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Map of knowledge (1/∞): initial nodes (individuals)

· 5 min read

Thinkers​

I asked Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Grok:

“What are the ten most influential thinkers in human history? What ten individuals made the most important contributions to philosophy? They should all be real people who actually existed, about whom we have enough information, who were original in their ideas, and who continue to be discussed and appreciated. Consider philosophers, theologians, social scientists, authors, an any other kind of intellectual.”

Results:

  • Five mentions: Aristotle, Confucius, Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx.
  • Four mentions: Plato.
  • Three mentions: René Descartes and Jesus.
  • Two mentions: Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Avicenna, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Socrates.
  • One mention (discarded): Buddha, Laozi, John Locke, Muhammad, John Stuart Mill and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Leaders​

“Who are the ten most influential leaders in human history, ie the ten individuals who led the most people and changed the course of events most dramatically? They should all be real people who actually existed, about whom we have enough information. Consider heads of government, heads of state, politicians, activists, conquerors, warriors, explorers, company executives, and any other kind of leadership position, formal or informal. Consider both negative and positive impact in society.”

Results:

  • Five mentions: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Mao Zedong.
  • Four mentions: Adolf Hitler, Julius Caesar and Napoleon.
  • Three mentions: Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad.
  • Two mentions: Winston Churchill.
  • One mention (discarded): Christopher Columbus, Confucius, Buddha, George Washington, Qin Shi Huang and Queen Elizabeth I.

Scientists​

“Who are the top ten scientists in human history, ie the ten individuals who advanced science or technology the most? They should all be real people who actually existed, about whom we have enough information, and who made very influential discoveries, formulated very influential theories, or invented very influential techniques or machines. Consider scientists, engineers and inventors. Consider all the sciences (formal sciences, natural sciences, social sciences).”

Results:

  • Five mentions: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.
  • Four mentions: Archimedes and Marie Curie.
  • Three mentions: Alan Turing, Louis Pasteur and Nikola Tesla.
  • Two mentions: none.
  • One mention (discarded): Ada Lovelace, Aristotle, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Gregor Mendel, Johannes Gutenberg, Johannes Kepler, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison.

Artists​

“Who are the ten most influential artists in human history, ie the ten individuals who made the most important contributions to the arts? They should all be real people who actually existed, about whom we have enough information, and whose work continues to be discussed and appreciated. Consider all the arts, all of human history, and all cultures and regions of the world.”

  • Five mentions: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and William Shakespeare.
  • Four mentions: Johann Sebastian Bach and Pablo Picasso.
  • Three mentions: Homer and Ludwig van Beethoven.
  • Two mentions: Akira Kurosawa and Murasaki Shikibu.
  • One mention (discarded): Aretha Franklin, Bharata Muni, Charlie Chaplin, Confucius, Dante Alighieri, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hokusai, Igor Stravinsky, Imhotep, Kalidasa, Kukai, Li Bai, Rabindranath Tagore, Rembrandt, Sergei Diaghilev, Wang Xizhi and the nameless cave painters.

Final list​

Two names made it into two lists: Jesus (both a thinker and a leader) and Charles Darwin (both a thinker and a scientist). (Seems fitting and ironic that those two precisely should represent all of humanity!) I will give both of them extra weight because of this.

All the rest will get the less weight the fewer mentions they got; eg, those with five mentions are more relevant than those with four.

The plan is for other (less relevant) individuals to sprout all over the map when we start pulling threads and zooming in on each concept and connection. Therefore we need to be able to decrease weights indefinitely. I'll start with weight 0 (top ones) and use sequential integers as we progress towards more obscure individuals: 1, 2, 3, etc. That way, the actual relevance of a node with weight w can be computed as something like (10/9)-w, so that each “level” is 10% less relevant than the previous one: 1.000, 0.900, 0.810, 0.729, etc.

And thus we get the first 43 nodes of the map of knowledge: