Piergiorgio Odifreddi

thumb|Piergiorgio Odifreddi in 2012 Piergiorgio Odifreddi (born 13 July 1950) is an Italian mathematician, logician, scholar of the history of science, and popular science writer and essayist, especially on philosophical atheism as a member of the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics. He is philosophically and politically near to Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky. Quotes Leopardi once said that children can find everything in nothing, but adults cannot find anything in everything. Depending on how you look at them, paradoxes are either fragments of nothingness in which you can find everything, or visions of everything in which you can find nothing. Tempi (e luoghi) dei paradossi, vialattea.net, March 1996. In essence, his (of Erwin Schrödinger) teaching can therefore be traced back to the linguistic observation that a certain noun has no plural: more specifically, that as long as there are two cultures, there will be no Culture, but only half-cultures. Erwin Schrödinger - Sulla cresta dell'onda, vialattea.net, October 1996. (About Giordano Bruno) He argued that there were infinite worlds, that the Solar System was just one example of a system in which life could exist, and that throughout the universe there were infinite other such systems, in which there were probably infinite other beings, living species, that possessed intelligence. Naturally, this gave rise to major theological problems. From the TV programme Il Grillo, Rai, 2 April 2001; quoted in Storia dell'infinito, emsf.rai.it. If, as is likely, you have read Giordano Bruno's works, well, in La cena delle ceneri (The Supper of the Ashes), he puts forward a strange argument. He says: Let's imagine we have a ball, like the Earth. The Earth is illuminated by the Sun, but only part of the Earth is illuminated by the Sun. As you move further away, the Sun is further away from the Earth, and an increasingly larger part of the sphere is illuminated. So, the question is: what is the maximum proportion of the sphere that can be illuminated? If the Sun were at an infinite distance, then it would illuminate exactly half of the sphere. So, Giordano Bruno asks himself: What about the other half of the sphere, poor thing? What does it do? Does it remain in shadow? So, Giordano Bruno's idea is this: when we reach infinity, we take a step further; we start to go beyond this first infinity, and the Sun will begin to illuminate the back of the sphere. When we reach infinity for the second time, the entire sphere is illuminated. Needless to say, this is, of course, a purely metaphorical idea; it makes no sense at all. However, this is the first time in history that anyone has actually considered the possibility of there being two or more infinities. Today, mathematicians have even come up with infinities of infinities. From the TV programme Il Grillo, Rai, 2 April 2001; quoted in Storia dell'infinito, emsf.rai.it. We delude ourselves into thinking we will experience a miracle in Lourdes, even though, over 150 years, the Virgin Mary has officially granted only 65 miracles to 100 million pilgrims. On average, this figure is less than one in a million, far lower than the rate of spontaneous cancer remissions, which is around one in ten thousand. Not to mention that, as Émile Zola observed, among the votive offerings, you see many crutches but no wooden legs. C'era una volta un paradosso, Einaudi, 2001. It is only on a macroscopic scale that time always moves from the past to the future. At the microscopic level, however, particles of matter can reverse their path and travel from the future to the past, becoming antiparticles. Therefore, particles that coincide with their antiparticles, such as the photons that make up light, must be stationary in time. Moreover, the annihilation that occurs when a particle encounters its antiparticle is merely the outward manifestation of matter, i.e., the change in direction of a particle on its journey through time. Feynman genio e buffone, la Repubblica, 5 dicembre 2003, p. 49. At this point, I wanted to find out what other people thought of Zichichi [...]. I discovered that for years he had been ridiculed by his colleagues and by reviewers, and that he was a real 'embarrassment' to science. In other words, he was a useful man for securing funding, thanks to his connections with political and religious power, but someone to be ashamed of from an intellectual point of view. It's more or less like the 'untouchables' in ancient India, who did jobs that were considered unworthy and unclean, and whose very shadow was contaminating. Zichicche, Edizioni Dedalo, 2003. If we consider that people once knew which angels pulled the planets or which deities caused floods, we can say that today, God has been relegated to the beginnings of the universe, and it is no coincidence that the Pope spoke about this. Th. P., Con noi scienziati sta sbagliando, la Repubblica, 13 September 2006 (Response to the statement by Pope Benedict XVI that "without God, the accounts of man do not add up, and without him, the accounts of the world, of the entire universe, do not add up", Homily at the Islinger Feld in Regensburg, 12 September 2006). It's a kind of inferiority complex: today, science is so powerful that people want explanations for everything, and religion finds itself in a strange position. We are witnessing the rebirth of a form of religiosity that probably annoys Benedict XVI a great deal. The Church has now lost the body of truth it claimed to possess. Con noi scienziati sta sbagliando. Art and mathematics are simply two sides of the same lithography. Le Scienze n. 459, November 2006, p. 123. Mathematicians discover more things in the heavens of mathematics