Convergences: Things You Will Want To Know The Reality Of Our Natures And The Nature Of Our Realities

By Markus Rehbach

Convergences between my own ideas as expressed in TROONATNOOR volume one, and the thoughts and arguments of the greatest minds who ever dared express their ideas. 
This book reveals the many convergences between my own ideas and those of the most brilliant thinkers of the last few thousand years, including the most recent cognitive and neuro-scientists. My works are always holistic. This book will teach you a lot of things you will want to know. It will help you avoid the common mistakes even the greatest minds make in daily life. My books are the result of decades of reading and thinking and living and experimenting. Save yourself a lot of trouble and learn from other's mistakes. Start the race from where the other's finished, rather than at the very beginning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sound Foundations
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018

Book preview

both!

Some of the cognitive-scientists, neuro-scientists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and thinkers whose ideas you shall now have the benefit of include:

Averroes, Freud, De Bono, Hume, Marx, Pinker, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Isaac Newton, Democritus, Aristarches of Samos, Copernicus, Galileo, Zeno, Stoppard, Bergson, Marx, Luther, Mother Theresa, Marcus Aurelius, Epicurus, Diogenes of Sinope, Pyrrho of Elis, Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, Gandy, Orwell, Hegel, Plato, Mao, Eckles, Schopenhauer, Descartes, Hubbard, John Stuart Mill, Saint Simon, August Comte, Bacon, Heisenberg, Herder, Weber, Locke, Wittgenstein, Rousseau, Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant, Breuer, Kant, Hobbes, Ockham, Berkeley, Aristotle, Locke, Boyle, Galileo, Newton, Whitehead, Leibniz, Einstein, Charcot, Pappenheim, Boernes, and Fliess.

We shall begin with those Ancient Greeks

You will be surprised at how modern they in fact are! Ask a quantum physicist or Cognitive-Neuro-Scientist, if you have one handy.

Skeptics, Zen, Cynics, the value of keeping an open mind; and the dangers of subscribing to Dogma: Before Sophistry became a bad word

Around 500 BCE Pericles changed Athenian society resulting in the emergence of Athenian democracy. This t gave the free citizens a chance to actively participate in their own government. This resulted in a demand for teachers of the persuasive arts of rhetoric, and the skills of finding faults in other's arguments. 'Sophists', professional teachers from outside of Athens, met this demand. They charged fees for their courses. Socrates could only afford their 'shorter' course.

These Sophists had traveled far and wide, coming into contact with a wide variety of values, cultures, religions, and social, legal, and belief systems. Exposure to a wide range of ways of thinking produced a sense of skepticism and relativism in them. They rejected absolute notions of good and bad, and the idea that you could know anything for certain. The Athenians experience was limited to their own narrow social mores, norms, values, and beliefs. They naturally felt these to be singularly good, right, and just. They found the skepticism and relativism of the Sophists discomforting and even threatening. Their critics said they taught others how to make the good, just and innocent appear bad and guilty, and the guilty, unjust, and bad appear good. Of course this is the skill most valued by lawyers. Today when most people use the term

'Sophistry', they thus use it in the pejorative, to indicate the person is merely trying to trick you.

Anaximander (ca 585 BCE)

Famous for positing the existence of many worlds in the same space- time.

Anaximenes (ca 585-528 BCE)

Anaximenes is the source of idea that ‘a change in quantity produces a change in quality’.  His universal material, his primerty, was air. Anaximenes avoided any hint of dualism. As all matter was already sentient, there was no need to produce the 'pseudo problem' of a 'ghost in the machine'. Sentience and matter already formed a unity. If only philosophy had continued in his path, we could have avoided the 'pseudo problems' that have emerged since, and become the focus of so much wasted energy, and lives. Of course his arguments form the basis of modern chemistry and physics. His premise that all matter is sentient and aware denies man a central place in the universe, wounding his 'pride', undermining his 'anthropocentrism', and many of his most cherished beliefs. This explains why most people have been unwilling to accept his premises, no matter how often they have been re-discovered.

Heraclitus (535-475 B.C.E)

Said by many to be the first person in the history of western civilization to put forward a robust philosophical system. Some famous quotes from Heraclitus include: Panta Rei, All is flux (change); No man can cross the same river twice; The universe has not been made, but has always been; Every animal is driven to pasture with a blow; All is one; Time is a child playing dice; I am as I am not; The good and the bad are identical; We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and we are not.

Heraclitus argued that stability is an illusion. Like the Dao, Heraclitus argued that all harmony is the product of opposing tensions. Anticipating Nietzsche, Heraclitus defined conflict as good as it produced change. For this reason he thought war was also good.

Heraclitus believed that everything originated out of what he called the Logos.

He developed the concept of becoming, in which the apparent opposites of being and non-being are actually fundamentally inter-related and not opposites. The Dao philosophy is similar to this in terms of the unity of opposites.

Like the Sophists, Heraclitus rejected all notions of good and evil. Heraclitus, like Anaximenes, viewed everything in the universe as forming one whole, one unity. Spirituality is simply a question of 'awakening' to this reality, of becoming fully 'conscious' of this reality. All of this will be familiar to anyone who has read the Bhavagad Gita. The more you read of the Ancient Greeks, the greater the convergences between them and Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Daoism, become apparent.

For Heraclitus, everything was in 'flux' a process of constant change, a transformation of quality, without any change in quantity. Thus Heraclitus sees a unity in diversity. Diversity emerges from simplicity. Daoism and modern physics and chemistry are based on the same principles.

Heraclitus viewed fire as the primerty, 'the one'. The material of the Universe and the force, fire, that transforms it, form one aware unity. The whole of the universe forms one soul. Hence we are all part of the one universal soul, which theists give the name 'god', and Heraclitus refers to as the 'logos' or 'reason' of the universe. Fire consumes and produces everything in a continual process of transformation. Thus quantity is transformed into the various forms we know, each of which has its own distinct qualities. These forms are then consumed by fire, to be transformed into new forms.

