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Science Historian Deciphers Plato's Code
Reader eldavojohn tips the news of a researcher in the UK, Jay Kennedy, who has uncovered a hidden code in the writings of Plato. From the University of Manchester press release: "[Dr. Kennedy said] 'I have shown rigorously that the books do contain codes and symbols and that unraveling them reveals the hidden philosophy of Plato. This is a true discovery, not simply reinterpretation.' ... The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea — the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. ... Plato did not design his secret patterns purely for pleasure — it was for his own safety. Plato's ideas were a dangerous threat to Greek religion. He said that mathematical laws and not the gods controlled the universe. Plato's own teacher [Socrates] had been executed for heresy. Secrecy was normal in ancient times, especially for esoteric and religious knowledge, but for Plato it was a matter of life and death." Here is the paper (PDF), which was published in the journal Apeiron: A Journal of Ancient Philosophy and Science.
The summary and press release it links to both completely miss the part where this is "News for Nerds". This paper is apparently the first time Plato's writings have been stichometrically analyzed by computer. Somehow, people have managed to miss him while analyzing other works. Apparently, it was commonplace back then to arrange parts of your work according various mathematical structures, though honestly I'm not sure how you get from that to this press release; I'll have to finish the paper to see if it is reasonable.
Seriously though, RTFP. It's not written very densely at all.
I came here to make the same correction. What lowbrow editor posted this summary with such an ass-backwards statement in it?
What is worse is that the majority of the submission is copy and paste. All except the "[Aristotle]" inclusion.
So the ONE THING that was added (apart from a couple of links in sentences circumfixing the quote) is wrong.
Socrates was "executed" for several crimes -- including heresy.
An argument can be made that Socrates caused himself to be sentenced to death by pissing off his jury -- essentially insulting them by saying his punishment should be to have himself, wife and kids should be taken care of for the rest of their lives. After pissing them off, his friends basically said "NONONO! He'll pay a fine! We'll cover it!" The prosecution offered death. The "jury" picked death.
Further, can it REALLY be called an "execution"? The Athenians' bent over backwards to let him escape. He refused. When the day came, he happily drank the poison -- even offering a bit to gods before drinking. I'd say it was more of voluntary martyrdom...
Our brains are the same size and of the same stuff as humans 5000 years ago, so it goes to follow that our philosophical and social habits haven't changed at all. But now, there are 6 billion of us.
Which goes to show, we're really no different from any other living organism. Despite all of the posturing by society to make it sound as if we're somehow more "civilized" now than ever before, the only thing we've actually succeeded in doing is scale up our old behaviors.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Mary Renault's excellent historical novel The Mask of Apollo is a masterful portrait of -- among other things -- Plato and his world. Engaging, informative, and moving: highly recommended.
We commonly think of Plato as a philosopher, and philosophers as unworldly; but Renault reminds us that Plato was also a soldier, a statesman, a man who repeatedly put his life on the line, for his friends and for his ideals, in the face of deadly opposition.
-kgj