- 6 weeks ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:02What is reality?
00:04Did the past remember actually happen?
00:07Can you exist in two realities at once?
00:11Are you who you think you are?
00:15Science fiction author Philip K. Dick says we'll all be asking such questions soon.
00:20For Dick, reality is just one of his layers.
00:24All of his novels combined together accurately predicted the world that we're in now.
00:34Tomorrow begins with a spark of imagination.
00:37A flash of insight that demolishes yesterday's limitations and inspires technologies to create new worlds.
00:46I'm Ridley Scott and these are the prophets of science fiction.
00:54I think Philip K. Dick is almost like the Charles Dickens of science fiction.
01:00In his sheer density and detail, nearly all his stuff comes from the real place, which is reality.
01:14What he sees is disintegration, dirt, corruption.
01:19And that was Phil.
01:20Phil looked on the dark side and seeing that the dark side was romantic.
01:23There was a romantic aspect to that dark element, those dark corners.
01:31Inside that darkness, Philip K. Dick creates 44 novels and 120 short stories in a career spanning 30 years.
01:42He writes his science fiction when computers are experimental and telephones are tethered by wires.
01:52Yet, Philip K. Dick foresees a future where science will change our perception of what is real.
02:01In his most paranoid moments, he fears the changes have already come.
02:08One crisp November day, he finds his house ransacked.
02:15His fireproof safe blown apart.
02:19His financial records and manuscripts destroyed.
02:23His mind reels with the possibilities.
02:29Did one of his books about government conspiracy get too close to the truth?
02:34Did addicts break in, acting on some drug-induced hallucination?
02:40Or is he the one hallucinating?
02:44Has someone fooled him into thinking that his house was broken into?
02:50Or is this a vision of the future that hasn't happened yet?
02:55Dick has a long history of visions.
02:58Attributed to schizophrenia.
03:00To drugs.
03:02To paranoia.
03:04No one has a definitive answer.
03:07Whatever their cause, Dick's doubts about reality are the fuel for decades of mind-blowing fiction.
03:18I think Philip K. Dick is the most important figure in science fiction.
03:21Even more so, perhaps, than E.G. Wells.
03:23Philip K. Dick is an extremely important figure in the genre of science fiction.
03:28Because of the darker view that he took of the possible effects of technological change.
03:33Dick's work explores technology's impact on human consciousness.
03:39His protagonists struggle to separate real reality from its high-tech facsimile.
03:45The movie Blade Runner is based on Dick's dark dystopia,
03:50Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
03:53Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
03:55suggests that these androids might have consciousness.
03:59That they aren't just computers going through rapid calculations,
04:02but that they are actually thinking beings that might also dream, sleep.
04:06And so putting it in the form of a question leads to the larger question in that book,
04:10which is, what does it mean to be human?
04:12Dick creates a protagonist who embodies the conflict of competing realities.
04:18Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter,
04:21chasing down robots that look like humans,
04:24are as smart as humans, and have feelings.
04:27His mission is to retire faulty machinery,
04:32illegally attempting to pass as human beings.
04:36I remember being deeply unsettled by that world in particular,
04:41and by the notion that nothing is what it seems.
04:45He depicts the androids disturbingly very much like ourselves.
04:49They want to know where they came from,
04:52and they rage against their own mortality.
04:56If we can create a robot that is virtually indistinguishable from a human,
05:01then what does it mean to be human?
05:04What happens if a robot has emotions?
05:07Then what differentiates us from the machines?
05:11Over four decades later,
05:13science is on the cusp of realizing Dick's vision of humanized androids.
05:20To develop an android,
05:22you need many kinds of technologies brought together.
05:26We call this bio-inspired engineering.
05:28This involves numerous disciplines,
05:30ranging from mechanical design to material science,
05:35skin material that simulates human facial flesh.
05:39We're evolved over millions of years to work together using our faces.
05:44So we use the cognitive science of human facial expressions
05:48to develop new materials,
05:51like what we call frubber or face rubber.
05:54So frubber is this really nice spongy rubber material.
05:57It's porous,
05:58and what that means is that it's filled with a sort of fluid
06:01that allows it to be really soft
06:03and take very little energy to make expressions that look very natural.
06:07It matches how soft our faces are,
06:10along with the elasticity,
06:11the ability to compress and wrinkle and fold.
06:13We then take our frubber material
06:15and we connect it to motors that are inside the head.
06:21So frubber allows us to simulate much better facial expressions.
06:27Thanks to David Hansen,
06:29there is now a duplicate of Philip K. Dick.
06:33This is my favorite project,
06:36the android portrait of Philip K. Dick.
06:39We see artificial intelligence at play in numerous areas on the android.
06:44When he's moving like this,
06:46he's displaying the facial expressions,
06:48sometimes in response to what's being spoken.
06:52Philip K. Dick has influenced android robotics
06:56in more ways than can be counted.
06:59The great android designers and developers of the world
07:03will point to the movie Blade Runner
07:04and the works of Philip K. Dick as motivating factors.
