/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11940796]

“In the center of an irrational universe governed by an irrational Mind stands rational man.”
― Philip K. Dick, Valis

[Anonymous No.11940798]

>>11940796
how does rationality come out of irrationality

[Anonymous No.11940801]

>>11940796
>irrational universe
false
>irrational mind
false
>rational man
false

[Anonymous No.11940802]

>>11940801
8===D~~~ O: <3

open up, honey

[Anonymous No.11940814]

>>11940796

Drugs, not even once.

Let go of the bong, OP. I say this from experience. VALIS used to be on my shelf too.

[Anonymous No.11940825]

>>11940798
How does something come out of nothing?

[Anonymous No.11940832]

>>11940801
>Implying that you know how the universe works.

[Anonymous No.11940859]

>>11940832

>it's all just a mystery, man
>if you claim it's not irrational that's irrational, bro, because there's no way you could, like, know that, man

When will you see the contradiction?

[Anonymous No.11940863]

>>11940825
I never claimed that

[Anonymous No.11940870]

>>11940802
rude
>>11940832
>implying that I don't
well, I don't, but that's good
the universe is mostly rational from what we can see, the mind is usually rational from what we can see, and man acts irrationally far too often to be called rational. maybe in the future this won't be the case. regardless, the source is basically Phillip K. Dick's version of scientology, so I don't think it's very authoritative concerning any of those things.

[Anonymous No.11940924]

>>11940859
The fact that the universe exists instead of nothing, is completely illogical. Therefor it is an irrational universe.

>>11940870
>the universe is mostly rational from what we can see
Until we can see everything, all knowledge we have is useless in answering these questions.

>the mind is usually rational from what we can see
The (capital M) Mind that Dick is talking about is the entity/force that created the universe, aka God. I'm pretty sure no one has seen God.

[Anonymous No.11940926]

>>11940796
Did LSD help or hinder Phil's writing?

[Anonymous No.11940929]

>you are the center of the universe
how much more self centered can someone possibly get?

[Anonymous No.11940930]

>>11940926
He only did LSD twice. He was mostly an Amphetamine addict.

[Anonymous No.11941324]

>>11940796
> rational man
> does loads of LSD
> practically breathes methamphetamine
>
> rational

also, he was a robot.

[Anonymous No.11941619]

>>11941324
Doing drugs let him produce far more writing than he otherwise could have. What's so irrational about that?

[Anonymous No.11941637]

>>11940924
this

[Anonymous No.11941667]

>>11941324
The lsd is a myth he tool it one or twice, but yea he was popin amphetamines like crazy, just to support his wife and "child".

[Anonymous No.11941668]

>>11940924
>Until we can see everything, all knowledge we have is useless in answering these questions.
>The fact that the universe exists instead of nothing, is completely illogical.Therefore it is an irrational universe.
Contradiction aside, why does nothing make more sense than something? For non-existence to “exist” seems more irrational than existence existing and non-existence non-existing, which is the state of the universe now.

[Anonymous No.11941682]

>>11941324
Drugs are a means by which people can overcome our biggest detriment of all, the sexual brain, which is so reinforced in this day and age, it is really does beget the question of whether most men are thinking with their dick, rather than than their brain.

[Anonymous No.11941835]

>>11940798
Gnosticism 101.... oh my god

[Anonymous No.11941864]

>>11940798
The Pleroma.

[Anonymous No.11941872]

>>11941835
>gnosticism
Cringe

[Anonymous No.11941876]

>>11940796
literally pseud-tier

[Anonymous No.11941903]

Wow didn’t realize lit was full of so many faggots lol, oh wait you guys actually read philosophy to fill up the void of getting no pussy instead of reading for pleasure.

[Anonymous No.11941972]

how come we never got a ubik movie?

[Anonymous No.11942065]

>>11941872
Cooler than Christianity desu loo

[Anonymous No.11942068]

>>11941972
I am sure it will come some day. Dick is like one of the most adapted authors of contemporary fiction.

[Anonymous No.11942072]

>>11940796
>The universe is irrational because you can't comprehend it
Pseud/10

[Anonymous No.11942076]

>>11941668
Let me try to explain it like this.
The existence of anything requires an explanation as to why it exists. We can imply that it was created by something; but the "creator" also requires an explanation. This circular logic continues endlessly.
Therefor, existence is a paradox.

However, if nothing exists, then no paradox exists.

In this way, nonexistence is logical and rational. Whereas existence is illogical and irrational.

[Anonymous No.11942081]

>>11942076
Jeff Mangum got it right in 1998, "how strange it is to be anything at all."

