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Philip K. Dick
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
Eds. Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2011. 944 pp.
_____. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1964. Mariner, October 2011. 240 pp.
_____. Ubik
1969. Mariner, April 2012. 240 pp.
_____. VALIS
1981. Mariner, October 2011. 288 pp.
_____. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
1982. Mariner, October 2011. 256 pp.
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Dick’s convoluted sci-fi plots are best read allegorically in any case, and I think Three Stigmata and Ubik deserve to be seen as two of the starkest parables of the Marxian concept of reification ever written. The entropic settings of both novels are indistinguishable from our mundane world of consumer capitalism, where meaningful distinctions between people and objects have collapsed: Humans have become mere things to be drugged and manipulated, while artifacts have become efficacious, quasi-spiritual agents. The characters in both books routinely emit a debased jargon full of advertising slogans and empty journalese, all the while moving through an object-world that seems vitalized by the very powers they have lost. Yet there remains the possibility, however absurd, of a kind of salvation, of some transcendent message that can break through the reified crust and put the characters in touch with their essential selves. This invasive signal, emanating from a higher dimension, is usually cryptic and distorted by noise, and can often be confused with the welter of garbage surrounding it. As Dick would put it in VALIS, “the symbols of the divine show up in our world initially at the trash stratum” — and this is how the first inklings of Dick’s later oracles vouchsafe themselves in his early work.
"My wondering was rewarded by this excerpt from Spiritual Instruction and Discourses, Vol I: The Authentic Seal by Archimandrite Aimilianos: “Orthodox Spirituality and the Technological Revolution”
He argues that there isn’t anything essentially different about today’s technology, in its effect on our spiritual life, than there ever has been. Technology per se is not the problem. Rather it is the “absence of accountability in the way in which technology is administered and exploited.” "
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The great comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell once said, "People don't want the meaning of life, they want the experience of life." He could not have hit the nail more firmly on the head.
One thing I have never understood in the vitriol that people manage to dredge up in these science vs. religion battles is their lack clarity about goals. Is human spiritual endeavor really about "knowing" the existence of a superbeing? Does this academic "knowing", as in "I can prove this to be true," really what lies behind the spiritual genius of people like the ninth century Sufi poet Rumi, the 13th century Zen teacher Dogen, or more modem examples like Martin Luther King or Ghandi?
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As the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said "Even if God did exist, that would change nothing." One way to interpret his meaning was that a formulaic "knowledge" of a superbeing's existence is beside the point when the real issue before us every day, all day is the verb "to be."
It’s the act of being that gives rise to our suffering and our moments of enlightenment. Right there, right in the very experience of life, is the warm, embodied truth we long for so completely.
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Because whether there is a God or not, the universe per se cannot have a purpose in any anthropomorphic sense for which that term is usually employed. The universe is simply the collection of galaxies, stars, planets, comets, meteorites, and other solar system detritus, plus whatever dark matter and dark energy turn out to be. The universe is governed by laws of nature that themselves have no purpose other than what they inevitably dictate matter and energy to do.
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Humans have an evolved sense of purpose — a psychological desire to accomplish a goal — that developed out of behaviors that were selected for because they were good for the individual or for the group. Although cultures may differ on what behaviors are defined as purposeful, the desire to behave in purposeful ways is an evolved trait. Purpose is in our nature.
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