
What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? - Gormisdomai
http://thinkingcomplete.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-have-been-greatest-intellectual.html?m=1
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ricraz
Hi all, post author here. Thanks for all the feedback. Although the idea of a
definitive list would be nice, in practice a lot of it will always be very
subjective. I wrote this up pretty quickly, which is evident from some of the
omissions (Maxwell, the Internet(!), etc). But I've learned a lot from various
suggestions I've received, which was the point of doing this, and am currently
writing them all up to add to the list.

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davemp
Seems like a vary bias/incomplete list to me.

No guass, euler, ohm/kirchhoff, and many more people who made huge leaps for
human umderstanding/achievement.

~~~
Cyph0n
Gauss and Euler would probably each need their own lists...

More notably, the author missed Maxwell's equations, the development of the
solid-state transistor, and the creation of the integrated circuit.

~~~
emmelaich
Yeah, Maxwell's equations occurs to me immediately. And Heaviside's
reformulation of them.

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westurner
\- The internet (TCP/IP) and world wide web (HTML, HTTP).

History of the Internet:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet)

History of the World Wide Web:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web)

\- Relational algebra, databases, Linked Data (RDF,).

Relational algebra:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra)

Relational database:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database)

Linked Data:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data)

RDF:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework)

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akkartik
Epidemiology
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow))

~~~
rdtsc
Yes! I was thinking some math or physics breakthrough but in terms lives saved
I'd have to agree with you.

In terms of math then I'd pick statistics probably. Even though I personally
never quite liked it as much in school, at least not as much as calculus or
linear algebra.

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lcuff
The development of the scientific method, as advocated by Francis Bacon and
other empiricists seems to me to underlie so many of the achievements that
followed Bacon.

~~~
wittedhaddock
He also discovered that heat is motion, so the dude practiced what he preached
to good success.

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gtsteve
Bill Tutte breaking the Lorenz cipher in a fortnight using only pen and paper,
and having never even seen the machine surely has to at least count as
impressive.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte#Diagnosing_the_cip...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte#Diagnosing_the_cipher_machine)

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xchip
Glad to see the Socratic method in the list.

BTW there is a guy on youtube using it to discuss religious beliefs with
random people. It's fantastic.

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udfalkso
youtube link? thanks

~~~
maroonblazer
Is it Anthony Magnabosco's channel? "Street Epistemology"?

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocP40a_UvRkUAPLD5ezLIQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocP40a_UvRkUAPLD5ezLIQ)

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westurner
The UNDHR (UN Declaration of Human Rights): [Equality,]

[http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-
rights/](http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/)

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amriksohata
The numerical system developed by Indian hindu sages without which there would
be no maths or binary

The discovery of the Boson,by Sathendra Nath Bose

Yoga

~~~
saagarjha
I concede the first point, but I wouldn’t really consider bosons and yoga to
be as important as a numerical system.

EDIT: Also, Bose, along with Einstein, did not “discover” bosons; instead,
they created a model for them. Experimental verification came later.

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jcranmer
Some less obvious omissions on this list are major theological developments:

\- Zoroastrianism's development of dualistic cosmology, i.e., that the present
universe is locked in a cosmic struggle between ultimate good and ultimate
evil (which underpins the modern theological foundations of Western religions
like Christianity and Islam).

\- The Vedic development of karma, which is similarly one of the central
foundations of Eastern religions

\- Confucian and other Axial Age Chinese philosophies (although Confucian is
the main one well-known to modern Westerners)

There's also a tendency to favor theoretical developments over practical
developments that preceded theory by a long time. Three-field and four-field
crop rotations, ship keels, square-rigged ships, corned gunpowder, double-
entry bookkeeping--these are all "minor" inventions that are little-known in
the popular sphere that truly made impressive advancements in agriculture,
sailing, warfare, economics.

At the same time, some of these developments are definitely overrated:

Copernicus's theory is actually almost completely and entirely wrong, and
certainly defied evidence that even contemporaries were more than eager to
point out (the lack of stellar aberration being the biggest problem of all).
The only thing that it got right didn't even originate with Copernicus (it's
Aristarchus who is the earliest known proponent of such a theory, and
Copernicus was definitely aware of Aristarchus).

Similarly, Freud, while popular in the popular imagination of psychology, is
generally considered almost completely discredited in his own field.

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thcsa
Comparing Kahnemann's work with Newton's is absurd.

~~~
Rexxar
Indeed, stopping to rank everything on absurd scales would be a great
intellectual achievement for humanity.

~~~
sddfd
That's what I thought browsing the comments.

