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"A manifestly artificial signal- even if it were as boring as lists of prime numbers, or the digits of 'pi' - would imply that 'intelli- gence' wasn't unique to the Earth and had evolved elsewhere. The nearest potential sites are so far away that signals would take many years in transit. For this reason alone, transmission would be primarily one-way. There would be time to send a measured response, but no scope for quick repartee!
Any remote beings who could communicate with us would have some concepts of mathematics and logic that paralleled our own. And they would also share a knowledge of the basic particles and forces that govern our universe. Their habitat may be very different (and the biosphere even more different) from ours here on Earth; but they, and their planet, would be made of atoms just like those on Earth. For them, as for us, the most important particles would be protons and electrons: one electron orbiting a proton makes a hydrogen atom, and electric currents and radio transmitters involve streams of electrons. A proton is 1,836 times heavier than an electron, and the number 1,836 would have the same connotations to any 'intelligence' "able and motivated to transmit radio signals. All the basic forces and natural laws would be the same. Indeed, this uniformity - without which our universe would be a far more baffling place - seems to extend to the remotest galaxies that astronomers can study. (Later chapters in this book will, however, speculate about other 'universes', forever beyond range of our telescopes, where different laws may prevail.)
Clearly, alien beings wouldn't use metres, kilograms or seconds. But we could exchange information about the ratios of two masses (such as the ratio of proton and electron masses) or of two lengths, which are 'pure numbers' that don't depend on what units are used: the statement that one rod is ten times as long as another is true (or false) whether we measure lengths / in feet or metres or some alien units
Plutarch; "On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride)" transl. By Frank Cole Babbitt, in Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. V, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University
Plutarch; "On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride)
INTRODUCTION
"PLUTARCH, in this essay on the E at Delphi, tells us that beside the well-known inscriptions at Delphi there was also a representation of the letter E, the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet. The Greek name for this letter was El, and this diphthong, in addition to being used in Plutarch's time as the name of E (which denotes the number five), is the Greek word for" if," and also the word for the second person singular of the verb" to be " (thou art).
In searching for an explanation of the unexplainable it is only natural that the three meanings of El ("five," "if," "thou art") should be examined to see if any hypothesis based on anyone of them might possibly yield a rational explanation; and these hypotheses constitute the skeleton about which is built the body of Plutarch's essay. From it we gain some interesting delineations of character and an engaging portrayal of the way in which a philosopher acts, or reacts, when forced unwillingly to face the unknowable.
Plutarch puts forward seven possible explanations
of the letter: .
(1) It was dedicated by the Wise Men, as a protest against interlopers, to show that their number was actually five and not seven (El = E, five). ' / Page 195
- W Epsilon Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
Epsilon (uppercase E, lower case e or lunate e) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded ... Epsilon(disambiguation) – definition of limit – Epsilon calculus – Latin epsilon
CALCULUS 31333331 CALCULUS
Epsilon Letter
Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel. In the system of Greek numerals it has the value five. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . Wikipedia
Page 71
"There are curious parallels here to the story of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian high god of death and resurrection. The fullest account of the original myth defining this mysterious figure is given by Plutarch4"
JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS
Thomas Mann 1934
Page 888
"To put it bluntly someone had been conspiring against the Pharaoh's life - "
Page 889
"And yet the woman had been in her time a favourite concubine of the Pharaoh, and twelve or thirteen years before, when he still condescended to beget a child, she had born him a son,"
Page 890
"The ancient records dazed her small and scheming brain, so that she made up her mind to have Pharaoh stung by a serpent, to instigate a palace revolt and set on the throne of the two lands not Horus Amenhotep, the rightful heir, who was sickly anyhow, but the fruits of her own womb,..."
Page 890 (8x9x0=72)
"In all there were two-and-seventy conspirators privy to the plot. It was a proper and a pregnant number, for their had been just seventy-two when red Set lured Usir into the chest. And these seventy-two in their turn had had good cosmic ground to be no more or less than that number."
"It was decided to put poison in Pharaoh's bread or his wine or in both; and to use the ensuing confusion for a palace coup."
Page 32
5
To Sorcerers and Magicians number FIVEis the most powerful – five is the mark of the pentacle, a five pointed star drawn by extending the sides of a Pentagon. Five surely is in the possession of the occult. And the Pentagon is the geometric figure in which the golden ratio of classical art and architecture is found most.
Page 265
Plutarch wrote a fascinating essay entitled 'The E at Delphi',1 actually in the form of a dialogue, featuring Plutarch himself and several other speakers. It is to be remembered that Plutarch was a close personal friend of Clea, the Delphic priestess of his day, and he knew much and always sought to learn more about the nature and history of the oracles not only of Delphi but elsewhere as well. He was, however, most interested of all in Delphi itself, for he was one of the two priests of Apollo there.
The central subject of the discussion is the letter E which was a prominent inscription at the Delphic shrine. (That is, the letter E was carved in stone quite on its own at Delphi and was a subject of much curious speculation to the classical Greeks, who retained no tradition of the meaning of the ancient inscription of this single letter.) F. C. Babbitt, in his Introduction to the dialogue, says : 2
Plutarch, in this essay on the E at Delphi, tells us that beside the well-known inscriptions at Delphi there was also a representation of the letter E, the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet. The Greek name for this letter was EI, and this diphthong, in addition to being used in Plutarch's time as the name of E (which denotes the number five), is the Greek word for 'if', and also the word for the second person singular of the verb 'to be' (thou art).
