The Shifting Realities of PK Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  FB: Why is there science fiction? That is, why is it written, why is it read? Would literature be better or worse off if it had never come into existence? Just what function does SF fulfill in literature and for those who choose to read it, or write it?

  PKD: There is SF because the human brain craves sensory and intellectual stimulation before anything else, and the eccentric view provides unlimited stimulation, the eccentric view, and the invented world. It is written because the human mind naturally creates, and in creating the world of an SF story the ultimate in human imagination is brought into use; thus SF is an ultimate product of and for the human mind. The function of SF psychologically is to cut the reader loose from the actual world that he inhabits; it deconstructs time, space, reality. Those who read it probably have difficulty adjusting to their world, for whatever reason; they may be ahead of it in terms of their perceptions and concepts or they may simply be neurotic, or they may have an abundance of imagination. Basically, they enjoy abstract thought. Also, they have a sense of the magic of science: science viewed not as utilitarian but as explorative. The writer of SF has in his possession ideas not yet committed to print; his mind is an extension of the corpus of already written SF. He is SF's probe into the future, its vanguard. There is not a vast difference between reading SF and writing it. In both cases there is a joy in the novel -- i.e. new -- idea.

  FB: Would you please recount just when it was that you first became interested in philosophy? Was it a particular course or book or idea that initially generated your interest? Or a particular teacher? In high school, before, after?

  PKD: I first became interested in philosophy in high school when I realized one day that all space is the same size; it is only the material boundaries encompassing it that differ. After that there came to me the realization (which I found later in Hume) that causality is a perception in the observer and not a datum of external reality. In college I was given Plato to read and thereupon became aware of the possible existence of a metaphysical realm beyond or above the sensory world. I came to understand that the human mind could conceive of a realm of which the empirical world was epiphenomenal. Finally I came to believe that in a certain sense the empirical world was not truly real, at least not as real as the archetypal realm beyond it. At this point I despaired of the veracity of sense data. Hence in novel after novel that I write I question the reality of the world that the characters' percept-systems report. Ultimately I became an acosmic panentheist, led to this point by decades of skepticism.

  FB: Once your interest in philosophy was sparked, how did you then pursue this interest? What books did you at first read? What courses if any did you take in philosophy?

  PKD: I dropped out of college very early and began to write, pursuing my interest in philosophy on my own. My main sources were poets, not philosophers: Yeats and Wordsworth and the seventeenth-century English metaphysical poets, Goethe, and then overt philosophers such as Spinoza and Leibnitz and Plotinus -- the last influencing me greatly. Early on I read Alfred North Whitehead and Bergson and became well grounded in process philosophy. I did take a basic survey course in philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, but was asked to leave when I inquired as to the pragmatic value of Platonism. The Pre-Socratics always fascinated me, in particular Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles. I still view God as Xenophanes viewed him. Gradually my interest in philosophy passed over into an interest in theology. Like the early Greeks I am a believer in parapsychism. Of all the metaphysical systems in philosophy I feel the greatest affinity for that of Spinoza, with his dictum "Deus sive substantia sive natura"; to me this sums up everything (viz., God i.e. reality i.e. nature). After flirting with bitheism for years I have settled down to monotheism; I regard even Christianity and later Judaism as basically dualistic and hence unacceptable. To me the truth was first uttered (insofar as we know) when Xenophanes of Colophon, an Ionian, stated, "One god there is... in no way like mortal creatures either in bodily form or in the thought of his mind. The whole of him sees, the whole of him thinks, the whole of him hears. He stays always motionless in the same place; it is not fitting that he should move about now this way, now that. But, effortlessly, he wields all things by the thought of his mind." My interest in Pythagoras came from reading Wordsworth's "Ode," and from there I passed on to Neo-Platonism and to the Pre-Socratics. The German Aufklarung influenced me, especially Schiller and his ideas of freedom; I read his "Wars of the Dutch Lowlands" and the "Wallenstein" trilogy. Spinoza's views regarding the worth of democracy also influenced me. Especially I studied the Thirty Years' War and the issues involved, and am sympathetic to the Protestant side, in particular the valorous Dutch. When I was twenty-one I wrote a piece on the superiority of the American governmental system of checks and balances, praising it above all other systems of government either in modern times or in antiquity; I got a copy to the then governor of California, Earl Warren, to which he replied, "It is a gratifying experience to receive such an expression of appreciation of the government for which all of us work and serve. And although it may be that others have the same depth of feeling you express, few are so articulate. Certainly your letter is unique in my experience, and I have received many through my years in public office." That was in the year 1952, when my first stories were published. It coincides, therefore, with my appearance as an author in the world of SF.

  Part Two. Writings on Science Fiction and Related Ideas

  The essays in this section concern themselves primarily with the nature of the SF genre, the role of the SF writer, and speculation on future scientific possibilities.

  "Pessimism in Science Fiction" (1955) was first published in Oblique, No. 6, December 1955, a fanzine edited by Clifford Gould.

