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A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

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Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#71

Post by skhm »

TeaBrain wrote: post #58
roody15 wrote: post #3

Interesting read. Have always enjoyed Philip K Dicks novels… sadly not surprised he struggled with mental and substance abuse. His books read in a way that often feature a character somewhat removed from reality or in some form of psychosis. The idea of what is real or not real is explored over and over again. I cannot help but think he was writing from his own soul or at least his own experience. He was always the l…

Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly contains an Author's Note at the end of the book on this topic. This is the note from the copy I have: "AUTHOR'S NOTE: This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but t…

I remember reading this many years ago. It didn't mean much to me at the time. It hits an awful lot harder a decade later.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#72

Post by iloveCS »

iloveCS wrote: post #48

when I read "do androids dream of electric sheep" that was my first and last reading of PKD-- I instantly realized it was a mediocre work by a mentally ill person. Vitae brevis. And I went back to my Samuel Richardson's and the like.

which PKD-like moron downvoted my benign comment?

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#73

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

blippage wrote: post #63
TeaBrain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly contains an Author's Note at the end of the book on this topic. This is the note from the copy I have: "AUTHOR'S NOTE: This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but t…

I was talking to a guy who was into drug counselling. He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses. He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. His reasoning is that…

Those all seem like arguments to legalise and regulate drugs. Alcohol is similarly deadly, and we have age related controls to prevent youngsters being able to buy it. There's also regulations to ensure that there's a consistent alcohol percentage (printed on the side) and that the drinks don't contain poisons other than ethanol.

Sadly, alcoholics continue to consume alcohol when they've been told multiple times that it will lead to their death and even sometimes after receiving a liver transplant.

Alcohol and drugs should be treated as a public health issue and not a nonsensical war.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#74

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

pizza wrote: post #52
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His perspective is part of what makes his work so relevant to today with our manufactured realities that he predicted so well.

I agree and would like for you to expand on that observation

His psychosis allowed him to see reality as being extremely flexible and influenced by often malignant forces. That applies to modern society as more of our "reality" depends on things such as social media and that's clearly able to be influenced by bad actors. It's only going to get worse as we can't believe that a picture or video of someone isn't faked and so all we can do is try to figure out our own narrative.

His work also features lots of surveillance themes (again, likely due to the nature of his psychosis) and I can't think of anything more relevant to modern society. We've now reached the stage of technology where it's feasible for us all to be living in a panopticon.

Another major theme in PKD's work is "what makes us human" and we're getting close to producing LLMs that seem to behave as though they are human. If we give an AI a sense of personal identity with some fake memories, then would we be able to tell that they weren't human and what would they "think" about it?

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#75

Post by laratied »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #73
blippage wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to a guy who was into drug counselling. He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses. He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. His reasoning is that…

Those all seem like arguments to legalise and regulate drugs. Alcohol is similarly deadly, and we have age related controls to prevent youngsters being able to buy it. There's also regulations to ensure that there's a consistent alcohol percentage (printed on the side) and that the drinks don't contain poisons other than ethanol. Sadly, alcoholics continue to consume alcohol when they've been told multiple times that…

It is just such a boring argument at this point.

Society is not better off with thousands of Al Capones and moonshine but less drinking over all. It is such a stupid argument. It is just unbelievable in the US that with having so few borders and neighboring countries to worry about that we don't care that Al Capone has taken over one of them. Exactly the result of how much we like to drink and how much we will pay for drinks.

Just the standard bullshit "What about the children" arguments.

Not to mention in 2023 that you have to add in a huge amount of straight up poison moonshine or people think they are drinking moonshine but instead are drinking gasoline.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#76

Post by kevviiinn »

BobbyJo wrote: post #44
kevviiinn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then that means the analysis isn't correct, it wouldn't be an indicator at all

What about it not being a binary indicator invalidates the analysis? Dick's writing was obviously a byproduct of his mental state. That's where writing comes from. Just because someone else made similar works in a different mental state doesn't invalidate that.

No, it definitely invalidates that conclusion

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#77

Post by DontchaKnowit »

Trasmatta wrote: post #19
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, you've intrigued me with that - I'll chase down a copy

Here's a few random passages I've highlighted on my Kindle. It's completely full of stuff like this, that you can just find by flipping somewhere random. It skirts the line between genius and insanity (which describes the man himself, I think). Sometimes I read one of the passages and I'm like "this man had totally lost all semblance of sanity" and sometimes I'm like "he was one of the smartest men to ever live". I t…

Whats so fascinating to me about PKD is that he taps into this rich, long, history of esoteric philosphy and practices and connects dots between ideas from disperate traditions. Not in the same way theosophy does- he seems to be more lucid and consistant.

This idea he has of wickedness being some kind of abscess in an otherwise perfect hermetically sealed bubble, and that the second coming of christ would be an event in which the evil is removed from the pure buble---- it explains concepts in christianity with concepts from other world religions and does so in an exceptionally vivid fashion. Quite terrifying.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#78

Post by toomanyrichies »

Having never read any of PKD's works before, I'd be interested in starting with his short stories (especially those that haven't yet been made into a movie, since I'd likely have seen it).

Looks like PKD wrote (at least) 87 short stories [1]- any recommendations or under-appreciated favorites from HN folks?

EDIT:

A few that have been recommended on Reddit [2] that look interesting include "The Exit Door Leads In", "The Golden Man", and "Autofac".

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Short_stories_by_Phil...

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/a0blwl/rank_your_t...

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#79

Post by idopmstuff »

blippage wrote: post #63
TeaBrain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly contains an Author's Note at the end of the book on this topic. This is the note from the copy I have: "AUTHOR'S NOTE: This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but t…

I was talking to a guy who was into drug counselling. He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses. He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. His reasoning is that…

> He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses.

I don't understand the logic that because children as young as 12 are able to obtain and take drugs, we should keep the drug policies under which that occurs in place.

As far as I'm aware, nobody serious is suggesting that 12 year olds should be allowed to buy or use drugs if they're legalized. Given that, the legalization question that matters is how we can do the best job of limiting the damage they do to 12 year olds through a combination of preventing them from acquiring drugs and regulating the drugs themselves, so that if they do get some drugs, those drugs don't contain a bunch of fentanyl.

I'm not going to say that legalizing drugs will certainly result in less harm, but I'm not writing it off as impossible, either. But to cite the fact that a bad thing is happening under your current harm mitigation strategy as a reason that we should absolutely keep that harm mitigation strategy seems like fundamentally flawed logic to me.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#80

Post by afpx »

blippage wrote: post #63
TeaBrain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly contains an Author's Note at the end of the book on this topic. This is the note from the copy I have: "AUTHOR'S NOTE: This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but t…

I was talking to a guy who was into drug counselling. He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses. He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. His reasoning is that…

12? I believe it. In some cultures (like mine), it's almost a rite of passage if you have older siblings or friends, sadly.

Also, it's hard to say how much is self-medicating from poor living conditions, health problems, heritable diseases, etc. though. There are some areas of the country where there are many deeply poor people.

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