than philosophers dream of on Earth. Le Scienze n. 460, December 2006, p. 109. If I had to convince someone not to believe, I would tell them to read the Bible… but to read it carefully. Paolo Bonolis, Il senso della vita, Canale 5, 13 January 2007. I haven't read the whole Bible; I've read the first five books, what's known as the Pentateuch. Then I read a bit of Joshua and Judges, about the birth of the Jewish state...After that, it becomes political history that might be of interest to historians or others, but it's not relevant from a religious point of view. I skipped ahead and read the Gospels, right up to the Book of Revelation. However, I realised that it was more of a book for psychoanalysts than for logicians, so I left it to others to interpret. Avvenire, 22 February 2007. I want to make it clear that I am certainly not anti-Semitic: as a scientist, I cannot believe in race. However, anti-Zionism is a different matter, as Noam Chomsky, my mentor, says. The project of the Jewish state is based on the principle that Palestine was given to Israel by God. Interviewer: Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was a secularist Odifreddi: It doesn't matter; the result is that today Israel is a fascist state. Mauro Baudino, Piergiorgio Odifreddi: "Fieri di non credere", La Stampa, 1 March 2007, p. 42. You can't have your cake and eat it too – that is, you can't embrace a faith for the blessed poor in spirit and at the same time claim not to be one of them. Ma io credo alla scienza non alla Chiesa, La Stampa, 8 March 2007. (About Albert Einstein) After recalling that, ever since he was a child, he had been deeply struck by 'the vanity of the hopes and strivings by which most men are incessantly driven in a feverish race through life', he goes on to remember that he initially became very religious, but suddenly ceased to be so at the age of twelve, because, having read popular science books, he had 'very soon become convinced that the stories told in the Bible could not be true'. This experience made him realise that 'young people were consciously deceived by the State with false teachings, and it was a shocking impression'. As a result, this precocious thinker developed an attitude of suspicion towards all forms of authority and scepticism towards social conventions, which he would never lose. From that point on, he found liberation in the 'intellectual possession of the world that exists independently of us human beings and that stands before us like a great, eternal enigma, only partially accessible to our observation and our thinking'. Of course, Einstein concludes, 'the road to this paradise was not as comfortable and inviting as that to the religious paradise, but it has proved to be a safe road, and I have never regretted choosing it' [17]. [18] Albert Einstein, Autobiografia scientifica, 1949. Also quoted in the speech hold at the Festival della Mente, Sarzana, Italy, Dio secondo Einstein, la Repubblica, 31 August 2007. Interviewer: You are accused of being arrogant, of “eating priests”, of being insolent. Your impertinence irritates some people a great deal, yet you are one of the most ardent advocates in the fight against rampant irrationality, without which the world and life would be better. It almost seems like a paradox. How do you explain that? Odifreddi: [...] In reality, impertinence is just a way of being; it's perhaps about adding a bit of spice to the things you say in an attempt to provoke a bit of a reaction. [...] I'm not particularly rational or a rationalist. I don't think that reason alone should be the yardstick for everything we do. [...] I think that in a great many activities of human life, rationality is, if not superfluous, at least somewhat limited, whereas in others it is not. In particular, I believe that we cannot do without rationality when it comes to the truth. Gabriella Zammillo, Intervista a Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Matematicamente.it Magazine n. 4, October 2007, pp. 50-52. To say that God is personified, and above all to say that God has become incarnate, reveals a truly limited understanding of the vastness and diversity of nature. It is clearly an anthropocentric view, and a parochial one in the literal sense, to say that God, if He exists, is like me. Moreover, there is no reason to believe this, because if humans were such a highly evolved animal species, so deserving of respect and attention, one might believe it, but one only has to look around to be proved wrong. Honestly, if I were a believer, I would consider these statements blasphemous. Wikinotizie, Intervista a Piergiorgio Odifreddi, 17 September 2009. Galileo Galilei was the greatest writer in Italian literature: that's not me saying it, it's Italo Calvino. il Venerdì di Repubblica, 23 October 2009. You know what philosophers are like – their schools are like comets: a bright head followed by a tail of debris. Matematica: che forza, che bellezza! Piergiorgio Odifreddi at TEDxPordenone, TEDx Talks, 25 November 2010 (at minute 6 min 50 sec). What I meant to say, briefly, is that in fact I also felt somewhat closer to Pope Ratzinger, because [...] indeed, Ratzinger wrote books and had a certain depth of thought, which I don't seem to see in Pope Francis, who is more of what is called a country parish priest, saying platitudes disguised as religious metaphors. So, from this point of view, Pope Francis has never made a great impression on me, and above all, I am not very impressed by this sort of pauperism that characterises his image. [...] In reality, the Pope is quite literally the richest man in the world, because the Constitution of the Vatican City State makes no distinction between the property of the state and the property of the head of state.  