Pythagoras and the Metaphysics of Numbers

The spirituality of numbers in Pythagorean thought and school

September 30, 2010

1. Introduction

In this conference we will deal with Pythagoras and the Pythagorean school trying to understand some fundamental points of Pythagorean thought, especially trying to understand the aspects in which this thought can still be useful and current. First of all, we try to understand the meaning of this conference, that is, to understand what could be the meaning of studying Pythagoras and Pythagorean thought today. First of all, it must be said that although Pythagoras lived more than 2500 years ago, in reality his message is not only very current but even advanced for current times, as we will see. Pythagoras's message is a very current message because, as we will see, it constitutes the founding basis of modern and contemporary scientific thought. However, it further anticipates current times because, unlike current scientific thought, it combines the study of nature and the external world, without any solution of continuity, with the study and attention to the world of the spirit and to the interior and spiritual dimension of man. In what way then is Pythagorean thought current and how is it at the basis of modern scientific thought? As one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg, writes in a philosophical essay, we owe to Greek philosophy two great results that are profoundly influential in the contemporary conception of the world. The first is the atomistic conception coming from the times of Thales (which as we will see is then developed by a writing of Pythagorean derivation such as the Timaeus), the second is faith in the clarifying force of mathematical structures. In practice, Pythagoras was the first to have the brilliant idea of using mathematics and mathematical structures as a means to describe and interpret external reality. This idea, which constitutes the fundamental fulcrum that allowed modern science to move from qualitative science to quantitative science, is due, as both Kepler and Newton had occasion to emphasize repeatedly, to Pythagoras. Without mathematics, the description of reality continues to be qualitative, vague, difficult to use. With mathematics, instead, there is a lever that allows man to act on natural forces, replicating them and, as far as possible, dominating them. In Pythagoras's time, mathematics had allowed him to replicate at will and control musical sounds. Today, thanks to mathematics, man manages to replicate and control the energy of lightning that he uses every day to power electrical instruments; in the same way, thanks to mathematics, he exploits the law of gravitation to probe the boundaries of the solar system; through mathematics he controls and manages to release the forces that hold atoms together, transforming them into energy. All these achievements...