Thread: Greatness, and its meaning

  1. #16
    carry on JaWiB's Avatar
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    How about some famous scientists like Einstein, Planck, Bohr, etc

    They've certainly made lasting contributions!
    "Think not but that I know these things; or think
    I know them not: not therefore am I short
    Of knowing what I ought."
    -John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671)

    "Work hard and it might happen."
    -XSquared

  2. #17
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    >>Yes, thanks to the fact that the people burning ancient literature probably didn't give a damn about calculus.<<

    yeah, but when Romans attacked the Greek town were Archimedes resided (i forget the name) one of their targets was indeed Archimedes and his capture; one of the soldiers was unaware of the fact as he stormed Archimedes' home to lute it. In the process he stepped on, and destroyed, schematics and diagrams which Archimedes was scribbling on the dirt floor - the aged man (he was 60 something at the time) attacked the Roman soldier, and he in turn stabbed him to death... chance, gotta love it.

    So, assume Archimedes did not die that faithfull day and was captured by the Romans - could things have gone differently?

    The book I was discribing did not only show secrets of calculus, but also way to approach a problem, decidablility, and the design of algorithms, among other things - the guy was indeed Great.

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  3. #18
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xErath
    I don't agree with any of those names?
    Do you think Bin Laden's great? middle Asia muslins do! we don't
    Do you think G Bush is great? it seems that 50% of the americans do. I don't nor 88% of the entire world, and much less those middle Asia muslins.
    the Pope to us may be great but not to the misddle Asia muslins.

    I'm not in any way trying to atack the muslins. I just used then as counter-example because their mentality is completly diferent from ours.

    For me someone great is simply someone hardworking that respects everybody and is respected.

    thats fine. That is why my op asked for your interpretation of greatness. It is a very subjective and individual thing. I'm trying to find out if there is one (or more) traits that are shared among great people, no matter the deffinition of "great".

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  4. #19
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    What was the point of that post?

    edit: Whoa fast posters, I meant XeRth

  5. #20
    On the main topic I have a few points on what I consider great/greatness to be:

    • Someone great has vision and does not keep it to himself.
    • Someone great knows how to work and how to play, how to laugh and how to cry, how to give and how to receive, how to love and how to be loved.
    • Someone great expects the best of others and gives the best of himself.
    • Someone great has passion for life and is not ashamed to show it.

    All in all, there are many men who are by the world called "great", but a man who bears honor in his heart, who can, in the evening hours, lie upon his bed and peacefully close his eyes, knowing he has done all that is within his power to live his life fully and fruitfully; that is truly a great man.

    Good luck with your research, axon. It seems very intriguing.


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  6. #21
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    it was just a reply to your comment.

    edit: OK GC..... hehe

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  7. #22
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    >>but a man who bears honor in his heart, who can, in the evening hours, lie upon his bed and peacefully close his eyes,<<

    First you "bullet" listed the traits that great men have, and then you wrote this line (which I think is the most important)...it kind-of voids all the others, or does it. Couldn't a person like Stalin think he was all those things you listed, and couldn't he go to sleep feeling good and honorable?

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  8. #23
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > could things have gone differently?

    Possibly, but I doubt it. Archimedes died looooong before the Dark Ages, and I don't think his death had that much of an effect on things.

  9. #24
    Registered User axon's Avatar
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    xEarth – it’s musliMs, not musliNs.

    I was thinking about your post however, and don't you think that there are certain people that
    are irrefutably great? such persons that are simply considered great by everyone?

    some entropy with that sink? entropysink.com

    there are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - franz kafka

  10. #25
    Well, I did try to seperate the two. For my listed traits were to reflect greatness, and my short paragraph was to show true greatness.

    Just my two cents.

    - Stack Overflow
    Segmentation Fault: I am an error in which a running program attempts to access memory not allocated to it and core dumps with a segmentation violation error. This is often caused by improper usage of pointers, attempts to access a non-existent or read-only physical memory address, re-use of memory if freed within the same scope, de-referencing a null pointer, or (in C) inadvertently using a non-pointer variable as a pointer.

  11. #26
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    > such persons that are simply considered great by everyone?

    Most people become less great the more people know about them. (most people, there are obviously exceptions)

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Govtcheez
    What was the point of that post?

    edit: Whoa fast posters, I meant XeRth
    Quote Originally Posted by axon
    What do you guys consider greatness to be? (...)
    An opinion... Just because I don't rely on famous people doesn't mean it's pointless.

    Quote Originally Posted by axon
    xErath – it’s musliMs, not musliNs.
    N is next to M.. never mind
    And I'm not earth
    Last edited by xErath; 11-16-2004 at 06:40 PM.

  13. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by xErath
    An opinion... Just because I don't rely on famous people doesn't mean it's pointless.
    It may just be the fact that religious comments can start flame wars, or something worse.

    A good quote I saw on a board a while back was the following:

    There are 2 topics that are most likely to heat threads in "Flame wars".

    First is religion (i.e. Christians vs. Atheists)
    Second is international politics (i.e. Americans vs. anti-Americans).

    As you probably know God is everywere so he can easily "enters the equation".
    Segmentation Fault: I am an error in which a running program attempts to access memory not allocated to it and core dumps with a segmentation violation error. This is often caused by improper usage of pointers, attempts to access a non-existent or read-only physical memory address, re-use of memory if freed within the same scope, de-referencing a null pointer, or (in C) inadvertently using a non-pointer variable as a pointer.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by xErath
    I'm not in any way trying to atack the muslins. I just used then as counter-example because their mentality is completly diferent from ours.
    Please dont miss understand me! I don't want to be responsible for any of those stuff Stack said!

  15. #30
    In The Light
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    Howdy,
    Sports = Michael Jordan
    Humanity=Mother Theresa
    Politics=Washington?
    Buisness=Bill Gates


    M.R.
    I don't like you very much. Please post a lot less.
    Cheez
    *and then*
    No, I know you were joking. My point still stands.

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