As a scientist, it is important to attribute ideas to the people that put them
forward.

But the essence of science is about the preservation, dissemination, and most
importantly researching knowledge.

Whenever the topic of attribution comes up, it seems to quickly escalate from
giving due credit to sciences politics.

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dbatten
This list seems very Western. Are there Eastern developments that should be
added?

~~~
Cyph0n
Some Muslim and Middle Eastern developments that are missing from this list
too (off the top of my head):

* Al Khawarizmi's development of algebra

* Al Zahrawi's creation of commonly used surgical instruments

* Ibn Sina's Canon

* Ibn Al Haytham's description of optics and how human vision works

* Ibn Khaldun as the founder of modern sociology.

~~~
IncRnd
Al Khwarizmi should not be credited with the development of algebra. Al
Khwarizmi wrote a compendium, and algebra was used at least 2,000 years prior
to Al Khwarizmi.

Similarly, Ibn Sina's Canon was a compendium of existing practices from the
time.

Those two compendiums have been extremely valuable, but one shouldn't classify
compendium's as great intellectual achievements.

When discussing optics of human vision, don't stop at Ibn Al Haytham, but
include Al Razi and Ibn Sina. You should also include Galen, whose prior work
was the foundational achievement.

~~~
Cyph0n
> Al Khwarizmi should not be credited with the development of algebra. Al
> Khwarizmi wrote a compendium, and algebra was used at least 2,000 years
> prior to Al Khwarizmi.

He formalized it from what I recall. Formalization is as important as the
initial discovery.

> but one shouldn't classify compendium's as great intellectual achievements.

You seem to be quite certain that both of these compendiums lacked any
original contributions from their authors. May I ask why that is the case?

~~~
IncRnd
No. I won't say that there were no original contributions from the authors.
They were written by highly intelligent individuals who knew their fields. I
was attempting to say that compendiums in and of themselves are not amongst
the greatest of intellectual achievements.

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westurner
\- CRISPR/Cas9, CRISPR/Cpf1

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR)

Cas9:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas9)

CRISPR/Cpf1:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR/Cpf1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR/Cpf1)

\- Tissue Nanotransfection

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_nanotransfection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_nanotransfection)

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holri
J.S. Bach's Wohltemperiertes Clavier

~~~
k4l3
Completely agree. The lack of anything between Socrates and Copernicus alone
shows the distinct bias of the list. Not a single Scholastic? No mention of
achievements outside of hard science or mathematics. If the author specified
that as his area of focus, we might be able to have a more profitable
discussion.

~~~
ricraz
I've received a fair few suggestions on insights in the humanities which I'm
currently writing up to add to the post. I considered some of the Scholastics
but felt that they hadn't had an impact on modern thought in the same ways as
most of the others (which is a relatively good proxy for "correctness", which
is one component of being "great", which is a bad metric but I have to draw
the line somewhere). Would you disagree?

Also, I agree that there are some amazing artistic achievements. To keep
things concise, I wasn't focusing on them here (I'll make that explicit now).

~~~
wittedhaddock
How do you define modern thought? How do you measure impact on it?

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novalis78
Suggestion to the future generations on Mars reading this in their
archives...this would be a pretty good list in case you look for inspiration
setting up monuments and busts in your libraries.

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westurner
\- Time, Calendars

Time > History of the calendar:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#History_of_the_calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#History_of_the_calendar)

\- Standard units of measure (QUDT URIs)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_measurement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_measurement)

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amriksohata
CV Raman - Raman light scattering and amplification, pretty much being used
everyday now in fibre communication

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briga
The great writers like Shakespeare and Proust probably deserve a spot on this
list.

Also I'm not sure what Said is doing on that list with all those geniuses. Not
saying he isn't great, but why him?

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elorant
Mathematics

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rikelmens
How about Tesla?!

~~~
westurner
Nikola Tesla > AC (alternating current) and the induction motor:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#AC_and_the_induct...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#AC_and_the_induction_motor)

Induction motor:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_motor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_motor)

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Entangled
AI?

~~~
esfandia
McCarthy, as one of the founders (+ Lisp!) should probably be there.

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yters
Why is Darwin in there? Everything in his model of evolution has failed. He's
just a popularizer of evolution.

~~~
wittedhaddock
In Origin he actually acknowledges, though not too deeply, several of natural
selection's failures to explain evolution entirely. And it seems unlikely that
"everything" in his model has failed. Why Only Us by Chomsky/Berwick point out
several of these failures in good detail, esp. with reference to language. But
Darwin/Wallace were right on some pretty big things as far as I can tell, but
I welcome your argument contrariwise.

