After the discussion around the Voynich manuscript, our code-breakers should find this interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/h......3564.stm

Incredible! During an exchange of PM's concerning Voynich, one Café member suggested the possibility of a music connection/ code to Voynich as well.
This news of Plato gives a person pause to rethink approaches.
Sadly, my music background is limited to Moldy Oldies of the '60s.

Kotah

Some books you might find interesting in this connection:

Zuckerkandl, Victor, Sound and Symbol, Music and the Eternal World. Princeton University Press, 1969.

Kahn, David, The Code Breakers, The Story of Secret Writing. Scribner, 1969.

Michell, John, The Dimensions of Paradise, The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers of ancient Cosmology. Harper Row, 1988.

Godwin, Joscelyn, Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, The Spiritual Dimensions of Music. Inner Traditions International, 1987.

McClain, Ernest G., The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato. Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 1984.

There are elementary books on music theory (of which I am virtually completely ignorant), and one I have from years back called How to Read Music (my speed) that explains some theory.

Now that I have had time to recover from the absolute hilarity of the situation, perhaps I should point out that the man is not working from original Plato manuscripts, or even copies of original Plato manuscripts.

Almost all of the Ancient Greek literature we have has been reconstructed from Arabic translations of the originals. The originals of all of this great literature were destroyed in the great library fires of the Romans and early Christians.

Here's the Zippo that was used to torch Librabry of Alexandria.

And he finished it off.

How did I miss this thread?

Anyway, Bill once again shows that he is a man of immense learning. He has my greatest respect.

But this statement is misleading, and misrepresents textual criticism. Very few texts (and none that I can think of offhand) were preserved solely in Arabic translation in the Islamic world. That the greater part of Greek philosophy was indeed preserved there became a great help in attempts to reconstruct the integrity of the texts centuries later. Comparison of surviving Greek texts (not all of which were preserved solely in the Islamic world) with Latin and Arabic translations is a very useful device for getting as close as possible to the original text.

The Republic, for example (the work that led the author linked to by the OP), was preserved--in the original Greek--in the west, and our oldest copy is included in the Clarke Plato, which was written in Constantinople around 950 AD. In 950 Constantinople was the center of the Christian world, not the Muslim world. Now, does this imply that the text is "pure" enough to establish that there is some kind of mathematical code built into it? Although I know something of ancient texts, I know nothing about codes, so I can't answer that question. I can say the following:

1. One traditional criticism of Plato (which began with Aristotle), and later of Platonism in general, is that he was overly pre-occupied with mathematics (in contradistinction to Socrates, who supposedly was interested more in morality and the good life than math).

2. Mathematics in the ancient Greek world almost always bore implications of something esoteric or hermetic. Further: Aristotle said that the influence of Pythagoras on Plato was very great, and Pythagoras and his followers were a fairly secretive, mystical bunch.

3. Furthermore, beginning with Aristotle there is also a tradition that Plato had an "unwritten" (i.e., secret) "doctrine". It is hardly a jump to think that such a doctrine might be actually written, but in a way not all can understand. Seems unlikely, but not impossible.

So I'm intrigued by the thesis, and might consider buying the book after reading some reviews by legitimate Plato scholars. I am inclined to think it is nonsense, but hardly find it as laughable as Bill does.