Reddit reviews The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings
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Can't find it in a quick Google search, but in one essay in this book, which is by the way fantastic, Philip K Dick relates how he got into some very heated arguments with Harlan Ellison at the bar attached to a hotel for an SF conference. Dick likened publicly arguing with Ellison as similar to a bad acid trip - to paraphrase, "You can't do anything about it, so you might as well enjoy it until it's over." A girlfriend of PKD's was less modest about it, and said it was really impressive seeing PKD bringing his sharp mind to bear and forcefully tangling wits.
I'm recalling this happened more than once, but my memory might be wrong on that part.
http://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Realities-Philip-Dick-Philosophical/dp/0679747877
I would recommend this book for a good overview of what Dick himself thought about his writings. It's a really good overview of his life and reflections he had on his writings and SF in general.
This is a great collection of various essays and letters and unpublished material. It includes the early drafts of the Man In The High Castle sequel which the current tv series is clearly drawing on.
Fictional quotes like that in a work of science fiction are intended to provide background flavour, they're not necessarily meant to be understandable. I'd say that that one is meant to suggest that Dick's fictional Soviets had observed spiritual forces acting on the world, and made great effort to study their effects scientifically, but they only wished to understand them in purely material terms.
Dick's Exegesis was his attempt to analyse the experience and insights that he fictionalised in Valis. It's said to contain some brilliant and learned theological speculations, but it is disordered and intermixed with long paranoid ramblings. Unfortunately he was schizophrenic. Zebrapedia is an online community devoted to understanding the Exegesis. The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick is a collection of his essays, and that also might interest you.
I was reading more and discovered that PKD is not talking about the final version of the script in this article. After Universe Makers was published, the script was rewritten to PKD's satisfaction.
From The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick, Introduction to Section Four (page 137 in my version):
>Dick was able to see some of the early rushes of [Blade Runner] before his death in 1982, and was decidedly enthusiastic. In an earlier stage of the production of Blade Runner, however, Dick was displeased with the then quality of the script (subsequently rewritten, to Dick's liking, by David Peoples) and vented his displeasure in "Universe Makers... and Breakers" (1981), included earlier in this volume.
Sorry for the mixup!
Sci fi is kind of the best thing ever. I hope you think so too after a bit! I really enjoy reading older sci fi and seeing how on or off base predictions of technology are. I'm especially a sucker for dystopian stories since I love how it makes me question our current society. I'd suggest anything by Vonnegut (especially Slaughterhouse five and the Sirens of titan).
Also Philip K. Dick- if you enjoy philosophy. I read Ubik as a sci fi and came away with nothing. Did not get it. Then I started reading this book which is going to help me think of it in a new way. That book also has some cool stuff to say about sci-fi as a genre.