Top 5 Greatest Minds of All Time

Plato
Newton
Einstein
Liebniz
Aristotle
Kant

no order

Friedrich Nietzsche
literally the rest of humanity can fuck off

It's almost as if he makes the list for some other reason. it's almost as if one could have a great mind without a solid philosophical background. It's almost as if you're retarded.

How's 8th grade going?

Wittgenstein

Hegel
Archimedes
Hero
Newton
Galileo

>No Sun Tzu
>No Julius Lilienfeld, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain or William Shockley
>No Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
>No J. Presper Eckert or John Mauchly
>No Alan Turing, John Atanasoff or Ada Lovelace

Proper plebs.

why no one cares about tesla?
:c

Where's Karl Marx.......

Jesus
Gauntama Buddha
Bodhidharma
Confucius
My dad

Runner up: Wang Chongyang

Plato
Nietzsche
Buddha
Jesus
Shakespeare

Hegel
Marx (Grundrisse)
Marx (Capital Vol 1)
Marx (Capital Vol 2)
Marx (Capital Vol 3)

sorry i only know turing on that list, and because of that meme movie
agree witchu on buddha, plato and einstein. Nietzsche doesnt make my list and dont know about the china man

I think on raw "power"

>Aristotle
>Euler
>Gauss
>Goethe
>Da Vinci

but then:
>Shakespeare
>Dante
>Plato
>Beethoven
>Mozart

are probably the greatest creative minds

Sun Tzu
>Revolutionized warfare ~500 BC, his teachings still in effect everywhere in modern life and economics
Julius Lilienfeld, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain or William Shockley
>All had a hand in theorizing and creating the first transistor
Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
>Created the idea of algorithms and Algebra we know today, making computing completely possible ~2000 years ago.
J. Presper Eckert or John Mauchly
>Created first computer ENIAC
Alan Turing, John Atanasoff or Ada Lovelace
>All had a hand in creating software and computer languages as we know today

All you plebs post philosophers and shit, some people have posted some critical thinkers, but these men and women have had, literally, the greatest minds to exist. The modern minds changed the way the whole world works, the only other thing which isn't included in this list in the "discovery" of electricity which makes all this possible. The world changed in no other way, no way near as volatile, as quickly as when computers became a thing.

And as you have proven, these men and women get no recognition.

Settle down lad, this is just an "historic intellectuals I like" thread. I hope nobody actually thinks there's an objective best thinker ever.

Wow, all the smartest people tried and succeeded in becoming world famous?

I forgot to add on my post I also knew sun tzu, but really lad aside from Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī on mathematics the other ones are too specific imo to get on a list. Also this is a Veeky Forums board you cunt of course we're gonna talk about philosophers

>Sun Tzu

Just because he's read as a self-help book by middle age men and autistic teens it doesn't mean he's particularly influential

Aristotle invented science itself.

>Just because he's read as a self-help book by middle age men and autistic teens it doesn't mean he's particularly influential

His books at taught to businessmen. There is a reason why I said his teachings are everywhere. It' literal fact, you would not know the extent because you would understand what he taught so well as it's been ingrained in you since birth.

>"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril"

>"An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness."

>"Generally in war, the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this … For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

>"When one treats people with benevolence, justice and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and all will be happy to serve their leaders."

I mean look at those quotes, keep in mind at one stage (Before Sun Tzu) these ideas were not accepted trains of thoughts, at least they were not taught as such.

Sure you may not have read The Art Of War, every single one of his teachings has been put upon you since birth though.

Is this bait? The Western Theater was over before we deployed the bombs

1. Kartir Hangirpe
>his fascism helped preserve Zoroastrianism

2. Ashoka the Great
>applied Buddhism plus a love for environment and wildlife in a way I love

3. Beatrix Potter
>qt that represents all that's good Christ

4. Camillo Golgi
>Even though his "reticular theory" was wrong compared to the "neuron doctrine", his view that distributionist view that the "collective work of vast distributed neuronal circuits" is more important than the activity of individual neurons, in isolated regions, was ahead of its time. In this sense, he was better than Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

5. Aleksandr Dugin
>he shall lead the world to new light and end the vileness of Anglo, Gulf Arab, and Jewish dominance

The only real answer.

