The word 'theory', to go straight into
the talk, the word 'theory' has at least
two meanings. The most common is when we
mean a rational explanation or a
systematic body of explanations. The
other less common usage is related to
what we understand as theoretical in
contrast to practical. It means an
observation abstracted from reality. When
we use it like this, when for instance we
say something is mere theory we are in a
way harking back to the original meaning
of the word [in] (Greek) 'theoria', as you see
there which meant originally
contemplation. The observation of
something. There is a verb, 'theáomai',
meaning just to look, to watch. A prime
example is given by what happens in a
theatre the word theatre itself is
directly related to theory because a
theater is a place to watch. To
contemplate. You sit and watch and then
another subtle level of meaning of
theoria comes into play because it also
had that the same word had also a deeper
meaning, a sort of participation through
vision. This is how theater
fulfilled and fulfills its cathartic
function. It draws our entire being
through what we contemplate in such a
way that we participate and are
transformed. What we watch, whichever
theory we are exposed to, is not
indifferent to our substance to what we
are. This applies also to all apparently
objective and cold scientific truths. And
this is why I am starting with this
reflection. I would like you to be aware
that even though my exposition will deal
with cosmology and Greek grammar and
things like that I hope that you will
receive a message that goes beyond the
sort of physics we are accustomed to in
contemporary education. Not that I plan
to do anything theatrical or dramatic
up here but traditional cosmology like
traditional grammar and arithmetic is
not in any way alien to any of us since
we are all human beings. But I won't get
carried away with this and let's just
jump straight into the title of the talk.
The adjective
alphanumeric is uncommon outside
computing and related technical fields.
It refers to sets of science which
combined letters and numbers. They are
alphabetical and also numerical. Very
clearly there. In our case, the title is
meant to establish a correspondence like
this. So the Alpha would correspond to
grammar. Numeric to arithmetic. Then there
is the word
cosmology this means we are studying the
order or more specifically the beautiful
order the cosmos of the perceptible
universe of manifestation. Cosmology
means that the inquiry refers to
concrete realities.
It is not metaphysics; however, they may
overlap here and there. In this context
here and there no longer means
here and there tomorrow. But it is also
not quite limited to what modern physics
studies. Think of psychology and
psychiatry studying the mind from their
different and inextricable points of
view. Cosmology deals with 'matter' in
inverted commas though it is not
necessarily materialist. And this means
it deals with the elements of matter. And
so there is alphabetical cosmology that
these theories which consider that the
world is made of letters. You see there is
a bird made of made of Arabic letters
and here is a candlestick made of Hebrew
letters just to illustrate the point. The
most famous of these examples of
alphabetical cosmologies perhaps the
Jewish treatise called Sepher Yetsirah
where this table of combination comes
from you know indirectly book from yes
very dubious authorship and date of
origin but more or less we could say
about the 8th century AD. And then, there
is also a numerical, arithmetical
cosmology according to which the world
is made of numbers. So just an
illustration here. It's not very clear
but on the left end I think you can see
some numbers. So it's all the figure of
the bird is all made of numerals. Right.
It's just a very graphic idea of this
numerical cosmology. So please note, it is...
It's not just made according to number
but made of them like a piece of bread
is made of flour and water. Those who
were most famously accused of
entertaining such deranged ideas were
the so-called Pythagoreans or some
supposed disciples of a legendary
Pythagoras, thought to have existed
around the 7th century BC. It was mostly
Aristotle who made the accusation,
"These people say that the world is made
of numbers." In this cosmologies then
letters and numbers are the elements of
matter. But now let's be brave and
confront an embarrassing reality. All the
above is just wrong. It is all wrong
because from the very time of Pythagoras
and spreading from his native lands in
all directions. So Pythagoras comes from
Samos, a little island somewhere around
this area this what is now Turkey,
Anatolia, used to be called, or part of it called
Asia Minor in Greek in ancient Greek
times. And it was very, very, very
influential culturally. We're still under
their influence in several ways. That's
where the famous,
most of the pre-Socratic philosophers
came from. And it seems to have been a
very rich cultural hot pot. You say? [Audience: Melting pot.] A?
