"Wheel of Birth" and Scientific Contemplation
The Pythagoreans believed that a release from the "wheel of birth" was possible. They followed the Orphic traditions and practices to purify the soul but at the same time they suggested a deeper idea of what such a purification might be. Aristoxenus said that music was used to purify the soul just like medicine was used to purge the body. But in addition to this, Pythagoreans distinguished three kinds of lives: Theoretic, Practical and Apolaustic. Pythagoras is said to have used the example of Olympic games to distinguish between these three kind of lives. Pythagoras suggests that the lowest class of people who come to the games are the people who come to buy or sell. The next higher class comprises people who come to participate in the games. And the highest class contains people who simply come to look on. Thus Pythagoras suggests that the highest purification of a life is in pure contemplation. It is the philosopher who contemplates about science and mathematics who is released from the "cycle of birth." The pure mathematician's life is, according to Pythagoras, the life at the highest plane of existence.
Thus the root of mathematics and scientific pursuits in Pythagoreanism is also based on a spiritual desire to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death. It is this contemplation about the world that forms the greatest virtue in Pythagorean philosophy.
Read more about this topic: Pythagoreanism
Famous quotes containing the words wheel of, wheel, birth and/or scientific:
“You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.”
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Are not in time and space.
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plant a foot upon,
Were never in any place.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)
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