Plato's stave: academic cracks philosopher's musical code
Historian claims Plato's manuscripts are mathematically ordered according to 12-note scale
By Julian Baggini Tuesday 29 June 2010
It may sound like the plot of a Dan Brown novel, but an academic at the University of Manchester claims to have cracked a mathematical and musical code in the works of Plato.
Jay Kennedy, a historian and philosopher of science, described his findings as "like opening a tomb and discovering new works by Plato."
Believing that this pattern corresponds to the 12-note musical scale widely used by Pythagoreans, Kennedy divided the texts into equal 12ths and found that "significant concepts and narrative turns" within the dialogues are generally located at their junctures. Positive concepts are lodged at the harmonious third, fourth, sixth, eight and ninth "notes", which were considered to be most harmonious with the 12th; while negative concepts are found at the more dissonant fifth, seventh, 10th and 11th.
Jay Kennedy interview...
Jay Kennedy's book FREE PDF
But, friend, when you grasp the number and nature of the intervals of sound, from high to low, and the boundaries of those intervals, and how many scales arise from them, which those who came before handed down to us, their followers, to call ‘harmonies,’ and when you grasp the various qualities inhering in the motions of the body, which they said must be measured with numbers and named ‘rhythm’ and ‘metre,’ and when you apprehend that every One and Many should be so investigated, when you have grasped all of that, then you are wise ...
Plato, Philebus, 17c11-e1
Nothing is so characteristic of the Pythagorean philosophy as symbolism (to
symbolikon), a kind of teaching which mixes speech and silence as in mystery
rites ... what they signify is immediately lucid and clear for those who are
accustomed to it, but dark and meaningless to the inexperienced... with the
Pythagorean symbols what seems to be affirmed is really being concealed, and
what seems to be concealed is discerned by the mind.
Plutarch in Stobaeus, iii.i.199 (Wachsmuth and Hense)
The practice of counting lines, ‘stichometry'...
Stichometry refers to the practice of counting lines in texts: Ancient Greeks and Romans measured the length of their books in lines, just as modern books are measured in pages. This practice was rediscovered by German and French scholars in the 19th century. Stichos is the Greek word for a 'line' of prose or poetry and the suffix '-metry' is derived from the Greek word for measurement.
The length of each line in the Iliad and Odyssey, which may have been among the first long, Greek texts written down, became the standard unit for ancient stichometry. This standard line (Normalzeile, in German) was thus as long as an epic hexameter and contained about 15 syllables or 35 Greek letters.
Stichometry existed for several reasons. Scribes were paid by the line and their fee per line was sometimes fixed by legal decree. Authors occasionally cited passages in the works of other authors by giving their approximate line number. Book buyers used total line counts to check that copied texts were complete.
The standard work on stichometry is Kurt Ohly's 1928 Stichometrische Untersuchungen which collects together the results of some fifty years of scholarly debate and research. Today, stichometry plays a small but useful role in research in fields as diverse as the history of the ancient book, papyrology, and Christian hermeneutics.
A List of Total Line Counts for Christian Texts: The title is 'Versus Scribturarum Sanctarum' or 'Lines of Holy Scriptures.' The second line says 'Genesis Versus IIIId' or 'Genesis Lines 4500.' The third line says 'Exodus Versus IIIdcc (= 3700). From the Codex Claromontanus (5th or 6th century CE), Leaf 467v, National Library
" harmony " in the Greek Beta Code system equals 969
Male" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 76
Female" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 581
"androgyne" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 983
"Zeus" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 612
love" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 305
unity" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 1460
"Beauty" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 1408
Eros" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 375
Prophecy" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 1103
Apollo" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 281
aporia" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 262
(inner disharmony)
Music" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 710
The connection between music theory and speech is later made explicit when
Alcibiades compares Socrates to a mythical musician:
And aren’t you, [Socrates,] an aulos player! You are much
more marvellous than [the satyr Marsyas]. He enchanted humans
with [musical] instruments by the power of his mouth ... You
differ from [Marsyas] only in so far as you do this ... without
instruments, by language naked and bare, [that is, by speaking
unmetrical prose]
Alcibiades here says that Socrates’ speech makes him a musician. This
makes an important concept available for interpreting Plato’s symbols: Erychimachus’
theory of harmonisation in music may apply to ordinary speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eryximachus
"satyr" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 1301
Marsyas" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 1242
Marsyas" in the English Ordinal system equals 96
"The hubris of Marsyas " in the English Ordinal system equals 227
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsyas
"sophia" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 369
Eryximachus’s theory explains this recurrent pattern. The clusters of features
are a kind of symbol for a musical sound or note. The motion or
activity which occurs at the locations of the quarternotes but not between
them is the ‘motion’ constitutive of musical rhythm. The resumption and
cessation of the motion symbolises the beginning and end of a musical sound.
Eryximachus’ ‘harmony of high and low’ is here the ‘agreement of wise and
unwise.’ The invitation and its acceptance are a harmonisation produced in
ordinary speech.
"harmony of high and low" in the English Ordinal system equals 216
Unique Properties of 216
Plato's number: Plato alludes to the fact that 216 is equal to 63, where 6 is one of the numbers representing marriage since it is the product of the female 2 and the male 3. Plato was also aware of the fact the the sum of the cubes of the 3-4-5 Pythagorean triple is equal to 216..
