Question

The legend says the Pythagoreans never ate beans because they contained the spirits of dead people. My maths teacher told me this was known because a bean and an embryo are about the same size and shape. They both have two lobes that become the head and body.

I find this hard to believe because the Pythagoreans did not have the technology to build an ultrasound and see the bean nature of the 8 week foetus:
What is the real reason the Pythagoreans never ate beans? Is it because beans make you go toot toot, and the Pythagoreans naturally assumed this is the toot of the recently dead escaping from your body?

Answer 1

The Pythagoreans refrained from eating beans due to their belief in the transmigration of souls, where beans might be associated with housing these souls, not because of digestive reactions they might cause. Their dietary practices were shaped by a mystical and mathematical worldview, forming part of their strict community rules.

Step-by-step explanation:

The real reason that Pythagoreans refrained from eating beans is rooted in their philosophical and religious beliefs, particularly the concept of the transmigration of souls. This doctrine suggested that the soul is immortal, passing from one body to another upon death. Beans, because of their size and shape, which could be likened to an embryo with two lobes potentially representing the head and body, became associated with the potentiality of containing these transmigrated souls. It was not because of any audible emissions commonly associated with the consumption of beans. Pythagorean philosophy combined deep mathematical understanding with a mystical approach to the natural world, which they believed was generated according to numerical regularities.

Historical sources do not definitively explain the bean prohibition, but the explanation involving the spirits of the dead is one of several hypotheses. The abstention from beans could also relate to beans' role in ancient voting practices or other symbolic associations, as beans were used in various rituals and were believed to have different attributes significant in the Pythagoreans' cultural context.