Makes you think, doesn't it?
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Darien Caldwell
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Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,127
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06-10-2009 12:25
From: someone So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe — and I am dead serious when I say this — do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new. - Phillip K. Dick "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later" 1978 It's interesting how words spoken 30 years ago can be even more true today, when taken in the context of the virtual world. And it plucks at a thread that's been in the back of my mind for a long time; I've often wondered if LL, too, likes to see things come unglued. It's certainly food for thought. You can read the full essay here: http://downlode.org/Etext/how_to_build.html |
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Ian Nider
Seeds
Join date: 20 Mar 2009
Posts: 1,011
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06-10-2009 13:25
From: Darien Caldwell - Phillip K. Dick "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later" 1978 It's interesting how words spoken 30 years ago can be even more true today, when taken in the context of the virtual world. And it plucks at a thread that's been in the back of my mind for a long time; I've often wondered if LL, too, likes to see things come unglued. It's certainly food for thought. You can read the full essay here: http://downlode.org/Etext/how_to_build.htmlI had a read of that, only a bit of it, he was on about fake people building fake realities which SL is. But I think it's more cold cut than that, I think they, LL, are a bit broke to be honest and doing this to make money from the adult stuff here. Even though the economy is a somewhat fake reality. Lot's of the sci fi is socially prophetic I'm starting to get back into it a bit after years.
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Seven Okelli
last days of pompeii
Join date: 4 Dec 2008
Posts: 2,300
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06-10-2009 13:59
Thanks for pointing that text out. I'm going to read it later. PKD was my favorite writer a few years back.
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Govindira Galatea
Just ghosting...
Join date: 6 Mar 2004
Posts: 416
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06-10-2009 14:08
From: Darien Caldwell "Before the new things can be born the old must perish." I disagree strongly with this statement, since history and our modern culture are full of things that have passed their time yet lived on. I would find more truth in it if Dick had said instead something along the lines that before the new things can wax full the old things must be waning. Even then, it would not encompass reality.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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06-10-2009 14:16
Dick wrote stories. Apocalypses and disasters are more interesting that success and stability. His goals and ours aren't really connected anywhere.
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Darien Caldwell
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,127
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06-10-2009 16:19
From: Govindira Galatea I disagree strongly with this statement, since history and our modern culture are full of things that have passed their time yet lived on. I would find more truth in it if Dick had said instead something along the lines that before the new things can wax full the old things must be waning. Even then, it would not encompass reality. I don't know, I don't think it should be taken to be literal, nor absolute. I can think of a good example though, Shakespeare. Before there can ever be a new "best literary work in the history of mankind", Shakespeare will have to fall to the wayside. A new king can't claim the throne until the old king is no more.  |
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Argent Stonecutter
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Join date: 20 Sep 2005
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06-10-2009 18:24
I liked "West Side Story" better than "Romeo and Juliet".
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Whimsycallie Pegler
Registered User
Join date: 28 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,003
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06-10-2009 18:37
I liked "Brigadoon" better then "Carousel".
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Milla Janick
Empress Of The Universe
Join date: 2 Jan 2008
Posts: 3,075
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06-10-2009 18:38
From: Argent Stonecutter I liked "West Side Story" better than "Romeo and Juliet". Romeo and Juliet would have been the bomb with more sharks. |
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
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06-10-2009 19:09
From: Milla Janick Romeo and Juliet would have been the bomb with more sharks. Or bombs. |
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Ceka Cianci
SuperPremiumExcaliburAcc#
Join date: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 4,489
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06-10-2009 19:31
a lot may not care for this version.but it did reach a lot of people that i never thought would get into it..my sister for one.. she said at first she was lost but then when she sat and really fell into it she could understand completely what was being said.. that is something i would not expect her to like but she actually bought the movie and the version of Hamlet with Mel Gibson  |
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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
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06-10-2009 20:21
What "electronic mechanisms [...] universes of the mind" was he referring to back in '78?
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Argent Stonecutter
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06-10-2009 20:38
By 1978 the cybernetic/digital future was pretty clear to people who were reading and writing Science Fiction. The first story that described something similar to the Internet was Murray Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe", published in *1946*. The first simulated/virtual reality novel, Simulacron 3 (the basis of the movie "The Thirteenth Floor"  was published in 1964. Brunner's seminal "Shockwave Rider" was published in 1975, and the first recognizably Cyberpunk novel, "Dr Adder" had been written by Dick's friend K W Jeter... though due to its violent and explicitly sexual content Jeter wasn't able to find anyone willing to publish it until the '80s. So... the '70s weren't the stone age. |
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Kyrah Abattoir
cruelty delight
Join date: 4 Jun 2004
Posts: 2,786
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06-10-2009 20:49
I completely agree, chaos is a necessity for a world to evolve and move on.
It is something that completely terrorize the ruling class of the world, that's why ever year recently comes with a general hardening of security, paranoïa and reduction of individual freedoms, individual freedoms are fundamentally chaos for a society.
We all are (in theory) divided between wanting as much order as possible: we want our lives to be safe, a stable job, the capacity to accumulate wealth and see some kind of evolution in our life.
Yet on the flipside we wish for more freedom, for destroying this system our predecessors built to shield themselve, a system who ultimately is strangling our craving for chaos and freedom.
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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
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06-10-2009 20:53
From: Argent Stonecutter So... the '70s weren't the stone age. He seemed to me to be fairly clearly saying something about current reality in that quote, not other science fiction. Possibly electronic news media and advertising. Something that was at that time ceaselessly bombarding people.
