Music Code in Plato's work

[michael sam wild]

An academic at Manchester University claims to have cracked a mathematical code. He said Plato organised his texts symbolically, according to a 12-note Pythagorean scale .. The belief of a mathematical basis to the universe would be challenging to the Gods and so he would be cautious ( he was a pupil of Socrates)

 

 

The article in Apeiron is Here Section 5 p 16 gives the ideas on a musical structure to the text.

 

 

Dan Brown's writing the novel at this very moment. The Plato Protocol ?

Edited July 1, 2010 by michael sam wild

[shaunw]

Aristotle always said that Plato was a follower of Pythagoras but up until now there was no real

evidence for this. Pythagoras claimed that mathematics ruled the universe rather than the Gods

and this idea could certainly get you accused of impiety and executed so you would have to keep

it secret.

 

I just hope that Dan Brown isn't going to inflict another boring novel about this on us all.

[michael sam wild]

I think I'll copyright a plot just in case. I missed out on Jurassic Park when I told my students in 1969 what was possible in the form of DNA from mosqitoes in amber (I read Scientific American!)

[shaunw]

I think I'll copyright a plot just in case. I missed out on Jurassic Park when I told my students in 1969 what was possible in the form of DNA from mosqitoes in amber (I read Scientific American!)

 

Yes that was a really big miss but some people like ideas and other people just like money.

[bellowbelle]

I am not one who as a rule studies the works of Plato... or of anyone... but I do have this great book that may be of interest:

The Harmony Of The Spheres by Joscelyn Godwin

 

There is a section on Plato, though I don't think it mentions this (new?) discovery about him.

 

I haven't read this cover-to-cover, and likely won't. I pick it up at times and read little sections here and there.

 

Ironically, today I opened up to "A Letter concerning Music' by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who had comments about Plato in a letter written to Domenico Benivieni.

 

It's a book worth having, for the comparisons of philosophies and opinions, even if not for complete exhaustive info.

[bellowbelle]

Well, speak of the devil...!

 

Got this in my email today:

Plato ~ NPR link

[michael sam wild]

So before Dan Brown gets to it..... Plato is sitting with his harp thinking about just teperament tuning and whether his 3rds and 5ths sound nice or disharmonious and whether to colour the strings white and black, or whether to invent a concertina in quarter mean tone tuning etc etc please continue and we can build the novel and send the royalties to Paul,

 

'Hmm, thought the powerfully built philosopher , Plato, who was wearing a light tunic of simple line. He sat at his wring table in the cool shade and unrolled the papyrus scroll on hih his elaborate pythagorean schemma ( or scheme of things) was written......'

Edited July 7, 2010 by michael sam wild

[Guest HallelujahAl!]

The Ficino letter is a darned good read - included parts of it in my PhD. But the general theory that mathematics was the basis of the universe (the stuff of matter) was around long before Plato. Having studied most of Plato's work I think it fair to say that the musical 'code' was always prevalent - indeed the great Platonic writer and translator of the late 18th and early 19th centuries Thomas Taylor made the code quite clear (albeit in theological and philosophical language which was the method of Plato) as far back as the 1820s (cf. The Hymns of Orpheus by Thomas Taylor). So I can't see what all the fuss is about. Another little academic storm in a very old, cold cup of tea methinks.

AL

[Ivan Viehoff]

I just hope that Dan Brown isn't going to inflict another boring novel about this on us all.

Why does it bother you? One of the great things about the book publishing industry is that it caters for an enormous diversity of taste, so most of us don't like most of what is available. If they didn't publish a book you (and I) don't want to read by Dan Brown, they'd probably publish a similar book you (and I) didn't want to read by someone else in its place, because they still want to make money out of the kind of people who want to read books of the type Dan Brown writes. You (and I, and many others) are still here wanting to buy a different kind of book. So I suspect another Dan Brown (or Jeffrey Archer or whatever) will make very little difference to the availability of the books you (and I) want to read. The main problem I have is that there are so many books I want to read and so little time to read them.