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One thing that constantly puzzles me about PKD is how far ahead his societal and philosophical imagination was, but how backwards his technological views remain

by wtdata 7y ago

One thing that constantly puzzles me about PKD is how far ahead his societal and philosophical imagination was, but how backwards his technological views remained. He has androids being run by punctured cards (i.e this story), advanced civilizations relying on advanced typewriters using paper (i.e. The Little Black Box if I remember correctly the name), and mass communication based on telephone boots (i.e. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

quickben 7y ago
He writes this paragraph that may explain your observation: "So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart."
perl4ever 7y ago
You know, I would've described Heinlein or Asimov the same way - people using slide rules on spaceships and so on. However, I happened to go back and read a short story and realized that it did in fact present a very plausible space age about 20 or 30 years ahead of time, and it's kind of uncharitable to criticize it for not accurately predicting 50 or 60 years in the future. Sometimes we look back at, say, the 40s and the 70s and kind of lump them together as being long ago, but predicting a lot of things about the late 60s or early 70s from the perspective of WWII or its aftermath was really an achievement. Of course, as always, a lot of the reason for successful predictions was that the people who constructed the future had read the predictions for inspiration.

by wtdata 7y ago

quickben 7y ago

He writes this paragraph that may explain your observation: "So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart."

perl4ever 7y ago

You know, I would've described Heinlein or Asimov the same way - people using slide rules on spaceships and so on. However, I happened to go back and read a short story and realized that it did in fact present a very plausible space age about 20 or 30 years ahead of time, and it's kind of uncharitable to criticize it for not accurately predicting 50 or 60 years in the future. Sometimes we look back at, say, the 40s and the 70s and kind of lump them together as being long ago, but predicting a lot of things about the late 60s or early 70s from the perspective of WWII or its aftermath was really an achievement. Of course, as always, a lot of the reason for successful predictions was that the people who constructed the future had read the predictions for inspiration.