Got Hemlock?
Which of Plato's dialogs is concerned with numbers and mysticism? The Platonic dialogue concerned with numbers and mysticism, referred-to as "Plato's number," is enigmatically mentioned by Plato in his dialogue the Republic. The passage is notoriously difficult to understand, and there is no real agreement about the meaning or the value of the number. It has also been called the "geometrical number" or the "nuptial number" (the "number of the bride"). In Plato's Republic, specifically at section 546b, a cryptic reference to a "perfect number" appears in the context of discussing the ideal timing for divine and mortal procreation. The passage suggests that there is a mathematical harmony or cycle governing such events, described in terms of "augmentations dominating and dominated" that reach a state of balance through "three distances and four limits" of assimilation and dissimilation, waxing and waning. ...