07:07But when robots mirror the reality of human appearance too closely,
07:11we find ourselves repelled by the reflection.
07:15Android designers and computer animators
07:18describe this phenomenon as the uncanny valley.
07:22The uncanny valley is a theory
07:24posited by a Japanese robotics researcher
07:26named Masahiro Mori.
07:28And it basically suggests
07:29that the more realistic that you make a robot,
07:34the more appealing it becomes
07:35until it starts becoming really realistic.
07:38And then it becomes very unappealing.
07:41But at some point of realism
07:43where you make it indistinguishable from a person,
07:46then it becomes appealing again.
07:50Androids that look extremely human-like
07:53make people nervous
07:54because we wonder,
07:57do they have a soul?
07:59Are they going to share our values?
08:01Or are they from this weird tribe
08:03of machine beings
08:06that are invading our world?
08:09Strange as it may seem,
08:11one of your children or grandchildren
08:13might marry an android.
08:15I believe that within 20 years,
08:18artificial intelligence will achieve
08:20human-level capabilities across the board.
08:23At that point,
08:24our hardware will be backed up by a brain
08:27and you won't know that they're androids.
08:30In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,
08:34Deckard uses special empathy tests
08:36to determine if he's dealing with a man or a machine.
08:39The lack of this uniquely human trait
08:42indicates an android.
08:45It's a revelation that can come as a shock
08:48to the android itself,
08:49having had pre-installed memories
08:51of a whole life they never really lived.
08:58But if memories can be faked,
09:00no one can be sure of their own identity.
09:05Rick Deckard recalls passing the test.
09:09But is it possible he, too, is an android?
09:14One of the things that Phil Dick liked to do in his books
09:17was to have a sense that reality
09:19was not what it seems like on the surface.
09:22So if a bug had been put into your ear
09:25that gave you your past
09:27and it didn't even exist a week before,
09:30this is what he liked to do,
09:31was what I call the reality breakdown.
09:33The theme of implanted memories
09:36is close to Philip K. Dick's heart
09:38because he sometimes struggles
09:40with his own confusion about reality.
09:44He asks himself,
09:47Are memories real?
09:58In 1928, Depression-era Chicago,
10:02twins are born.
10:04Philip K. Dick and his sister, Jane.
10:07Jane is Phil's constant companion
10:10and becomes the most influential person
10:12in the science fiction writer's life.
10:16Yet his twin sister died
10:18within six weeks of her birth.
10:22So he grew up in this kind of lonely environment
10:25and heard about his missing twin sister
10:27and that had to have had a profound effect on him.
10:34To young Philip,
10:36Jane is a missing part of himself.
10:40In his world, she is real.
10:48He had a great imagination.
10:50He's been told the story
10:52and a natural thing for someone to do
10:55when they are told a story
10:57is to mentalize that.
10:59That often comes with imagery.
11:01I can imagine the birth scene.
11:03I want to imagine what my baby sister
11:05must have looked like and so on.
11:07Phil Dick sees his sister in vivid detail.
11:14There are psychologists
11:16who attribute these visions
11:17to mental illness or drugs.
11:20Phil knows, mostly,
11:23that the visions aren't totally real.
11:25But they make him think.
11:27What makes me, me?
11:31The sum total of experiences?
11:35Funerals,
11:36weddings,
11:38birthdays,
11:39childhood fears.
11:41All the memories of a lifetime
11:43add up to make a unique person.
11:46But what if science had a way
11:49to plant false recollections
11:51of a life never lived?
11:53What if an unhappy childhood
11:56or the loss of a sibling
11:57could be turned into happy memories?
12:01Science fiction writer
12:03Philip K. Dick
12:04imagines a not-too-distant future
12:06in which desirable memories
12:08can be purchased.
12:10His 1966 novella,
12:13We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,
12:15describes a thriving market
12:17for utterly convincing
12:19but artificial experiences.
12:22Implanted memories
12:23are a form of adventure travel.
12:26The basic Mars package,
12:30899 credits.
12:31Now that's for two full weeks of memories,
12:33complete in every detail.
12:35But how real does it seem?
12:36As real as any memory in your head.
12:39Unable to afford a trip to Mars,
12:41an ordinary man seeks the next best thing.
12:45Surgically implanted memories
12:46of a thrilling Martian adventure.
12:49Why go to Mars as a tourist
12:50when you can go as a famous jock?
12:52Or...
12:52Secret agent.
12:53How much is that?
12:55But what if a memory
12:56was implanted without your knowledge?
12:59How can you know
13:00if you are the real you?
13:04Already in the original story,
13:05there is implanted memory.
13:07If that's true or not,
13:08that's another question.
13:09But the protagonist feels
13:11that the memory has been implanted
13:13and basically moves him
13:15into a certain direction.
13:16So that's something
13:17that is Philip Dickian.
13:19Get ready for the big surprise.
13:22You are not you.
13:24You are me.
13:25In Philip Dick's vision of the future,
13:28technology has the power
13:29to change our perception of truth.
