S4E14 - The Bean Counters (Pythagoreanism)

0:00 Chris: They did not achieve purity by meditating, but by studying mathematics and science. The ultimate union with the divine was said to follow from an understanding of the order of the universe. And the key to understanding the universe was to understand mathematics. Beatitude is the knowledge of the perfection of the numbers of the soul. This belief is expressed very succinctly in the motto, all is number. That's great. Do we have any business this week? This episode?

0:50 Kayla: Define we. I don't. Chris: Or me. Kayla: You might. I don't know. Chris: Me as you and me. I'm not talking to our. I mean, I am talking to our listeners, but if they have business, then I'm not. Kayla: I don't care. As an entity. I don't know. Chris: No, not really. We don't have any new patrons. Boo. This is normally where we would do that, but we do appreciate all of our existing patrons. So there's that. Kayla: That's. You know what? That's always good to say. God, this is terrible. Chris: This is awful. It's like our worst intro. Hey, everyone. This is a podcast. Kayla: No one pays us money. Chris: Let's do the thing where we talk. Kayla: All right, let's go. Let's do this. What's. You're doing the episode today. What's going on? You're Chris. I'm Kayla. This is culture. Just weird.

1:34 Chris: Data scientist slash game designer slash podcaster. Kayla: I'm a writer. I feel like we haven't done that in a little bit. Chris: No, we totally have. Haven't we? Kayla: I don't think so. Chris: Oh, okay. Well, whatever. Kayla: That's who we are. Chris: That's us, and let's get into it. Hang one sec, though. Kayla: Hang on. What are you doing? Chris: 1 second. Just, Yeah, I just want to do this real quick. Mmm. Kayla: Why are you eating kidney beans? Chris: Want some beans? Kayla: No. I was wondering why there was kidney beans in a little thing in the fridge, and I thought that they. Chris: I thought I hid them from you. Kayla: I saw them today, and I thought that they were really old, and so I just put them back in the fridge. It didn't say anything?

2:17 Chris: No. I figured I put them in the back. I was like, either she'll not know what they. She'll not see them, or she'll see them and be like, oh, those must be ancient. I'm not gonna touch them. I'm just gonna let them continue to age. Kayla: I could have thrown away. Chris: I'm glad you didn't. Kayla: Why are you eating beans on the show? Chris: I don't know. Why not? I like beans. Kayla: You don't, though. Chris: What's wrong with you? Kayla: I like beans. Chris: Kayla, you're distracting us from the topic. Okay, let's get going. Kayla: Today's topic. No. Chris: What? Kayla: Why are you eating beans on the show, Kayla? Chris: I just want. I like beans. Okay, just. Again, let's try to stay on topic here. We're talking today about a cult. A cult or just weird that has a bit of an educational theme?

3:01 Kayla: Is it beans? Chris: No, it's not. No, it's an educational theme. I don't know why you keep focusing on the beans. I'm just focused on the beans educational theme. Like grade school education. Kayla: I mean, are we gonna plant a bean into a little cup of water in soil, and then we watch the bean grow? Chris: No, no, Kayla, educational. Like grade school educational. Try to stay with me here, okay? Okay. So, to make sure that we nail that theme, I'm going to start you off here with a short little quiz. Basically the same we do in every show, right? Where we ask a question, except this time, there are three questions instead of one. And there's, you know, there's right or wrong answers. This time, it's not just like, what do you think about x? Is you ready for a little quiz? I already get, like, triggered back to grade school.

3:45 Kayla: I'm already. I have dreams about how I missed a math class, and I have to go back to elementary school. Chris: Oh, you're gonna love this episode. All right, let's go. First question. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna describe someone to you, and you're gonna tell me who I'm talking about. Got it? Kayla: Okay. Chris: Simple enough? Kayla: Sure. Chris: Okay. This guy lived in what we'd call ancient times, roughly like 2000 years ago. He had a group of followers who essentially revered him after all their stories of miracles he was able to perform here in the real world. Little, if anything, has survived of his own writings. Actually, nothing has survived of his own writings. There are no writings that he did himself. Instead, most of what we know about him and his works come from his disciples and later adherents. And to be honest, it is thought that a lot of the miracle working stories maybe were sort of added in later by these disciples that were creating historical record, like, creative embellishment type of thing. You know, how it goes.

4:42 Chris: Anyway, after attaining what we'll say is a bit too much influence, he was noticed by the dominant greco roman social order of his time and persecuted and killed. Anything else? Let's see. That would help? Oh, yeah. Legend has it that his birth and the importance of his life was prophesied to his parents when they were traveling and also probably the son of. Of a deity. Any guesses? Kayla: I do have a guess, yeah. And I feel like you're leading me towards something specific. That is not going to be the actual answer, Kayla. Chris: Why would. No, I'm very straightforward. I'm not. No. Kayla: So you're clearly describing Jesus Christ.

5:26 Chris: What? Kayla: But I don't think the answer is Jesus Christ. Chris: Okay, well, you have to give me a final answer. Kayla: I mean, that's my answer, but that's not right. Chris: Kayla. No. How could you think that I was talking about Jesus? You totally obviously saw all of that coming. Kayla: I know you at this point. Chris: I also telegraphed it big time, but no, no. That's not Jesus I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about pythagoras. Kayla: Wait, seriously? Chris: Pythagoras? Yeah, so that's the first question. Kayla: Wait, hold on. Wait. No, go back. Pythagoras was the son of a deity? Chris: Yeah, or maybe the deity himself. It's not super clear.

6:07 Kayla: Says who? How come I never learned that? Chris: Apollo, as a matter of fact. Kayla: Oh, I don't like him. Chris: You don't like Apollo? Kayla: He was not a very nice man. Chris: Oh, he was. None of them were nice men, Kayla. They were all shitheads. Kayla: He was pretty bad, though. Chris: Well, anyway, that may have been pythagoras. Or maybe Pythagoras was his son. Or maybe both. You know, maybe it's like one of those weird trinity things where it's both. Kayla: I don't know what's going on. Chris: That was just the first question in your quiz. Okay, let's see if this one's easier. Kayla: What do the beans have to do with it? Chris: I don't know why you keep focusing on the beans. All right, we've talked about this guy on the show before. Same format. I'm gonna describe someone, you tell me who they are. Kayla: Is it Jesus Christ? Chris: Again, this dude was a crazy cult leader, lived in a compound with his followers just outside of a small town. Again, like in the previous description, the dominant culture of the time, the dominant religion, really did not care for him and his group. So governmental forces eventually got together, decided it was time to raid the place. Oops. They set the compound on fire, killing everyone except for a few survivors. Who was this man?

7:09 Kayla: Okay, so again, you're clearly describing David Koresh. Chris: Am I? Kayla: And the incident at Waco. But I believe that's not the correct answer. Chris: Again, why would you believe that? I mean, you just have to tell. Kayla: Me what you think you're describing Waco is what I will say. Chris: No, no. Talking about Pythagoras again. Kayla: There it is. Chris: Yeah. Okay. All right, I'll tell you what, third one, I saved the easiest for last, since those first two were kind of tricksy. I apologize. Alright, so if you don't get this one, you're zero for three though, so no pressure. I know you're not really a mathy person, but everyone learns this one in school. The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of its sides. A squared plus b squared equals c squared. Who was the inventor of this theorem? Do you mean to tell you the name of theorem? Would that help you?

8:07 Kayla: So, I know that as the pythagorean theorem, but I have a suspicion that you're about to twist it all up for me. Chris: The first answer and the second answer were both Pythagoras. Rule of threes. Right. Also, it's called the pythagorean theorem. Kayla: Okay, what's your answer? I said it's the pythagorean theorem. Chris: I mean, it is the pythagorean theorem. I asked you who invented it. Kayla: I said Pythagoras. Chris: No, unfortunately, no, it's not. You're zero for three, man. Like, who was your math teacher in middle school? Kayla: A lady who looked like the honeycomb mascot. Chris: She honeycomb mascot lady would be very disappointed in you. I mean, this. She was disappointed on your question. Kayla: She was disappointed in me then too. It's fine.

8:50 Chris: So, yeah, no, Pythagoras did nothing create the pythagorean theorem. Kayla: I don't understand. Chris: Okay, okay. Well, to be fair, I should say most likely he did not. The current historical thinking on this man and his followers that we're talking about today, Pythagoras is that most of the stuff we attribute directly to him probably was developed by one of his followers, or even that he maybe inherited some math from one of his predecessors and he was just an influential enough figure that all this stuff just kind of got like attributed to him. And the real truth is lost to history. Kayla: Well, that's no fair. Chris: These things are pretty common though, in the historical record, right? Like, unless it's very recent, and even then you're probably crediting the quote unquote wrong person when you talk about a named thing like the Pythagorean theorem. And I use air quotes here, you know, quote unquote wrong person, because crediting is like a fuzzy thing anyway. Like even in the present moment, especially with something like mathematics, where one person's work builds on another, trying to pinpoint the invention of something like a squared plus b squared equals c squared onto one person, as if they just, like, ripped it straight from their muse, fully formed, is kind of inaccurate anyway. So I think it would be equally inaccurate to try and completely discredit and say, well, he didn't invent it. Like, he was probably involved in some way.