Melting pot, thank you. Very rich
melting pot culturally which through the
classical Greek culture later on reached
us in many many ways. So from here this
spread the idea the letters and numbers
as separate realities did not exist or
only in very limited specialized
contexts. You see from this area also
from Miletus came a system of using the
alphabet to express numbers. So there was
this correspondence between Greek
letters and numbers. Now here I need to
ask you because my my computer skills
are rather poor. So ideally I would have
liked now to play some sort of video
where you can see how the letter
merges with the numeral under it and
they become one single thing. You see.
Because that's what really it was about.
This table is just convenient for us but
for them it was just this -the letters
and the numeral. Then the numbers
were there. So we speak of Greek
alphabetic numerals and it is
historically accurate because at some
point other systems were in usage. But
since about the 6th century BC they not
only became merged in the Greek
imaginary but this dual concept of
letter-number was adopted, this is the
most likely account, by Hebrew speakers
and then by the Arabs too. So, if we merge
the signs how would they look like?
If we made this exercise here, trying
to see this, if this visual effect that I
couldn't do. They would look like this. Or
they would look like this in Hebrew.
Simply the letters of the alphabet. Or
they would look like this in Arabic.
Simply the letters and the numbers are
there at the same time. Right? And you see
here is an example these are so-called
magical squares or one example of very
famous example of them where you can see
on the left there is the Arabic version
then the Hebrew version on the right and
then there are numerals, our Indo-Arabic
numerals in the center. But it's all the
same meaning. It's the same square. So now
things become more interesting. For the
past four years, I have been fortunate to
look into the meaning of one single
little Greek word which I have been
pulling at like someone who finds the
end of a thread and starts pulling. Like
in a labyrinth, when you are lost and
find a thread and start following. I
think I have not done it obsessively, but
sometimes, yes, compulsively. Often
sleeplessly
and always enthusiastically. The little
world is 'Stoicheion' and this is the plural
'Stoicheia'. And it means, just like the
Latin 'Elimentum', it means a letter and at
the same time an element of reality. A
letter and at the same time an element
of reality. A basic component of matter.
and in this really, should be
properly called...
(and here is a word that you will not
find on Google, guaranteed.
I looked it up yesterday.) It should be
called an 'alphelementary' cosmology. That
would be a proper way to describe it. On
condition...we can use this on condition
that we remember that this 'alph' element
for alphabetic is also including the
numerical aspect.
Right? Now the meanings of this word
'stoicheion' included, for a start,
very early on, the shadow of the sundial.
So here in this picture, this is from Ely Cathedral, this shadow marking the time, that would be 'stoicheion'. So if you think about it for a
moment that shadow that moves around
which is...is a shadow material or it's
halfway there.
That is a letter and that is an element
of matter and that is a number, in a
certain way. Right? And so that was a very
very early meaning of the word 'stoicheion'. And then it also meant very
closely related word pegs that you put
on the floor. On the ground for different
purposes. Like to set a hunting net and
things like that. Also, you see here in
this case we can see how the 'stoicheia'
were used to mark the ground. Which is
exactly at the origin of this word
'design'. Design is exactly like the word 'de-marcate'.
To put marks, like on a piece of paper if
you're working on a design. If you're
creating a boundary. And you see here we
have for instance this beautiful design
of
the pattern for the design of a lute, of
an oud, which we owe to Marc Loopuyt,
who was here last week. And here you can
see the letters marking the design or...or, well, you see here exactly, we can see how
the letters are demarcating, designating
everything there, the diagrams. Originally,
actually, one of the key meanings
of 'stoicheion' was the geometrical
demonstration itself. The very famous
example is the title of Euclid's work. So
the most important work of geometry
coming down from the Greek tradition
Euclid's Elements is actually called
'Stoicheia'. Letters. We translate it as
'Elements'. Equally valid of course. And
it refers, these elements refer to each
particular demonstration. And it's
interesting how at the same time in the
meaning of letter and number in a
geometrical demonstration, the 'stoicheion'
of the demonstration, graphically
is full of little signs that are also
'stoicheia', are marking, are designating.
