My basic question is, are Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Freud, and Turing more important to the intellectual portion of the human race than Homer, Shakespeare, Breugel, Beethoven, and Joyce? Or are they equals?
Why or why not?
It’s a bit disingenious to imagine ‘what if they’d never existed?’ since the whole of history would have unfolded differently, however, one can imagine what a society might look like if their contributions had never existed. I’ll assume that without these greats, there wouldn’t be any others of their field of equal calibre to replace them in the alternate timeline.
Without the artists (and I myself want to be a writer, so I’m not biased against 'em) we’d be missing a fair few great works of literature and music that may have inspired many other’s feats.
Without Joyce, Ulysses would never have been written, but gravity would have been discovered eventually regardless of the existance of Newton. There is a certain inevitability about scientific advancement. However, most of the scientists you have chosen also altered the practice of science. Galileo, and more so Newton, (along with Descartes and Bacon) as well as laying the foundations of physics helped establish the basic principles of the scientific method, which was required to initiate a scientific culture that could keep advancing. Once science gets going, it can get quite far with just subgenii ‘chipping in’, but it probably takes a great mind to start that ball rolling. Without (or delayed) modern science, the industrial revolution would have unfolded very differently, with no British Empire, no WWI, etc.
Einstein completely overturned the scientific paradigm, that, in physics, was at the time believed to be a nearly complete ‘theiry if everything’. It is unlikely that a lesser mind could have worked through the neccesary thinking to have caused such a paradigm shift.
Freud and Turing were ‘founding fathers’ of Psychoanalysis and Computer Science, respectively.
As individuals, they are much less great. The latter are great men (though in many cases great men come to ruin), whereas the former are not; they were merely great minds. The latter, of course, were also great minds, but not just that. In any case, I think the greatest philosophers are rather like those artists than like those scientists. Their scientism is only a means to their philosophy, to their art. William Blake said that art is the tree of life, science the tree of death. I think the greatest philosophers made their art, their affirmation of life, in the face of death.
I think Iis brings up a good point. Which is more important: a unique, but non-utilitarian event; or a repeatable, discoverable event that is quite utilitarian?
Some of them make great art - Shakespeare, Beethoven, etc.
It took Freud and Einstein to bring civilisation to a halt though. These guys (and a couple others) separated the church and state through positing challenges to the god-run teleological world view.
Art is fantastic, but I personally put more stock in the ideas that changed the whole of society than good music can ever do…