>I hope nobody actually thinks there's an objective best thinker ever.
There literally is.

Can we make this distinction with the evidence we have at hand? Nope. Still possible though.

>his view that distributionist view
typo:
his distributionist view*

>no da vinci

>confucius
>laughing sluts only they've been replaced with laozi and zhuangzi.jpg

Archimides, Hobbes, Newton, Hume, Gauß.

I'm on my phone so I can't respond to this properly.

But I think you know little about the evolution of thought or the actual influence of sun tzu.

> There literally is.
This is like saying if there an objectively best sport person. There are many field of thinking, but if you must choice, Then probably Newton is one who is mostly used and studied by everyone, or maybe... Just maybe... It is Aristotle, but I am not sure how he really was influential beyond West.

Euler
Gauss
Nietzsche
Wittgenstein
Heisenberg

People who rate Einstein above other physicists are probably memeheads who don't understand anything about physics

>unironically citing IQ meme websites

...

> Nietzsche
> Wittgenstein
What did they even do to be compared to people, who are literally were right about anything in their field?

>no West

>But I think you know little about the evolution of thought or the actual influence of sun tzu.

You are literally wrong. Unless of course you think in 500 BC China this sort of knowledgeable warfare was known to everyone.

>you are wrong because I say you are wrong
xD
>evolution of thought argument
>as if it cannot be applied to literally every thinker throughout history.
kek.
Please try again.

We do not have enough evidence to make the correct choice at this time, that's the point. If you are saying Aristotle because he invented science that is still objectively wrong. It did not shift the current state of the world as much as the invention of computers did.

My objective metric is 'advancement'. Aristotle and his invention of the scientific method, while very important, did nothing for the times like computers have. It could be argued he was simply too far ahead of his time for his invention to matter, as is the case with many innovators throughout history. Being ahead of your time is simply the saddest state, you will never fully achieve the potential of your innovation, it's up to someone else.

>Plato

Oh fuck off

Reminder that it is literally impossible to disprove Platonic Realism.

ANNUS MIRABILIS

But for real, if you aren't a contrarian hipster, Einstein is genuinely pretty important.

How can you prove Sun Tzu had influence on warfare theory or business theory?

There's also no reason to believe it's true.

You can't prove that there isn't.

>oh fuck off

Great contribution

Wow so diverse.

Here is a wiki quote for you, this is all in modern times.

>America's Asian conflicts against Japan, North Korea, and North Vietnam brought Sun Tzu to the attention of American military leaders. The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, has directed all units to maintain libraries within their respective headquarters for the continuing education of personnel in the art of war. The Art of War is mentioned as an example of works to be maintained at each facility, and staff duty officers are obliged to prepare short papers for presentation to other officers on their readings. Similarly, Sun Tzu's Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program. During the Gulf War in the 1990s, both Generals Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. and Colin Powell employed principles from Sun Tzu related to deception, speed, and striking one's enemy's weak points. However, the United States and other Western countries have been criticised for not truly understanding Sun Tzu's work and not appreciating The Art of War within the wider context of Chinese society.

It's over 2000 years old, it's essentially the oldest book still being taught, taught, not read, taught (outside of religion). But yeah, not important or influential because you said so, right? xD

>an old book still being taught, taught, not read, taught (outside of religion).
If thats your criteria, then Euclid is a much better choice.

Here are some more wiki quotes.

>The book has also become popular among political leaders and those in business management. Despite its title, The Art of War addresses strategy in a broad fashion, touching upon public administration and planning. The text outlines theories of battle, but also advocates diplomacy and the cultivation of relationships with other nations as essential to the health of a state.

