WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:05.000 today by asking you to visualize a specific image. 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:07.719 It's probably one of the most ingrained images 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:10.199 in our collective education. You're back in high 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:13.019 school. The room smells like pencil shavings 00:00:13.019 --> 00:00:16.440 and, I don't know, floor wax. There's a chalkboard 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:18.879 in front of you covered in white dust, and right 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:21.640 in the center is a right -angled triangle. And 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:25.440 next to it, the formula. A squared plus B squared 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:28.460 equals C squared. Exactly. The Pythagorean theorem. 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.399 And the man behind it, Pythagoras, is etched 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:35.659 in our minds as the ultimate logo of logic. Yeah, 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:37.950 he's the guy. The grandfather of geometry. The 00:00:37.950 --> 00:00:40.710 grandfather of geometry. The man of cold, hard, 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:43.130 rational facts. If you were casting a movie about 00:00:43.130 --> 00:00:45.229 the history of science, he's the serious, beard 00:00:45.229 --> 00:00:47.070 -stroking academic in the first scene. Which 00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:48.969 is why the reality of the historical figure is 00:00:48.969 --> 00:00:50.969 so incredibly jarring to people. Because that 00:00:50.969 --> 00:00:53.530 image, it is barely scratching the surface. In 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:56.729 fact, it might be actively misleading. That is 00:00:56.729 --> 00:00:59.450 the tension we are going to explore today. Because 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:01.969 the more you dig into the actual sources, not 00:01:01.969 --> 00:01:04.340 the textbooks, but the ancient accounts, The 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:06.840 more you realize that Pythagoras wasn't really 00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:09.280 a math teacher. Or at least not just a math teacher. 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:11.640 Right. He was a mystic. He was a cult leader. 00:01:11.859 --> 00:01:14.640 He was a miracle worker who reportedly spoke 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.920 to rivers and had a thigh made of solid gold. 00:01:18.349 --> 00:01:21.010 It creates this fascinating paradox right at 00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:23.590 the heart of Western civilization. We like to 00:01:23.590 --> 00:01:25.230 think that the Western tradition is built on 00:01:25.230 --> 00:01:29.510 logos, on reason, science, proof. But the man 00:01:29.510 --> 00:01:32.230 who laid the foundation for that tradition was 00:01:32.230 --> 00:01:35.370 steeped in mythos, in ritual, magic, and the 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:37.090 supernatural. It's like finding out that Isaac 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:39.409 Newton was actually a high -ranking wizard. Which, 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:41.829 oddly enough, isn't too far from the truth either, 00:01:41.890 --> 00:01:44.109 but that's a deep dive for another day. A whole 00:01:44.109 --> 00:01:47.010 other can of worms. So today our mission is to 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:49.310 peel back these layers of legend. We want to 00:01:49.310 --> 00:01:51.790 find the human being underneath the golden thigh. 00:01:51.989 --> 00:01:54.709 To find the historical figure. The man who influenced 00:01:54.709 --> 00:01:58.049 Plato, Copernicus, and basically everyone who 00:01:58.049 --> 00:02:00.069 has ever thought about the structure of the universe. 00:02:00.569 --> 00:02:03.430 And to do that, we have to navigate a labyrinth 00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:06.189 of sources. And this is really the first hurdle 00:02:06.189 --> 00:02:08.169 we have to clear. If you want to study Caesar, 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:10.610 you read Caesar. If you want to study Marcus 00:02:10.610 --> 00:02:12.830 Aurelius, you read his meditations. Right, you 00:02:12.830 --> 00:02:14.509 go to the primary source. But if you want to 00:02:14.509 --> 00:02:18.050 read Pythagoras, you can't. Because he never 00:02:18.050 --> 00:02:20.069 wrote anything down, is that it? Or if he did, 00:02:20.250 --> 00:02:23.520 not a single scrap of it survived. We have zero 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:26.439 primary texts, nothing written by his own hand. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:29.400 That is wild to consider the most famous name 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:31.819 in mathematics. And he's a ghost. So everything 00:02:31.819 --> 00:02:34.340 we know is hearsay. Essentially, yes. We are 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:36.819 relying on secondary and tertiary sources, and 00:02:36.819 --> 00:02:38.780 we have to categorize them very carefully to 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:41.120 understand what we're looking at. Imagine trying 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.740 to write a biography of a celebrity today, but 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:46.020 your only sources are a few tweets from their 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.120 enemies and a fan fiction novel written 800 years 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.240 from now. There's a rough mix. So who are the 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:54.919 tweets from enemies in this scenario? Those would 00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:57.319 be his contemporaries or near contemporaries 00:02:57.319 --> 00:03:01.020 writing in the 6th and 5th centuries B .C. People 00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:05.020 like Heraclitus or Xenophanes. And reviews is 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:07.759 a polite way to put it. They weren't fans. They 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:10.360 were often satirical. Heraclius, who was known 00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:12.560 as the weeping philosopher because he was so 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:15.599 pessimistic, famously called Pythagoras the prince 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:18.900 of impostors. Ouch. Prince of impostors. That's 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:22.400 harsh. It is. He accused him of polymathy, which 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:24.500 today sounds like a compliment. You know, someone 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:26.800 who knows a lot. Right. A Renaissance man. But 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.939 Heraclitus meant it as an insult. He meant Pisagoras 00:03:29.939 --> 00:03:32.840 collected facts but lacked understanding. He 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:34.419 was basically saying, sure, this guy knows a 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:37.139 lot of trivia, but he doesn't have wisdom. So 00:03:37.139 --> 00:03:40.080 the early buzz was pretty negative. What about 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:42.379 the fan fiction you mentioned, the stuff written 00:03:42.379 --> 00:03:44.919 centuries later? These are the biographies from 00:03:44.919 --> 00:03:47.360 late antiquity writers like Diogenes Laertius, 00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:50.960 Porphyry, and Iamblichus. They were writing around 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:54.020 the 3rd century AD. So there's an 800 -year gap. 00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:56.639 An enormous gap. That is like me. writing a biography 00:03:56.639 --> 00:03:59.919 of Genghis Khan today, relying mostly on oral 00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:02.860 legends and magic stories. These authors weren't 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:04.699 trying to be historical in the modern sense. 00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:07.759 They were writing hagiography. Hagiography. So 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.860 the lives of saints. They wanted to portray him 00:04:10.860 --> 00:04:15.159 as a divine figure. Exactly. A sage, a saint, 00:04:15.259 --> 00:04:18.879 someone touched by the gods. So we have to sift 00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:21.480 through the insults of his rivals and the hero 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.879 worship of his fans to find the real guy. Yeah. 00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:27.160 That is where modern scholarship comes in, right? 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.379 Right. Scholars like Walter Burkert have done 00:04:29.379 --> 00:04:31.620 incredible work trying to separate the man from 00:04:31.620 --> 00:04:34.120 the school. They tried to distinguish what Pythagoras 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.500 the person actually said versus what his followers, 00:04:36.779 --> 00:04:39.519 the Pythagoreans, attributed to him over the 00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:42.339 centuries. And as we're about to see. That line 00:04:42.339 --> 00:04:45.660 is very, very blurry. But let's tease some of 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:47.319 the wildest details we're going to get into. 