13:33His hero can't be sure
13:35if he's an average man
13:37who dreams of being a secret agent
13:39or a secret agent
13:40programmed to think he's not.
13:42We tried as hard as possible
13:44to do one thing,
13:46which was have two stories,
13:48parallel stories.
13:49One is it's a dream.
13:51And basically everything happens
13:52that basically because
13:53this thing is put in his head.
13:55The other ones, it's true.
13:56And what we try to do
13:59is have these two parallel stories
14:01continuously believable
14:03till the very end.
14:06Philip K. Dick prophesies
14:08a world in which human memory,
14:11like computer memory,
14:13might be overwritten
14:14with new data.
14:17Recent breakthroughs
14:18in neuroscience suggest
14:20this could be
14:22biologically possible.
14:23The important thing
14:26to recognize here
14:27is that
14:28that imagined experience
14:31is not all that different
14:34from a real experience.
14:36Neurons are discharging
14:39in certain patterns,
14:40in particular parts of the brain,
14:42generating biochemical actions.
14:46And those very same processes
14:50are what happens
14:51when you actually
14:52have an experience.
14:56Neuroscientist Andre Fenton
14:57studies how the brain
14:59catalogues memories.
15:01In the brain,
15:02it seems there's
15:03a particular molecule
15:05that is responsible
15:07for memory storage
15:09across long periods of time.
15:12And it's by interfering
15:13with that perpetual machinery
15:15that you can create,
15:18destroy, enhance,
15:19you know, manipulate
15:20the information.
15:22Philip K. Dick
15:23is not a scientist
15:25who understands
15:25the biomechanics of memory.
15:29But he is able
15:30to imagine that
15:31technology might soon
15:33be able to change
15:34perceptions of the past.
15:37Perhaps his mind
15:38travels this road
15:39because his own past
15:40is a blur of real
15:42and unreal,
15:43full of events
15:44that might not have happened.
15:48One thing is certain.
15:50Phil Dick's insights
15:51into the flexible nature
15:52of reality are prophetic.
15:55He envisions a device
15:57that would allow people
15:59to enter an utterly convincing
16:00but entirely simulated world.
16:03The empathy box
16:04in Do Androids Dream
16:05of Electric Sheep
16:06is an early example
16:07of virtual reality.
16:09When Phil Dick wrote
16:10Do Androids Dream
16:11of Electric Sheep,
16:12there was no such thing
16:12as virtual reality
16:13and the term itself
16:14did not exist.
16:15And so for Phil Dick
16:17writing in the late 60s,
16:18he was talking about
16:19well, what if the TV
16:20has taken over our lives?
16:22Dick's concepts
16:23may have seemed
16:24outlandish at the time,
16:26but today,
16:27they are as close
16:29as your video screen.
16:30We're already starting
16:31to blur the line
16:32between virtual reality
16:34and real reality.
16:37At the University
16:38of California, San Diego,
16:40Thomas DeFonte
16:41has designed a room
16:43that takes virtual reality
16:45to the next level,
16:46the Star Cave.
16:47The Star Cave is a place
16:49that scientists,
16:50medical professionals,
16:51artists, people
16:52from many different walks
16:53of life come to see
16:55their 3D imagery
16:56and to be inside of it.
16:59The Star Cave is the type
17:00of room that you walk
17:01into that has rear-projected
17:03walls so that every surface
17:05is an image.
17:07When you walk
17:07in the Star Cave,
17:08you put on a hat
17:09that's got silver balls on it.
17:10This allows the cameras
17:11that are putting out
17:12infrared light
17:13to track where you are.
17:15Then you use a wand
17:17in your hand
17:17to essentially control
17:18to drive around
17:19just like you use
17:20a game controller.
17:22The Star Cave
17:23is more than a stunning
17:24visual experience.
17:26There are practical
17:27applications as well.
17:29We can display objects
17:31that can't be seen
17:32in reality
17:33and that are very hard
17:34to imagine,
17:35for instance,
17:35protein structures.
17:36And visualizing those things
17:38in virtual reality
17:39is very valuable
17:40because it can give
17:41scientists a completely
17:43new understanding
17:43that they can't otherwise
17:45get from just looking
17:46at images,
17:47for instance.
17:49Recently,
17:50engineers of San Francisco's
17:51Bay Bridge
17:52employed the Star Cave
17:53to examine their designs
17:55in ways that were
17:56unimaginable before.
17:58It allows them
17:59to find errors
18:00in the models early on
18:01which can then save them
18:02millions of dollars.
18:04For them,
18:04it doesn't matter
18:05that this is the Star Cave.
18:06It could be the real world,
18:07it could be another
18:07virtual environment.
18:08For them,
18:08what matters is that
18:09they get to see
18:10what only their minds
18:12can show them otherwise.
18:14In a few years,
18:15we're going to have
18:15environments that are
18:16much more realistic yet
18:18where we feel
18:19the objects that we
18:20actually touch
18:21and maybe the temperature,
18:22maybe the texture.
