Did Philip K. Dick experience pure consciousness?

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It is the hypothesis of this course that writer Philip K. Dick deployed a deep intuition and a keen series of observations about the nature of self consciousness to enable him to experience what he called “ultra-meta-cognition”, what he would label “VALIS” or the Vast Living Intelligent System.

Persistently Dick experimented with the idea that he had in fact experienced the contents of his own mind in a way “orthogonal” to ordinary awareness, an ultra meta frame of reference. In this orthogonal awareness, ordinary oppositions such as “real/unreal”, “living/machinic”, “alive/dead” dissolved into a nonduality experienced in pure consciousness.

PKD’s fictional strategies – the devices and techniques by which Phil Dickian effects of nonduality are often induced - were techniques of altering consciousness in the act of writing and reading akin to what scientist John Lilly would call “Programming and Metaprogramming the Human biocomputer.”

This seven part course will tune into PKD’s fictional strategies at play in his novels – including Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, Valis, and The Divine Invasion - in order to observe and experience an alteration of consciousness that Dick would query in the over eight thousand page manuscript, The Exegesis.

Might you be ready to experience pure consciousness without an object at the hands of a science fiction writeR?

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WEEK ONE: WE CAN PERTURB REALITY FOR YOU WHOLESALE

BEGINS ON January 22, 2017

An introduction to the thought and experience of Philip K. Dick that will frame the readings for the rest of the course in terms of the space of all possible reality perturbations, including consciousness without any object, or subject, at all.

Requirements

Come prepared to let go of who you think you are and what reality may be. Dispatch pre-conceived ideas of what a “writer” is and who Philip K. Dick was.

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NEXT SESSIONS

Week Two: Do Androids Dream of Electric Empathy? (Jan. 29)

Week Three: Back to Orthogonal Time (Feb. 5)

Week Four: Meta Cognition Under Arrest: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Feb. 12)

Week Five: Techno-Metanoia, or Pulled Through Infinity: A Scannery Darkly (Feb. 19)

Week Six: I Am Not Myself, Horeselover Fat: VALIS (Feb. 26)
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Week Seven: The Exegesis Distilled, or Tuning Into the Urgund with Philip K. Dick (March 5)
All live sessions will be presented on Zoom and recorded in audio and video formats for your viewing and listening pleasure.
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Students will also receive access to a "Student Portal", where the class materials (recordings, PDFs, etc) will be conveniently accessible.

*PLEASE NOTE: This class is provided to you by UBIK, and is safe only when used as directed.

OUR READING LIST

UBIK
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
A Scanner Darkly
VALIS
The Divine Invasion
Exegesis

You can help support this free class by purchasing the books (used or new) through Amazon portal links above. Thank you!

DONATE / GIVE TO SUPPORT THIS SEMINAR

​No one will be turned away from this class, but we do appreciate your donations! We invite those who can contribute a fiscal donation to do so with a value they feel is appropriate to the content offered.

​This can be anything ​from the price of a cup of coffee and up. 

Your patronage helps us to offer this and other donation based classes.

Thank you for your support.

ABOUT YOUR HOST

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Richard M. Doyle is professor of English and science, technology, and society at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of On Beyond Living, Wetwares, and Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere. 

​Read more on Richard's Nura Faculty page.
FEATURED ART: ARCHAN NAIR, ROBERT JIMENEZ