Talk:Pythagoras

Pythagoras and "smoke trapping"?

In the "Teachings" section, the article states: "Pythagoras and his followers reportedly had a spiritual practice known as 'smoke trapping'. This involved entering an enclosed space, typically a cave, and lighting a fire until noxious fumes filled the room. They would inhale the smoke and would experience vivid hallucinations due to oxygen deprivation and hypercapnia. They supposedly would see divine geometric shapes and patterns which they would copy onto the walls with charcoal to be analyzed at a later point."

This might be a hoax, though an amusing one. The source attached to the claim, Cornford, F. M. (1922). "Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition", states nothing of the sort. I haven't come across any descriptions of this "pythagorean" practice in the standard literature on Pythagoras or the Pythagoreans. It is fairly often mentioned that Pythagoras was an occasional cave dweller (Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, among others), but proof of this "smoke trapping" eludes me. Even somewhat tendentious texts on Pythagoras' hallucinations, e.g., Hillman (2008). The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization, do not mention smoke trapping. Herodotus has something of the sort in Histories (IV:74-75), but he is writing about Scythians, hemp seeds, and tents. If this claim is substantiated in respectable scholarship, an appropriate source ought to be added. As it is, following the source attached to this paragraphs leads nowhere. Lasseromer (talk) 14:13, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't have access to the Cornford article, but if you've read it and it doesn't support the information in the paragraph, you're welcome to just delete the paragraph (with an edit summary explaining why). Alternatively, you can insert a {{Failed verification}} template after the reference. Deor (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Inre the material removed at special:diff/1210767847, all I can find that seems vaguely related are two passage from Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras (a source which substantially consists of mythical nonsense anyway):

"After walking, they bathed, and then assembled in the place where they eat together, not more than ten eating together. Libations and sacrifices were performed with fumigations and frankincense. Then the supper was eaten and finished before sunset."

"He sacrificed to the Gods with millet, cakes and honeycombs and other fumigations. But neither he nor any one of the contemplative philosophers sacrificed animals."

According to Sumler (2017) JSTOR 10.2307/arion.25.1.0099, there's also an ancient papyrus, "PGM 7.795–845", which contains:

a spell for a dream divination and boasts its lineage from the philosophers Pythagoras and Democritus. For three nights the user must burn frankincense and speak a formula. Before the expected divination, he must burn incense over a laurel branch and go to sleep with it on his head.

footnote: Pliny (24.102, 25.5) often cites the works of these two philosophers in his discussion of plants and their psychoactive properties.

There were certainly ancient Greek rituals, e.g. oracular visions, involving breathing psychoactive fumes. Maybe someone confused Pythia with Pythagoras. The "smoke trapping" thing, i.e. sitting in a cave next to a wood fire to cause delirium via asphyxia, sounds made up. –jacobolus (t) 18:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2023

Evidence has revealed Pythagoras's Journal in Rome with a body holding it. 204.8.62.75 (talk)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. HouseBlaster^talk 22:19, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Wow...I can't even find any UNRELIABLE sources for this "journal in Rome", even among the usual suspects for propagating this kind of junk.--ElectroNautical (talk) 16:27, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Annotating the see also list?

Having crashed and burned with my last edit, best I invite comment on this proposal before doing anything in live space.

The See also list currently reads

• Cosmos
• Ex pede Herculem
• Isopsephy (gematria)
• List of things named after Pythagoras
• Lute of Pythagoras
• Pythagoras tree (fractal)
• Pythagorean comma
• Pythagorean cup
• Pythagorean triple
• Pythagoras (sculptor)
• Sacred geometry
• Baudhāyana sūtras

I would like to expose the wp:short descriptions of these articles, to give readers a clue as to their content, thus:

