wonkothesane

What Are Humankind's Greatest Discoveries/Inventions?

(Arrrrgh! I meant to allow multiple options but I f'd up again...)

You can, of course, rank these in you own personal order if you like..and add to the list.)

My Favorite choices are, 1: Science and Technology (which I could have seperated, but even pure science someday seems to lead to a pracitical applicalions. However, it has - along with religion and racism - also been among the most destructive forces on Earth...)

And 2: Music is emotion in a form that we can communicate. And combined with singing, is a form of poetry - another type of emotion in a communicable form. Music can comunicate emotion without words, it's always not ideas (like in words - which not all music has) but like I said, pure emotion. And I think that different music (like different art) appeals (or moves) different people because we are all emotionally moved by different things. (We had different personalities - and just why a mystery I'd love to see solved.)

Heck, I often listen to music like Faure's Requim, and I don't in the least understand the words, and I know the subject is about Jesus - something which I don't believe in - but just the _sound_ of the words can bring me to tears. There is a lot of forigen music language music that I like, and he'll, alot of time I *don't* wan't to know the meaning, it ruins the song for me.

But, I am terribily musically dis-inclined. I can't play and instriment, and my singing will encourage people to naw off their own legs to survive it. It is my saddest tragidy in life that I lack the musical gene (and the creative gene altogether - would love to be able to write, or draw), and the ability to sing (esp) and play (I can always *learn* to play, and I plan to buy a gutair soon) is one of the things that I would wish for if even granted 3 wishes (First being love - *absolutely*, no doubt - and the second being either immortality, super intelligence*, or adimantium claws like Wolverine...it's a tough choice...)

*(I *hate* being just smart enough to know how dumb I am. I once knew a teacher - a personal friend of Carl Sagan's - who depressed me into taking Prozac because he was so smart I knew that I would never be able to think the things that he could, or come up with the mental connections that he could. Hell, why are Jewish people so damn smart? I'm serious ans don't mean to offend - but some of the smartest people that I have know or read about are Jews...Einstein...Jacob Brownowski...I'm sure statistically it all evens out, however....)

Literature is awsome - and while I love science lit, sci-fi always amazes me in a special way...the ability to create worlds and ideas that have never even existed always fills me with wonder - aside from the wonder of the stories themselves... (Btw, the poem/prose/quote I put at the end of my post is, to me, the perfect metaphore for science fiction..."far other worlds, and other seas..." Just 'bout sci-fi up, metaphorically and _literally_...)

I considered adding medicine as a catagory - but wasn't sure if that should go under science of not...(I'm a bit pissed at my doc right now...anyone know any good doctors or psych docs in Jacksonville Florida or nearby??? Seriously.)

Well, heck, I have to run for now - I will add more to this later, I'm sure...

Btw...maybe I _should_ really put a "worst" list poll...Religion and Politics/Government would go at the top, IMHO...along with war...

- bryce
"The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;"

-Andrew Marvell (1621-1678),
The Garden

Marduk

I voted art because it includes music, painting, writing, acting (speaking) sculpture and math (at least in my mind anyway) but then again there is something to be said for central air and indoor plumbing.

King Rat

The flushing toilet by leaps and bounds.

Mageth

Language, because it's the base on which all the others are founded.

wonkothesane

Yeah, there were a lot of catagories in which it was hard to separate out - they blured together....

I saw a quote once tacked to an undergraduate door at the UofA Kuiper Bldg. (Planetary Sciences Dept. Building) years ago - I wish I knew it by heart, had a copy of it, or knew who wrote it at least...

It went something like; "Science is the study of all that is without. Art is the study of all that is within." (I remember this part pretty clear, but the next part is a vauge recolection) "And combined they make up all that it is to be a full human being."

I looked for this quote - even on the net - for years...does it sound familiar to anyone...?

- bryce

wonkothesane

Yep, straight into the crapper - that's were *all* these discussions eventually wind up...

- bryce

wonkothesane

True...musical notes are a language, math is a language (just a very precise one - one I am sadly bad at - Physics was, in retrospect, a *bad* choice of majors for me....)

Well, at least I can tie my shoes and not make messes on the floor...oh wait...I have velcro shoes and I *do* make messes on the floor...*damn*

- bryce

Cheiron

Best invention of all time: a knife. Just think, since basically the beginning of recorded time the knife is our main tool, still is in most cultures.

Best non corporeal invention/discovery: logic. Logic is where everything springs from. rational thinking has given us alot. Then again irrational thinking has given us art. so tossup.

elwoodblues

Fire. Agriculture. Medicine. Electricity. Optics. Cosmology. Navigation.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

I think it's a toss-up between language and science. Without language, the scientific method would be very hard to be put into use. However, without some for of the scientific method, we wouldn't really get anywhere with language.

In the end I picked science. Language is essential for nearly all of what we do, but language alone is not sufficient to drive progress. You need some method of thinking to accomplish this. Science is the method of thinking that allows us to really progress, and has made life easier for societies that use it.

-Nick