He thought that is you lived by a strict set of behavioural rules and objective scientific thinking that you could avoid the reincarnation cycle.
This is brief explanation of how his thinking progressed.
NUMBER is the ruler of FORMS
- everything in the universe conforms to mathematical rules and ratios.
- so if we understand number and mathematical relationship
- we came to understand the structure of the cosmos
and if so then mathematics is the key model for philosophical thought
ERGO
Number is the ruler of ideas.
I can sorta see where he is coming from. If you think mathematics explains everything. If your goal in life is freedom from the cycle of reincarnation, and you believe that living a certain way and being objective in your thinking will free you from that. Numbers would be the way to go. AND if you have a thorough understanding of math, probabilities and such like, it rather makes sense. I know from having watched the show Numbers and other such shows that there is more math in life than I generally even consider. :).
Pythagoras is best remembered for his theorem. which states "that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and c, often called the "Pythagorean equation"" For more on this theory go here.
It was very important to Pythagoras and his followers to make order out of chaos. If you want to know about what he and his followers contributed, please check out this site for more information.
So what do I think of Pythagoras?
I think he was a man who knew how think and did a good job at it. I think he did all the work in thinking that he did so that he could make sense of the world. He wanted to avoid reincarnation and I suppose that had a lot of do with his wanting order in the world and mathematics is a well ordered discipline.
What say you?