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by Philip K. Dick
Viewed from above or, at least from the perspective of the weatherman, this may seem very simple. But the truth is that one can get lost in this labyrinth of sensations and the different modes of time afforded by our consciousness. Cardiff ’s notion of time, temporal modes which is based on expanding, diverging, and varying, is wonderfully echoed in a novel of Philip K. Dick.¬
Philip K. Dick became known for his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that was the source for the film, Blade Runner. His other books are equally or more fascinating for their investigation of space, time, and chance. Martian Time-Slip was one of my favorites for its depiction of an autistic boy, Manfred, who sees so far into the future that all he sees is rubble. He is traumatized by the apartment houses crumbling and people decaying in front of him. Jack, a technician living on Mars must help build a recording mechanism to slow down his vision, translate the future that the boy sees, and enable his boss to make real estate gains through it.¬
Excerpt from Martian Time-Slip “There is a new theory about autism,” Dr. Glaub said. “From Berghölzlie, in Switzerland. I wished to discuss it with you, because it seems to offer us a new avenue with your son, here.”¬ “I doubt it.” Steiner said.¬ Dr. Glaub did not seem to hear him, he continued, “It assumes a derangement in the sense of time in the autistic individual, so that the environment around him is so accelerated that he cannot cope with it, infact, he is unable to perceive it properly, precisely as we would be if we faced a speeded-up television program, so that objects whizzed by so fast as to be invisible, and sound was a gobbledegook – you
know ? Just extremely high-pitched mishmash. Now, this new theory would place the autistic child in a closed chamber, where he faced a screen on which filmed sequences were projected slowed down – do you see ? Both sound and video slowed, at last so slow that you and I would not be able to perceive motion or comprehend the sounds as human speech.” […]¬ Steiner interrupted, “Suppose your theory works out. How can you help such an individual function ? Did you intend for him to stay in the closed chamber with the slowed-down picture screen the rest of his life ? I think, Doctor, that you’re all playing games, here. You’re not facing reality. All of you at Camp B - G; you’re so virtuous. So without guile. But the outside world – it’s not like that. This is a noble, idealistic place, in here, but you’re fooling yourselves. So in my opinion you’re also fooling the patients; excuse me for saying it. This slowed-down closed chamber, it epitomizes you all, here, your attitude.”¬ Dr. Glaub listened, nodding, with an intent expression on his face. “We have practical equipment promised,” he said, when Steiner had finished. “From Westinghouse, back on Earth. Rapport with others in society is achieved primarily through sound, and Westinghouse has designed for us an audio recorder which picks up the message directed at the psychotic individual – for example, your boy Manfred – then, having recorded this message on iron-oxide tape, replays it almost instantly for him at lower speed, then erases itself and records the next message and so on, with the result that a permanent contact with the outside world, at his own rate of time, is maintained. And later we hope to have in our hands here a video recorder which will present a constant but sloweddown record to him of the visual portion of reality, synchronized with the audio portion.” (44 – 46) […]¬ “Say, Jack,” Leo said, “That’s really something. So this kid’s time-rate is like this seed. I understand. Things that we can see move would whiz around him so darn fast they’d be practically invisible, and I bet he sees slow processed like this seed here; I bet he can go out in the yard and sit down and watch the plants growing, and five days for him is like say ten minutes for us.”¬ Jack said, “That’s