10:06 Chris: But historians now think that most likely he's more of, like, an Elon Musk, where he gets credit for a lot of inventions and smart thinky stuff when he's really just the guy at the top and generates a lot of fanboys. Kayla: I am sick of that type. Chris: Well, it's been around at least since Pythagoras time and probably 500 bc. Anyway, speaking of fanboys. Pythagoras had fanboys. Kayla: I've heard this. Chris: So you might remember from that first question in your quiz that I said that followers attributed miracles to him. Kayla: Yes. Chris: So, like we mentioned, he was supposedly the son of Apollo, or also maybe Apollo. One of the things that they thought justified this, like, what made him the son of Apollo, was the fact that, or the reported on fact, the legend that he had a golden thigh.

10:57 Kayla: I'm sorry? Chris: Like, his followers thought, literally that his thigh was made of gold, like the metal. Kayla: Why did they think that? Chris: I don't know, but they did. Kayla: And I feel like that's easily verifiable. He just. Chris: Well, he's always wearing robes. Kayla: You know, you pull the robe up and you go, oh, look, this thigh is made of flesh. Chris: You just do, like, a drive by panting. Kayla: If someone's claiming that they have a golden thigh. Chris: I don't know if he claimed it or if people said it or both. I don't know. Kayla: That's a really weird rumor. Chris: It was also said that he had the ability to predict earthquakes. There's a few other things I didn't even write here. Like, apparently he could talk to animals. Some people thought, and we'll get to this a bit more, but the. The celestial bodies were said by the Pythagoreans to make music, which they were super into music. We'll get to that. But only Pythagoras himself could hear this celestial music, because don't, you know, common people couldn't hear it. Cause they were also used to the sound that it, like, didn't even register anymore. Except for him. He had, like, the super hearing or whatever.

11:56 Kayla: I don't like him anymore. He sounds very full of himself. He sounds like an elitist. He sounds like possibly, like there's some diagnosable personality conditions in there. Chris: I mean, he just sounds like Apollo to me. This sounds all pretty, like, Apollo esque. Kayla: Did Apollo have a golden thigh? Chris: I don't know why they thought that made him Apollo. Like, maybe, like, it was gold is Apollo's metal? I don't. Kayla: It's just a really weird. Chris: It is weird. I didn't see anything that said, like, that connected the dots other than people thought he had a golden thigh, and that was part justification for him being Apollo. Kayla: Which thigh? Chris: It's chicken thigh. There was also apparently a lot of justification being thrown around in pythagorean circles for, like, words and deeds. And it went something like the master says, like, why is this Xyz thing true? Why are we doing this thing? Oh, the master says, end of discussion.

12:54 Kayla: So are we here today to determine if this is a cult or just weird? Because clearly this is a cult. Chris: Okay, well, there's other criteria. Kayla: Golden thigh. Golden thigh. Chris: Golden thigh. He probably didn't actually have a golden. Kayla: Thigh to have a golden thigh. They're definitely trying to form a cult. Chris: All right, fine. Charismatic leader, check. But where did this guy come from, and how did he get to be so famous and influential? Well, this is where I would totally give you, like, a short bio of the guy, but the problem is, as his Wikipedia article puts it, is that those details are clouded by legend. Oh, by the way, total side note, I finally made my first Wikipedia edit ever.

13:40 Kayla: Oh, my God. What was it? Chris: It was on the pythagoreanism article. Kayla: What did you correct? Chris: It was just this stupid. It was like somebody used the word spurned when they meant spurred, and I was like, I'm gonna correct that. And I don't know why I never correct that stuff. I never have done that before. And then this time, I was like, I'm gonna do it. Kayla: All right, very proud of you. Chris: Little fun fact. Kayla: Everybody go to the Pythagoras Wikipedia page. Chris: And behold Chris's pythagoreanism art. There's a page for Pythagoras himself, and then for pythagoreanism. Kayla: What's Pythagoreanism? Chris: Well, that's what we're here to talk about today. Clouded by legend is, like, an understatement. We have no writings of Pythagoras himself, and it's thought he just didn't produce any or even contemporary accounts by other people.

14:26 Kayla: So just no one was writing stuff. Chris: Down no one was writing stuff down. The first time he shows up in the historical record is like 100 years after he lived. What he starts getting written about in Greece. And by then, he's already somewhat of a legendary figure, a bunch of people. We are somewhat certain of a few things. Like, he was probably born on samos. In fact, his full title is Pythagoras of samos. So, you know, probably was born there. Kayla: Probably samos. Chris: Quoting his bio article again, modern scholars disagree regarding Pythagoras education and influences, but they do agree that around 530 bc, he traveled to Croton and Croton in southern Italy, where he founded a school in which initiates were sworn to secrecy and lived a communal ascetic lifestyle. Okay, so maybe that's what your appetite now for knowing what the deal was with his school and followers. Yeah.

15:15 Kayla: Yes. I need to know. Chris: Okay, so, yeah, we got that sworn secrets thing. There's that. Kayla: This is, like, my goal in life. This is what I want to have happen to me. Chris: Oh, yeah. Oh, this is. It's very cool. Kayla: Somebody invite me into your secret society. Chris: So got the communal lifestyle. Check. Ascetic. So, like, when you go become a pythagoreanist, you get rid of all your belongings. Check. There was also allegedly a pretty elaborate initiation ritual. Kayla: Oh, God bless. Chris: So right off the bat, this was not like a low bar of entry kind of place. They didn't discriminate as far as I can tell. And in fact, several of the sources I read said that pythagoreanism treated women as essentially as equals and produced several women philosophers.

15:59 Kayla: Damn. Chris: Pythagoreanism was kind of like a philosopher factory. It just, like, kind of churned them out. So they were very welcoming in terms of gender, but were still a closed group. Like, you actually had to be selected, supposedly on the basis of, quote, merit and discipline. Yeah, you're screwed because they were big into discipline. And then. And this is kind of what I mean by elaborate initiation ritual. They supposedly had to undergo a five year initiation period. Kayla: I'm sorry. Chris: Where they had to listen to teachings of the school in silence. Five years of silence.

16:39 Kayla: Wait, like. Okay, I have a lot of questions. Chris: Okay. The answers to all of them are probably unclear. No historical record. Kayla: So the five years, they are spent entirely in silence or whilst listening to lectures, they are silent. Chris: I had the same question doing my readings, and I. Unclear. No historical record. Kayla: Five years is a very long time. Chris: It is a very long time. The way I interpret it. Kayla: What if you don't want to be in it? Anymore. Chris: The way I interpret it was five years of, like, silence. Like, monkish silence. Kayla: I'm just saying five years is a long time to be initiated into anything.

17:20 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Because, like, you might hit four years, and you're like, yeah. Chris: And be like, you know what? This is not for me, actually, for what it's worth. And that's one of our criteria, is how easy is it to exit. Supposedly, you're just, like, free to go. No harm, no foul. You could just be like, you know what? I'm peacing out. Kayla: I mean, I guess they're trying to figure out who's. Who's worthy, who really wants it. If you don't want it after three years, then you don't want it. Chris: I got the impression that it was very not recruiting. It was very selective. Right. It was kind of on the opposite end of that. Yeah, five years. Okay, so that's the initiation. Once you were in, there were also certain behavioral and ethical parameters as well. Among the things I read, and again, this is all clouded by the mists of time and lack of contemporary records, but among the things I read were wearing a specific garb. Didn't get into any detail about that, but I guess it also included a prohibition on wearing rings.

18:19 Kayla: What, was that a big problem? Chris: I don't. Back in the day, they had a lot of, like, idiosyncrasy type things where it's like. I don't know if it was like, was that a problem back in the day? Or was it like, they have very. Kayla: Weird, specific stuff, or just like, pythagoras had a bee in his bonnet about rings? Chris: Yeah. So it was said that they slept sparingly, whatever sparingly means. Kayla: No, see, this is. I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of this shit back then. I'm tired of this shit now. Chris: Hustle culture, baby. He invented hustle culture. Kayla: You need to sleep, and if you don't need to sleep, good for you. Everybody. Everybody has an amount that their body needs, and if you try to alter that and force it into a little box, it's not good. And we need to stop being like, oh, if you really wanted to be a CEO, you'd only sleep 4 hours. No, no.

19:02 Chris: Well, apparently you need to go back into, like, 500 bc to really get that at the root. Sick of this shit. They practice monogamy only, which. That's pretty normal, I guess. That doesn't seem weird. Kayla: Or was that not the norm at the time? Chris: I don't know. Kayla: I don't know either. Chris: I assume that it was. But I don't. Kayla: I don't know. Chris: No alcohol. Kayla: Okay. Chris: And then there was, like, a whole suite of what we'd call superstitions. They were supposed to never take the high road. Kayla: What does that mean? Like, literally walk up on a high road or, like, never be the bigger person. Chris: I'm not 100% sure what it means, but I can't mean be the bigger person, because that's, like, a modern idiom. I. So I think it literally is referring to, like, don't take the higher road. I don't know.

