Philip K. Dick’s exegesis, above being a theological exploration, is a philosophical and cosmological investigation into the world and being. Philip K. Dick attempts to understand his own being and his surrounding world by alluding to the existing knowledge of the past while arriving at something new on his own. My Focus on this paper is on an excerpt of his work from pages 606 to 608 that mainly focuses on three themes. These themes that reappear throughout his work include the concept of time and a time outside of time, as we understand it, the distinction of the phenomenal and the noumenal realm of existence and the interaction of the two, and the unitary nature of the world and the divine. My aim in this paper is to carefully comprehend …show more content…
He opens his passage by asserting, “and yet there is a further level of reality disclosed by sacred time and realm governed within that time…a kosmos…[that] is being completed, self-completed, from the flux process visible in mundane time” (Dick 606). As it is evident, Dick has two distinct conceptions of time, namely the ‘mundane time’ and the ‘sacred time’ as he refers to them. This twofold conception of time dates back to the ancient Greece, as they had two different notions of time. Ancient Greeks called these two concepts Kairos and Chronos. In his work, Democracy’s Gift, Canadian Philosopher Mark Kingwell describes Chronos time as “everyday, (ii) profane, (iii) homogeneous, (iv) linear, (v) horizontal, and (vi) egalitarian” (12). It is the time that we measure, understand, and perceive as time. This time is the commonly accepted concept of time that we encounter in everyday life. In a sense, this is what Dick refers to as the ‘mundane time’ in his …show more content…
This argument implicitly denies the freedom of the will of humans, and claims that we as beings are hard-wired to follow along a certain path. Essentially, he does this in several occasions such as claiming that “ each individual human being is programmed uniquely in terms of (1) the signals he can and will encounter during his life, and (2) according to the unique and special purpose set for him by his creator” (71). Dick either has to deny that humans have any freedom of the will and agency as a being, or has to justify his assertion by finding a way around this claim. There is however some improvement upon this argument where Dick claims, “what we are talking about then…is the Tao, which is real but does not exist, yet registers on (mildly shapes) what does exist” (729). This is certainly a departure from the original comment by Dick as he changes his word from ‘programmed’ into ‘mildly shapes’, thus allowing for some type of agency for human beings as
Throughout Dick’s life, he has not shown compassion towards anyone besides himself, taking everything and everyone for granted. With the use of amplification Capote is able to represent how Dick just viewed Perry as an easily-manipulable piece in his little game never showing true fondness towards him as Perry believed he reciprocated towards him, thinking they were together in the long run: “Goodbye, Perry. Dick was sick of him--his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice” (Capote 214). This use of amplification is exceptionally valuable in proving that Dick cares about no one besides himself and will do anything for his own benefit. Dick shapes Perry into a killing machine in
A vengeful man, a native, and a man seeking enlightenment board a whaling vessel; this isn’t a joke, this is the United States of America throughout history and the members of the Pequod. Moby Dick is not just a tale about a whaling venture gone awry, it is a metaphor for what America was and is. The Pequod represents the country and government, while the 30 crew members (Melville 430; ch. 126) represents the United State citizens. This would have not been possible to consider in Melville’s time, but it is a true testament to literature being a living text. Melville wasn’t only writing about America in the 1800’s, he was writing about the natures of humanity, and the future of our society.
There are so ways people express the ways they have had to deal with poverty in society. Also they are endless songs, movies and books expressing about people who have money that take advantage of those who do not. The Horatio Alger book called Ragged Dick deals with the many aspects of inhumanity, greed and the American Dream where it’s believed through hard work, strong ‘ethics, and being respectful a person can achieve a better life for themselves. I believe both of these aspects to be true to those who are in poverty and those who are rich.
Moral power held by literature or art has often smashed against some form of material power and censorship. For instance, books against the ideas of the Nazi regime such as Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” were burnt in the Nazi’s book burning of 1933 and The Bible is currently banned from North Korea. Authors have therefore been pressured into finding a method to avoid the strict restrictions forced by material power. In this paper, I will argue that Philip K. Dick was able to criticize the government and the situation of America in the 1960s, without suffering consequences, thanks to the generation of a time shift in his novel and the construction of a parallel between story and history hence manipulating the line between fiction and reality.
In the book Everything I Never Told You, there are many different elements and techniques used within the book. The technique that I want to go into more depth on is the use of symbolism. I specifically want to focus on the symbolism in regards to Lydia, Hannah, and Nath’s love of astronauts and space.
