming for something greater.
Sort of like an "Immitatio Buddha".

>>5457366
>>5457368
>>5457697

Can Shakespeare be considered more intelligent or at least more gifted than Terence Tao?

>>5458073

But to actually FEEL like that's a waste of time, you have to go through it first.

Intellectually I get it. Emotionally I'm not there yet. So I don't kid myself and get it out of the way.

>>5458083
how is this Bodhisattvism significantly different from Catholicism?
tldr: Buddhism is reverse the history of Christianity: puritanism tempered by Catholicism (ie... Church of England?)

>>5458079

the buddha said to stop being both a hedonist and an ascetic. not being a hedonist doesn't mean you are then an ascetic and not being an ascetic doesn't mean you are then a hedonist.

>>5458104

>puritanism tempered by Catholicism

that is an awesome fucking thought

>>5458092

hard question. equally gifted perhaps?

>>5458109

Then that means being a common not idealistic man

>>5458121

Well to clear my point is that Buddha has good teachings about how to deal with harsh fact life, but isn't a good way to see ethics, since most of the subjetivity ends with decadency of the individual

>>5458121

that is the point. why be idealistic when we have all, and are going to be, reincarnated almost infinite times? humility is a huge part of the way out of the wheel of suffering and reincarnation

>>5458126

but non-violence and compassion are an integral part of buddhist thought. bodhisattva's are explicitly thought to hold off final enlightenment in order to help all living beings reach enlightenment

>>5458128
>implying the reincarnation is eternal suffering.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for escaping the nightmare of reincarnation, but Sidhartha has an inside angle, namely, he KNEW he was going to escape. Like how jesus KNEW he was going to ascend from the grave. These were not high-stakes games for these people.

>>5458065

My religion professor, who is an unbelievably well read Buddhist scholar, believes that the biography of Shakyamuni Buddha is largely a fabrication meant to situate the life of the Buddha within a set of cultural expectations that existed in 5th century BC India.

It is well known that S.B. came out of India's sramana / samnyasin tradition: such sramanas usually entered the life of the wandering ascetic AFTER having spent many years as a householder.

Whether Buddha had a wife, a son etc. is not for the historian to know, but we can guess that, had the Buddha not had a wife and child, there would be strong motivation for his biographers to give him one.

Furthermore, SB came from a ksatriya family, which is sometimes interpreted as "princely" or "aristocratic" but is more reasonably likened to "upper middle class" or something like that.

The story of his early life adds biographical color to the theories he developed. It's not important whether or not they are true.

>>5458104

I've noticed a lot of simularities between Vajrayana Buddhism and Catholicism. Not only the obvious papal structure and the clergy having a vital role in your liberation, but also in combining folk religion into theology and practise. Mahayana and Theravada are much more purist in that.

The only difference being that the former has schools which have no issue, at all, with monks even fucking girls for the purpose of performing rites of passage ( and magical ritual ), or engaging in homosexual behaviour even.

>>5458135

Die Trauerspiel der Aufklarung

>>5458140
mfw Siddhartha was the second Master of the Universe.

>>5458126

SB's ethics follow from his theory of causation. The commonly held notion that Buddhists over-emphasize subjectivity is incorrect. SB held that the world exists as a result of an interplay between subject and object-- they are totally codependent (this is not an uncommon idea in philosophy, and one can find it in western thought. The main point is that SB's universe is not dualistic).

>>5458145

The Tragedy of the Enlightenment?

>>5458128

That's assuming that you can be reincarnated, it's a leap of faith.

A more to the point view could be that Buddha always knew that the Nirvana wasn't the reunification but the ending of conciousness, AKA death. Maybe he did some rhetoric with the reincarnation because he knew that some people wouldn't be so acceptive to leave his will to keep existing and be nothing.

>mfw Zizek analyzed Buddhism first to discard it as some sort of imperial-friendly stoicism, only to find out there's something really metaphysically significant about it

>>5458155

Pratītyasamutpāda:

Dependent arising

I am loving this thread

>>5458119

I am certain that Tao would score much higher in any IQ test and that his abilities evolved much faster: he was certainly much more impressive as a child.