Like here, very complicated, many
applications, right? A very impressive and
important application is in architecture,
where you start from the
undifferentiated ground and then you
demarcate the land with pegs. The
surveyor's peg. This is what they call a
surveyor's peg and that's another example.
These are contemporary. I think we
haven't...we haven't any left from
antiquity because they, as nowadays, they
are made of wood. Very difficult. Also
when you build
they probably disappear under the
building, right? So,
here you can see different plots of land
ready for building. They're in
preparation with colors, lines, numbers, and letters throughout. This is how you
transfer the design to the ground before
you start building. So once again the
'stoicheia' here are sort of in an
intermediary level. Same. And here you can
see how the wall is starting to go up.
Another one. And then well after this,
you build something. You prepare the
ground and then something comes up. At
some point in the medieval church, they
had a rite called 'abecedarium',
which means 'alphabet'. Apparently of Celtic origin and
this was part of the consecration of a
new church. And the rite consisted of
drawing across the floor of the new
empty church two alphabets. They spread
ashes. Two bands of ashes on an x
form which is a cross. St. Andrew's cross
if you want. So they spread two big, two
white bands of ashes on the floor and
then the bishop who is consecrating the
church with his staff draws the alphabet ---
the Greek one and the Latin one. Some
people say at times they used also the
Hebrew alphabet. Oh dear.
The power of the rite, I think. It was too
much. So these, of course, this rite was
accompanied by prayers and hymns which
made clear the foundational symbolism. It
is as if each alphabet was a set of
marking pegs upon which the building is
erected. In this case, the church was
built and it is a matter of starting as
it were the spiritual building inside
the material building and then the
letters of the alphabet are there. Of
course, this is very very closely related
to a very important Christian aspect of
all this story. Because to say a word
in Greek or to say a calculation also
the ratio, like a geometric ratio, we use
the word 'logos'. And 'logos' was very
famously translated for all centuries
and when we say in the Gospels, "In the
the beginning was the word."
So that is Christ the logos, there at the
foundation of every Church. So, it's as if
this is not only bringing our attention
to the role of language in the
foundation of the Christian rites and
the Christian revelation. But even in
more detail to the elements of that word.
That's why several Christian
commentators over the centuries explain,
they say, "Christ is the Alpha and Omega."
Right? That's like saying Christ is the A and Z.
But they explained, "Yes of course but he
is also every letter in between."
He is the 24 letters of the Greek
alphabet. So in this physical aspect as
we see here the alphabet deployed and
thinking of the way of building that
comes from it
it is, viewing it from our contemporary
perspective of our physics, it is as if
it were each alphabet a periodic table
of elements. It is a list of every
element, right? and there is a very old
Greek pangram. Pangram is an expression
where each letter of the alphabet is
included. Ideally only once, but most...in
most cases to make anything meaningful
you need to repeat letters. They are used
for fonts, for showing the shapes of fonts
in typography. So you have many examples.
One particularly I am fond of, one in
particular that says, "Sphinx of black
quartz, judge my vow." Sounds very solemn.
And the idea is really to show the shape
of every letter of the alphabet. So this
very old Greek pangram, the 'Knax'
pangram, whose meaning is
almost incomprehensible. You can also see
it was really more for mnemonical reasons.
It reads, "[uninteligible]" and the meaning is very
convoluted. And it has to do, I think,
something with a maid milking a cow but
very complicated, and uncertain too. The most important thing here is that the
letters when they are set in this order, in this particular graphical way,
they are responding or they are showing, they are ordered
according to their qualities. So the
phonetic properties according to Greek
grammar. So vowels are on a row and etc.
There are other combinations and
this is what happens, of course, in the
periodic table as we know it. Oh, and this
happens this is one step closer, before
the periodic table. We have this marvel
of modern science, the international
phonetic alphabet. Where very clearly the
consonants, this is just a table of
consonants, are ordered according to
their properties. So you can move on a
line, like if you see the role of the
fricatives there. That's the 'F' at the
beginning, so you can start
moving your articulation.  Going back
until you reach your throat, right? So at
the end you have something like 'ha'. 
