Philip K. Dick Typed Letter Signed

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Jan 10, 2024

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• Lot Description
  TLS signed “Love, Phil,” two pages, 8.5 x 11, April 16, 1981. Letter to science fiction author Patricia Warrick, in full: “Listen: when I wrote my letter of yesterday, and wrote the page I enclosed the carbon of, I had forgotten that Alfred North Whitehead, as the basis of process theology — i.e. process deity — defined God this way (or something like this; I'm quoting from memory): ‘A principle of selection in the universe the chooses the good (i.e. in its selection-process).’ This is Whitehead's basic definition of God; this, then, is the basic definition of the modern process deity who is not static and above the universe and its process, but is, rather, involved in that very process itself. My apperception is totally in accord with Whitehead's; more, I stipulate how this selection is made (that is, on a binary basis utilizing branching; at each branching, there is a no and a yes. God/the system chooses the no first, tentatively, which is to say provisionally; it then rejects and cancels this and chooses the alternative, the yes; this yes it actualizes as the next time frame). As many branchings — binary forkings — as possible are made use of; that is, this no - yes selection process occurs to the maximum; it is maximized. The structural development is cumulative; it goes only one way. Thus the structure is finishing, completing and perfecting itself.
  
  
  
  What I didn't say in my previous letter or enclosure is that my apperception of these discrete static time-frames is that none affects any other. What I mean is, when time frame B follows time frame A, the prior time frame A has no effect on it; there is no causal connective at all. These frames, replacing each other very rapidly, are truly discrete. In no way is there a flow; in no way is there an interaction between them. Reality, then, is perpetually disjunctive. And, as I said yesterday, our minds supply causality as the modem for converting this disjunctive procession ion into a continuous flow, which we experience as ‘the flow of time,’ that is, flux and change. Which is to say, process — which brings me back obviously to Whitehead's basic view of the universe and God, which is that of process. But I am saying, Yes, there is process, but it is not a flow process. With each branching there is an interruption, an off or no or shut-down position in the binary circuiting. Now it occurs to me, these shut-down intervals could actually last as long as it takes God (the mind of the system) to make the off - on decision. We are unaware of these offs because during them reality simply does not exist; what exists is the void, nonbeing. All this that I have said is not mere speculation; it is all derived from and applies to what I saw in March 1974 that I called VALIS, which was a disappearance of causality; and, in its place, I saw what seemed to be self-instigating changes working in synchronization, suggestive of a unitary field involving all the ostensible plurality of things. That reality consists of a rapid procession of discrete slightly different ‘frames’ was my initial breakthough in my perception of this model. The next breakthrough was my perception that between (as it were) each two frames the system makes a choice, a decision; it selects (exactly as Whitehead said; but I didn't realize that I was restating Whitehead until today, so I arrived at my perception independently, although I knew it to be related to Whitehead because it is process deity, process theology). And it chooses by means, as I say, of a no initially, a tentative move that it discards, choosing then the alternative. It has reduced choice, the act of selecting, to a binary matter; so the system is binary (quantitative) throughout. Everything operates in a no - yes fashion. The selecting is binary; the system itself operates in a pulse phasing off off - on as well; it is therefore thoroughly binary, which means that it understands everything in either-or terms, which is the most simple, elemental basis possible. That means that the mind of the system has literally broken reality down to its irreducible fundamental constituents, as I'm sure you can see. Now I come to the pay-off. When I experienced VALIS' mind in my own, I experienced no thoughts, but, rather, a dialectic. This dialectic, I realized at the time, is fundamental to it. I have never been able to explain to myself how this worked, but I literally experienced it as the very basis of VALIS. Well, the dialectic that I experienced is this choice, this no - yes selection at every junction or branching (into two, the irreducible branching, i.e. forking). VALIS does not think, as men think; it tries out, then chooses. Again and again. This is exactly what Whitehead is talking about, although he speaks in more general times; also, mine was an experience with and of it, as with Jakob Boehme, not speculation. If we were to see this branching, we would see elaborating arborizing and reticulation, and indeed I did see that; it is what I call the macrometasomakosmos, which is by now virtually infinite in complexity in terms of arborizing and reticulation.
  
  
  
  Pat, I've got to rest; but this is it; put one way, this explains my encounter with and experience of VALIS both in my mind and in/as world; put another way, I have had an actual experience that confirms this model. Thus there is identity between my theoretical construct and my experience.” In fine condition, with light creasing and small stains to the upper left corner. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
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