Pythagoras (ca 500 BCE)

Pythagoras sought, like Buddha, to escape the wheel or cycle of birth, death, and re-birth. He sought to escape the transmigration of souls from one life to the next, including from man to animal. He sought this via a spiritual cleansing. This aimed to allow man to return to the godhead he had become estranged or alienated from. Pythagoras sought a reunion with god, with his own, intrinsic, god-like nature. Thus having become once more one with god, re-acquainted with his own authentic nature, he would gain immortality, and freedom from anxiety. Note that most anthropologists over the last 20 years admit we have no proof that Pythagoras ever existed. The Gospel's Jesus may be a fiction of the Gospel writers. Pythagoras may be a fictional 'creation' of the Pythagoreans. They were vegetarians. They lived in communes, with no private property.

Pythagoreans considered mathematics to be pure, untainted thought. Pythagoras is credited with being the first person to recognize the 'golden ratio' or 'golden mean', a mathematical relationship that found applications in music and architecture. He believed it to be the basis of all harmony in the universe. Most people are familiar with it in the form of 'Pythagoras' rule'. The ration of the largest to the smallest number in a harmonic series of three numbers, will equal the ration of the sum of the squares of the base and height of a right angled triangle to the square of the hypotenuse. The easiest way to remember this is with a right angled triangle of base 3, height 4, and hypotenuse 5.

Pythagoreans believed they had found the mathematical basis for all life in this 'golden ratio'. One tradition has it that a man named Hepasus was drowned by his fellow 'Pythagoreans' for revealing that this theorem did not hold true for an isosceles right angled triangle. This revealed the flaw in Pythagoras' theorem and world view.

Pythagoras is famous for his discovering the mathematical basis of harmony in music. Varying the length of the string on a musical instrument changes the 'note' that will be produced when it is struck or strummed. By combining these 'notes' in certain mathematical intervals of wholes, octaves (halving the string length), thirds, and so on, you could produce scales, and harmony.

Too little or too much tension in a string ruins the purity of its sound, resulting disharmony. Pythagoras made an analogy with tension in our own bodies and minds. The 'music of the spheres' refers to the music that Pythagoras imagined was produced by the movements of the heavenly bodies, what we know of as the planets and stars.

Empedocles (ca 450BCE)

Empedocles posited four primerties, what he called 'primary particle- forces'. These are air, fire, water, and earth. These four particles are changeless. However they combine in different mixtures and quantities to produce all the forms and qualities we experience. These wholes can change, however the materials they are made of are constant, eternal, and changeless. Empedocles posited that these four elements combine in harmony (love). However discord (hate) produces repulsion and a de-composition, a dis-integration, of wholes. This converges with Freud's ideas of Eros and Thanatos.

Socrates, 'master of life', Plato's super-man (470-399 B.C.E)

Socrates' name means master (rates) of life (Soc). All we can claim to 'know' about Socrates and his teachings comes to us via Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. Socrates himself, like Buddha and Jesus, wrote nothing. He died aged 71 leaving an infant child and 2 grown sons.

As a 'moral' philosopher, he considered that the really urgent questions concerned human nature, the nature of truth, and the question of what is good, what is the good life, and what is the life worth living, rather than the natural sciences. Like Hume, he put a study of human nature at the center of his philosophy. Socrates opposed the sophists relativity and amorality. He spoke of his 'daimon', his inner voice or vision.

Scott Buchanan, in the preface to his 'The portable Plato' explains how the 'crane dance' Plato has 'Socrates' dance with his 14 companions is an allusion to the dance Theseus dances with his 14 companions after their slaying of the Minotaur. Ariadne had shown Theseus the secret of how to get out of the Minotaur's labyrinth in Crete by unraveling a ball of thread. Thus their dance celebrates the slaying of another allegorical beast by Socrates. Socrates' dialogs are the thread of reason by which we escape the labyrinth of sophistry, and the fear of death.

Buchanan explains how Plato's Socrates can be seen as a continuance of the tradition of Greek tragedy. Of course this is the archetype that the Gospel's Jesus is a later expression of. Like Jesus, Socrates suffers and dies for his principles. However by maintaining his integrity and resolve, and acquiescing to the consequences of his actions, without complaint or, as Nietzsche puts it, 'ressentiment', he transcends death.

Surely Socrates is as immortal a figure as Jesus became. Buchanan writes, 'It is the business of Socrates to thrash and winnow the grains of truth from the perennial harvests of opinion in the market-place'.

Socrates uses the term dialectic to refer to a process of disciplined conversation. It is an orderly process of challenging ideas, identifying assumptions, clarifying ideas, correcting ideas, and taking ideas to their logical conclusions and extensions. Socrates' intention, as a philosophical 'midwife', is to coax admissions of ignorance out of his interlocutors. This is the limit of his quest for 'the truth'.

Plato's Socrates draws out interlocutors with questions, and inferences from their own arguments. In this way he leads them to challenge their own assumptions, and hence the validity of their own arguments. Ultimately he leads them thus to the admission that they cannot know anything for sure. Socrates was the first to admit this to his partners in his dialectic, his 'dialogs'.

Like some of his more contemporary philosophers, and those that millennia later would call themselves the 'Analytic School', he recognized that the key to valid arguments was valid assumptions. For Socrates clarity of thought required clarity of definition. Hence he sought to get his interlocutors to see the implicit assumptions they had made. They were usually unaware of these assumptions. Bringing them to their awareness often lead them to accept that they could not be certain of their opinions. This was the basis of his 'Socratic Method', the 'Socratic Dialog'.

Socrates constantly faced the problem of poorly defined concepts. He sought, in a humble and co-operative way, to get his interlocutors to define their concepts, and then to consider the validity of these definitions. He also faced the problem of people changing their definitions as they went along, as convenient, to suit their sophistic purposes. 'I ask you to be consistent; or if you change, change openly'.(Republic I)

In Republic VII Plato's Socrates claims his dialectic does away with hypotheses and starts from the secure ground of first principles, from a foundation of absolute truth. However most commentators believe the arguments expressed by the character Socrates in Plato's 'Republic' reflect those of Plato rather than those of the historical Socrates'. Otherwise Socrates would be guilty of basing all his arguments on Plato's assumptions. This would be too inconsistent for someone who claims that his wisdom lies in recognizing that he knows nothing.

