h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The sum total of human knowledge (and, perhaps, intelligence) is certainly increasing, and not just because there are more people.

But whether individual people are more intelligent is an open question. It's still said that Plato was the most intelligent man who ever lived. Perhaps he was.

TRiG.

I believe that human intelligence (that being the ability to acquire and apply knowledge) is definitely increasing, this of course is if we believe that what we read off the internet and out of books and generally from the media, increases our knowledge.
Of course a lot of the stuff we acquire is disinformation, but our ability to acquire information took a huge leap forward with the introduction of the internet. Our ability to apply what we know is also increasing due to better communication.

To Plato then, I heard that he believed that all thought originated in the heart and that the brain was some sort of radiator. Maybe though he was talking about the spiritual body in which case there is still some truth in the assertion. Ancient texts contain lots of writing about the Spiritual nature of things. Materialism in some ways ignores Spiritual things and in many ways this helps advance knowledge of the material universe however there comes a time in some peoples lives when they begin to see things in a different light and then it's like finding a whole new unexplored universe with some galaxies that have been explored by others and some that don't appear to have been.

Plato's Republic is available as a Podcast on iTunes (UK)...



and on my 'Must listen' list...

t.

Thanks Turvy, about time I looked at what else my Ipod can do..good call

What Plato thought is less relevant than why he thought it.

A man can be very intelligent and yet completely wrong.

The "spiritual body".

TRiG.

The reasons for thinking something are usually at least in part if not wholly down to your environment, that's the same today as back then. So if you believe that his environment was more relevant today than the way he interpreted it that is an interesting point of view.

If a man was very intelligent but completely wrong then his intelligence is unlikely to be recognized. Good point however he would still be intelligent none the less.

If you want to find out more about the Spiritual Body do a search on Chakra's, there is loads of stuff available about it. It is in my opinion a Model for looking at the mind, ancient texts covered it a lot. There has been much work done in recent times on modeling the mind.

Andy

So you really think your environment is the same as Plato's was in Ancient Greece? I disagree. Strongly.

Environment includes culture, society, ways of living, food, knowledge of the rest of the world, available food, and available transport, all of which was very different in Plato's day.

TRiG.

That's not what I meant at all, what is the same is the fact that our environment affects the way we think. e.g. if global warming was a hot topic back then, he would have thought about that, evidently it wasn't.
So your way of looking at his works is that they enable us to assess what were the topics that great thinkers of the day were thinking about holds true. But I also think is that they enable us to take a look at the man that the people of the time thought was a great thinker i.e. there is relevance in what he thought as well as why he thought it.

Andy

Glancing at the newspaper on my desk I would perhaps say that there seems to be far more stupid people in the world today.

Perhaps there is always a certain number of clever people, sometimes they're drowned out by the mob, sometimes a moment's quiet allows them to ring out with clarity.