Articulated. So in this
international phonetic alphabet, in this
layout also, we see a graphical
representation that responds to the
internal characteristics of the elements.
And this is the big breakthrough and
attempt, it's really an ongoing attempt,
of the periodic table of elements. It was
considered a stroke of genius,
because until then no there was no
graphic, until Mendeleev came up with it,
there was no, in the 19th century I think
it was, there was no graphic way of
representing or putting together the
elements and showing at once how they
were related to one another. So this was
a very successful attempt, but there have
been others. And also with the letters of
the alphabet. So you see the Hebrew
letters could be laid out like this in a
circle. Also to show some of the way they
combine or not. And the same happens with
the periodic table. See, there are many
variations of the periodic table
which we mostly know in the square-like
form I just showed. But this is
another one. This is another attempt,
again, trying to show here also the
colors are supposed to help and so on.
And this is yet another attempt at the
periodic table of elements, trying to
arrange the elements in a way that makes
more sense according to the qualities of
the elements. And the same with the
letters again. So this is a Hebrew
example again. The Jewish Kabbalah
tradition or the Jewish esoteric
tradition was very keen on the study
of letters. And mostly because initially
of the big impact of the 'Sefer Yetzirah', I mentioned before. So this
research about the word 'stoicheion'
yielded two important notions: one, that
the triune concept of letter-number-element, triune meaning three and one at
the same time (borrowed from theology),
this triune concept of letter number
element is inseparable. And too that this
inseparable concept was at the shared
basis of cosmology for approximately
19 centuries. From the 6th century BC
to about the 13th century AD. Why the
13th century? Because this was the time
when the usage of the imported Indo-Arabic numerals was becoming firmly
established around the Mediterranean. And
this adoption, this very slow adoption of
the Indian numerals, which was very
gradual and full of twists and
curiosities that have been charted by
Charles Burnett and the Warburg
Institute, meant that
letters and numbers were to be
irreversibly separated. So we haven't
ever gone back to that usage after
these numbers were imported. At some
point, either sometime before or after
the beginning of the 13th century, Arab
mathematicians, Greek mathematicians and
Jewish mathematicians, scientists of all
sorts, everyone who wrote, who used numbers,
traders, they were switching to the much
more convenient decimal positional
system that we have with the Indian
numerals. So if we are to understand
ancient and early medieval cosmology and
to understand what matter meant, we need
to keep in mind this conceptual unity I
have mentioned. From our contemporary
point of view it is a polysemy -several
meanings in one word. But in fact, it is
not. It is a good exercise to try to
think of it not as a polysemy, but
rather to try to enter the ancient
mindset and accept and realize that it
was one single concept for which we have
no name. Greek has a name ---'stoicheion'.
And one indication of how rich it was in
its meanings is the amount of pages
dedicated by philosophers, grammarians
scientists, and theologians to elucidate
it. And also how many different words
were used to translate it into other
languages. So perhaps at some point in
the long history of Greek translation
into Arabic and Hebrew, the Arabic word 'harf', plural 'huruf', became closer to
encompassing the several meanings in in
one single term.
And maybe the same with the Hebrew 'ot',
plural 'otiyot'. And in Hebrew, very
interestingly, in that 'Sefer Yetzirah' which
was so important and so influential,
letters are repeatedly referred to as 'Otiyot Yesod'. Letters-foundations.
Actually the word 'yesod' means 'element' in
in Hebrew writings on natural
sciences. So it was exactly as if saying
letters-elements. It was, some people
speculate and say this most likely a
a sign that this was borrowing from the
idea of the Greek concept of 'stoicheion'.
That they felt, the author of this
felt, they need to say not just letters
but letter-elements. Now, to close this
story tonight, I would like to bring to
your attention
one important easily overlooked aspect
of it. And as we saw about the elements,
trying to think of them as letters and
numbers too, are originally the limiters.
Like in the sundial or in the design
sketches. Or on the ground, as surveyors
pegs.
Now, there is one mythological figure who
quite remarkably is the patron of
boundaries and the patron of language. Of
every connection of translation and
interpretation. The god of interfaces.
