Re: merry newtonmas

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Mon Dec 25 2000 - 10:33:40 MST


> >May you experience great joy as we celebrate the birth of our savior
> >from ignorance, sir Isaac Newton. spike
>
> Damien Broderick wrote: Bah humbug. That mad theologian and alchemist?
> I'd prefer to celebrate transhuman and righteously godfree Exmas myself. :)
> Damien Broderick [ho ho ho]

To each his own. But do let me express a notion with which
I have been toying: that Sir Isaac was *the person* who was
more influential in the way things are today than any other, {or
perhaps second}.

There were other great thinkers who discovered some concepts,
but there were two giants, Newton and Galileo, who had critical
insights. Galileo because he showed that scientists thru observation
could overturn established church dogma, and Newton because
he developed theory that was powerful enough to move minds,
yet simple enough to be within the grasp of the proletariat masses.

So Newton and Galileo, the great theorist and the great observer
of nature, together made critically important contributions to the
present that their influence will be of prime importance to either
the coming age of nanotechnology or the singularity. Darwin is
in the same class with these two.

Newton can be amply forgiven for any stray notions he may have
had regarding theology. spike



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