Plato and Plato's Socrates as presented in Plato's 'Socratic dialogs' and other Ancient Greek dramatic works.

Plato considered the virtues to be ends in themselves, a la 'Virtue is its own reward'. He added to Socrates questions the following: How can we know how we ought to live? Plato considered moral training and contemplation should be employed in seeking what he called 'The Divine Life'. He argued that humans could only achieve well-being by training themselves to abnegate their pleasure seeking bodies. You will see a statue of Plato along with the other saints at the Vatican.

Plato argued that the communal life demanded that individuals sub-ordinate their individual wishes to the needs and well-being of the community as a whole. The term Platonic love, meaning brotherly love, was considered by Plato to be the link between the self-regarding virtues, those meant to produce well-being for the individual, and the other-regarding virtues, those intended to produce collective wellbeing. Plato argued that it is impossible for an exceptionally good man to be exceptionally rich. This same argument is present in the Bible, and the Koran. It seems that exceptionally rich people don't really care what all these people think!

Plato's Socrates defines a philosopher as a person with the moderate love for wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is defined as 'knowledge about the Good or the right relations between all that exists', what I call 'TROONATNOOR'.

Most statements we make concerning Socrates refer to Plato's 'Socratic dialogs'. Xenophon (ca. 431-355 BC) also wrote five works on Socrates, including the 'Socratic monologue', and 'Apology', describing Socrates' trial. The two were Socrates' students or 'disciples'. Aristotle also wrote about Socrates.

In 'Republic' or 'The State' (ca 360B.C.E), Plato presents us with some of his/Socrates' most notable arguments, in a series of 10 books. The main characters include Socrates, Plato's two brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, and Thrasymachus, a Sophist.

Plato's Socrates argues that gender is irrelevant to aptitude for the professions and declares that women ought to be educated along with the men, and in particular, be trained in combat. In Plato's Socrates' 'Republic' there are no slaves, and there is no sex discrimination. In addition to the ruling class of guardians (Phulakes) which who may not own property, there is a class of private producers (Demiourgoi) be they rich or poor.

In his famous 'Allegory of the cave' Plato's Socrates defines the position of the 'philosopher king' vis a vis those they are obliged to rule. A few people manage to free themselves of their 'chains' of ignorance and escape to 'see the light' which reveals 'the nature of reality and the reality of their natures'. When their enlightenment obliges them to return to 'free' the unenlightened, rather than finding welcome, approval, and acceptance, let alone reward, they are ridiculed and treated as inferior. According to those in the cave, those who seek to 'save' them from their ignorance are, to use John Lennon's words ...'no longer on the ball'. Those in the cave feel they are 'doing fine watching shadows on the wall'. They don't want to be enlightened by the philosopher and delivered from their ignorance.

After struggling for and gaining enlightenment, the philosophers are no longer good 'players' in the games that occupy the ignorance-chained 'prisoners' living among the shadows in the cave. The enlightened philosopher recognizes that they are only watching the projected shadows of statues which are being carried in front of flames. The prisoners are chained so that they cannot turn their heads to see the flames, the statues being carried, let alone the 'sun', the symbol of enlightenment.

Their only interest is in the naming of the 'shadows', which constitute reality for the ignorant prisoners. The enlightened philosopher is no longer engaged in such games, and when required to participate in them, they play poorly.

I don't have to ask anyone for an interpretation of this analogy, as it is the predicament that I have found myself in. Buddha is said to have found himself compelled by his own enlightenment to help free his fellows from their ignorance. The character 'Jesus' in the New Testament', found himself in the same predicament. Read 'Religion' to see why it is that the title 'New' testament is so ironic. In fact it contains nothing 'new'.

Socrates rejects Buddha's passive 'some will understand' approach to enlightening the masses, and instead favors the rule of 'Philosopher-Kings'.

An enlightened 'Philosopher King' will rule over the stubbornly-resistant-to-enlightenment cave dwellers using 'noble lies' and 'myths of Er' to counterbalance the human nature expressed in 'The legend of Gyges'. The enlightened philosopher kings are those who are able to recognize what is 'good', and to therefore act for the 'good' of the people, as reflected in the good of the state, Plato's 'Republic'.

According to Plato's Socrates, it is only the enlightened 'philosopher kings' who are fit to rule. The masses are ignorant of their own interests, being ignorant of the nature of reality, and the reality of their own natures. They are too ignorant of their ignorance, which results in their not seeking enlightenment. Thus they also fail to recognize the superior arguments of those who have found enlightenment. They are thus not fit to be allowed to rule themselves.

In Book two of Republic, Plato has Glaucon refer to' The legend of Gyges'. Gyges discovers a ring, a-la 'Lord of the Rings', that gives him the power to become invisible. He uses it to enter the royal court unseen, seduce the queen, and murder the king. Plato, through Glaucon, argues that we would all do the same, given the chance to behave without cost or consequence for ourselves. Any support we have for 'justice' has our own fear of being a victim of injustice as its referent. We do not 'love' justice for its own sake. I was surprised to find this among many other convergences between my own thoughts, as expressed in 'TROONATNOOR' and 'Religion', and the ideas of Plato and Plato's Socrates.

In Books V-VI Plato's Socrates outlines his idea of the ideal society. He argues for the abolition of the traditional family and the implementation of a system of eugenics in which men and women are coupled based on breeding criteria. Their offspring are then to be raised by other couples. The parents and children would never be allowed to discover who their biological parents/children are. This is to eliminate nepotism. Anyone could be your biological child or parent, and this would extend 'goodwill' to everyone in the 'Republic', promoting social cohesion and real community. Private property, including that of 'children', would also be abolished.

