Socrates' debate with Gorgias and others

I'll get to Egyptian tomorrow, but for now please take a look at Plato's Gorgias on Perseus, which may be read both in its original Greek and also in English translation. It's then discussed on Youtube by an interesting online lecturer.




As I finally got around to reading Gorgias, I immediately appreciated how much it relates to the modern age. The seething anger of a growing number of people towards an insolent plutocracy is just beginning to boil over as the markets show increasing instability and as yet more responsible homeowners are being put out to the streets. To add insult to injury, these same victims are doubly left crippled in utter joblessness as politicians flutter about feigning stupidity. Democracy? Only in word, not in deed.

Socrates' words spoken more than two thousand years ago ring true as he rejects feel-good Rhetoric for the greater virtues of Truth. He proceeds to tear apart in laborious detail and unceasing wit all the ridiculous arguments put to him in favour of "might makes right" and in favour of childish selfishness at the expense of society. In effect, he establishes the beginnings of a logical morality, not based on cultish dogma or religious superstitions but only on pure reason. As the lecturer briefly notes, Socrates treats Truth in a quasi-religious way, being in keeping with the Apollonian traditions of his time (ie. the likening of justice and truth to a kind of illumination by the all-seeing sun god Apollo). Yet Socrates' public process of inquiry is anything but religious. Quite the opposite, it's defiantly anti-religious as he challenges the validity of all idle beliefs that do only harm to humankind. As then, we still have trouble heeding his insights and to our own peril.

I dedicate these musings of thought to the Temple of Numbers

When I tripped over the online Perseus entry for the word χάος which alludes to the Pythagoreans, it inspired me to pursue another new trail to experience. My google-fingers floated my mind across the ocean of cyberspace until I docked at a website about Pythagoras of Samos. Some fun reflections emerged from the deeps.

Pythagoreans are often said to be an important part of the foundation of modern science and mathematics. However I never really took the time to soak in how these philosophies contributed to modern rationalism and atheism. In a general sense, we might get away with saying that theories like those of the Pythagoreans arose from the rubble of religious contradictions noticed by the most astute iconoclasts of that period, offering us a new set of eyes to gaze into the heavens with, a new method of perceiving the cosmos whose doctrine would be increasingly shaped by logic and deductive reason.

It seems to me that a silent sin of religion is that it abstractifies the infinite Unknown into a fear-inspiring overlord standing over our helpless fate. But a deity is just our common anxieties anthropomorphized. The logic born from Pythagoras and similar philosophies brings remedy to that spiritual tyranny, lamping the path to our self-salvation, overthrowing the sadomasochism inherent in the unhealthy relationship between human and "God". So is it sacrilegious as an atheist to cede after all that that, in a sense, logical truth is Divinity expressed? Is Logic, floating on its flimsy axiomatic foundation called "existence", ironically nothing more than the most optimal faith of faiths?

And so I dedicate these humble offerings of finite perception to the Temple of Numbers. May it compute correctly. Amen.

Babylonian philosophy

It came to me just yesterday that while people may write about Greek philosophy or Roman philosophy, nobody ever talks about Babylonian philosophy. I figure that this probably has something to do with the fact that Babylonian texts of this nature are hard to come by. However, I decided to look it up just in case I missed something (which is quite possible for any of us in the vast field of ancient history).

Unexpectedly I came across a small mention of a curious document called the Dialogue of Pessimism which records a series of odd conversations between master and slave talking about different courses of action the master could take in his life followed by input from the slave for or against these courses of action. In the end and absurdly, when the slave is asked which course he would take, he deems death the most preferable option in all things.

I'm sure the conversation was intentionally a spoof and not an earnest espousal of nihilism. Böhl once referred to similarities in its concept with the Roman holiday called Saturnalia where, for a day, the slave becomes master and master becomes slave during the celebrations, a kind of role reversal. I also think of the words of the legendary Greek satyr Silenus, constantly drunk on wine, who philosophized in his wild stupor that human beings would be happier if never born.

So I guess, pessimism is quite an ancient idea indeed.

The origins of Greco-Chinese apeirophobia

Let's say you have a swift runner and a lazy-going tortoise placed on a track with the intent of racing each other for the curious enjoyment of a classical audience. Do not ask why. This absurd scenario is purely theoretical for the sake of a point about dead philosophers. Now, the tortoise, being slow, is given a head start by the gracious Achilles. In order that Achilles even pass his reptilian competitor, he must first travel the distance from himself to the tortoise. Yet before, he gets to the tortoise, he must have travelled half of that distance. And before half that distance, he must have journeyed a quarter the distance, and before that, an eighth, and before that, a 16th, et cetera ad vomitum. As we can see then, he has to accomplish an infinite number of tasks to even get to that sluggish turtle. So we can conclude that Achilles will never win the race at all, no matter how fast he runs.

No, wait. Nevermind. Bad example. Let's just skip the Greek calculus exam and sum it all up by saying that, um... the dimensionless cannot be accumulated, yet its size is a thousand miles. Sound good? Excellent.

What am I carrying on about? Infinity, of course. And both the Ancient Chinese and the Classical Greeks are to blame for its discovery as well as the countless mathematicians on both sides of Eurasia tormented by its abstract purgatory of existential paradoxes during the following two millenia thereafter. Personally, I like to think that both Zeno of Elea and Hui Shi were fraternal twins seperated at birth on the open Indian sea by a freak storm. Strangely, they both covered similar topics involving the notions of infinity, motion and spacetime approximately 2500 years ago without the use of a telephone. Another coincidence is that little happens to be known of both of these people's lives.

Zeno of Elea, a Greek, was born in the town of Elea (hence the name) and was probably born around 490 BCE. Zeno was said to be a handsome man, at least according to Plato, and in his youth he had probably been the eromenos to an older philosopher named Parmenides (read Plato, Parmenides, 127b). He seems to especially have been devoted to the notion of paradoxes involving the divisibility of dimensions, the nature of motion and the illusion of plurality. He appears to have made a name for himself through his genius explorations taking advantage of logical proof by contradiction to undermine the very things we most take for granted in our daily lives. He is famous for the self-named Zeno's Paradox involving that mindnumbing turtle example above.

However, miles away, a contemporaneous fellow by the name of Hui Shi (惠施) wrote about surprisingly similar things concerning plurality and our notions of infinity. He was part of the "School of Names", a nebulous label we use for a group of recognized philosophers of the same time period as Zeno and his followers, who likewise delighted in paradoxes, mind twisters and an overall profound contemplation of logic in a way that wasn't done before (as far as we know). And of course, it can be attributed to Hui Shi who stated in Classical Chinese:

• 无厚不可积也，其大千里。
  Wú-hòu bù kě jī yě, qí dà qiān lǐ. (Modern Mandarin pronunciation)
  Literally: Non-thickness not can accumulate also its size thousand miles.
  The dimensionless cannot be accumulated, yet its size is a thousand miles.

UPDATES
(Mar 27 2008) Updated thanks to a tipoff from an anonymous person. The Chinese character 也 is to be read yě, not tā whose character is quite similar: 他. Sorry, this is due to my carelessness.