Who in history (either present or in the past) do you think has had the biggest positive impact on humanity?
Who in history (either present or in the past) do you think has had the biggest positive impact on humanity?
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Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
Who ever started the whole enlightenment
Highly debatable, but one argument could be made for Sultan Mehmed II, which would be a fairly ironic person to give the award to.
Sultan Mehmed II
That's the dude who fought Dracula? Didn't know he was involved with enlightenment any sources to read up on it?
The argument is (though it's certainly not a universally-agreed view) that the fall of Constantinople lead a lot of artists and scientists to flee from the city heading west, along with old texts. Which lead to an increased interest in their knowledge from the west, which is what triggered the Renaissance.
Mehmed II was the Sultan responsible for the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the siege of Constantinople. Hence, he's the guy responsible for it, under this model.
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
You know, from what I've read about it, it wasn't one specific person, and it seems highly likely there were others doing the same thing earlier, but they just couldn't take root for whatever reason.
What do you mean? It's always a specific person or a specific small group that comes up with ideas that are later popularized. Like you can pinpoint evolution theory to a small group of biologists with Darwin and Huxley at their forefront.
So as you might be aware, you've actually chosen an example with 2 simultaneous inventors. Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time, actually sent Darwin a letter about it before anything was published, and was credited for it. To be fair, they had similar backgrounds, and like you say were a small group. However, there's plenty of inventions of the same thing separated across lots of time and space. Writing was invented several times is fairly isolated civilisations, and Gaussian elimination bears a German man's name, and was thought to be fairly new, but can be found in ancient Chinese works as well.
Who started the enlightenment? Voltaire is often on people's lips, but if it wasn't for the French revolution in his area just a few decades after his death, and which made him a sort of saint, he would have a much smaller profile. Meanwhile, if you go back further there's someone advocating some enlightenment-ish idea recorded from probably every century. Famous names taper off towards the middle ages in Europe, but then so does the record in general, and Arabs like Avicenna or Al-Ma'ari pick up the slack.
But every time writing was invented it had to be invented by a specific dude or a small group of dudes. It did not just come to be out of thin air, someone had to invent it and someone had to popularize it. And so with enlightenment - someone (maybe we don't even know her name) has to come up with an idea and others, whose names we know have to popularize it.
I get that you are saying that it might have been another person (or small group), sure - but in the end it has to be someone.
Okay, well, sure. Even if it's inevitably someone, there is an individual or individuals that it turns out to be in the end. I think it would be a large group for the Enlightenment, even if you remove the forgotten advocates of it, but I guess that's a nitpick. I'm a huge fan of it too, pretty much every other good thing has been a product of it.
On the subject of this way of viewing history, which came up in another place, yeah, it could be depressing, but it depends on how you look at it. Schopenhauer said we're almost powerless and it's awful, Nietzsche said we are and it's great. They were often speaking in more cosmic terms, but I think it applies here. It's also a lot less pressure, right? And, beyond that, I think it just fits the data really well.
I think it's important to note that what I'm talking about is a bit like statistical mechanics in physics (small, unpredictable events adding up to a more predictable whole), and statistical mechanical systems are often complex or non-deterministic. I don't think without heroes human society is actually much diminished; or are our moral responsibilities within it.
But without "heroes" who is doing the actual work? Like again: Darwin, Huxley and couple other dudes actually had to make observations, collect data, come up with an, at that time, absurd sounding idea and defend it against societal pressure. And you don't think that they have influenced history and could be replaced by anyone else? I vehemently disagree that the data fits your perspective.
Sure, if Darwin had been hit by a horse-drawn bus, we'd still have evolution. And probably a YouTube short about "The sailor-naturalist who almost discovered evolution (but died)". It would just be Wallace's theory of natural selection. There you go, one data point.
I was going to bring up some less clear-cut examples, but I guess I should ask what your point is, because I feel like I'm missing something. I think Darwin was a cool guy, but I don't think he was unexpected. Yeah, they did the work, but work is cheap, every peasant in history did work. Why should I care more about Darwin than the people who fed Darwin, and who were themselves (something like) inevitable?
Wait lets back up und make sure we understand each others point:
The way I see your perspective: you say that individual role in history is rather unimportant, we are all just part of some complex process wich leads to an inevitable progress through forces mostly outside individual control. Is it fair representation or did I miss something?
My perspective is: in the end it's individuals/groups who make specific things that contribute to progress, while sometimes the individuals might be replaceable, they sometimes also leave their individual marks on the events or theories they create (Freund vs. Jung for example - if Jung was more influential we might have quite different psychology). And even if they are replaceable, in the end it's still individuals that have to make things happen.
some complex process which leads to an inevitable progress through forces mostly outside individual control.
I actually have no idea where the process is going, and can't rule out the enlightenment as a transitory phase, which scares me more than anything. If you just meant progress as in evolving some way, then yes.
And even if they are replaceable, in the end it’s still individuals that have to make things happen.
And this is where I agree, but don't see the significance. In the end the set of possible outcomes and their probabilities are the same. Is this a free will vs. determinism thing, maybe? Or maybe you're thinking in normative terms, while I'm thinking in in descriptive terms.
Religion died the day they invented the scientific method.
Someone forgot to tell that to religions.
Ahh they are withering a slow and painfull death not our problem.
I would very much disagree. They are our problem and we should put them out of their misery.
True colours
I never hid my contempt for most organized religions as systems of oppression throughout human history. At the same time I respect peoples individual spirituality, as long as they don't force it on others.
Any system of power is seen as oppression by those who dont beleive as long as people can choose their flavour of oppression we should be fine.
There are differences between for example a mostly secular democratic country and a theological authoritarian regime.
You said "we should put them out of their misery"
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
And people are often governed or motivated by ideas.
People are governed/motivated by self-interest.
That statement sounds an awful lot like ... an idea.
So you don't have ideas in your head about the world that affect how you interact with the world? Might be true for you, but I would say it's not an universal experience. Also I don't say it's juts ideas but ideas are part of our psychology.