18:23At some point,
18:24the user who uses
18:25these systems
18:26is going to be unable
18:27to distinguish
18:27between the virtual environment
18:29and the real world.
18:30Could virtual reality
18:32ever become too real?
18:34Philip K. Dick
18:36imagines technology
18:37being used
18:38to fool people.
18:39He also sees
18:40the potential
18:41that virtual reality
18:42might become
18:43an unhealthy escape
18:45from daily life.
18:46I think that
18:47certainly Dick
18:49took that up
18:51and that's where
18:53we are today.
18:53We are completely
18:54obsessed by cyber experience.
18:56We're already seeing
18:56that children
18:58can be drawn
18:59into virtual reality
19:01and made addicts.
19:03As technology
19:04catches up
19:05with Philip K. Dick's vision,
19:06it's tempting to think
19:08how the writer
19:09might react
19:09to our progress.
19:11I think Philip K. Dick,
19:12part of his legacy
19:13is frankly a warning
19:15that it's very easy
19:18to loose yourself
19:20when the technology
19:22around you
19:23is becoming
19:24so ubiquitous
19:25and there's
19:26an interesting
19:28debate that goes on
19:29in a lot of his work.
19:30Where would you rather be?
19:31Would you rather be
19:31in the here and now
19:32or would you rather be
19:34in a potential fantasy
19:35of yours?
19:36And is the fantasy
19:37sometimes frankly
19:38better than knowing
19:38the reality?
19:39Dick knows
19:40that when technology
19:42invades the mind,
19:43even our own thoughts
19:45are no escape.
19:46In the 21st century,
19:48Dick's paranoia
19:50is transforming reality.
20:01It's 1971.
20:03Philip K. Dick
20:04is 43 years old
20:06and living
20:06in Northern California,
20:08ground zero
20:09for the countercultural
20:10revolution of drugs,
20:13politics,
20:14war,
20:16sex,
20:17and religion.
20:18The early 1970s
20:19was very much
20:20a tumultuous period
20:21in American lifestyle.
20:23It was the Nixon
20:24administration.
20:25There was a lot
20:26of paranoia,
20:27fears of the Vietnam War.
20:29There were riots
20:29in the streets.
20:30It felt like anything
20:31could happen.
20:32It really influenced Dick
20:33and you could almost say
20:34that it was a kind of
20:35a Philip K. Dick
20:36moment in history.
20:39Phil opened up his house
20:40to young people,
20:42some of whom
20:43were active
20:44in the drug world,
20:45others of whom
20:45were just dissidents.
20:48things were falling apart
20:49for him
20:50and the drugs
20:51were beginning
20:51to have their influence.
20:53And then some
20:54peculiar events
20:54began to make him
20:55a little bit more paranoid
20:56than he was before.
20:58Dick has been writing
20:59about mind-altering drugs,
21:02alternate realities,
21:03police power,
21:04and corporate cover-ups
21:05since the 1950s.
21:08Now the world
21:09is catching up with him
21:11and he suspects
21:12he is being targeted
21:13because of what he knows.
21:16Philip Dick channels
21:18his personal fears
21:19into his art.
21:20He projects his paranoia
21:23into a near future
21:24in which the government
21:25uses invasive technology
21:27to monitor the population,
21:29making privacy obsolete.
21:31The result is 1977's
21:34A Scanner Darkly.
21:36It's a great, great,
21:37great, great, great,
21:38great portrait
21:38of life in the early 70s,
21:41at least life that Phil
21:43lived in the early 1970s.
21:45Some of the surveillance
21:46technology that Dick
21:47imagines in the 70s
21:49is now in use.
21:51For Brad Barker,
21:53president of the
21:54Halo Corporation,
21:55specializing in kidnap
21:56and rescue
21:57and counterterrorism,
21:59high-tech surveillance
22:00is a necessary reality
22:02of modern existence.
22:04Many countries
22:05and even private corporations
22:06now have mapping satellites
22:08capable of aerial surveillance,
22:10but the most powerful
22:12spy satellites
22:13are believed to be
22:14those belonging
22:15to U.S. intelligence agencies.
22:18Today, satellite technology
22:19from space
22:20can zoom all the way in
22:21to read a newspaper ad,
22:23read a license plate
22:24off of the back of a car,
22:25even down to millimeters
22:26of visibility.
22:29Like the undercover cops
22:31from A Scanner Darkly,
22:33Barker's agents
22:34are armed with high-tech gadgets.
22:36This is an articulating,
22:38fiber-optic camera.
22:39It allows us to point
22:40into areas
22:41where a camera
22:42wouldn't normally go.
22:43We use various types
22:44of telescopes,
22:46night vision,
22:46thermal vision,
22:48hyperspectral,
22:49multispectral,
22:50satellite imagery.
22:51Not only do we have the gear,
22:52but we can put it aloft
22:54in an unmanned aerial vehicle.
22:55You can't see it,
22:56you can't hear it,
22:57but we can see and hear you.