Plato defined virtues as means to ends, rather than as ends in themselves. He considered that the highest aim of moral thought and conduct was eudemonia, and achieving the good life. His questions revolved around themes like 'what is the good life?', and 'how should we live?

Socrates developed what we today call the Socratic Method. The intention of the method is to make implicit contradictions within arguments explicit. He would engage anyone he met in a dialog. He would ask them to put forward a proposition or argument. He would then ask questions intended to lead the person to develop their own argument in its logical direction, until the person came to a conclusion which contradicted their own initial proposition. They would then be compelled to withdraw their proposition as a candidate for truth. They would have to admit that they, like Socrates himself, could not claim to 'know' anything with certainty. Thus Socrates was among the original Skeptics, like the Sophists of his day.

Socrates claimed, perhaps disingenuously, that he himself was not wise, that in fact his only wisdom consisted of realizing how little he himself knew. This has become a catchphrase of philosophers, who define wisdom as the recognition of their own ignorance, a-la 'The more I learn the less I know.'

Socrates never told anyone they were wrong, he merely lead them, through logical discourse, to find the faults in their own arguments and to therefore question their own beliefs. This did not make him popular among those closed-minded people who did not like being 'tricked' into admitting that their own beliefs were anything but certain and sound.

Plato's Socrates compares the work of the philosopher in eliminating false ideas from their interlocutor's minds to that of a mind-doctor (psychiatrist). As such it was just as painful as any surgery or cautery (burning), and as unwelcome as any doctor's 'bitter medicine'.

Diogenes of Sinope is said to have agreed with Plato/Socrates, stating that a philosopher who did not hurt anyone’s feeling was not doing his job. One of the main roles of the philosopher is, after all, to 'disabuse' people of false ideas and ways of thinking.

In Plato's 'Gorgias', Socrates says that his trial will be like a doctor being prosecuted by a cook who asks a jury of children to choose between the doctor's bitter medicine and the cook's tasty treats. Socrates was charged with, among other things, corrupting the youth of Athens, and being an Atheist. However he himself, in his affidavit, recognized that the reason for his trial was that, by challenging, and putting in question the beliefs and arguments of many of the most prominent citizens of Athens, he was defined by them as a threat, a nuisance, an inconvenience. He insisted at his trial, however, that he would not relent in his pursuit of wisdom, and in challenging the beliefs of his contemporaries. He would continue to be the ...stinging fly... all day long I will not cease to settle here and there and everywhere, ...(like a stinging fly on a lazy horse)...rousing, persuading, and reproving every one of you.

Note that in Athens at the time, the leading, free, male citizens of Athens voted directly on all matters. At his trial the following votes were recorded: 280 guilty; 221 innocent. He was then asked, according to the custom and laws of Athens at the time, to suggest what his punishment should be. He stated that, as a benefactor of Athens, he should get free meals in the Prytaneum, an honor usually reserved for famous athletes and prominent citizens. This angered the jurors so much that 360 of his peers, necessarily including many of those who had originally found him innocent of the actual charges, voted for the death penalty.

Later in the history of Athens, Aristotle would also be charged with 'impiety'. He would leave Athens, stating: I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

In more modern terms, Socrates was charged with the equivalent of sedition or heresy. He challenged the established dogma or hegemonic system. In the thousands of years that followed Socrates' death, the victimization, persecution, and murder of those who challenged the hegemonic order has continued. In spite of this philosophers everywhere continue the legacy of Socrates by challenging first themselves, and then other people, to interrogate their own beliefs and arguments, and then discard beliefs and arguments that are not compelling. This is perhaps the noblest aim of philosophy. Philosophy may never be able to deliver absolute Truth, but it can eliminate 'untruth'.

There is a story about a young man who went to Socrates to ask whether or not he should marry. 'It doesn't matter much one way or the other,' Socrates replied. 'Whatever you do, you'll regret it!'

One of Socrates students went on to become one of the most famous of all Western Philosophers, Plato. It is through Plato's writings that most of what we know of Socrates has been handed down to us.

In Plato's 'Euthyphro', Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide a definition of piety. Euthyphro replies that the pious is that which is loved by the gods. But Socrates also has Euthyphro agreeing that the gods are quarrelsome, and their quarrels, like human quarrels, concern objects of love or hatred. Therefore, Socrates reasons, at least one thing exists which certain gods love, but which other gods hate. Again, Euthyphro agrees. Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing which is both pious and impious (as it is both loved and hated by the gods) which, Euthyphro admits, is absurd. Thus, Euthyphro is brought to a realization by this dialectical method that his definition of piety cannot be correct. One of Plato's students went on to become another of Western thoughts most prominent figures, Aristotle.

Socrates' Trial

At his trial Socrates faced a number of charges, including not worshiping Athens’s state gods, introducing new religious practices, and corrupting the youth of Athens. An earlier favorite of Socrates, Alcibiades, whose life he had heroically saved during a military expedition, was accused of defacing certain statues in the city, before leading a major military expedition to Syracuse. He went on to abandon his fleet, and go over to Athens’s rival and arch-enemy Sparta. Without Alcibiades' brilliance, the Athenian fleet was destroyed in one of the greatest military defeats of all time.

Athens’s prosecutors wanted to try all the generals involved in this defeat as one group, rather than as individuals. A group of prominent Athenians, including Socrates, had argued that this was un-constitutional, representing a denial of natural justice. They had a right, as citizens of Athens, to be tried as individuals. However in the end, facing the threat of being tried alongside those generals, all of them, excepting Socrates, capitulated. He was thus left alone opposing the prosecutors.

One ultimate consequence of this defeat were oligarchic revolutions in Athens. Two of the proceeding '30 tyrants' had been students of Socrates.

10 years later Athens capitulated to Sparta.

After being convicted, instead of begging for mercy, Socrates' demanded 'public maintenance in the Prytaneum', an honor normally only bestowed on heroes, generals, Olympians, and others who have served the Athenian state in some exceptional way.

