Conversation with Luca Fiorani on the Partigiani, Virtues, Love, Meaning, Philosophers and Geniuses of Note, and Consciousness and the Soul: First Member, RealIQ Society (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/02/15

Abstract

Luca Fiorani is the first member of RealIQ Society by Ivan Ivec with an estimated IQ of 181.2 (σ15) combining 9 tests, where he studies and considers himself a philosopher in nuce. He discusses: a family history in the Partigiani; the triplet values; Roman Catholicism; the reason for being a loner; cut off social reality; studying; the “proper credentials for achieving something non-negligible”; a life work; regrets; discovery and commentary by other people at 7-years-old; the main reasons for the “society of exhibitionism”; Plato; Dante Alighieri; Leonardo da Vinci; Gottfried Liebnitz; Werner Heisenberg; Jacques Lacan; Kurt Gödel; some exceptions to the principle of profound intelligence required for genius; work, love, friendship; the correct properties of God; science changing the views of consciousness; personal perspectives on consciousness and the soul; freedom of the will and human nature; test constructors; Kantianism; Rousseauism; economic liberalism; Rawlsian ethics; Spinozan metaphysics; Nietzscheanism; reject solipsism; conscious agents, operators; the numinosum; and love.

Keywords: consciousness, love, Luca Fiorani, meaning, Partigiani, philosophers, soul, virtues.

Conversation with Luca Fiorani on the Partigiani, Virtues, Love, Meaning, Philosophers and Geniuses of Note, and Consciousness and the Soul: First Member, RealIQ Society (2)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As an irregular army force, the Partigiani fighting against both Fascism and Nazism seems most intriguing to me. These stories of “bravery, fortitude, daring,” while ‘giving up is not an option,’ as a maxim, seems to imbue a family narrative with nobility in sentiment. Is this a sensibility found throughout many Italian families with a family history in the Partigiani?

Luca Fiorani[1],[2]*: Yes, I guess. Without Resistance there is no Liberation and without Liberation there’s no Liberty. Freedom is something valuable. Their sacrifice won’t be forgotten. Our current battles – for rights, against ideological systems, etc. – are mainly possible because of their battle, less metaphorical but even more representative. They’re an emblem.

Jacobsen: What are some aspects of personal life in which you have been able to fulfill the maxim and the triplet values of “bravery, fortitude, [and] daring”?

Fiorani: In the context of my psychological growth. I had demons to face and I fought them without quitting. This granted me the chance of living a more than acceptable life, I’d say satisfying – the only flaw/defect remains the lavorative scope: but I’m less than 30, nothing is lost, I still have opportunities, and I intend to take them.

Jacobsen: What does Roman Catholicism mean to a family living in Tuscany and Liguria while ‘embracing Catholicism in a not too rigid way’?

Fiorani: Roman Catholicism is rule, routine, standard for most families in Italy. The promulgated values are important and elevated. You can follow most of them even without being assiduously practicing, in my humble opinion: in fact, this very thing happens repeatedly, with no clamor.

Jacobsen: What was the reason for being a loner “as a child and as an adolescent”?

Fiorani: I don’t possess all the answers, things just happen, several factors I suppose – i.e. my nature/temperament/personality and others’ cognitive and emotive maturity or lack of it, it depends. Not everything is easily classifiable.

Jacobsen: It seems as if a tendency to only pursue friendships if they fell into your lap rather than heading out into the world to find them, consciously. So, why cut off social reality and from “reality often”?

Fiorani: Maybe I suffered more than I like to admit. Escapism is a response to a stimulus.

Jacobsen: What are you studying now?

Fiorani: Philosophy. I’m about to complete the full cycle of studies. I shall obtain my doctor’s degree within July 2021, I’m preparing my graduation thesis. I am a good student, being A+ my average grade at university. I’ve also obtained full marks with honors in high school, appearing in Albo Nazionale delle Eccellenze [National Excellence Honours Roll] as well.

Jacobsen: What comprises the “proper credentials for achieving something non-negligible” in work?

Fiorani: Master’s degree, for instance. Plus, right motivation and befitting forma mentis. I’ll reach a stability, I’m pretty confident about that.

Jacobsen: Do you have a life work, as in a pursuit or passion intended for life?

Fiorani: Certainly.

Jacobsen: Any regrets on the side of competitive aspect with addiction and competition as the mindset?

Fiorani: Yes, I do have regrets. Anancasm is not fine.

Jacobsen: How did this discovery and commentary by other people at 7-years-old change the orientation to education? As peers, based on prior commentary, they seemed a distant non-concern while in rapture with your own thoughts.

Fiorani: The orientation to education… I’ve progressively become aware of my talent in various fields, almost everything which involved theoretical conceptualizing and abstract reasoning – as for my manual dexterity, my skills were almost null then, and are very poor now. Also, my drawing ability is close to zero. It’s a soft sub-kind of dysgraphia – my handwriting, for example, is something horrible.