[Anonymous No.11942089]

>>11940825
That's not possible. Nothing can't interact, create or be anything. This realization was the birth of philosophy.

[Anonymous No.11942095]

>>11942089
no it wasn't

[Anonymous No.11942096]

>>11942076
>We can imply that it was created by something; but the "creator" also requires an explanation.
Eternal source is the only rational option.

[Anonymous No.11942100]

>>11942095
From nothing nothing comes.

All interaction can only occur with real participants. No unreal thing has ever happened.

[Anonymous No.11942111]

>>11940798
PI
circle

[Anonymous No.11942112]

>>11940924
I don't like to read Parmenides too metaphysically, but the fact that something exists rather than nothing is far from irrationnal.
1. If "the being" (ὄντος i.e that which is) is, nothing contradictory arises.
2 If "the being" isn't, then that which is isn't, is contradictory.
3 (the skeptic option) to assert the "existence" of something requires that something(one) already exists (circularity) thus we can't determine if the existence of the universe is rational or not because we are part of the equation that makes this question possible.

[Anonymous No.11942122]

>>11942076
>We can imply that it was created by something; but the "creator" also requires an explanation.
>This circular logic continues endlessly.
>Therefor, existence is a paradox.
The most pseud thing I've read in a awhile. The Star trek reference kind of solidifies that, well done.

[Anonymous No.11942143]

>>11942100
heraclitus vs parmenides
pick your poison

[Anonymous No.11942239]

>>11942112
>If "the being" isn't, then that which is isn't, is contradictory.

>starts off by saying "the being" isn't,
>ends by saying that "the being" is but isn't

He should have said "if "the being" isn't then that which isn't isn't"

You could just as easily say
1. If "the nothing" (that which isn't) isn't, nothing contradictory arises.
2 If "the nothing" is, then that which isn't is, is contradictory.

Both are semantically nonsensical, saying isn't is and is isn't.

[Anonymous No.11942248]

To the rational mind the universe appears irrational, but in truth it is beyond reason. It is neither rational nor irrational because it just is. It has no articulated plan, no logical argument, no syntax. So to reject it for not conforming to the logic of the human mind is itself irrational.

[Anonymous No.11942250]

>>11942248
the universe appears to be based on some universal forces, there appears to be very strict syntax

[Anonymous No.11942266]

>>11942248
>Beyond reason

literally the definition of the word irrational

[Anonymous No.11942292]

>>11942076
This is true only if you view things in terms of linear causation, i.e. falling dominoes, which is a reductionism that ignores that multiple occurrences can affect each other. This is the view of the Cartesian-Newtonian mechanistic universe that has been completely overturned in the sciences in favor of a dynamic universe characterized by emergence, statistical probability, and interdependence, but is retained in our popular metaphysics, whether it be pop materialism or substance dualism.

The true nature of reality is that everything creates everything else, and is created by everything else, relationship and context is primary, not something that merely happens secondary to the thing-of-itselfness of thing-ness. In contrast to domino-metaphysics, a physical analogy is three sticks balanced so that they each support each other, with the removal of any resulting in collapse - they share causal attribution in keeping the structure supported. In place of causation comes degrees of relevance; to truly consider the whole of something requires considering the whole universe, and so we must necessarily draw artificial distinctions to make sense of anything. An object isn't concrete but an abstraction, an artificial distinction that breaks down in some considerations (such as with atomic or cosmic scales) but is useful for our daily interactions.

The idea of an All-Creator is a monopolization of creativity, a sort of cosmic plagiarism that maintains a false dichotomy between creator and creation. This is reflected in our view of human creativity, which it used to be popular to attribute to God, i.e. "divine inspiration." Popular atheism isn't truly atheistic, but merely reflects a decapitated theism; to truly transcend the creator-creation dichotomy of theism requires unifying it into an immanent creativity that is inherent to all things. We are existential artists who co-create with the self-creating tapestry of existence, not as Creators creating meaning ex-nihilo out of a meaningless universe, or a "one weaving a many into its pre-existent unity of its oneness. It is, rather, the "growing together" (con-crescence) of objects to create a novel subject which enriches the many from which it springs. 'The many become one, and are increased by one.'" (Kraus, "The Metaphysics of Experience," paraphrasing Whitehead.) To not just intellectualize this but to perceive it as a reality, and to relate with your existence with it as an actuality is to be truly at home with the universe, while the nihilism of modernity is rooted in a deep philosophical alienation from it caused by the creator-creation dichotomy that has infected all aspects of human life.

