Pythagoreanism

**Pythagoreanism** was the system of
esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his
followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by
mathematics, music and astronomy.
Pythagoreanism
originated in the 5th century BC and greatly influenced platonism and
the concept of vegetarianism. It was also the first use of the word
philosophy. It is most commonly known for its heavy focus on
mathematics, including the belief that math is the fundamental
substance of reality. Although its ethics teachings are mostly lost,
and there is not much within it to tie to any particular alignment,
it interestingly has a cosmology that closely parallels information given in the digital
devil saga duology and record breaker. According to tradition, pythagoreanism developed
at some point into two separate schools of thought:

## Sub schools of Pythagoreanism

**The Mathēmatikoi or "learners"**
were supposed to have extended and developed the more mathematical
and scientific work begun by Pythagoras. The mathēmatikoi did think
that the akousmatikoi were Pythagorean, but felt that their own group
was more representative of Pythagoras.

**The Akousmatikoi or "listeners"**
 focused on the more religious and ritualistic aspects of his
teachings: they claimed that the mathēmatikoi were not genuinely
Pythagorean, but followers of the "renegade" Pythagorean
Hippasus.

The term pythagoreanism is obviously
known most commonly for the pythagorean theorem, since the
pythagoreans worked closely with math, and pythagoras may have been
the first one who proved the theorem, although it was known of before
his time.

## **Metaphysics**

### Cosmic Order

**Numbers**. The pythagoreans believed
that the entire universe was composed of
numbers,
and thus had a universal sacred order or harmony that could be
discovered and understood by coming to understand mathematical
truths, which they saw as the fundamental reality that the universe
is ontologically made of. As in reality being composed of literal
numbers. Thus, much of their work was in mathematics, and they made
much progress in that area, (and obviously are where the pythagorean
theorem comes from) as well as being the first people who came to the
idea that physics could be explained mathematically. Their mysticism
likewise often revolved around this idea of universal or mathematical
order, though unfortunately there are not many sources remaining
detailing it concretely. Music was seen as a concept related to math,
or even an audible expression of mathematical properties, and so work
in music was done by them as well. They considered numbers so
important that the Pythagorean Hippasus is said to have been expelled
from the brotherhood, and according to some sources even drowned,
because he discovered irrational numbers. A concept which they
believed was false / incoherent, due to not being able to be
expressed with integers and so which must not be taught.

This concept interestingly ties to
Digital evil saga 2. In digital devil saga, they talk about how the
entire universe, not just the simulation from the first game, but the
“real” one as well is made out of data. Data in the sense we
think of it usually relates to computers, and so is expressed with
binary. Which makes it similar in concept to the Pythagorean concept
of numbers composing all reality. In fact, even some modern
interpretations of physics point out that what we think of as
tangible ultimately amounts or reduces to more intangible things, and
thus may ultimately be more abstract than one imagines, and so
perhaps describable as data. Some forms of structuralism likewise say
similar things. Even if this wouldn't necessarily be the same as
“numbers” per say. (Some extreme forms do think everything is
literally a mathematical structure though.) Whether this association
was intentional is obviously far more sketchy than some other
associations. It may be coincidental. But pythagoreanism does
resemble DDS in many ways.

**Musica universalis** (lit. universal
music, or music of the spheres) or Harmony of the Spheres is a
concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial
bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of music. This
"music" is not usually thought to be literally audible, but
a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept.

The Music of the Spheres incorporates
the metaphysical principle that mathematical relationships express
qualities or "tones" of energy which manifest in numbers,
visual angles, shapes and sounds – all connected within a pattern
of proportion. Pythagoras first identified that the pitch of a
musical note is in proportion to the length of the string that
produces it, and that intervals between harmonious sound frequencies
form simple numerical ratios. In a theory known as the Harmony of the
Spheres, Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit
their own unique hum (orbital resonance) based on their orbital
revolution, and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor
of celestial sounds which are physically imperceptible to the human
ear.

### Gods

**Monad**, **“The One**” or ”**without**
**division”** deriving from the greek words for one, unit, or alone,
was a term for Divinity or the first being, or the totality of all
beings. It was a word for the ultimate infinite point or source of
reality from which all other things flowed, and was identified with
the number one. (or sometimes infinity). Flow meaning quite
literally, since pythagoreanism posited the universe as literally
built out of numbers. From the
monad
evolved the dyad; (or duality), from it numbers; from numbers,
points; then lines, two-dimensional entities, three-dimensional
entities, bodies, culminating in the four elements earth, water, fire
and air, from which the rest of our world is built up.

The monad was not seen as sentient
although it was seen as the ultimate in divinity. And so obviously
parallels the great will in this way. Which you'll note actually is a
common theme in many things. A form of more abstract divinity above
more tangible ones, with the abstract one often not really being
independently sentient at all. Note that if you want to make the dds
association, you can also contrast parts of pythagoreanism with
hinduism, and their in game expressions.