  "Will the Atomic Bomb Ever Be Perfected, and If So, What Becomes of Robert Heinlein?" was first published in the fanzine Lighthouse, No. 14, October 1966, edited by Terry Carr. The style represents Dick at his most informal, employing the open and uninhibited fanzine forum to orate, opine, and vent at will. It is not Dick's most impressive work, although it has its moments of humor and of dark insight, as in its brief remarks on the difficult relationship between Dick and his mother. There was a tempest in a teapot when, in the subsequent issue of Lighthouse (No. 15, August 1967), an SF fan wrote a letter attacking Dick for the callousness of his remarks both as to Heinlein and as to Dick's mother, and implying that Dick had suffered permanent brain damage from his use of LSD. In point of fact, Dick did not suffer from brain damage and was rather prone, during the sixties, to exaggerate his LSD usage greatly (he used the drug on only a handful of occasions, finding it far too frightening for his liking). Dick replied to this attack in the following issue with blustering outrage, implying that he might bring a suit for libel; the letter-writer apologized and the matter was dropped, to the evident relief of both parties. Dick never relented in his animus toward his mother; with regard to Heinlein, however, Dick's attitude changed considerably. See Dick's "Introduction" to The Golden Man story collection in this same section.

  "The Double: Bill Symposium" replies by Dick were included in the pamphlet volume The Double: Bill Symposium, published by D:B Press (1969), which included the responses of ninety-four SF writers. The two editors were Bill Mallardi and Bill Bowers. The questionnaire was prepared by Lloyd Biggie, Jr.

  "That Moon Plaque" first appeared in Men on the Moon (1969), an Ace anthology edited by Donald A. Wollheim, an important figure in Dick's publishing career.

  "Who Is an SF Writer?" was first published, in truncated form, in Science Fiction: The Academic Awakening (1974), a College English Association (Shreveport, Louisiana) chapbook. The editor was Willis E. McNelly, an English professor at the University of California at Fullerton with whom Dick enjoyed friendly relations. The essay appears here for the first time in its full typescript length, which is roughly one-third longer than the original published version.

  "Michelson-Morley Experiment Reappraised" first appeared under the title
(supplied by an editor) as "Scientists Claim: We Are Center of the Universe" in New Worlds, No. 216, September 1979.

  "Introduction" to Dr. Bloodmoney, written in 1979, was first published in the 1985 Bluejay Books edition of that novel.

  "Introduction" to The Golden Man first appeared under the title (supplied by an editor) "The Lucky Dog Pet Store" in Foundation, No. 17, September 1979. It was republished, with minor changes, as the "Introduction" to The Golden Man (1980) story collection edited by Mark Hurst. The story notes that concluded this essay were republished in the five-volume Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987). The opening essay on his SF writing, not included in the Collected Stories, is presented here.

  The "Book Review" (1980) of The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction, by Patricia Warrick, has never before been published. It is unclear if Dick ever submitted it to any publication. It is important to note that this review may well have been written in a moment of temporary pique; Dick and Warrick carried on -- both before and after this review was written -- a voluminous correspondence on philosophical and spiritual matters, and Dick frequently praised and thanked Warrick, in this correspondence, for her insights and support. Nonetheless, the review is worth publishing because it does accurately reflect the high degree of suspicion, even animosity, that Dick felt toward "mainstream" academicians who sought to adopt SF, as it were, and make it respectable or "important." At the same time, as Dick confesses in his "Introduction" to The Golden Man, the lack of mainstream attention for his work was a source of pain for him.

  "My Definition of Science Fiction" was first published in Just: SF, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1981), edited by John Betancourt.

  "Predictions" was first included in The Book of Predictions (New York: Morrow, 1981) by David Wallechinsky.

  "Universe Makers... and Breakers" (1981) first appeared in SelecTV Guide, February 15-March 28, 1981. This guide was issued by Dick's cable company, and his payment for writing the piece was a free year of cable service. See my prefatory comments to "Notes on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968), in a subsequent section, for further information on Dick's views on the film Blade Runner (1982). "Universe Makers.. ." was reprinted in Radio Free PKD (the successor to PKDS Newsletter, edited by Gregory Lee), No. 1, February 1993.

  "Headnote" for "Beyond Lies the Wub," written in 1980, first appeared in accompaniment with the reprinted story in First Voyages (New York: Avon, 1981), an SF anthology edited by Damon Knight, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander. It was reprinted in PKDS Newsletter, No. 24, May 1990, and in Radio Free PKD, No. 3, October 1993. This headnote was not reprinted in the available Collected Stories volumes; hence its inclusion here.

  "Pessimism in Science Fiction" (1955)

  Since science fiction concerns the future of human society, the worldwide loss of faith in science and in scientific progress is bound to cause convulsions in the SF field. This loss of faith in the idea of progress, in a "brighter tomorrow," extends over our whole cultural milieu; the dour tone of recent science fiction is an effect, not a cause. If a modern science fiction writer mirrors this sense of doom, he is only doing what any responsible writer does: If a writer feels that present-day saber-rattling and drum-beating are leading the world to war, he has no choice but to reproduce his feelings in his writings -- unless he is writing purely for profit, in which case he never reproduces his feelings, only those sentiments that he feels will be commercially acceptable.

