would you accept that premise


for example someone like Deleuze was more intelligent than Einstein,because his work was much more complex than what Einstein did (people understand general relativity, most people can't understand Deleuze's work)


someone like Foucault or Derrida will always be more intelligent than say Grothendieck... (not to diss on Grothy)

do you agree or disagree?

They may be smarter sometimes in some hard to qualify beyond doubt of value metrics but i doubt they made the smarter choice what to use their intellect for. Physics and Math is always above everything else in terms of impact in future society and philosophy.

QM and GR gave us modern technology and the proper understanding of our place in the universe and a ton of open questions that demolish or reframe all standard philosophical norms. Also most philosophers that are hard to understand are probably so because those that can get them and agree or disagree have better things to do with their time anticipating at some level disagreement in their presentations that will break down the discussion and remove confidence/clarity in it that a scientist likes to have in what they are working on. It is very frustrating to read modern philosophy actually. A lot more satisfying to read QM and Relativity. Endless definitions in some subject creating mental labyrinths quickly breaks down the mood of many smart people. Scientists enjoy dependable clarity in what they study.

One could argue that French postmodernist stuff like Deleuze or Derrida is actually more complex than say General Relativity or QM

A dubious argument. Children can understand Pythagoras's Theorem, but that doesn't diminish the brilliance of his work.

Obscurantism and a lack of clarity is not the same thing as complexity. Derrida especially, but Foucault as well were pretty bad at communicating their ideas to other people. That seems to me indicative of less rather than more intelligence.

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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

~ Albert Einstein

I think mathematicians are on average more intelligent, with physicists ranking number two. Obviously there will be alot of variance.

The question is rather silly, aside from being very subjective. And the disciplines blend and blur at many levels. See, for example, What is Life, by Erwin Schrödinger. Just for a singular illustration.

Should it be:

Michelangelo>>>>Leonardo>>>>>>>>Goya>>>>>>>>>Pollo ck>>>>>>>Warhol>>etc.?

The Post-modernists are not just Obscurantism in print, they exhibit many of the same qualities of clever charlatans. A Warhol in book form.

Ultimately all such questions are really petty - and lead nowhere. Read some Wittgenstein for a better use of your time.

No it is not, ainec.

A mathematician/physicist can write philosophical stuff and when they do is icing on the cake. You can't say the same thing for philosophers. They are smart guys but their word is sometimes just a word...parole, parole...

Yeah I think clarity is true intelligence. Functional abstraction is the hardest and most expensive thing we can do, intellectually, and I don't believe there is any harder abstraction than understanding the complex abstractions of physics, which defy all common experience. What's more, it's real. You can measure your ability objectively. I think that hones minds in a more effective way and I also think that great minds are drawn to such honing.

I see postmodernism for example not so much as vertical abstraction but horizontal adventurism into language, and how language and concepts can mix together. Intelligence is clearly required, especially for the more creative or insightful, but it's not hard.

The utter mockery that physicists have made of some social scientists, and the utter fools that social scientists and philosophers have made of themselves trying to hold forth on physics concepts, settles the debate for me. Physicists are far smarter.

Expensive in what way? I dont think it requires more energy or anything that. Apart from your focus and your investment i dont think there is any significant expence at all.

Physics is not the most abstract subject there is. Mathematics is. Mathematics is pure abstraction, therefore mathematics is the most abstract subject there is. Its not close.

And physics doesnt defy all experience we have more than anything else. Rather i would say the oppsite, at least in physics we can relate to at least some of the stuff that is happening. In mathematics you cant relate to barely anything. Number theory is hard to relate to. But a stone rolling down a ramp is relateable.

But only philosophers can truly grasp the Trolly problem!

The question is pointless because we aren't quantifying and measuring, we're just arguing from our ego needs. Those of us with an ego need to believe physicists are smarter ... or philosophers ...

What would the test be? Maybe "the ability of philosophers to understand physics vs. the ability of physicists to understand philosophy?"

There isn't a definition of "physics knowledge" that's worth much, and that's even more true for philo. Nor is the "ability to understand" valid. Maybe the one group can understand better because the second group can explain better. Maybe they can understand better because the concepts are simpler.

