Seanjos Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 What do you think of "the world's smartest person" ? There's a short on YouTube. Clearly extremely bright but, a monster... I heard Peikoff explaining Rand's definition of intelligence and why she didn't rate IQ tests. Can't remember though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aequalsa Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 What do you think of "the world's smartest person" ? There's a short on YouTube. Clearly extremely bright but, a monster... I heard Peikoff explaining Rand's definition of intelligence and why she didn't rate IQ tests. Can't remember though. "In conjunction with his ideas, Langan has claimed that "you can prove the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics." I think IQ is not helpful when sense is lacking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 You can't prove anything using nothing but mathematics. You can disprove quite a few things( you could for instance disprove evolution, if it were a false theory, or you could disprove Creationism, if those people would actually have a theory) , but to prove the existence of something, you have to rely on direct observation. And there's no way an intelligent man doesn't realize that: sounds like this guy is just making an outrageous claim to bait the morons in the media, and have them feed his own ego. As for his IQ, he is yet to put it to any use. And I think that's a good thing, because it doesn't sound like his contributions would bring anything positive to the world. He's like the Immanuel Kant of Creationism, hopefully without the ambition to actually create something of substance. Or maybe he doesn't even have any real ability, just an odd brain which can fool the IQ tests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanjos Posted January 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 An IQ of 200 if nothing else is a demonstration of superior reasoning ability. Why hasn't he come to the same conclusions as us ? He must have heard of Ayn Rand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utabintarbo Posted January 30, 2009 Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 An IQ of 200 if nothing else is a demonstration of superior reasoning ability. ... I am not sure this follows. In any case, even those most able to reason will come to wrong conclusions if they start from incorrect premises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted January 30, 2009 Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 An IQ of 200 if nothing else is a demonstration of superior reasoning ability. Why hasn't he come to the same conclusions as us ? He must have heard of Ayn Rand. Because he's too busy lying to himself. He has no desire to be rational, because that would mean first admitting that he was wrong. Listening to him in that video, he doesn't strike me as someone capable of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliveandrews Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 (edited) Because he's too busy lying to himself. He has no desire to be rational, because that would mean first admitting that he was wrong. Listening to him in that video, he doesn't strike me as someone capable of that. Intelligence is not equivalent to rationality. Hell, Issac Newton was a Christian. Edited February 10, 2009 by cliveandrews Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utabintarbo Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Intelligence is not equivalent to rationality. Hell, Issac Newton was a Christian. And an Alchemist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myself Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 And an Alchemist! And a virgin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utabintarbo Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 And a virgin That's just sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctrl y Posted February 21, 2009 Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 (edited) You can't prove anything using nothing but mathematics. You can disprove quite a few things( you could for instance disprove evolution, if it were a false theory, or you could disprove Creationism, if those people would actually have a theory) , but to prove the existence of something, you have to rely on direct observation. And there's no way an intelligent man doesn't realize that: sounds like this guy is just making an outrageous claim to bait the morons in the media, and have them feed his own ego. As for his IQ, he is yet to put it to any use. And I think that's a good thing, because it doesn't sound like his contributions would bring anything positive to the world. He's like the Immanuel Kant of Creationism, hopefully without the ambition to actually create something of substance. Or maybe he doesn't even have any real ability, just an odd brain which can fool the IQ tests. His writing is about as difficult to read as Kant's, too. (Here is an article he wrote about his theory: http://www.ctmu.org/Articles/IntroCTMU.htm) Langan appears to be saying things that make sense, insofar as my education permits me to follow him. One physicist has said something to the effect that Langan's theory is rather impressive, though we need more expert opinions before drawing a conclusion, and the physicist's opinion does not tell us much about the philosophic parts of the theory. Edited February 21, 2009 by ctrl y Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanjos Posted February 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 Wow. What a strange world we live in..... http://megafoundation.org/MegaPress/Titles/Anthem.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Link Posted February 21, 2009 Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 And a virgin Really? Can you provide a citation for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myself Posted February 21, 2009 Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 Really? Can you provide a citation for that? Newton was rigorously puritanical: when one of his few friends told him "a loose story about a nun", he ended their friendship (267). He is not known to have ever had a romantic relationship of any kind, and is believed to have died a virgin (159). Furthermore, he had no interest in literature or the arts, dismissing a famous collection of sculpture as "stone dolls" [581]. In short, Newton was a mathematical mystic, convinced that he shared a privileged relationship with God and obsessively devoted to finding how He had constructed the universe (205,285,510). He thought of himself as the sole inventor of the calculus, and hence the greatest mathematician since the ancients, and left behind a huge corpus of unpublished work, mostly alchemy and biblical exegesis, that he believed future generations would appreciate more than his own (199,511). http://www.physics.wustl.edu/~alford/newton.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted February 21, 2009 Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 Wow. What a strange world we live in..... http://megafoundation.org/MegaPress/Titles/Anthem.html Anthem is a fascinating book, and it's sci-fi-ish, so gifted kids probably love it. I think it is in the public domain, so plenty of people make it available with their own little spin on it. I'm sure that if Langan had to ask for permission to do this, he would've never been given that permission, with his support for Intelligent Design and all. He thought of himself as the sole inventor of the calculus, and hence the greatest mathematician since the ancients, and left behind a huge corpus of unpublished work, mostly alchemy and biblical exegesis, that he believed future generations would appreciate more than his own (199,511). Interestingly enough, we couldn't care less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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