Just curious.  I know that as we age we all come across different intellectuals with different perspectives that speak to us.  For me there has always been a few philosophies or schools of thought, or perhaps just general perspectives that I've always found sound and have come back to again and again.  I am wondering if anyone would like to share who their intellectual idols are and, perhaps, give a brief description why.  For me, I think it might be a bit cliche, it is Noam Chomsky 

Noam Chomsky:
Noam Chomsky is a Linguist teaching out of Arizona University.  He has contributed greatly to the field of linguistics.  He is also a critic of American foreign policy, as he is critical of all foreign policy.  When he talks about human morality it's almost as though the veil of an 'us and them' melts away and I'm able to see everyone as equal.  From there I feel like I can clearly see the enormous challenges facing our world today.  When I read his material or watch interviews with him I am able to explore the limits of my understanding and challenge not only what I think, but the legitimacy of how I think. 

4 grumpy juniors would normally come to mind but since you emphasise on intellectual...  for me it can only be Ed Witten

On 5/25/2018 at 11:49 AM, grumpyOldDude said:

for me it can only be Ed Witten

I'm watching a youtube presentation done by the guy.  So interesting.

This maybe sounds silly, but for me it would be Isaac Newton. So much of what we use in Game development was discovered by him. The most amazing part is that the stuff I learned from Newton doesn't only work in games, everything has a practical use.

I don't think there has ever been anyone who has influenced me more than that.

Here's mine ^ _^ y

John Carmack - Known for 3D graphics innovator and of course most of us already played Doom.

Anders Helsberg - The original author of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, TypeScript and the father of C# .

I thought about it, and it is difficult to come up with any particular person off the top of my head. Darwin perhaps. It feels unfair to nominate some and not others.

There are a great many people / fields you can learn areas from, but what I will say it that most people who are 'experts' in a particular field study quite a narrow branch, and you can usually learn their findings relatively quickly (or maybe 80-90% of them) and at that point you can either invest a lot more time to extract that final bit of knowledge, or move on and learn from the next person / field.

More important I believe than any particular person's knowledge is learning how to think, think critically and think scientifically. That gives you a framework to think objectively about other peoples work / ideas.

A good aim is to make yourself your intellectual idol, and this should be the answer to your question. And don't forget to cultivate your body as well as your mind, what use is being a great thinker without the body of a greek god?

8 hours ago, lawnjelly said:

More important I believe than any particular person's knowledge is learning how to think, think critically and think scientifically. That gives you a framework to think objectively about other peoples work / ideas.

A good aim is to make yourself your intellectual idol, and this should be the answer to your question. And don't forget to cultivate your body as well as your mind, what use is being a great thinker without the body of a greek god?

Very important points, targets and essential skills you mentioned here

In addition one could also be inspired by great intellects and their stories. Drawing inspiration from those who have broken new grounds,...  kinda gives you some mental strength to have a go at something in your own little way

So @lawnjelly was that your way of saying " My intellectual Idol is.... ( drum roll )... " 

For me at the moment it would have to be Joe Rogan. While he's not particularly intellectual in any specific field, the discussions he has lead in his podcasts are often highly intellectual. He is really good at asking the right questions and extracting all of the information out of someone on a particular subject.

The most recurring individual is probably Douglas Hofstadter.

At some tender adolescent age I found my Dad's copy of "Metamagical Themas" on the bookshelf, which among other things expanded my mind on programming - something I had just started to dabble in. The sheer breath of interesting but wildly different topics and the playful and earnest way he wrote touched my youthful mind.

This was later followed by several attempts to grapple with "Gödel, Escher, Bach" - with limited success in my earliest attempt but with each successive try (a few years in between) my growing intellectual capacity allowed my to take more away from it. After a year or two, I would felt the need to return - each time struggling yet feeling like I was circling closer to understanding something of the nature of consciousness, creativity and other such fascinating yet near indescribable phenomena.

It was only in the last couple of years, after a prolonged gap, I bought my own copy and finally read it through and felt I followed more or less the whole thing.

In fact, just today I finished reading another of his books," I am a Strange Loop", that I happened across on a recent trip to Amsterdam.

I'm sure that without his influence, I would be a different person today...