On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the ambiguity of good and evil in our world versus the possibility of a clearer moral distinction elsewhere.
Philip K. Dick's quote suggests a longing for a world where morality is clearly defined and the struggle between good and evil is not complicated by gray areas. It emphasizes the difficulty of discerning true intentions and moral values within our current reality, where actions and motivations are often intertwined in complex ways, making moral clarity elusive.
In practice
During a debate on ethics, one might reference this quote to discuss moral ambiguity.
We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu.
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."
The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three dimensional and not in space or time.
A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
I never liked the idea of doing what a machine says. I hate having to salute something built in a factory.
there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone.
Let none admire that riches grow in hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane.
While everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates.... For I can see in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.
The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of malice, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness from the hearts of humanity.
The deceitfulness of the heart of man appears in no one thing so much as this of spiritual pride and self-righteousness. The subtlety of Satan appears in its height, in his managing persons with respect to this sin. And perhaps one reason may be that here he has most experience; he knows the way of its coming in; he is acquainted with the secret springs of it: it was his own sin. Experience gives vast advantage in leading souls, either in good or evil.
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
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