I would say the best ideas of philosophy hold up over time, whereas physics keeps advancing/refuting itself. String theory may be (probably will be) laughed at in a few decades; the multiverse might come to be seen as the "turtles all the way down" of our time. Does that make people who understand string theory or believe in a multiverse idiots, ranking below, in intelligence, a juco philo teacher? A physicist from 1900 would be really really wrong about a great many things, almost everything. But that wouldn't mean he was an idiot. Yet philosophers can't generally even get right enough to be proven wrong, which is worse, I think.

I don't see how anyone is going to quantify this question to allow for an objective measure.

But to me, philosophy subsumes physics. The only reason to study anything, ultimately, apart from immediate survival/reproductive success advantages, is to improve your philosophy/spirituality/understanding/whatever you want to call it.

If a God thing said I could either have the deepest possible philosophical understanding of our existence, or the deepest possible understanding of it's physical reality, I'd snap choose the former because I doubt that a deep philosophical understanding of our existence is possible without understanding our physical reality, unless our physical reality was a trivial part of our existence, in which case, LOL at physicists. Whereas understanding all of our physical reality, without understanding why it matters or what it means, is also LOL.

BUT (calm down physicists), I also doubt that the deepest possible understanding of physics is attainable as anything other than ... philosophy. I think physics is already reaching the point where little will remain to be testable, so all that remains will be philosophy.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...losophers-too/

Its not a pointless question just because you cant measure or quantify it. Thats not how we decide if something is pointless or not. On the other hand we actually do have a (imperfect) measure of intelligene, IQ. Its hard to have hard data on anything, far less data that is a perfect measure of something. IQ can be one indicator, abstractness of field is another (mathematics).

There you go, i just showed you a few ways we can talk about objective measures, it wasnt very hard.


The spirituality part of your post im not going address, probably doesnt interrest many ppl around here tbh.


On topic: there seems to be a number of sources (good or bad) that have physicists having a slightly higher iq than mathematicians on average. I actually thought it was the other way around.

Other than that, like i said there is loads of variance. I dont necessarily give a physicist much credit if i engage them in a discussion. PPl need to prove what they have, because so often they dont have much.

I think practicing philosophy is good for thinkers who may avoid rigid thinking and specialization type biases. If a mathematician or scientist wanted to explore the potential of their intelligence beyond their field, philosophy relates with all the fields and even crosses oceans without leaving the library/internet.

No, you didn't provide objective measures of intelligence, so, yes, it remains hard.

OP asked a question that requires measurement to answer. But the question fails because we can't, without bias, define "top philosopher or top mathematician/physicist," or intelligence, or provide a fair measurement.

About the bolded quote: First, I didn't say "spirituality," I said "philosophy/spirituality/understanding/whatever you want to call it" because the idea that you can really distinquish between those ideas is false. But then again, you can't really intelligently distinguish between philosophy and physics, either.

You can, however, unintelligently make such a distinction. No one can stop you.

Academics make such distinctions so they can have departments and classes. The distinctions have some usefulness. But don't be fooled by them.

And you might find, as you grow, that your need for such distinctions, as well as your fear of admitting that you have a spirituality, a philosophy, fades.

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

Pick up a book, any will do.

For what its worth ; Goethe #1 of the 15th to 19th centuries-quite a few philosophers.

http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/301geniuses-2.htm

I don't think that [most] people actually do understand relativity. It's shocking to me how many people try to explain it, but can't get even the basics of the theory right.

To answer the original question, i think they are two very different types of intelligence. I am amazed by both.

Another look with modernity :

http://www.eoht.info/page/IQ%3A+200%2B

Thats great buddy.

Why not use the understand criteria with Grothendieck also? The vast majority of mathematicians don't understand his work. General Relativity is obviously alot more accessible but still, 100 years after its discovery, how many high school kids can do the HW problems from a course taught from Weinberg's Gravitation and Cosmology or Misner/Thorne/Wheeler. I definitely couldn't have then.

That seems fair. So who wins using that criteria?

Goethe was also a natural philosopher. He took more pride of his scientific work than his literary work.

Novalis called him the first physicist of his time and "epoch-making in the history of physics".