Philosophers in the Technological Age E-Book

Ulrich Richter Morales

• Herausgeber: Océano
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Claves. Sociedad, economía, política
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 398

Beschreibung

Greek philosophers built great discussions about reality, which are still current in our times and still inspire today's great thinkers. From mathematical teachings by Pythagoras, encompassing Plato's and Aristotle's ideas, these great discussions have been essential for our present intelectual development. Today, however, this role has been adopted by a new class of visionaries. Brought together by this new Platonic Academy based in Stanford University; devoted to proving and making use of the supremacy of numbers and mathematics in the digital world; intent on finding the new Holy Grail embodied in the perfect algorithm, present time's entrepreneurs of new technologies have radically transformed, for good or otherwise, the world as we know it. Ulrich Richter Morales delves deep into the legacy – sometimes clear, sometimes mystical and esoteric – of the Pythagoreans in their diverse historical incarnations. He particularly emphasizes their dominant role in these digital times, while he introduces a debate regarding the sort of machines we ought to develop. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among others, are declared heirs of the Mathematician from Samos and, always engrossed in polemic discussions, they are inseparable from our concept of how the world works. Getting to know them as persons and as thinkers is a way to better understand modern day life and our role as citizens, in the unstable, volatile grounds we tread on today.

Leseprobe

For the Pythagoreans I love: Claudia, Regina, and Renata

PROLOGUE

It is a great privilege for me to have been entrusted by the author to write this prologue on such a special piece of work. Ulrich Richter Morales is an accomplished writer, columnist, and activist with an extraordinary political, social, and spiritual intuition. He is also an outstanding international lawyer and at the same time a passionate and determined seeker of knowledge. Finally, and by far the most important to me, he is a dear friend.

In this work, Ulrich Richter strongly strays from the core subject of his previous publications, courageously, simply, and intelligently delving into such complicated matters as philosophy, history, science, technology, and spirituality, and their relationship with our current world. These issues have certainly transformed our planet by upending the behavior and lifestyle of human beings, and, despite being perceived by many as foreign, they share common patterns and threads that interweave and bring about profound changes in awareness, values, and knowledge.

This work is part of that revolution, and its author will walk us through it in an intriguing manner, to help us understand and connect their meeting points.

He skillfully brings together the philosophers of ancient Greece with the great technological leaders of our times who, despite being enthusiasts of numbers, treasure knowledge and are sought after in the desire to acquire it.

The difference between the former and the latter lies in the fact that while not many had access to ancient knowledge, the expertise currently spread by technological giants has significantly increased the number of wisdom seekers throughout the world.

We will learn that writing this book entailed a long and thorough philosophical, historical, esoteric, and scientific study, as well as deep contact with the culture and society of our present complicated world.

Throughout this work, Richter overcomes the difficult task of transcending the boundaries of time and space connecting Ancient Times with the Modern Age. The reader will find particular synchronisms, parallelisms, coincidences, and analogies which will amaze him; for instance: Ancient Greece and Silicon Valley; the Great Libraries of Alexandria and El Escorial and Google and Amazon, or Plato’s Academy and Stanford.

We will navigate among numbers and letters, between the mystical and the practical, and even between the scientific and the esoteric.

As a psychologist and an enthusiast of spirituality, one of the things that impressed me the most about this book is the inclusion of topics as profound as the Kabbalah, best defined as the deepest understanding and interpretation of the Judeo-Christian mysticism.

An anecdote comes to mind; in many previous conversations we had shared ideas about the spirituality, the magic and the truthfulness of numerology, and their interpretation, together with one of the core ideas of this book: that Pythagoras was not simply a great mathematician and philosopher making vast contributions to mankind, but that he was also widely regarded as a legend and an ascended Master who had severe influence over the lives of great thinkers such as Plato and Euclid, as illustrated later on.

One day, while my friend Ulrich was writing this book, he invited me to have lunch at his home. He was thrilled, with dozens of books and notes arranged on his desk, which he was consulting and studying. from among of all of them, he was particularly excited about a page depicting Pythagoras’ famous tetractys; an equilateral triangle formed by 10 dots arranged in four rows, which, as will be discussed below, is an essential part of this work.

The tetractys came to be regarded by the Pythagoreans as a mystical symbol, and it is said to be a fundamental part of the Pythagorean religion. It was so relevant it came to be considered as the key to all harmonies ruling the world, and its progressive summation is the perfect number for Pythagoreans. Evidently, when I heard of this, I could think of none other than the Creator.

Its mysticism immediately caught my attention and, as I was totally ignorant of the subject and I am a good digital citizen, I set out to navigate the oceans of the Internet. Thus, I found something that was utterly mesmerizing: an adaptation from tetragrammaton to tetractys.

In the Kabbalah, tetragrammaton is the secret name of God, so called because it is constituted by four letters. It is said that God only discloses the true pronunciation of His name to his chosen ones, for knowing its pronunciation can profoundly alter reality, and that would evidently call for very progressive responsibility and wisdom.