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:49.720 We already mentioned the golden thigh. Oh, yeah. 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:52.319 And the talking river. A river that literally 00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:55.040 greeted him by name. There's also a deadly field 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:57.779 of fava beans and a bear that he convinced to 00:04:57.779 --> 00:05:00.160 swear an oath of nonviolence. I can't wait to 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.199 get to the bear. But let's start at the beginning. 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:04.980 Let's drop into the world of, what, around 570 00:05:04.980 --> 00:05:08.839 BC? We are in the Eastern Agency on the island 00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:12.699 of Samos. It's a lush, wealthy island right off 00:05:12.699 --> 00:05:14.980 the coast of modern -day Turkey. And this wasn't 00:05:14.980 --> 00:05:18.069 some sleepy backwater. Samos was a hub. It was 00:05:18.069 --> 00:05:20.889 a powerhouse, a major trading center, which means 00:05:20.889 --> 00:05:23.149 it was a place where ideas collided. You had 00:05:23.149 --> 00:05:25.610 ships coming in from Egypt, from Phoenicia, from 00:05:25.610 --> 00:05:28.370 the Greek mainland. It was an intellectual pressure 00:05:28.370 --> 00:05:31.589 cooker. This is the era of the Ionian Enlightenment, 00:05:31.709 --> 00:05:34.730 right? It is. Thinkers like Anaximander and Anaximenes 00:05:34.730 --> 00:05:37.529 were just a boat ride away in Miletus asking 00:05:37.529 --> 00:05:39.829 these huge questions about what the world is 00:05:39.829 --> 00:05:43.589 made of. Is it water? Is it air? It was a revolutionary 00:05:43.589 --> 00:05:46.850 time for thought. And into this world, Pythagoras 00:05:46.850 --> 00:05:49.980 is... born. We know his father, Misharkas, was 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:52.699 likely a gem engraver or maybe a merchant. A 00:05:52.699 --> 00:05:54.819 respectable background, but the legends, of course, 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:56.980 need more than that. They need him to be special 00:05:56.980 --> 00:05:59.420 from day one. This is where the hagiography kicks 00:05:59.420 --> 00:06:01.920 in immediately. Right away. The story goes that 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.199 his parents visited the oracle of Belphie the 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:07.139 Pythia. The Pythia was the voice of the god Apollo. 00:06:07.420 --> 00:06:09.199 The most important oracle in the ancient world. 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:11.779 The most important. And she prophesied that his 00:06:11.779 --> 00:06:14.339 mother, Pythias, was already pregnant, which 00:06:14.339 --> 00:06:16.399 apparently was news to them, and that she would 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.100 give birth to a man who would be supremely beautiful, 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:22.980 wise, and beneficial to humankind. Beneficial 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:26.259 to humankind. That is a heavy burden for a baby. 00:06:26.779 --> 00:06:29.240 And the name Pythagoras actually links to this 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:31.680 story, doesn't it? It does. Later followers interpreted 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.899 Pythagoras to mean he who spoke the truth no 00:06:34.899 --> 00:06:38.019 less than the Pythian Apollo. Oh, wow. From the 00:06:38.019 --> 00:06:41.939 Pythia and Agoras from Agorwen to speak. He was 00:06:41.939 --> 00:06:44.279 framed from birth as the mouthpiece of the god 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:46.980 of light and reason. So he grows up on Samos. 00:06:47.060 --> 00:06:49.220 He's brilliant. He's beautiful. But he doesn't 00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:51.730 stay there. This is where we get into the famous 00:06:51.730 --> 00:06:55.290 gap year period, or really, a gap decade, the 00:06:55.290 --> 00:06:57.829 travels. This is a staple of the Pythagorean 00:06:57.829 --> 00:07:00.310 legend. It's this idea that Greek wisdom wasn't 00:07:00.310 --> 00:07:02.610 enough for him. To truly understand the universe, 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:05.389 he had to go to the source. So the biographies 00:07:05.389 --> 00:07:07.589 send him on a grand tour of the ancient world. 00:07:07.850 --> 00:07:09.829 Let's break down this itinerary because it is 00:07:09.829 --> 00:07:13.310 exhaustive. First stop. Egypt. Egypt was the 00:07:13.310 --> 00:07:15.350 gold standard for ancient wisdom. If you were 00:07:15.350 --> 00:07:17.389 a Greek intellectual, Egypt was like going to 00:07:17.389 --> 00:07:19.930 Harvard or Oxford. It was the ancient revered 00:07:19.930 --> 00:07:22.310 source of knowledge. Absolutely. The stories 00:07:22.310 --> 00:07:24.310 say he learned the Egyptian language from the 00:07:24.310 --> 00:07:27.449 Pharaoh Amasis II and then spent years, maybe 00:07:27.449 --> 00:07:30.089 decades, studying with the priests at Thebes 00:07:30.089 --> 00:07:32.389 in Memphis. And this wasn't just, you know, a 00:07:32.389 --> 00:07:35.170 study abroad program. The claim is that he was 00:07:35.170 --> 00:07:38.670 initiated into their secret rites. Exactly. He 00:07:38.670 --> 00:07:41.310 supposedly had to undergo circumcision to enter 00:07:41.310 --> 00:07:43.550 the inner sanctuaries. He would have studied 00:07:43.550 --> 00:07:46.449 their geometry, which was highly practical, used 00:07:46.449 --> 00:07:48.769 for measuring land after the Nile flooded every 00:07:48.769 --> 00:07:51.930 year. Right. Redrawing property lines. Precisely. 00:07:52.149 --> 00:07:54.850 And he would have learned their intricate theology 00:07:54.850 --> 00:07:58.370 and their obsession with ritual purity and secrecy. 00:07:58.470 --> 00:08:01.449 The Egyptian priests were notoriously protective 00:08:01.449 --> 00:08:03.990 of their knowledge. This idea of a secret doctrine, 00:08:04.110 --> 00:08:06.490 that's very Egyptian. So he picks up geometry. 00:08:06.699 --> 00:08:09.100 and secrecy in Egypt. Then, according to the 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:11.439 legends, things go wrong. Right. The Persian 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.240 Empire invades Egypt and Pythagoras is taken 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:17.220 as a prisoner of war to Babylon. Which, conveniently 00:08:17.220 --> 00:08:19.560 for the legend, is the next stop on his wisdom 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.500 tour. Exactly. This opens up the second major 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:25.490 chapter of his education. Babylon in the 6th 00:08:25.490 --> 00:08:27.790 century BC was the world's center of astronomy 00:08:27.790 --> 00:08:30.829 and mathematics. The Chaldeans, the Babylonian 00:08:30.829 --> 00:08:33.710 stargazers, had data sets going back centuries. 00:08:34.169 --> 00:08:35.809 We aren't just talking about looking at the moon. 00:08:35.889 --> 00:08:38.649 We are talking about serious data science for 00:08:38.649 --> 00:08:40.970 the ancient world. It's high -level pattern recognition. 00:08:41.470 --> 00:08:43.789 They could predict eclipses. They understood 00:08:43.789 --> 00:08:46.309 the cycles of the planets with incredible precision. 00:08:46.629 --> 00:08:49.429 If Pythagoras was there, he would have been exposed 00:08:49.429 --> 00:08:51.850 to a level of mathematical sophistication that 00:08:51.850 --> 00:08:54.210 simply didn't exist in Greece yet. And what else 00:08:54.210 --> 00:08:56.649 I read he also studied with the Magi. The Magi, 00:08:56.649 --> 00:08:59.549 yes. The Zoroastrian priests. This is where the 00:08:59.549 --> 00:09:02.490 philosophy gets really interesting. Zoroastrianism 00:09:02.490 --> 00:09:05.250 is all about the cosmic battle between good and 00:09:05.250 --> 00:09:08.690 evil, light and dark. Dualism. Exactly. That 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.610 concept of a binary universe order versus chaos, 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:14.929 limit versus unlimited, odd versus even, that 00:09:14.929 --> 00:09:17.769 becomes a core part of Pythagorean thought. He 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:19.590 may have picked that up in Babylon. And the list 00:09:19.590 --> 00:09:22.070 just goes on. Some sources say he went to Phoenicia 00:09:22.070 --> 00:09:24.409 for arithmetic. maybe even to India to meet the 00:09:24.409 --> 00:09:27.629 gymnosophists, the naked philosophers. Even the 00:09:27.629 --> 00:09:29.929 Celts and Iberians are mentioned. He basically 00:09:29.929 --> 00:09:32.549 went everywhere. But we have to pause here and 00:09:32.549 --> 00:09:35.190 apply our critical lens. Did he actually go to 00:09:35.190 --> 00:09:38.570 all these places? Modern scholarship is pretty 00:09:38.570 --> 00:09:40.549 skeptical, right? Very skeptical. It sounds a 00:09:40.549 --> 00:09:42.629 bit too perfect. Like a greatest hits album of 00:09:42.629 --> 00:09:44.570 ancient wisdom. It's an appeal to authority, 00:09:44.750 --> 00:09:46.870 isn't it? That's the perfect way to put it. in 00:09:46.870 --> 00:09:48.789 the hellenistic period when these biographies 00:09:48.789 --> 00:09:51.350 were written it was very fashionable to claim 00:09:51.350 --> 00:09:53.590 that great greek ideas actually came from the 00:09:53.590 --> 00:09:56.889 older wiser civilizations of the east you wanted 00:09:56.889 --> 00:10:00.169 an exotic origin story you did if you wanted 00:10:00.169 --> 00:10:03.090 to legitimize pythagoras you didn't say he thought 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:05.950 this up while walking on the beach in samos you 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:08.919 said The high priest of Memphis taught him this 00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:12.240 in a secret chamber under a pyramid. Like Herodotus 00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:14.580 claiming Pythagoras got the idea of reincarnation 00:10:14.580 --> 00:10:16.940 from Egypt. Right, which Herodotus got completely 00:10:16.940 --> 00:10:19.759 wrong. The Egyptians had complex views on the 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:22.399 afterlife, but they didn't believe in the transmigration 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:26.000 of souls reincarnation in the specific way Pythagoras 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.860 taught it. That's more likely an idea with roots 00:10:28.860 --> 00:10:32.000 in Thracian or even Indian thought. So while 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:34.539 he almost certainly traveled, I mean, Samos was 00:10:34.539 --> 00:10:36.539 a trading hub, he would have been around foreigners. 