The Great Greek Sage: Pythagoras

To gaze at the heavens – this is the answer of Pythagoras (582–496 BCE), to the question of why humans live.

According to some sources, Pythagoras traveled to Miletus in his youth, where he met the elderly Thales and Anaximander. Thales inspired in the future philosopher an interest in mathematics and astronomy and advised him to travel to Egypt. Listening to Anaximander’s reflections, Pythagoras became closely acquainted with philosophy, geometry, and cosmology. After some time, the future philosopher set out on a journey to Egypt.

Pythagoras, the founder of the Pythagorean school of philosophy, did not document his scientific achievements and philosophical ideas. As a result, information about him has been gathered from other sources and is highly complex.

Born on the island of Samos on the shores of the Aegean Sea, the first written accounts of Pythagoras date back 200 years after his death. Tradition holds that Pythagoras was the first to use the terms “philosophy” and “philosopher.” He was the first person to refer to himself as a philosopher.

Unlike the representatives of the Milesian school, Pythagoras employed scientific method to understand the world and religious-mystical concepts to comprehend life. He believed in reincarnation – the soul is immortal and moves into a new body. For this reason, killing animals was strictly forbidden, and vegetarianism became one of the fundamental principles of Pythagoreanism.

Another cornerstone of Pythagoreanism was mathematics, especially numerology. Pythagoras believed that existence was based on numbers and that everything was created from numbers. “Numbers express every person’s purpose for creation, their mission in life, and their destiny,” said the philosopher. Existence is an illusion; reality consists of numbers and their infinite combinations.

In an abstract sense, this idea resembles the modern-day Matrix theory actively discussed in our time. According to Pythagoras, the numerical essence of the world cannot be perceived within the Matrix. However, after death, when the soul leaves the body, it gains the ability to understand the numerical essence of the world. Thus, mathematics, even before metaphysics emerged, was regarded by the Pythagoreans as the foundation of existence.

Certainly, Pythagoras ascribed mystical meanings to numbers. However, we will examine the matter through the lens of science and technology, aligning with our era and understanding. The question is straightforward: Can humans live in a Matrix, i.e., a simulation? As we know, such a hypothesis already exists.

Let us hypothesize that, at some point in the past, humans created machines endowed with superior intelligence—robots—which eventually take over the world. Alternatively, Earth could be conquered by extraterrestrial beings with intelligence far surpassing that of humans. Or perhaps a highly advanced civilization emerges in a distant corner of our galaxy.

Let us focus on the third hypothesis. This highly developed civilization decides to conduct an experiment and simulates our reality—our world—within a supercomputer. It would be akin to modern video game characters, only far more complex, with higher pixel density. In such a scenario, we would be program code existing in the memory of a vast supercomputer, coded to perceive our environment as we currently understand it.

If we think deeply, we can see that this hypothesis is not illogical. Elon Musk agrees with us. He believes that the probability of the reality we live in being authentic is one in a billion.

The founder of SpaceX states: “The strongest argument for us being in a simulation, probably being in a simulation, is the following: 40 years ago, we had Pong, two rectangles and a dot…That is what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality.”

Pong

There are also some indirect pieces of evidence that suggest we might be living in a Matrix. One of the most popular is the phenomenon of déjà vu. Déjà vu is the feeling that a current experience has been lived through before. According to the Matrix hypothesis, déjà vu could be a glitch in the program’s code.

Another argument is the fine-tuning of the universe. It appears to be perfectly calibrated for the existence of life.

Humans only discover the laws of nature and cannot influence them in any way. For example, we know that the speed of sound in air is 343 m/s. Yes, we simply know it. We have no means to alter this speed, nor can we change other physical constants. This creates the impression of a predetermined creation, much like predefined limits in a computer game. Just as a character cannot exceed those limits, humans cannot alter the laws of nature.

Stephen Hawking, in collaboration with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, wrote in The Grand Design: “Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way?”

Human civilization is about 300,000 years old, while the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars, and planets, is 14 billion years old. This implies that older, possibly more advanced, or perhaps younger civilizations must exist. But where are they? Could it be that in the simulation we live in, only our civilization was created, which is why we are alone?

Certainly, the Matrix theory may not be entirely scientific and might even sound absurd at times. But perhaps that too is a line of code written into the program—an element designed to obscure the truth by making it seem absurd. This is possible. All known laws of nature and technology are not contrary to this idea.

Finally, it’s worth recalling David Hume. The Scottish philosopher argued that, while the idea of reality being objectively true has no rational basis, we have no choice but to accept it as such. In other words, even if logic sometimes suggests that reality may not be real, we still have no alternative but to treat it as if it is.

Perhaps this is true, or perhaps the complete opposite is the case. The answer is yet to be discovered. However, the Matrix hypothesis is worth pondering. Sometimes, the beauty of thought lies not only in its conclusion but also in the process itself.

Let us return to Pythagoras.

He was also a great mathematician. The Pythagorean theorem is one of the central theorems of geometry. Although the theorem was known before, Pythagoras provided its first proof. Additionally, the philosopher identified regular polyhedron and is associated with the invention of proportionality.

Pythagoras emphasized that our planet is spherical in shape. He observed Venus and distinguished it from other celestial bodies. The philosopher, as he gazed at the heavens, concluded that the movements of planets and stars are governed by mathematical equations. These celestial motions correspond to musical notes, creating an inaudible symphony. This idea became the foundation of the theory of the “harmony of the spheres,” which describes the universe as possessing a musical-mathematical structure. According to Pythagoreans, music purifies the soul, just as medicine heals the body.

The wise Greek was the first to divide the world into five climatic zones. Pythagoras’ influence on Greek and ancient world philosophy is undeniable, particularly in his impact on Plato. Plato played a leading role in the development of mathematics and held that every philosopher must understand mathematics. Those unfamiliar with mathematics were not admitted to Plato’s Academy, where the entrance bore the inscription: “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.”

Through Plato, Pythagorean thought found its way into modern philosophy, influencing figures such as Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton.

As we know, Pythagoras founded a school bearing his name. The Pythagorean school continued to operate long after his death. Resembling more of a religious-philosophical order, the school developed its own scientific system and philosophy.

If we exclude its religious and mythological aspects, the Pythagoreans achieved significant scientific and philosophical advancements, primarily in mathematics and geometry. They discovered that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees and proved what we now know as the Pythagorean theorem. They distinguished between rational and irrational numbers, as well as odd and even numbers, placing numbers at the foundation of existence. The Pythagoreans declared that the world is governed by numbers.

The Pythagoreans believed that the universe is filled with emptiness, while stars and other celestial bodies move in immutable trajectories, harmoniously. Thus, the world, or cosmos, is structured harmoniously. They proposed that the Earth is spherical and even considered the possibility that the planet rotates on its axis—a concept that would later play a significant role in Kepler’s development of the heliocentric system.