19:48 Kayla: Why was this a problem again? Chris: Yeah, this is what I'm saying. Kayla: Understand? Ancient light. Chris: Just wait. Never supposed touch white roosters. Kayla: Well, I mean, they're kind of mean. Chris: White roosters are mean. Kayla: Any chicken fat? Yeah. Chris: Well, they're only supposed to not touch white ones. Kayla: Okay. Chris: So when they hear thunder, gotta touch the ground. Hear thunder, touch ground. Gotta do that. Kayla: That feels okay, right? And smart. Chris: Like it does. Kayla: I don't know. Maybe it's. Maybe they thought it was somewhat protective from, like, lightning. Chris: I think it feels like a game I would have played when I was eight. Oh, touch ground. If you hear thunder, break your mother's back. Also, never put a knife into a fire. Like, never stir a fire around with a knife.

20:34 Kayla: Okay, done. I could definitely. I've never touched a white rooster. I could touch the ground, too. Chris: All of these things were clearly problems in ancient Greeks. Kayla: Have never stuck a knife into a fire. Like, I could join. I can't be quiet, though. Chris: Okay, what about this one you might be a little more familiar with? They had a very rigid, very interesting dietary practice, strict vegetarianism. Kayla: I have heard that. I knew that. The only things I knew about pythagoras outside of theorem that he apparently totally did not come up with, was that he was a vegetarian and that he was super into music. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. No meat or beans.

21:16 Kayla: Well, you couldn't. Chris: No beans. Kayla: Oh, I'm out. Chris: No beans. Kayla: I'm out. Chris: Yes. Veggies? No beans. Kayla: I'm sorry, but why? Chris: Oh, I am so glad you asked. Okay, so again, major caveat here. We don't know for certain, but there are several legitimate speculations. Before I get to the specific bean related reasoning, I want to give a little bit of bean related context. Kayla: My favorite kind of context. Chris: Bean related. Kayla: I am a bean fiend. Chris: You know, I was a kid, I used to think it was human bean. Everybody thought that it's not human being. I thought it was human being. I'm like, why are humans beans kind. Kayla: Of look like little beans on your fetus.

21:56 Chris: Okay, so apparently, a variety of ancient and even not so ancient cultures viewed beans as magical. Kayla: I mean, okay, to be fair, they are. They are extremely magical. They are a nutritional powerhouse. You got protein and carb fiber all mixed up into one little bean shaped bean. Chris: Bean shaped bean. Are there beans that aren't bean shaped? Kayla: I guess they're probably garbanzo beans are not really shaped like beans. That's a good point, in my humble opinion. Chris: No, you're right. Kayla: They can help lower your cholesterol. They can help with blood sugar regulation. They are the best.

22:40 Chris: They're the beans neems. Kayla: You can dry them, you can undry them. They're great. I love a bean. They are magical. I agree with the ancients. Chris: You're like the bubba gump of beans instead of shrimp. Kayla: Oh, we could talk for days about the different ways you can eat a bean. Chris: So, yeah, I mean, you're right. But, like, supernaturally magical, too. Like, you know, the magic beans and jack and the bean stuff. Kayla: I do remember those beans. Chris: That's kind of like a holdover from some of these beliefs. Kayla: Explain to me why. Explain to me why. Chris: Well, I think you actually hit on some of it, but beans were also, like, a really hardy crop. Like, I read in Scientific American that in ancient Egypt, they actually revered beans partially because they were, like, so reliable as a crop. Like, even during, like, famines and whatnot.

23:23 Kayla: Gotta get those beans. Chris: But holy men were not allowed to eat them. So it was like, why? One of those, like, they're magical, but it's also, like, bad mojo to consume them type deals. Kind of like the spiced melange and dune. You know, there's some current thinking that because beans can have medical benefits and side effects. So, like, one benefit being, at least for fava beans, apparently they can help. Kayla: There's something they go very well with. A chianti. Chris: Thank you. Kayla: And also. And some liver. Chris: But apparently they also have some chemical thing in them that I didn't quite understand, but it helps prevent malaria. Kayla: Really. See? Magic. A little bean. Chris: But also, if you have a particular genetic marker, beans can be somewhat poisonous to you.

24:09 Kayla: Yeah, they got that stuff in them that I think it's like, why you shouldn't eat them raw. Chris: Yeah. So the speculation goes that these religious views and prohibitions on beanstalk were from this, like, very real biological power that they had either to, like, be a curative or to actually hurt you anyway. So that's a possibility with the Pythagoreans as well. Perhaps pythagoras, he himself was allergic to beans or whatever it is, and he was like, okay, no beans for anybody, then. Kayla: That sounds like a power trip. Chris: But if it was, I mean it. Okay, we're stating a lot of this as, like, he's on this power trip with all this top down stuff. Kayla: He was clearly a crazy despot.

24:49 Chris: First of all, again, not to keep reiterating this, but no contemporary sources. Second of all, it's unclear whether some of this stuff was like, oh, the master doesn't eat beans, so we don't eat beans. Right, versus the despotic type thing. So don't think that it's definitely that. I don't know. So that's just one possibility. That's the sort of realism explanation post facto. But for them, it wasn't merely just an abstract prohibition. Oh, no, Kayla. You see, pythagoreans believed that beans contained men's souls. The souls are in beans. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Oh, that's the other thing about beans that I really love, is that when you eat them, you're consuming the souls of men.

25:33 Chris: Yeah, I think actually. Wait, that makes me write about human beans. Kayla: It does make you right about human beings. Chris: Holy shit. Kayla: Human beans. Chris: I didn't even think about that when I was writing this. This just came to me. Whoa, my mind's blown. Kayla: But why? Chris: Childhood me? You are right. Kayla: Why did they believe this? Chris: That's just something that they maybe believed. Kayla: And then why did you open the show by shoveling a spoonful of beans into your mouth and knowing very well that they could be men's souls? Chris: Because I like to consume souls of men and also like, you know, middle finger to pythagoras. Come on, this guy sounded like a despot. Despot. Again, this is all ultra fuzzy. Another possible answer. We know that the Nobean thing was likely true, but the why of it has, like, a bunch of possible answers, as we've been talking about here is what one commenter had to say in an article, a comment on an article in classicalwisdom.com. Quote, while I cannot prove that he was accurate, HL Sumner claims that the Pythagoreans had no specific objection to beans in their diet. Rather, the beans represented political intrigue. Apparently, beans were used in ancient Greece as a ballot system. White beans represented a yes vote and black beans a no vote. Thus, Pythagoras was urging his followers to not get up in politics or government.

26:56 Kayla: There's too much tied up with these gains. Chris: Quote, I know there's one more thing, too. I will say that the don't get tied up in politics thing does track with how they met their end. Kayla: Mmm. Chris: Okay, so this last thing, you know how ancient people and, like, even kind of today, really, we, like, kind of associate, like, the breath with the soul. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Like, your final breath is, like, your soul leaving your body. Breathing is a soulful activity. That's just sort of like a thing. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Okay. Well, it is also speculated that pythagoras may have put two and two together. That's a math joke. And said, well, if the breath is the soul, then why wouldn't that be true for both ends of the body?

27:39 Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: So when you fart, you are farting out part of your soul, ergo, no beans in the diet, because you don't want to fart out too much of your soul. Kayla: I have no soul. Chris: Yeah. I'm completely soulless at this point. Kayla: Absolutely soulless. How do I even still have anything coming out at this point? Chris: We're both soulless people. Kayla: Second, is this speculation, or is this. How likely is this belief? Not necessarily the like, this is why you don't eat beans. But how likely is it that he thought soul farts? Chris: So in the milieu of a bunch of speculation about a man's life who we have no contemporary records of, this strikes me as just as legitimate as any of the other explanations. This isn't like some random articles. Like, I bet he thought it was farts. This is like, multiple articles said that this is, like a very real thing that he probably thought soul farts.

28:41 Kayla: Soul farts. What a weird thing. I don't know how that ends. Soul farts. Chris: Yeah. And, I mean, that's my preferred explanation, obviously. I kind of don't even really care about the others anymore. Kayla: I don't remember them. It's just soul farts. Chris: By the way, in doing this research, first of all, pythagorean farts is now in my browser history. Kayla: That's a really good band name. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Actually, see, here's the thing. This enrages me. I am enraged, because if they had wanted to teach us math in an enjoyable way that we would remember and care about. Chris: Oh, now I'm enraged, too.