00:10:36.659 --> 00:10:38.519 Oh, for sure. He probably went to Egypt in the 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:41.440 Near East. But the idea that he collected wisdom 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:44.279 like stamps and a passport is likely a later 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:47.120 invention to bolster his resume. Okay, so whether 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:49.139 it's real or exaggerated, he eventually comes 00:10:49.139 --> 00:10:53.000 back to Samos, a changed man. But he doesn't 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:56.879 stay. Why leave home again? Politics. Samos had 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:59.419 fallen under the control of a tyrant named Polycrates. 00:11:00.110 --> 00:11:02.710 Now, Polycrates was a successful ruler. He built 00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:05.570 a powerful navy, great temples, but he was a 00:11:05.570 --> 00:11:08.389 tyrant. And Pythagoras wasn't a fan of tyrants. 00:11:08.610 --> 00:11:10.470 According to the stories, he found the lack of 00:11:10.470 --> 00:11:13.049 freedom stifling. He couldn't teach or live the 00:11:13.049 --> 00:11:14.750 way he wanted to. There's also the suggestion 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:18.490 that he was just too popular, the burden of celebrity. 00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:20.970 Yes, exactly. He was constantly being dragged 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:23.350 into public duties, forced to advise on politics, 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:26.049 and he had no time for his real work, for his 00:11:26.049 --> 00:11:28.210 philosophy. I love the detail about the cave. 00:11:28.570 --> 00:11:31.250 Yes. Before he left, he supposedly tried to set 00:11:31.250 --> 00:11:33.809 up a school in a public place called the Semicircle, 00:11:33.809 --> 00:11:36.529 but he found it distracting. He preferred to 00:11:36.529 --> 00:11:38.950 retreat to a secret cave outside the city to 00:11:38.950 --> 00:11:41.450 do his real thinking and teach his inner circle. 00:11:41.590 --> 00:11:44.730 The Batcave of Philosophy? So around 530 BC, 00:11:44.950 --> 00:11:47.809 at the age of 40, he packs his bags and presumably 00:11:47.809 --> 00:11:51.059 his geometry notes and heads west. To Italy. 00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:53.980 Specifically to Croton. This was part of Magna 00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:57.240 Graecia, Great Greece. Southern Italy was heavily 00:11:57.240 --> 00:12:00.460 colonized by Greeks. It was a new world, a place 00:12:00.460 --> 00:12:02.899 of opportunity, kind of like the American frontier. 00:12:03.179 --> 00:12:05.659 This is where the school is born. But we need 00:12:05.659 --> 00:12:08.039 to be really careful with that word school. When 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:10.279 I hear school, I think of enrollment forms, tuition, 00:12:10.519 --> 00:12:13.110 and lectures. But that's not what this was. Not 00:12:13.110 --> 00:12:15.110 at all. It was much closer to a monastery or 00:12:15.110 --> 00:12:17.529 honestly a cult -like commune. When Pythagoras 00:12:17.529 --> 00:12:19.690 arrived in Croton, his charisma was apparently 00:12:19.690 --> 00:12:22.169 off the charts. He made a huge first impression. 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:25.710 A massive one. He gave these incredible speeches 00:12:25.710 --> 00:12:28.070 to the city elders, to the young men, to the 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:30.450 women and children. He convinced the people of 00:12:30.450 --> 00:12:32.909 Croton, who were known for being a bit decadent, 00:12:32.929 --> 00:12:36.169 to turn away from luxury and corruption and embrace 00:12:36.169 --> 00:12:40.299 a purer, more disciplined way of life. And for 00:12:40.299 --> 00:12:43.200 those who wanted to go all in to become Pythagoreans, 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:46.539 the lifestyle was extreme. It wasn't just attending 00:12:46.539 --> 00:12:49.679 a seminar. It was a total life overhaul. It was 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:52.519 a brotherhood, a society. The core maxim was 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:56.240 all things in common among friends. So they practiced 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.490 a form of communism. Strict communism. When you 00:12:59.490 --> 00:13:01.909 joined, you handed over all your property, all 00:13:01.909 --> 00:13:04.269 your money to the community. You lived together, 00:13:04.409 --> 00:13:06.649 ate together, and worshipped together. You were 00:13:06.649 --> 00:13:09.529 bound by vows to Pythagoras and to each other. 00:13:09.690 --> 00:13:12.129 And the entry requirements were brutal. Let's 00:13:12.129 --> 00:13:14.169 talk about the silence. The five -year silence. 00:13:14.710 --> 00:13:16.960 I want to just... Pause on that for a second. 00:13:17.019 --> 00:13:19.620 Can you imagine the psychology of that? You join 00:13:19.620 --> 00:13:21.139 this group. You're surrounded by people. You're 00:13:21.139 --> 00:13:23.100 supposedly learning these mind -blowing truths 00:13:23.100 --> 00:13:26.720 about the universe. But for five years, you cannot 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:30.259 utter a single word. It is a profound psychological 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:33.899 tool. It breaks down the ego. You can't justify 00:13:33.899 --> 00:13:36.840 yourself. You can't argue. You can't try to sound 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:39.059 smart. You can't complain. You just have to listen. 00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:41.500 You become a vessel. You are forced to listen, 00:13:41.580 --> 00:13:44.679 to observe, to absorb. It turns you into a pure 00:13:44.679 --> 00:13:47.679 receptacle for the master's voice. Only after 00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:49.940 five years of silent listening were you deemed 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:52.879 worthy to actually see Pythagoras face to face. 00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:55.820 It's basically active listening taken to a torture 00:13:55.820 --> 00:13:58.759 level. And this hierarchy created a split in 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.120 the group, didn't it? The listeners versus the 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:03.860 learners? It did. This is the famous split between 00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:06.259 the akusmatikoi and the mathematikoi. Okay, break 00:14:06.259 --> 00:14:08.559 those down for us. The akusmatikoi, the listeners, 00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:10.720 were the outer circle. They were the ones who 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:12.879 focused on the rules, the maxims, the akusmata, 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:15.639 or things heard. So they followed the dogma. 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:18.700 Yes. They didn't ask why, they just obeyed. Don't 00:14:18.700 --> 00:14:20.580 poke fire in the sword. Okay, put your right 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:22.840 sandal on first. Got it. They were the religious 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:24.799 hardliners, the keepers of the tradition. And 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:27.990 the mathematikoi? The learners. Mathema in Greek 00:14:27.990 --> 00:14:30.950 just means that which is learned. This was the 00:14:30.950 --> 00:14:33.190 inner circle. They were the ones interested in 00:14:33.190 --> 00:14:35.549 the geometry, the astronomy, the music theory. 00:14:35.830 --> 00:14:38.269 They wanted to know the why behind the rules. 