Isolarii #12 - How to build a universe that doesn't fall apart two days later - Philip K. Dick

Beside most aspects that define our modernity—AI, social media, increas- ingly sophisticated propaganda—can be heard the voice of Philip K. Dick, exclaiming with both amusement and concern: ‘I told you so.’

HOW TO BUILD A UNIVERSE THAT DOESN’T FALL APART TWO DAYS LATER was written in 1978, though readers will be forgiven for taking Dick at his word and assuming it was in fact given as a lecture at Disneyland. Having circulated amongst writers unofficially, it has achieved cult sta- tus: although Dick’s output in his lifetime was prolific, this essay is a rare insight into his poetics and theories of fiction.

HOW TO BUILD A UNIVERSE THAT DOESN’T FALL APART TWO DAYS LATER is at once a lecture on the aims of writing science fiction, an essay on Pre-Socratic philosophers, and a reflection on similarities between the author’s life and the Book of Acts.

Dick claims his two concerns throughout his career have been ‘What is a human being?’ and ‘What is reality?’ His distrust of mass media informa- tion systems and those who operated them circa 1978 is so prescient that it seems the author may have uploaded himself into one of the androids in his fiction, so as to continue observing the world. Dick is only a prophet, howev- er, in the same sense that John of Patmos is: he does not offer architectural drawings of the future, but visions in blinding, pulpy colour which startle our eyes such that we can no longer trust our view of the present. HOW TO BUILD A UNIVERSE THAT DOESN’T FALL APART TWO DAYS LATER is such a vision—both personal and intellectual, characteristically wild, stretching into the future and thousands of years into the past.

It will be published with an introduction by David C. Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute, on November 12, 2024.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was an American science fiction author whose prolific career spanned three decades. He wrote 44 novels and over 120 short stories. Dick’s works of- ten featured alternate realities, deeply paranoid protagonists and searching philosophical questions about identity and existence. Notable novels include The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which became the film Blade Runner, and Ubik. His writing influenced cyberpunk and posthuman literature, earning him critical acclaim—the critic Fredric Jameson hailed him as ‘the Shakespeare of Science Fiction.’