29:22 Kayla: They should have been teaching. I would have cared so much more about the pythagorean theory if you had. Chris: Told me about fart theorem. Kayla: Fart them. If they had told me about pythagorean farts. Chris: I. Dude, I know. Listen here, educators. Anyway, doing this research, I also learned about. Let's see if I can pronounce this. Machish Kyapu kapu Macishkapu, the fart God. Kayla: Again, why has no one told me any of these things? Chris: Here's a quote from an article on ancientorigins.net entitled from fart gods to farting out one's soul, the historic ritualization of farts. Although Meshkapu existed everywhere, he was best known to the Innu, which were first nation. This is me saying this. First Nation peoples from northeastern Quebec. He was best known to the Inu as the fart God. And this spirit of the anus conversed with the Inu with great frequency. I mean, yeah, especially while hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering. Machish kapu was a humorous God, and his popping up was an important source of laughter to the Inu while facing the life threatening hunt. But he was also thought of as one of the most powerful spirits able to control the caribou master as well as humans.

30:40 Chris: Machish Kepu, literally the fart man, was the most powerful spirit in the Inu world and often roared when the caribou master refused to give the Inu caribou to eat. In other words, didn't eat enough, and then he would roar, quote, unquote. You know what that means? Fart means you fart. Just making sure you got that. Kayla: Thank you. Chris: End quote. Kayla: I if it is allowed, I am converting. Chris: Yeah, I'm giving the point to the in you people on this one. I don't want to be worrying about farting my soul out. I prefer it to be the domain of the literally most powerful God in your pantheon. I mean, that's my preference. That's why I'm eating beans. Kayla.

31:23 Kayla: I don't believe in a lot. Chris: I'm paying homage to machish kapu. Kayla: I believe in farts. Chris: Yeah, exactly. I kind of feel like I should just end the episode here. The rest of it is kind of anticlimax compared to this. Kayla: Now, compared to fart gods. Chris: But I'd be remiss if I didn't explain the rest of the pythagorean's beliefs, which I'm pretty good at, not toot my own horn. Kayla: I'm done. Chris: All right, I'll knock this one out first. They were really big on reincarnation. Kayla: Oh, okay. Chris: I'm back in, like, core belief. Big on. Kayla: Okay. Chris: By the way, Greeks would have called reincarnation transmigration of the soul. Kayla: Ooh, that's good.

32:04 Chris: Which is pretty cool sounding. Now, this belief might not come as a surprise because of the vegetarian thing. But from what I could tell in my reading, that's actually not why they were vegetarians. Supposedly they were vegetarian because they just thought it was like, it was just the diet that was going to help them achieve physical and spiritual perfection. So, like, not for any, like, self denial reasons or because they thought they were eating reincarnated souls, although I think they did maybe think that. But literally just for, like, the very practical purpose of, like, no, this is the best diet. Kayla: This is the best diet. Chris: This is the thing that's gonna do the best for us. It was unclear to me what style of reincarnation they believed in exactly, but I think what I sort of zeroed in on was, like, their particular brand of reincarnation, surprisingly didn't really include, like, a moral component. Like, if you're good in this life, you know, then in the next life you get to be the guy that holds up the towel when the swimsuit models have to change during a shoot. And if you're, like, bad in this life and you come back as my toilet seat or whatever, rather it was just like a very neutral, rebirthy notion. Like, yep, we all just get reincarnated.

33:10 Kayla: Is it just random or. Chris: I don't know if anybody knows how they felt about that, but I think so. Kayla: Interesting. Chris: And this wasn't just strange or different compared to eastern versions. It was actually strange within Greece at the time as well. Apparently at this time, there was an explosion of similar cults that today we collectively call Orphic because they worshipped Orpheus in some form or fashion. And wouldn't you know, pythagoreanism was just like one of many of these cults that shared extremely similar beliefs and practices. Like, they were all vegetarians, they were all ascetic. They all had the reincarnation thing going, except for most of the orphic cults. They believed in sort of like the regular, kind of, like, goal oriented reincarnation where you're, like, trying to be a good little human being so you can eventually reincarnate your soul up the ladder and, you know, get out, get off this, off the treadmill one day.

34:02 Chris: Like, if you became holy enough, then you could, like, transcend into heaven or olympus or whatever. Anyway, so within that context, pythagoreanism was kind of the odd duck in terms of their neutral views on reincarnation. Kayla: Now, you've used the word cult a few times, but I know and you. Chris: Know old new religious movements that you. Kayla: Are using the word cult in a specific way. It is not cult in the way that we use it on the podcast traditionally. Chris: Yeah, I'm using it in terms. In this specific case, it's like mystery religion. It's like cults. Kayla: Back then, cults just meant the mystery religion of a thing.

34:42 Chris: Right. It was like, not necessarily like, the standard. Like, yep, I believe in the whole pantheon. It was like, we have this very specific thing that we believe. Like, sometimes it was like, oh, yeah, it's just bacchus. It's like, it's just him. Or like, this pythagorean stuff where it's like, Apollo is involved, but also, like, they have all these other weird beliefs that don't have quite conformed to, like, what the beliefs are of mainstream society. Kayla: Right. Chris: And, like, there were periods of, like, sort of decline in social change throughout history and especially in the ancient world where these types of mystery religions would, like, just, like, crop up a lot. Like, Christianity was one of those. During that time period in Rome where there were just, like, a ton of mystery religions, Christianity was one of them, and that was the one that. That won the race.

35:27 Kayla: Are you calling Christianity? Chris: No, no, we're talking about pythagoras. No. Okay, first of all, I am now a mushroom. What was it? Shit. One that. Kayla: The fart God. The fart God. Chris: I'm a believer in the fart, man. Second of all, no, Kayla, we're talking about pythagoras today anyway, so. Yeah, they're not like, you know, it's not. Kayla: Well, you're not. I'm just. All I'm saying is you're not preemptively making a call. Chris: I'm not preemptively making the word call. Kayla: I just want to make that clear. Chris: And I would say, like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's not like the Branch Davidians, but, like, also, it was because. Kayla: You said it in the beginning. Chris: Yeah. So, like, yes and no, I guess, is the answer to your question. Anyway, they had neutral views on reincarnation, but that's not to say that they didn't care about, like, self discipline and, like, self perfection, though, right? Far from it. They were really into that. It was just more of, like an in this world thing rather than like a for the next world kind of thing. I mentioned the usual acidic and dietary stuff and weird sleep practices, but this is kind of my favorite quote about their disciplinary practice in terms of punishment but self discipline. Quote from a medium.com blog entry. What distinguished the Pythagoreans was their means of purifying the mind.

36:45 Chris: They did not achieve purity by meditating, but by studying mathematics and science, the ultimate union with the divine was said to follow from an understanding of the order of the universe. And the key to understanding the universe was to understand mathematics. Pythagoras said, beatitude is the knowledge of the perfection of the numbers of the soul. This belief is expressed very succinctly in the Pythagoreans motto, all is number. End quote. Kayla: All is number. Chris: All is number. Kayla: All is number. I mean, look, I agree. And again, if somebody had just brought this up during high school, whatever you learned this in, boy, oh, boy, would I have been able to do a whole lot better than I did.

37:30 Chris: Not only do you agree, everyone kind of, whether they know it or not, agrees. That is one of, if not the most dominant feature of our civilization. Kayla: Now, math is our most greatest and cool tool to uncover the nature of existence and the universe. There is nothing closer to the divine. Chris: Yeah, we will get to that. And also, yes, I kind of feel like they had a point here. Kayla: All is number. Chris: Yeah. But, yeah, also kind of a unique way of doing the whole ritual purification thing. But that also brings us to their next core belief, which, like we just said, it's kind of the one that we remember them for most in the 20th century. Now, they fucking loved math. They loved it. Obviously, we talked about the eponymous theorem already, but they also discovered a lot of other things, like the first few platonic solids. If you don't know what those are, platonic solid is like a regular polyhedron that has all faces that themselves are regular polygons. So, just to be extra clear, a regular polygon is a polygon that has all of its sides of equal length. So, like, an equilateral triangle is a regular polygon, a square is a regular polygon. If you have a pentagon, like the pentagon in Washington, it's a Pentagon.

38:48 Chris: Pentagon. Yeah. Kayla: The pentagon is the name of the shape. Chris: Pentagon is the shape. Pentagram. Look, man, is that star thing. Kayla: I did not do good in math. Chris: You get a pentagram if you draw lines between all the vertices of a pentagon, though. Kayla: Math just made me hot inside. Chris: I know. I knew you'd have some trouble with this episode. Kayla: I'm just tuning you out right now while you explain the decahedrons to people. The polygon spitting. Chris: Now, platonic solids is. It's a solid where all of the faces are a regular polygon. So, for example, the tetrahedron is a platonic solid, and that's just like a little four sided pyramid that all have equilateral triangle faces. You can picture that. Right? Okay. A cube. Cube is a platonic solid because it's got squares.