Who's that?
[Audience: Hermes?]
Hermes. Thank you.
Now in this context, I invite you to
think of this word I just mentioned -
interface, and a computer. When we turn on
the computer what we see is called the
interface. It is like an intermediary
layer between our perception and the
alphanumeric reality behind the screen.
The interface is under the auspices of
Hermes. It makes reality understandable,
graspable. In the light of an
alphanumeric cosmology, matter is just
such an interface. Hermes was primarily
the god of boundaries in Greek
mythology and he was associated with,
originally, cairns, markers of piles of
stone we still see in the mountains all
over the world used to...used as landmarks.
And in Greek religion, that evolved into
an object, these are, these were called
'herma'. 'Hermata' in the plural. And
these became stylized into a very
particular...it's considered like a sort
of sub-genre in Greek
sculpture. The 'hermata' where you have
a square pillar with a head on top which
is supposed to have been originally of
Hermes. And usually a phallus, the
genitals, because Hermes is also
associated with generative power. So
this is a 'herma'.
In most cases, vandals, the often young
people, young people, revelers and
drunkards used to go and take off the
genitals. Broke them for fun. And so most of
the 'hermata' that we preserve don't
have the genitals. But this was more or
less the original design. So showing in
these...and here we could...you see these
are really intemporal and very
Universal. These cairns, same idea, the
limiters. Now the interesting thing of
this association with Hermes is how it
brings together the idea of the
boundaries, the idea of the language, over
which he is a patron, and at the same time
creativity. And this is partly why I
wanted to end up with this because we
are in a School of Arts here. And we have
to think, as we were fortunate to be
reminded of over the past week by the
visit of our musician friend Marc [Loopuyt], that
this creative power of art always...that
art as a practice always preserves
a potency of which every particular
artist is responsible. Even in the case
of music, which you know, we...and
I'm coming back here to this initial
reflection on theory.
When as spectators or as artists we become used to art being 
a sort of anodyne commodity that
we watched, how many films have you
watched this week, and etc, etc. And of
course...
of course all the...everything that we are
surrounded nowadays by art in many
ways. And of images, of very complex and
sophisticated images in many ways all
over the plac.  And, this in a way
numbs our sensibility. But there is the
original fact. There is this phallus at
the heart of a traditional art and of
true art. And the artist is responsible
for that. Like in traditional music for
instance, the artist knows or is
supposed to know what each particular
mode of music; what every scale and
rhythm; how they would affect the
listeners; and he has to be responsible
for that. And so the same would apply
to plastic art of course. And yes this is
a relation to martial arts. So for
instance to compare this to martial arts
and music they would look very far from
each other, right? My master of martial
arts used to say, very plainly and
it offended people very often, "Martial arts
arts? Martial arts, to kill. To kill." The
first thing you have to decide when you
are going to do something as a martial
artist is whether you're going to kill
or not. So you could perhaps easily
transfer that to other forms of art the
first thing you have to decide as an
artist when you are going to expose
someone to your work is whether you're
going to kill them or not. And with this
I mean killing perhaps in the...in the
best sense. As they say, this very
powerful Sufi saying,
where God says, "He whom I love,
I kill. And he whom I kill,
I am his reward." I'm just quoting a quarter of it. But this idea of killing
in a transformational and alchemical
meaning. Alchemical is really the word. So
our inquiry into the character of this
letter-number-element posed many
questions. How material is that
intermediary foundational stage.Like in
the case of the sundial, and like in the
case of the surveyors' pegs. I spent like
a couple of years stopping every time
I saw a building site and looking at
the surveyors' pegs. And so they are fleeting in a
way, right? Because they are there today,
for a week and then everything is built
and...and that's it. So how do we see them
afterwards? How they are...they are in a
way certainly, because they were the ones
deciding the forms at the beginning,
right? So and how is that intermediary
stage related to language, and conversely
how linguistic is reality?
So of course also again thinking of the
of the religions and how real is
language, how substantial? We have to
think of the doctrine of creation of the
Abrahamic religions we are familiar with
according to which the universe is
created by an act of speech. And finally
because we are here in this school and
because every man is a "special kind of
artist" in the words of the great Ananda
Coomaraswamy, what is the relation
between this hermetic view of matter and
creativity?
