Posted on 01/26/2015 8:10:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Who was the smartest person to ever live? There are certainly many worthy contenders. Today, the very name of "Einstein" is synonymous with genius. Others may suggest Stephen Hawking. Those who appreciate literature and music may proffer William Shakespeare or Ludwig van Beethoven. Historians may recommend Benjamin Franklin.
Before I submit my own suggestion, we must first discuss what we even mean by smart. Colloquially, we routinely interchange the words smart and intelligent, but they are not necessarily the same thing. There is an ongoing debate among psychologists, neuroscientists, and artificial intelligence experts on what intelligence actually is, but for our purposes here, a simple dictionary definition will suffice: "capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc."
Implicit in this definition of intelligence is general knowledge. An intelligent person capable of understanding quantum mechanics is useless to society if he is completely ignorant. So, a truly smart person will know a lot of things, preferably about many different topics. He should be a polymath, in other words.
Finally, there is the element of creativity. Creative people think in ways in which most other people do not. Where society sees a dead end, a creative person sees an opportunity.
Which person from history was the bodily manifestation of intelligence, knowledge, and creativity? Our blog's namesake, Isaac Newton, of course!
What was Newton's IQ? It's impossible to say. IQ tests didn't exist in the 17th Century, and if they had, Mr. Newton certainly would not have deigned to spend 90 minutes filling out ovals on a multiple choice test. Besides, he likely would have finished the test early and then spent the remaining time correcting errors and devising more difficult questions.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearscience.com ...
Solomon on the authority of God.
Barack Hussein Obama Hmmmhm...Hmmmhm...Hmmmhm...!
Jesus.
Interesting. Bookmarked.
RE: Jesus.
Please, don’t include God in the picture.
Wouldn’t a lot of media types vote for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner as ‘The Smartest Person Who Ever Lived’?
GMTA
RE: Solomon on the authority of God.
For a smart man he made a lot of dumb choices. Just saying.
OK, well we’ll all put in our candidates.
King Solomon was the richest and thought to be the wisest man who ever lived. He wrote Proverbs and the Song of Solomon in the Bible. But He himself acknowledged that his riches and wisdom came from the Lord.
So I submit that the smartest, most intelligent person who ever lived is none other than the Living Word of God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Source of all wisdom and intelligence. He made no show of high intelligence, but in fact, as God in human flesh, was the most intelligent man who ever lived. Someday soon, this most intelligent of all men will rule the world as King and Lord. What a day that will be.
Probably someone we have never heard of.
Newton would be a good choice, same for Leonardo De Vinci or maybe Aristotle.
I did once read that some scientists or whatever, have been able to roughly calculate the average IQ of 5th century B.C. citizens of Athens as likely in the 120 range.
Considering the large number of famous people who came from a city of about 100,000 I could see that as true.
I would say myself but I am just so incredibly humble.
Humility is a characteristic of perfection. I know that so very well.
I don’t know about the smartest,
but the bravest human being ever
was the first one who ate a raw oyster.
If Hawking gives the wrong answer to the most important question of all time, what does this tell us about his intelligence?
Fascinating. Intelligence tests never include the most important question of all.
I have a Nephew who has a PHD in both Cosmology and Physics from the University of Chicago. He and 3 of his classmates were down for a wedding and I remember them commenting that Hawking is not that highly thought of in the physics community.
Just an ordinary genius, not a super genius.
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