From the TV programme 'Fuori onda, LA7, 30 July 2016. The euro would have made sense if it had actually been the single currency of a politically united Europe, but, since a political Europe has not materialised and it does not seem like the time is right to create one, it has simply become a tool that has given the European Central Bank more power. Essentially, what can be described as the suspension of democracy in Italy in 2011 under the Monti government was prompted by the famous letter from the ECB that reached the government, and then the President of the Republic made his decisions. [...] Nevertheless, it's not the case that one can be solely against the euro, because clearly there are benefits at times. La Gabbia, LA7, 12 January 2017; video available on youtube.com. We are all atheists when it comes to almost all religions. [...] Some people, like me, are atheists with regard to all religions, and some people are atheists with regard to all religions except one. Valerio Lundini, L'intervista a Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Una pezza di Lundini, Rai 2, 9 November 2020; video available on youtube.com at minute 10:41. Interviews Andrea Scanzi, Andrea Scanzi intervista Piergiorgio Odifreddi, il matematico impertinente, blitzquotidiano.it, 26 November 2013 Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, are based on sacred books aimed at illiterate communities of shepherds. Today, Christianity is anachronistic. Pope Francis is an outstanding publicist; he sells his product incredibly well. With him, you shouldn't expect changes to the product, but to the advertising. In terms of doctrine, Bergoglio says next to nothing; he simply changes the way it is communicated. He gives the public what the public wants. Through Hollywood, we have been led to believe that the cowboys were the good guys, not the Native Americans , who were victims of a massacre of 18 million people: three times the scale of the Holocaust. Nuremberg was a similar piece of propaganda. That's it. He never denied the gas chambers; he was never a denier. Andrea Coccia, Odifreddi: «Padre Pio, San Gennaro, Medjugorje: per uno scienziato questo governo è inquietante», linkiesta.it, 10 November 2018 [...] All too often, people who write about science in the newspapers have no idea what they are writing about and probably don't even have the means to tell the difference between a credible, important study and one that isn't. In the newspapers, science is covered more from the perspective of gossip than from the perspective of genuine knowledge. It has to sell, not be understood. Here in Italy, science has always been sidelined; this is not a phenomenon of the last 10 or 20 years alone, nor is it a problem that can be confined to popular science writers and journalists. Interviewer: What or who is to blame? Odifreddi: Unfortunately, this is a much broader and much older cultural problem. Science has been sidelined by Italian intellectual society ever since the days of Croce's idealism. Croce was Minister of Education and boasted that he knew even less than what was being said. This continued into the era of Gentile, who reformed the Italian education system at the start of the Fascist period in a way that still has a significant impact on the curricula of today's children, almost a hundred years later. Both of them have always sidelined science, even viewing it as something to be stigmatised. In short, this anti-science sentiment predates what we are experiencing today by many decades – this loss of the importance of authority, this widespread ignorance that calls everything into question, fake news, and all of that. In Italy, there has never been a ruling political class that was atheist; perhaps the most secular figure was Bettino Craxi, although it was he who reinstated the Concordat with the Church. [...] Now, in fact, even videos can be manipulated with extreme ease. We need to get used to the idea that anything that is mediated and represented could be false, and this is an even stronger reason to make greater use of reason. However, even in this case, perhaps the problem is more broadly our relationship with the media. Interviewer: What do you mean? Odifreddi: Let me explain: the media in general were certainly not created to spread the truth. They are not independent, and they do not have an educational mission. You only have to look at who founds them, who owns them, who buys them: the Elkann family in Turin, the Rizzoli and Berlusconi families in Milan, the De Benedetti family in Rome. It really doesn't seem to me that these people are fighting to spread knowledge, understanding, or probably even information. And here, once again, there is nothing surprising about it. Newspapers have always been used to spread things other than information; they have always been used to spread political views, ideologies, and to engage in propaganda. (About Pope Francis) He is portrayed as a progressive, sometimes almost as a communist, even though just a few decades ago, in his home country, he was seen as [...] a reactionary. So why does he seem like a revolutionary now? Just because he says that priests can decide for themselves whether to give Communion to the divorced? In reality, when it comes to the wider problems within Catholicism, starting with the paedophilia scandals, it doesn't seem to me that he's doing anything particularly enlightened. Il non-senso della vita 3.0 – blog What does the Vatican offer in response to requests from the faithful whose marriages have failed? It is not simply accepting the fact that love and marriage are not eternal and last only as long as they last: in other words, it is not approving divorce. Instead, it offers the absurd charade of a