‘agreement of wise and unwise.’" in the English Reduction system equals 113
113 is the smallest three-digit permutable prime..
113 is the smallest three-digit Unholey prime: such primes do not have holes in their digits...
113 is the smallest three-digit prime whose product and sum of digits is prime...
"logos" in the Greek Beta Code system equals 373
http://www.paulj.myzen.co.uk/blog/spheres/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Kennedy-Musical-Structures-of-Platos-Dialogues.pdf
http://www.numbergossip.com/
Greek Isopsephy
Six six six..
έξι έξι έξι" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 225
Jesus...
Ιησούς" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 888
pyramid...
πυραμίδα" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 636
messiah..
"Μεσσίας" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 656
male...
"αρσενικός" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 656
female..
θηλυκός" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 737
Hades...
άδης" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 213
Israel...
"Ισραήλ" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 349
egypt...
Αίγυπτος" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 1064
Pharaoh..
"φαραώ" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 1402
man...
"άνδρας" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 356
Prophecy..
Προφητεία" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 1074
logos..
"λογότυπα" in the Greek Isopsephy system equals 954
Wow -- you are doing FANTASTIC work!! You've provided so much information that I've been searching for ... & I will definitely be following through on the leads you've provided. Clearly the realms of music, frequency, harmony, acoustics, etc. are integral to the deeper elements of these systems.
ReplyDeleteLittle wonder these topics aren't covered by the traditional "education"process, & aren't even all that easy to find on our own. Every time I run across an article that spews disinformation about the CYMATIC SYMBOLS that are everywhere in ancient temples & cathedrals, it makes my blood boil. "Intricately pretty Arabic-influenced ARTWORK & DESIGNS" is where they invariably stop.
In case you haven't seen it, check out "ESOTERIC NASHVILLE" @ Freeman Fly on you tube. The Bicentennial Mall there was laid out to pay homage to the hidden craft of acoustic design -- VERY interesting video!
Thanks again for this extremely high-quality research -- I just found your site, & will be working my way through your older posts. Keep up the great work ... it's invaluable (especially for those of us who are progressing deeper into these "mysteries")!!
P.S. -- Just recently found your kind response to my post about Andrew Jackson on Zach's blog. I posted a response there, but just in case you might've missed it (since your comment was posted over a week ago), I wanted to be sure & thank you again where I was pretty sure you WOULD see it! Lol
If you have a minute, check out the you tube site for "newearth". She makes a very convincing case for ALL of our "known history" having been deliberately fabricated. I'd suggest starting with an older video titled, "The Unknown History Of America -- It's all very different from what you know ..." (on page 3 under the Videos list). She's European & has a heavy accent, but I don't have any trouble understanding her & in fact find her voice to be quite pleasant & relaxing to listen to. :D ;D
I LOVE New Earth! Wow we have a lot in common! Check out my new post. I found an amazing video and a great interview on these subjects.
ReplyDeletehttp://decodingsatan.blogspot.com/2016/05/geometry-is-frozen-music.html
We really DO have a lot in common! It's easy to gripe about you tube (I've done my share ...) but honestly, it's brought more like-minded people together than Google alone ever could. And evil & dark as this world seems at times, I find encouragement in realizing that GOOD Forces are also at work -- otherwise we'd never have the level of awakening that technology has enabled. The Internet, etc was held back from the public for many years -- I was using it in the late 70's & early 80's while working at a government missile range.
ReplyDeleteFunny story -- when things were slow, I'd entertain people all over the world with saga-like stories that I typed "into the console". It was cool too, because the readers could interact with questions & suggestions. Usually it started with a line flashing on my screen from some remote outpost, asking: "How about a story?" or "Is it story-time yet?" (These were super-geeks in their 30's to 60's ... Lol)
One morning I was met at the door by someone with top brass -- haggard & bleary-eyed, he pulled me off to the side & cryptically demanded, "How ... does ... it ... END?"
"Umm ... YOU tell ME ...sir?" I didn't know what the hell was going on.
Turns out he'd been called in to fix a problem around midnight, & while poring over the hard copy, he'd gotten wrapped up in one of my stories ... but when it abruptly stopped, he was alternately curious about the story AND wondering if a batch of data had been lost or stolen.
"Nothing like that sir -- my shift was over. So I went home."
He literally put his face in his hands, then went home & went to bed. But before he left, I was given strict orders to finish the story, because "It's damned cruel to leave people hanging like that ..."! (My regular readers were used to it ...) LOL
From my perspective, we've come such a LONG way from those days -- when I wasn't even allowed to mention such things to my family!
Now if I could just get people (even my own kin) to understand that -- Yes, there IS "space travel" -- only it's NOT "Gabby Gifford's hubby/twin in a tin can" ... Instead -- Just think of the Prescians (Halle Berry's clan) in the movie "Cloud Atlas" ...
The crappy fakery is what you get when private companies are allowed to control the narrative -- they hide The Real Deal in a fraud-laden box, & extort Those With The Truth -- using threats of chaos & panic ... delivered courtesy of a Hollywood-esque "Alien Invasion". 9/11 made believers out of those who doubted "They" could pull it off. I kid you not ... ;D ;D)
thank you for the information
ReplyDelete