The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
Page 62
The explanation of "who or what fed me back my books," in particular Ubik (in 3-74), is found in the contents of Ubik itself; i.e., the formulation of the information entity Ubik. Obviously I envisioned an entity which actually existed and therefore which responded with a feedback confirmation. One could analyze this theoretically; viz: if there were a macro-information entity, and you presented a fairly accurate formulation of it, you could reasonably expect the entity to fire a confirmation at you; since the formulation puts it forth as helpful and benign, in fact interventive. In fact, one could test as to whether such an entity exists by presenting a formu lation of it, and then seeing if it responded, based on the built-in quality attributed to it that if it existed it could be expected to respond. In other words, via the tentative formulation one could come into contact with it if indeed it existed. As I recall, there is some theory about this vis-à-vis contacting ETIs—if they return the info you transmit, specifically if the info is selectively modified, you know you've made contact with what you're trying to make contact with. The point of it returning your info to you (modified) is that it doesn't speak your language or even think like humans, so to create a signal you can recognize as sentient it must utilize to some extent the info you sent to it.
[8:7] This still doesn't tell me who/what has responded, or even where it is. But I have been in dialog with it for almost five years now! The Ubik material would seem to point to it being Ubik-like—seem to: I can't be sure; or did it only simulate Ubik qualities in order to read back my writing? It seemed so much like Ubik; this may have been a way of communicating with me, which I really didn't catch on to until now, actually. It may be quite alien to us humans. If to communicate with me it had to take on Ubik qualities it must be really dysmorphic to us. (This is frightening.) I am now in the position of having to dismiss all attributes which it disclosed as being possibly only simulations mimicking Ubik in order for it to be comprehensible and syntonic (nicht fremd) to me—possibly. I can't be sure.
This is a very sophisticated analysis of Valis' nature.
I am going to leap to a conclusion based on the "Acts" and other Christian material. I think it is indeed the Holy Spirit, which took a Valis-like (i.e., Ubik-like) form out of considerateness toward me but—I hesitate to essay anything in the way of assertions about its actual (real, not simulated) nature. After all, if it is the Holy Spirit it is the supreme being himself. ("I am he which causes to be. I am what I am.") I assess its taking a form compatible to me as (1) a gracious act of loving deference; and (2) valuable (if not necessary) for it to communicate with me. I do not construe it as deception but as a virtual necessity and certainly done for my sake.
It shaped itself to my conception of the Logos (i.e., it). When I reflect on the form it took I can appreciate that this form would be the most acceptable possible to me, as disclosed by my conception in Ubik. It tailored itself to my stated conception, my highest conception.
But also it testified to me of the living reality now of Christ and the joy involved. The preparations for his return.*
***
[8:9] #1: "One mind there is; but under it two principles contend."
Recently I have forgot my own tractate. My experience with the dialectic agrees with the formulation in the tractate and hence in VALIS. It is stipulated as basic.
The ability of Valis to assume the particular form most syntonic to me—the form of Ubik—is connected with its basic mimicking ability which I have already written about. It never occurred to me that Zebra as a form was just another mimicking until the last couple of days when I realized that it conformed in all respects to my conception of the deity (the Logos) as I (naturally) put forth in Ubik. This realization undermines the probity of my reams of description of Zebra; I have only described what my own head construes the deity to be like—a self-portrait; albeit a modern, complex and sophisticated apprehension of the deity, it is quite subjective and quite culturally determined (i.e., a cybernetics-biological model). As shown in Ubik I conceive of God as isomorphic to my own brain: thus I encounter a macro-brain arranging reality into information, a projection on my part. It was a macro-mirror.*
My brain to Ubik to Zebra. Mimicry. It analyzed my preconceptions—what I'd expect. Ubik isn't the sole source; Ubik just demonstrates my conception. Even if I hadn't written Ubik the conception would be there; everyone has a conception of the deity.
I don't feel it duped me; I think it had to take some form; and it took the one I'd expect and like—it took this form for these reasons. My realization of its mimicry ability should have made me think of this possibility before now. But then does not this mean that Zebra is the deity, inasmuch as it took the form which I conceive the deity as taking? Or at least, it is reasonable to suppose it is the deity. I can say that I now realize that what I saw—Zebra—perfectly fits my deepest and most profound conception—down to all fine details—of the deity. What could (1) know my conception: and (2) assume it, but the deity? So actually these realizations bolster the argument that what I experienced was the deity, rather than undermine it.
