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Old 19-March-2008, 06:05 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Tulip View Post
To test this hypothesis, I then went to a standard Roman history to find the main dates on a timeline of ancient Rome, producing most of the dates listed in the OP. I also added a small number of other dates (eg Plato=Kant, Pythagoras=Kepler) as I believe these illustrate deep similarities in the cultural role played by these men in their respective epochs.
I think a problem with this, and this is probably what other people mean by cherry-picking, is that important philosophers have come around every couple of decades, I suppose. So if you give sufficient leeway, you are bound to come up with somebody who will be around 2,147 years after a given person A. For example, choose the Buddha, born around 560 BC. And add your 2,147 years and you get something like 1587. Ahah. Martin Luther... Nope. He was 1450. Hmm. OK. Calvin was alive in 1587. So we have Buddha-Calvin. Nice connection. I think that if you give me anybody in history, I can find somebody alive 2147 years later who is related in some way.
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