But Shakespeare is generally regarded as the greatest writer of all time; if not that he is at least regarded as the greatest poet of all time, the greatest artist of language.

But Terence Tao: is he as great as Gauss and Euler (the two top giants in mathematics)? Is he as great and impressive in his field as Shakespeare was on his?

Of what I read there is still no poet that ever came close to Shakespeare's achievement (with his complete works). Is Tao that great in mathematics?

Is strange. Terence Tao would certainly strike kindergarten teachers as superior to Shakespeare. But in the end, is he that great in his field?

Don't know. My questions are probably irrelevant.

>>5458158

Aye laddie, aye.

>>5458160

I didn't know he had found anything to like about it. Last I heard he dissed hard on Buddhism

>>5458164
that just proves maths > literature

>>5458160

That entire lecture was extremely annoying. Zizek moves between independent fields of scholarship with way too much ease.

Of course there's room for interdisciplinary discourse, but you have to recognize your limits as a single human being: you don't get to be a theorist of everything.

His comments on Buddhism are neat speculation at best.

>>5458164

would he have come across as superior though? i mean this is all crazily hypothetical so whatever but quantifying genius across disciplines is a very hazy idea. Tao is a mathematical genius but will he ever or has he ever written a beautiful and profound poem? Shakespeare certainly never did advanced mathematics. What about great composers? Was Beethoven smarter than Gauss?
What about Georg Cantor and Avicenna? a great and cheesy sci fi story would be one about a kindergarten class of clones of geniuses throughout history

>>5458168

I forgot which lecture.
But near the end of the one I'm referring to he said he found something profound about the idea where ( some advanced ) Buddhists said they don't see an issue for reaching enlightenment when someone decides to go down the road of extreme studious eremitism, activism or a mundane family life.

He saw it as reflective of his own stance where one serves the communist ideal by doing both intellectual work, protesting/striking or day-to-day kindness.

>>5458171

You need to study Lewis Carroll a little more.

>>5458171

Yeah....but think about this:

Shakespeare would never be able to do what Tao does. But would Tao be able to do what Shakespeare did?

Of course, if he set himself to study literature he maybe could write great things, but would he be capable of the same linguistic exuberance that Shakespeare's presents over and over again? He was simply unstoppable: he could go on forever with dazzling metaphors and images.

He couldn't do what Gauss did. But would Gauss, Euler, Newton, Tao, Einstein: would them be capable, even with 100 years of time to study and work, be capable of doing what Shakespeare did?

Yes, they could write short-stories, and maybe even great novels. But that level of poetry and language, that nobody has ever see equaled. Do you really think they would be capable of that?

I don't think so.

>>5458147

is this a reference to Baha'i?

>>5458171

Define an order on subjects of human knowledge and a set of boundary conditions for subjects and then maybe we can talk.

>>5458185

We can say for sure that Mozart was smarter than Beethoven, because the first was a genious and could compose works like nothing.

but Beethoven was more a hard working man, he composed less but every composition of him was done with an astonish amunt of hard work

The question is pointless to even consider. "Intelligence" is incredibly nebulous and really means nothing.

>>5458186

yeah i can groove on that. but that is also an integral part of hinduism. there is a lot of emphasis in certain types of yoga of living a simple, upright life and rendering basic bhakti.

>>5458196
It's unfair to compare him to Mozart who was basically an alien, there has never been anyone like Mozart in music, not even remotely, the level of perfection and the insane quantity of his work is actually hard to even believe. Beethoven was a genius in his own right and very original, he just can't be compared to Mozart

>>5458199

And technically every other religion as well.
One could say that communism is just the yearning for utopia ( either in this or another life ) become irreglious.

>>5458202

That's my point, it's just unfair.