39:35 Kayla: They discovered the cube, apparently. Wait, any sense? Chris: I didn't think that made me sense. Kayla: Discover a cube. Chris: I don't know. Kayla: The cube is just exist. Chris: Like, it doesn't though. Kayla: You cut a piece with what? Chris: You cut a piece of what? With what? This is 500 bc. Kayla: They didn't make planks of wood. Chris: I don't know what they did. Kayla: They had, they had circles. Chris: I also don't know exactly what they mean by discovered. I don't know if they mean like, I don't think they discovered that there were like, you could cut a board and it looks kind of vaguely cube like, but I think they discovered the mathematical concept of the cube. Like, hey, we're defining what a cube is. It's this thing. It belongs in this group called the platonic solids. They also just, this is the ones a little bit easier to kind of grasp, but they discovered the dodecahedron.

40:26 Kayla: I know all about the dodecahedron. Chris: Dodecahedron. Kayla: Ten. Fuck me, ten sides, right? Or 100. Chris: No, no, it's twelve. Kayla: See, that's what I said. Chris: Right? So it's a twelve sided solid and it has pentagons as each of its face. Each of its faces. And they were like particularly excited about this one because I guess pentagons were like symbols of good health and luck or something in Greece at this time. Kayla: Oh, okay. Chris: As an aside, there's only two other platonic solids. There's only five total. And the other two are the octahedron, which kind of looks like a diamond, it's got eight sides. And the isocahedron, which is your standard, like 20 sided die. Anyway, they liked the isocahedron because the pentagons were like all holy and shit. And they had just like a ton of weird stuff like that. Like really specific weird stuff. Like, for example, they had this thing called. I'm gonna have trouble pronouncing this. Tootricies. Tetricis. T e t r a.

41:26 Kayla: They played Tetris. Chris: They played Tetris. T e t r a c t y s. It's that last four letters. I'm like, how do you pronounce C T Y s? Tetris? Kayla: No idea. Chris: Anyway, it was just a mathematical sort of symbol, that's all. It was. Just four rows of dots with one, two, three and four arranged in a triangle shape. In fact, it's exactly like bowling pins. In fact, bowling pins are like, literally, they comprise a tetricus. I just kind of realized that so Pythagoreans would probably have holy. Or they would have viewed it as holy or blasphemous, one of the two. Because, like, if you combine the christian crucifix with the Christian Bible, the tetricys was, like, that sort of level of importance.

42:13 Kayla: Oh, wow. Chris: To the Pythagoreans. Like, they swore oaths on it and, like, to it, I think, okay, these guys were weird. And they had it displayed in their homes and stuff. Kayla: This is too much. There was nothing. There was nothing worse. This is what happens when you don't have television. Chris: Cold and just weird. That's right. Kayla: You got to make up weird shit. Chris: They also thought that certain numbers meant certain things. Like, for some reason, the number one meant, like, the world or the universe. Ten was considered the ideal number because, you know, one plus two plus three plus four equals ten. So it's the ideal. Yeah. So that makes it the ideal number.

42:54 Kayla: Wait. One plus two plus three plus four equals ten? Is that common knowledge? Chris: Yeah, one plus two plus three plus four equals ten. Kayla: Since when is that common knowledge? Just knowing that off the top of your head. Chris: Well, they knew that off the top of their head. And then that's what made ten the ideal number. Doesn't that make sense? Kayla: No. Chris: Yeah, it's pretty arbitrary. Like, a lot of their stuff just feels, like, super arbitrary. They also had a concept of perfect numbers, which are equal numbers that they called perfect are numbers that are equal to the sum of their factors. So, like, if the numbers that multiply to get that number also add to give that number, they call it a perfect number. What's the difference between an ideal number and a perfect number? I have no idea. The number four was justice, for some reason. So four was justice.

43:41 Kayla: Okay, there's, like, some synesthesia going on in here. Chris: I think the three meant a bunch of things. Kayla: Well, it is a magic number. Chris: Different sources even told me different stuff about this. Kayla: This is just starting to sound like zodiac. Chris: Another source? It kind of was. It totally was. One source said that justice was actually the number eight, not four. So, like, total grain of salt. Kayla: Okay, well, eight and four are the same number, so it's fine. Chris: That's true. Five was supposedly, like marriage or coupling, because it was the sum of two and three, even and odd. And don't you know, evens are female and odds are male? Kayla: This is just synesthesia. Hold on. Chris: It could be the other way around. Could be that evens are male and odds are female. I definitely read it both ways. Depends on the source. Me, personally, I've just always felt like even numbers have felt masculine to me. And odd numbers, feminine. That's me.

44:34 Kayla: Why? It's probably sexist. It's probably sex. Chris: Because women are odd. Kayla: Is it that? Is it because men are all, like, logical and just totally squared off, and ladies are crazy and chaotic. Extra numbers, extra digits hanging out. They're crazy. Chris: Chaos. I think you're right. Yeah. Kayla: Emotional. Chris: How does it feel to you? Kayla: Which is which? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: None of them feel like anything. It's all. Chris: You don't have enough synesthesia, then, I guess. Kayla: No, the problem is that. No, you can't. You can't box people in like that. Chris: I absolutely can, and I did.

45:16 Kayla: People are going to be twos and fours and threes and fives. Why? Why? Chris: Yeah. Everybody is a sum or multiplication of other numbers, but the numbers themselves are masculine and feminine. Huh. Kayla: What? Chris: So, like, I have no get out of. Kayla: Get on a bunch of even numbers. Chris: In myself and a bunch of odd numbers, you know, like, my logical and sane bits are male and my crazy bits are female. You said it, not me. Kayla: I'm throwing you out the window. Chris: That is not the position of this podcast. Kayla: Let's move on this podcast thing. Chris: Culture just weird does not have an official position on whether even or odd numbers are male or female. Just make that clear. And as funny, as dumb as this all sounds, it's also not like we don't have our own superstitions about numbers today. I mean, 13 has a magical power to it in the west.

46:09 Kayla: They don't build. They don't put 13 on a lot of elevator pads. Chris: Yeah, I know. Expensive decisions based on some of this. They do that in western culture. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Four is very bad luck in China, so, yeah, not quite as silly as we think. Or at least it is silly, but we do it too well. Kayla: And even, like, the other way. Like, I just, you know, people have, you know, what's your. Like, people have lucky numbers. Or, you know, there's like, the. Like, we've talked about different various superstitions with numbers. Like, there's angel numbers now. Like, 1111 is a big number for you. Chris: We did a whole episode on the. What was it? The Avogadro numbers. Kayla: The grabivoid codes. Chris: Grabby boy codes. Kayla: Grabby boy codes. Chris: That's right.

46:49 Kayla: So even when it's not like, oh, these are. This is unlucky. Like, we have. People have lucky numbers, too. As much as I was hoping that. Chris: Weird gematria stuff is all based on numbers. Kayla: Gematria is all based on numbers. Chris: Yes. Anyway, here's another weird one. Speaking of specific numbers, this is less, like, superstitious weird, though, and more like, it twists our modern brain around a little bit. But Pythagoras didn't consider one or two to be numbers. Kayla: Get. I'm done with math forever. Chris: Numbers began with the number three. Onward. Kayla: No, they didn't. They clearly didn't. One, two, numbers. Chris: Three and on were numbers. One and two are just building blocks that you use to make numbers.

47:33 Kayla: I. It doesn't matter what you do, I will always fail math. I'm mad. Chris: It sounds weird to us, but it actually kind of took a while for humanity to extend their consideration of numbers to include the number one. And there are holdovers of this today. Sometimes the number one is simply called the unit or unity, like where and where the word unit is synonymous with one. Kayla: In what context have you ever heard. Chris: Like, unit square or unit circle? Have you heard unit circle? Do you remember that from Trig? Kayla: No, I didn't take Trig. Wait, did I? Chris: I don't know. Kayla: Is that sine cosine tangent? Chris: Well, a unit square is just. Yeah, that's right. Kayla: Okay. I was good at that. Chris: There you go. And you remember using the unit circle for that? No, the unit circle is just a circle with radius one. We don't call it the one circle. We call it the unit circle. So there's some holdovers of thinking of the number. One is not really a number, but it's just a base building block. We also have a word for two, couple. But we start to drop off after that. Like, the word few is vague.

48:35 Kayla: Oh, like throuple doesn't exist. Chris: All right. As of, like, a few years ago, we have another. We had finally got a word for three. It's very recent, though. Kayla: And then after that, it's all polycule. Chris: As humans, we get one. One is just the unit of something, right? One apple, one gallon, we get two. Two is if you have like a pair of eggs or a pair of cards. After that, though, it's just like, eh, there's some. So the Pythagoreans hadn't really broken through to the idea of like, a number line yet on which one and two belong, but still credit where credit is due. They are basically considered to have invented math as we know it in the west, the way we think of it today. Basically, they spurred the tradition of mathematics that carries on to this day. Another big core belief they had was that every number was rational. So here's some more mathematics for the female ones. Math no good one rational in math means that it's a number.

