Giovanni Battista Rimentano

Multidimensionalità, psiche e cosmo in Giordano Bruno

La Finestra Editrice, Lavis (TN), 2022

Reading Note

The contours of the study in question are immediately given to us by Maurizio Cambi in Presentation: “The replacement of the physical centre with the human mens is a Bruno's choice fuelled by the burning desire for knowledge” [1] . Therefore, the perspective seems to be that of man: "the mind becomes the exclusive point from which to look at and think about the world and then to operate, effectively"[2] .

If a significant relationship between mind and cosmos is already identified here (psyche and cosmos are in fact part of the title), it must be said that for Giordano Bruno magic was a point of view, but not the only one, of which he spoke, together with that of the science of the time divided, roughly speaking, or confused between magic and science, in the context of his engagement for free thought, as his life and death testify.

From the point of view of Rimentano, our contemporary, what he elucidates in another and related sense remains valid: “In both - nature and the human mind - analogous processes act” [3] . This in fact can be argued all the more today, and if in Bruno's time epistème is science-magic ¬ in the sense of science supported by imagination, memory and Ars memoriae, ruled by the magician - Rimentano chooses to analyse "Bruno's intuitions (and anticipations) in the light [of] psychology, mathematics, neuroscience etc." - current knowledge that is also in his education[4].

The result is an unprecedented version of Bruno's thought. What does not change, nor should it, is man's "inexhaustible determination to activate and enhance his faculties"[5], as is the case, for example, in the heroic fury (but is it not also in the vision of the correspondences and vicissitudes between microcosm and macrocosm?).

The author poses in the form of a question at the beginning of his Preface: "What links and binds together psyche, cosmos and multidimensionality in Giordano Bruno's philosophical speculation? [6]”

And yet, Rimentano continues, multidimensionality "only appears in the history of mathematics from the 19th century onwards, and in the field of physics it is only mentioned today" [7]. So Giordano Bruno could not have understood the things he is talking about as they are conceived today, but Rimentano's thesis is that in his own way his thought could imply this. Now, if with respect to ‘"the dilemmas of matter/spirit, mind/body, psyche/cosmos [...] Bruno's philosophical perspective might seem at first sight out of date [...], this is only true if we adhere to a line of interpretation of his thought that tends to place it in a pre-scientific phase, on this side of modernity [... ] And yet [...] Bruno's perspective could prove to be even more topical than that of Descartes or the current post-Cartesian approach, allowing us to go beyond the dualism of psyche and matter, [...] opening us up to the possible scenarios of another modernity, which perhaps still awaits us” [8].

The essay, therefore, weaves connections between some key points of Bruno's thought and current knowledge such as topology, fractal and projective geometries, the singular bi-logic and the thought of I. Matte Blanco, recognising "interesting correspondences between states of matter and mental states"[9].

How does the discourse unfold? I will stop at the basics, within the limits of a reading note.

To begin with, the answer is sought and found, it seems to me, by identifying the correspondence between mathematics as understood by Bruno and topology, seeing that there is a correspondence between multidimensional incorporeal matter, which contains all forms in itself - living matter-material, which extracts forms from its bosom, being capable of expressing them all and at the same time possessing none in particular[10] - and the imaginative power of the human mind, which expresses the same attitude through that bosom of inexhaustible forms that is the spiritus phantasticus[11].

In short, Bruno seeks the path of matter-spirit coincidence, in that plural living body that is the world, not through a series of parallel chains of attributes shared between things and ideas (for otherwise Bruno would be Spinoza), but in a multidimensional sense as understood today by Matte Blanco's bi-logic, i.e. as the possibility that there may be several worlds in the same place!

I would go so far as to say, having read Rimentano's essay since it was in draft form, that it is not so much a historical essay as a theoretical one, in which, moreover, a series of considerations from different sciences find their place. While this does not exempt the author of the essay from knowing the studies on Giordano Bruno, he does not, in my view, need at all to explore and exhaust the totality of that thought, as the distant and illustrious thinker is believed to have thought precisely. It must be reiterated that, in the light of subsequent and contemporary insights and discoveries, Rimentano draws and clarifies implications and consequences that perhaps Bruno himself intended, but which he could not yet, on the basis of the knowledge of the time, argue in the manner of today. In short, I would say: the author of a theoretical essay on the thought of another author is obliged to know that thought, how far he believes he can go to develop his own theses, certainly not to repeat those of the other[12] .