Back to the point, people considered me a brainiac but rarely in its pejorative meaning, I’ve never been a eager beaver vel similia, and, as for teaching programmes, nothing changed – giftedness is an almost ignored issue in Italy, which implies de facto not taking into account gifted children and possible specific educational programmes. But I wasn’t an underachiever, and I fought boredom in many ways – being also a precocious autodidact.

Jacobsen: What seem like the main reasons for the “society of exhibitionism,” of the creation of Homo vacuus, of ‘the society of spectacle’?

Fiorani: I cannot clarify with abundance of details. I may become encyclopedic, pedantic, verbose. I suggest to read works of Guy Debord, Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Žižek, Peter Sloterdijk.

Jacobsen: Looking at the examples, it raises some straightforward questions with Plato, Dante Alighieri, Leonardo da Vinci, Gottfried Leibniz, Werner Heisenberg, Jacques Lacan, and Kurt Gödel. What makes Plato a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: Plato has been the first pedagogue of the Western world. He was a formidable writer – his Dialogues are literary masterpieces –, his mind was vast. He conceived so many thoughts and ideas (cf. the famous quote of Alfred North Whitehead on Western philosophy: “a series of footnotes to Plato”, in Process and Reality). Philosophy was already alive and strong – Heraclitus, Parmenides –, but Plato let it shine and rise and expand, both following and overcoming his master Socrates. The latter is very present till the end, though. Not a coincidence that Leo Strauss spoke about zetetic skepticism describing the Socratic attitude of Plato: doubt and research as keystones.

Jacobsen: What makes Dante Alighieri a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: If one has familiarity with the Divine Comedy, it becomes truistic. His poetry is unmatched. Each single verse – of the 14233 of which his masterpiece consists – is not trivial nor easy. Consider as well how much theology was in his work. Dante was able to express things in a way that has never been equaled, I’d say. Take the following lines as a golden example:

«Fede è sustanza di cose sperate
e argomento de le non parventi,
e questa pare a me sua quiditate»

(Paradise, XXIV, 64-66)

faith is the substance of the things we hope for 

and is the evidence of things not seen;

and this I take to be its quiddity

I consider the beauty and depth so amazing that I shall leave to the reader other remarks.

Jacobsen: What makes Leonardo da Vinci a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: He is the most classic and complete example of Homo universalis. He was impressively versatile, the novelty of his ideas is now well-known. His skills were various and immense and his contributions to mankind remarkable.

Jacobsen: What makes Gottfried Liebnitz a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: Another polymath… The mind of Leibniz is similar to The Library of Babel of Jorge Luis Borges. I’d say then, the total mind. High standing logician [cf. identity of indiscernibles, etc.], mathematician [cf. differential and integral calculus and refinement of binary system as notable examples], elegant and ingenious philosopher [cf. Monadology, etc.], prolific inventor [cf. stepped drum and other mechanical calculators]. Some of his intuitions were confirmed more than two centuries after his time. He wrote essays in six languages. His erudition too was something nearly unbelievable.

Jacobsen: What makes Werner Heisenberg a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: He won the Nobel prize in 1932 “for the creation of quantum mechanics”. He really has been a pioneer and key figure in physics. This (r)evolution hasn’t perhaps the same vastness of the ones by Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, but we’re not that far.

Jacobsen: What makes Jacques Lacan a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: Lacan just brought psychoanalysis to another level. He has been able to re-read and re-comprehend entirely Sigmund Freud, his mentor. His studies on the language are sublime. He reaches a rate of elaborateness so high that he is often considered obscure or even indecipherable. Difficulty is there, I mean, that’s unquestionable, but his complexity is also epiphany, brainwave and so on. He appears unintelligible, but as well he enlights us about so many phenomena, that I’m inclined to forgive his excess of sophistication.

Jacobsen: What makes Kurt Gödel a good example of a genius?

Fiorani: I believe that he’s the greatest logician ever lived. I’m not excluding Aristoteles and Gottlob Frege, nor Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski, Saul Kripke and Alan Turing, beware! Gödel’s incompleteness theorems represent a revolution tout court. How we view things – our approach to everything we know, for instance.

The famous Pontius Pilate’s question (cf. John 18:38), Τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; [Greek]/Quid est veritas? [Latin]/What is truth? becomes even more difficult or challenging and intriguing after Gödel.

Jacobsen: What are some exceptions to the principle of profound intelligence required for genius?

Fiorani: In some artistic fields it may happen that one brings a revolution (sort of), without being profoundly intelligent. So, at least to a certain extent this person is genius, in a way. To some degree, yes. Andy Warhol seems fitting.

Jacobsen: In a direct sense, you have spent a significant amount of time in intellectual and alternative test-taking pursuits. Why the obsessions with a reduction in the practical concerns for the manner of an ordinary life, e.g., work, love, friendship, and the like?

Fiorani: Assuming that I haven’t spent time for things like love and friendship, for example, is incorrect. I devoted time also to important things.

