Hi Michael, “The Quantum Astrologer’s Notebook” was published back in 2017 in the UK and it is now going to make its debut on the Bulgarian book market. Did you expect that it will have a long-term success?
I didn’t know what to expect, because I wrote the whole book before I told anyone else about it. At first, I just hoped that it would find a few readers – I never dared to hope it would have a long life. But I am so glad that it continues to find new readers, because it is my favourite of my books (perhaps because it consumed all my spare time and attention for the many years it took me to write it).
How did you first come across Girolamo Cardano’s name and work?
When I was researching my book "The Secret Anarchy of Science", I looked into stories of how science gets done (as opposed to how scientists tell you science gets done, which is a very different thing!). It was during this time that I came across Cardano’s claim in his autobiography that some of his discoveries were conveyed to him by spiritual beings who came to him at night. I thought that that was intriguing, and it made me delve a bit deeper into this strange man…and thus my obsession was born!
Being a scientist in Italy in the 16th century and being a scientist today are too very different experiences. Do you think you would have survived the challenges that Cardano had to face?
No! I think that I would have tried to find an alternative way to earn a living. If my professional body was set against me, and people were trying to sabotage me, I would have given up for sure. I also think I might not have been brave (or foolish?) enough to write books that exposed the misdemeanours of my colleagues, so maybe I wouldn’t have found myself in Cardano’s position in the first place. Luckily for us, Cardano was stubborn enough to find a way through his challenges. He certainly seems to have been ok with not being a people pleaser – for better or worse that’s not something I’m good at!
Based solely on the title, people may think that this is a book about astrology. Can you elaborate on the role of astrology in the academic context of Renaissance Europe?
The book is not about astrology, except that this was how Cardano earned a living in some moments of his life. But it has to be noted that astrology was perfectly respectable in Renaissance Europe. Kings and princes sought the opinions of astrologers when they had major decisions to make, in much the same way that they seek the opinions of economists today (and perhaps today’s economists get away with just as many erroneous predictions). Even Popes and cardinals considered astrology to be a useful practice. After all, God was in charge of the heavens, and it seemed impossible that His plans wouldn’t be written in the sky for us to read.
Considering that Cardano was mostly known as a doctor, have you wondered how he would have handled the Corona virus pandemic that we all lived through?
I feel like he would have handled it well. After all, he made his name as a doctor by prescribing low-key, evidence-based changes in lifestyle. There was no grandiosity: he just saw that quite small changes, such as changing the kind of stuffing you had in your pillow, or taking some time out of the pestilence-ridden city, could have significant effects. I feel like Cardano would have been very much onside with isolation as a means to avoid COVID-19 infection, for instance…but we will never know, of course.
Have there been any major breakthroughs in quantum physics since the publication of the book? If you had to write it today, would you change any of the content related to quantum theory?
It’s a good question – but it made me laugh! There have been almost no major breakthroughs in quantum physics for the last 100 years. I don’t need to make any updates, I’m afraid: people are still arguing about what it all means, with no new evidence to inform their arguments.
Do you keep talking to Girolamo Cardano or that ended with the book?
The best way I can put it is that we are still in touch. The next book I wrote was an attempt to encapsulate what the mathematics we learn at school has accomplished for human civilization, and I felt like it was an idea that came straight from Cardano. When I was writing it, I felt like he was looking over my shoulder. I still have the entirely ridiculous sense that we have a special bond across the centuries.
It is quite hard to determine the genre of “The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook” but I admire the freedom you gave yourself in writing because the result is a very gripping narrative. Was it hard to navigate between the fictional and non-fictional?
It was very hard to know where to draw the line, and sometimes I felt like I didn’t know what was real and what was not. As readers will discover, I am brutally honest about being an unreliable narrator in certain respects! I pressed on because telling Jerome’s story seemed like an urgent task – an obsession really – even though it felt like I was not always in control of what came out.
Can you tell us what you are currently working on?
I am currently working on a book (working title Be Here Now) that celebrates human beings. It is a very personal book that was born out of a tragic episode in my family life. My hope is that it will give us all a positive sense of ourselves. So much of today’s narrative is that humans are a scourge on the planet, terrible to each other, and an entirely insignificant blip in the story of life on Earth. The truth – from an objective, scientific perspective – is very different. We are actually the most interesting thing in the universe, and each human being has the potential to understand their cosmic significance in a way that no other animal on Earth – and maybe in the whole universe – can. My view is that we should start seeing ourselves in a more positive light: I want us to talk ourselves up, rather than beat ourselves up. I hope and believe that this would make the experience of being human a joy. In short, I aim to start a revolution, backed up by science, where people see themselves and each other as the best thing that ever happened to the universe.