Seldon’s Opus: Key Excerpts. Excerpt Number 7 -- ‘Meta-Pythagoreanism’.

Seldon’s Opus:  Key Excerpts.  Excerpt Number 7 --

 

‘Meta-Pythagoreanism.’

Dear Reader,

It is my pleasure, and my honor, as an Officer of the Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.] Office of Public Liaison, to share with you, from time to time, as they are approved for public release by the F.E.D. General Council, key excerpts from the internal writings of our co-founder, Karl Seldon.

The seventh such release in this new series is pasted in below.  [Some E.D. standard edits have been applied to the direct transcript of our co-founder’s discourse].

Regards,

Miguel

“Original Pythagoreanism is, at root, an ‘‘‘«arithmos»-theory’’’, but not a ‘‘‘number(s)-theory’’’ in the modern, abstract sense of our modern word, “number”.  The book Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, by Jacob Klein, is of enormous aid in grasping this point.”  

“Our ‘Meta-Pythagoreanism’ conserves, and advances, key features of that original Pythagoreanism, while determinately negating others of its features.”

“Empirical, sensuous reality -- except for, as far as we know, our one universe, as ultimate totality, taken as an ultimate unit -- is ‘«Arithmos»-ic’.” 

“This means that absolutely unique, ‘‘‘one of a kind’’’, sui generis «monads» are typically not encountered in our experience -- in human experience -- to-date.”

“Thus, human-sensuous, empirical reality is ‘multi-«monadic»’ -- filled with multiple populations; with a multitude of clusterings, each consisting of many units, such that the units of each such population all inhere in, or constitute, a given kind, forming the objective basis for a human-cognitive category that represents that kind in a human mind, and in our inter-minds discourses.”

“That being stated first, it should also, next, be stated, that the «monads» of a given such population, or «arithmos», are not typically mutually identical, but, on the contrary, instantiate the ‘‘‘fractal’’’ feature of ‘‘‘mutual similarity’’’ -- of ‘‘‘similarity with variation’’’ [typically without also instantiating another ‘‘‘fractal’’’ feature, that of scale-differences].”