The amazing scientific wisdom of Plato and Proclus.
By
Graziano Baccolini
When has
taken the humanity the wrong road ?
This is a question that a lot of
people asked themselves when they begin to study without prejudice the ancient
civilizations that have preceded us from different thousand of years. They note
that in many fields the ancients were very advanced and that we have acquired
certain ancient knowledge only recently and that we have neglected and often
derided the ancient cognizance as imaginations or fought as heresies.
Why has this happened? If this would
not happened the humanity would be very
different and it would be probably to the conquest of the space already by
several centuries. We would not find us to put this question and to ascertain
that the humanity has often suffered mental regressions. Our science and
so-called high technology make us believe to be at the best of human evolution.
On contrary, probably we are at
worse of the mental regression being incapable to recognize what are the
fundamental values that make really evolved a civilization whatever is its
historical moment and technological advancement. Before giving an answer, I
think would be useful to consider some evidences that I have noted during my
readings and then the answer will come
as obvious consequence.
The
amazing scientific wisdom of the ancients: Plato and Proclus.
Plato (Rome, Musei Capitolini) and Proclus (Museum in Athens)
Numerous books have been written in
the last years about one lost ancient civilization that had advanced knowledge
in different fields, but academic culture has not taken yet seriously in
examination such observation neither explained as the ancient civilizations
were able to possess knowledge in the various fields comparable to ours and
sometimes superior to ours.
We find again in the writings of
Egyptians or Sumerians fragment of knowledge in astronomic field, mathematical,
physician, pharmaceutical, metalworker, judicial etc that they seem unthinkable
that were known 5 thousand years ago . For example certain knowledge of
astronomy as the precession of the equinoxes, or of nuclear physics that we
know from about few ten years, they were already noted to the ancient people.
If we read the texts of Plato
(428-327 B.C) or his followers' Commentary,
the so-called Neo-platonics as Proclo (412-485 AC) we find scientific knowledge
noted to us only from few decades and also still unknown to the most of the
contemporary cultured people.
We can quote some sentences of
Proclo:
""(...) it is evident that in the Skies (Universe) earth
(material) and fire subsist, but above all the fire that defines the essence of
the Sky, even if every other element is consubstantial to it. (...) As the
elements are conceived pure, in a certain sense, but in another they are mixed,
and their mixture produces the skies that contain all the things in form and
quality of fire.(..) The Fire of the celestial bodies is light and bright, and
it have not to be confuse with the dark
and heavy fire of the regions of the
Earth. The Fire of Sky is not fire but
only energy..""
( Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s “Timaeus “. Lib.III)
As you can see i
n this passage there are exposed in
simple way, using terms comprehensible to any person also not cultured,
concepts of chemistry and nuclear and stellar physics that only expert people
in these fields can fully understand in their exactness and for such motive I
think that these sentences have not been takings in serious consideration in
the their true meant by Historians and Philosophers , who
generally does not know the Sciences, and then they affirm that these sentences
are only fantasies .
If a contemporary man of Sciences
reading these lines gives to the word element
the meaning that every chemist knows and if
to the word Earth we replace Mass or Material and to word Fire we
replace with the word Energy (as
also Proclo declares at the end ) all this statement becomes clear but also amazing. It
cannot be known, using only the imagination, that all the Elements ( of the Periodical Table) are conceived pure in a
process of nuclear fusion on the stars.
This knowledge has been being
ascertained only in the last decades
after rigorous studies of nuclear physics.
Proclo says, as now we know, that the Universe (the Skies) is formed
above all of Energy,” the fire that constitutes
the essence of it, but every element
(the material ) is consubstantial
to the energy. Mass and energy are connect among them. Also this scientific
truth has been ascertained only in the last century with the famous equation of
Einstein. The Mass can be turned into Energy and vice versa according to this
relationship (E = mc2).
In the explosion of the supernovas
or other stellar entities energy is emitted and the combination of the various
elements is also obtained, their mixture
produces the skies, and this produces the material which forms non-stellar
objects as the planets, the comets or the interstellar gas. This knowledge has
been discovered only in the last century but we can now wonder, with amazement,
as Proclo can know how the universe was formed;
know that the elements are formed pure, in the atomic state, in the
processes of nuclear fusion on the stars. We know only that Plato and others as
Pythagora and the Atomists had drawn this knowledge from the ancient Egyptians
.
A lot of these knowledge, certainly
incomprehensible also for them, were handed down by generations and
subsequently probably turn into myth or in fantastic epic. I believe that the myth was born from the necessity to
preserve this knowledge that however the reason didn't succeed in
understanding.
I think that in such way Plato
turned the whole Physics and the Cosmology into myths because he didn't succeed
in understanding with the reason this knowledge that he had received as
initiate of the mysteries of Egyptians or as follower of the Pythagoreans.
In particular the ancient Greek
philosophers, not knowing fully the meaning of this, made notable changes to these
"myths" that were derived from the so-called mysteries or rites of
Egyptians or of Babylonians. Subsequently these myths were considered the fruit
of very fanciful imagination and still today from researchers and teachers it
keeps on saying that their affirmations were fruit of only imagination.
