Alessandro Orlandi, mathematician editor: “I believe in the soul and in fate”

With hashtags and tags, under the name of Alessandro Orlandi one could sort out a sample of heterogeneity: mathematics, alchemy, physics, wunderkammer, publishing, music, renéguénon, hypatia, soul, margheritahack. Bearer of odd passions, vague resemblance to Dario Argento, natural candidate for some new ‘Synagogue of iconoclasts’ à la Wilcock, Orlandi has not invested his seventy years as a Roman with French, Greek and Croatian ancestry in the monody of a single commitment. Graduated in mathematics, researcher, former teacher at the historic Ennio Quirino Visconti high school, in 2007 he founded the publishing house La Lepre with a catalog that “looks at the past, interprets the present, runs to arrive before fate” (the motto “praecurrit fatum” the illustrious Indologist Raniero Gnoli suggested to him; he forged the calembour Lepredizioni himself).

Mathematics first passion?

No, the poem. I wrote verses when I was a child, then growing up stories and reflections. I have published essays on alchemy, religions, synchronicities, genius loci.

The last one?

‘Flashes of darkness. Manifestations of Kali-Yuga in the modern world’ published by Stamperia del Valentino.

He doesn’t have the typical profile of a mathematician.

I studied mathematics because I was passionate about philosophy: considering that half of twentieth-century thought is based on logic, it seemed to me fundamental for understanding the world. I worked as a researcher at the Cnr then I taught at the Visconti where I discovered the former Kircher museum, i.e. what remained of the high school premises inherited from the Jesuit Roman College. I had a master’s degree in scientific museology and I curated the precious collection for twenty years.

Father Athanasius Kircher was one of the most versatile minds of the seventeenth century: geologist, historian, inventor, doctor, astronomer, absolutely conjectural decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese arcana. It’s not quick to say what he didn’t take care of, because he took care of everything.

He was the last universal savant, with some creative excess of which he was aware. He liked to surprise. When I arrived at the Visconti I found that Wunderkammer abandoned. Dismembered after 1870 with the state expropriation, the scientific section remained with pieces of immense value, from an armillary sphere to six hundred physics instruments to paleontological finds.

Is the figure of the universal wise extinct?

Among those I have known, Umberto Eco could be feebly approached, but the modern sciences do not allow for the existence of a universal sage. Rather we will replace it with Artificial Intelligence, which can fish in all libraries, solve a chemistry problem, write a Dostoevsky novel and sing the Beatles. There is only one detail: it lacks soul. The AI ​​can draw from all the databases but does not have the perspective of the soul, which gives the weights related to the intelligence of knowledge.

How worried are you?

Not feeling unease would be irresponsible. I am thinking of the loss of millions of jobs that will not need to be replaced, then of the progressive impossibility of distinguishing true from false. Finally, I fear the prevailing reductionism, whereby human mechanisms are assimilated to those of a machine with the definitive denial of the soul.

Since she is pronouncing the word “soul” for the third time, I recall the success of the book on the scientist Hypatia by Adriano Petta and Antonino Colavito: published by La Lepre in 2013 with a preface by Margherita Hack, perhaps better remembered for her theological opinions than as an astrophysicist.

I shared her love for the freedom of thought that informs my editorial project. I mention among the latest titles: ‘Being the son of Oscar Wilde’, an unpublished story by the second son of the writer, Vyvyan Holland, forced to change his surname after the tragic scandal that struck his father. And then ‘There’s no denying it. Freedom of expression in Italian culture’, with authoritative contributions on the issues of censorship and self-censorship in the era of cancel culture and political correctness.

Between AI and cancel culture, don’t you dream of the resurrection of a Giordano Bruno, of a thought that faces the match with the ChatGPT with spiritual courage?

Yes, if I think of ‘De umbris idearum’ in which Bruno operates a movement completely opposite to that of the AI ​​with an upward influx of symbols and images. I do not exclude a re-evaluation by contrast of Bruno’s and Rosicrucian thought, as well as of the alchemical writings re-read by Jung. It could be the main reaction to the triumph of Artificial Intelligence, conceived by people who have a mechanistic world view, made of black boxes.

The AI ​​is emotionless.

They are trying to simulate them and have already managed to endow her with a sense of humour. It was thought to be a distinction and instead it has been overcome, as will be achieved the ability to reproduce, for example, the musical performance in the manner of a specific interpreter.

Does she keep playing?

I have produced four music videos that have received many awards.

How does he present himself: mathematician, publisher, musician?

They are fake noses, masks that you wear. I would define myself as a man who puts himself at the service of something. A museum, a publishing house. The important thing is to aim for goals greater than one’s biological life, so that they can justify it.

Which authors have inspired you the most?

The Taoist Zhuang-zi, Plato and Musil with ‘The Man Without Qualities’.