23:01We are right now
23:02in the middle
23:03of a technological renaissance.
23:04If you just look
23:05at what has happened
23:06in the last five years
23:07on our commercial
23:08off-the-shelf cell phones,
23:09imagine what is happening
23:10with our government agencies.
23:13Just as Dick foresees
23:15in A Scanner Darkly,
23:17the sheer volume
23:18of surveillance data
23:19being collected
23:20is overwhelming.
23:23To make sense of it all,
23:25Barker comes here,
23:27San Diego State University's
23:29Immersive Visualization Center.
23:32Right now we're
23:33in the visualization laboratory.
23:35It's a convergence
23:37of surveillance technology
23:39and human intelligence
23:40that's all brought here
23:41into this command
23:42and control center.
23:45You'd normally see things
23:46like this in the Situation Room
23:48or in the Pentagon.
23:49The Vis Lab is able
23:51to glean terabytes of data
23:54and takes all that data
23:56and then display it
23:56in a graphical format.
23:58CIA, NSA, FBI,
24:00they're using tools
24:01just like this
24:02to complete their mission.
24:04Whether all this technology
24:06is good or bad
24:07depends on your perspective.
24:12Philip K. Dick's prophecy
24:13is that it would be suffocating,
24:16a form of prison,
24:18a barrier to free expression
24:19and dissent.
24:21What he does not foresee
24:23is that so many of us
24:25would be willing participants.
24:26text, chat, Twitter, paper,
24:31wireless, email, video, voice,
24:34it's all surveillance data.
24:36Yet, few of us seem to care
24:38that our communications
24:39can be monitored
24:40for good or ill.
24:43The problem is
24:45technology is advancing
24:46faster than the aptitude
24:48and comprehension
24:48of those that consume it
24:50on how to defend themselves
24:51while using it.
24:53What would Philip K. Dick think
24:55of modern surveillance capabilities?
24:58If Dick were alive today,
24:59I think he would be
25:00both horrified
25:01and to a certain extent
25:02pleased because
25:03all of these things
25:04that we see happening
25:05in the world,
25:05he really very solidly
25:07predicted in advance.
25:10Rapid proliferation
25:11of technologies,
25:13the sense that reality
25:14is shifting under our feet,
25:16a world that is familiar to us
25:18and he captured it
25:19well in advance,
25:20so that makes him a prophet.
25:22A detailed record
25:24of your movements,
25:25ideas, mistakes,
25:27and offhanded comments
25:28can now live on forever,
25:30digitally,
25:32online for all to see.
25:35Technology has rendered
25:36your private past
25:37an open book,
25:38but the paranoid science fiction
25:40of Philip K. Dick
25:42goes one step further.
25:43In his world,
25:45not even your future
25:46is safe from prying eyes.
25:49I'm placing you under arrest
25:50for the future murder
25:51of Sarah Marks
25:51and Donald Dumas
25:52and Donald Dumas
25:52that was going to take place
25:52today, April 22nd,
25:54at 0800 hours before Minutes.
25:56No!
26:04In 1974,
26:06Philip K. Dick's life
26:07enters a new phase,
26:09set in motion
26:10by an otherworldly encounter.
26:12Dick moved down to Fullerton,
26:14he quickly got married,
26:15he had a kid,
26:16and it really represented
26:18one of the most stable
26:20and happiest periods
26:22of Dick's life.
26:23Then one day,
26:24the science fiction writer
26:26has a visitor.
26:28The moment is brought to life
26:29by fellow veteran
26:30of 60s Northern California,
26:33alternative comic artist,
26:34R. Crumb.
26:36Phil Dick had a knock
26:37at the door,
26:38he went to the door
26:38and answered it,
26:39and it was a young woman
26:40with a Christian necklace
26:42around her neck
26:43that was handing out
26:44some Christian literature,
26:45and during their conversation,
26:46a pink beam of light
26:48went off
26:49in Phil Dick's head.
26:50She was wearing
26:51a golden fish
26:52in profile on a necklace.
26:53The sun struck it
26:54and it shone,
26:55and I was dazed by it.
26:57And after that,
26:58he had about 24 to 48 hours
27:00of hallucinations.
27:02It wasn't like
27:03an alternate reality,
27:04it was what I call
27:05a transtemporal constancy,
27:07an eternal truth
27:09where everything
27:10was always here
27:11and would always
27:12be that way.
27:16Dick receives visions
27:18throughout the year.
27:20The pink beam of light
27:22he thinks is intelligent.
27:24It brings him knowledge,
27:26and it saves his son's life.
27:32Phil told me
27:33he was sitting there
27:34in his apartment
27:35listening to
27:36Strawberry Fields Forever
27:37by the Beatles.
27:40His wife, Tess,
27:41is caring for their infant son.
27:47All of a sudden,
27:49he felt this enormous
27:50force of light
27:51hitting him,
27:52and this knowledge
27:53hit him
27:54that he needed
27:55to do something
27:56right away
27:57to rescue his son.