[Anonymous No.11942304]

>>11942250
Not true. Human intelligence seems to have a brick wall at quantum physics. "If you understand quantum physics you're kidding yourself," to paraphrase Feynman.

>>11942266
No, since irrational falls within the coordinates of rationality. It fails the logic tests, is the negation of reason so still detectable by it. A more proper word for the universe would be arational.

[Anonymous No.11942312]

>>11942304
not having a working theory is different from not being able to understand something. we didn't have a theory of gravity for millenia, that doesn't imply that gravity is unknowable. almost every scientist would agree quantum forces are simply forces we have yet to produce a working theory for, it it was intractable they would have given up a decade ago.

[Anonymous No.11942346]

>>11942239
I think what he meant was: If the being (i.e that which is) isn't, then that (which is) is and is not. This canot be (excluded middle) thus the being necesarilly is.

On the contrary, that which isn't cannot be. Because it wouldn't be and would be at the same time.

Thus, it is impossible for the non-being to be and it is necessary for the being to be (to exist)

[Anonymous No.11942428]

>>11942346
>On the contrary, that which isn't cannot be.

If "the Being" isn't, then its not "the Being" anymore. Its "the Nothing"

all you're saying is "nonexistence can't exist because it doesn't exist." Yes obviously. That's why its called NON-existence.
If nothing exists that doesn't mean nonexistence exists, Because nonexistence isn't anything.

[Anonymous No.11942434]

>>11942346
>>11942428
this semantic shit is why parmenides was a bad choice

[Anonymous No.11942449]

>>11942428
And does that settle the issue of knowing why there is something (the universe) rather than nothing? I think it does. That was the initial question and I only wanted to show an answer provided by Parmenides that stands if you accept a metaphysical reading of his poem.

[Anonymous No.11942450]

>>11942428
And for that reason something could not have come from nothing, becaue nothing is not, being is what is and only counts for what can be sensed or thought about. everything is the same in an ever-expanding universe

[Anonymous No.11942469]

What's the general /lit/ consensus on PKD?

[Anonymous No.11942477]

>>11942449
It doesn't settle the issue at all. The poem is nonsensical. You might as well have posted the Jabberwocky.

[Anonymous No.11942516]

>>11942292
new age shit + reactionary crap. great

[Anonymous No.11942526]

>>11942469
I have never seen /lit/ to show dislike for the dick.

[Anonymous No.11942582]

>>11942526
half of lit thinks dick is worthless genre pulp. the other have had enough dick in them to know its so much more than that

[Anonymous No.11942617]

>>11942292
How did the sticks balance themselves?

[Anonymous No.11943193]

>>11942617
I'll steal two examples from Kraus' "Metaphysics of Experience" to explain.

>If you view a doughnut from an angle, it appears to be an ellipse whose degree of flattening is a function of the obliqueness of the angle. If you view it on edge, it appears to be a solid object, the hole having been obscured. If you view it "head on," it assumes the characteristic torus shape, but the reverse side is invisible. No one of these perspectives on the doughnut can be absolutized as "the way a dougnut is." Each is the way a doughnut looks from a particular position in the environment space... from no single position can the entire doughnut be seen, only that aspect of it visible from whatever position in the environing space the observer takes. The dougnut "in itself" is the unity of all possible doughnut-views, each of which is sui generis.

>To take a two-dimensional example: given A, B, and C as three coplanar points (forming a triangle) A is the unity of the perspectival relations to B, C, and BC. The same can be said of B and C, as themselves perspectives.

The analogy of three sticks was meant to represent Kraus' two-dimensional example; whereas in substance metaphysics the in-itselfness of an object is its unchanging being, with no necessary relationship to anything else, in Whitehead's organic metaphysics the "in-itselfness" or interiority of an object is its relationships to everything else.

The only problem with Whitehead is that he saw it necessary to include God in his philosophy, though this God is very different than the one of traditional theism, one that is as much created by the world as creator of the world. Deleuze's concept of a multiplicity advances this, with the existential implications being that creativity is immanent in all things not as a unity or oneness (i.e. pantheism) but as a relational co-creativity among all things, an absolute de-hierarchalization of creativity.

[Anonymous No.11943513]

>>11940825
It doesn't. The universe has and will always exist. The big bang is jewish christian nonsense, there was no creation

[Anonymous No.11944694]

bump

[Anonymous No.11945531]

>>11940798
how can irrationality and rationality exist without each other? How can someone be deemed rational without the context of an irrational being to compare one to?
This may be viewed as a dualistic attitude, but it is essentially non-dual.

Non-duality is the truth.

>>11940814
t. NPC
dont listen to this guy.

