pizine

Soul, nothing but infinity closing, constantly.
-Phil Cousineau

In Plato’s “Myth of Er” the souls, having left their dead bodies behind on earth, line up to choose their new lives according to lot. Those who draw the first numbers receive first choice from the immense pool of possible lives. The departed souls, in other words, rely upon a random process of ordering, i.e., on mathematics, to help determine the nature of their immortality. But mathematics is more than a practical aid to the soul. To Plato and the ancient Greeks, indeed, to a surprising number of individuals throughout history, mathematics has been a way of defining and understanding the soul….  To read this full entry, go to Sarah’s Notebook.