28:02He got up
28:03and he told her,
28:04we've got to get him
28:05to the hospital.
28:05He has a hernia.
28:08I said,
28:09Tess,
28:09he's got a birth defect
28:10and it's going to kill him.
28:12He has a right
28:13in genal hernia
28:14that's popped
28:15the hydrocele.
28:17They took him in,
28:18and indeed,
28:19that was what was the problem.
28:20Philip K. Dick
28:21believes his visions
28:23give him precognition,
28:25knowledge of the future.
28:27The last religious vision
28:29he had,
28:29shortly before he died,
28:30was of a world
28:32being destroyed
28:32through ecological collapse.
28:34And that,
28:36unfortunately,
28:36may be his greatest prophecy.
28:39Philip K. Dick
28:40explores the ramifications
28:42of knowing the future
28:43in several works,
28:45including his 1956 short story,
28:48The Minority Report.
28:51It describes a group of mutants
28:54who help police solve crimes
28:56before they occur.
28:57These rare individuals,
28:59known as precogs,
29:01can see what is about to happen.
29:06Pre-crime,
29:07in his short story,
29:09Minority Report,
29:10is this notion
29:10that you can be arrested
29:12for something
29:13that you haven't done yet
29:14if the precogs envision
29:16that you are about
29:17to commit a crime.
29:18In a classic
29:19Philip Dickian plot twist,
29:21a cop who specializes
29:23in precime
29:24finds himself accused of one.
29:26The precogs see him
29:28commit a future murder
29:29of someone he hasn't
29:31even met yet.
29:31What is this that I am?
29:32The movie is directed
29:34by Steven Spielberg,
29:35but a few years earlier,
29:37the project was on the desk
29:38of Paul Verhoeven.
29:41The company that I was working for
29:42optioned Minority Report,
29:44and we were supposed
29:46to do that as a sequel
29:47to Total Recall.
29:49The first one was about
29:50is it a dream
29:51or is it a reality?
29:52The second one was
29:53is our fate predestined
29:55or can we change
29:56the future
29:56whenever we want?
30:02You can choose.
30:13Today,
30:14groundbreaking crime prevention technology
30:16brings us ever closer
30:18to the world
30:19of the Minority Report.
30:20There are now technologies
30:22that can help predict
30:23crimes in specific areas.
30:25They have to do
30:26with statistics
30:26of analyzing
30:27where crimes took place before
30:29and then you can predict
30:30where they're likely
30:31to take place in the future.
30:33Police in Memphis, Tennessee,
30:35utilize cutting-edge
30:36analytic software
30:37designed to predict
30:38and stop crime
30:40before it happens.
30:42This pre-crime technology
30:44doesn't use
30:45clairvoyant mutants.
30:46It relies on statistical data
30:48and probability
30:49to create a map
30:50of future criminal activity.
30:52Officers in Memphis
30:53credit it
30:54with a 31% drop
30:56in serious crime.
30:59Preventing crime
31:00is a good thing,
31:01but Philip K. Dick
31:02could always see
31:03the dark side,
31:05the potential
31:05for any science
31:07to be taken to extremes.
31:10Precognition
31:11was part of his notion
31:12that if the police
31:13could know ahead of time
31:14the things that
31:15were going to do wrong,
31:16then they could arrest you
31:17even before you did the crimes.
31:18And for him,
31:19this was kind of a nightmare.
31:20Precognition is going
31:21to be happening
31:23technologically.
31:24And the question is,
31:25how will we stay free
31:28when the cameras
31:30are everywhere
31:30and the police
31:31will be able to
31:32zoom in on a crime
31:34in effect
31:35before it's happening?
31:38In Minority Report,
31:40police change fate
31:42by preventing
31:42what is destined
31:43to occur.
31:45each time a crime
31:47is prevented,
31:48an alternate reality
31:49emerges.
31:52A version of the world
31:53in which the crime
31:54never happened.
31:55For Dick,
31:56reality is just
31:57one of his layers.
31:59He plays around
32:00with it
32:00and undermines it
32:01and puts it
32:02on his head
32:03and whatever.
32:03This is the other world,
32:05the other possibilities
32:06of the world,
32:06that there are,
32:07say,
32:08other universes
32:09that might be there,
32:10basically,
32:11that are different
32:11than the one
32:12we normally have.
32:14Philip K. Dick
32:15explores the concepts
32:16of alternate futures
32:18and pasts
32:18in several works
32:20of science fiction.
32:21He depicts
32:23the horror
32:23of technology
32:24breaking our grip
32:25on time.
32:26But there's also
32:28a desperate hope
32:29in this concept
32:30of other worlds.
32:31Perhaps science
32:32can take him
32:33to a place
32:33where his twin sister
32:35never died.
32:45science fiction author
32:46Philip K. Dick
32:47writes about the future,
32:49but he is haunted
32:51by the past.
32:53He imagines
32:54the twin sister
32:55who died
32:55when they were both infants
33:00as an adult,
33:02alive and healthy
33:03in a mirror world
33:05where life unfolded differently.
