Saturday, March 26, 2011
One Question to the Wisest
Sometimes when I am in a crowd I think that IF I were some well known figure, say, Ernest Hemingway in the 1950s or any famous person, then people would make some effort to speak to me even if they do not like me simply to have some contact with fame. Then I thought to myself "SUPPOSE someone were renowned as the most wise or most educated, then what might people ask them."
Hypothetical scenario: I have been chosen to meet the world's wisest person and ask them any one question. The media is gathered to record the historic event: I ask "Whom do you most admire and why?" - What can you see as the most obvious fallacy in this scenario besides the obvious improbability?
I should have sad not "one question" but "one sentence" ... you are allowed to say one sentence so then the sentence would be "Whom do you most admire and why?" Of course the New Testament describes a "wiser than a Solomon" and we see that many are apathetic and even among those who are healed (the ten lepers) only ONE returns to say something. The real problem with the scenario is the assumption that anything may be arranged in some linear scale of importance. Our society is conditioned to think in terms of TOP TEN or TOP 100. For example Tesla and Godel were brilliant in their respective fields but had no wisdom with respect to money/finance so both died in poverty. Stephen gives a good answer which reminds me how Sartre refused the Nobel prize saying that if he were to acknowledge such an organization as the Nobel committee then he could not in good conscience be a philosophy (at least that is the account that I heard.)