• Cosmos – Universe as a complex and orderly system or entity
• Ex pede Herculem – A maxim of proportionality
• Isopsephy – Numerological connection between words whose letters' number values have equal sums
  • gematria – Numerological practice of reading a word or phrase as a number
• List of things named after Pythagoras
• Lute of Pythagoras – Self-similar geometric figure
• Pythagoras tree (fractal) – A plane fractal constructed from squares
• Pythagorean comma – Small interval between musical notes
• Pythagorean cup – Cup with a central siphon drain
• Pythagorean triple – Integer side lengths of a right triangle
• Pythagoras (sculptor) – Ancient Greek sculptor of Samos/Rhegion
• Sacred geometry – Symbolic and sacred meanings ascibed to certain geometric shapes
• Baudhāyana sūtras – Group of Vedic Sanskrit textsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Any concerns? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Don't worry about the previous issue JMF; you acted in good faith. As for your proposal, it is justified per MOS:SEEALSO; i thus support it. Furthermore, sacred geometry appears as a piped link in the article's body, while Pythagoras (sculptor) appears in a hatnote at the top of the page; they can be removed from the section. Demetrios1993 (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I dramatically cut down the list, as most of the entries seemed inappropriate, and then made explicit inline annotations for the rest. –jacobolus (t) 20:20, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the annotated links were inappropriate; they were in line with MOS:SEEALSO. Furthermore, in your edit summary you wrote that "most of this stuff [that was removed] is not relevant to this article, or else is already mentioned" (diff). Though many of these removals were links to tangentially related topics, and also in line with WP:SEEALSO, I suppose keeping just the list of things named after Pythagoras is probably better; in that case, the Pythagorean cup also needs to be removed. Also, one of the Baudhayana sutras is comparable to the Pythagorean theorem, and maybe not an ideal inclusion in this particular article. About Isopsephy and Sacred geometry, it is probably better to include such links along with relevant content in the article itself. For example, regarding isopsephy, we could add a summary of the following passage from the book Alphanumeric Cosmology From Greek into Arabic (2020) by Juan Acevedo (ORCID 0000-0002-5330-9672):

• pp. 42–44: As an adjective, ἰσόψηφος is applied to words in which the values of letters added together make up the same total, like ΝΟΜΟΣ (law) = ΑΡΙΘΜΟΣ (number) = 430, ΔΙΟΣ (of Zeus) = ΘΕΟΣ (deity) = 284; naturally anagrams will share the same value, like ΚΡΑΤΟΣ (strength) = ΑΡΚΤΟΣ (a bear) = 691. A famous example reported by Suetonius (Nero 39, 2) is an indictment of the matricidal emperor,
  Νέρων ἰδίαν μητέρα ἀπέκτεινε.
  NERO = he slew his own mother.
  where both sides of the equality total 1005.
  ...
  Such ἰσόψηφα, found in coins, sculptures, paintings and poems are at the basis of ὀνοματομαντεία, a divination through names, or rather a divination of names, whereby concepts are explained through numerical identity. The point, though, is not 'to find a coincidental equivalence between words. It means that there is a direct relationship between these words,' recalling 'the meaning of "symbol" in the ancient world – objects that participated in and made present the person or object they symbolized.' Hippolytus (Haer. 4.13) gives a detailed explanation of the procedure used, and he speaks of the practice as a 'Pythagorean reckoning' (Πυθαγορείος ψήφος) heeded by 'those who invent a serious philosophy' δι᾽ ἀριθμῶν καὶ στοιχείων, 'through numbers and letters', who believe they can 'prophesy by means of reckonings and numbers, letters and names' (διὰ ψήφων τε καὶ ἀριθμῶν, στοιχείων τε καὶ ὀνομάτων μαντεύεσθαι – 4.14), and also that they can 'discern life' (τὸ ζῆν διακρίνειν – 4.15). It is remarkable that from the earliest datable mention of this practice in Greek literature (Iamblichus, VP 18, 147) there is an association with Pythagoras.

Last, the section didn't repeat links that appear in the article's body; the links that were in fact being repeated in the past, were noted above, and were subsequently removed by JMF (diff). Demetrios1993 (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

'Short descriptions' are generally less appropriate as topical annotations on 'see also' lists than annotations written specifically for the page, because the short descriptions are only specifically intended to be used for disambiguation of links in on-site search results lists, which is a substantially different context that generally doesn't overlap super well with the context of a 'see also' list on a particular article.

I removed the items which were named after Pythagoras much later based on tenuous multi-step links – e.g. the Pythagoras tree fractal which is named that because it involves squares on the three sides of triangles, an idea related to the so-called Pythagorean theorem, but was invented in the 1940s and is not directly relevant to Pythagoras the person – but left the topics that come from antiquity and are attributed directly to Pythagoras, even though these attributions are apocryphal and probably made up – namely the Pythagorean cup and the Ex pede Herculem story/phrase. If there are other things directly attributed to Pythagoras that aren't previously mentioned/linked in the article I think those could also go in such a list, but it seems to me that throwing every entry in List of things named after Pythagoras onto this list would be unhelpful.