But a serious researcher of experimental
Sciences, as a Chemist, knows that such
physicals results cannot derive by a simple imagination. It would be
practically impossible.
The passage of Proclus, reported
above, is reported in his Commentary on the Timeus of Plato, but re-reading the today's
versions pass on of the Timeus of
Plato (for example second part, 54 - 57) I have noted that many of these concepts are disappeared
or simplified in a manner that are incomprehensible.
Rather for me, that I am not
accustomed to such kind of readings, they seem me senseless discourses and
totally incomprehensible if not raving. But on the contray the Proclo version
is very simple to understand. Very probably in the various transcriptions that
the Plato’s works have suffered, due to the enormous popularity that has encountered
in the various epochs, manipulations and/or deletions have been make to render the text “comprehensible” for that times but wrongly and perhaps for this
they are sometime raving or delirious. It is
as if one person wanted to
translate a book of Nuclear Physics or
Chemistry without having some knowledge of it: It would come out a meaningless
text. The same is
occurred for the Timeus of Plato.
But Proclo, (412-485 A.C) being the director of the Platonic academy in
Athens for many years, must have reads the original text or at least not
manipulated, and therefore he must fully gathered his meaning.
But even if Plato had not so clearly
expressed these concepts in what manner Proclo was able to say them so clearly?
Also he as Plato was an initiate to the Egyptian mysteries and he also followed
the doctrines of Orpheus and of Pythagoras and
being already in the initial time of Christianity for these ideas he was
persecuted as all “pagans” .For this he escaped in Lycia.
Now I report some other interesting and very known sentences of
Plato.
In a
passage of Fedone , Plato says:
(…) I am convinced that the Earth with its form of sphere, doesn't need
of air or of other necessary strength for no throwing down. To hold up the Eart
it is sufficient the diffused homogeneity in the whole sky in every direction
(...)It set pure in the Sky. The bottom
of the Sky constantly flows into the bowels of the Earth. We don’t
understand because we live in these bowels (...) Our air that we call sky, as
it was the other sky where the stars orbit. (...) If a person
reached the vertex of the air sticking out the head it would give a
glance - and as a fish appearing on the surface perceives our world - so he
could see the other sky. That earth, the absolute earth, contemplated from the sky , would appear to the eye, more
or less, as that leather ball with twelve panels with separate colours. A part
is purple of miraculous shine. Another part gold (...) the rest is a show of
sparkling colour in the iride of different colors (...) Plato, Fedone LVII-LVII
The exactness of this image of the earth seen by the sky , as it is described by Plato in the Fedone, has been possible to verify only after the first photos sent to us by our artificial satellites. Plato says also that
” I was convinced of all of this
by a person. To explain this is pure truth, this is more complicated than the
art of Glauco. If I might do it , I have the impression that my life would not
be enough sufficient to explain it(...) Plato, Fedone LVII
.
From this
we can understand that Plato has been convinced above all of
the justness of his vision of the earth
by the high wisdom of the person whose name he cannot be revealed probably
because also Plato was an initiate to these mysteries and for not betray the vote of secretiveness he defines
them only simple imaginations.
Besides it clearly says he doesn't
know how to explain them with the reason but he accepts them as truth because revealed by prestigious
person. How much important was not to
disclose such secrets it was confirmed by the myth of Orpheus .
Some as Pausania, reports 2
that Orpheus was killed by Zeus with a
lightning to have divulged the secrets of the gods.
As you can see , these astronomic scientific
knowledge reported in more ancient
texts, written or transmitted by ancient Priests, have found an exact
confirmation in our contemporary science. For centuries these ancient
"Priests" have hidden the true meaning of their mysteries hiding them
in histories or myths that look like pure imagination. Only their followers or
successors in that position known the true meaning.
Some Greek initiates to these
mysteries, as Plato, were the first ones to reveal this cognizance, that was
lost in the following epochs and often hindered by conceited and intolerant
religions and institutions that have imposed their false truths to the world.
I now wonder me: if we have
succeeded in gathering in these ancient texts, after some millennium is
departed from their primary source, scientific discoveries only now
comprehensible , with a more careful reading of ancient texts , we can probably
find again in these texts knowledges that we don't understand yet and that they
will perhaps demand other centuries before finding their evidence. And as
Proclo says, truth is found in the
ancient ones!
Or my sentences are only Imaginations !!
Prof Graziano Baccolini
Dipartimento di Chimica Organica
Facoltà di Chimica Industriale, Viale Risorgimento 4 , 40136
Università di Bologna , Italy
E
mail:baccolin@ms.fci.unibo.it
http://www.fci.unibo.it/~baccolin/
15
ottobre 2001
Italian version : http://members.xoom.alice.it/Farf/quando.htm
References
1) To have some information on Proclus, philosopher,
mathematician and a little known astronomer despite his notable and upsetting
literary production in different fields, read the monograph of Giovanni Reale Introduction to Proclo Ed Laterza 1989.
2) R. Graves The Greek Myths Ed.Bompiani pg 100 (Pausania, IX, 30,3, II,30 2;III
14 5.)