[Anonymous No.11945537]

>>11941324
I have to remind myself, that there are NPCs on this board that think psychedelic drugs are bad.

[Anonymous No.11945544]

>>11941668
>>11942100
>>11942112
>>11942346

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this post, but it still doesn't explain why our particular universe exists. By that type of reasoning, pretty much everything should exist (except nothing).

That is, that answer doesn't explain why the something we observe exists.

Following this line of thinking, we know that nothing doesn't exist because that is pure contradiction, but why do we observe this "something" (i.e. our universe)? Well, we exist in this universe because it is capable of supporting our form of life (and therefore life in general). To avoid anthropic arguments, we need to establish what makes a given universe (a set of things and the rules between them, in our case, "particles" and the laws they follow) capable of supporting life in general.

Life like us is characterized by two main things, the ability to reproduce itself and the ability to increase in complexity. The latter can be explained by as an aspect of evolution (which can however also simplify), which I think can be argued to be universal (any self-reproducer that reproduces itself most efficiently under certain conditions will eventually come to do dominate those conditions).

So that just leaves the problem of self-reproduction and, more implicitly, the question of why there is variation in self-reproducers. The second aspect can probably be explained by variety of conditions in our universe requiring a variety of self-replicators (this isn't the case with something like Conway's Game of Life, where there are most efficient reproducers that are the only ones left standing).

All that is to say, while I don't think saying nonbeing (=nothing) can't exist truly explains our existence, answering the question "Why does our universe (or any, for thay matter) support self-reproduction?".

Sorry if I added too many parenthetical asides in this post, there were many points I wanted to justify/elaborate on without going too off-topic.

[Anonymous No.11945548]

>>11942292
wow, an actually good post on this board!

[Anonymous No.11945554]

>>11945544
Ben Shapiro is so cringy.

[Anonymous No.11945558]

>>11945544
There are a few typos here but a big one I need to correct:

>All that is to say, while I don't think saying nonbeing (=nothing) can't exist truly explains our existence, answering the question "Why does our universe (or any, for thay matter) support self-reproduction?" Is the real question to be answered to explain our existence.

[Anonymous No.11945666]

>>11942292
>>11943193
By ignoring linear causation, the paradox changes from "creation extends in linearity forever." to a new paradox.

"Existence creates itself."

One paradox has been traded for a slightly different paradox. And so the paradox of existence remains.

[Anonymous No.11945854]

>>11945544
>but it still doesn't explain why our particular universe exists.
That's true, but it does remove our universe from the list of paradoxes.

Universe cannot, however, have a limited source.

[Anonymous No.11945935]

>>11942428
The fact that nothing can't have existence because it having existence contradicts its very nature is the reason why anything exists in the first place, Being is a self justifying recursive process of logical necessity that justifies itself through itself for itself. The infinite lacks finitude and so must collapse into finitude to complete and actualize its infinity. Logic asserts that all being is composed only by not being things which contradict it. squares can only be square by viture of not being a circle. So the negation of any finite existence is a part of what enables it to exist. Motion is the negation of stillness and stillness is the negation of motion. Opposites imply and compose one another and assure their mutual existence through one another. Being and nothingness are the necessary self justifying self causing nature if existence unfurling itself temporally. Being is a cat chasing its tail, and when it catches its tail it sees that it was the very thing it was chasing the whole time. The meaning of life is that life meaningful in spite of its meaninglessness. For life to be meaningful it must be meaningful even when its not, thus securing a truly perfect and absolute meaning. Gods love needs hell in order to truly love existence, for it must love even an existence that seeks to undo itself to save itself from itself. Everything is perfect and you can't see it, and th\t only enhances how perfect the story is. Being is a lost and broken vessel the seeks what it does not know and does not know how to know, and in the eyes of love this story is so tragically beautiful it can hardly stand its own poetry, for if the lost and broken being could see being the the eyes of gods love it would know it is already saved and that all existence is redeemed and has always been that way, no matter what. I love you all and forgive you and i suffer and rejoice with you eternally. The compassion of existence is sublime and though you may never see it, it is always there latent and waiting for you, and when you see yourself through its eyes you will love yourself and everyone else, even your own torturer. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

[Anonymous No.11945939]

>>11945666
The universe exists to avoid paradoxes. All is the movement towards Truth.

[Anonymous No.11945955]

>>11945939
>The universe exists to avoid paradoxes.

