The great economic cycle

It's come to my attention that there are whispers of stock market collapse as the US finally admits to its troubling economics that some might say began in the 70s, let alone 2001. At any rate, it's been my experience that not only does history repeat itself but that merely knowing history doesn't really prevent anything.

The more practical purpose to learning history is not simply to know it but to understand it. That is, to understand why things happened the way they did and to reapply that knowledge to the present world, the world we live today. History is a source of information that we so often fail to take advantage of. This then is sadly why it's very easy to trick many fools into thinking that any system can last forever without change.

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.