In searching for an explanation of the unexplainable it is only natural that the three meanings of EI (`five', 'if', 'thou art') should be examined to see if any hypothesis based on any one of them might possibly yield a rational explanation. . . . Plutarch puts forward seven possible explanations of the letter. . . . Attempts to explain the letter have been also made in modern times by Gottling . . . and by Schultz . . . Roscher . . . C. Robert . . . 0. Lagercrantz . . N. Bates, in the American Journal of Archaeology xxix (1925), pp. 239-46, tries to show that the E had its origin in a Minoan character E . . . later transferred to Delphi. Since the character was not understood, it, like other things at Delphi, came to be associated with Apollo. This character has been found on the old omphalos discovered in 1913 at Delphi in the temple of Apollo.
Interesting are the two coins reproduced in Imhoff-Blumer and P. Gardner, A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanius, plate X nos. xxii and xxiii (text p. 19), which show the E suspended between the middle columns of the temple. Learned scholars should note that the letter represented is E, not EI : therefore such explanations as are based on the true diphthong are presumably wrong.
Page 266
The second explanation offered by Plutarch is in fact the correct one. This is how Plutarch suggests it:
Ammonius smiled quietly, suspecting privately that Lamprias had been indulging in a mere opinion of his own and was fabricating history and tradition regarding a matter in which he could not be held to account. Someone else among those present said that all this was similar to the nonsense which the Chaldaean visitor had uttered a short time before: that there are seven vowels in the alphabet and seven stars that have an independent and unconstrained motion; that E is the second in order of the vowels from the beginning, and the sun the second planet after the moon, and that practically all the Greeks identify Apollo with the Sun.
The facts that Delphi is the second descending centre in the geodetic octave, and that it is symbolized by the second vowel E, would seem to go well together. The seven vowels (each corresponding to one of the oracle centres) were uttered in succession as the holy 'unspeakable' name of God by Egyptian priests. Demetrius of Phalerum, the student of Aristotle's Lyceum and who founded the famous great library of Alexandria when later in life he was exiled to Egypt, tells us in his surviving treatise On Style: 'In Egypt the priests sing hymns to the gods by uttering the seven vowels in succession, the sound of which produces as strong a musical impression on their hearers as if flute and lyre were used.'
In Chapter XVI of The White Goddess, Robert Graves discusses this too, and there quotes Demetrius. Graves also refers to an eight-letter version of the sacred name. It may be that if one wants to count the base oracle centre (which in musical analogy is the octave expression of the top centre) one should have an eight-letter version. This version of the name is :
JEHUOVAO.
Note that E is the second letter.
We are faced with archaeological evidence that the second vowel, E, was prominently associated with the second oracle centre in descending order. (See Plate 12 of this book.) And we know from Herodotus that Dodona, the top oracle centre, was said to be founded by Egyptian priestesses from Thebes in Egypt. We also know that certain Egyptian priests sang the seven vowels (or eight vowels, including an aspirate) in succession. We have already seen that the geodetic oracle centres seem to have an octave structure. And as this book went to press a discovery became known which demonstrated the existence of the heptatonic, diatonic musical scale in the ancient Near East. We may even make a presumption that the uttering of the seven vowels in succession may possibly have corresponded to the seven notes of the octave (but we may never know that for certain). And it is most important to emphasize that, however bizarre to us, the association of a vowel with an oracle centre is not our invention or surmise. The E may not only be read about in Plutarch but seen on ancient coins and on the omphalos stone itself (for both of which see Plate I4). And this association of the second vowel with Delphi has never been explained by anyone.
So granted all the above, what follows ? If each oracle centre had a vowel /Page 267/ associated with it, then the second vowel being associated with the second centre would seem to imply a corresponding arrangement for the other centres. And if that is the case, it would seem that the entire system would be associated with and actually comprise a geodetic spelling-out, over eight degrees of latitude, of the unspeakable holy name of God, known commonly to the Hebrews as 'Jehovah'.
It is most important that anyone intrigued by this possibility should keep a wary eye for any further evidence. We should be on the lookout for representations of or associations of other vowels at the other centres. These may already be known to specialists in the field or there may be evidence of this sort languishing unclassified and unexplained in the basement of some museum. Or this sort of evidence may come to light at any time in the future. One place to begin looking would, it seems to me, be with an examination of the omphalos stone from Delos, which is to be seen in Plate 12 of this book. Does this omphalos stone have a single letter inscribed on it similarly to the Delphi omphalos stone? And what of all the other omphalos stones, such as the one from Thebes in Egypt (see Plate 2). Are any of these well enough preserved to show a puzzling single hieroglyph of a vowel ? I have not carried out any investigation of this sort myself at the present time.
In closing, it would seem that the E at Delphi must fall into some coherent system of the kind I suggest, and the explanation of the enigma must be connected with Plutarch's lightly advocated second explanation — that to do with E being the second vowel. (Babbitt's exclusion of the diphthong on the basis of the ancient coins to be seen in Plate 14 of this book is therefore crucial and to my view conclusive.)
Notes
1. The dialogue 'The E at Delphi' is to be found in English in Volume V of Plutarch's Moralia (altogether 15 vols) published in the Loeb Classical Library series; London: William Heinemann Ltd., and U.S.A. : Harvard University Press. The volume first appeared in 1936, and the translation is by Frank Cole Babbitt. Other works of Plutarch in the same volume are 'Isis and Osiris', 'The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse', and 'The Obsolescence of Oracles'.
2. Ibid. See Plate 14 of this book.
Plutarch; "On Isis and Osiris (De Isideet Osiride)" transl. By Frank Cole Babbitt, in Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. V, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University
Plutarch; "On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride)