>>5457381
>Sam Harris
nice b8

>>5458202

yeah but Mozart was also brutally trained from a very young age. his father made him practice and perform basically non-stop. would he have been as good as he was without that enforced training? how much of genius is talent and how much of is hard work and the training of that talent?

>>5458205

What about liberation theologies or Christian anarchism (Tolstoy, Day/Maurin)?

The quest for utopia in this world is not only permissible within many theological contexts: it's integral.

>>5458212

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to wit.

>>5458193
tom wolfe

>>5458205

yep I definitely agree. communism as a secular religion. I think fascism can be put in that category as well.

>>5458212

Would you two stop it? I gag every time I read some bullshit about who is more or less of a genius.

Go read the Time 100 Millenium addition, blog about it and gtfo.

>>5458213


"The Principle of Hope" - Ernst Bloch

Its thesis in a nutshell

>>5458188
this

tldr: writing poetry that's still good 500 years later ain't no joke. I can't think of any nominalistic principle that's survived that long.

>>5457344
Fernando Vallejo.

>>5458196

Not that fast. First you should know that Mozart didn't had the enormous easiness that legend gives him. He used to sit down and work too, and a lot of times he made drafts and revise what he was writing. His wife, however, after his death proved to be a very talented businesswoman. She take care of her husbands name, and even made it shine more bright. One of the things she did was to destroy manuscripts that showed Mozart in the painful act of labor, and that with the objective of making him appear miraculous.

And Beethoven did a lot of corrections, that's true. But he was capable of composing with great ease if he wanted. But he was more ambitious than Mozart: he was more obsessive. He wanted to extract the very best of any idea, hence why he drafted so much.

Also: if you question music specialist and critics many will tell you that Beethoven compositions are superior.

I don't want to criticize Mozart: I also love him. But don't let the Mozart myth fool you.

>>5458217

Ugh... this is as cliche as it is wrong. The phrase "secular religion" is completely meaningless. Religion is hard enough to define. Once one has done that they can tweak a definition of "secular" as roughly the absence of religion. Good luck approaching a definition for "secular religion."

>>5458213

I'd say in axial religions mostly.
The old pagan religions like the Egyptian, Germanic and the New World ones didn't have this future agenda.
They had a much more presentist outlook, while the ones who emerged from the urban environments of the Middle East/Mediterranean/Central Asian regions had a very different conception of time and all that implies.

>>5458220

Added to read list. I must bone up on the Bloch.

>>5457344

What if the smartest person alive is posting in this thread?

>>5458234

I don't know what an axial religion is and I know almost nothing about "old pagan religions like the Egyptian, Germanic and the New Worlds."

But I would wager you would find an enormous variety of thought in each of these, including eschatologies and pantheons that are intimately intertwined with the social/political organization of the society in question.

Also -10 points for repeating this stupid cliche about eastern vs. western conceptions of time.

>>5458239

>mind blown

>>5458233

yeah but "political ideology that has subtle and pervasive similarities to certain religious themes" just isn't as sexy sounding

>>5458239

He would laugh at this shit

Then he would move to /r9k/ to see the story of faggots

Then he would browse /b/ to laugh at moot problems.

Then he would /sci/ to laugh at STEM faggots

And would repeat the cycle to /lit/

>>5458249

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

>>5458249

>tfw you dont' have time to spend getting intimate and sexy with your religion courses because you have a mountain of real analysis homework.

>tfw you realized you pick the wrong major three classes away from graduating

>tfw all the maths you've learned in the last 4 years is just going to slowly be forgotten over the next 40.

>>5458245

Read Karl Jaspers.
It's most of the religions that were developed around the year 800 up until late antiquity, still influencing our world.

>Also -10 points for repeating this stupid cliche about eastern vs. western conceptions of time.

What? I specifically said all the regions which are NOT counted as part of the West.
Plus I didn't say anything about these notions of time being either this or that, or that everyone agreed upon core tennets. It's just that you notice a different trend in and around that area which affected the rest of the world as time wenton.

>>5458252
The bonfire of the vanities perhaps?

