1Q84 made a big splash in the literary world when the English translation was released in 2011, but only recently did I get around to reading it. Haruki Murakami is among my favorite living writers, and I always relish the opportunity to return to his weird psychological landscapes. This nearly-thousand-page novel is comprised of three [...]
“‘What is your definition of reality?’ ‘When you prick a person with a needle, red blood comes out––that’s the real world.’” ––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 796 “Like Spock on the deck of the Enterprise, I sit in a corner and await opportunities to jump out and yammer about Science. Unlike Spock, I don’t [...]
“Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. The sculptor from the Stadel Cave may sincerely have believed in the existence of the lion-man guardian spirit. Some sorcerers are charlatans, but most sincerely believe in the [...]
“If you’ve ever been a college undergraduate taking Philosophy 101, you’ve probably encountered the concept of philosophical solipsism. According to solipsism, reality exists only inside your own mind. What follows then is that you can only be certain of your own status as a conscious being. Everyone else might be some sort of mindless marionette [...]