Plato's Socrates in Phaedo in the context of Buddhism, Hinduism, and 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead'

Death as the ultimate desire of the true philosopher In 'Phaedo', Socrates avoids and abstains from pleasure and pain, as these both deceive the soul into thinking this illusory world is in fact real. It is during these times that the world feels most real. Each pleasure and pain is like a nail that nails the soul to the body. Intense pleasure and pain enthralls the soul. It is in this way that the soul comes to identify with the body. The soul hence comes to affirm that which pain and pleasure in the body affirms to be real. Thus pleasure and pain affirm the illusion of world as a reality. It imprisons the soul in that illusion.

The soul can only experience and see through the 'bars' of senses. Millennia before Descartes, the Ancient Greek poets had derided the senses, even the eyes and ears, as 'bad informants'. The soul, thus trapped in the body, forgets its own divine, simple, pure nature. Only the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, who ignores, renounces, and becalms the passions, escapes the thralldom of pleasure and pain, and follows a life of reason. The philosopher then dwells in the contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine. Then at death they are freed from human ills, going to their own kindred, the gods.

In Phaedo Socrates defines death as the ultimate desire of all philosophers.

Death represents the release of the soul from the chains of a despised body. It is this body which prevents the attainment of true knowledge. Therefore the body is the philosopher’s enemy. The philosopher rejoices in death, confident that they had earned a special place with the gods after having spent their entire life in pursuit of wisdom and integrity. Thus Socrates does not regard his situation as a misfortune.

Swans rejoice, singing their 'swan song', at the prophecy of their own death. They are rejoicing on being returned to the gods, in anticipation of the good things of the next world. Plato's Socrates says that if there be such a thing as truth, or certainty, or the possibility of knowledge; if he can be certain of anything, it is that his soul will be conceived and die again. He states that he could hardly imagine the possibility of thinking differently. He states that his recollection of past-life experiences proves the prior existence of his soul. Therefore he has no fear of death. He in fact welcomes it. He thus choses to stay and endure any punishment the Athenian State sees fit to inflict on him, rather than accept the offers he has been made to facilitate his escape to Megara or Boetia.

Anyone familiar with the teachings of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, or 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead', will instantly recognize a clear convergence between Plato's ideas and those of Buddhism and Hinduism. Plato defines wisdom as the soul's communion with its own true nature. Its true nature is pure, unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This soul is dragged by the body into the region of the changeable.

The true disciple of philosophy is constantly engaged in the practice of dying

Death is the souls escape from the folly and error of men. The philosopher is secure of bliss, as their soul is pure and unalloyed at the time of death, its departure from the body. But those fascinated by, enthralled by, and in love with the body, desire, and pleasure, are conditioned by this attachment to the body to fear death, the loss of the body. They identify their self with this body. Craving after the pleasure of the corporeal, of bodies, results in imprisonment in another body of the same nature as they had in their former lives, after death.

Only the perpetual path of philosophy can result in the attainment of freedom from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, the transmigration of souls. Plato writes that 'no-one who as not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the time of his departure, is allowed to enter the company of the gods. This honor is reserved exclusively for the lover of knowledge and reason. For this reason the votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts. The soul was fastened to the body by ignorance and lust. In this condition it is only able to view the world through the deceptive senses. The philosopher must learn to mis-trust these and trust only in their intellect and pure reason. Only in this way can they reveal the true nature of existence and escape this imprisonment in the body, the senses, and the captivity of lust.

'Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who having cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him and working him harm, rather than good, and has arrayed the soul in her proper jewels of temperance, justice, courage, nobility, and truth, ready to go on her journey to the world below when the time comes, to go to the joys of the blessed'. When the time comes, Socrates asks the gods to prosper his journey from this to the other world. He then drinks readily and cheerfully of the hemlock he was sentenced to drink.

Socrates claimed he was not engaged in eristics, the debating game. The aim of eristics was to get your opponent to admit or agree to statements which contradicted their own initial thesis. However Socrates does often employ fallacious arguments. Plato calls his version of interrogation 'dialectic', however his and Socrates' arguments often fall back into the typical pattern of eristics.

Plato's dialectic can criticize, discount, expose, and find flaws and faults with arguments, however it is purely analytic. It cannot produce positive, definitive answers to questions. It can only refute arguments. It can reveal falsehood, but it cannot produce knowledge. De Bono would say it is not 'generative'. In the end Plato based all his arguments on assumptions. The foundations of his arguments are not, as he claims, truth. His 'theory of universal forms', the supposed truth underlying all his arguments, is not compelling, let alone demonstrable. His theory is mere speculation. He merely assumes it is correct. It appears that Plato was not free of the sin of 'hubris'. Thus he became one of its many victims. He had not, as he claimed and perhaps even imagined, adopted the pure method of geometry. At least Thomas Aquinas was honest about basing all his arguments on assumptions, in his 'Reformed Epistemology'.

It was Plato's student Aristotle who worked on logic, in attempts to formulate arguments that could provide definitive answers. He taught logic and wrote a handbook on logic for his students. However 'logic' is itself, as De Bono reminds us, ultimately incapable of any truly 'generative' thinking.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Plato's Republic. Big brother, censorship, noble-lies and sex-crimes. Plato's Socrates, and death as the ultimate desire of the true philosopher. Plato as a Buddhist

Note that in The Republic it is always the manly, virtuous, and authoritative Socrates that speaks for Plato.

In his 'Republic', book VII: Plato states that 'the philosopher argues for their own improvement, while not begrudging others benefit they may get from it'. The massive investment of time and energy I have made in my interrogations of 'TROONATNOOR' and 'Religion' were therefore firstly to satisfy my own need to know, to understand. I must keep reminding myself of this, in the face of the reality that maybe no-one else will ever recognize, let alone reward, my massive effort. I will try, like Socrates, to acquiesce to my fate without 'ressentiment', to be worthy of the ambition I Nietzsche had for philosophy.

'Like gold in a refiner’s fire, the best emerge pure from their tests and struggles'.

