Xylonets
The King Is With Us Now
"I once wrote a story about a man who was injured and taken to a hospital. When they began surgery on him, they discovered that he was an android, not a human, but that he did not know it. They had to break the news to him. Almost at once, Mr. Garson Poole discovered that his reality consisted of punched tape passing from reel to reel in his chest. Fascinated, he began to fill in some of the punched holes and add new ones. Immediately, his world changed. A flock of ducks flew through the room when he punched one new hole in the tape. Finally he cut the tape entirely, whereupon the world disappeared. However, it also disappeared for the other characters in the story... which makes no sense, if you think about it. Unless the other characters were figments of his punched-tape fantasy. Which I guess is what they were."
- "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," Philip K. Dick
# # #
In Haruki Murakami's last novel, "Kafka On the Shore", the character who has named himself Kafka explains why his favorite Kafka short story is "In the Penal Colony." He says, "Kafka's complex, mysterious execution device wasn't some metaphor or allegory--it's actually here, all around me. But I don't think anybody would get that."
# # #
PKD goes on . . .
"In Plato's Timaeus, God does not create the universe, as does the Christian God; He simply finds it one day. It is in a state of total chaos. God sets to work to transform the chaos into order. That idea appeals to me, and I have adapted it to fit my own intellectual needs: What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?"
God is slowly transmuting the universe into something real. Personally I find that heavy.
"During the Middle Ages, a curious theory arose, which I will now present to you for what it is worth. It is the theory that the Evil One -- Satan -- is the "Ape of God." That he creates spurious imitations of creation, of God's authentic creation, and then interpolates them for that authentic creation. . . . Are we to believe that we are occluded, that we are deceived, that it is not 1978 but A.D. 50... and Satan has spun a counterfeit reality to wither our faith in the return of Christ?"
The King Is With Us Now
"I once wrote a story about a man who was injured and taken to a hospital. When they began surgery on him, they discovered that he was an android, not a human, but that he did not know it. They had to break the news to him. Almost at once, Mr. Garson Poole discovered that his reality consisted of punched tape passing from reel to reel in his chest. Fascinated, he began to fill in some of the punched holes and add new ones. Immediately, his world changed. A flock of ducks flew through the room when he punched one new hole in the tape. Finally he cut the tape entirely, whereupon the world disappeared. However, it also disappeared for the other characters in the story... which makes no sense, if you think about it. Unless the other characters were figments of his punched-tape fantasy. Which I guess is what they were."
- "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," Philip K. Dick
# # #
In Haruki Murakami's last novel, "Kafka On the Shore", the character who has named himself Kafka explains why his favorite Kafka short story is "In the Penal Colony." He says, "Kafka's complex, mysterious execution device wasn't some metaphor or allegory--it's actually here, all around me. But I don't think anybody would get that."
# # #
PKD goes on . . .
"In Plato's Timaeus, God does not create the universe, as does the Christian God; He simply finds it one day. It is in a state of total chaos. God sets to work to transform the chaos into order. That idea appeals to me, and I have adapted it to fit my own intellectual needs: What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?"
God is slowly transmuting the universe into something real. Personally I find that heavy.
"During the Middle Ages, a curious theory arose, which I will now present to you for what it is worth. It is the theory that the Evil One -- Satan -- is the "Ape of God." That he creates spurious imitations of creation, of God's authentic creation, and then interpolates them for that authentic creation. . . . Are we to believe that we are occluded, that we are deceived, that it is not 1978 but A.D. 50... and Satan has spun a counterfeit reality to wither our faith in the return of Christ?"