Tom Wolfe back in this thread!

>>5458259

800 BC*

>>5458260

Ecclesiastes actually

"And more than of these, my son, be careful: to making many books there is no end, and too much studying afflicts the flesh."

>>5458245

>I don't know what an axial religion is and I know almost nothing about "old pagan religions like the Egyptian, Germanic and the New Worlds."

so maybe you should shut up then?

>>5457654
>wasn't even accepted in Germany

Could you elaborate on this? Genuinely curious.

>>5457344
Stephen hawking fool. Is this even a real question?
Or perhaps real life?

>>5458191

I am a math Ph.D. student at a top university so I'm semi-qualified to have an opinion on the math questions you asked.

From what I know of Tao's work, he seems to be extraordinarily technically gifted. A true genius problem-solver. But it's not the case that he's far beyond all other mathematicians in the world. There are maybe two or three dozen or so who are equally accomplished. He also doesn't seem to have moved mathematics as a whole forward all that much. Nothing he's done has effected a paradigm shift.

I know Shakespeare decently well and have read most of his work. What he did linguistically and poetically and as a student of human character is just without parallel. He went beyond the height of human accomplishment up to that point in so many dimensions of his plays.

So there are only a few figures in the history of human thought that I would put next to Shakespeare. Probably Gauss, but definitely not Tao.

>>5458249
And then go to /int/ and talk about how he's the master race

>>5458332

I am pleased to learn about someone who is mathematically gifted but doesn't despises literature and art as irrelevant. Is nice to know that people like you exist.

>>5458332
Since you're a mathematician, I'm curious as to where you'd place von Neumann in this "hierarchy" of brilliance

>>5458395

Same question, but with David Hilbert

Grigori Perelman.

Incredible human being

>>5457420
> 85
> Glorious thick white (as opposed to dirty gray) hair
> Not great

>>5457810
> History in fucking Oxford
> Useless degree
...

>>5457810

Nial fucking Ferguson?

I think I'm going to fucking puke you sick freak.

What the hell is wrong with you? Fucking A man, why'd you say that?

I have to go and rethink my entire view of humanity. You just lowered the bar. I need a drink.

>>5457683
If Yoda were a logician.

>>5459002

"Naming and Necessity" is a great book by him

>>5459021

I can't imagine the sheer agony of listening to a full lecture of his. Great mind but good lord, that voice would drive me crazy. I'll take the transcript

>>5457810
⇒he's functionally retarded at pretty much everything

Outside of quantum physics Jacob Barnett is a normal teenager. Your projections are funny.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/09/22/jacob_barnett.html
>He chats with his Californian girlfriend through Skype, likes football and surfing, and is excited to try snowshoeing during his first Canadian winter.
>He smiles easily in interviews, is quietly charming and speaks concisely.

>>5457663
>social intellgience

>>5459025
his transcripts are actually incredibly well written. and by written i mean actually just transcribed because i guess he just shows up and starts spitting out great, readable prose

>>5457697
Yeah, because being a polymath precludes being a genius.

>>5457844
Pop scientists should never have been allowed to come into existence.

Fuck Carl Sagan, he started this nonsense. This generation of STEMtards is going to ruin the planet.

>>5458951
he looks good on this pic, unlike on those with his blue hat

>>5457871
Actually, in order to have meaning, something has to be imparted with meaning. Nothing in the universe means anything. Tell me the 'meaning' of a nebula. It isn't a linguistic entity. It has no semantic content. Maybe it signifies something to you, but it's essentially empty of semantic or symbolic content and acting like an astral body's existence is life-affirming because of its 'meaning' while claiming that something like religion is evil because it's 'wrong' and 'empty' is unethical IMO. Religion is more meaningful than stars, and in fact we wouldn't care about what stars 'mean' if religious cosmologies didn't emphasize the supposed fact that stars had meaning.

You positivist assholes need to learn a thing or two about semiotics before you start talking about meaning. Objects don't 'mean' anything.