One of the branches of study of the Kabbalah, known as gematria, explains that each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical equivalent, which in turn allows us, in the profound study of this mystical science, to reveal different meanings and levels of interpretation of both words and passages of the Bible.

Gematria also points out another interesting fact; the result of adding up the letters that make up the tetragrammaton is 26 and, oddly enough, the number of Jesus’ name in Hebrew, “Jeshua”, is also 26.

So, it was wrapped up in this magic, mysticism and synchronicity of numbers that I found the mentioned adequation of tetragrammaton to tetractys.

In this image, arranging the four letters of tetragrammaton and progressively and gematrically adding up the numeric equivalents of each of its letters, yields number 72.

The Kabbalah reveals the use of the 72 names of God, by establishing an astounding connection between tetragrammaton and tetractys, a convergence of mystical and numerical worlds.

What I want to convey by sharing this story is that within the lines of this book, there is magic too!

And on another train of thought, upon reading this book, our ethical reflection is automatically and unavoidably aroused by the impact of artificial intelligence and the leaders of technological giants on our lives. This is particularly true due to the impressive number of people they reach and our vulnerability in terms of the way they handle the information they disclose and its consequences. We must remember that today, when we want to know something about any subject, we quickly perform a search on Google.

We must understand that all technological and scientific innovations must add value to the systems and products stemming from them, in order to improve upcoming life and common good.

Knowledge and technology are neither good nor bad, they simply depend on the actions of the user.

However, wisdom is far greater than knowledge, partly because it is constituted by heart and reason. Let’s remember what King Solomon asked God, “grant me an understanding heart so I can rule your people and know the difference between good and evil.” God, as stated in this passage, was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom and thus granted him what he requested, a wise and understanding heart like no other anyone has ever heard of, and never will. “I will also give you what you did not ask of me: wealth and fame. No other king in the world will compare to you as long as you shall live.”

This is a book that strives to strengthen the bond between science and spirituality, between technology and philosophy, between human heart and brain.

In short, this book entices us not only to learn and be amazed, to make connections and record important data, it also encourages us to know and touch the foundations of our reality and nature, in the deepest wells of knowledge. In perfect parallel with the spirit of the author, it compels us to humbly realize how little we know and how much there is to be learned, to persevere in the eternal and fascinating quest for knowledge and wisdom, as the ancient philosophers and mystics of our planetary history always did.

FERNANDO SILICEO FERNÁNDEZ

Mexico City, November 2021

INTRODUCTION

If we go back to the past and reflect on the early civilizations and their teachings, it is evident that searching for accuracy in the order of nature was not enough; it was also important to explain its effect on human beings. We are referring way back, to the origin of philosophy, whose first champions were mathematicians as well as philosophers. Now we see that some current technological or digital leaders, through their inventions, aim to philosophize according to this similarity with ancient Greece. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the fact that their inventions disrupt the behavior of human beings, for better or for worse; this is why machines have revolutionized industry. And not only that; it is also noteworthy to say that this technological era has changed the way we live together. New corporations, mostly located in Silicon Valley, are changing the world and, delving even deeper, they are, actually, contriving the future of mankind.

An important portion of this book addresses the relationship between ancient Greek philosophers and current technological leaders. It analyzes whether there is a link between the Pythagorean school (mathematical and philosophical) and the cited present leaders, through their technological innovations, which highlight the presence of a new revolution presently known as the technological era.

Therefore, right from the beginning we start at the question: what is the relationship between thinkers of ancient cultures and the technological revolution? The answer might surprise you, since the pursuit of explanations and knowledge was the spark which triggered the development of abstract thinking in the past, translated thousands of years later into cyber language by the predecessors of the technological companies which currently generate, develop, and produce a significant part of existing knowledge.

You may contend that tech leaders don’t philosophize, but it is undeniable that their innovations have changed the way we live together, attending school through the use of a technological contraption, doing business and digital transactions; we could even say that there is in fact a digital economy.

All of these changes carried out by Mathematicians have continued to evolve up to the present day, according to technological advances, and this has given rise to tech giants and startups occupying global trends on the Internet.

Internet has indeed become the best assistant for businesses and students alike. For years now, perhaps more than two decades, people have been surfing the Internet. Nowadays we spend much of our life online, through a device that has become our third arm. In fact, our cell phone, presently a smartphone, runs software programs we know as Apps or mobile apps.

If we delve into the dawning of the technological age, we find traces of it for centuries, which surprises us and takes us back to a time before our age, to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece; to the onset of philosophy and its first champions, who shared their expertise or knowledge in two sciences: philosophy and mathematics. It was through their teachings that they bestowed on us their knowledge and, on some selected ones, even their wisdom for hundreds of years.

Brace yourself, because this book also has its own networks, more hermetic and mysterious than digital, with some champions who make it more interesting; therefore, an open mind is essential to navigate the mysticism hidden among the predecessors of the technological age.

