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Einstein vs. Shigeru Miyamoto or what makes genius?
Hypatia
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Registered User regular
So this magazine Mental Floss has an ongoing tournament of genius where they're pitting a wide variety of people against each other and leaving it up to online votes to determine who the ultimate genius will be.
One of the match-ups for this week is Albert Einstein vs. Shigeru Miyamoto. Right now Einstein is winning by a landslide.
This makes me ponder the definition of genius because there's definitely many differences between the two. Einstein is more of a classical genius, the way people would generally think of a genius, but I think it's pretty arguable that Miyamoto with his huge creative portfolio of Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Wii Fit, etc etc could be more of one.
Sometimes I feel like creative geniuses don't get as much exposure or credit as people who are classified as geniuses who work in more hard science areas. What do you think?
One of the match-ups for this week is Albert Einstein vs. Shigeru Miyamoto. Right now Einstein is winning by a landslide.
This makes me ponder the definition of genius because there's definitely many differences between the two. Einstein is more of a classical genius, the way people would generally think of a genius, but I think it's pretty arguable that Miyamoto with his huge creative portfolio of Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Wii Fit, etc etc could be more of one.
Sometimes I feel like creative geniuses don't get as much exposure or credit as people who are classified as geniuses who work in more hard science areas. What do you think?
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For example, I can tell you for sure how much time, money, etc. has been saved because of the invention of the airplane, but I can't cite anything near that about how many lives have been changed by a piece of literature.
What I'm getting at is that this is a pretty stupid tournament.
You would.
I do think comparing Einstein to a video game designer is kind of counterproductive. They are both two very different types of genius.
Seriously, Matt Drudge vs Shakespeare?
Now, compare your brain vomit to Laurence Olivier and you can have your own contest!
I agree. The first thing I thought of after reading the OP was "apples and oranges."
Also, yeah - this contest is fucktarded no matter who the contestants were. You can't quantify this shit. Hence why we get stupid things, like how matt groenig is apparently considered a better artist than Picasso.
EDIT: Douglas MacArthur vs. Colonel Sanders? What the fuck...?
Those brackets are madness itself. Plato vs. Colbert? Leonardo da Fucking Vinci vs. Burt Reynolds.
It's interesting to consider the differences between classical and modern geniuses, and I suspect sometimes the modern geniuses would win out, but some of these aren't in the least bit close.
Isaac Newton vs. Steve Jobs? I'd actually go with Jobs on that one.
edit: What the fuck? Groening beat Picasso? I weep for our generation.
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Really? Even if you give calculus to Leibniz I don't think that Jobs comes anywhere close.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
Culture and Philosophy aren't important for a functioning society. Nope. No siree.
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It's actually not a no-name magazine... I've read it before, it's kind of interesting. Sort of like Freakonomics the magazine.
I do give calculus to Leibniz, but I think the site put it best. "What would you rather spend the rest of your life without: a telescope or an iPod?" Hell yeah I loves me some mp3s.
Ok, I don't actually think Jobs should win.
Eh, Picasso is a bit overrated. The best faux3D was done by Paul Cézanne, in my opinion.
I was trying to decide how to word my counter arguement to this since you have a good point.
Culture and philosophy may be important for a functioning society, but are there really geniuses in these fields who have advanced humanity through their works in ways comparable to major scientific breakthroughs?
Well, you believe in Intelligent Falling, right?
I always liked Stalin's description of artists: Engineers of the Soul.
So saying that scientists are necessarily greater geniuses than artists is silly. They may or may not be more important. Though it really just highlights the underlying absurdity of the exercise.
I say the 747 could kick the 911's ass any day of the week.
Without art, literature, storytelling, music, and other forms of expression society as we know it would not exist at all.
Only half as much as Matt Drudge.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!??!?!?!!?!?!?!
The progenitor of modern Western thought is only beating Stephen Colbert by a paltry 20% margin? SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!
Plus, who is that Plato guy and what channel is he on? I only have basic cable.
Shakespear wrote more plays, and perhaps better plays then his contemporaries but I feel the renaissance would have been just about the same with or without him, I doubt the same could be said of gutenberg and his printing press.
But I'll agree with eljeffe that the types of genius are varied enough to make comparison rather difficult. Personally I think it is fair to measure someones genius by their contribution to society, I'm not sure how else you could possibly measure it, although that might just be eljeff's point.
My point was that if you want to measure "genius", whatever the hell it is, as some basic quality of the individual himself, it doesn't much matter what he chooses to do with it. Newton gave us the basic laws of physics and the mathematical tools to employ them. Yoyo Ma makes pretty music. They are both geniuses, though. And if Yoyo Ma had decided to just sit on his ass and play video games all day, he'd still be a genius; we'd just never know about him. The quality of the mind is separate from what he decides to do with it. However, him deciding to do something awesome with it is pretty much the only way we even know they exist, or are able to judge them.
I think Einstein in general is underestimated. A lot of inventions and theories would likely have been constructed eventually even without the help of whoever we credit with their creation today. Things like AC power or calculus or the uncertainty principle are all undoubtedly the works of a brilliant mind, but even without Tesla or Heisenberg or Leibniz/Newton we probably would have seen those inventions a few decades later. Newton gets bonus points for having invented so damn much, though (along with Euler and a few others).
Einstein is different. I'm no historian, but I honestly doubt that we'd have stumbled onto relativity (and all its dependent ideas and inventions) even by now without Einstein to hand it to us. The man was just... well, a genius.
Both more entertaining, and more informative.
This would be true if humans were logical robots and not creatures with emotions and a need to assign meaning to their lives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?hp
No. Archimedes isn't in there at all. RZA is and Burt Reynolds are!
Also, Leibnitz lost to Newton? Fuckers.
To be fair, Burt Reynolds is undeniably a badass. If Burt Reynolds and Archimedes showed up in front of me, I'm definitely going with Burt "Dirty Sanchez" Reynolds
Otherwise he'd kick my ass. Archimedes? not so much.