declaration of nullity: in other words, a blindfolded refusal to acknowledge what has happened, and a childish pretence that nothing ever existed. Santità, chi è lei per annullare?, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 8 September 2015. One might wonder what kind of guidance or agenda could ever come from someone who writes and claims that dinosaurs did not disappear sixty million years ago, but just a few thousand years ago, or that species were created by the Creator to be unchanging. And one might wonder how long it will be before voters in general, and scientists in particular, have nothing to say, forced to endure with shame such a vice-president of the National Research Council as [Roberto De Mattei]. Fino a quando, De Mattei?, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 28 March 2011. (About Pietro Mennea) He was an example of professionalism and honour, a man who had worked hard to achieve his goals: on the one hand, a world record that stood for 17 years, and on the other, four degrees (in political science, law, physical education and humanities). In a recent interview, when asked why Italy no longer excels in athletics like it did in his day, he responded 'calmly and serenely'. He recalled that, for ten years, he had never missed a training session, not even on New Year's Day. He also pointed out that, by contrast, today's young people are 'overgrown babies' who don't want to put in the effort, whether physically or intellectually. Onore e disonore nel Bel Paese, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 21 March 2013. [...] Unlike all other values, the values of science are almost completely absent from video content in general, and from RAI programmes in particular. That is, when they are not downright mocked and insulted: for example, on Voyager, a programme that screams for revenge, as well as compensation and a level playing field! San Fabio e San Roberto, invitate Darwin!, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 26 November 2010. [...] In Italy, the audience for low-grade charlatans is indeed a vast majority, which turns out on any occasion that gives it the chance to do so. For example, isn't the number of pilgrims who go to San Giovanni Rotondo or Padua each year to ask Padre Pio or Saint Anthony to intercede so that they may be granted the graces they desire roughly the same as the number of voters for Berlusconi and Grillo? And how high does this number rise if, in addition to the Apulian and Venetian friars, we include all the Madonnas and saints venerated throughout Italy? And isn't the number of the poor in spirit who, when they are also physically ill, place their trust in the treatments of charlatans and healers of all kinds, from Vanna Marchi to Luigi Di Bella, again of a similar magnitude? And how many people follow homeopathy, alternative therapies, Eastern practices, trendy exercise regimes, tabloid diets, or faith healers? And how many people read horoscopes, visit magicians and fortune tellers, and entrust their illusions to illusionists? When it comes to politics, why on earth shouldn't all these people believe in the con artist–charlatans who, in their field, are the equivalents of the Padre Pios and the Vanna Marchis of the world? If someone believes that prayers or the laying on of hands can make them have a child or cure cancer, why shouldn't they believe that Berlusconi can pay back their IMU (property tax) out of his own pocket, or that Grillo can give them a universal basic income? [...] The problem isn't Berlusconi or Grillo; the problem is us. Padre Pio, Vanna Marchi e Grillo, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 26 February 2013. In these times of dishonourable and disgraced grown-up babies, an honourable and respected athlete like Pietro Mennea makes us reflect on a fact that is often forgotten: that in physical activity, as in intellectual activity, excellence is achieved 10% through inspiration, but 90% through hard work. There are no 'natural' champions or geniuses: there are gifted individuals who 'artificially' put in a lot of effort to make the most of their talents. Onore e disonore nel Bel Paese, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 21 March 2013. Reading the proceedings of his conference, or speaking with Professor De Mattei, as I had the dubious honour of being able to do on 20 November 2009 in Chiasso, is a disconcerting experience: in contrast to his refined and courteous manner, his statements are, in fact, a veritable compendium of the most crude and presumptuous misinformation about Darwin and Darwinism in particular, and about science in general. Fino a quando, De Mattei?, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 28 March 2011. (About Saddam Hussein) [...] Whatever crimes he may have committed, he had ultimately redeemed himself by romantically taking on the role of David against Goliath and futilely resisting the invasion and conquest of his country by the Great Satan and its allies. Le intermittenze della morte, odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it, 27 October 2010. Il matematico impenitente Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Il matematico impenitente, Longanesi, 2008. Incipit The tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 left around three hundred thousand people dead: a natural geological disaster on a scale equivalent to the man-made atomic disaster in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. European media coverage was unprecedented, due to the fact that a small percentage of the victims and missing persons – fewer than five thousand in total – were Western tourists who were on the beaches of South-East Asia for the Christmas holidays. Looking back on those sad