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How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

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Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#81

Post by pixl97 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the mirror image to "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.". Unfortunately history has taught us that P.K. Dick's view is rarely the prevailing one and that even if plenty of people are exactly like that too many of them are not and they will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do. Especially if there is money or authority involved.

> Unfortunately history has taught us... the prevailing plenty of people will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do ... if there is money or authority involved. The authentic human escapes this, for s/he does not care one jot what the "plenty" think, feel or do. Not out of callousness, indifference or individual narcissism/solipsism, or even because authenticity exists despite and outside o…

Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans?

At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#82

Post by nonrandomstring »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
nonrandomstring wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but the Authentic Human knows that the Moloch knows that.... all the way down....

Unfortunately, most humans don't seem to have a good idea of how feedback loops work, they get stuck focusing on a single leg of them "they hurt me, I must get my revenge" instead of noticing the other leg and self-reinforcing nature of the phenomenon "I get my revenge, they feel hurt and now hurt me to get their revenge, ad infinitum". And Moloch is a personification of a large system of feedback loops. That's to sa…

It's a good take, and I appreciate that depth of thought.

One reason we teach Meadows as one component of intellectual self-defence.

https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=19

But you're right, the ability to see how a great network of systems and subsystems, all trying to make things better, can add up to a lethal "trap" with its own perverse intelligence (I quite like the Adam Curtis slant) is elusive.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#83

Post by jacquesm »

pixl97 wrote: post #81
nonrandomstring wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately history has taught us... the prevailing plenty of people will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do ... if there is money or authority involved. The authentic human escapes this, for s/he does not care one jot what the "plenty" think, feel or do. Not out of callousness, indifference or individual narcissism/solipsism, or even because authenticity exists despite and outside o…

Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans? At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere.

That's exactly it. Authentic humans are a theoretical construct and there isn't a single real world example of such a being. But on a moment-to-moment basis it has some validity, but even there it should be qualified in that the judgment of 'authenticity' is in itself to a large degree in the eye of the beholder.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#84

Post by NickM »

I wonder how many of the people commenting on this essay read all the way through. It starts out quite lucid and makes some seemingly insightful points, but as the essay goes on he starts to descend into some strange metaphysical ideas about time not being real and reality being a retelling of parts of the Bible.

I’m not familiar with much of PKD’s works or his life story, but I honestly can’t tell if he had mental health problems or if this essay is supposed to be a sort of self-aware self-referential story about reality breaking down.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#85

Post by nonrandomstring »

pixl97 wrote: post #81
nonrandomstring wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately history has taught us... the prevailing plenty of people will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do ... if there is money or authority involved. The authentic human escapes this, for s/he does not care one jot what the "plenty" think, feel or do. Not out of callousness, indifference or individual narcissism/solipsism, or even because authenticity exists despite and outside o…

Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans? At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere.

> Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans?

I wouldn't consider it impolite, but would say it's an unproductive question like all such questions of "identity" that unravel in the slightest breeze.

Perhaps a useful concept is the Hegelian take on "freedom"; that in any epoch freedom is defined by the will to overcome the obstacles one faces. There is no firmer definition of it than "intent".

A better modern word might be "lifestance" [0], a word I learned from hanging around with Rationalist/Humanist thinkers.

And here's what I think is a beautiful lifestance quote;

  """ Act as though you are free, you might get lucky. You might be
      free, who knows!  Act that way it's worth trying! -- Rick
      Roderick """
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_stance

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#86

Post by nonrandomstring »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #70
nonrandomstring wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately history has taught us... the prevailing plenty of people will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do ... if there is money or authority involved. The authentic human escapes this, for s/he does not care one jot what the "plenty" think, feel or do. Not out of callousness, indifference or individual narcissism/solipsism, or even because authenticity exists despite and outside o…

> in the technological age Every age is a technological age. The technology (per se) of a paleolithic human is no less complex and involved that the technology of today. Technology is about process and supply chain complexity, not knowledge. The paleolithic human was short on knowledge, but their supply chains were as global, complex and fragile as the ones we have today.