[8:11] So Zebra is a macro feedback circuit re my micro-conception as expressed in Ubik especially, but not limited to Ubik. Does this verify the hermetic "above as below" cosmology? Bruno's Mirror?
Or is this a case where an assumption (that Ubik exists) serves as a hypothesis which gets tested due to its very formulation (and publishing thereof?)—if it's correct, a response comes; if not then not. In this case the hypothesis is confirmed by the response, because undoubtedly Zebra's epiphany is a response.
Somehow this resembles my concept of the self-perpetuating dialectic. A correct hypothesis will be responded to—as if automatically, since such a response is included in the conceptual formulation. There's, then, an "up by his bootstraps" element in the fact of Zebra's epiphany. If you even just happen to formulate properly you can be certain of the epiphany-response!
It's (like) asking the right question: that's all that's needed. This takes me back to my idea of our (simulated) reality being a teaching machine, of which you must discern what question to ask of it. This means that in the 3-decade evolution of my epistemological investigation I asked the right question (or put forth the correct formulation, apparently best put forth in Ubik).
So I see Zebra's resemblance to Ubik as a subtle but vigorous confirmation of my formulation of Ubik, and the nature of our reality, our situation, put forth in Ubik. Even if the entity which responded tailored its Gestalt to fit my Ubik formulation: even totally tailored. (It can't be totally. The ability to do this tailoring is a major part of my formulation: vide Ubik, etc.)
I suspect that an analysis of my formulation of the nature of Ubik would disclose a presentation of the mimicry ability, since ubiquity is stipulated—ubiquity and invisibility, hence mimesis or mimicry is implied if not overtly stated.
So its taking the form it took toward me leads me back to a recognition of what must be a fundamental quality of it: its mimicking ability. This is an exciting realization. I have been right to conceive this as basic to it: camouflage. Then it is (in some sense) an invader, probably: from outside the program or simulated reality, as Ubik is in Ubik. (This was primary with Ubik, this invasion of our simulated world.)
So the insight that the form which Zebra took was a calculated simulation of Ubik only refers me back to my previous insight of the camouflage capacity of the entity—camouflaged here in our world, perceiving but unperceived.
[8:13] Voice: "It assimilated 3 of my books." It is, after all, living information. My writing is information. The books incorporated into a life form—Lord!
Powers: "It let the courier have a glimpse of the info he was carrying."
[8:19] Valis is the real (and rational) world breaking into (invading as in, e.g., Ubik) our simulated (and irrational) world. I am saying, Valis is a world. A (the) real world. Ubik is to the cold-pac world as Valis is to our world. If Ubik and Valis are one and the same, our world is both irreal (Ubik) an
d irrational (VALIS).
We're missing half our stereo signal—what I call the upper realm (one).
This notion that in 2-3-74 the real broke into the irreal (as in Ubik) is acosmic and Gnostic—and it agrees with another Gnostic idea (put forth in VALIS) that the creator of this world is irrational. A superimposition of Ubik and VALIS is a superimposition of two basic Gnostic ideas, one cosmological, the other cosmogonical. It's very interesting, what you get if you superimpose VALIS over Ubik—and I had previously seen that VALIS is an electronic circuit–like feedback of Ubik and mixing, enriching, etc. (v. [>]).
***
[8:21] I now have assembled the complete Gnostic system with its two realms, only one of which—the upper—is real (Form I of Parmenides). (As stated in VALIS.) It all stems from the insight that our world is not real. Then we ask, not real in relation to what? (Something must be real, or else the concept "irreal" means nothing.) Then we ask, "What is the real like? And how do we find it?" and we ask, "How did this irreal world come into being? And how did we get imprisoned here?" and then we ask, "What is our real nature?"
If reality, rationality and goodness are not here, where are they? And how do we get from here to there? If this is a prison, how do we escape?
We learn of a mysterious savior who camouflages himself to outwit our jailers and makes himself and his saving Gnosis known to us. He is our friend and he opposes this world and its powers on our behalf as our champion, and "one by one he takes us out of this world."
[85.91] "The apostolic age Christians declared in their writing ..."
[2.75] "Obvious secular world ..."
[10.55] "the pleroma including the fallen universe ..."
[39.29] "Put another way, Acts is a Book (part) within our world (whole) ..."
[84:8] "Here is the puzzle of Valis ..."
[90.G121] "Lincoln—'we print the truth' ..."