For fuck's sake, you people are pathetic.

>>5457886
Oh pls, just look at Aristotle and the likes. It is possible to become a homo universalis.

>>5459467

>Fuck Carl Sagan

Don't blame a chill guy on the mopes who came after him. Carl Sagan was by no means an empiricist pedant when it came to spirituality.

>>5459478
Yes he was. Even if he wasn't he's widely quoted enough by the problematic kind of scientist that I don't have patience for his thought anymore. I used to love him, but then I became a rationalist.

>>5459481

>I used to love him, but then I became a reactionary.

Fixed.

>>5457912
Yep, this seems way more accurate. Especially If a board like /b/ would be personified it would be a complete sociopathic maniac.

>>5459481

>Even if he wasn't he's widely quoted enough by the problematic kind of scientist that I don't have patience for his thought anymore.

Disregarding thinkers because you have emotional reactions toward the conduct of parties who quote them makes you equally problematic where intellectual integrity is concerned.

You've become the object of your own disdain.

>>5459482
Basically.
I'm not a self I identifying National Socialist or anything like that but I believe democracy, capitalism, and orthodox Marxism are all deeply flawed (as is any such thing, including whatever I think would be a better alternative to the current global whatever). I voted for Obama in 2012 but since then I've become more and more disillusioned with politics with each passing day.
Religious STEMfaggotry, vapid social justice crusaders who don't even acknowledge the possibility that their arguments are inconsistent and worth thinking through a little bit more, the disgusting levels of corruption in modern politics no matter where you look, the materialistic greed of our Western culture, the stubborn egoism of 99% of the 99% that I've interacted with-all these things made me react.

>>5457412
I came here to post the same. We should make a strawpoll.

>>5459487
>stubborn egoism

See:
>>5459486

>>5457700
/v/ /fa/ /tv/ /mu/ /a/ /pol/ etc. prove that 4chan is not smart

>>5459486
Like I said, I used to love him. Then I started to read booms about stuff and not just watch TV shows about it and realized that the man was a charlatan. Good for him, I guess, because I was just as enthusiastic about the glory of science as anyone else could be for a few years and that ideology definitely helped me through high school.

Now, though, I'm studying philosophy and have no interest in going back to studying astronomy any time soon. This lack of interest in his field is another reason I don't care too much about Sagan.

I'm probably not justified for thinking he was kind of a charlatan, but I still think he was kind of a charlatan. I'll probably give him another chance at some point, but for now I don't feel like it and my judgments about him and his work stand.

>>5459487

>Religious STEMfaggotry, vapid social justice crusaders who don't even acknowledge the possibility that their arguments are inconsistent and worth thinking through a little bit more, the disgusting levels of corruption in modern politics no matter where you look, the materialistic greed of our Western culture, the stubborn egoism of 99% of the 99% that I've interacted with-all these things made me react.

and because of all this shit that had nothing to do with carl sagan you've decided to say "fuck carl sagan"? do you even understand how insecure this bullshit reasoning is?

>>5457899
>racism

>>5457952
brian cox

>>5458160
i want a flaming rainbow minge

>>5459498
Someone called me a reactionary, which I thought he meant in a broader sense than just reacting to Carl. I was agreeing with him.

>>5459497

>the man was a charlatan

>I'm probably not justified for thinking he was kind of a charlatan
>but I still think he was kind of a charlatan.

You sound like such an awkward 20something. You should do yourself a favour and dial back on the polemics until you manage to get the fuck over yourself.

>>5459509
I'm 20 so that makes sense.

I'm writing polemics on 4chan because it's a good place to practice writing polemics. This is literally my only outlet for this kind of thing.

Carl Sagan was a charlatan,and 'once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.'

>>5459520

Carl Sagan was a charlatan.

I'm probably not justified for thinking he was.

But I still think he was.

I don't know.

...

Please take me seriously, internet.

>>5459530
What makes you think I want you people to take me seriously?

Why are people defensing le fedora spaceman?