The relief from ignorance, fear, and insecurity that represent the pleasure of philosophy. However as Plato notes, headache, nausea, anxiety, and illness, are associated with the practice of philosophy. Freud suffered from migraines, as I do.

When Plato writes 'Grasp the truth as a whole, and you will then have no difficulty apprehending the preceding remarks' I am reminded of my own holistic approach, and request in my own readers to suspend judgment until they have considered the whole of my argument. It is he whole that provides the context and meaning of the parts.

Plato recognizes the need for systematic structural reform of the whole. Individual laws and small reforms or legislation to fight corruption will be ineffective. Hence Plato took a holistic approach to government.

Unless you cut off the one head of the Hydra all the others will regrow. You will be cutting them forever, with no ultimate effect. The main head of the Hydra, for Plato and Buddha, is desire.

For Plato the ideal, the superior diet, is a vegan one. Consumption of meat will result in an increased need for doctors in the Republic. Breeding animals for meat will also increase the Republic's need for land, resulting in greater defense and military expenditures. In the 'myth of Er', animals await alongside humans for their next life. Some humans chose to be conceived as animals, and some animals chose to be conceived as humans.

Transmigration of souls means that some humans will be animals in their next lives, so this should give them more consideration or empathy for the suffering of animals. The animal you are now eating might have been your friend, family member, even partner, in their last life.

The primary inspiration for the Catholic Church, Plato, turns out to be a Buddhist. It is a pity the Catholics adopted only the worst of Plato, and his 'Republic'.

I gave up studying economics as it became mere mathematical sophistry, devoid of any real argument. Plato writes 'I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning'. Thus be wary of granting transferred authority to great mathematicians and physicists.

Plato's analogy of 'the divided line' represents the four divisions of 'knowledge', in ascending order of value. The lowest in his hierarchy of knowledge are the shadows, next come opinions and beliefs, followed by understanding and intellect, with the paragon of 'knowledge' being science.

Plato wrote over a period of 50 years, and during this time many of his positions changed. For example in his earlier work, Plato defined courage as the greater of two fears, the fear of disgrace due to acting cowardly being greater than the fear of anything the enemy could do to you. Later In Phaedo courage is an indifference to pain and pleasure.

Earlier in his career Plato believed that to know the best course of action was to do it. All that was needed was to determine what this best course of action was. Hence virtue for Plato meant 'a true knowledge of the true consequences of all acts'. In the same way I argue that an holistically enlightened, informed consent, is most likely to produce political support for Social Democracy.

Later Plato also accepts the possibility that though men know what is best for them. As they are ruled by desire and fear, they often cannot do what their reason tells them would be best. Plato sees reason and 'will-power' as less compelling than the power of desire. The power of the moment often has a greater influence on the imagination than any potential future consequences. Humans are governed more by physical fear, denial and self-deception. They are prone to engage in wishful thinking. They imagine they will find solutions to problems, and manage to avoid the logical consequences of their actions. This can be observed in the current debates on global warming, ecological services, and environmental degradation. People are often unable to resist their urges, impulses, and instincts. For Plato this is due to a weakness in willpower.

My 'Protocols' would employ 'speed humps', in addition to holistically informed consent. Plato would employ deception and full-spectrum censorship.

In Book VI of his Republic, Plato defines the role and situation of his ideal philosopher. The philosopher must desire to know all truth and despise all falsehood. They will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul and therefore hardly feel bodily pleasure, if they are not to be a sham philosopher. They will have no interest in acquiring and spending wealth. They will have no fear of death nor 'think much of human life'. They will however be just, gentle, sociable, and polite.

However this must surely contradict Plato's typically Ancient Greek ideal of 'moderation'. This lack of moderation in key areas is one of Plato's major faults. This fault, along with his approval of deception and censorship, came to define the Catholic Church which modeled itself on Plato's 'Republic'.

They must love learning in itself, independent of any progress they make, as philosophy requires the acceptance of great pain and toil for little progress. They require a good memory to make progress, and a well-proportioned, gracious mind that spontaneously moves towards the true being of everything. Only these minds are worthy to entrust the care of the state to. Plato notes that listeners will reply that such people usually become 'strange monsters', 'utter rogues', and 'made useless to the world'. Plato has Socrates respond with 'the parable of sailors'. States, according to Plato, will not cease from evil until philosophers rule them.

In the 'parable of sailors' every sailor has the opinion that he himself has the right to steer the ship, even though they have never learned the art of navigation, and cannot say who has taught them, or where and how they have learned the skills required. Each further asserts that navigation can not be taught. And they are ready to kill anyone who contradicts them. They surround the captain, and beg to be allowed to steer. When he allows one to, the others kill the chosen navigator, or throw him overboard. They mutiny, chaining the captain. In such a situation the true pilot will be regarded as a stargazer, good for nothing, without honor, as they will not conspire with the others to get them put in control of the ship.

This is the age old problem of those who sought to teach people how to think more creatively, constructively, productively, and rigorously. Edward De Bono was forced to employ 'tricks' to get people to adopt better habits. You will scarce find a person who does not believe they are at least as competent to make decisions as anyone else. People assume that if they can construct a sentence, they can construct a valid argument. Everyone wants to rule the world, imagining they could do a better job than anyone else.

Philosophers are only useless as men will not make use of them. Plato warns the potential philosopher that 'the manner in which the best men are treated in their own states is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it'.

In book III of Republic, Plato tells us how his 'guardians are to dedicate themselves to maintaining the freedom of the state'. This is ironic, given that they are to be tricked into this job, and that most aspects of their lives will be totally prescribed by Plato. He intends to mislead them with deception and censorship.

Plato sees that the nature of the state grows out of the nature of the individuals it consists of. Their economic desire results in a division of labor. This facilitates specialization. This results in increased productivity, and an improvement in the quality, diversity, and quantity of goods and services produced. This means there is greater wealth to be consumed. For Plato the optimal division of labor meant each doing that to which he is best adapted. Once again we find 'modern' ideas are millennia old. Self-mastery means each part of the whole doing its job and not another, resulting in integrity and harmony.