[79.I110] "the phenomenal world is suddenly apprehended ..."
[81.K316] "Isn't it perfectly clear in 'Ubik' that world is not real ..."
Folder 6
Early 1979
[6:7] Everything I know is a triumph over amnesia. All my gnosis (books and exegesis) derives from memory. There is no amnesia-compulsion—it's not a plot, or a virus, etc., just a failure to create memory holograms as fast as reality permutates. I'm laying down fast holos. I figured out the reality situation well enough to generate a future reality which will please me. Not be painful; I beat karma and in 3-74 took control.
[6:8] "The Waveries."5 Living info which dialectic permutates; as in the Le Guin book, our dreaming makes it so.
3-74: simply, you ordinarily (99.99% of the time) simply lack the memory capability to remember things were just now different, because each difference lasts only the nanosecond of the dialectic of each form axis (i.e., bit of information!!!), of which our world at each nanosecond is the composite total. (It's as if "3-74s" occur all the time—we generate them—but we never remember. 3-74 was anamnesis!)
All we remember is sustains, but right now the sustain of rationality is interrupted by irrationality, and I've remembered well enough to spot it, and take advantage of it. 2-74: memory of previous "frame." [Editor's note: See Dick's clarification of this notion of "sustains" on p. 94.]
We don't remember well enough due to physical limitations, and this puzzles us (we know something's wrong), and we try to come up with theories. These theories, being false, "are" the "impairment" I saw; the fucked-up-ness of the theories. Simply, we lay down memories of only a fraction of the past.
[6:23] I provoked a palpable contradiction in reality. It betrayed its self-canceling nature, so no rational analysis is correct. It must pulsate in self canceling oscillations so rapidly that we don't realize it, so what is true at one nanosecond is not true at the next. The reality which exists now cannot be the reality which existed a nanosecond ago—despite our "memories."
I just remembered my first realization when I was loaded last night: everything is backward, we must reverse all information.
[6:24] I sense Zebra smiling.
Games. Fun. Riddles. Since truth changes there is no answer. Process is everything. What was true 10 seconds ago is not true now (the dialectic flip-flops which generate their negations instantly). Self canceling; if I say, "Zebra is a person," the truth of this instantly generates its opposite: "Zebra is not a person," and that becomes true, whereupon another opposite is generated. Is Zebra a sustain or a subcarrier? Or one flip-flop—one out of infinity minus one. Yes—the last: one out of infinity minus one. Zebra is eternal—for 1 nanosecond. But during that nanosecond he was everywhere in all the flip-flops (by definition). If he was in all the flip-flops he is ephemerally eternal in the sense of reconstituted ex nihilo in every flip-flop—a constant, but—he must come into existence each time; that is, he dies and is reborn each nanosecond, so we find him, in any given nanosecond, in what actually is an ultra ephemeral morphos: comes into being and passes away, comes into being and passes away again elsewhere, like a fruit fly. The way circles are spontaneously re-created—
The [Fibonacci Ratio] 1:618034. Comes and goes: so it is ephemeral and yet eternal. [...] Thus the Blood—the plasmate—reconstitutes itself ex nihilo everywhere and at all times.
[6:25] We constantly unconsciously modulate future events but don't know it because (1) we do it unconsciously, by our impersonal will*; and (2) what we call "memory" is not memory at all but a product of each current nanosecond flip-flop frame. We don't remember the past being different just now, a split-second ago, and so we see no pattern in how each of us determines his future reality. Everything hinges on anamnesis which isn't just improved memory but actual memory of the previous frame. Without anamnesis there is no identity-continuity from flip-flop frame to frame, but Karma, which we make (influencing what will later happen to us) follows us inexorably.
[...]
Viewed pragmatically, Christ offers us more than scarce can be conceived. But it would seem that there are no Christians except the original ones, which conforms to Luke's "secrecy" theme. Everyone else is suffering from a relative occlusion, primarily of memory. They are driven helplessly down their compound form axis, victims of Karma generated by their previous thoughts (sic—thoughts not actions, as Jesus alluded to!). Thus Valis is here, and rational, but they are caught in an irrational (irreal) maze, and hurled helplessly through it, afflicted by projections of their own thoughts as in the Bardo Thödol. In fact they are in the Bardo Thödol state: half dead (as in Ubik).