33:11Life hasn't turned out
33:12how he wished.
33:14In his mid-30s,
33:15after writing 10 novels
33:17and dozens of short stories,
33:19he begins to question
33:20the choices he's made.
33:22So he gave up writing.
33:23He worked in his wife's
33:24jewelry business
33:25helping set up
33:26Andik Jewelry,
33:27which is really nice
33:28handmade jewelry.
33:29The jewelry business
33:30is more lucrative
33:32than his writing,
33:33but his overactive mind
33:34won't be stopped.
33:38He thinks about
33:40twists of fate
33:41that can set history
33:42on a new course.
33:44And a new idea
33:46starts brewing.
33:48An ambitious,
33:49complicated novel
33:50of interwoven plots
33:52and multiple timelines.
33:53He was suddenly
33:55possessed
33:56by the story
33:57of the man
33:58in the high castle.
33:59In this book,
34:01real history mixes
34:02with alternate versions
34:04of today,
34:05a parallel universe.
34:09In the man
34:10in the high castle,
34:11Franklin Delano Roosevelt
34:12is assassinated
34:13during the Depression.
34:15America's left helpless
34:16when World War II begins
34:18and the Nazis
34:19and the Japanese
34:20Imperial Army
34:21slice America
34:22right in half.
34:24It's an alternative history
34:25where you go back
34:26into the past
34:27and you postulate
34:28that something different
34:29happened.
34:29It's certainly one of
34:30Phil Dick's best novels.
34:32In 1963,
34:34The Man in the High Castle
34:36earns Philip K. Dick
34:37the Hugo Award,
34:39one of the highest honors
34:40in science fiction.
34:42The book is about
34:43how chance events
34:44can have ripple effects
34:46on history.
34:47So Phil Dick decides
34:48to use chance
34:49to help determine
34:50his plot.
34:53Rather than roll dice,
34:55he consults the I Ching,
34:57an ancient Chinese method
34:58of divining the future.
35:01Dick poses a question,
35:03then tosses
35:04three brass coins
35:05in the air six times.
35:07He uses numbers
35:09on the coins
35:10to create one of
35:1164 possible hexagrams.
35:14Dick looks up
35:15the symbols in a book
35:16to find the I Ching's
35:17predictions.
35:18Then he uses
35:19these paths of possibility
35:21in his alternate timelines.
35:23There was a period
35:24of time in Dick's life
35:25where he was a real
35:26follower of the I Ching
35:27and he would plot
35:28his novels
35:29using the I Ching
35:30so that if he came
35:31to a plot problem
35:32where he didn't understand
35:33what was going to happen
35:34next in the story,
35:35he would stop,
35:36he would throw the coins
35:36and then he would
35:37consider and tell people
35:38that the I Ching
35:39had told him what to do.
35:41And in each alternate path
35:43lies an alternate reality.
35:46In The Man in the Hagcastle,
35:48Dick does a really cool thing
35:49which was that
35:50inside that world
35:51in which the Axis powers
35:52won the war,
35:53somebody has written
35:54a novel in which
35:55the Allied powers
35:56won World War II.
35:58And so it's an alternative
35:59history within
36:00the alternative history.
36:01And so in multiple ways,
36:03Dick makes this a novel
36:05of parallel worlds.
36:08Parallel Universe
36:09is a quintessential
36:11Philip K. Dick concept.
36:14Ten, twenty years ago,
36:15if you were to ask
36:16a physicist about
36:17parallel universes,
36:19they would say,
36:20preposterous,
36:21this is Twilight Zone material,
36:23but not anymore.
36:25In the decades
36:27since Dick's book appeared,
36:29his visions of parallel universes
36:31have become more accepted.
36:33Now we physicists
36:35seriously take the possibility
36:37that perhaps there are
36:38parallel universes.
36:41In the subatomic realm,
36:43we deal with parallel universes
36:45all the time.
36:46Electrons can dance
36:48between parallel states.
36:49They can disappear,
36:51reappear someplace else.
36:52They can be two places
36:54at the same time.
36:55That's why we have
36:57laser beams.
36:58That's why we have
36:59transistors and diodes.
37:01But the killer question is,
37:03electrons can dance
37:05between parallel universes.
37:06And if electrons can do it,
37:08why can't we?
37:10Michio Kaku
37:11is one of a number
37:12of physicists
37:13developing a new theory
37:14that attempts to explain
37:16why subatomic particles
37:18can be in two places
37:19at once.
37:20String theory,
37:21or M-theory,
37:22M for membrane,
37:23is perhaps the most
37:25fantastic theory proposed
37:27in the last 100 years
37:29because it posits
37:30the existence
37:31of parallel universes.
37:33That there are
37:34other dimensions,
37:36unseen worlds,
37:37unseen universes,
37:39in which most of the dynamics
37:41of the universe
37:42takes place.
37:44Although we can't yet
37:45observe or interact
37:47with other universes
37:48or dimensions,
37:49particles smaller than an atom
37:50might pass between them.
