Brain-opening science fiction classic "Ubik"

 "What is the real thing?"
"What are the elements of a real person?"

These two questions, according to the master of science fiction PKD, are the main themes that continue to strongly attract his writing.

And these two topics, after I read the third PKD book "Ubik" (Ubik), have become very familiar and continue to be interested. This science fiction novel, published in 1969, is recognized as one of PKD's highest rated works, and was also included in Time Magazine's Top 100 English-language Novels List. You must not think that science fiction is difficult to enter the forest of literary palaces, and PKD's works are the best representatives. The rich philosophical awareness and the power of creating atmosphere in his writing are no less than that of other famous literary masters.

Taking Ubik as an example, the exploration of the real and the virtual based on empiricism and existentialism is the more core psychoanalytic thinking hidden under the surface plot of mocking capitalism. PKD did not stop at the spiritual level of philosophy, he extended the boundary of imagination to the field of theology, such as a paragraph explaining what "Ubik" means:

 I am Ubik, and I have existed since the creation of the world.
I made the sun, I made the world, I made life and its habitat.

Does this narrative resemble the opening of the Gospel of John:

 In the beginning there was the Tao, the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God.
The Word was with God in the beginning.
All things were made by him; nothing was made that was not made by him.

In fact, Ubik is a purely imaginary thing, but it is ubiquitous. In the story, the protagonist Joe Chip pursues Ubik like a life-saving elixir and cannot get it, but he continues to be surrounded by all kinds of obvious Ubik advertisements around him, which makes him realize that Ubik is actually The illusion of ubiquitous. Here PKD proposes the religious thought of "Tao is in the world" or "all living beings have Buddha-nature", but his signature style - confusion, desolation, loss - still pervades the pessimism of old prophecies or fate. in color.

Mysterious and mysterious, don't forget he's still writing science fiction.

Taking advantage of the brain fog, there is a 1978 PKD speech at the end of the book, " How to Build a Universe That Won't Fall Apart in Two Days ", which is a little bit sour about the errors in the German version of "Ubik". translate. But the point is that he expounded his own creative views in the article, and the two questions at the beginning of this article come from it. Particularly interesting is a point he made:

 Perhaps each person lives in a unique, personal world that is completely different from the world in which all other human beings live and experience. This makes me wonder, if everyone sees reality differently, can we say there is only one reality in the world? Shouldn't it be said that it is a plural reality?

Have you ever smelled the most popular topic "Multiverse"? Do you think only Mei Man and Michelle Yeoh are experts in this field? PKD is half a century ahead of deployment.

PKD self-reports that he likes to frame a universe that falls apart, to break it down, and then to see how the characters in the novel deal with those problems. "Chaos should be more, don't assume order and stability must be good." When many people read PKD novels, they have a feeling that they can't continue reading. It's not that the words are crooked, but the sense of jumping chaos. . What's more, he combines chaos and philosophy into a terrifying hellscape:

 The universe is not buried by gusts, chills, darkness and ice, everything happens inside me... Is the whole world inside me? This must be how death manifests.

From this, it can be seen that he deliberately broke the boundary between permanence and alienation, and let the gray area extend endlessly, just like "Ubik" without an ending, pushing you off the cliff when you feel that the light is close at hand. So don't classify his work as a childish adventure full of futuristic fantasies, nor is it the dark humor of " Guide to the Galaxy Hitchhiker ", he is a superior literary master of Zhenggang's "science-fiction texts that go against the bone".

In addition to the multiverse, PKD also understands the "metaverse", you see how advanced he is. In this speech he said:

 The ubiquitous pseudo-reality begins to create pseudo-human beings, as false as the information that oppresses them from all sides. Pseudo-humans create pseudo-reality, which they then sell to other pseudo-humans, who eventually transform them into pseudo-selfs.

That's it, he is good at making a fuss about hypocrisy, playing with hypocrisy through fictional plots, seemingly cold-hearted, but in fact angry.

 In the society we live in today, the media, governments, large corporations, religious groups, and political groups have created many pseudo-realities that are almost unreal, and these pseudo-worlds are conveyed electronically to the minds of readers, viewers, and listeners.

This passage reminds me of the movie Richard Jewell that I saw on Netflix yesterday, which is to let the audience experience what it feels like to be dealt with by the pseudo-reality that is codified by the state and the media. The actors perform superbly, making the heavy theme more and more prominent in human nature. As the government's law enforcement representative, the FBI's level is really low. Seven years ago, the information industry I was in started a wave of discussions, because the FBI actually acted as a hacker ? To take the lead in violating privacy violations is no different from a hooligan!

Finally, a song that fits the atmosphere of Ubik is "Gravity" by the electronic experimental band Electro Sun. The blurred avant-garde style must be deeply influenced by PKD, because this album is called "Ubik".