Jacobsen: What seem like the correct properties of God, “bidden or not bidden”?

Fiorani: The correct properties? Bonum-Verum-Unum-Pulchrum? Yes, I guess so…

Jacobsen: How is science changing the views of consciousness, the soul, and human nature, even the nature of nature? How do these differ from the past philosophical arguments? How do these not differ from the past philosophical arguments?

Fiorani: Materialistic arguments are winning – in the field of philosophy of mind, which includes consciousness & soul. But that’s not a law, just a trend. Neurosciences are changing a bit how we view human nature, indeed. As for the nature of the nature, I guess that contemporary physics arrives. Quantum field theory, Unified field theories, Standard Model, Cosmology, Higgs boson: Wikipedia might help the reader here.

The other two questions require a very long diachronic analysis. Let’s just say I don’t reply ’cause I’m not able to.

Jacobsen: What are personal perspectives on consciousness and the soul?

Fiorani: A curious and thorough perspective about consciousness is described in: The Matrix (1999), directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski; and Memento (2000), directed by Cristopher Nolan. My ‘personal’ perspective is similar. About soul, I might quote The Seventh Seal (1957), directed by Ingmar Bergman; and Life of Pi (2012), directed by Ang Lee. Why do I cite movies? I don’t know, it has been genuine.

Jacobsen: Any thoughts on freedom of the will and human nature?

Fiorani: The verdict of Mahābhārata is a thought of mine: “The knot of Destiny cannot be untied; nothing in this world is the result of our acts”. Please cf. also Dark, the famous German TV series, which debuted in 2017. The ambition and complexity of its narrative deserves our praise. My hasty prose does not deserve praise, instead. Speech is silver, silence is golden – never mind.

Jacobsen: Those test constructors: Theodosis Prousalis, Xavier Jouve, Ron Hoeflin, Jonathan Wai, James Dorsey, Iakovos Koukas, Nick Soulios; they are well-known within the high-range testing community.  Whose tests seem the most g-loaded tests, whether numerically, spatially, or verbally, or some admixture of them?

Fiorani: It depends. The (good) verbal ones might be the most g-loaded.

Jacobsen: Why Kantianism as the ethical philosophy?

Fiorani: Because there is less heteronomy but not less universality.

Jacobsen: Why Rousseauism as the social philosophy?

Fiorani: His Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are fascinating. You need to understand the impact of civil society on people – and nature of people – in order to overcome social injustices. Otherwise you won’t go anywhere. I don’t concur with everything he said, for example about private property as original source of all inequality, but I like his method – Rousseau has been a pioneer too.

Jacobsen: Why economic liberalism as the operating system for an economy?

Fiorani: Because that system is the one that, in Wirklichkeit, in factual reality, works the most. In concreto. There are better systems in abstracto, i.e. ideally. But history proves that they don’t work with a similar efficiency for a relevant amount of time.

Jacobsen: What parts of Rawlsian ethics most definitively sets forth an ethical vision of a political system?

Fiorani: Advantaging the underprivileged is one of the main ideas of Rawls. That’s the most important point. How he applies this principle is explained updating some instances of Kantian philosophy. He also uses a variant of the social contract theory (a reinterpretation of Jusnaturalism).

Jacobsen: Why does Spinozan metaphysics (philosophy) as demarcated by Hegel help thinking about things outside of the physical?

Fiorani: There’s a third level of knowledge, the first being by perception and the second by reason. The third kind is amor Dei intellectualis – you may call it intuitive. The second kind of knowledge is OK for the physical, but it’s not enough. To comprehend reality in all its aspects, metaphysics is necessary, thus the third level of knowledge. Spinoza describes these things in the most solid philosophical system I know. That’s all.

Jacobsen: Why does Nietzscheanism provide a comprehensive system of thinking for you?

Fiorani: Thus Spoke Zarathustra… Almost everything is there. A Book for All and None. Explanation concluded.

Jacobsen: Why reject solipsism as in the intersubjectivity of meaning?

Fiorani: Human being is φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον (by nature, social animal) and our mind is, Bereshit, in principle/in beginning, relational. Solipsism is wrong, sic et simpliciter.

Jacobsen: With meaning externally and internally derived synchronously, what does this state about a universe or an area in the universe without conscious agents, operators?

Fiorani: There is an universe/area if there are conscious agents.

Jacobsen: With the “ineffable sacred mystery” of the numinosum, what does this mean for the process of discovery of science and the human activity of organizing the findings into theoretical constructs, organizing principles?

Fiorani: Nothing. That process – consisting of: discovery, theoretical constructs, organizing them, etc. – continues and works.

Jacobsen: As love is the “most marvelous sentiment that we have,” what is a life without love?

Fiorani: Life without love would be an error.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] First Member, RealIQ Society

[2] Individual Publication Date: February 15, 2021: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/fiorani-2; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2021: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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