I think in 1800 you would have got away with that argument. But for me, living after 2000, when I say "technological age" I'm speaking of the Anthropocene [0].

There's a qualitative difference of systematic complexity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#87

Post by TimSchumann »

jacquesm wrote: post #83
pixl97 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans? At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere.

That's exactly it. Authentic humans are a theoretical construct and there isn't a single real world example of such a being. But on a moment-to-moment basis it has some validity, but even there it should be qualified in that the judgment of 'authenticity' is in itself to a large degree in the eye of the beholder.

Reminds me of a Friedman quote —

“Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you’re taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us?”

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#88

Post by NateEag »

NickM wrote: post #84

I wonder how many of the people commenting on this essay read all the way through. It starts out quite lucid and makes some seemingly insightful points, but as the essay goes on he starts to descend into some strange metaphysical ideas about time not being real and reality being a retelling of parts of the Bible. I’m not familiar with much of PKD’s works or his life story, but I honestly can’t tell if he had mental h…

> I honestly can’t tell if he had mental health problems or if this essay is supposed to be a sort of self-aware self-referential story about reality breaking down.

Yes.

Less ellipticaly, Dick abused drugs at various points in his life and definitely struggled with his mental health.

He also had mystical experiences that massively influenced his view of reality (beyond just the ones mentioned in this essay, actually - he reported a pink laser telling him his son had a deadly illness, which turned out to be true when he took his son to the hospital, IIRC).

Whether those facts are all the same thing is left as a nontrivial exercise for the reader.

It seems obvious to me that Dick was very aware of the amorphous unverifiability of so many of his life experiences, and that he loved to write about precisely the intersection of such nebulous experiences and the fact that reality is "that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

He seems to have understood better than most that the standard he defined says nothing about falsifiability or knowability. Many possible things could in fact be part of reality without being knowable or falsifiable.

I think our fundamental inability to Know Reality is precisely the theme of most of Dick's glorious fever-dream fiction.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#89

Post by coldtea »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #58
nonrandomstring wrote: post #43

For me, the most powerful passage in this one is; """ The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of t…

Nah, Moloch loves the "authentic" humans, because they can be bullshitted into doing anything. Yes, they'll resist any direct attempts at telling them how to live their lives - but they'll do that as much to a tyrant, as to their democratic representatives, or their own community. Inertia is not a virtue - neither for an object, nor for a human. The way against "authentic" humans' resistance/reactance is something Mo…

>Inertia is not a virtue - neither for an object, nor for a human.

What Dick describes is the opposite of inertia.

It takes internal resolve (and force) to stand against all the forces pressuring them to do the wrong thing. Inertia would instead just go with the flow of power -- the path of least resistance that's more comfortamble.

>The way against "authentic" humans' resistance/reactance is something Moloch figured out long ago: take it slow, manipulate their beliefs about themselves and the world

History has shown that the worst culprits are not the "authentic humans" but the self-assured smart-asses. The masses might go for this or that BS ocassionally, but it's the "supermen" that promote it and set the terms.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#90

Post by notpachet »

stareatgoats wrote: post #39
Ygg2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? It's still Philip K. Dick. It's absolutely bonkers. It starts normal, story about a dog biting the garbage man from PoV of the dog, story about surgeons discovering reality altering tape in a man, the question of what is reality, then descends into PKDs ramblings about being stuck in Satan's Tesseract Labyrinth, that it's actually AD 50 and people wearing pisces are real Jesus' followers, th…

In all fairness, it is a long article. Articles submitted to HN should ideally not be much longer than the title, because people don't have time nowadays - time has somehow shrunk to the point of near disappearance. It's not an accusation, it's just an observation, a fact of life. But once in a while a wormhole to another existence opens where there is still time to read a whole story, not sure how but some people se…

"If we never take time, how can we ever have time?"
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