So...you may think that I am
shamelessly posing unanswerable
questions and then leaving you unable to
sleep, haunted by the questions in a
state of philosophical perplexity, and
anxiety. Yes and quite on purpose, and I
share in the anxiety. And willingly too,
because the best questions, as every
aspirant to philosophy knows, are not
those that can be answered away, but
those that wound our nature. That keep us
in a state of uncertainty and desire. In
love of wisdom, philosophia. In theory, they
keep us, good questions keep us in
'theoria'. Like this. [gasps] Contemplating, and
absorbing. Watching as if all our life
went into that watching, not just sitting
with the popcorn, but really watching. So
now, this is really true, finally now.
Passively and actively two aspects of
this theory. So passively, the ancient
theory of the elements demands our
contemplation, our 'theoria',
as it has to do with an intermediary
level of reality which is at once
invisible like a sound and visible like
a written word. At once fleeting and
fixed. At once quantitative and
qualitative. And...but here we are in
excellent company, since Plato himself
puts it this way in the Timaeus.
This is a very important passage in the
Timaeus which is...it was one of the few
works by Plato known to the
Arabic tradition during the early Middle
Ages. And so it was extremely influential
you know and everything that related to
physics and cosmology, science in general,
because it had to do with the nature of
the universe and of man
- and, and it's really remarkable how
many scientists drew from Timaeus
because when you read the dialogue is
mostly like beating you into an avowal
of ignorance. Because it keeps leaving
you like...astonished all the time. Posing
different theories, then refuting them.
Well very Platonic  of course, but it's
like a fountain really of...of theories
in the best sense. And then at
some point there, he's discussing over
several pages what is matter and he
speaks of this [uninteligible], the recipient.
If you have an archetype idea, then
you need something to make it concrete
that will receive the ideas. Some sort of
matter, right?
Some plasticine, I think you call it?
So this more or less or wax, something
that you can mold like that. So at some
point in the lengthy discussion he says,[speaks in Greek].
 
Amazing.
"So let us not call the mother and
recipient of every visible and altogether
perceptible being by the name
of earth, air or fire or water." So he has
been discussing the elements, and he said,
"really at the end"...you know this is in
the context of pre-Socratic philosophers
who especially in the critique of
Aristotle they said (Aristotle
mocked them) and he says, "all is
water and the other says all his fire." Of
course, it was not as childish as that. It
was his critique, but in this context of
positing like a universal matter or
element, Plato says, "well really after so
much discussion we shouldn't call them
like neither of the words. Earth or matter."
[Speaks Greek]
 
That's the end of the Greek. But instead, he says, "We
shall not be lying if we call it a
formless and invisible idea. All
embracing, sharing in the intellectual in
the most baffling and unfathomable way.
So this is deciding...and is like a
decisive...that like the decision upon the
status of matter. It's "neti, neti" - nor this, nor that.
Yes, material, but not quite. And this is,
as you appreciate now, directly related
to their quality and the character of
the 'stoicheion'. And so actively, we that
so passively, the ancient theory
demands our contemplation. Now actively
the ancient theory of the elements
demands our commitment to language and
number. To meaning and measure. To theme
and rhythm. And the awareness of the
effect on those who watch. There is in
art this generative power, a wild thing.
And this is also why it's so important
to keep authentic art or to keep art
authentic. The vicinity of nature and the
cultivation of the proximity to nature.
To keep this wild element. You know even
if it is very...in a fine arts museum or
in the Royal Albert Hall or something
like that. Because Hermes also was or is
the god of thieves and
transgression.
This is
inextricable also from the...from his
patronage of boundaries and language.
There is also there an essential idea
related to mischievousness. Very famously,
he invented the lyre and then got into
real trouble for robbing his brother's Apollo's cattle. But then he made up by
giving Apollo the lyre - so the lyre, like
the archetypal instrument is owed to
Hermes. No less. And Apollo only got it
from him under duress.
And thank you very much
for listening and please if you
have any questions.