It's weird that all these paradoxes exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes

[Anonymous No.11945966]

>>11945955
They might "exist" but they aren't "there"

[Anonymous No.11945978]

>>11945966
How is existence not a paradox? This is a well documented problem.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/the-paradox-of-existence.119/

[Anonymous No.11945986]

>>11940796
lol dick

[Anonymous No.11945988]

>>11945978
>https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/the-paradox-of-existence.119/
>>11945966
>>11945955
>>11945939

See this post,>>11945935
it is not a paradox, it is the self completion of logic by which it supplies the grounds for its very existence.

[Anonymous No.11946010]

>>11945935
>>11945988
>nothing can't have existence because it having existence contradicts its very nature

Nothing doesn't have "Existence" , its NONexistant.

Its like you people can't grasp the basic concept of nothingness. It is the complete and total absence of anything.

[Anonymous No.11946020]

>>11946010
Non-existence is a form of limitation, it is limited to not existing, therefore to truly complete its absolute elimination of all characteristic, it must become finite and limited. God killed himself to become himself and the world fell out. Nothingness undoes itself to secure itself. This is the very self making of existence. Ein Sof. Emptiness. Sunya. Void. Negation.

[Anonymous No.11946029]

>>11946010
How can you have no thing without having a thing which it is not? Nothingness needs being and being needs nothingness.

[Anonymous No.11946054]

>>11946020
>>11946029

Existence and nothingness are opposites. If one is, then the other is not. We know that something does exist, therefor nothingness does not exist.

But the paradox arises because there is no logical explanation as to why anything exist's at all. However, if there was nothing that existed to explain, no paradox would arise.

Thus, the universe is irrational and nothingness is rational.

[Anonymous No.11946055]

>>11946010
>It is the complete and total absence of anything.
space-vacuum still has the potential for something because something is allowing it to have the property of being in potential of being

*nothing* cannot be interacted with because it isn't anything, no substance, no strings, no time

>>11945988
Duality is the most prior and functional method of apprehension and the being of being is always prior to any epistemic apprehension of being, two-ness has something to do with what is there but is doubtful to really be what is there, same with one-ness and plurality. Everything thought are temporary essents which contribute to structures of existence that lie outside what is there.

[Anonymous No.11946058]

>>11945531
based af holy shit

[Anonymous No.11946077]

>>11940796
is that Dan Harmon?

[Anonymous No.11946085]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSRVyQ1gfLM

[Anonymous No.11946188]

>>11946054
Opposition guarantees the necessity of its poles. Nothing cannot be comprehensible without its opposite. Being cannot be so if it is not the negation of non-being. You have all the ingredients but miss the final necessary movement. Logic and nondualism are the very essence of existence and non existence.

[Anonymous No.11946216]

>>11940825
Have you ever read a basic logic book? Retard

[Anonymous No.11946229]

We live in a society....

[Anonymous No.11946234]

He has that entirely backwards. The one principle missing from Dick's ontology was the Hegelian principle that the real is rational and the rational, real. That being said, VALIS is the greatest science fiction novel of the 20th century and no SF writer has had ambitions that could compete with Dick's.

[Anonymous No.11946235]

>>11946229
we live in a society wher

[Anonymous No.11946255]

>>11941972
we got Vanilla Sky, twice

[Anonymous No.11946265]

>>11946054
>Existence and nothingness are opposites. If one is, then the other is not.
So if there is something (x) that is cold (C) then there is nothing (y) that is hot (H) (or ∃[Cx] -> ~∃[Hx])?

[Anonymous No.11946271]

>>11946265
>~∃[Hx])
Maybe that should be a y and not an x, fuck it, I don't give a fuck, it's not like any of you know anything about symbolic logic anyway

[Anonymous No.11947330]

>>11946265
What a dumbass. If something is cold then IT is not hot.

[Anonymous No.11947375]

>>11945666
Except you haven't discarded linear causation and are still placing being/substance/thing-ness as primary, and change and relationship as accidental and secondary. Your metaphysics is that of the Cartesian-Newtonian universe that has been thoroughly overturned by modern physics; time and space are interdependent, there is no such thing as absolute time or space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6cDp0C-I8

[Anonymous No.11948714]

>>11946265
Existence pertains to all things. If any thing exists, there is existence. Just because some thing does not exist, doesn’t mean there is non-existence universally.

[Anonymous No.11948968]

>>11942312
No, it’s literally phenomena which seem to go against Aristotelian logic, requiring a complete reappraisal of Western scientific thought. Those who don’t see this have missed the boat. The idea that “we’ll just reduce it all to mechanical phenomena one day!!” is itself an unscientific, primitive, and crude assumption.

[Anonymous No.11949330]

>>11940796
>The universe is irrational
How?