00:14:38.610 --> 00:14:40.929 So they were the scientific wing. You could say 00:14:40.929 --> 00:14:43.730 that. They wanted the rational proofs and the 00:14:43.730 --> 00:14:46.950 philosophical understanding. The akousmatikoi 00:14:46.950 --> 00:14:49.250 cared about the ritual. The mathematicoi cared 00:14:49.250 --> 00:14:51.830 about the reason. It's fascinating because this 00:14:51.830 --> 00:14:54.970 split foreshadows the entire future of Pythagoras' 00:14:55.090 --> 00:14:57.990 legacy. You have the religious mystics and the 00:14:57.990 --> 00:15:00.909 scientific rationalists all under one roof, claiming 00:15:00.909 --> 00:15:03.750 to follow the same man. And scholars debate whether 00:15:03.750 --> 00:15:06.129 this split existed during Pythagoras' lifetime 00:15:06.129 --> 00:15:09.289 or developed later, but the tension was clearly 00:15:09.289 --> 00:15:11.830 there from the beginning. Eventually, the two 00:15:11.830 --> 00:15:14.049 factions would turn on each other, each claiming 00:15:14.049 --> 00:15:16.250 to be the true heirs. But in the beginning, it 00:15:16.250 --> 00:15:18.399 was a unified community. And we have to mention 00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:20.759 one other really radical aspect of this community, 00:15:21.019 --> 00:15:24.340 the women. Yes. This is one of the most surprising 00:15:24.340 --> 00:15:26.759 and, frankly, progressive things about the school 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.659 for its time period. Ancient Greece wasn't exactly 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:32.279 known for gender equality. Not at all. Women 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.379 were generally confined to the domestic sphere, 00:15:34.539 --> 00:15:37.379 with very few rights. Exactly. But in the Pythagorean 00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:39.519 community, women were not only allowed, they 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:42.240 were active members. We have records of female 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:44.899 philosophers, scholars in their own right. Theano 00:15:44.899 --> 00:15:46.919 is the big name, right? Theano is the most famous. 00:15:47.340 --> 00:15:49.620 Depending on the source you read, she was either 00:15:49.620 --> 00:15:52.059 Pythagoras' wife or his most gifted student, 00:15:52.220 --> 00:15:55.259 or both. She was a respected mathematician and 00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:58.639 philosopher. But she wasn't the only one. I read 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:01.039 that Iamblichus, one of the biographers, lists 00:16:01.039 --> 00:16:04.480 17 famous female Pythagoreans by name. He does. 00:16:04.659 --> 00:16:08.000 Names like Maya and Eregnote. They wrote books. 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:10.320 They taught. They were intellectuals. It seems 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:12.620 Pythagoras believed that since the soul was the 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:15.019 only thing that mattered and the soul was genderless, 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:17.879 women were just as capable of achieving wisdom 00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:20.919 as men. It was a radical idea. So we have this 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:23.669 commune, men and women. living in silence, sharing 00:16:23.669 --> 00:16:25.929 property, but what were they actually believing? 00:16:25.950 --> 00:16:28.210 What was the central theology? The bedrock of 00:16:28.210 --> 00:16:30.230 the belief system, the one thing scholars are 00:16:30.230 --> 00:16:32.929 about 99 % sure the historical Pythagoras actually 00:16:32.929 --> 00:16:36.149 taught, is metempsychosis. Which is a fancy Greek 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:38.950 word for reincarnation. Transmigration of the 00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:41.830 soul. It's the idea that the soul is immortal. 00:16:42.009 --> 00:16:45.490 It is a divine spark that is trapped or imprisoned 00:16:45.490 --> 00:16:48.809 in a mortal body. When the body dies, the soul 00:16:48.809 --> 00:16:51.779 doesn't disappear. It moves on. It gets shuffled 00:16:51.779 --> 00:16:54.419 into a new body. And not necessarily a human 00:16:54.419 --> 00:16:57.100 body, which is key. That's the key part. You 00:16:57.100 --> 00:16:58.679 could come back as another human, or you could 00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:01.299 come back as a dog, or a lion, or a fish, or 00:17:01.299 --> 00:17:03.940 even a bean plant, as we'll see. This leads directly 00:17:03.940 --> 00:17:06.240 to the famous anecdote with the puppy. Right, 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:08.700 the one from the satirist Xenophanes. He tells 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:10.579 this story to make fun of Pythagoras. What's 00:17:10.579 --> 00:17:12.640 the story? He says Pythagoras was walking down 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:15.440 the street and saw a man beating a puppy. Pythagoras 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:18.440 runs over and screams, Stop! Do not beat it! 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:20.319 For it is the soul of a friend that I recognized 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:23.279 when I heard its voice. Don't hit that dog. That's 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:26.039 my old buddy Steve. It sounds like a punchline. 00:17:26.380 --> 00:17:28.380 Xenophanes definitely meant it as a joke. He 00:17:28.380 --> 00:17:31.680 was mocking him. But like all good satire, it 00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:34.759 points to a genuine belief. Pythagoras really 00:17:34.759 --> 00:17:37.000 did believe that all living things were kindred. 00:17:37.390 --> 00:17:39.950 There was a universal brotherhood of souls connecting 00:17:39.950 --> 00:17:43.650 humans and animals. claimed to have proof of 00:17:43.650 --> 00:17:46.369 this because he could remember his own past lives. 00:17:46.569 --> 00:17:48.849 This wasn't just a theory for him. He had the 00:17:48.849 --> 00:17:51.750 receipts, so to speak. He had the memories. This 00:17:51.750 --> 00:17:54.529 was his ultimate trump card. He claimed that 00:17:54.529 --> 00:17:57.230 in a past life, he was a hero named Ethelades, 00:17:57.369 --> 00:18:00.490 who was the son of the god Hermes. Okay. Hermes 00:18:00.490 --> 00:18:03.309 offered Ethelades any gift except immortality, 00:18:03.430 --> 00:18:05.910 so he asked for the one thing that could approximate 00:18:05.910 --> 00:18:08.690 it, to retain his memory, his consciousness. 00:18:09.339 --> 00:18:11.259 Through the cycle of death and rebirth. That 00:18:11.259 --> 00:18:13.319 is a very clever choice. A brilliant choice. 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.400 So he remembered being Athelides. Then he came 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.960 back as Euphorbus, a hero who fought and died 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.539 in the Trojan War. Embea. Then he was Hermonimus, 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:24.299 a philosopher. Then Pyrrhus, a simple fisherman 00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:26.880 from Delos. He even claimed to have been a beautiful 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:29.140 courtesan at one point. He had this whole CV 00:18:29.140 --> 00:18:31.200 of past selves. I love the story about how he 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.660 proved he was Euphorbus with the shield. Ah, 00:18:33.740 --> 00:18:37.400 yes. This was his great magic trick to prove 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:40.269 his identity. He was traveling and went into 00:18:40.269 --> 00:18:43.130 the Temple of Hera near Mycenae. There were old 00:18:43.130 --> 00:18:45.470 shields hanging on the wall as votive offerings 00:18:45.470 --> 00:18:48.369 from past wars. He walked through, looked them 00:18:48.369 --> 00:18:50.910 over, and then pointed to a rotting rusty one 00:18:50.910 --> 00:18:53.890 and said, That one. That is the shield I carried 00:18:53.890 --> 00:18:55.990 when I was Euphorbus, before Menelaus killed 00:18:55.990 --> 00:18:58.710 me at Troy. That's quite a claim. The priests 00:18:58.710 --> 00:19:00.789 were skeptical, of course, but they took it down, 00:19:00.890 --> 00:19:03.029 scraped off the centuries of rust and decay, 00:19:03.269 --> 00:19:06.230 and supposedly, on the inside, they found the 00:19:06.230 --> 00:19:08.869 name Euphortus inscribed. That is some David 00:19:08.869 --> 00:19:11.809 Blaine -level street magic. Yeah. But it solidified 00:19:11.809 --> 00:19:14.650 his authority. If he can remember what happened 00:19:14.650 --> 00:19:16.569 500 years ago, you're going to listen to what 00:19:16.569 --> 00:19:18.150 he has to say about everything else. Absolutely. 00:19:18.869 --> 00:19:21.609 And this belief in the soul's journey dictated 00:19:21.609 --> 00:19:24.240 their entire way of life. the goal of being a 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:27.420 pythagorean was purification or catharsis but 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:29.799 purify the soul to purify the soul so it could 00:19:29.799 --> 00:19:32.839 escape the grievous wheel of rebirth and finally 00:19:32.839 --> 00:19:35.680 return to the divine realm where it belongs and 00:19:35.680 --> 00:19:37.799 this purification was achieved through study 00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:40.619 through music and through a very very specific 00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:43.599 set of rules and this brings us to the symbol 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:46.579 of the rules or the akusmata the things heard 00:19:46.579 --> 00:19:49.380 if you want to purify your soul apparently you 00:19:49.380 --> 00:19:52.660 have to follow some incredibly specific and frankly 00:19:52.660 --> 00:19:55.119 bizarre instructions this is where the cult vibe 00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:57.059 really takes over these weren't just ethical 00:19:57.059 --> 00:19:59.740 guidelines like don't steal these were ritual 00:19:59.740 --> 00:20:02.740 taboos things you must or must not do for example 00:20:02.740 --> 00:20:06.069 do not poke fire with a sword Okay, let's analyze 00:20:06.069 --> 00:20:08.690 that. Is that practical advice? Like, don't ruin 00:20:08.690 --> 00:20:11.369 your nice sword by sticking it in the fire. Well, 00:20:11.450 --> 00:20:14.329 that's one interpretation, but Aristotle, who 00:20:14.329 --> 00:20:16.809 studied the Pythagoreans, seemed to think these 00:20:16.809 --> 00:20:20.029 were literal ritual taboos. Like, the fire has 00:20:20.029 --> 00:20:22.930 a spirit, the sword has a spirit, and you don't 00:20:22.930 --> 00:20:24.750 want to bring them into violent conflict. It's 00:20:24.750 --> 00:20:27.109 a form of defilement. But later philosophers 00:20:27.109 --> 00:20:30.200 tried to pretty them up, right? Yes. The Neoplatonists, 00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:32.960 like Porphyry, came along centuries later and 00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:35.339 were a bit embarrassed by all the superstitions. 