The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the ‘thinker-doer’ in one person.
My observation is that the doers are the major thinkers. This builds on Da Vinci’s principle that you must be willing to test your thought experiments in practice.
But a do-mentality is required to achieve ground-breaking results that have a lasting impact on humanity. Everyone has ideas for making the world a better place. In it, he explains the power of people who not only conceptualise things, but also put them into practice. So, what is stopping us from becoming the new homo universalis?įor the documentary Machine That Changed The World, Steve Jobs talks for 50 minutes about the future after 1990. I think the only two prerequisites are a computer/smartphone with internet and a stable environment that provides for all basic needs. In these times of globalization, a homo universalis can arise anywhere in the world. The Internet has made knowledge gathering and talent development accessible to two-thirds of the world’s population. In addition, the computer has significantly expanded the capacity and storage space of our brains and we have access to more information than we can possibly fathom in millions of years. Anyone with stable Wi-Fi can create and publish writings, music, film or art. We are living in the communication era, with an unprecedented global exchange of ideas and creations. Whatever you do, there is always an Asian who can do it better.
In the days of Da Vinci, the world had about 461 million inhabitants, now the world has more than 17 times that number. It’s also not surprising that you have to accomplish more and more to be exceptional. He made airplane sketches about 400 years before the Wright Brothers first took flight, and he was also the creator of the parachute. Also, thanks to him, we can jump out of an airplane without ending up as a smoothie. To him we owe such things as proper scissors, helicopters and the double hull in ships. Not only does this teach us about the proportions of the body, but makes Da Vinci simultaneously the discoverer of jumping jacks. His drawing of the Vitruvian man is iconic: a naked dude with his arms and legs apart, inscribed in a circle and square. Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to anatomy. Nowadays, he is renowned in the fields of – take a breath – civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology. But during his lifetime he was active in countless areas, although he did not get credit for this until after his death. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, architect, inventor and contributed to scientific advancement.īack then and still today, he is best known for his art, including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Perhaps you can include other polymaths like Leon Battista Alberti, Michelangelo or Benjamin Franklin.īut when you want to meet the overlord of all homos, the embodiment of the ideal of the homo universalis, we should pay a visit to Leonardo Da Vinci. Others include the medieval Persian philosopher Al-Biruni (973-1050), the German female all-rounder Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), or the versatile Spanish-Berber philosopher Averroes (1126-1198). The concept of an aspirational ideal human was formed during the Renaissance, in which luminaries of the past were sometimes labeled as uomo universale.Īristotle is commonly seen as the first homo universalis. You could have done with a little more exercise and picked up a paintbrush once in a while. You two were too focused on science to be entitled to the label uomo universale.
It is not enough just to be a genius, sorry Einstein and Curie. It is someone who makes the best use of the body they were born with – not only the brain, but they also take care of their physique. You have to excel both intellectually and creatively. This person has not only made contributions in science, but has a legacy in the arts, as a writer, with philosophical thought, or any other disciplines. A homo universalis refers to an honorable person who develops all of his/her faculties and skills.