There are to be 3 classes of citizen in Plato's Republic. The workers. The crafts, trades, merchant and artisan class. And the Guardian class.

As Hobbes notes, whether or not your own Republic can control its own insatiable desires, you will find many other states that will not. Hence emerges the requirement to defend yourselves, whether or not you intend your own territorial conquests. This situation produces the need for

Guardians, the 'Guardian-class, the protectors of external and internal order'. It is from this class that the leaders of the Republic are to be chosen.

In war, the leaders of Plato's Republic would offer alliances with the other states in return for all the spoils of war. They would seek to set up internal conflicts between the rich and poor in their enemy's state, to produce internal instability and conflict. They would offer the poor of their enemy the wealth of their own state's rich, in return for military support for the Republic.

In the Republic all architecture, all the plastic arts, to were to be simple, harmonious, and graceful. Plato, fearful of 'corrupting' the taste of the citizens of his Republic, planned to censor all art, music, and poetry. Everything was to present a role model of rational 'manliness', which for Plato meant self-control, calm, equanimity, courage, balance, simplicity, harmony, grace, and temperance.

Temperance for Plato meant self-mastery and discipline. From Plato we get the notion of the mind 'ruling' the body. Plato's ideal was for reason and rationality to rule the passions and emotions. No depictions of any 'irrational' 'womanly' quarreling, striving, sorrowing, weeping, or affliction with love, illness, or child-birth, would be allowed. No depictions of 'mad, bad, emotional, passionate, emotions were to be allowed. Such depictions often lead to imitation, and the formation of bad habits.

Plato planned to eliminate all sensual musical expressions of passion, sorrow, emotion, or regret. The only music appropriate for Plato's Republic was manly martial music, or gentle relaxing music. This brings to mind the National Socialist censorship, architecture, and art under the Nazis. It recalls the Socialist art and censorship under the

Soviets. It reminds us also of the backlash against Elvis Presley and Jazz music among the 'bible belters' of the U.S.

Plato would also eliminate many musical instruments from his Republic.

Only instruments which produced martial melodies and rhythms, and Dorian and Phrygian scales and intervals, would be allowed. Only instruments with a limited number of strings would be allowed. Flutes were to be banned. All Dionysian instruments were to be abandoned in favor of Apollonian ones, in an attempt to purge the state of anything reminiscent of the passions and emotions.

'When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them. Music leads to a sense of license resulting in lawlessness in contracts between individuals, then institutions, then the state as a whole.' It results in an overthrow of all private and public rights.

Plato's Guardians would study gymnastics. This had the object of building character and discipline, rather than muscles. The study of music would aim to instill harmony and rhythm in Guardians, to give them grace and balance. The Guardians should not become too fierce or too soft. The aim of their education was to produce a balanced, disciplined, courageous, and harmonious individual with the highest character.

At the end of their training, the Guardians will once more be lied to. They will be told that their memories of their entire youth, including their training and education, were in fact an illusion. They will be told they had been produced in the earth by the gods. They had emerged whole and complete as they were. Plato admits that the current generation would not believe this myth, but their sons would be easier to convince, and their sons would be still easier to convince.

Sensual-passionate love was to be eliminated and defined as madness. Of course Freud recognized romantic love as pathological. For Plato the true, Platonic love was the love of grace, beauty, order, harmony, and temperance. Again, like in George Orwell's 1984, Plato would introduce 'sex crimes’. He would institute laws against romantic discourse. All romantic language was to be purged from the language itself. Plato was the original 'big brother'. There would be no love songs, no love poems, and no romantic themes or images in art or literature. Romantic love was to become a crime. The Soviets never took it this far, but they too felt that the ideal of love was platonic, rejecting romance as 'bourgeoisie'.

Plato, in book III and X of 'Republic', rallies against poets and dramatists who feed and water the passions such as lust and anger. In Plato's Republic the passions would be 'dried' and 'starved', as the antithesis of virtue. Happiness is only gained by discouraging and controlling the passions, rather than encouraging them, and giving them free reign. Otherwise pleasure and pain, and not law and reason, would rule in the state.

Passionate poetry is incompatible with a well-ordered state. We must not let ourselves be charmed, seduced, captivated, and enthralled by a childish love of poetry. The safety of the state depends on this. Such poetry is detrimental to the education and tone of the Republic.

Plato would ensure that all poetry supported the idea of an immortal and eternal soul. All misfortune should be presented as merely apparent, as a means to ends we will discover later. All stories and poems must have a Disney flair for 'happy endings'. We must be encouraged to have faith that all will work out for the better in life and death. In all stories, plays, and poems, the virtuous must be rewarded and the vicious, the not virtuous, must be punished. Plato wants the artists, the poet, the dramatist, the songwriter, the musician, the painter, all to be reproducers and elaborators of his 'noble lies'. How noble they are in reality I will leave to you to decide.

Of course Hollywood, the American dream fabricator, has adopted many of these recommendations. The media would have us believe that all things happen for a good purpose, and that the world is ultimately just and fair. Psychological studies indicate that most people do believe this, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The media, as Plato recognized, appear to have more influence upon us than our immediate experience.

Of course the beneficiary classes want the workers who produce all the privileges, power, and benefits they consume, to keep doing so. They must be tricked into believing that one day the exploited worker's 'ship will come in'. They need to have 'faith' that they will be rewarded for their sacrifice, their effort, their sweat, their endurance of lives not worth living. They need to be fed full of false hopes, unfounded optimisms, faith that in this, the best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best. Plato was an aristocrat. He never provides details of his idea of 'justice' as 'each getting what is their due'. Of course everyone feels they are entitled to the privileges that have accumulated to them as part of their holistic inheritance.

