The Plato Code?
Manchester historian deciphers hidden ‘Plato Code’
A science historian in Manchester claims to have deciphered secret messages hidden in the ancient writings of the philosopher Plato.
Dr Jay Kennedy from the University of Manchester has revealed that the legendary Greek philosopher Plato used a regular pattern of symbols to give his books a musical structure.
Plato’s books had a key role in establishing the foundations of Western culture. But the existence of a so-called ‘Plato Code’ has long been disputed.
By unraveling Plato’s ‘hidden’ messages, Dr Kennedy believes he has thrown a new light on the origins of science, mathematics, music, and philosophy.
Working from the original scripts, he observed that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a structure hidden beneath the surface.
Fascinatingly, it’s a musical code,” he said. “Plato and the Greeks believed music was the key to mathematics and the cosmos.
“What we didn’t know was that he used Greek musical scales to give his works a hidden structure and then built layers of hidden meanings beneath that.”
The hidden codes reveal that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea – the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. </em>
If this sort of thing lights your fire, you’ll enjoy Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