It therefore appears evident that what "binds and binds together psyche, cosmos and multidimensionality in the philosophical speculation of Giordano Bruno"[13] can today be better understood thanks to contemporary knowledge that the visionary spirit of that author is illuminating.

The ‘central’ idea of Rimentano's essay - that Bruno's universe is not "three-dimensional, but multidimensional" - thus reveals itself as an idea of ‘surprising topicality’[14].

As for Bruno's mathematics, the author points out, it is a "mathematics of the imagination” that “not only solicits logical-demonstrative forms of thought, but also actively exercises the potential inherent in imagination and emotion"[15] . I would therefore say that the way to connect Bruno's thought, so different and yet so pregnant with consequences, so susceptible to lend itself to references to the scientific-mathematical and psychoanalytical future, is opened up precisely where it oscillates and would seem to diverge from the main road of the sciences. If Bruno's thought is connected to an epistème that is influenced by other special thoughts of the time (e.g. Cusano's “symbolism through mathematical-analogue images” is cited[16]), if in the essay the aim is to consider "the notion of dimension and multidimensional space from the point of view of a mathematics ‘à la Bruno’"[17], immediately afterwards Rimentano moves on to consider today's mathematics and geometry: "The concepts of dimension and multidimensional space are today [in] topology"[18] .

Topology, here is another fundamental concept, important for understanding the approach taken in this essay. Let us follow the author as he introduces it, revisiting the Platonic myth of the cave in an exemplary manner[19].

If we are used to perceiving the properties of the physical context in which we find ourselves, being those in a certain way, it is very easy for us to continue to perceive and feel them in that way throughout our lives, without suspecting that there are other properties not perceived, unless our disposition to perceive them changes. Space in our everyday life that is also emotional, psychic, as the results of studies in cultural anthropology and the history of religions seem to show: the context in which one lives, one's perception of it, can become decisive, significant at all levels of the mind and life of the man who lives them. Hence, topology is precisely “the suspicion of being in a cave[20]”, that is, of being conditioned in perceiving by certain coordinates of the space one is in, but that there may also be other and different ones. This is how Rimentano introduces the possibility of multidimensionality, connecting it to the ‘umbratile’[21] character of the res, of what we consider the thing, where it consists of ‘shadow of idea’, as expressed in De umbris idearum. If ultimate reality, in itself or at least insofar as it is intellectually accessible to us, is in some way (also) dependent on ideas, then things as we perceive them are but shadows of such ideas.

All this can take on further complexity in Bruno's context/thought, in the magician's vision of the universe in function/power, through the joint use of memory and imagination in mnemonics, which Bruno constructed in his own way, but also on the basis of other, much older modes of the art of memory or those present at the time (including that of Ramon Llull). Rimentano uses this to come to the relationship between Bruno's thoughts and ‘projective geometry’[22]. This passage serves us to understand “the theme of the shadow and the constitutive humility umbratilità? of the cosmos and psyche according to Bruno” [23]: if the things we believe to be real are but shadows, it will be important to understand, according to the reference system used, but in a new light, how these shadows, in their mutability of being that appears, can change in their appearance and thus we will also understand the relationship between mind and world, things as we think them and things as they are.

So how should projective geometry be thought of in this sense? According to Rimentano, it can be defined as “the study of the shadowy character of presence in the multidimensional caverns of our existence. In the terms of projective geometry, projective processes linked to shadow phenomena pose the question of the loss of information and dimensions” [24]with the problems pertaining to such a way of seeing and which concern not only the psyche, but the very place in which we find ourselves, “in which every presence vibrates fluctuatingly and we feel the wandering nature of our own ubi consistam” [25].

Even the mind, as it is described by I. Matte Blanco, if one admits, as he did, that the psyche can be configured as a sort of space up to n-dimensions, allows us to arrive at the conception of a space, of a wandering place “in which all things - near and far, past and future, great and small, real and imaginary - are together” [26] . This is the description of the mind according to the bi-logic formulated by Matte Blanco, that of dreams, vision of some kind and imagination. But the reference of such susceptible multi-dimensionality to the cosmos as well, to the cosmos as to the psyche, or rather to the psyche as micro-whole and part-whole is evident.

Psychic being has more dimensions than thought - this can easily be understood, if by thought we refer to a canonical and usual dimension of thinking according to bivalent or Aristotelian logic, founded on the principle of non-contradiction. But the psychic being has at least as many dimensions as the real world, of which the psychic is a congener and part. Moreover, the psychic dimension must also be considered in function of the fact that we access a topological awareness of multidimensionality, insofar as ‘the “visual” draws on the more extensive depths of ‘feeling’. Thus, in the author's opinion, through “topological awareness, in dreaming as in waking life” [27]. one becomes aware of a protean reality, which opens man to the infinite and changing cosmos. Things are not as they seem, or not only[28].

