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Full Idea
Candidates for the most important idea in human history are: mimetic thinking (imitation), the soul, the experiment, the One True God, the heliocentric universe, and evolution.
Gist of Idea
The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution?
Source
Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.03)
Book Ref
Watson,Peter: 'Ideas: from fire to Freud' [Phoenix 2006], p.72
A Reaction
From this list I would choose the heliocentric universe, because it so dramatically downgraded the importance of our species (effectively we went from everything to nothing). We still haven't recovered from the shock.
| 12104 | All ideas must be understood historically [Comte] |
| 12105 | Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte] |
| 19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
| 19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
| 19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
| 19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
| 19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
| 7460 | The great moments are the death of Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Romanticism [Berlin, by Watson] |
| 21852 | Nomads are the basis of history, and yet almost unknowable [Deleuze] |
| 7461 | The three key ideas are the soul, Europe, and the experiment [Watson] |
| 7464 | The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution? [Watson] |