On Phillip K Dick
On Phillip K Dick
The Mule Speaks! - Science Fiction Analysis
In and Through A Maze of Death
Phillip K. Dick’s 1970 novel A Maze of Death explores the discrepancies between our perceptions of reality and what is actually there. It also looks at how the unconscious can shape those perceptions. Set on the colony world of Delmak-O, thirteen settlers are assigned there for an unknown purpose to be revealed when all the settlers separately arrive at the colony. The universe the story takes places in is made and ruled by a tripartite god they call the Deity. Some of the settlers were reassigned to Delmak-O from prayers they sent to the Deity via an interplanetary system of computer relays via their pineal glands. As a result of a mechanical failure (they speculate on whether it was intended to happen), the settlers are unable to learn the purpose of their mission. As the plot unfolds, settlers begin dying off (either being killed by each other or by mysterious men in black leather appear from nowhere, and one by suicide), exploring the surrounding wildernes, and eventually uniting to fight back against these men in black leather. Much of the story is from the perspective of the character Seth Morely, after whose death it is revealed that everything that has transpired has been part of a simulation. The settlers are in fact crew members aboard a spaceship whose transmitter has failed (not the only parallel between the simulation and reality) and the ship is left derelict orbiting a dead star. All that is left for the crew is to plan simulations with help of their ship computer the T.E.N.C.H. 889B, enter the simulations, and repeat. What was designed to be a toy for temporary amusement on a temporary journey has become a refuge from their cruel fate.
Reality as it is is never presented directly to the reader. Instead, the story unfolds for us indirectly through the experience of the characters. Because of their subjective experience, they are unable to come to a consensus about what is until too late. In the Delmak-O simulation, the characters exploring the wilderness come across (they are looking for it, thinking it might be related to their mission’s purpose) a structure they call the Building at whose entrance they all read different words engraved over that describe the Building’s purpose. For example, the settlement psychologist reads the word “STOPPERY” over the entrance, so he concludes that this must be where all mental illness is treated. Each settler independently concludes that the building means something different and special only to them and they are the only ones meant to or qualified to gain access. The characters even cite Kant: “As Kant proved. Space and time are modes of perception,” meaning that reality itself is a means for experiencing what is actually there, beyond the veil, or as close as we can get using our sense organs and intellect.
The story has an air of paranoia about it and much of the world has a feeling of fakeness (What an interesting thing to say about a world existing within a simulation! That there are some facets of it that just feel fake, inauthentic, unreal and that’s the anomaly. The irony that within an artificially constructed “space,” the strangeness occurs when we encounter something that feels artificial or not real, and not when we can’t tell when we’re in a simulation or not (which would render the point moot to begin with)!), possibly a reflection of the story’s author who believed the real world to in fact be a simulation too. The characters comment on the local insect population actually being tiny robots surveilling them. The characters even conclude that they themselves are the purpose of their mission
The simulation is a representation and a manifestation of the crew’s unconscious minds. The technology they use to interface with the simulation is the polyencephalic mind, allowing their conscious minds to occupy a shared psychological structure via computer interface and commingle and synthesize their drives and fears into a localized collective unconsciousness for the ship’s computer to use as fodder for simulation-creating. If the collective unconsciousness of all humanity could be thought of as a kind of internet, then what’s happening on the crew’s spaceship could be thought of as a kind of intranet.
Obviously the crew wants to end their suffering, but none of the characters resort to suicide. The Delmak-O simulation, like the crew to their own suffering, wanted to end itself. Originally thought to be guards for a psychological experiment conducted by a psychological hospital the settlers were actually patients from, the men in black leather uniforms responsible for several of the settlers’ deaths were in fact, “...indications of our attempt to break it [the Delmak-O simulation] up and start again--they were directed by the thoughts of those who had 'died.' " Is this not a natural response from the crewmates that died in the current simulation? To simply want to “live” again, especially when your “death” is not final, just the latest in a long line of digital escapist death to make the real thing more palatable? This repression is not sustainable and is especially dangerous given their situation. After the crew is fully awakened from the Delmak-O simulation ending, some of them remark on how this simulation was the most violent and in which they acted the most deranged yet. It disturbs them and they ponder if this is the fate of all further simulations: to slowly degenerate into more and more violence where the crew members have an outlet for their resentments and hostilities for each other. Eventually there may even come a point where they can no longer tolerate each other in reality without resorting to extreme violence, leading them to no other choice than to flee into the simulations where they can hide behind fabricated memories and egos as a last ditch method to put up with the only other people they’ll ever interact with again.