There will always be philosophical interpretations that will create universal truths for many generations to come. In addition, these literary works enriches the audiences’ understanding of these texts as supremely important cultural and historical documents, for audiences who embrace their universal truths. Both generational audiences’ spiritual interpretations seemed to have, collectively, developed a text of extraordinary literary works that are overflowing with philosophical and truth-seeking richness.
J.M.E McTaggart’s ‘The Unreality of Time’ is respected today as his foremost and best known work within Academia. It is appropriate that this work shares the title of one of his most enduring Philosophical projects, establishing that Time is unreal or does not exist. In regards to the question ‘Did He Succeed?’ while being a perfectly typical critical Philosophical essay topic, it would be beyond the scope of this essay to definitively say Yes or No. The standards of Western Philosophy just seem to be that for any of those enduring questions that have been the topic of study for in some cases nearly three thousand years in the discipline to be said to be definitively answered, the standard and breadth of evidence would be so great that no one would be asking if a Philosopher really did succeed in his project nearly a century after his death. So in this essay I will discuss how McTaggart attempted to establish the unreality of time, but in the context of not trying to argue he actually established it beyond doubt. McTaggart sought to establish the unreality of time by means of demonstrating how flawed conventional conceptions within Philosophy of Time were. So I will also seek to demonstrate he did at least establish that current conceptions of time were flawed and throw serious doubt upon then.
The human mind is a malleable and dishonest contraption. Perceptions of past events can be easily damaged and changed into completely new memories, whether on purpose or by fault of recollection. Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” asks whether this flawed system of neurotransmitters could be used as an advantage for the human race by mapping and implementing false memories. This way, people of Earth can experience anything they put their mind to (pun intended) even if such an experience would be impossible for them for any reason. This futuristic premise, while first asking whether the mind is as malleable as this prediction suggests, also begs the question of what truly counts as an experience. If one completely believes a memory is true, has physical evidence, and believes the event is not only possible but has been achieved, the line between a false and true memory blurs into subjectivity.
In E.P. Thompson’s essay “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, he argues how the rise of standardized time, which coincided with employed labor and capitalism, changed how people view time from how “time passes” to “time spent”. Time became a commodity in which it could be bought and sold. Time that was not spent “properly” was considered wasted, which Thompson calls time-thrift, which preindustrial societies were not very preoccupied with in comparison. Thompson explores this transition of the sense of time in relationship to the Industrial Revolution, benefits and disadvantages to the new time-discipline, and a possible mixture of the old and new time-disciplines in the future.
In the novel, A Moby Dick, Pip is a young African American boy, who has almost no power on the Pequod. Pip only makes a handful of appearances in the novel, which leads the reader to ask: why does Melville include him in this novel? Pip normally serves as an entertainer for the crew and cleans up the ship. However, after being left in the ocean for hours, he forms a special bond with Ahab. Through their time spent together Pip positively affects Captain Ahab, which is why he is included in the novel.
It only takes one word to process the word language in a person’s mind, and that is purely the language that he/she speaks. Language is the immediate translator of communication. Author Thompson Olusegun Ewata writes in his book Business Communication for Academic and professional Purposes that “Language is a vehicle that we use in presenting ideas, thoughts, feelings, opinions to the world” (Ewata 2010). In other words, language is how people share with others all of the information they are processing. Science fiction author Philip K. Dick expands on this relationship between language and communication in his novel The Penultimate Truth, by demonstrating the connections and flow of information from the above-ground and below-ground people.
If humans never accepted the concept of time, how would we function? We take for granted that when we are told to be somewhere, that we are also given a time to be there. I can lay out my Mondays by just using times. Wake
It is paradoxical to have a course, which revolves round the corrosiveness of faulted Western notions of time and its depiction through abstraction, identify itself with an abstract title but argue for the concreteness and tangibility of the portrayal of time and space. A Place Beyond Time does just that. Containing a vastly abstract title, A Place Beyond Time may at first glance appear to properly relate time as a tangent notion with space. Upon further contemplation, however, it becomes patent that A Place Beyond Time possesses a conspicuous absence present in its philosophy of aloofness from intangibility. And although the name of the course attempts to tackle and manifest the complications of abstract and concrete time, it is through its lack of definition and precision, lack of possession, and lack of sensation of repetition that A Place Beyond Time fails to properly capitalize on this dilemma.
Time Time is defined as a measured or measurable period, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions. This broad definition lacks the simple explanation that humans are searching for. There are many scientists, philosophers, and thinkers who have tried to put time into understanding terms. The aspects of time that we can understand are only based on what we can perceive, observe, and calculate. Every day we look at our watches or clocks.
Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.