49:35 Chris: You can take any number in the whole world and express it as two other numbers divided by each other. So, for example, like, the number two is rational because you can just say, oh, that's six divided by three or ten divided by five. Both of those equal two, right? Kayla: Yes. Chris: You can take two other whole numbers, divide them together, and get this number. Then it's rational. So two is rational. It's rational because, like, I don't know. That's just 85 divided by five. Kayla: Ew. Chris: Or 34 divided by two. In fact, any finite decimal number is also rational. And even any repeating decimal can be expressed as a fraction. As two numbers divided, it's like 0.25 is just one divided by four, right? True one, repeating, is just one divided by nine. Both rational. So that's rational numbers. And the Pythagoreans had an intense belief that every number was rational. That's every number.

50:33 Kayla: I believe it. Well, I I know it's not true. Chris: I know it's not true, but I believe it, too. Kayla: Spiritual nature of that. I'm, like, so into it, dude. Chris: Irrational numbers, like, rub me the wrong way to this day, like, the fact that they exist, the fact that irrational numbers exist, like, the fact that you can't write out all the digits of PI or something, is, like. It kind of feels like a signal from the universe that, like, you can't know everything. It kind of feels like. Or it's, like, from God. Kayla: You're wrong here, that it's, like, pushing. Chris: That you, like, that there are just things that will be forever, like, infinite, beyond your reach. Like, it just. Kayla: And I'm not okay with that.

51:14 Chris: Yeah, I know. I'm, like, not okay with that in a way that, like, makes me feel both angry and also good. Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. Chris: You know, I don't know. Anyway, so. Yeah, so they had the same belief. Except for them, it was, like, spiritual, like dogma. So when one of their own guys by the name of hypasus Hippasus, I think probably Hippasus was trying to figure out what the square root of two was, he kind of ran into a problem. See, they'd been trying to figure this one out for a while. After all, the pythagorean theorem itself involves squared values, right? A squared plus b squared. That's right. You got it. So, in order to solve this equation, you need to be able to do square roots. And so there's things like, you know, three squared plus four squared equals five squared. That's great. You know, that all works out. But, like, what about something super easy? The easiest thing imaginable, a unit square.

52:08 Chris: A square with sides all equal to one. Well, a unit square, if it has sides equal to one, you do the math. And the pythagorean theorem, it has a hypotenuse equal to the square root of two. Kayla: What? Chris: Cause one squared plus one squared equals two squared. So therefore, to figure out the hypotenuse, you have to take the square root. What's the square root of two? So they need to know the square root of two to figure out the hypotenuse of a square that has sides of one. Pretty simple, right? Kayla: This is why I got C's. Chris: So basically, all I'm trying to say is that figuring out the value of the square root of two was important to these guys. And lo and behold, this pythagorean named Hippasus figured out, and I don't know how he figured it out, he just did. But he figured out that there is actually no way to come up with a numerical answer to the square root of two that is rational. You can't write it as a fraction. No two whole numbers divided by each other will ever give you the same number as doing the square root of two. It is literally impossible. He had discovered irrational numbers. And while this was another major contribution of pythagoreans to mathematics, let's just say the response at the time to this fact was irrational.

53:26 Chris: So depending on who you ask, Pythagoras took Hippasus out on a boat I don't like. Kayla: And then his name was Tony Soprano. Chris: No sentence that starts with the leader, took me out on a boat ever ends well. And then he either exiled him from the school, okay, or from his life. Kayla: I mean, if he just went out on a. If two people go out on a. Chris: Boat and one comes back, then it's, yeah, it's like, yeah, exiled him. Totally. Kayla: That's kind of like, yeah, when Tony Soprano says, yeah, went out on the boat and then now he's in. Now he's in Miami, right?

54:07 Chris: He's in witness protection. So if you're keeping a resume for this guy, it looks like this now. Mathematician, cult leader, son of Apollo, and murderer. Kayla: This is what happens when you have a golden thigh. It goes right to your head. Chris: Heresy is no joke, you guys. So this, like pythagorean dogma that all numbers are rational just could not stand that is the most discovery that, oops. Kayla: They are not thing I can imagine if you're like, you're in this religion that believes that there is no irrational numbers, right? Chris: Yes. Kayla: And then you discover that they're absolutely. It is impossible for this to not be irrational.

54:53 Chris: Yeah. And you're encouraged to do that. Part of the religion is mathematical inquiry. Like, you are supposed to do that is your worship. And not only are you supposed to do that, this particular problem was important because it was like, oh, we have this pythagorean theorem thing we just can't solve. This is an important problem. Kayla: Imagine being that guy where there has to be no irrational numbers, and you discover yet there are, that it is impossible for this to not be. Chris: It's whack. Kayla: I wish he'd taken pythagoras out. Chris: I know. I also always love to learn that stuff that we just teach kids in grade school now was a murderable offense when it was discovered. That's my favorite thing about history.

55:41 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Anyway, to wrap up about their beliefs and contributions, they were also super into music. I think you mentioned that before in the episode. Kayla: I think you mentioned that. Chris: I think we both maybe mentioned it, which sort of makes sense if you think about it, because music and math are very closely related. They thought everything had a musical vibration to it, which is where we get the idea of, like, music of the celestial spheres, which, if you recall, only pythagoras could hear. And they discovered things that are, like, still part of music theory today. Like the notion of musical intervals being. They are ratios of simple numbers. Today, we know that those ratios are the frequency of the pitch, like the actual sound vibration. So, for example, two notes that are an octave apart have a frequency ratio of one to two. So a note that is one octave higher than another note has twice the frequency or one half the frequency. It's one of the other.

56:40 Chris: You're either at times by two or divided by two. I forget. And it's kind of hard to understand how important this was, actually. This isn't just about music. This is essentially the first time in the west that people were saying, you know, maybe we can use numbers to, like, explain stuff. In the physical world, it's almost impossible for us today to understand, because everything is numbers. Everything. We take it for granted that the physical world can be described by numbers. Like, duh, of course. Haven't you seen a ruler or measuring tape or a thermometer or an altimeter or a clock or a step counter or a food scale, a pressure gauge, a speedometer, or. Or. But here's the thing.

57:30 Chris: All that shit I just said that we just, like, take for granted as, like, we're just, like, raised in that world didn't exist back when pythagoras was doing his thing. It all had yet to be invented. And the entire idea that you can take numbers and apply them to understanding how the world works was essentially invented by them. And it was largely thanks to their idea of, like, hey, we like numbers, we like music. What if we combine the two? Like, it's not obvious that the basic counting of things like, hey, there's one, two, three apples should also be applicable to things like music or gravity or electromagnetism. It's obvious to us now, but again, that's largely thanks to the Pythagoreans. Let me read you one of my favorite quotes from my research.

58:16 Chris: The Pythagoreans concluded that the objects within reality could be differentiated by the qualities that they have. Certain things are different shapes, colors, or sizes. These qualities range dramatically and by no means are universal. A leaf, for instance, might be green. However, not all things are greenhouse. Some things in this universe do not even possess a perceivable color. The same can be said for smell, size, or shape. The Pythagoreans concluded that the one universal quality of all things in the universe, the one thing that everything had in common, was that it was numerable and could be counted. We could perhaps imagine a universe without smell or taste. However, the idea of creating a hypothetical universe without numbers is very much impossible. End quote.

59:05 Kayla: All is number. Chris: Now, before I get to their demise, I also want to mention a few other ways in which they were influential, because it's kind of neat. The first one is very speculative, I know, just like the rest of this information on the show today, but to me, it seems kind of obvious that this guy is, like, totally, like, a model for the Jesus story. Like, now, is that just because the lives of charismatic cult leaders have similar features to each other? Or did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John take some creative DNA from the story of pythagoras? Impossible to answer, but fun to think about. Kayla: Yeah. What do you think? Is Jesus based on Pythagoras and saying that it's not totally out of the realm of possibility, that Pythagoras mythology was in turn based on an already existing.

59:59 Chris: Oh, probably, yeah, story. I think there's just, like, kind of like a model for these, like, types of leaders, right? Like, they have to perform miracles. They have to be son of a deed. Like, you have to check certain things. Kayla: They have to have a golden thigh. Chris: You have to have a gold thigh, of course. I mean, I think you have to have, like, some capability of, like, performing earthly miracles. Right? So, like, I, golden thigh, talking to animals and what was the other stuff? Listening to the spheres. Or you have to be able to multiply loaves and fishes, walk on water and make water to wine. Like, you have to be able to do some things like that. Kayla: I'm gonna start telling people I have. Chris: A gold thigh, and I don't know if it's, I really don't know. I'm, I'm kind of 50. Part of me wants to say, no. This is just, like, how these stories go with these people. And part of me wants to say, like, they probably took some ideas.