After the first introductory chapter, reviewing the themes of the various chapters, the second is on matter, also understood as “memory of the infinite forms it is capable of taking” [29] .The third deals with the hand[30], in Bruno's view, among other things, as a true element of difference with other animals, with relative implications, right down to the biological and neuroscientific ones; the fourth is on mnemonics and imagination - holding firm with Bruno the point of unity and good circularity mind-nature; We then move on to the penultimate chapter (the fifth), on the relationship between light-shadow and projective geometry through what Rimentano defines as Bruno's ‘multi-dimensional physics of light’[31], which ‘appears entirely plausible today, if we take into account the electromagnetic conception of matter’[32]; ending with considerations on ‘Geometry and topology of Giordano Bruno's art of memory’.

The journey through the intriguing places of Bruno's thought and their connection to current ideas is strong, moving and alive, attractive.To the reader who wants to embark on the journey, the task and pleasure of completing it. There is in Bruno like an invitation, but also a continuous provocation.But, as I believe I have also given some ideas on Rimentano's way forward, I believe there is food for thought, also on the basis of this work, on the subject of Giordano Bruno's topicality.Again, ideas are never dead, but good ideas are always revived by someone who is able to see.Therefore there is full justification for what Cambi writes at the outset, for which we can consider ourselves indebted to him, ‘for the results of the research and the stimuli the volume offers’[33].

[1]Cf. la Presentazione a cura di M. Cambi, in G. B. Rimentano, Multidimensionalità, psiche e cosmo in Giordano Bruno, La Finestra editrice, Trento 2022, p. 6.

[2]Ibidem.

[3] Ibidem. Ma «la mathesis qui sottesa [in Giordano Bruno, n. d. r.] è una matematica dell’immaginazione”» (p. 10), un «pensiero per immagini» che Rimentano tratta mediante la «topologia […], consapevolezza del Luogo in cui ha luogo la nostra esperienza» (ivi, p. 10). Tutti i corsivi qui in citazione risultano nel testo.

[4]Ivi, p.7.

[5] Ivi, p. 6.

[6] G. B. Rimentano, Multidimensionalità, psiche e cosmo in Giordano Bruno, La Finestra editrice, Trento 2022, p. 9

[7] Ibidem.

[8] Ivi, p. 44.

[9]Ivi, Presentazione, cit., p. 9. Ma «[…] attraverso l’arte della memoria di Bruno […] esplorando la tridimensionalità […] ci addentriamo nella multidimensionalità di psiche e cosmo» (p. 10).

[10] Ivi, pp. 43-47

[11] Ivi, pp. 66 sgg.

[12] Da questo punto di vista, allora, sfuma la differenza, che potrebbe apparire molto netta, tra punto di vista storico e teoretico.

[13]Ivi, Presentazione, cit., p. 9

[14] Ivi, p. 11.

[15] Ivi, p. 13.

[16] Ibidem

[17] Ivi, p. 14.

[18] Ibidem

[19] Ivi, pp. 14 sgg.

[20] Ivi, p. 18.

[21] Ivi, p. 19.

[22] Ivi, p. 19.

[23] Ivi, p. 20.

[24] Ivi, pp. 19-20.

[25]Ivi, p. 18. Corsivo dell’autore.

[26] R. Rucker, La quarta dimensione. La quarta dimensione. Un viaggio guidato negli universi di dimensione superiore, tr. it. di G.O. Longo, Adelphi, Milano 1994, p. 89, citato in G. B. Rimentano, Multidimensionalità psiche e cosmo in Giordano Bruno, cit., p. 38.

[27] Ivi, p. 41.

[28] Ibidem.

[29]Ivi, p. 53. Ma anche nel corso dell’opera, nei successivi capitoli, nelle note, si torna all’argomento.

[30] in forme «del tutto nuove e inusitate» (p. 70) sulla scorta di luoghi aristotelici e altri del pensiero antico; sulle differenze, vedi le pp. 88 sgg..

[31]In particolare si veda da p. 136 in poi; su questo, sul tema della umbratilità e dell’ombra, e sulle implicazioni sul piano del simbolismo in generale, vedi anche il c. 2,pp. 59 sgg.

[32]Ivi, p. 37.

[33] Ivi, p. 7.