>>5457344
Zizek and Dugin.

>>5459467
>buh huh huh my so deep thoughts are rekt by someone who actually does research and stuff

>>5457864
The bohmian interpretation of QM doesn't account for the critical role of consciousness.

>>5459496
>/mu/

You were in the wrong thread, I guess. Jazz and Classical generals are actually interesting and people is knowledgeable about the subject.
The rest is Death Grips scum.

>>5459544
Any really deep thoughts are entirely compatible with science. I just think Sagan was a charlatan and was largely responsible for the emergence of popular science as we see it today in the form of people like Dawkins and Kaku, which I see as a disgrace to all intellectual achievements. This is not because I resent the success these people have had, but because their scientific euphoria is not science as science should be. As a student of history I'm disgusted by the ignorance and whitewashing of historical facts that these people have encouraged. As a student of philosophy I'm maybe resentful of science's place in the spotlight but whatever. The fewer philosophers there are, the better, because the average person doesn't feel like applying themselves to learn about philosophy to the point of actually understanding a complex concept, and pop philosophy is never anything like real philosophy. The same is true of pop science: it isn't at all scientific. Rhetoric has no place in the scientific process as Sagan and his disciples talk about it, but you wouldn't know that from watching a video of Carl Sagan talking about how evil religion is (and there are a lot of those, if I remember high school correctly).
Prophets of scientism (or philosophism for that matter), wherever they are, deserve to be stripped of their degrees.

>>5457390
This

>>5459580
⇒pop philosophy is never anything like real philosophy

Can you define the difference?

>>5459566

>not liking death grips

>>5459580
>Rhetoric

i don't think that word means what you think it means

Milan Kundera

>>5459664
Pop philosophy is a five-minute YouTube video where someone talks about the meaning of life and asks a lot of questions that can't be answered.

Real philosophy is the disciplined study of a particular philosophical tradition and the articulation, synthesis, and analysis of that tradition's contents.
>>5459720
You're probably right, but you surely agree that complaining about how oppressive religion is and science are not identical.

>>5459566
ok then grandpa

I think it's too hard to pick since different fields have different ways of measuring intelligence

>>5457344
I vote for myself, for i see that thou art nothing more than neckbeards pretending to be patrician.

richard dawkins hands down

>>5458225

I prefer Beethoven. I'm no professional music critic though. Everything I've heard from him has moved me deeply.

>all these child prodigies and autistic savants

lel

/lit/ confirmed for getting its understanding of intelligence from Sherlock and Jimmy Neutron

>>5457397
This poster.

>>5460261
If we're talking child prodigies how about Kolsti Nguyen?

>>5461491
Legitimately tired of your self promotion you little shit. You're a fucking garbage 17 year old underdeveloped DFW cocksuck wannabe shut the fuck up

>>5461491
you are garbage

>>5461491
Read a book, Kolsti.

>>5461619
>>5461519
>>5461506
>>5461491
What the fuck just happened.

>>5457653
>it always unsettles me that the 'smartest' person alive,I'm closer to a downie than I am to him, actually believes in God.
Why though? Deism is not retarded, and I assume he's some kind of a deist.

>>5457697
>da vinci
>not a polymath
Just because certain aspects of his research and inventions didn't pan out/weren't really challenging it doesn't mean that he wasn't a brilliant man in many fields.

I'd like to see any modern "genius" invent as much stuff as he did and paint as he did with the same resources.

>>5461965
>Deism is not retarded

>>5461991
It really isn't. There might very well be some kind of "first cause" that we may never observe or perhaps observe when we advance science more.

Still inferior to atheism IMO, since it's based on fewer prior assumptions.

>>5461996
Yeah there might be but there might be a hell of a lot of things we know nothing about. Still seems stupid to believe in them just because they 'might' exist.

>>5462018
>Still seems stupid to believe in them just because they 'might' exist.
Believing the universe came to be by chance also requires a leap of faith. When discussing where we are from and why we are here, that's always a premise one must accept.

