Episode 10: Philip K. Dick: Adrift in the Multiverse

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2018

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel universes. It became clear in the course of the lecture that Dick didn't intend this to be a talk about science fiction, but about real life - indeed, about his life. In this episode, Phil and JF seriously consider the speculations which, depending on whom you ask, make PKD either a genius or a madman. This distinction may not matter in the end. As Dick himself wrote in his 8,000-page Exegesis: "The madman speaks the moral of the piece." REFERENCES Philip K. Dick, excerpts from “If You Find This World Bad You Should See Some Of The Others” R. Crumb, The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick Emmanuel Carrère, I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick “20 Examples of the Mandela Effect That’ll Make You Believe You’re In A Parallel Universe” Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle Weird Studies, "Episode 9: On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick" Weird Studies, "Episode 4: Exploring the Weird with Erik Davis" William Shakespeare, The Tempest Sun Ra, Space is the Place Zebrapedia (crowdsourced online transcribing/editing of the Exegesis) Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), Words Made Flesh Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained Bernado Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney Gordon White, Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits Nick Bostrom, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Specter Vision Radio.
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an art and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:21.8	For more episodes and to support the podcast, go to Weird Studies. I'm your co-host, J.F. Martel, and I just wanted to say a few words here before we get started, because Phil and I really just dive into this one.
1:01.4	So today we're discussing Philip K. Dick's essay, if you find this world bad, you should see some of the others, which first took the form of the lecture he gave in 1977.
1:13.6	And in this essay, Philip K. Dick, the great science fiction writer, is exploring one of the key
1:19.6	themes of his work, namely the idea of parallel universes. And so Phil and I talk about this in the context of Dick's work, but also in the context of his life,
1:34.1	because he took these ideas very seriously.
1:37.1	And we also discussed some of the metaphysical issues that arise from this idea when it's seriously considered.
1:45.0	So we hope you enjoy the show.
1:47.0	The show. It's a thorough essay.
2:10.0	It must have taken him a while to read the whole thing.
2:13.4	And I like to imagine what the expression on the faces of his listeners must have been as he was reading this.
2:22.0	Yeah, I was curious about that last night.
2:24.3	I was curious to know how people reacted to it.
2:27.2	And I found a few pages about that in a book called The Mind of Philip K. Dick or something like that or
2:35.2	inside the mind if I like Philip K. Dick. And yeah, so the author described how people were
2:40.5	basically, it was just this kind of stunned, embarrassed silence when he was finished. And at some
2:46.1	point, the interpreter just stopped translating towards the end and just looked like dumbfoundedly at that dick.
2:53.0	And, you know, especially in France, which is such a, at least at this time in the science fiction world.
2:59.0	I mean, I'm just kind of guessing here, but I'm assuming that most people in the audience were pretty secular in their orientation.
3:09.9	So it must have been interesting. I mean, the thing is that the tone of it, he starts off and he's sort of playing
3:17.1	it off like, hey, I'm a science fiction writer and I get these crazy ideas and here's one of them.
	...

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