days, the first thing that springs to mind is the extraordinary attention paid to the fate of the holidaymakers, with a particular focus on celebrities such as Emilio Fede and Gianni Morandi, and on their interrupted or disrupted holidays: a dismal lack of perspective and sense of proportion, to which, moreover, we had already been accustomed by the coverage of the war in Iraq, where the front pages of (television) news programmes were dominated by the few dozen mercenaries held hostage by the occupiers, or by the few hundred military casualties of the invading army, while the many thousands of civilian victims in the attacked country were relegated to statistics. Quotes The world is divided in two, and everyone chooses which side to be on. On the one hand, there are the penitents with bowed heads: like Galileo Galilei , who agreed to recant on his knees before the Inquisition, or René Descartes, who chose not to publish his treatise [...]. On the other side are the unrepentant, who hold their heads high: like Giordano Bruno, who was gagged on the stake to prevent him from continuing to blaspheme to the end, or Baruch Spinoza, who was cursed and excommunicated from the Jewish community. Scientists are certainly not against philosophy, but they are against a certain kind of philosophy (existentialism): the kind that cannot speak clearly or correctly, that knows nothing but itself, that reeks of intellectual fraud, and that all too often ends up in Glory like all the psalms. After all, if Maecenas were alive today, he would no longer fund poets and writers, but science communicators and popularisers: in other words, the heirs of the god Hermes, the messenger of the gods, whose role was precisely to build a bridge between Olympus and Earth. So where does Olympus reside today, if not in the centres of study and research, where it is no longer the thunderbolts and storms of ancient mythology that are forged, but the materials and machines of modern technology? Il matematico impertinente Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Il matematico impertinente, Longanesi, 2005 The rejection of evolutionism and the glorification of race and family are the tenets of the anti-scientist faith. These tenets fuel the religious and political fanaticism of Churches and Leagues around the world, because cultural differences are more important than biological variability, at least for those who care more about the society they have built than about the world created by nature. For others, sharing 100% of their DNA with certain 'humans' is more embarrassing than sharing 98% of it with chimpanzees. Finally, on the subject of wordplay, it is worth noting that without humour, life would become an unbearable via crucis: and, as John Chrysostom put it, Jesus never laughed. He is not alone, and it seems that people like him have a problem with distinguishing between language and metalinguage, and with confusing literal and metaphorical meanings, and vice versa. So, let us welcome jokes, witticisms, slips of the tongue, Bartezzaghi's books, and anything else that can remind us that life is a game, and that those who take it too seriously end up putting others on the cross, putting themselves on the cross, or being put on the cross unnecessarily. (Il signore degli strani anelli, Lingua e letteratura) If logic and mathematics were to replace religion and astrology in schools and on television, the world would gradually become a more sensible place, and life more worth living. Therefore, let each of us make our own contribution, big or small, to make this happen, for the greater glory of the human spirit. (La logica come igiene mentale, Logica) The debate between reason and faith is therefore not an academic philosophical question, but a choice of civilisation: siding with Russell or with Padre Pio means contributing either to the march towards the digital age or to a return to the Dark Ages. Let us make our choice now, so that we do not have to complain later. And may God help us, especially if He doesn't exist. (Paradossi del 16 giugno, Logica) Il Vangelo secondo la Scienza Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Il Vangelo secondo la Scienza. Le religioni alla prova del nove, Einaudi, 2008 Incipit Not all questions make sense, and not all questions that do make sense can be answered: this is what contemporary logic teaches us, and this is what anyone wishing to engage in any discourse, particularly religious discourse, from a scientific perspective needs to remember. Therefore, the aim of our investigation will be to determine which theological questions make sense for modern science and mathematics, and which meaningful questions they can answer. Quotes Those who are spiritually healthy do not need religion. (p. 15; 2008) Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Scientists usually content themselves with stating that these questions either don't make sense or don't have an answer. However, their own work contradicts them, as it sometimes yields answers that are neither obvious nor known.However, the idea that the universe had a beginning is more a matter of faith than a necessary deduction from experimental data, and this fact is by no means accepted by all cosmologists, even though it does, to some extent, represent the scientific orthodoxy. In a 1917 paper that was to make history, Einstein himself inaugurated modern cosmology. The metaphysical assumptions needed to inspire his model were provided by the cosmological principle , which had already been foreshadowed by Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno: at any given moment, the universe appears the same, from any point and in any direction you look at it. (p. 42; 2008) More specifically, although Hawking