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:38.940 So they reinterpreted them as philosophical metaphors. 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:41.720 So what did don't poke fire with a sword mean 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:44.160 to them? For Porphyry, it meant do not provoke 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:46.980 an angry person with sharp words. You know, don't 00:20:46.980 --> 00:20:49.180 poke a fiery temper with the sword of your tongue. 00:20:49.339 --> 00:20:51.759 That sounds an awful lot like a retcon. Like 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:53.220 they were trying to make it sound deep after 00:20:53.220 --> 00:20:55.420 the fact. What are some of the other rules? Oh, 00:20:55.420 --> 00:20:58.140 there are so many. Do not pick up what has fallen 00:20:58.140 --> 00:21:01.519 from the table. Do not break bread. When you 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:04.000 get out of bed, smooth out the impression of 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.960 your body in the sheets. Why that one? The idea 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:09.940 was to not leave a trace of yourself behind for 00:21:09.940 --> 00:21:13.700 spirits or bad magic to latch onto. Another one 00:21:13.700 --> 00:21:16.819 is do not wear images of the gods on rings. So 00:21:16.819 --> 00:21:19.539 no religious jewelry. Right, because it was seen 00:21:19.539 --> 00:21:21.920 as trapping the divine in a material prison. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.119 And my personal favorite, put the right sandal 00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:27.799 on before the left. The sandal one is fascinating. 00:21:27.940 --> 00:21:30.839 It implies a constant state of mindfulness. You 00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:32.640 can't just groggily get dressed in the morning. 00:21:32.740 --> 00:21:34.779 You have to be aware, OK, it's the right foot 00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:37.579 first. It turns every tiny action into a ritual. 00:21:37.700 --> 00:21:39.779 It creates a distinction between the sacred and 00:21:39.779 --> 00:21:42.339 the profane in every moment. The right side was 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:44.539 associated with the good, the odd numbers, the 00:21:44.539 --> 00:21:46.839 masculine, the light. The left was the bad, the 00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:49.019 even, the dark. So you must always begin with 00:21:49.019 --> 00:21:51.819 the good. But the most famous rule. The one that 00:21:51.819 --> 00:21:53.839 has dogged his legacy for two and a half thousand 00:21:53.839 --> 00:21:57.079 years is the diet. There's a lot of debate about 00:21:57.079 --> 00:22:00.039 meat, but everyone agrees on one thing. The beans. 00:22:00.420 --> 00:22:03.480 The absolute prohibition of fava beans. We have 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:06.940 to dig into this. Why beans? Of all the things 00:22:06.940 --> 00:22:09.859 in the ancient world to forbid, why is the fava 00:22:09.859 --> 00:22:12.430 bean the ultimate enemy? There are two main theories 00:22:12.430 --> 00:22:14.369 here, and they offer a great window into the 00:22:14.369 --> 00:22:17.369 two sides of Pythagoras, the mystic and the scientist. 00:22:17.990 --> 00:22:20.690 The first theory is purely mystical and has a 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:22.549 few parts. Okay, let's hear the mystic side. 00:22:22.970 --> 00:22:25.809 One idea was that fava beans look like human 00:22:25.809 --> 00:22:28.549 genitalia, so they were connected to sex and 00:22:28.549 --> 00:22:30.869 generation, which were things the soul needed 00:22:30.869 --> 00:22:33.910 to transcend. Another was that they caused gas, 00:22:34.170 --> 00:22:36.509 which disturbed the tranquil state of the soul. 00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:39.170 But the most powerful belief was about their 00:22:39.170 --> 00:22:42.089 connection to the dead. Fava bean plants have 00:22:42.089 --> 00:22:44.920 a hollow stem. It was believed that this stem 00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:47.599 was a ladder connecting directly to Hades, the 00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:49.640 underworld. So there were conduits for souls. 00:22:49.859 --> 00:22:52.180 There were conduits for souls. There was a folk 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:54.799 belief that if you chewed a fava bean and left 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:57.000 it in the sun for a certain number of days, it 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:58.900 would start to smell like human blood or flesh. 00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.460 And there was the saying, eating beans is like 00:23:01.460 --> 00:23:04.420 eating the heads of one's parents. Exactly. Because 00:23:04.420 --> 00:23:08.299 if souls transmigrate and a bean can house a 00:23:08.299 --> 00:23:11.640 soul. That bean salad you're eating might literally 00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:14.380 contain the soul of your grandmother. So to eat 00:23:14.380 --> 00:23:17.279 a bean is a form of cannibalism. That is the 00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:20.420 mythos explanation. It's why. But I was reading 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:21.880 about the medical theory and this actually blew 00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:24.670 my mind. It connects to a condition called favism. 00:23:24.789 --> 00:23:27.869 Yes. This is the scientific or proto -scientific 00:23:27.869 --> 00:23:30.349 explanation, and it's very compelling. Favism 00:23:30.349 --> 00:23:34.210 is a genetic condition, specifically a G6PD enzyme 00:23:34.210 --> 00:23:36.269 deficiency. And it's common in the Mediterranean. 00:23:36.630 --> 00:23:38.970 Very common, especially in areas where malaria 00:23:38.970 --> 00:23:42.150 was once endemic because the gene seems to offer 00:23:42.150 --> 00:23:44.450 some protection against malaria. Okay, so if 00:23:44.450 --> 00:23:46.509 you have this genetic deficiency and you eat 00:23:46.509 --> 00:23:49.269 fava beans or even just inhale the pollen from 00:23:49.269 --> 00:23:51.450 the flowers, what happens? It triggers a severe 00:23:51.450 --> 00:23:53.950 reaction. your red blood cells rupture. It's 00:23:53.950 --> 00:23:56.769 called acute hemolytic anemia. It can cause severe 00:23:56.769 --> 00:23:59.309 jaundice, kidney failure, and especially in children, 00:23:59.490 --> 00:24:01.829 it can be fatal. So if Pythagoras is running 00:24:01.829 --> 00:24:04.369 a commune in southern Italy and he just flat 00:24:04.369 --> 00:24:07.769 out bans fava beans, he is effectively stopping 00:24:07.769 --> 00:24:10.029 a percentage of his followers from triggering 00:24:10.029 --> 00:24:13.430 a deadly genetic reaction. Precisely. It looks 00:24:13.430 --> 00:24:15.630 like a bizarre superstition. The beans are ghosts. 00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.420 But it functions like a very effective public 00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:22.079 health directive. It's possible he observed the 00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:24.900 correlation. He saw people eating beans and getting 00:24:24.900 --> 00:24:27.559 sick or dying and not knowing about genetics. 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:30.880 He created a powerful religious taboo to protect 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:33.940 them. It's a survival mechanism wrapped in dogma. 00:24:34.140 --> 00:24:36.420 It's a fascinating possibility. There is a story 00:24:36.420 --> 00:24:38.779 about him talking to a bull about beans, right? 00:24:38.980 --> 00:24:41.880 Yes, another one of his animal encounters. He 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:44.579 saw an ox grazing in a field that contained fava 00:24:44.579 --> 00:24:47.059 beans. He supposedly went up to the bull and 00:24:47.059 --> 00:24:49.700 whispered in its ear for a long time, persuading 00:24:49.700 --> 00:24:52.500 it to abstain. And did it work? The story goes 00:24:52.500 --> 00:24:54.519 the bull never touched a bean again and lived 00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:57.000 to a ripe old age as a sacred animal at the Temple 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:00.759 of Hera. The Dr. Doolittle of Antiquity. Okay, 00:25:00.819 --> 00:25:02.960 so we have the mystic rules, but we can't ignore 00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:05.480 the reason most people know his name, the math, 00:25:05.640 --> 00:25:07.759 the mathematical side of the school. All is number. 