1:00:47 Kayla: I mean, there's probably some tropes. Like, there's probably, like, we already know. And I'm not saying, like, jesus didn't exist. It's all a story. I'm just saying the stories of Jesus, there are tropes involved that were pre existing tropes, like hero's journey, stuff. Like. Chris: Right, right. Kayla: There's very powerful storytelling around the story of Jesus. Chris: Right. Kayla: I don't remember where I was going with that. Chris: It's great, good storytelling. Kayla: What the fuck was I gonna say? Chris: Man goes on a journey. Kayla: I don't know what I was gonna say. Lost it. Chris: You were just totally lost it. I know you're editing this episode. You have to keep all of this. Kayla: I got too wrapped up in trying to make sure I wasn't saying jesus doesn't exist. Don't know what I was gonna say.

1:01:34 Chris: There's just common tropes, and I think we're kind of saying the same thing. It's kind of impossible say whether the tropes are deliberately inherited or sort of organically. Kayla: That's exactly what I was going to say, is that if there are similarities between the two stories, it's not necessarily a direct lifting. It can just be drawing on existing tropes. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kayla: And then I also wanted to say, question for you. How many years before Jesus was Pythagoras alive? Chris: About 500. A little over 500. That's so there was probably, like, if we're talking about, like, tropes and religious leaders, there were people even in between Pythagoras and Jesus too. Right? Kayla: So 500 years is a lot of years.

1:02:15 Chris: It just struck me how similar his life story was in a lot of regards. Like, even down to the, like, his parents were traveling and, like, received word from an oracle that they, like, a son would be born unto them who. Kayla: Would have a gold thigh and be really good at mathematic. Chris: He's like math Jesus. Anyway, pythagoreanism also continued on after the death of Pythagoras himself. It kind of factioned off until he died. Oh, yeah, he didn't. That's true. That's where the similarities end. He didn't resurrect. Kayla: He's the son of gods. Like, he just died and didn't come back. Chris: He's a weak Jesus. Now see, that's where they really improved. The story is that whole Easter thing. Kayla: I mean, unless it's like he died and then like went to Mount Olympus and just. Why would he come back here to these.

1:02:59 Chris: Oh, he probably did. Kayla: He ascended. Chris: Oh, no. Or he reincarnated. Kayla: I mean, that's what Jesus did. Like, he came back alive, but he also. He ascended. Like he's in heaven, right? Chris: I think he ascended up phys. No, I don't know. Kayla: Yeah, he did the physical where your whole body goes up to heaven. Chris: I thought only Mary did that. Kayla: You told me that there's a Jesus dead body is somewhere. Chris: Isn't that what? The shroud of Turin? Okay, look. Kayla: No, the shroud of Turin was after he died from the cross the first time, okay? Chris: And now he's just. Kayla: I'm just saying Jesus didn't, like just pieced out of his body. Just like Leo, slumped over like a husk. Chris: Isn't that what we all do? Kayla: I'm saying he went up with his body. Okay, all right, so maybe that's what Pythagoras did as well.

1:03:41 Chris: So back to the. After his death, there were like two major groups that splintered off. I won't really go into this because it's not kind of pertinent, but I will say that, like, one group. One group was like this, like super dogmatic. Like, we are the one true pythagorean school group. And the second one was way more chill. That went on to carry on a lot of the mathematical inquiry tradition. Eventually these groups faded away too. Although there have been periodic resurgences interest in Pythagoreanism from antiquity all the way to now. Kayla: Yeah. I was going to ask, is there pythagoreanism today? Could I go join this group?

1:04:22 Chris: I don't know. I mean, there's everything today, so probably. Kayla: I like beans, though. Chris: No, I'm starting the fart God thing. Kayla: Can we bring them together? Chris: Maybe? Kayla: Pythagorean beans? Yes. Chris: We're doing the pythagorean, the lords, the Apollo's work here. But, yeah, there was, like, a specific resurgence of it in antiquity called, like, neo Pythagoreanism. It also supposedly heavily influenced Plato's thinking, which makes sense when you think about things like the fact that they had already discovered three of the five platonic solids. And via Plato, of course, that means Pythagoras had a tremendous influence on all of western philosophy that continues to this day. Finally, they totally called it on being anti geocentrism. They believed the earth was not the center of the universe. Rather, the earth, the moon and the sun all rotated around the center, which apparently was like a gigantic fire.

1:05:20 Kayla: That's cool. Chris: Like, the sun was just like this small ball of light. And with the earth and the moon rotated around this gigantic fire. But the reason we can't see the gigantic fire is because it's blocked out by a counter Earth, like anti Earth. There's, like, a second Earth, like a counterpart Earth, that rotates around this fire with us. Kayla: Is it bizarro world? Chris: I don't know. So, like, they were kind of pissing in the wind here. They didn't really get much right, other than the fact that the earth wasn't at the center, which starts somewhere. And to be fair, it did influence Copernicus a thousand years later. But let me be clear. The reason that it feels like they're throwing darts here is because they are. The idea of using numbers to describe the universe is a great contribution, but it's just a language. It doesn't mandate that you're using science. They were not empiricists. They didn't arrive at the idea of the solar system that they had based on controlled experimental observation of the natural world. It was more of, like, a vibe thing. They mathed a lot and were like, this is the most beautiful and elegant mathing. So, like, it's probably this way.

1:06:36 Chris: You guys, like, you know, toke a little bit. Kayla: If the vibes weren't right, I. You're getting some cement shoes. Chris: That's right. It's very much like string theory in that regard. Right. It's like, oh, this math is so good, it has to be right. But they weren't really into experimenting. Kayla: I thought string theory was, like, the accepted thing now. Chris: No, it's actually kind of going out of way. Kayla: It went away. Chris: It didn't go away. Kayla: It all went away. Chris: It didn't go away. But it's, like, kind of out of vogue because, like, it still hasn't proven experimentally. Kayla: There's no way to test. Chris: Yes, there is. No. Kayla: You can't test the strings. You can't test the strings. Chris: Nope. Not. Not this episode. All right. Kayla: It's impossible. Chris: As I hinted back in the beginning of the show, with the whole David Kressh analogy, things were not always sunshine and roses for the Pythagoreans. I guess the alleged murder wasn't a sunshine or rose either. But anyway, the bottom line is they had a pretty hard fall. The story basically goes that they started off small and insular, but eventually grew in number and influence around this town of Croton and got involved in politics and started becoming too powerful.

1:07:45 Kayla: We shouldn't eat the beans, guys. Chris: And that's why they shouldn't have eaten the beans. Got too powerful. And, hey, they were also this, like, weirdo cult religion that, like, is totally not cool with us because traditional values. Zeus is God. Amen. So, you know, the angry mob. Or maybe it was the government, or maybe both. Unclear government. But they went to burn down the pythagorean school in Croton. Kayla: That's a really intense reaction. Chris: Yeah, well, like, that's what happens when. Kayla: You don't have television, right? Chris: They didn't have tv, so they're like, let's go fucking burn down the Pythagoreans. Also unclear if Pythagoras himself survived this, but it was just the first arson. There was at least a second arson. I think there were more than that. But there was definitely a second one where I guess, like, twelve or 13 of his followers are burned alive.

1:08:33 Kayla: Oh, no. Chris: And one of the stories goes that he himself survived the first one and even escaped the second one, only to be chased down by a soldier. And he totally could have escaped that soldier, too, except I shit you not. He was unwilling to run across a field crop of beans. Kayla: I'm editing out the fart. Chris: What? How dare you? Kayla: No, that's too important of a story that. Mwah. Chris: They were sacred beans, man. He didn't want to ruin the beans.

1:09:14 Kayla: I respect it. Chris: They're the musical. They're the magical fruit. Kayla: The more you eat, the more you learn how to get numbers from triangles. Chris: That's right. All right, sources, Wikipedia, duh. As usual. Except point to me this time for giving back. Kayla: We finally have done something, finally changed. Chris: One letter to another in one article. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, theosociety.org, comma, classicalwisdom.com, comma, medium.com, which I kind of feel like is, like, not really specific enough now, actually, because that's just a platform. Yeah, medium. Just a blogging platform. So the article here was pythagoreanism, the story of Pythagoras and his irrational cult by Farhan Ali Khan rancor.com gotta share this article title too. Oh yeah. Pythagoras was a cult leader who murdered people who disagreed with him. Alkatian.

1:10:06 Kayla: They teach math wrong in schools. Chris: Humanities section of that. Yes, they do. The Washington Post, ancientorigins.net. God bless them for the fart God article. Kayla: The fart man blessing for the fart God. Chris: Excuse me. Yes, thank you. The Aperian dot co dot UK comma, which is another blogging platform. So the article here was the philosophy of farting. I spent most of my time researching farting. If you can't tell, you know what. Kayla: You ploughed through this research in a very short amount of time. And now I understand why. Chris: Yeah, because I was mostly reading about farting. Sententia antiquity mass line.org and last but not least, scientific American. So charismatic leader.