and Penrose demonstrated in 1970 that the field equations of general relativity , together with certain natural additional assumptions, imply the existence of a Big Bang, both believe that their result is merely proof of the inadequacy of general relativity and of the need to integrate it with quantum mechanics. (p. 50; 2008) If Taoism is perhaps the most coherent and comprehensive expression of the view that the ultimate essence of the universe lies simultaneously in nothingness and in everything, then this view is a more or less explicit constant of the entire Eastern religious and philosophical outlook. (p. 55; 2008) The only criticism that can be levelled at Parmenides today, although a substantial one, is that he confused syntax with semantics and did not understand what he had demonstrated: not the self-contradictory nature of non-being as an entity, but the incoherence of existence as a predicate. However, we should not be too harsh on Parmenides, even though his ontological misunderstanding of non-being had the unfortunate effect of preventing the development of a Western conception of zero in mathematics and of the void in physics for almost two millennia. (pp. 56–57; 2008) In physics, the most obvious manifestation of nothingness is empty space , a concept introduced in the East by Taoism. In the Tao Te Ching (XI), it is stated that the usefulness of things, from vessels to dwellings, lies not in the things themselves, but in the empty spaces they enclose. [...] In many Eastern classics, emptiness is unanimously considered both the ultimate principle of reality and the ultimate goal of wisdom: in the Hindu Chandogya Upanishad, we read that 'Brahman is emptiness'. (p. 62; 2008) In general relativity, matter is a hole in a solid: more precisely, a discontinuity in the gravitational field. Indeed, in places where matter is present, the field becomes infinite and therefore ceases to exist. (p. 64; 2008) It is precisely in this area that modern physics has achieved one of its most subtle and surprising results. Indeed, as we shall see shortly when we discuss Bell's theorem, it has succeeded in demonstrating, in a simple and conclusive manner, that the naive view held by the average Westerner of the world as a collection of distinct, concrete and independent objects is definitively wrong. (p. 69; 2008) Complementarity is Bohr's great philosophical contribution to the philosophy of science. He saw it as the expression of a deeper level of truth, [...] The links between this way of thinking and Taoist philosophy are clear, and not coincidental. So much so that, when he was awarded the Order of the Elephant in 1947, Bohr chose the tai chi diagram – the black and white circle representing the complementarity of yin and yang – as his heraldic coat of arms, and the motto Contraria sunt complementa. (p. 75; 2008) Indeed, how can we believe claims that we cannot understand? And how, for example, can we understand what Jung calls "the scandal of the Marian dogma", namely the claim that the Virgin Mary's body was assumed into heaven? As far as we can understand, no 'body' can travel faster than light: should we perhaps assume that the Virgin Mary is at most 1,950 light-years away from us, conclude that 'heaven' is somewhere in our galaxy, and try to locate it using a telescope? (p. 82; 2008) Bohm's vision is therefore truly a scientific formulation of the religious and philosophical mysticism from which we started, in which we find the complementary and fundamental roles of nothingness and everything, transformed into the modern physical versions of the vacuum and non-locality. (p. 84; 2008) Schrödinger's conclusions are certainly surprising for the contemporary Western mindset. However, he explicitly pointed out that, as we now know, Hindus had already reached these conclusions, starting with the Upanishads, and expressed them through the coincidence of the subjective, personal atman and the objective, all-encompassing brahman, and in the motto aham brahma asmi, 'I am brahman'. (p. 104; 2008) Quantum physics  has created the right conditions for change, finding itself in perfect harmony with James' views. The collapse of the wave function exhibits the same characteristics of choice and determination of reality that are attributed to consciousness. (p. 107; 2008) The inexhaustible vitality of the paradoxical conception of religion is evidenced by the numerous proposals it put forward in the second half of the 20th century. The most radical of these proposals has adopted the empty forms of the "theology of the death of God" developed by Thomas Altizer, William Hamilton and Paul van Buren: authors of works with memorable titles, such as The Gospel of Christian Atheism. This theology offers variations on Nietzsche's theme, 'God is dead' (The Gay Science, 125), which in turn is a variation on a theme from Plutarch: 'Great Pan is dead' (De deferta oraculomm, 17). (p. 129; 2008) Descartes also made a mistake, claiming that the essence of God implies His existence just as the essence of a triangle implies that the sum of its angles is 180°. Unfortunately for Descartes, he could not have chosen a worse example of 'necessity', since the angle sum of a triangle is entirely 'contingent': it is less than, equal to, or greater than 180°, depending on whether the geometry is hyperbolic, Euclidean or elliptic. Nor can this obstacle be circumvented by referring to the geometry of the physical world, since Einstein proved that, whatever it may be, it is not Euclidean. (p. 140; 2008) Therefore, although the pre-Critical Kant does not yet recognise the flaw in the cosmological proof, he does already identify a problem: who can guarantee that the necessary being is indeed God? In other words, 'the task is