Part 0

The method of this research supports the vision of the two eternal principles of Greek-pre-Socratic origin: the infinite and the indefinite, considered as generators of both knowledge and the history of knowledge. Giammarchi’s exposition starts from here, an “omega” point tracing the lines of the current state of human discoveries about the cosmos and at the same time the analogies with ancient and archaic thought.

The author’s perspective considers the scientific perception of the world not in an exclusive way, but as the most accredited and therefore dominant vision today. Therefore, it will not be the only possible vision, but will account for multiple lines of thought that run parallel to it over time: for example religious, philosophical, historical, mythological, allegorical, etc. This would be a collateralist conception of knowledge where the trajectories always correspond but never intersect.

However, in the historical exposition the thought deepens and discovers that these lines are not independent of each other, but cross and overlap several times and therefore cannot be said to be collateral in the manner of parallel straight lines. Instead, they are complementary, each of them completing the other and sharing fundamental common elements: for example the principles which, however implicit, are still necessary. They, the principles, must therefore be made explicit and highlighted on every occasion.

Giammarchi, as a common sense astrophysicist, recognizes that his science sometimes poses irresolvable problems on the basis of direct experience and often problems of no practical use: in fact, who in the world benefits from knowing what the world was like a billion years ago, or how are planets light years away?

But the point is that if the puzzle of the universe is not completed, no part of it, even minimal, will ever have its right place and the right definition in our thinking. In this way, there would be no self-consistent and complete theories and sciences and we would live in a chaos where all words and ideas float in mystery.

Perhaps, looking at history as a whole, it will seem that man has not moved even an inch from the archetypal principle of Pythagoras – and of every other philosopher – at the time when everyone spontaneously gave the universe the name kosmos, that is, order.

And here is one of the eternal principles that Giammarchi never stops talking about.

Author: Roberto Radice