00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:09.740 That was the motto, the fundamental principle 00:25:09.740 --> 00:25:12.000 of reality. But we need to clarify something 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:14.680 huge here right at the top. The Pythagorean theorem, 00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:18.339 T dollars plus B2 equals C22. Did he discover 00:25:18.339 --> 00:25:20.740 it? Almost certainly not. I feel like I need 00:25:20.740 --> 00:25:22.839 to write a letter of complaint to my eighth grade 00:25:22.839 --> 00:25:25.490 geometry teacher. You and everyone else. The 00:25:25.490 --> 00:25:27.690 Babylonians had this knowledge a thousand years 00:25:27.690 --> 00:25:30.589 before Pythagoras was born. The Indians had it 00:25:30.589 --> 00:25:33.710 in their Sulba Sutras. We have Babylonian clay 00:25:33.710 --> 00:25:36.309 tablets that list Pythagorean triple sets of 00:25:36.309 --> 00:25:38.569 numbers that fit the equation, like three, four, 00:25:38.789 --> 00:25:41.450 five, with perfect accuracy. So if he didn't 00:25:41.450 --> 00:25:43.730 discover it, why on earth is his name on it? 00:25:43.869 --> 00:25:46.750 That is the million -dollar question. The best 00:25:46.750 --> 00:25:49.250 guess is about the difference in approach. The 00:25:49.250 --> 00:25:51.650 Babylonians were practical. They wanted the answers 00:25:51.650 --> 00:25:53.750 so they could build a wall or measure a field. 00:25:53.849 --> 00:25:55.950 They were engineers. They didn't care why it 00:25:55.950 --> 00:25:58.130 worked, just that it did. But the Greeks were 00:25:58.130 --> 00:26:01.250 different. The Greeks, and specifically the Pythagoreans, 00:26:01.269 --> 00:26:03.549 were obsessed with the proof. They wanted the 00:26:03.549 --> 00:26:06.029 abstract, logical demonstration that it must 00:26:06.029 --> 00:26:08.950 be true in all cases, for all right -angled triangles, 00:26:09.150 --> 00:26:11.490 everywhere in the universe, forever. They took 00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:15.039 it from a tool to a universal philosophy. Exactly. 00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:17.500 And Pythagoras was the figurehead of the school 00:26:17.500 --> 00:26:20.099 that championed this new way of thinking. In 00:26:20.099 --> 00:26:21.980 his brotherhood, all discoveries were attributed 00:26:21.980 --> 00:26:25.420 to the master. Ipsidix it. He himself said it. 00:26:25.500 --> 00:26:28.160 So even if a student 50 years later worked out 00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:31.380 the formal proof, it was credited back to Pythagoras. 00:26:31.539 --> 00:26:33.519 That's the theory. He gets the brand name because 00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:36.019 he inspired the movement. But for them, math 00:26:36.019 --> 00:26:39.099 wasn't just homework. It was worship. It was 00:26:39.099 --> 00:26:41.680 the language of God. We have to talk about the 00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:44.940 detractors. Ah, the sacred symbol, the key to 00:26:44.940 --> 00:26:47.500 the universe. Okay, visualize this for me. You 00:26:47.500 --> 00:26:50.619 said it's a triangle of dots. But why is a little 00:26:50.619 --> 00:26:53.640 triangle of 10 dots so important? Because it's 00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:55.859 not just a shape. It's a process. It's a map 00:26:55.859 --> 00:26:58.940 of creation. Imagine a triangle made of 10 dots. 00:26:59.140 --> 00:27:02.259 The top row is a single dot. That's the monad, 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:04.779 unity, the origin of everything. Right, a single 00:27:04.779 --> 00:27:07.519 point. It has no dimension. The second row has 00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:09.900 two dots. Connect those two points and you get 00:27:09.900 --> 00:27:12.160 a line. Now you have one dimension. The third 00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.579 row has three dots. Three points, if they're 00:27:14.579 --> 00:27:16.980 not in a line, define a plane, a flat surface, 00:27:17.059 --> 00:27:19.779 like a triangle. Two dimensions. Length and width. 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:22.680 And the bottom row has four dots. Four points 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:25.880 define a tetrahedron, a pyramid, a solid object. 00:27:26.410 --> 00:27:29.009 Three dimensions. So in one simple symbol, you 00:27:29.009 --> 00:27:31.650 go from a single abstract concept, the number 00:27:31.650 --> 00:27:35.769 one, to physical 3D reality. Exactly. And when 00:27:35.769 --> 00:27:38.150 you add up the dots, one plus two plus three 00:27:38.150 --> 00:27:43.089 plus four, you get ten. The decade. For the Pythagoreans, 00:27:43.130 --> 00:27:45.289 ten was the perfect number, the basis of the 00:27:45.289 --> 00:27:47.990 cosmos. They swore their most sacred oaths by 00:27:47.990 --> 00:27:50.329 the Tetractys. And this idea that numbers are 00:27:50.329 --> 00:27:53.130 the literal building blocks of reality leads 00:27:53.130 --> 00:27:56.579 to their most poetic and famous theory. The music 00:27:56.579 --> 00:27:58.900 of the spheres. Musica universalis. This is the 00:27:58.900 --> 00:28:01.039 idea that the planets make a sound as they move, 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:04.220 right? It's the grand unification of math, music, 00:28:04.339 --> 00:28:07.380 and astronomy. Pythagoras, or the Pythagoreans, 00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:09.740 made the revolutionary discovery that musical 00:28:09.740 --> 00:28:12.400 pitch is determined by mathematical ratios. This 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:14.460 is the famous blacksmith story. That's legend. 00:28:14.579 --> 00:28:16.599 It says he walked by a blacksmith shop, heard 00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:18.380 hammers of different weights striking an anvil, 00:28:18.460 --> 00:28:20.039 and realized the different notes they produced 00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:22.119 were related to the simple whole number ratios 00:28:22.119 --> 00:28:24.019 of their weights. No, I read that the physics 00:28:24.019 --> 00:28:26.150 of the hammer story is actually wrong. It is. 00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:27.970 The physics of hammer weights doesn't work that 00:28:27.970 --> 00:28:31.009 way. It works with string length or pipe length. 00:28:31.690 --> 00:28:34.670 But the core concept is one of the most important 00:28:34.670 --> 00:28:37.589 discoveries in Western science. Okay, so explain 00:28:37.589 --> 00:28:39.670 it with a guitar string. Think of a guitar string. 00:28:39.829 --> 00:28:42.069 You pluck it, it makes a note. That's your fundamental. 00:28:42.390 --> 00:28:45.190 Now press your finger down exactly in the middle 00:28:45.190 --> 00:28:47.289 of that string. You have halved its length. The 00:28:47.289 --> 00:28:50.089 ratio is 2 to 1. Pluck it again. It's the same 00:28:50.089 --> 00:28:53.940 note, just higher. An octave. Precisely. If you 00:28:53.940 --> 00:28:56.700 take two thirds of the string's length, the ratio 00:28:56.700 --> 00:28:59.019 is three to two. That gives you a perfect fifth. 00:28:59.259 --> 00:29:01.200 If you take three fourths, you get a perfect 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:04.240 fourth. He realized that harmony... The sound 00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:07.220 that we perceive as beautiful and consonant is 00:29:07.220 --> 00:29:09.160 actually just simple whole number of mathematics 00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:12.240 in action. He quantified beauty. He turned aesthetics 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:14.759 into an equation. Yes. And then he made the great 00:29:14.759 --> 00:29:17.299 leap of faith. He extrapolated that to the sky. 00:29:17.539 --> 00:29:20.819 He reasoned that the planets and stars are massive 00:29:20.819 --> 00:29:23.819 objects moving in perfect circular orbits. So 00:29:23.819 --> 00:29:25.759 they must produce a sound. They must produce 00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:29.200 a sound. A hum. And because their orbits and 00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:30.980 speeds are governed by the same mathematical 00:29:30.980 --> 00:29:34.140 laws, their combined sounds must be harmonious. 00:29:34.299 --> 00:29:37.140 The entire universe is playing a symphony. But 00:29:37.140 --> 00:29:39.259 we can't hear it. Porphyry's explanation was 00:29:39.259 --> 00:29:40.859 that we can't hear it because it's always there. 00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.900 We are born into this cosmic music, so we tune 00:29:43.900 --> 00:29:45.819 it out. It's like living next to a waterfall. 00:29:45.940 --> 00:29:48.279 After a while, you don't notice the roar. Only 00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:50.880 Pythagoras, with his purified soul, was able 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:53.599 to hear it. That is an incredibly beautiful idea. 00:29:54.380 --> 00:29:57.319 But... There's a dark side to this obsession 00:29:57.319 --> 00:30:00.000 with perfect whole numbers. We have to talk about 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.400 the scandal, the crisis of the irrational. The 00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:04.759 skeleton in the Pythagorean closet. Because their 00:30:04.759 --> 00:30:07.039 whole worldview, their entire religion, was based 00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:09.140 on the idea that everything in the universe can 00:30:09.140 --> 00:30:12.339 be expressed as a ratio of whole numbers, integers. 00:30:13.049 --> 00:30:15.349 Clean, beautiful fractions. Everything was rational. 00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:17.549 And then they applied their own theorem, the 00:30:17.549 --> 00:30:19.490 one that bears their name, to the simplest possible 00:30:19.490 --> 00:30:22.329 shape. A square. A square, where each side is 00:30:22.329 --> 00:30:25.529 one unit long. Draw a diagonal line across the 00:30:25.529 --> 00:30:27.890 middle, from corner to corner. How long is that 00:30:27.890 --> 00:30:32.269 diagonal? Well, $8 plus B2 equals C22. So $12 00:30:32.269 --> 00:30:35.309 plus 12 plus 12 plus C22. 