not to prove that God is something that exists, but to prove that something that exists is God'. (p. 152; 2008) For Bruno, therefore, the universe is infinite, but of a lower order than God: he thus anticipates the distinction between infinities discovered by  Georg Cantor in 1874, to which we will return later. (p. 160; 2008) Thus, Catholicism hangs itself by its own rope: by excluding from the ecclesiastical community those who do not accept all its dogmas, it defines itself as a faith in which no one can believe, in clear contradiction to the original meaning of the word καθολικός, 'concerning all'. (pp. 190–191; 2008)  Perhaps the most successful attempt at unification is Baha'ism, described by Leo Tolstoy as 'the highest and purest form of religion' and by Arnold Toynbee as 'the world religion of the future', which already has millions of followers in 200 countries. (p. 195; 2008) Buddhism is therefore a wholly humanistic, democratic and scientific religion: this explains the interest it has aroused in Europe and America in recent times. This intrinsic interest is then combined with the allure of particular personalities and places, most notably the Dalai Lama and Tibet. (p. 202; 2008) By definition, the soul is the principle of inner, spiritual life, understood as an independent entity. The soul is a natural area for religions and theologies to explore, and many mythologies trace its origins back to direct divine intervention. No Revelation, whether mathematical or theological, can justify itself. Religion is the mathematics of the poor in spirit. (p. 211; 2008) If we want to try to eliminate the differences between the learned and the unlearned, the best way forward is to teach mathematics, which enables us to save what can be saved, namely the spiritual experience to which, as Buddhism teaches, religion should indeed be reduced. (p. 211; 2008) In principio era Darwin Piergiorgio Odifreddi, In principio era Darwin, Longanesi, 2009 Ultimately, Croce was a champion of scientific ignorance – and therefore of ignorance tout court – as well as a champion of lost causes. (p. 116) When you were a tadpole and I was a fish, back in the Paleozoic era, my heart was overflowing with joyful vitality because I had loved you ever since then. (p. 3) Aristotelian categories [were] divided into 'substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, being, having, acting and being acted upon'. I find it less shameful to be descended from an ape than from someone who uses their intelligence to obscure the truth. Perché non possiamo essere cristiani (e meno che mai cattolici) Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Perché non possiamo essere cristiani (e meno che mai cattolici), Longanesi, Milano 2007 'Christ' is the transliteration of the Greek term christos, meaning 'anointed', chosen by the Septuagint Bible to translate the Hebrew term mashiah, meaning 'messiah', which in the Old Testament referred to the one who was to come and restore the kingdom of Israel. Among the many self-proclaimed Christs or Messiahs throughout history, the canonical Gospels identify theirs as Jesus: in turn, this is the transliteration of Ye(ho)shua, meaning 'God saves' or 'God helps', a common Hebrew name which, according to Matthew, was suggested to Joseph in a dream by an angel because Mary's son 'would save his people from their sins'. Therefore, in the Gospel tradition, 'Christian', which of course means 'follower of Christ', refers to a 'follower of Jesus', in line with a usage that the Acts of the Apostles trace back to the community of Antioch. Ritratti dell'infinito Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Ritratti dell'infinito. Dodici primi piani e tre foto di gruppo, Rizzoli, Milano, 2020. ISBN 9788817148689 Why on earth would those who dictated [the Holy Scriptures] have wanted so many things to be written which, as we have begun to notice and will continue to do, are scientifically incorrect, logically contradictory, historically false, humanly foolish, ethically reprehensible, literarily poor and stylistically clumsy, instead of simply inspiring a work that is accurate, coherent, true, intelligent, fair, beautiful and straightforward? *Ultimately, therefore, the criticism of Christianity could be reduced to this: that, as a religion for literal-minded idiots, it is not suited to those who, perhaps to their misfortune, have been condemned not to be such idiots. Of course, this is not to say that we should lump everything together, although in the twentieth century, the Catholic Church  did manage to reach an agreement on each of these lumps. The final plague, on the other hand, is a tragic ethnic cleansing, in which Yahweh exterminates all the firstborn of the Egyptians and, for some unknown reason, also their animals. This is an event that the Book of Exodus merely describes with sober satisfaction: 'There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead!'It is this splendid feat that Jews would celebrate over the centuries as Pesach, 'Passover' or 'Easter', because a mark of lamb's blood on the door had indicated the houses not to be struck. (2007, p. 30) The reason for the prohibition of naturalistic depictions, especially for religious purposes, is quite clear: to use the well-known Buddhist metaphor, they risk focusing attention on the pointing finger and diverting it from the Moon it points to. Metaphor aside, they risk leading to idolatry and superstition rather than to God, as indeed happens in religions where such representations are permitted: Catholicism first and foremost, as evidenced by pageants such as the Holy Week processions in Seville or the dissolution of the blood of St Januarius in Naples. (2007, p. 44) Our first personal boundary is, of