The book is framed in four interconnected elements: 1) ancient Greek philosophers; 2) mathematics; 3) present technological leaders, and finally, the most mysterious or bold: 4) who are the current Pythagorean philosophers. Therefore, as I have pointed out, we must go back to the very beginning of philosophy, to its inception, to study its legacy in order to establish its heirs or, if the case may be, to find out whether some Greek philosophers reincarnated in the current leaders of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, and Alibaba, among others.

A characteristic feature of the reflections of ancient philosophers and the Greeks’ perspective on the world, which will be reviewed later on, is consistent with current tech leaders. This may seem exaggerated; however, we will reflect on this in the first chapter.

The purpose of that chapter is to unravel the connection between the train of thought of ancient Greek philosophers and Egyptian vestiges, and the reasoning or segment of mathematics which have significantly influenced the world’s current technological progress. At the same time, this book outlines which sciences initially integrated mathematics and the origin of numbers, as well as traces from thousands of years ago which prove their existence, such as the tablets themselves, only not from Amazon, but rather from Babylon.

We mustn’t forget that in ancient times there were philosophical schools, such as: 1) the Pythagoreans, 2) Plato’s Academy, and 3) Aristotle’s academy. Today, we deliberate which are the schools or colleges granting degrees to those mathematical geniuses that are diversifying present ways of thinking or acting, conforming not only future generations but also present ones as well. Thus, as I mentioned, they are changing the world.

This first chapter ends with some of the pre-Socratic philosophers, including Thales of Miletus and Anaximander, among others, and their relation with mathematics and hermetic philosophy.

The second chapter begins with another pre-Socratic thinker, the sage of Samos, one of the mythical characters present in multiple legends, who considered that numbers are the origin of the world, and that is why their several links to mathematics are addressed. We will dive into the magic number of the Pythagoreans, which will come to life in the technological era, ending with the mysterious relationship between Pythagoras and the Kabbalah.

The life of Pythagoreans is a legend, and there are numerous versions regarding their existence and teachings. We have received their legacy thanks to the disciples of the fraternity they founded. Such is the subject matter of the third chapter, along with two of their main representatives: Philolaus of Croton and Archytas of Tarentum.

In that chapter we will also find the influence of Pythagoras over another outstanding philosopher, Plato. Then we will study Euclid and finish with sacred geometry and two of its representatives, who have also turned out to be technological geniuses: Luca Pacioli, the extraordinary Leonardo da Vinci, and sculptor Sebastian, the Mexican Pythagorean.

The fourth chapter focuses on the topic of the technological monarchs and their relation with knowledge, as they have gone to great lengths to hoard and treasure it. For instance, Bill Gates bought the Leicester Codex, by Leonardo da Vinci. Additionally, Google and Amazon have been compared to the libraries of Alexandria and that of King Felipe II, of Spain.

At the Royal Monastery of Saint Lawrence at El Escorial, the Catholic king left US his legacy through the frescos in his library, depicting the mathematical philosophers of Ancient Times. and to top it all off, the temple itself is considered a masterpiece of sacred geometry.

Much like King Felipe, tech giant Google has accrued and treasured knowledge with Google Books, and Amazon included, among its flagship businesses, the sale of e-books, through Kindle.

The fifth chapter is devoted to the analysis of the technological era’s current oracle, and to the biography of its founders: I am obviously referring to Google and its creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as to another genius and CEO for many years, Eric Schmidt, and finally, to Sundar Pichai.

The sixth chapter addresses, among others, tech giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook, currently known as Meta, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Alibaba, Tencent and Samsung, as well as some of their innovations and the great power they have consolidated.

The seventh chapter is devoted to the technological geniuses or Sheiks, including John Vincent Atanasoff, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Jack Ma, or Carlos Slim Helú, among others.

The eighth chapter refers to the Holy Grail and its relation to the Templar Knights, as well as to their upgrades in this technological era, through the search for the mathematical formula which grants it life and which we know as algorithm. It analyzes its origins in the time of Aristotle, together with its concept, kinds, and importance.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the core topic of the ninth chapter; incidentally one of the most fascinating and controversial topics of this work. Philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians have dedicated their lives to defining the meaning of this term. Due to its relevance, it is necessary to muse this topic over in order to better understand what we are experiencing today in this digital age, particularly in order to be able to comprehend the direction that the development of mankind is taking in most fields, namely society, science, health, etc.

The last chapter contains an analysis of the connections and similarities between the Pythagorean School and some of the technological giants, to end up unraveling the following question: who are the current Pythagorean philosophers?

The text takes an important turn after exposing technological genius Alan Turing and psychologist Ouspensky, a student of mystic and hermetic Gurdjieff, which leads us to the last mystery of this book.

I hope you enjoy it and become a philosopher as a result of the essence of its outcome.