Life of Pi

[sapphi_snake]

Bong Lover said:

No, the book is a story about seeing past a strict realistic explanation. It's about looking for the more fantastic story.

Obviously, for people who subscribe to a Ayn Rand like conviction that reality can not be subjective and that "A is A" as she puts it will reject this view. For those who do they do indeed often miss the better story.

So, I think it's unfair to call it a defence of religious delusion. Pavel converts to and practises all three world religions, and so the book is more a defense for the concept of looking for alternative explanations. It's basically a defense of approaching reality with a creative outlook rather than a stricktly mechanic outlook. The reason why religion is even a part of this book the way I see it is because it is a universal frame for alternative explanations. It is used as the model for creating fantastic stories. And that is what the author defends. The ability of the human mind to be creative and look for different and fantastic stories or explanations.

Except the only thing that matter is whether the explanations are right or not. Reality is not subjective, only the perception of reality is. The fact that we, for wahtever reason (like madness for example) may experience reality different than it really is, does not mean that reality changes.

Also, Pi did not percieve anything differently, he made the story up, and convinced himself that it was true, in order to not have to suffer the consiquences of the attrocities he witnessed, and the attrocities he commited himself. It's a sort of doublethink, like in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and such a way of thinking is very dangerous.

Explanations aren't invented, and that's exactly what this "creative outlook" leads too. Explanations are discovered. You don't find answers by making up feel-good fairy tales in your mind. Religion came to be as an explanation to the world, when people had no way of knowing it. Religion offers no real answers, just made-up ones. Creativity has it's place (entertainment, transmiting ideeas, science etc.), but it should not be used to build reality, which is what Pi does. This story perfectly supports religious delusion.