  All responsible writers, to some degree, have become involuntary criers of doom, because doom is in the wind; but science fiction writers more so, since science fiction has always been a protest medium. In science fiction, a writer is not merely inclined to act out the Cassandra role; he is absolutely obliged to -- unless, of course, he honestly thinks he will wake up some morning and find that the high-minded Martians have sneaked off with all our bombs and armaments, for our own good.

  Of course, doom stories become monotonous, since there are infinite bright, successful, nondoom futures, but only one doom; that is war. Once the war-doom story has been written, there is not much to say; and Ray Bradbury has written that story at least once. So the responsible science fiction writer repeats himself, since although there are many things he might write about, there is only one horrible future he really believes in: The rest are exercises in logic, imagination, and writing skill. If the writer honestly believes we are moving toward racial suicide, then skillful, cheerful stories become -- although interesting -- mere fiddle-scraping. But a natural hope, taking the place of legitimate optimism, crowds us into preferring these pleasant substitutes. Well, they are a lot of fun, just as detective novels were a lot of fun in the thirties. And the question is not: Which makes more enjoyable reading? Because nobody would seriously debate that one. After all, pleasant exercises in imagination and logic are supposed to be pleasant; and the doom stories are merely intended to call attention to reality. The latter activity has never been popular.

  In a sense, the job of the science fiction writer in continuing to write pessimistically if he feels pessimistic, is a worsening of the spot every one of us is in; the SF writer will be cooked no deader than anybody else. But the SF writer has all day to brood; brooding, or at least thinking, is his job. If the SF writer is requested not to think about doom, if it's immoral to write about an approaching war, then it certainly is an evil thing to worry about it.

  The only really legitimate complaint that can be raised against doom stories (outside of the complaint that they are all the same and hence only one really adequate doom story is required) is that there have always been war and danger, and that the sense of doom may be misplaced. This is a good argument, and I am beginning to believe it. A doom story never offers a solution to the problem: It merely utters the problem over and over again. Well, assuming we accept the existence of the problem (the approaching war), perhaps a more realistic or at least more valuable function would be to seek, in our science fiction stories, partial solutions to the menace. How are we going to survive? What will our world be like after a few (or a lot) of us have survived?

  Rather than writing stories about doom, perhaps we should take the doom for granted and go on from there. Make the ruined world of ash a premise: State it in paragraph one, and get it over with, rather than winding up with it at the very end. And make the central theme or idea of the story an attempt by the characters to solve the problem of postwar survival.

  At worst, we can suppose that nobody will survive. But this is like taking pictures of coal bins at midnight: It can be done, but if there is nothing there, then what the hell. It is quite possible that a few dozen and even a very large number of people may survive the war, in which case a story dealing with various attempts at setting up societies can be developed. Of course, we want to avoid the English doom novel: the struggling primitive colony of the postmachine type, the "back to nature" thing. Let's bypass that, and presume basic technology; maybe not atomic-powered rocket ships, but at least gasoline combustion engines and telephones.

  However, I can't seriously believe that much of our cultural pattern or physical assets will survive the next fifty years. Our present social continuum is disintegrating rapidly; if war doesn't burst it apart, it obviously will corrode away. At the very best, at the most optimistic, there won't be any death and destruction. I'll assume the brighter side, the possibility of a limited war and only partial retrogression -- Bradbury is perhaps too pessimistic -- but to avoid the topic of war and cultural retrogression, as some schools of science fiction writers and editors have done, is unrealistic and downright irresponsible.

  Such pollyanna noises are designed to increase circulation. They shouldn't fool anybody who reads newspapers.

  "Will the Atomic Bomb Ever Be Perfected, and If So, What Becomes of Robert Heinlein?" (1966)

  Recently I took yet another dose of LSD-25, and as a result certain dull but persistent thoughts have come creeping into my head. I will herein retail [sic; retell] a few of them, in chaotic form. If y
ou find them all false, good for you. If you find them all true, good for you likewise.

  The real origin of science fiction lay in the seventeenth-century novels of exploration in fabulous lands. Therefore Jules Verne's story of travel to the moon is not SF because they go by rocket but because of where they go. It would be as much SF if they went by rubber band.

  Very few SF stories come true. Fortunately. Those such as Waldo are freaks and prove nothing.

  Because of a present-day rocket travel to Mars et al., the general public is at last willing to accept SF as reasonable. They have stopped laughing, but they have not started reading. They probably never will, because reading is too hard for them. But now we know that we were right. (Of course, we knew that all along. But it's nice to see it proved.)

  No one makes any real money off good -- I repeat, good -- SF. This probably indicates that it has artistic worth. If Lorenzo de Medici were alive he would pick up the tab for A. E. van Vogt, not for John Updike.

  The best SF novel I have read is Vonnegut's Player Piano, because it actually deals with men-women relationships (Paul Proteus and his bitch of a wife). In this matter the book is unique in the field. Brave New World only seems to do this; 1984 in this regard is awful.

  If I were to dredge up one SF novel that, more than any others, would cause me to abandon SF entirely, it is Robert Heinlein's Gulf. It strikes me as fascism pure and simple, and -- what is worse -- put forth unattractively. Bleh.