There is also the odd inclusion in the simulation of all the settler having the same marking somewhere on their bodies that spells out “Persus 9,” the name of the crew’s ship in reality (a second parallel to reality — the ship’s name being Persus 9). Despite this, none of the settlers in the simulation know what it means or how, why, or when they got the mark in the first place. But they are sure of one thing now: “...this confirms the criminally insane theory; we were probably given these marks when we were prisoners in the Building. We don't remember that, so we don't remember this tattoo either." Naturally, they want to learn what “Persus 9” means and why they’re all marked with it. Some of the settlers know of an old, powerful organism that might be able to answer their question called the Grand Tench (a third parallel to reality) that can duplicate small objects placed in front of it. These copies it creates, however, decompose and break down at a much faster rate than the originals, in a matter of days in fact. When they find the Grand Tench, they see it is a large, undulating, gelatinous cube glowing from within. They place a piece of paper before it with their question. In past questions, it duplicates the paper, but with an answer. This time, however, the tench explodes and the world around the settlers begins to unravel. To answer the question acknowledges that their world is a false one and there is another, true, real world. This effectively crashed the program and simulation came to an end. From the start of the simulation, the crew had information that, if properly used, could end the simulation. It’s as if their collective unconsciousness, acting through the simulation, wanted to end it, to stop the charade and stop it all.
For Seth Morely, the escape the simulations offer is not enough. After the Delmak-O simulation but before the next one, Morley contemplates death as the only comfort and whether he should release the oxygen in the ship into space, killing the crew in a swift act of mercy. Suddenly the Intercessor, one of the three incarnations of the Deity created as part of the simulation’s world-building, appears before him offering him a new way of being: "You will be free; you will die and be reborn. I will guide you to what you want, and to what is fitting and proper for you. Tell me what it is." Morley accepts and asks to be reborn as a desert cactus so he could be under the sun all day long and be, “... asleep but still aware of the sun and of myself.” The Intercessor grants his wish, telling him, “ "You will live and sleep for a thousand years," the Intercessor said, and guided him away from where he stood, into the stars.” By living and sleeping Morely has chosen both reality and simulation. Humans can only live in either reality or simulation. Plants are not restricted in this way. He can bask in the warmth and radiance of the sun, sustaining himself from it alone; and he doesn't need to worry about ego and id. He got his cake and ate it too, but at what cost?
A Zen koan shares with A Maze of Death the theme of the unconscious projecting into our conscious reality called Subjugation of a Ghost. In it, a woman asks that her husband not find new love after she dies or she will haunt him as a ghost. He initially respects her wish, but finds new love and becomes engaged. The ghost of his wife begins to haunt him, telling him intimate details between him and his new love. The man seeks the advice from a Zen master who tells the man to make a deal with her that if she can answer his question he will end his engagement to his new love. If she cannot answer, then she is a figment of his imagination and cannot trouble him. The next night he sees his wife’s ghost. He tells her how smart she is, to which she replies she knows he went to see the Zen master. The man replies by grabbing a handful of soybeans and asking her how many he is holding. To quote the koan: “There was no longer any ghost to answer the question.” Both the crew of the Persus 9 and man from the koan have their conflict arising from their own minds, from within, not from without. These are internal struggles that must be overcome through acceptance, whether acceptance of one’s circumstances or that it's okay to move on without feeling guilt.
A Maze of Death is more than the book’s title. It is the space between the hull of the Persus 9 and the bodies of the crew members themselves. It is a maze that increases in its deadliness (even as the ship eventually is occupied by fewer and fewer people), and instead of navigating through it and conquering it, the crew retreats, hiding into simulations. But they never really leave the maze, do they? Not in a physical sense, at least. A perceptual escape — sure. Time can be split two ways, physically by how our ability to measure it and psychologically by how we experience it. In the Maze of Death, the game is to play on the psychological time, to fool it and make as much time pass and (ironically) experience as little of as possible.
A part of a science fiction writing series titled “The Mule Speaks!”
For a PDF of the novel, see the link below: https://ia801609.us.archive.org/0/items/HeliganSecretsOfTheLostGardens/DickPhillipKindred-AMazeOfDeath.pdf