Monad has since become a term for
anything resembling concepts such as aristotle's unmoved mover, or
any self-existing immovable ultimate reality from which other things
flowed. In gnosticism it became a term for the highest divinity, but
the gnostics were criticized by pythagoreans for taking out the
mathematical aspects of the concept.

**Gods**. Although to pythagoras, the monad
was the true source of all divinity and ultimate pantheistic reality
that the universal mathematical order flowed from, he did also
believe in the traditional polytheistic gods, of which Zeus was the
head. They were also known to rise early to worship the sun, as
extension of order in nature in general.

### General Cosmology

**Transmigration of souls** was the
Pythagorean term for reincarnation of human souls after death into
new bodies. This is an idea it seems to have taken in from orphism, a
religion which existed at that time. They believed they could be
reborn not only as animals, or in the underworld, but even be born on
the rank of the gods, with different stations achievable based on
one's life. It is believed that this also led them to believe in
equality of the sexes, since they believed that souls might be born
as one or the other interchangeably, and so the person themselves
were not distinguished by it. Interestingly, since they also believed
in reincarnation dds may have been inspired by them as a side to its
main Hindu inspirations.

**Wheel of Birth.** The Pythagoreans
believed that a release from the "wheel of birth" was
possible through a life of philosophy and contemplation. What appears
to not be clear due to lack of primary sources is whether they
believed reaching the level of the gods was itself the final goal,
and the freedom, or whether that was merely another step, and one
could become one with the monad and be beyond even the realm of the
gods. And whether or not your stay with the gods was permanent.

**Void** to pythagoreans was a thing
seen as the existence of emptiness between two things, which needs to
be funneled into them to distinguish things from eachother. It it
enters the heaven from the unlimited breath which, so to speak,
breathes in void. The void
distinguishes the natures of things, since it is the thing that
separates and distinguishes the successive terms in a series. This
happens in the first case of numbers; for the void distinguishes
their nature, and by extension this relates to the same void which
distinguishes objects from eachother in the natural world. In other
words, the monad in the world was infinite and limitless and without
distinction, and empty spaces need to exist to create distinction.

**Central Fire, "Watch-tower of**
**Zeus**" or "**Hearth-altar of the universe**." At the
center of the Universe is a central fire, around which the Earth,
Sun, Moon and planets revolve uniformly. The earth revolves around
the central fire, but its same face always faces away from it, so the
people on the surface never see it. (alternately, since no mention
was made of earth's shape, perhaps there was another continent which
did. This shows up in later Pythagorean beliefs.) As the name
implies, this was often also seen as the home of zeus and the other
gods. Interestingly enough, there is once again a parallel to DDS2.
Because although they did not identify the central tower as the sun
directly, its description closely parallels a kind of super sun. And
being the home of the gods is similar to Go being the sun in DDS2. There is no indication of this being intentional however.

**Antichthon** or counter earth was a
planet of equal size and shape as earth, which was posited to be on
the other side of the central fire in the same orbit as earth, so
that it was never visible. Alternately, some interpretations may
have posited it as between earth and the central fire. Some said that
this was put there by zeus to prevent humans looking at the throne of
zeus directly.

## Symbols

**The tetractys** or **tetrad**, is a
triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows:
one, two, three, and four points in each row, which is the
geometrical representation of the fourth triangular number. As a
mystical symbol, it was very important to the secret worship of the
Pythagoreans, as it contained within it all the representations from
monad to dyad all the way to the perfect number at 10. A prayer of
the Pythagoreans shows the importance of the
Tetractys
(sometimes called the "Mystic Tetrad"), as the prayer was
addressed to it. Since this represents all numbers, it was meant to
represent their relation to an generation of the world as a whole,
and its mathematically based structures.

**The Pentagram** is the five pointed
star
made of five lines, with the lines crossing through eachother forming
a pentagon in the middle. This was used by the pythagoreans sometimes
including letters at the ends of the points, usually to represent
humans, as not only were humans extended in the shape of a five
pointed star to him. (Counting each limb as a point) Likewise, it
represented the five elements that composed man, being fire, water,
air, earth, and , and psyche. (energy, fluid, breath, matter, and
mind; also liquid, gas, solid, plasma, and aethyr, or spirit) The
Pythagoreans held the pentacle sacred to Hygeia, the Goddess of
healing, whose name (HGIEiA) was an anagram in Greek for the elements
water, earth, spirit, fire, and air.

## **Ethics**

**Pythagorean ethics** comes from the
drawing out of implications for intentional behavior from one's view
of the basic structure of being: if being itself is a certain way,
then it follows that one should live in a certain way based on the
order of the world. And they thought that thus at least in concept,
even ethics could be explained mathematically. Unfortunately, much of
its work is lost, including that of its ethical theory which leaves
rather less to go on than one can hope for. Not much is known about
their ethics other than that they advocated vegetarianism, and were
against animal cruelty. This was in part based on their idea of
reincarnations, thinking animals were continuous with humans, and were
reincarnations of them. The term pythagorean diet was actually used
up until the coining of the word vegetarian in the last few hundred
years.