In Pursuit of Valis by Philip K Dick

Author:Philip K Dick [Dick, Philip K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0887330916
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

If the abstract structure of reality is the agent of creation, then is not it self-causing? This is a definition of Prime Mover Unmoved; I am saying that when reality is viewed—not as a multiplicity of physical objects in space and time governed by causality—but as insubstantial abstract unified structure (Pythagoras’ kosmos, perhaps; the Forms, perhaps; Philo’s logos, perhaps; Torah, perhaps; or some other name not known to us: pre-existent ideas, etc.)—it is its own cause. And yet I have not used the term God or even suggested a cause lying outside reality; for the abstract structure is not outside reality (like potter to pot, artisan to artifact); this insubstantial abstract structure is reality properly conceived; this is conceived by reason of a colossal meta-abstraction in which reality is, so-to-speak, hollowed out so that its intelligible basis is apprehended. This is at least one level up in the hierarchy of ontology. But it is not God. Here, multiplicity gives way to unity, to what perhaps can be called a field. The field is self-perturbing; it initiates its own causes internally; it is not acted on from outside. This does not quite sound like theology or even, perhaps, philosophy (although it does resemble Pythagoras’ idea of kosmos, but the early Greek thinkers were as much scientists as philosophers or anything else).

Then the “perturbation in the reality field” refers to a perturbation in physical, substantial reality—plural objects in space and time governed by causation—emanating from the abstract structure that is both basis of reality and the agent of its creation. Nothing lies beyond this abstract hyper-structure known by the meta-abstracting of Noesis. There is no reason to posit a higher, more real ontological level, since the insubstantial abstract structure is self-causing and initiates its own changes internally; there is nothing that acts upon it from outside it. Yet this is not quite pantheism or hylozoism; a sharp distinction is made between physical reality (plural objects in space and time governed by causation) and the abstract structure—only the latter is self-causing—so it is no hylozoism; and no deity is posited, so this is not pantheism. It is (to repeat) something like the kosmos of Pythagoras, if it is like anything we know of at all. Where it differs from Plato’s theory of the Forms (as true reality) is that instead of positing a loose aggregation (the Forms) it posits a unified abstract structure; this would be kosmos noetos or Logos, but it would be Logos not as intermediary between God and creation since no God is posited. Perhaps it resembles the logos of the Stoics, which was immanent in creation; but their logos was substantial, which is to say, material; so it is not that either. It is a kind of Pythagorean mathematical Logos, having to do with limit, ratio and proportion (e.g. the 8x13 rectangle, the Golden Rectangle). This is Pythagoras, not Plato.

(12 September 1981)

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