>Sun Tzu's Art of War has influenced many notable figures. Sima Qian recounted that China's first historical emperor, Qin's Shi Huangdi, considered the book invaluable in ending the time of the Warring States. In the 20th century, the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong partially credited his 1949 victory over Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang to The Art of War. The work strongly influenced Mao's writings about guerrilla warfare, which further influenced communist insurgencies around the world.

>The Art of War was introduced into Japan c.AD 760 and the book quickly became popular among Japanese generals. Through its later influence on Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, it significantly affected the unification of Japan in the early modern era. Prior to the Meiji Restoration, mastery of its teachings was honored among the samurai and its teachings were both exhorted and exemplified by influential daimyo and shoguns. Subsequently, it remained popular among the Imperial Japanese armed forces. The Admiral of the Fleet Tōgō Heihachirō, who led Japan's forces to victory in the Russo-Japanese War, was an avid reader of Sun Tzu.

>Ho Chi Minh translated the work for his Vietnamese officers to study. His general Vo Nguyen Giap, the strategist behind victories over French and American forces in Vietnam, was likewise an avid student and practitioner of Sun Tzu's ideas.

None of that shows to me that it makes Sun Tzu worthy if being one of the five most influential minds, let alone greatest.

>it's over 2000 years old, it's essentially the oldest book taught, not read, taught

Thanks for showing me you have no idea what you're talking about. I won't waste my time with you. I'll leave you to argue with some straw men.

>Euclid
Kek. We now teach a better version of what he envisioned.

We still literally teach Sun Tzu word for word, idea for idea. We cannot expand on Sun Tzu, we have expanded upon Euclid and will continue to. Sun Tzu remains infallible after 2500 years.

Why are you even shifting the goalposts? I thought you were trying to say Sun Tzu was not influential? Kek.

Strategy > Maths.

>Why are you even shifting the goalposts?
I'm someone else.

>Thanks for showing me you have no idea what you're talking about. I won't waste my time with you. I'll leave you to argue with some straw men.
xD, nice one. If you cannot understand how he encapsulated raw strategy which hasn't been 'beaten' in over 2500 years you are a moron.

Strategy is a competition, he won that competition and is still champion after 2500 years, we have been warring ever since, using his strategy. You cannot see his influence because you're an idiot and his ideas are so heavily ingrained in your being. Read the book and you will see, you argued out of ignorance and now your ego will not let you concede, that's perfectly okay, try not to pretend it's anything but though.

I see that now, my bad.

Kek.

Well I just fucking btfod you.

Euclid is a fucking JOKE compared to Sun Tzu.

Did you know a Japanese guy once read Sun Tzu this fucking year? That's literally how influential he is.

>Sun Tzu remains infallible after 2500 years.
muh teaching devices for peasants and children.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, amirite?

me
me
me
me
me

>people questioning Nietzsche being in in the top 5, even though he is easily top 2

/hist/ confirmed for being delusional faggots

>physical goods can be equated to metaphysical knowledge.

Psychology is pseudoscience.
While not the father of pseudoscience, god damn, did he get the ball rolling hard.

Sun-tzu is deeply entrained in contemporary thought
1) Prove it
He's still champion
2) Prove it
All your other baseless claims
3) Prove it

Hard mode: No copy pasting Wikipedia articles

Sure, the book was influential in China and Asia. Sure it's read by a few businessmen today.

So fucking what?

You seem like you're his fucking literary agent. Military theory has evolved wayyyyy past Sun Tzu. If you can't accept that, then you stoopid.

Sun Tzu has also never had much influence in the West, especially on military theory (things are a bit more complex over here than "to winnu the battle; yuu mustoo defeatoo the remenemy!"/"kill enemy before you die")

Have you read Soren Kierkegaard? He is the original Nietzsche.

I can kind of get behind Tom Sowell.

Willhelm II
George V
Edward 8
Albert Edward
Adolf Hitler

You know you can post without being angry, right? I don't know why you seem to be so furious? You are literally arguing out of ignorance, you haven't read AoW, yet you are trying to claim you understand it. Here, it's short, should only take you an hour to read and you will be able to, at least, be more aware of the raw lessons inside the book.