1 plus 1 is 2. So the 00:30:35.309 --> 00:30:37.450 diagonal is the square root of 2. And what is 00:30:37.450 --> 00:30:41.410 the square root of 2? It's 1 .41421356. Hmm. 00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:44.140 It just goes on forever. It never ends and it 00:30:44.140 --> 00:30:46.779 never repeats. It is irrational. It cannot be 00:30:46.779 --> 00:30:49.380 written as a fraction of two whole numbers. It 00:30:49.380 --> 00:30:51.759 defies the rule that all is number, at least 00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:53.839 as they understood it. And this terrified them. 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:56.039 It was a cosmic flaw. It broke their universe. 00:30:56.099 --> 00:30:58.400 It meant that there was something messy, infinite, 00:30:58.539 --> 00:31:01.180 and unknowable right at the heart of their perfect 00:31:01.180 --> 00:31:04.559 rational geometry. And legend says they didn't 00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:06.519 take this discovery well. The legend is very 00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:09.539 dark. It says that a Pythagorean named Hippasus 00:31:09.539 --> 00:31:11.519 was the one who revealed this terrible secret, 00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:14.339 or perhaps discovered it himself. And the others 00:31:14.339 --> 00:31:16.640 were so horrified, so threatened by this truth, 00:31:16.759 --> 00:31:18.539 that they took him out on a boat and drowned 00:31:18.539 --> 00:31:21.059 him at sea. Talk about a harsh peer review process. 00:31:21.539 --> 00:31:24.079 Your math implies chaos, so we're going to murder 00:31:24.079 --> 00:31:26.500 you. It shows that, at the end of the day, this 00:31:26.500 --> 00:31:29.640 was a religion first and a science second. When 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.400 the facts contradicted the dogma, they chose 00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:34.940 the dogma. And they enforced it with violence. 00:31:35.160 --> 00:31:37.240 So we've seen the math, the cult, the rules. 00:31:37.460 --> 00:31:39.400 But they weren't just staying in their commune. 00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:41.319 They got deeply involved in politics, didn't 00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:44.000 they? Oh, yes. They effectively took over the 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:47.019 city of Croton. They became a political aristocracy. 00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:49.980 Why? What was their political philosophy? They 00:31:49.980 --> 00:31:52.819 believed that just as the universe is a cosmos 00:31:52.819 --> 00:31:56.099 and ordered hierarchical system, so society should 00:31:56.099 --> 00:31:59.700 be. The best should rule. And the best, in their 00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:03.099 view, were, of course, them, the purified, enlightened 00:32:03.099 --> 00:32:05.660 philosophers. They were successful for a while, 00:32:05.700 --> 00:32:08.579 too. They led Croton to a major military victory 00:32:08.579 --> 00:32:10.440 against the neighboring city of Sabaris. They 00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:13.039 did. Sybaris was famous for being the opposite 00:32:13.039 --> 00:32:16.059 of Pythagorean Croton. It was known for its extreme 00:32:16.059 --> 00:32:18.460 luxury and decadence. That's where we get our 00:32:18.460 --> 00:32:21.099 word Sybarite. A city of pleasure seekers. Exactly. 00:32:21.519 --> 00:32:25.819 And in 510 BC, the disciplined ascetic Pythagoreans 00:32:25.819 --> 00:32:28.480 led the army of Croton and crushed the luxurious 00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:30.819 Sybarites in battle. They then did something 00:32:30.819 --> 00:32:33.359 incredibly brutal. They wiped it off the map. 00:32:33.539 --> 00:32:35.980 Literally. They diverted the course of a nearby 00:32:35.980 --> 00:32:38.900 river to flow over the ruins, burying the city 00:32:38.900 --> 00:32:41.680 of Sybaris in mud and silt. That's a powerful 00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:44.240 statement. But this victory was actually the 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:46.259 beginning of their undoing, wasn't it? It was. 00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:48.900 People tolerate eccentrics. They don't tolerate 00:32:48.900 --> 00:32:51.759 tyrants. After the war, the general populace 00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:54.220 of Croton wanted a more democratic constitution, 00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:57.119 a greater share of the power and the new land. 00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:00.019 And the Pythagoreans said no. They rejected it. 00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:02.579 They wanted to maintain their aristocratic control. 00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:05.640 This created huge resentment, and that resentment 00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:08.680 found a leader, a man named Ceylon. And Ceylon 00:33:08.680 --> 00:33:10.940 had a personal grudge against Pythagoras, right? 00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:13.740 Ah, very personal grudge. Ceylon was a wealthy, 00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.359 powerful noble. He had tried to join the Pythagorean 00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:19.180 school earlier in his life, but Pythagoras had 00:33:19.180 --> 00:33:22.039 rejected him. He failed the vibe check. Pythagoras 00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:24.859 reportedly used his quasi -divine insight to 00:33:24.859 --> 00:33:28.119 see that Ceylon was violent, arrogant, and tyrannical 00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:31.019 in character. So he said, you can't sit with 00:33:31.019 --> 00:33:34.180 us. Cylon never forgave him. So when the political 00:33:34.180 --> 00:33:36.880 tide turned against the Pythagoreans, Cylon was 00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:39.980 there to lead the mob. He was. He and another 00:33:39.980 --> 00:33:43.359 politician named Ninon stoked the popular anger 00:33:43.359 --> 00:33:46.099 and it erupted into violence. And this leads 00:33:46.099 --> 00:33:48.380 to the dramatic finale. Yeah. The attack on the 00:33:48.380 --> 00:33:51.069 school. Yes. The Pythagoreans were gathered in 00:33:51.069 --> 00:33:53.170 a meeting house. Some sources say it was the 00:33:53.170 --> 00:33:56.269 house of Milo the Wrestler, the famous Olympian 00:33:56.269 --> 00:33:59.190 who was one of Pythagoras' followers. The mob, 00:33:59.289 --> 00:34:01.990 led by Cylon, surrounded the house and set it 00:34:01.990 --> 00:34:05.069 on fire. And the story of Pythagoras' death is 00:34:05.069 --> 00:34:07.230 a bit of a... choose -your -own -adventure tale. 00:34:07.410 --> 00:34:10.130 There are multiple versions. There are. In some 00:34:10.130 --> 00:34:12.409 versions, he isn't even there. He's away on the 00:34:12.409 --> 00:34:14.829 island of Delos, tending to his dying teacher, 00:34:15.030 --> 00:34:18.150 Phariseides. But the more dramatic versions put 00:34:18.150 --> 00:34:20.050 him right in the middle of the fire. There's 00:34:20.050 --> 00:34:22.190 the human bridge version. Yes, it's an incredible 00:34:22.190 --> 00:34:24.630 image of loyalty. His students realize their 00:34:24.630 --> 00:34:26.829 master is trapped by the flames, so they lie 00:34:26.829 --> 00:34:29.329 down in the fire side by side, forming a bridge 00:34:29.329 --> 00:34:31.469 with their own bodies so that Pythagoras can 00:34:31.469 --> 00:34:33.789 walk over them to safety. That is horrifying 00:34:33.789 --> 00:34:36.449 devotion. So in that version, he escapes. He 00:34:36.449 --> 00:34:39.989 escapes. But in one telling, he is so heartbroken 00:34:39.989 --> 00:34:42.849 by the sacrifice of his students that he loses 00:34:42.849 --> 00:34:45.849 the will to live. He takes refuge in a temple 00:34:45.849 --> 00:34:48.289 and starves himself to death. But then there 00:34:48.289 --> 00:34:50.530 is the bean field version. Yeah. The one that 00:34:50.530 --> 00:34:52.989 feels like a cosmic joke. This is the most famous 00:34:52.989 --> 00:34:56.210 legend, the one told by Diogenes Laertius and 00:34:56.210 --> 00:34:58.730 others. It's the most ironic and in a way the 00:34:58.730 --> 00:35:01.829 most Pythagorean. Set the scene for us. He escapes 00:35:01.829 --> 00:35:15.420 the burning house. Not a river. Not a cliff. 00:35:15.900 --> 00:35:18.440 A field of fava beans. A field of fava beans 00:35:18.440 --> 00:35:21.500 in full bloom. He stops dead in his tracks, he 00:35:21.500 --> 00:35:23.260 looks at the beans, then looks back at the men 00:35:23.260 --> 00:35:25.599 coming to kill him, and he makes a choice. He 00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:28.360 refuses to cross the field. He refuses. He declares 00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:30.360 something like, better to be captured than to 00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:32.300 trample these beans, better to be slaughtered 00:35:32.300 --> 00:35:34.960 than to speak of our histories. He refuses to 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.260 violate his own sacred law, even to save his 00:35:37.260 --> 00:35:39.599 own life. The mob catches up to him and cuts 00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:41.460 his throat right there at the edge of the field. 00:35:41.679 --> 00:35:44.500 He died for the beans. It's the ultimate irony. 