Alex Kierkegaard a.k.a. Icycalm

>>5462062
How about "I don't know"

>>5462114
fuck off alex you are trash

>>5462156
I'm not him, stop fucking pretending he doesn't have people who agree with and support him. If you don't like what he says you're not helping your argument by trying to dismiss every post with his name in it with that stupid shit.

>>5462174
either you're him or you're one of the people he's encouraging to viral his shit. you has made posts saying he will give people subs to his overpriced shit if they viral him on 4chan.

>>5462134
That's a retarded way of thinking though, essentially "agnosticism" without the theism/atheism. Do you also claim to "not know" that there is no santa claus, leprechauns or flying spaghetti monster? No? Well then, I guess your argument fell apart.

>>5462183
>>5462174
If I didn't know any better I'd say these posts were about Tao or Kolsti. Perhaps some people just have a following.

>>5462192
>empiricism
>scientism
I vomited in my mouth so much it exited my mouth

>>5462195
lol

>this idiot
>a following

>>5462202
>being this indecisive
You have to believe in something, asswipe. I choose to believe in what we can prove by the scientific method, you seem to believe that rambling about "god" is just as good a method of finding out who is right.

>>5462215
I don't worship any god. But scientism is just as stupid as theism. If you think the scientific method and overwhelming consensus means your subjective interpretation of linguistic signals is more valid than someone else's you're hopelessly arrogant.

>>5462218
>subjective interpretation of linguistic signals
Language is not subjective. Carbon means carbon, protons are protons, neutrons are neutrons. See what I'm getting at here? Sciences grounded in empirism and formal logic (math, physics, chemistry and so on) have no confusions about interpretations.

>>5462212
Oh, he's not at all on the level of a Tao or a Kolsti or even a Will Self. Nevermind.

>>5462237
Define carbon.

>>5462241
Carbon (from Latin: carbo "coal") is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6.

Oh, and to clarify, with "language is not subjective" I meant in regards to language used in sciences, where preciseness is valued.

>>5462247
Define "atomic number"

>>5462250
Now you're just fucking with me, right?

>the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom of that element, and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus.

Do you have any arguments against what I said in >>5462237 ?

>>5462263
Define "protons"

>>5457810
>than theoretical quantum physics, a field that, it's hard to believe, is actually more pointless than literature.
Elaborate.

>>5462265
The proton is a subatomic particle, symbol p or p+, with a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge and mass slightly less than that of a neutron

>>5462265
Why do we allow people like you to live? Everyone knows that everyone else literally wants to kill you...

>>5462273
Define "mass"

>>5462275
In physics, mass is a property of a physical body which determines the body's resistance to being accelerated by a force and the strength of its mutual gravitational attraction with other bodies. The SI unit of mass is the kilogram (kg)

>>5462280
Define "force"

>>5462250
At some point words become self-referential: regardless, they signify a real thing. Gato, mau, eesa, all signify what in English is called a cat.

>>5462285
>In physics, a force is any influence which tends to change the motion of an object.
For how long are you going to answer with shitposting?

>>5462293
For how long are you going to refuse to admit that language is inherently meaningless.

>>5462309
you should have asked to define object, come on man

>>5457810
>Nial Ferguson
Considering he's managed to be wrong about almost everything he's shared an opinion on, I'm fairly sure he's not even in the top 10%.

>Keynes was a bad economist because he was gay and gay people don't care about the future
>Invading Iraq will work out just fine, it'll be over by christmas
>Who needs "facts" when you have strongly held opinions?

>>5459432
He's a medically-diagnosed autist though.

>>5458239
surely he'd have already ascended beyond the need to be validated by anyone including /lit/

>>5462309
>admit that language is inherently meaningless.
But it's not, and your arguments make zero sense.

>>5459432

The article does refer to his "humanities courses and other 'junk'" which I'm guessing justifies the literature comment.

I once met a recluse vagabond on the street that answered every question I put to him. He was so wide and smelled like bleach.

me