C8 commented on ‘Sin’ Aug-25-2020 2:39 PM UTC

Dick, writing about VALIS, certainly grappled with the concept of the universe as information system. Whether he explicitly studied or tried to comprehend quantum mechanics is unknown to me. In mid-20th c. Cali he would have had access to all the writings of Planck, Heisenberg etc, who had already written books on the relationship of quantum theory to Free Will. I have to imagine that Dick was aware of the "hard problem of consciousness," the question of whether the mind is merely a construct of the electrochemical soup of neurons, synapses, or is it something above that level, more like a hologram or a fantastically complex system of interleaving fields which used the brain merely as antenna or convenient temporary dwelling.

If, as currently understood, matter is non-existent, and all is composed of interactive fields of electromagnetism, gravity, and bosons, if everything is indeed information, if the background "emptiness" of the universe is actually a fantastically energetic quantum gravity vacuum (as the physicists now tell us), if the energy contained in one cubic centimeter of this "emptiness" may in fact be greater than that contained in all the stars in the universe, then where does that leave our poor benighted Conan, forever having to defend Cimmerian honor from the raids of the Scythian Horse Lords?

Is it all the fault of impaired understanding of what the universe if trying to communicate?

Is the urge to dominate the fault, literally, of fallen demiurges, who, having contaminated our DNA and our pre-history with falsehoods, goads the hapless manbeast into endless war and collapse?

Who can say?

Is there a better accounting?

Even the Durants, at their end of the pedantic lives, noted that it was "all meaningless." All those books, all that scribbling, and Attila staring into the campfire had more wisdom and left a greater legacy. Socrates showed us that the flickerings of shadows on the cave wall were not real, and the quantum physicists, like Hindu sages, have shown us that this world is illusion.

The passage of the seeking word, which I think is the eldest I have read, and which has impelled a haphazard search for Truth, are:

“Unearth the copper box, upon which is inscribed: Gilgamesh, for this is He.

“Unlock it.

“Open the lid.

“Take out the tablet of lapis lazuli.

“Read.

“Discover how He suffered the sorrows of the accursed and how he likewise knew the boons of the blessed.

“Read of the trials and triumphs of Gilgamesh.”

Gilgamesh was supposed to be part man and part god and after defying the gods he went on a quest to find a path beyond mortality and a way back to the fold of the Cosmos. The imbedding of his quest into material of rare artifice as a preservation of Man’s cyclic seeking for a reunification with the divine serves as an ancient covenant key.

As an Aramaic document it is related, across various cultural divides, with the tales of ascension—of human/divine reunification of heroes who were the progeny of mortal and supernatural parents: Herakles, Theogenes, Euthymus and Glaukus…and of Odysseus who sought into even the underworld in his struggle against the near supernatural powers to reunite with his other half, his wife, his queen, Penelope.

When Euthymus “lived to unnatural old age” and “departed life by some means other than death,” after defeating an earthly demonic sex-trafficking cult, might he have spiraled back to a cosmic nexus of origin?

How much of the earthly heroic comprises the shattering of such links, such as Beowulf’s slaying of Grendel and the dragon and how much is the achievement of supranatural interface?

I am convinced that there is an eternal God and many lesser ones who wax and wane, Angels and Devils and Demons if you will.

If this is so, and is more than a fancy, might it be that our worship of them, or even recognition of their power and/or actions according to their ethos might feed or starve them?

Do lesser manifestations of the extra-biological Cosmos wax and wane, dream and wake, succumb or rage in part based on our collective and individual beliefs and actions?

Are we fallen?

Are we risen?

Are we inspiration?

Are we food?

Are we a myriad of tarnished mirrors to God’s eye?

Are we doomed?

Are we prisoners of Fate’s cruel smile?

Might we be all of these and less, like sparks, cinders and ash?

Thanks, C8.I hope your path leads you true.