1:10:54 Kayla: I mean, with the. Chris: Caveat that we don't know anything for. Kayla: Certain, we've still got it. We've got a theorem named after him. How long ago did he live? How many years ago? Like almost 3000 years ago. Chris: Well, it's halfway between two and three. Kayla: Why would it be halfway if he was 500 BC? Chris: Because 500 BC plus 2000 Ad equals. Kayla: Are we 2000? Oh, yeah. We are 2000. Chris: What is. Okay, so he was very obviously he was. Kayla: Sorry, sorry. Okay. 2000 years ago. 2000 years ago. Chris: 2500 years ago. Kayla: And we still have a theorem named after him.

1:11:36 Chris: That's right. Kayla: That's some staying power. That's some charisma. You said he had people, five years of silence to hang out with him. People were sticking around with pythagoreanism after arson, after angry mobs, after he died. I think they were changing their entire diet. Chris: And also, I'll add to your pythagorean theorem thing, that actually is even more of a point in charismatic leader favor because it was probably named after him due to his charismatic leaderness, right? Not due to his mathing. So ultra high expected harm. Kayla: It seems like for a while, zero.

1:12:16 Chris: It seems. I mean, they produced so many, like, named philosophers, like people that have their own Wikipedia articles type guys. Kayla: I guess it's like how. Chris: But then also they got burnt alive. Kayla: They got arsoned to death. Chris: But that wasn't their fault. Kayla: It wasn't their fault. Chris: Like, would we say Waco had expected harm from the Branch Davidians because they got burned to death? Kayla: Or was that like well, they also had abusive practices. Chris: We would score them highly for the abusive practices, but would we score them highly on that, for the burning of the compound? Kayla: Does that matter? Chris: I don't know. Kayla: We just say expected harm from the cult. Expected harm from being involved in the cult. Chris: Yeah, I think we maybe need to have a discussion about this one.

1:12:57 Kayla: I'm gonna say medium to low. Chris: I think so. Kayla: More on the low end. Chris: I think so. I think so, too. Kayla: Just cause you got burned up one. Chris: Time and, like, they had a bunch of weird shit going on. Kayla: Just cause you got taken out on a boat. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I don't know, actually, that. Chris: Now that I say, well, that one guy. Kayla: And if it was that one guy, it was potentially more than one guy. If it was, like, if you discovered some law of. I mean, we're getting. Chris: Somebody else discovered it and was like. Kayla: I'm not gonna say we're getting into other criteria now, but if you discover some law of nature that goes against the belief system of the group, and it means you'll die. Chris: Okay. But only that one really important one.

1:13:38 Kayla: I think I'm gonna say medium. Chris: Yeah, I think that's fair. Presence of ritual. Kayla: Sky high, five years of silence. Chris: Babies and all those, like, bizarre superstitions. Kayla: No beans, you gotta be a vegetarian. Four equals justice. Eight equals justice. Three is boys, four is girls. Chris: Or maybe vice versa. Okay. Niche within society, you tell me. Definitely. Because that was, like, why? Part of why they were getting persecuted was that they were one of these mystery religions that wasn't, like, the dominant. Kayla: Culture or dominant religion, but everybody learns the pythagorean theorem. Chris: Yeah, well, they're ubiquitous now, but at the time, they were niche. At the time, it was like, what are you doing assigning numbers to things? In the real world, all is number. It's kind of crazy, but I think it is niche. Back then, the thing that is, like, so ubiquitous now that we don't even think about it, that all is number at the time was niche, I would say.

1:14:39 Kayla: I'll take it. Chris: Antifactuality seems pretty high. Kayla: Well, they put a guy on a boat and threw him into the water and killed him dead. Chris: They also discovered, like, math. Kayla: You were just saying that they were like, yes. They knew that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, but it's because there's going around a giant fire and Superman, bizarro. Superman is blocking out the sun. Chris: Yeah. The fact that they were like, just because you revere numbers doesn't mean you revere empiricism and empiricism. Is tied to fact. Numbers is not tied to fact. If you therefore anti factual. Yes. Kayla: Kill someone because they figure out that reality does not comport to your beliefs. Yeah, I think that says it all.

1:15:28 Chris: Life, consumption way up there. Kayla: I mean, you're living on a compound. You're getting branch Davidians like, you are not eating beans ever again. Chris: You're giving up your belongings. Kayla: Come on. Chris: No beans. Yeah, that's true. Dogmatic beliefs. I think we've answered that. Kayla: Goes hand in hand with the antifactuality here. Chris: Well, and, yeah, specifically, they're like, if you. Sorry, dude, I know you're supposed to study stuff, but if you study the wrong thing, you're dead. Kayla: It's not even if you study the wrong thing. It's if you discover the wrong thing. Chris: Discover the truth in a wrong way. Kayla: It's not even that you developed it, you created it, you invented it, you sought it out. It's if you stumble upon the wrong thing, you will be exiled. Chris: Quote unquote chain of victims. I didn't get a sense that wasn't.

1:16:14 Kayla: They didn't come off as super recruiting. Chris: No, in fact, they came off as the opposite. They came off as, like, ultra selective. Kayla: We all have to learn the pythagorean theorem. Chris: Now, grade school children are the chains of victims. So, like, I guess that's like millions. So anyway, aside from the schooling school children jokes, I would say the chain of victims is probably low. There wasn't really, like a one person recruiting another. Final criteria, safe or unsafe exit. We answered this one allegedly. It was just fine to leave. Kayla: Just get out. Get out before you discover an immutable rule of the universe that goes against what Pythagoras thinks. Chris: That's true. That guy probably should have just left. He should have started his own school. So what are we thinking?

1:17:01 Kayla: I mean, it's what it says on the tin. It's a cult. It's a mystery religion. Cult. And a cult. Chris: Yeah, I think because. Okay, some of these are very low, like, safe exit. No chain of victims, expected harms. Kind of mixed fair. But the other ones are all, like, so high. Like, the other ones are just extreme. Kayla: If you're living on, if your story becomes Jesus's story, then you're a call. You're a call. Chris: But I'm also like. I will say this. Part of me wonders how much of this stuff feels, like, really bizarre to us based on modern bias. Right? I sit here and I go, the number seven is associated with Beatborp that's stupid. And then I also go like, oh, it's also weird that Greece as a whole, that greek people as a whole at that time thought that pentagons were magical. So I kind of go like, was it really that weird within its society? Within its society, right. Like. Or am I just thinking of it as weird? Because these types of superstitions are not the types of superstitions that we share today? Is it just my modern bias?

1:18:21 Kayla: Right. There was a lot of very similar spirituality permeating the mainstream culture at the time. Like, religion was a very important part of mainstream society, even more so than the way that, I mean, Christianity touches all of our lives every day in America, but not in the same way that I think it was back then. Chris: Right, right. Kayla: I could be wrong. Chris: We have the benefit of thousands of years of mathematical and scientific developments and research, but at the time, they were like, hey, what if we use numbers for stuff? They had none of that context. The first people discover numbers aren't necessarily gonna also be the first people to use them exactly correctly in every single regard. Like, yeah, some things are. You're gonna, like, hit it right on the mark. You're gonna be like, yep, I got the octave thing right. We discovered the pythagorean theorem. We got irrational numbers. But then you're also gonna be like, numbers have personality. And like, are girls, like. You know what I mean?

1:19:23 Kayla: Right? It's like all of these guys were fucking crazy. Like, Isaac Newton had some weird ideas. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: What's his face? Marconi was like, sound never, ever goes away. I can hear the sermon on the mount. Like, I'm gonna invent a phone to talk to a ghost. Chris: Yeah. The people that come across some of these things for the first time, it kind of. I don't know, you kind of expect them to be like, not the most precise and accurate with their new tool. Kayla: Right, right. It's like you go back and watch a genre defining movie, and it feels ham fisted. Like, we just watched the first Friday the 13th genre. One of the first films to help define the slasher genre, came out very quickly after Halloween. In both of those movies, while great, are very clunky compared to the slasher movies we have today.

1:20:09 Chris: Yeah. So I think it's easy for us to say, like, man, they had some weird superstitions, but at the same time, it's like, were they that weird? Or was it, like, kind of expected? I don't know. I think they're a cult, though. Kayla: Cult. You know what? We can at least hide behind the. Chris: Sleeping with the fishes thing by itself is probably. Yeah, I mean, we've called people cults for less. Like, I don't think that Mary Kay murdered anybody. Kayla: We refer to these guys as cults anyway in the term of like, mystery cults. So like, they're a cult in that sense at the very least. Chris: Right. Right. Well, thank you for. Oh, do you want some beans, by the way? Kayla: I do not want those beans. I love these beans. I don't want those beans. I love that you had props.

1:20:49 Chris: I know we've never done a prop before. Kayla: Very. Chris: Which is so appropriate for an audio format. Kayla: Happy to have props. I'm gonna go figure out the lengths of some sides of triangles. Chris: Plain kidney beans are not good. Kayla: No, they're not. Chris: They're just like mush. Kayla: No. Chris: Yeah, well, anyway, a squared plus b squared equals cult or just weird squared.