[6:41] Therefore I maintain that whatever the intent of the authors of The Tibetan Book of the Dead they are in fact describing our world and state.* We are in a decomposing, degenerating process and will continue so unless enlightened by Valis, who introduces negentropy. Determinism and entropy are considered here as identical; succumbing to what is really a self-generated fate is identified with death and disorder. Upon the lethal triumph of this decomposing process, nothing new comes into the individual (or macro) mind. This is tantamount to psychosis or ultimate brain dysfunction (schizophrenia). I maintain that regarded as a totality the cosmos, including Valis, is partially in this state; a measure of anomie or irrationality pervades us and pervades Valis. Technically, the dialectic loses its generative power or potentially could lose its generative power. This is the abysmal evil to be fought at all costs, inasmuch as its victory would snuff out the cosmos. This is being versus nonbeing. In my opinion human beings freeze or die or partially die vis-à-vis this dialectic; its progression in us—as us—is not automatic. Each of us is a microform of it, and to the extent that we succumb to "fate" or "astral determinism" we succumb to death and madness, to congealing.
[...]
In conclusion, I conceive of our situation as one of entropy or decom position, a succumbing to determinism which is to say, the products of our own former thought formations; therefore for us the past determines the future. Into this dying system Valis breaks bringing new life and energy and freedom and knowl
edge; he impinges "one-way" and "from outside" as if invading our world (which is not a real world). To encounter him is to encounter the uncanny, the inexplicable, the destroyer (rather than sustainer) of what we misconstrue to be world. It is his macromind shattering the brittle and congealed husk of our own objectified prior thoughts which imprison and devitalize us, the past devouring the future—whereas Valis, as the future, turns around and devours the past (negentropy attacking entropy; form affecting non-form).* I conclude that we are dying in a mental sense but are virtually without insight into the fact that what befalls us is a projection or thought-form of death per se. To the extent that things happen to us, rather than occurring as a result of our volition, we are destroying ourselves—which may account for legends of the primordial fall. Thus our process mind becoming congealed is experienced objectively and externally as a closing in of the necessary, the inevitable over which we have no power. We succumb to our own dead mind, but mistakenly experience it as a victory by the external world.
[6:44] Regard this as a scientific hypothesis: what we call "reality" is in fact an objectification of our prior thought formations—since in fact we are dead and dreaming in a state of psychic decomposition (as depicted in Ubik). And under such conditions we have no world but that of our former thought formations returning to afflict or delight us (as depicted in The Tibetan Book of the Dead) (which is where I got the idea for Ubik). In other words, I read The Tibetan Book of the Dead in the late 50s or early 60s and realized that our world and condition was in fact depicted and not (as is said) a world and condition which follows our "life." From internal evidence in The Tibetan Book of the Dead I discerned that those in the Bardo Thödol state do not know they are in that state but imagine they are (still) alive. They do not know that the evil and good spirits (events, people, things) which they encounter are their own (former) thought-formations projected onto a pseudo-world, and that contrary to what appears to be the case, they can create, change and abolish future reality (not present reality, since there is a lag). In Ubik my characters die and enter this state but don't know it. I then departed from the description of the Bardo Thödol existence in The Tibetan Book of the Dead and added Ubik, a vast logos-like mind who invades their decaying world and rescues them. Now, if I was right (that secretly The Tibetan Book of the Dead depicts—and probably knowingly depicts—our present life, world and condition) I could anticipate that after a suitable time lag—and especially if I was dying, like Joe Chip on the stairs—I could expect intervention by my thought formation Ubik. In 3-74 due to overpowering dread and enervation I began to literally experience the colored lights described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead and knew myself to be in the Bardo Thödol state. Yet it was this side of the grave; I have not died; ergo, The Tibetan Book of the Dead does depict (secretly) our present condition. And then, sure enough, exactly as I described in Ubik, written information appeared to me, and presently Ubik itself, down to specific details. Valis (i.e., Ubik), then, is a projection of my own mind and not "real"—but, as The Tibetan Book of the Dead says, nothing we experience is anything other than objectification of our own prior thought formations—and enlightenment consists in knowing this and so controlling them. Only if you (1) read The Tibetan Book of the Dead and (2) realized it secretly applied to this life could you accomplish what I did in creating Valis. Truth is totally plastic and represents a complex mingling of our former fears, beliefs and desires (mostly unconscious in us). "The mind has the power to change its environment. We do so constantly." Etc. I have choice in the matter. So I ask, not, "What is true?" but, "What modulations shall I imprint on the stuff around me?"