>literatureproject.com/art-of-war/

>Military theory has evolved wayyyyy past Sun Tzu. If you can't accept that, then you stoopid.
>stoopid
Really now? Warfare has evolved, if you actually understood military theory you would actually know Sun Tzu encapsulated it 2500 years a go, and it really hasn't changed.

>things are a bit more complex over here than "to winnu the battle; yuu mustoo defeatoo the remenemy!"/"kill enemy before you die"
It's a good thing AoW is a lot more complex than that, you will be finding out after you read the book though. Have fun.

I proved you wrong with many examples all over the world, funny how you no longer want me to use said examples as they directly prove you wrong.
>inb4 no they don't because reasons
(you)

>not also jmb and von braun
...

>putting this much energy into being wrong

That goes without saying.

Nietzsche
Dostoevsky
Goethe
Einstein
Seneca

You'd showed me it had influenced Chinese war theory.

You haven't shown me how it's so influential it's engrained into my thoughts

And war theory has definitely changed since Sun Tzu, just because you can try and reduce things down to his aphorisms, it doesn't mean he's said all that can be said

But anyway I'm not angry (well I am at my shitty phone browser) or trying to "win" here, but I don't see how it's anywhere near as influential as you make out. Or how Sun Tzu is in the top 5 most influential minds or greatest minds. Or how it's more influential/greater than Euclids Elements (especially as Sun Tzu was restrained to Asia until recently (by recently I don't mean the last ten years before you try something cheeky like that))

Fucking hell posting on a phone sucks

>putting this much effort in samefagging to impress your Sun Tzu scholar Mr. Wong

That's objectively the most retarded list I've ever seen. Seneca? Are you kidding me?

>You haven't shown me how it's so influential it's engrained into my thoughts

I've told you, to understand that you will have to read the fucking book you mong. I also gave you 4 quotes (much earlier) of very common modern ideas which are Sun Tzu's. Next you will be like a hurr durr it's so basic, and that's the fucking point, it's so heavily ingrained in your being you cannot understand it being and actual idea thought up by someone 2500 years ago. It's knowledge which is so important to every human being if you do not know where it came from you simply believe it's intrinsic to every human being.

>And war theory has definitely changed since Sun Tzu, just because you can try and reduce things down to his aphorisms, it doesn't mean he's said all that can be said
You are literally wrong. Like, there is proper nothing that can be said, you are also claiming the samefag argument now (it's not, simply 2 anons). You are reducing Sun Tzu's teachings to simple aphorisms, you are the ONLY person I have ever met to denounce his teachings. You also understand you have actually done nothing to prop up your side of the argument. All you have done is actually said 'no'. Like you have provided no reasonings, just 'no'.

I mean you can prove how war theory has evolved past Sun Tzu, I mean it hasn't, so you can't, but feel free to try.

All guerrilla fighters use his teachings, especially those in Vietnam, the Vietnam war was a huge consequence for the US especially the part where they had such a hard time dealing with the guerrilla fighters using Sun Tzu's teachings. You understand the fact that it remained hidden to the west until the recent Asian engagements just adds to it's majesty? As soon as it was discovered it was implemented into some of the highest levels os US military.
These are all sourced arguments (inside wiki) simply using wiki for convenience.

>Fucking hell posting on a phone sucks
I agree, phone posters are cancer.

1) Da Vinci based on overall balance of genius, in literally everything he touched, and how he influenced dozens of others who can be on this list
2) Goethe for the same reasons as Da Vinci (Einstein was Goethe's biggest fan)
3) Buddha. I didn't even think of it until OP's post but now that I think of it definitely. Siddhartha is one of my favorite books and it outlines Buddha's genius.
4) Socrates. Just because he basically laid the framework for modern philosophy.
5) Archimedes. To do what he did with zero previous framework, completely pulling everything out of his ass and testing it, in essentially cave men times, was brilliant.

