The below text,
translated from an Ancient Greek dialect, was discovered during an excavation
dig of a site near to the city of Athens in June, Two-Thousand-and-Eleven. Some
believe the text to be a ‘lost dialogue’ between the philosophers Socrates and
Plato, but this cannot be proven to be the case.
I visited Socrates on the night before
his execution. He told me he had been given a gift by a merchant a few weeks
before he was imprisoned. When he showed me the gift, he said it was what was
called a dice and he told me the dice had given him comfort in light of his
pending death.
To explain what he meant by this, Socrates asked me to throw the object. I did and a six came up. He then asked me whether I would bet a six would come up again on the next throw. I said I thought it more likely it would not be a six that came up, because there are six edges to the dice and therefore a greater chance of getting another number that was not six. When he asked me whether I thought a number greater than six would come up, I told him that this was quite preposterous as there were only six numbers visible on the faces of the dice.
Socrates then rolled the dice again and a
six did come up. He told me I should have guessed this would happen, as it was
my only experience and he then told me that if the dice is rolled a certain
distance and at a certain pace, a six will always be the number that comes up,
because the dice is loaded with a weight that grants this such.
I told Socrates I thought this impressive,
but asked what this meant and why it should give him comfort. Socrates then
told me that our experience in the world is like getting a six on the dice, so
why should we bet against experiencing worlds like we do again and again, like
throwing sixes again and again on the dice?
I told Socrates I thought he was
wrong and that what was most likely is that a good life would lead to eternal
bliss and a bad life to eternal torment, but he challenged me on this. He said
that believing there will be worlds fundamentally different to what is evident,
is like the preposterous prediction that a number greater than six can be
thrown on a six sided dice. He also said that the individual morality of a
person is probably an irrelevance, just like what you do before you throw the
dice has absolutely no consequence on it's ensuing result; immediately
after saying this, he told me this did not mean we should thus live immoral
lives, as this is likely to not bring happiness in life, irrespective of what
happens after we die.
He said the dice had taught him it is justifiable
to live in hope there will be a continuation of life as we know it and he then
proceeded to say that if this were the case it would mean not a continuation of
life on this Earth, but on another Earth, because he thought the stars were
suns like our sun and there were millions of them!
I
thought Socrates had gone mad with his
pending death nearing. He said that this belief gave him comfort,
because he
thought our societies on this Earth were not as perfect as they could
be, because our peoples were young and inexperienced in the disciplines
of politics and economics and there was a greater chance our future
lives would be
under the guardianship of wiser peoples in more just and equitable
societies.
He said that yes, it may appear that the
rolling of a one to five is more likely than a six on the dice, but people
should live in faith of a six, as this was their experience, just like the fact
something and not nothing is the reality of their situation.
He also said that those who speak of
worlds fundamentally different from that which is evident should be dealt with
warily, just like those who predict a number greater than six on a six sided
dice should be treated warily also. He continued by saying those who say
goodness will lead to heaven and badness to hell should be dealt with warily
too, as this is perfectly equivalent to saying that the conduct before throwing
a dice affects the outcome of the dice.
Socrates then turned to the question of
God. He said that the importance of the question was only equal to the
importance of whether the maker of the dice participates or not in the game and
on reflection this is of no importance at all, because what is of most and real
importance is what happens when you roll the dice and not who is watching, or
who is suggesting what the outcome might be.
The honest person would not call
themselves a God believer, a God disbeliever, or even someone who was unsure
whether there was a God or not, because this is in truth not really saying
anything at all in the context of what is important to be said on the subject
of death.
The
honest person would simply say they
live in hope of life after death, because it is justified to do so and
if the honest person heard anybody telling anybody else there isn’t hope
of life
after death then they should reprimand that individual, because it is
feeding a
lie and nothing other than this.
From what I recall, Socrates then preceded
to say that the idea of reincarnation was exactly the same as thinking about
the accumulated total when you keep throwing sixes on the dice. In other words,
it is the same as thinking about the idea of infinity, as a total would never
be reached. Resurrection on the other hand, could only be considered as a vast
number resulting from a single throw of the dice, a number that could never
be as ‘good’ as the continual throwing of sixes on the dice. He said there
would always be those who suggested resurrection was better than
reincarnation, but in all truth there cannot be a logical basis for this
argument, just like there cannot be a logical basis for the argument any
integer can be greater than the idea of infinity.
I did not know what to make of Socrates’
ramble and was taken aback by it. I asked him why he should feel comfort of
living lives with the knowledge of death always prevalent, but to this he said
he thought the knowledge of death defined life, defined why we love, as life is
difficult and so to love is necessary in a difficult life and that an easy life
would mean love would be naturally redundant within it.
I asked Socrates what he thought about not
seeing his parents and grandparents again and he told me that the best thing
for all people of old age and any age for that matter, was to be born again,
because older people have a role for younger people, but in heaven age would be
an irrelevance and so there would be alienation and not a role to play. He said
there were two essential archetypes of child and guardian, which are the roles
in life, of living a hedonistic lifestyle and the joys this can give and living
an altruistic lifestyle and the joys this can give also. He said with utter
conviction, without Earths like we experience here, how can these archetypes
exist?
He followed by saying there should be particular wariness of those who
say there cannot be life after death, because in all truth these people have no
knowledge, just like there is no prior knowledge of what the dice will yield
before it is thrown. He said that in many cases unhappy people are likely to
suggest the impossibility of life after death is truth, because it is a
strategy to reduce the morale of happier people.
I asked him what people should think of
those who come to the bizarre conclusions like what he had just done, but to
this he simply smiled and told me to again consider the throwing of the dice he
was given by the merchant; it was at this point he gave the dice to me as a
parting gift. Socrates then said he must prepare his shawl for his death in the
morning and that it was time for our last goodbye, probably for ever. He
suggested though that this was not such a terrible thing if childhood and guardianship
lasted forever, if the possibility of being
loved and being able to love lasted forever…
After our final embrace, I left the jail
and retired to my quarters. I cried with such pain that evening and could
not attend my friend’s execution, or ever again consider the madness of my
friend at that time, all his senses lost due to his pending demise. Finally, I
threw Socrates’ dice in the river and prayed for his eternity with ‘his’ mind
and ‘his’ love and that I should see him again, old and wise and beautiful,
like I remembered him as being.
