Anthony North: One of the most written about mysteries is that of Atlantis. What does it mean? What is it? Where is it? What influence does it have on us? Does it exist in the first place? So many questions, so many ideas. For this essay I thought I'd go back to source and see if we can learn anything about its conception. And the beginning of the myth takes us back to that great philosopher, Plato, who first wrote about it. But can we find hints in Plato's life and mind itself? Early life: Being nothing less than the father and instigator of western philosophy, Plato was born in Athens in 428BC to one of the great political families of his time. His actual name was Aristocles, Plato being a nickname which means ‘broad and flat', referring to his shoulders which he used to great effect as a wrestler. Indeed, it was thought that Plato would be a great wrestler. But his talent was shown to be inferior and he tried being a poet, but was equally lacking in talent. Stuck for a profession, Plato began to think about his future. Statesman or philosopher were uppermost in his mind, but once he had heard Socrates speaking, he knew where his future lay; in philosophy - particularly in the ideas of Pythagoras. Pythagoras and forms: Pythagoras had been an enigmatic figure. On the one hand a philosopher and on the other a mystic who was believed to have performed more than the odd miracle, he is seen today as the instigator of the quasi-religious cult of the Pythagoreans. Believing that behind the chaotic world of appearance there existed a harmonious world of numbers, he is seen as the father of mathematics.
Plato was fascinated by this harmonious world below the consciousness we appreciate. He developed it into his philosophy of ‘Ideal Forms'. To Plato this fundamental realm was a world of ideas and forms. Existing in an eternal state of unchanging reality, everything that could be conceived in the conscious world already existed as an idea or form in this other world. Hence, nothing could be invented, merely rediscovered.
