Life of Pi

[Bong Lover]

sapphi_snake said:

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.

As I pointed out, the bolded objectivist view is in obvious conflict with the book. I don't know that it makes much sense to go into a discussion of the merits of that world view in the context of the book. Obviously the point of the book is to offer an alternative to this stringent interpretations of reality. Not necessarily to reject that reality exsists outside of our perception, but rather to allow for stories and imagination in how we interact with reality.

The book doesn't make any assertions on what story is 'true'. It is not the point of the book. It's quite possible that Pi knows that the story of Richard Parker is fictious, and yet decides to tell it anyway. It is also quite possible that the story of Richard Parker is true, and the more believable tale is made up by the way. After all, it's just a book and none of the stories are really true.

If you choose to read the book as an invitation to disregard what happens and make up your own story and go with it I think you are missing the point of it. Also, as I am sure you are aware of, your assumption that reality is not subjective is just an assumption. It can never be proved or disproved and is of course one of the major topics of philosophy.