00:35:45.070 --> 00:35:47.269 But it's also perfectly consistent, isn't it? 00:35:47.309 --> 00:35:49.829 He lived by the code. He died by the code. It 00:35:49.829 --> 00:35:51.949 cements him as a martyr for his own philosophy. 00:35:52.230 --> 00:35:55.409 So the man dies. The school in Croton is burned 00:35:55.409 --> 00:35:58.889 and destroyed. But the legacy, it's just getting 00:35:58.889 --> 00:36:01.869 started. It goes nuclear. The survivors of the 00:36:01.869 --> 00:36:04.489 massacre scatter across the Greek world, spreading 00:36:04.489 --> 00:36:07.289 the teachings. And eventually those ideas reach 00:36:07.289 --> 00:36:10.269 a young, brilliant aristocrat in Athens, a guy 00:36:10.269 --> 00:36:12.980 named Plato. And Plato is the conduit. He's the 00:36:12.980 --> 00:36:15.219 one who takes these ideas and bakes them into 00:36:15.219 --> 00:36:17.599 the foundation of all Western philosophy. Plato 00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:20.760 is basically a Pythagorean fanboy. His dialogues, 00:36:20.940 --> 00:36:22.679 especially the Timaeus, which is his creation 00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:26.139 myth, are drenched in Pythagoreanism. What are 00:36:26.139 --> 00:36:28.159 some of the specific ideas he took? The idea 00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:30.880 that the soul has three parts, reason, spirit, 00:36:31.019 --> 00:36:33.500 and appetite, that's Pythagorean. The idea that 00:36:33.500 --> 00:36:35.800 the physical world we see is just a shadow, an 00:36:35.800 --> 00:36:38.159 illusion, and the real world is the world of 00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.099 eternal forms, or for Pythagoras, numbers. That's 00:36:41.099 --> 00:36:43.980 Pythagorean. Cicero, the Roman order said. They 00:36:43.980 --> 00:36:47.019 say Plato learned all things Pythagorean. And 00:36:47.019 --> 00:36:49.300 through Plato, these ideas flow into everything 00:36:49.300 --> 00:36:51.860 that comes after. They influence Aristotle, the 00:36:51.860 --> 00:36:54.079 Stoics, and then they get picked up by early 00:36:54.079 --> 00:36:56.880 Christian theologians. The idea of the body as 00:36:56.880 --> 00:36:59.900 a prison for the immortal soul, that has a huge 00:36:59.900 --> 00:37:02.940 influence on Gnosticism and Christian asceticism. 00:37:03.079 --> 00:37:05.360 And then let's fast forward through the Middle 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:08.230 Ages. The Renaissance and the scientific revolution 00:37:08.230 --> 00:37:10.650 arrive, and suddenly Pythagoras is everywhere 00:37:10.650 --> 00:37:13.469 again. He becomes a hero for the new scientists. 00:37:13.889 --> 00:37:16.250 We see it in architecture like the Pantheon in 00:37:16.250 --> 00:37:18.610 Rome, which was designed with Pythagorean numerology. 00:37:18.849 --> 00:37:21.429 But the big names are Copernicus and Kepler. 00:37:21.610 --> 00:37:23.949 Right. How did Copernicus use him? This is a 00:37:23.949 --> 00:37:26.329 great example of branding. When Copernicus proposed 00:37:26.329 --> 00:37:28.710 the heliocentric model that the earth goes around 00:37:28.710 --> 00:37:31.289 the sun, he knew he was in for a fight with the 00:37:31.289 --> 00:37:34.389 church. He needed an ancient, respected precedent 00:37:34.389 --> 00:37:37.429 to protect himself. So he name -dropped Pythagoras. 00:37:37.630 --> 00:37:40.630 He cited the Pythagoreans explicitly in his book. 00:37:40.909 --> 00:37:44.190 He pointed to Philoas, a later Pythagorean, who 00:37:44.190 --> 00:37:46.230 had proposed that the Earth moved around a central 00:37:46.230 --> 00:37:49.469 fire. Copernicus essentially used the Pythagorean 00:37:49.469 --> 00:37:51.750 mystique to sell the biggest scientific shift 00:37:51.750 --> 00:37:54.510 in history. He claimed he wasn't inventing something 00:37:54.510 --> 00:37:56.909 new and heretical. He was just restoring the 00:37:56.909 --> 00:37:59.530 lost wisdom of the great Italian school. And 00:37:59.530 --> 00:38:01.889 Johannes Kepler. Kepler was a true believer. 00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:04.719 He wasn't just doing astronomy. He was consciously 00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:07.460 trying to prove the music of the spheres. His 00:38:07.460 --> 00:38:11.199 masterwork is called Harmonices, Mundi, the Harmonics 00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:12.820 of the World. And he actually worked out the 00:38:12.820 --> 00:38:15.780 notes. He literally wrote down the musical notation 00:38:15.780 --> 00:38:19.170 for each planet based on its orbital speed. He 00:38:19.170 --> 00:38:21.469 thought Saturn hummed a low, deep note because 00:38:21.469 --> 00:38:24.409 it moved slowly, and Mercury and Venus sang a 00:38:24.409 --> 00:38:26.889 high soprano. The whole project was a search 00:38:26.889 --> 00:38:29.449 for God's divine geometry. It was a Pythagorean 00:38:29.449 --> 00:38:32.050 quest. And even today, I mean, you look at modern 00:38:32.050 --> 00:38:35.329 physics, string theory. It's purely Pythagorean. 00:38:35.610 --> 00:38:38.030 The idea that the fundamental particles of the 00:38:38.030 --> 00:38:40.590 universe aren't particles at all, but tiny vibrating 00:38:40.590 --> 00:38:44.230 strings, and their frequency, their note, determines 00:38:44.230 --> 00:38:46.590 whether they appear as an electron or a quark. 00:38:47.070 --> 00:38:49.949 That is the blacksmith story with a PhD. And 00:38:49.949 --> 00:38:52.789 what about the simulation hypothesis? The popular 00:38:52.789 --> 00:38:55.110 idea that the universe we live in is actually 00:38:55.110 --> 00:38:58.050 just code running on a giant computer. That is 00:38:58.050 --> 00:39:00.639 the ultimate expression of all is number. If 00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:02.440 you could look beneath the matrix of reality 00:39:02.440 --> 00:39:05.719 and see the raw code, the ones and zeros, you 00:39:05.719 --> 00:39:07.960 would be seeing what Pythagoras saw in the Tetractys. 00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:11.800 The belief that reality is, at its root, a mathematical 00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:14.380 structure. And we can't forget the vegetarians. 00:39:14.460 --> 00:39:17.539 Right. This is a fun piece of trivia. For over 00:39:17.539 --> 00:39:20.099 2 ,000 years, if you didn't eat meat, you weren't 00:39:20.099 --> 00:39:22.809 called a vegetarian. That word didn't exist until 00:39:22.809 --> 00:39:25.210 the 1840s. So what were you called? You were 00:39:25.210 --> 00:39:27.929 called a Pythagorean. The Pythagorean diet meant 00:39:27.929 --> 00:39:31.010 a meat -free diet. So if I'm in London in 1810 00:39:31.010 --> 00:39:33.530 and I order a salad at a restaurant, I'm eating 00:39:33.530 --> 00:39:37.510 a Pythagorean meal. Exactly. The Roman poet Ovid 00:39:37.510 --> 00:39:40.309 wrote a long, passionate speech for Pythagoras 00:39:40.309 --> 00:39:43.730 in his epic poem, The Metamorphoses, where he 00:39:43.730 --> 00:39:45.710 pleads for the lives of animals based on the 00:39:45.710 --> 00:39:47.829 doctrine of reincarnation. And that speech was 00:39:47.829 --> 00:39:51.170 hugely influential. Hugely. It inspired Percy 00:39:51.170 --> 00:39:53.670 Shelley, Lord Chesterfield, Henry David Thoreau, 00:39:53.829 --> 00:39:57.269 Leo Tolstoy. The modern animal rights and vegetarian 00:39:57.269 --> 00:40:00.110 movements trace their intellectual DNA directly 00:40:00.110 --> 00:40:02.789 back to that madman who stopped a man from beating 00:40:02.789 --> 00:40:05.030 a puppy. It is incredible to think about. We 00:40:05.030 --> 00:40:07.489 started this whole deep dive with the dusty classroom 00:40:07.489 --> 00:40:10.510 triangle. And we've ended up with a golden -thighed 00:40:10.510 --> 00:40:12.789 shaman who influenced everything from quantum 00:40:12.789 --> 00:40:15.429 mechanics to the veggie burger. It is the great 00:40:15.429 --> 00:40:17.489 paradox, isn't it? We like to think of science 00:40:17.489 --> 00:40:20.030 and reason as the opposite of religion and mysticism. 00:40:20.530 --> 00:40:23.230 But the roots of our scientific tradition, that 00:40:23.230 --> 00:40:25.369 fundamental faith that the universe makes sense, 00:40:25.409 --> 00:40:27.329 that it is order, that it can be described with 00:40:27.329 --> 00:40:30.269 a simple, elegant formula, that faith was born 00:40:30.269 --> 00:40:32.369 in a cult. He looked at the chaos of the world, 00:40:32.389 --> 00:40:34.530 the tyrants, the wars, the confusing beings, 00:40:34.650 --> 00:40:37.469 and he said, no, underneath all this, there is 00:40:37.469 --> 00:40:39.690 a pattern, there is a harmony, there is a song. 00:40:40.110 --> 00:40:42.449 And whether he personally proved the theorem 00:40:42.449 --> 00:40:45.630 or not, that fundamental insight that the world 00:40:45.630 --> 00:40:48.210 is intelligible, that we can understand it through 00:40:48.210 --> 00:40:51.050 reason and math, that is arguably the most important 00:40:51.050 --> 00:40:53.849 idea in the history of human thought. So here 00:40:53.849 --> 00:40:55.949 is a thought to leave you with. If Pythagoras 00:40:55.949 --> 00:40:58.369 believed the universe was made of numbers, and 00:40:58.369 --> 00:41:00.690 today we are building artificial intelligences 00:41:00.690 --> 00:41:03.969 made of code, and we describe the fabric of space 00:41:03.969 --> 00:41:07.349 -time itself with mathematical equations, did 00:41:07.349 --> 00:41:09.550 the mystic from Samos actually get it right? 00:41:10.129 --> 00:41:12.530 Maybe the universe really is just music and after 00:41:12.530 --> 00:41:15.030 2 ,500 years we are finally learning how to hear 00:41:15.030 --> 00:41:17.329 it. Next time you look up at the night sky, try 00:41:17.329 --> 00:41:19.750 to listen for the hum. Thanks for diving deep 00:41:19.750 --> 00:41:20.769 with us. See you next time.