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How many people alive today could come up with Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm when faced with a problem that calls for it? Probably hundreds of thousands, i
by c0ff 10y ago
How many people alive today could come up with Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm when faced with a problem that calls for it? Probably hundreds of thousands, if not more. But, Dijkstra described the problem and its solution at a time when computer science was an obscure field of study. His contribution - among others - helped pave the way for the modern computerized world.
If someone today solves an obscure problem of similar difficulty to Dijkstra's graph search, they won't be called great anything. It is the impact that matters, not the difficulty of the problem or the IQ of the inventor. Great scientists, philosophers and artists had the foresight, luck, and ability to develop something that subsequently had a massive impact on the world.
A point in the article that I agree with is that great philosophers shouldn't be treated as flawless geniuses. Great people of the past made massively impactful contributions, but that doesn't make them the ultimate authority on their field. Answers to today's problems aren't going to be found by disecting footnotes of Aristotle, Turing or Einstein, but in work of people who will make contributions today that will shape the future.
- dominotw 10y ago>Great people of the past made massively impactful contributions, but that doesn't make them the ultimate authority on their field. Asking out of ignorance. What tangible impact did Plato's work have on the world? I can list how all the ways people that you listed made an impact on the world.
- chadzawistowski 10y agoI think Plato's most significant work is his Theory of Forms -- he essentially articulated the object-oriented approach of looking at the world. Plato's abstract, idealistic "forms" are a lot like classes, whereas individual "objects" instantiate those classes. Aristotle took this framework and developed it further with the idea of inheritance. He classified things into tree structures (with great success) across many fields including biology, zoology, geology, psychology, politics, physics, and so on.
- val314159 10y agoUm, calling Shadows and Forms "a lot like" Object-Orientation in Computer Science really belittles much of Information Theory developed in the last hundred years. If anything, I would consider it an early version of "Signs and Signifiers".
- 78666cdc 10y ago>Signs and Signifiers Semiology is perhaps among the farthest removed from information theory, and computer science in general.
- c0ff 10y agoPlato and Aristotle developed principles of thinking about the world that laid foundation for science, mathematics, ethics, and other fields of study.
- empath75 10y agoIf nothing else, he was huge influence on the development of the three major monotheistic religions. He also was Aristotle's teacher, and Aristotle was the philosopher who more or less created the entire scientific project (via people like Galen and Avicenna). It's almost impossible to imagine what the world would be like today without them.
- agumonkey 10y agoThe impact of societal substrate in history and existence is staggering.