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So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
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Argent Stonecutter
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Join date: 20 Sep 2005
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06-10-2009 21:05
From: SuezanneC Baskerville He seemed to me to be saying something about current reality in that quote, not other science fiction. Sorry, I was suffering from a bit of "get off my lawn you darn kids". Yah, I'm sure that television loomed large in his thoughts at the time. Ellison was writing his series "The Glass Teat", and media was becoming increasingly sophisticated (2001, THX-1138, Star Wars). At the same time there was a real concern that the not-yet-called-the-Internet (ARPANET, BITNET, JANET, etc) was a nascent Big Brother (as opposed to the Big Mother****** it actually became). |
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Anti Antonelli
Deranged Toymaker
Join date: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,091
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06-10-2009 21:42
From: SuezanneC Baskerville He seemed to me to be saying something about current reality in that quote, not other science fiction. In the full essay, he talks in small part about media such as television and discusses how the "reality" of even an innocent-seeming thing like a cop show is inherently a lie and may be an insidious form of propaganda, and goes on to talk about the hypnotic power of television to present manipulated "realities" in a way that can bypass critical analysis. Familiar stuff to many, but I expect Dick manages to tie it in to many other things that were pressing on his mind. I only glanced. Perhaps I'll read it all after dinner.
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Abigail Merlin
Child av on the lose
Join date: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 777
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06-11-2009 03:52
the distroying to create concept always makes me think of the god kali-shiva, the all destroyer/all begetter, a two sided god or in some cases 2 gods needing eachother, the sjiva side can only create after the kali side made room for it by destroying, but kali can't destroy if there is nothing created to begin with by shiva.
I'm not sure where it this good comes from, I think it's hindu. but at any rate it shows a fasinating need for balance.
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Darien Caldwell
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,127
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06-11-2009 08:44
From: Argent Stonecutter Dick wrote stories. Apocalypses and disasters are more interesting that success and stability. His goals and ours aren't really connected anywhere. I did want to come back and comment on this, after giving it some thought. I do think the role of a storyteller is very connected to what *some* do here in Second Life. In a story, the author creates a world with words, describing the setting often in minute detail, what the sky looks like, what the walls look like, the floor, the furnishings, everything around, and of course throughout the story there is the ever changing description of the characters. In Second Life, many build worlds too, but not with words, but with prims and textures. They lay their hand to every aspect of the setting, in much the same way the author does. And then they wait for the characters to come play their part. Role Play sims are in many ways the modern equivalent of the dime novel. And I love them for that. They come and go with regularity, in a near-constant state of flux (spare a few long-time 'greatest hits'). They are a hotbed of Chaos, and I hope there is always a place for them in SL. |
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Weston Graves
Werebeagle
Join date: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,059
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06-11-2009 11:27
It sounds to me like Dick is just reinforcing what others have said before, as in Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" or the "All that glitters is not gold." Tolkien quote, or the idea of Alvin being a built in force of anti-stagnation in Clarke's The City and the Stars (probably my favorite novel of all time, BTW).
I don't think this means that LL is programming chaos into the world, however. I think it started out as chaos and they are now trying to reign it in.
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Lexxi Gynoid
#'s 86000, 97800
Join date: 6 Aug 2007
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06-11-2009 12:59
From: Argent Stonecutter I liked "West Side Story" better than "Romeo and Juliet". I liked "Romeo and Juliet" more than "West Side Story". Just something about gangs in modern times singing, dancing, and snapping their fingers in beat and harmony. Warriors was much better than West Side Story. |
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Lexxi Gynoid
#'s 86000, 97800
Join date: 6 Aug 2007
Posts: 3,732
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06-11-2009 13:00
From: Weston Graves It sounds to me like Dick is just reinforcing what others have said before, as in Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" or the "All that glitters is not gold." Tolkien quote, or the idea of Alvin being a built in force of anti-stagnation in Clarke's The City and the Stars (probably my favorite novel of all time, BTW).
I don't think this means that LL is programming chaos into the world, however. I think it started out as chaos and they are now trying to reign it in. I didn't know that chipmunk appeared in an Arthur C. Clarke story. |
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Weston Graves
Werebeagle
Join date: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,059
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06-11-2009 13:44
From: Lexxi Gynoid I didn't know that chipmunk appeared in an Arthur C. Clarke story. Sure. Mickey Mouse even appeared in an Arthur C. Clarke story as I recall. |
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Seven Okelli
last days of pompeii
Join date: 4 Dec 2008
Posts: 2,300
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06-11-2009 14:14
I know a person who lives in the same situation in SL that she does in RL. Same kind of house, same job inworld. I always found it FUNNY that she would bother to escape to a little world that was JUST LIKE HER REAL LIFE.
Her avatar even looks like her RL self.
Isn't that a little crazy?
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_____________________
:
: I met most of the people I know in Second Life through these forums.
: I learned most of what I know of Second Life through these forums.
: When I couldn't get inworld, these forums were the next best thing.
: And sometimes these forums WERE the best thing.
:
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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06-11-2009 14:17
From: Seven Okelli I know a person who lives in the same situation in SL that she does in RL. Same kind of house, same job inworld. I always found it FUNNY that she would bother to escape to a little world that was JUST LIKE HER REAL LIFE.
Her avatar even looks like her RL self.
Isn't that a little crazy? That sounds like the ultimate koan in Karl Schroeder's novel Permanence. |