course, our skin, which separates our body from the outside world. Similarly, the surface of a solid object also separates its interior from the exterior, and the Pythagoreans referred to it as 'chroia', meaning 'skin', although  Euclid later introduced the term ' epiphaneia ' , meaning 'that which must be done from the outside' (from epi, 'above', and phénein, 'to appear'). It is impossible to literally step out of one's own skin, but metaphorically, we do so whenever we seek to broaden our individual horizons. (2020, p. 75) Therefore, our attraction to literature and art, like our need for friendship and love, are simply the most immediate and basic ways in which our desire to transcend ourselves is expressed. (2020, p. 76) If Jesus believed that his second coming was imminent, he would certainly not have founded a Church. And if he did not, then this Church and those people are clearly nothing more than a band of usurpers. (2007, p. 77) Fortunately, however, today the reference to slavery has disappeared from the Church's version of the final commandment, which simply states: – Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods –. However, having lost the second commandment along the way, and to avoid the embarrassment of having an Ennalogue instead of a Decalogue, the Church decided to split the tenth commandment in two, adding as its ninth: – Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife –. Moreover, it refers to women, even though it would have been easy to avoid this lopsided chauvinism by simply stating, 'Thou shalt not covet another's spouse.' (2007, p. 85) Incipit of some works C'era una volta un paradosso Piergiorgio Odifreddi, C'era una volta un paradosso. Storie di illusioni e verità rovesciate, Einaudi, 2001 "There was once a paradox, but time has now resolved it," Hamlet says to Ophelia. Shakespeare is talking about love: which, of course, is already quite a paradox in itself. However, as is often the case, poets see further than they themselves realise. Indeed, the term paradoxon means "beyond common opinion". And since individuals may well be intelligent and cultured, but the masses are undoubtedly obtuse and ignorant, popular opinion is almost always wrong. Therefore, paradoxes are almost always pure and simple truths, and time takes pleasure in lifting the corners of the great veil that conceals them. Il club dei matematici solitari del prof. Odifreddi iergiorgio Odifreddi, Il club dei matematici solitari del prof. Odifreddi, Mondadori, 2009 In the fabulous 1960s, and more precisely on 1 June 1967, the landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, on which the Beatles sang: 'I'll try, with a little help from my friends. I'll get by, with a little help from my friends.” Some forty years later, on a summer day – more precisely, on 20 July 2006 – the chorus of With a Little Help from My Friends continued to echo in my head as the Mayor of Rome explained to me, in his office on the Capitoline Hill, that he wanted to fulfil an old dream of his: surprisingly, to organise a Mathematics Festival! Quotes about Among the various anti-religious arguments that Professor Piergiorgio Odifreddi, a mathematical logician, puts forward in his writings as proof of his ‘pride in not believing’, it is difficult to find even a single one that a self-declared secularist like myself – who has repeatedly explained why I do not believe in God, but only in the history of the idea of God – could take too seriously. [...] Of all his ideas, the one that is truly unacceptable to a sincere secularist is the conviction that dialogue between believers and secularists is entirely wrong, and that it is wholly contrary to ‘logic’, and therefore unacceptable, ‘to recognise the enrichment that can come to everyone from dialogue between different identities and convictions’ (as Father Enzo Bianchi suggested to him, with his characteristic grace); whereas for Odifreddi this dialogue is inappropriate because the truth ‘lies on one side or the other’, since ‘when one person is right in a dispute, the other is wrong’; and, in particular, Science is always right, and Religion always wrong. Arrigo Levi, quoted in Contro gli anatemi religiosi (e atei), La Stampa.it, 13 March 2007. Dramatic atheism – which, incidentally, even gave rise to a ‘theology of the death of God’ – has now all but disappeared. All that remains, at most, are the sarcastic jibes of certain fashionable atheists, such as Odifreddi, Onfray and Hitchens, to name but a few across the main linguistic regions. Gianfranco Ravasi, Ateismo e cristianesimo, Jesus, August 2019. He has no academic qualifications to qualify as an expert on religion. Ignazio La Russa, from the TV programme La vita in diretta, Rai Uno, 4 November 2009. Video available on YpouTube.com. Give back all the awards, give back every single award you’ve ever been given in your life, hand them all back, but try to say something serious [...] but you should be ashamed of yourself – you’re disgusting. Ignazio La Russa, from the TV programme Porta a Porta, Rai Uno, 1 October 2009. Video available on youtube.com. Essentially, there is indifference [towards Odifreddi, Dawkins and similar authors] among both lecturers and students. Debates in academic circles are far more scholarly, and those who engage in them are specialists: the university is not the place for anti-clerical pamphlets. Umberto Regina, quoted in Lorenzo Fazzini, Contro la dittatura del pensiero debole'', Avvenire, 8 January 2008. See also Elsa Fornero Joseph Ratzinger External links Odifreddi, Piergiorgio Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:Mathematicians from Italy Category:Logicians Category:Essayists from Italy Category:Historians from Italy Category:Atheists from Italy