The see also list didn't make it clear why Isopsephy or Sacred geometry is directly relevant, and the connection is not immediately obvious to me. This would be a place where a descriptive article-specific annotation could make it clearer why someone thinks one of these list entries belongs. If you want to integrate those into the article that also sounds fine, assuming there are serious scholarly sources directly linking them to Pythagoras.

See also lists tend to accumulate lots of cruft as random passers-by throw things onto them based on their own mental associations. We should try to keep these lists trimmed to items where the relationship is pretty direct / that seem likely to directly benefit readers. (Though frankly no 'see also' section at all is also fine for many articles.) –jacobolus (t) 19:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Fast Tracking a Good Article reassessment?

Sorry folks, I KNOW I am supposed to add new topics at the bottom, but (a) there are very serious problems starting in the lead, (b) this article is too important to leave these kind of errors unaddressed and (c) I simply don't have time to prioritize improving the article before requesting reassessment.

I'm hoping to solicit help from previous editors or those with interest and experience making this article more encyclopedic.

Among the biggest problems I see in the lead, one un-sourced assertion that stands out is...

"..many of the accomplishments credited to him likely originated earlier or were made by his colleagues or successors. Some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important, but it is debated to what extent, if at all, he actually contributed to mathematics or natural philosophy."

This kind of 'bold statement' (opinionated summary of various opinions) in the lead needs extraordinary proof referenced immediately following with specific examples. Seemingly everyone agrees (including the experts themselves) that almost everything about his life is mere speculation based on apocryphal legends.

The lead should me MUCH shorter, focus on 'little is actually known' and make sure that controversial references to unproven and unprovable stuff like 'aspects of vegetarianism' ?!?!? are moved elsewhere. Writing style and dialectics are also big problems. Vegetarianism is by definition a binary thing -- either you eat ONLY from the plant kingdom or you don't. We are leading readers to the conclusion that not only was Pythagoras preaching about the ethics of eating animal protein, he was also a hypocrite in choosing the 'aspects' of vegetarianism he liked.

I'm going to take a stab at some more-than-minor edits I HOPE will be non-controversial, but well aware that multiple editors here must have shared the PoV's that led to acceptance of the lead as it is.

As I find it, this article gives WP:UNDUE weight to speculations about the silliest and most controversial of these apocryphal tales and could be summed up with a "He was a whack-job", which segues nicely to...'smoke trapping' ElectroNautical (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Well...I just realized the article is protected. I hope someone can help. If it cannot be unprotected, what are the options? I don't want to resort to requesting reassessment, but the recommendation to "prioritize improving" is not available to me. Thoughts? ElectroNautical (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

"needs extraordinary proof referenced immediately" – This is an entirely uncontroversial claim, widely accepted among scholars, with nothing particularly "bold" about it. Discussion of this point is well sourced in the relevant section of the article, and doesn't need a footnote parade redundantly pasted into the lead section. –jacobolus (t) 16:37, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

What jacobolus said. XOR'easter (talk) 15:02, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2024

Please add the following item to «MODERN SECONDARY SOURCES» : ● WISER, Jean-François (2024) Pythagoras' Archives - A Sum of Pythagoreanism / ISBN-13 : 978-2322525287 PYTHAGORE46 (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Comment: This is apparently a self-published book. It's not cited in the article, so it doesn't belong under "Modern secondary sources" in the "References" section. I doubt that it would be suitable even in the "Further reading" section. Deor (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This seems like a self-published book by an amateur without professional experience in the subject? –jacobolus (t) 21:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Not a reliable source per above. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 00:26, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

This is indeed a «self-published book» written by an «amateur». But «professionals» certainly don't have the privilege of knowledge. Wouldn't you read a bit of it (see AMAZON or GOOGLE BOOKS samples) before dismissing ? Thank you. J-F.WISER PYTHAGORE46 (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

See WP:reliable source 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Very occasionally self-published books by amateurs can be used as sources in Wikipedia, but generally that only happens when the work is widely cited by experts in the field, which doesn't happen immediately after publication.

Absent strong countervailing evidence, self-published works are not considered to be "reliable sources" by Wikipedia. This policy is not intended to reflect on the merits of any particular work; it just simplifies the messy process of managing an encyclopedia written by pseudonymous volunteer editors. –jacobolus (t) 14:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)