Plato wants poetry to produce a guardian who will chose death in battle over defeat and slavery. Plato would eliminate all depictions of gods being overcome with laughter, along with any depictions of gods exhibiting drunkenness, intemperance, or any lack of self-control. He would censor Zeus's lust for Here, and Ares for Aphrodite. He would censor stories of gods desiring money or accepting or offering gifts in exchange for actions. He would censor stories of sons’ insubordination towards their fathers, such as Apollo's to the river-god. He would censor the stories of the rapes committed by the sons of Zeus and Poseidon. Any stories, poems, or depictions of god's fighting, arguing, and plotting, would be censored. All literature would be censored. Only 'authorized' versions would be allowed. Of course this all brings to mind the Nazi and Bolshevik book burnings and censorship. However the Catholic Church, modeling itself upon Plato's Republic, were behaving in this way millennia before these other dictatorships emerged upon the scene.

In the ancient Greek poems the gods committed all the worst crimes imaginable. Plato aims to develop and tailor poetry in which gods are always represented as good, as the only source of good. The causes of all forms of evil are to be attributed elsewhere, meaning very little at all can be attributed to god, as there is so much evil in the world, and so little good. In all poems, stories, and depictions of the gods, everything they do is to be beneficial and necessary. All the previous poems about the gods' behaviors were to be edited, revised, and thoroughly censored. In all authorized art, literature, and poetry, a perfect, unchanging god, and exclusively good god, the source of everything good, the source of only good, was to be depicted.

This was to be the new god that would be promoted in Plato's Republic. Of course we are familiar with this god, as the Catholic Church put Plato's plans into practice. Of course the reflex of this was that all evil was to be attributed elsewhere. Hence the Catholic Church attributed evil to all the 'heathen' and 'pagan' gods. No 'evil' could be associated with their god. So of course no evil acts by their priests would ever be acknowledged. It is only today that the Catholic orders have begun acknowledging the massive incidence of child abuse committed by its priests and nuns.

Plato will eliminate tragic poetry, drama, and comedy from his Republic. Plato does not want his Guardians to waste their energy on the recollection and lamentation of their troubles, bad luck, and misfortune. They were not to be encouraged to indulge in their sorrows. They should instead simply be 'manly' and 'rational'. In the face of misfortune they should take counsel. They should seek to remedy their situation. They should apply reason to the re-ordering of their affairs. They should display wisdom and character. They should remain calm. They should show equanimity in the face of misfortune. This he calls 'courage'. This is the character and courage that Plato's Socrates shows in the face of his own death.

This ideal is hard for dramatists to imitate and it is not desired by the popular masses. For this reason poets and dramatists, the mass media of Plato's time, tended to pander to their audiences with depictions of the passionate, rather than the rational, man. The audience wants passions and cannot comprehend the rational, which is harder for artist to depict anyway. The poet therefore indulges the irrational nature of man. In doing so he does a great disservice to the state. He corrupts his audience, stirring their passions, sympathies, emotions, and pity. The poet enraptures them, moving them, appealing to the womanly in their natures. The poets and dramatists allow us to indulge in our own sorrows in public, when normally relieving ourselves of our sorrow and lamentations in public would bring us into disgrace. Thus our 'shame' would otherwise prevent us behaving in this way. Thus Plato would censor poets and poetry.

Cowardice for Plato is the passionate, womanly and irrational indulgence in sorrow, the constant mental replaying and reliving of emotions and misfortunes.

Plato rallies against comedy for similar reasons. The public may laugh at unseemly behavior on stage. They would be ashamed of themselves, and disgusted at others, were they to behave so in real life. The problem is that this 'relaxation' of custom, habit, or law, at play, can reduce the general tone of that audience at home, in their daily life.

For Plato all forms of extreme pleasure and pain deprived a person of their rational faculties. Therefore he meant to introduce 'temperance'. For Plato this meant an extreme minimization of all forms of sensual desire, pleasure, and pain. This was intended to facilitate reason, the highest, the 'divine' faculty'. Once again Plato strays so far from the ideal of moderation he claims to subscribe to, the moderation which made Ancient Greece such an enlightened place. It was moderation and tolerance, even liberality, which allowed the arts, philosophy, and science to thrive.

Plato's guardians were to be denied almost every pleasure. Plato notes that athletes sleep away their lives, and are very prone to illness if they depart from their customary regime of training. Plato aimed to simplify the physical regimes and diets of his guardians, to approximate the life of a soldier on campaign. Diet was to be simple, with no sweets, sauces, or even cooking utensils required. Meats (of vegetables and fruits) might be roasted above a fire, but not boiled, as this would require additional cooking utensils. They were also to abstain from intoxication.

Plato believed we should not treat chronic illness. He argued that everyone must work. It was better to live and work normally while sick. If a disease overcomes you, it is best to die and be rid of it, rather than torturing yourself. He blames the invention of the 'lingering death' on Herodicus. Plato would limit the use of medicine and avoid constant treatments and life-long suffering. In his Republic the diseased would be left to die, untreated.

In book V Plato tells us that the guardians are to be the watchdogs of the herd. This reminds me of George Orwell's 'Animal Farm.' Plato intends to control and manipulate every aspect of their lives. He will determine how they should possess and use females and children.

Females exercising naked with males will be 'robed' in their 'virtue'. The wives of guardians, though inferior, are of the same nature, and therefore are the best companions for guardians.

No-one is to know who their parents or children are, who is whose parent and who is whose child. Male and female guardians will perform the same functions. Both will fight, but the females will fulfill lighter duties.

Guardians will be 'bred' like dogs, birds, and horses, via the use of eugenics. The 'best' males would be mated with the 'best' females as often as possible, whereas the 'worst' would mate with the 'worst' as seldom as possible.

Plato fears that if the guardians knew of this plan, they would rebel against it. Therefore the leaders of his Republic are to hold 'marriage (mating) festivals' at which they would make a show of drawing lots. It will appear that mating frequencies, and who mated with who, were a matter of pure chance. In fact this 'game of chance' would be 'fixed'. The bravest soldiers would also be allowed to have sex with suitable female guardians as often as possible.

For me