Honorable mentions:
Einstein, Nietzsche, Newton, Plato, Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Shakespeare, Schopenhauer

Overrated:
>Jesus of Nazareth. There has been some pretty strong evidence that he has never existed, or that 99% of his achievements are false, and he was retroactively created as the bibles were written.

You are missing the part where most if not all of Sun Tzu's teachings are applicable to almost everything outside of warfare, business being the main application in a modern world.

Yes, it's called the art of war - it's about strategy, not war. Strategy is applicable to everything, strategy is a literal competition, and his strategy remains true, after 2500 years.

His influence simply cannot be denied.

>Tesla

> C.S Peirce

> Erwin Schrödinger

> John Von Neumann

>Alan Turing

Most of those quotes have parralels.

You misunderstood what I have said and skipped bits

I've misunderstood what you've said and been a skipped

You havent shown me it's "engrained" in modern thought aside from saying "read it moron"

You even say it's been unknown to the west until recently, how could something become engrained so fast?

How has it influenced education systems so much? And influenced Western culture so much?

It still doesn't show he's worthy of top 5 blablabla

But still this is a shitty anonymous phone argument at one in the morning

I win

You lose you big gaylord

;)

Ignorance truly is bliss.

Just so you know, you were arguing from ignorance, I was not. You are always going to win that argument, because you are ignorant.

Catch ya.

applicability doesn't equal influence

>not understanding what Seneca was about
>if accomplishments factor in: he was objectively the most successful person in the world during his time in almost all measures, as he was the best philosopher, the most powerful and respected person in Rome (basically guided all of Nero's decisions during his reign, while becoming the richest man in the Roman empire) until the paranoid Caesar had him killed
>he was a master of Stoicism, achieving a level of self peace (or "om") that only Buddha could have rivaled
>if it wasnt for Nero being so fucking insane and paranoid at the time
>the biggest pioneer of actionable real-world-application philosophy other than Buddha

stay pleb, faggot

You were making claims with no backing.

Come on mate you never showed how it's engrained in thoughts and shit. Just telling me to read something doesn't show that.

It's a shame I had to be a phone poster, otherwise this could have been productive.

But yeah see ya l8er, have a nice night/day.

And don't reply to this with some smug shit

Egos don't mean shit on an anonymous board and you should know that

the dalai lama's thoughts are actually incredibly complex distillations of centuries of buddhist doctrine, but he doesn't burden his audience with dogma or unnecessary jargon. he just gets to the core of it in order to help alleviate suffering and increase happiness. he can deliberate on all that shit, but how is that going to help anyone?

thich nhat hanh does the same thing but from a more zen perspective.

why should truth be some innaccessible, reified thing? why can't it be posted on your mom's fb page? if it's true and it helps you live a better life, so what? it will only be banal at first glimpse.

even heidegger and wittgenstein moved away from overly-complicated word games to more simple expressions of deeper truths in the end.

i tried

>nobody saying Marx even though he literally invented sociology and Marxism

nobody has me on their list i see

soon

Sun Tzu is just famous because he was the first one to write the basics down and his book wasn't lost to antiquity.

Any 4 of these guys + Newton

Marxism is economics and politics as done by /b/.

DUDE, no one should own anything. Everyone should just share everything.

nappy really was brilliant, aparently he picked up the most modern astronomy at the time in a few days. dat hubris tho, that inability to see the wood for the trees. is shelley greater for writing ozymandias and not needing to suffer the fall to realise the futility of conquest?

apparently nappy also liked reading medieval french history a lot. did he think himself immune to the fickle lot of those kings? how can smart cunts be so dumb?

also he didn't give a shit about human life and used people as instruments for his own ends, so i duno how that affects the greatnetss of one's mind.

>Marx

When your ideas lead to the murder and starvation of tens of millions, they are not good ideas, and you do not belong on a list of top 5 thinkers.

I think it's meant to be speculative. If Einstein had given his support to the Germans, they may have arrived at the atomic bomb first and then yes, it would have changed the course of the war.