37:52Think of a bubble.
37:54We live on the skin
37:55of this bubble
37:56and the bubble's expanding
37:57and that's called
37:58the Big Bang Theory.
37:59But the new wrinkle
38:00in all this
38:01is that we believe
38:02there are other bubbles
38:03out there,
38:04a multiverse
38:05of parallel universes.
38:08Even though Phil Dick
38:09knows very little
38:10about string theory,
38:12his fevered,
38:13paranoid imagination
38:14gives him insight.
38:16We might now call him
38:17a prophet,
38:19but in his lifetime
38:20he is a poor author
38:22on the fringes
38:23of a genre
38:23that gets little respect.
38:25Then,
38:26something changes,
38:28science fiction
38:29goes mainstream,
38:30and Hollywood
38:32discovers Philip K. Dick.
38:41In 1980,
38:44Philip K. Dick
38:45enters a new universe.
38:47One of his novels
38:48is being adapted
38:49into a movie,
38:51Blade Runner.
38:52Our first meeting
38:53was, I think,
38:54tempered with a little bit
38:55of irritation
38:56from him.
38:58I don't think
38:59he was necessarily
39:00altogether happy
39:01with the adaptation
39:02because Philip Dick's work
39:03is always so dense
39:06and screenplays
39:07tend to be,
39:08of course,
39:08less dense.
39:09So he may have thought
39:10that what he was about
39:11to see was a kind of
39:13oversimplified version
39:14of the android's dream.
39:17But when he saw
39:19parts of the film
39:20or the effects real
39:22showing the city,
39:23he was actually
39:25stunned.
39:26That could be
39:27got on film
39:28and look so realistic.
39:31and the vision
39:33of what he saw
39:36I think had been
39:37larger than he'd expected.
39:39And so that was
39:41a good meeting.
39:43Just months later,
39:44at age 53,
39:46Philip K. Dick
39:47suffers a massive stroke.
39:49He was looking forward
39:51to it
39:51and then he died
39:52before they finished
39:53the movie.
39:54In 1982,
39:56Phil is buried
39:57next to his twin sister,
40:00Jane.
40:00His life
40:01was definitely
40:01cut short.
40:03If Phil Dick
40:04had lived
40:05to a normal span,
40:06he would have seen
40:07about 10 movies
40:09based on his work,
40:10millions of dollars
40:11and tens of millions
40:12more readers.
40:14For decades,
40:16Dick's work
40:16had been celebrated
40:17only by the counterculture
40:19and sci-fi faithful.
40:20I think Philip Dick,
40:21if we were alive today,
40:22would be very pleased
40:23at the way
40:24his work
40:25has been taken up
40:26in popular culture.
40:27Many of us
40:28thought very highly
40:28of Philip K. Dick
40:29before he was discovered
40:30by Hollywood.
40:32Now, of course,
40:33boy,
40:33he's our ambassador
40:34to the entire planet.
40:36He once struggled
40:37on the fringes,
40:38but now his name
40:39is an adjective
40:40in the movie biz,
40:42Philip K. Dickian.
40:43Philip K. Dickian,
40:45I would define that
40:45as surrealist science fiction.
40:48A work that is
40:50deeply paranoid,
40:51deeply intelligent,
40:53deeply scared,
40:53and deeply funny.
40:54That moment
40:55when all of the new
40:56technologies combine together
40:58to create a sense
41:00that reality
41:01is not the same
41:01as it was before,
41:02that it's gone surrealistic,
41:04things have just gone crazy.
41:06He seems like someone
41:06trying desperately
41:07to make sense
41:08of a world
41:08that in its sum total
41:10makes no sense,
41:11and I think the world
41:12kind of feels like that
41:13most times.
41:17Philip K. Dick
41:19transforms paranoia,
41:21hallucinations,
41:22drug culture,
41:24and perhaps even
41:25mental illness
41:26into an enduring body
41:28of science fiction.
41:32His work inspires
41:33generations of artists
41:35and scientists
41:36to question reality.
41:40Philip K. Dick
41:41has always been
41:42an inspirational figure.
41:43He's a writer
41:45that the science fiction community
41:46can be proud of.
41:48Philip Dick's work
41:49still captures our imagination
41:51because, in a way,
41:52it's no longer imagination.
41:54It's reality.
41:56He changed Hollywood.
41:58He changed the way
41:59we think about America
42:00and about modern technology.
42:03He's really one of the best
42:04descriptors
42:05of our entire culture.
42:08I think Philip K. Dick
42:10tended to look at things
42:11going down
42:12rather than up.
42:14So in other words,
42:14I think Phil
42:15was fundamentally
42:16a pessimist
42:17not an optimist.
42:19But he managed
42:20to be concise enough
42:21to get that down
42:22on paper
42:23in between two covers.
42:26His writing
42:27was troubled.
42:29He was a very troubled soul.
42:32Aren't most prophets
42:34troubled souls?
42:34He was told oh.
42:37He was a high-end
42:37good guy. So