Re: Belief - I'd like to share this item with you.

jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com> wrote:

>

[mercy snip]

 
Although neither story can be proved or disproved, and neither explain
the shipwreck, the book concludes "the other story" is the better
because its fantastic elements model faith in God.  I argue the
fantastic elements make it more similar to The Matrix, and for that
reason both make great stories but terrible explanations.
 

My working hypothesis is Pi suffered from some sort of dissociative
disorder. He sprinkles clues like there being cases of cross-species
zoomorphism when young animals are raised by a foster parent of another
species. The trauma of dealing with “the cook” (if he in fact existed) and
the death of his mom (represented by Orange Juice) seems to have spawned
the fanciful story. Whatever happened in the more brute fact depiction with
the cannibalism is probably the true story and far more believable and
reality based than either aspect of the Matrix. I mean living as a brain in
vat simulation is no less unbelievable or far fetched than AI slave
machines rebelling against humans and enslaving them to act as an energy
source. Plus Bostrom and Elon Musk add even more absurdity with their
simulated universe tangents.

So the lifeboat cannibalism which has happened to a Richard Parker in the
past and in a Poe story is more apt to have happened in the Pi story and is
has more verisimilitude than the psychologically constructed dissociative
identity story involving zoo animals and also either Matrix level. The
tiger is Pi’s alter but maybe the cook is too. There may be some lingering
confusion of who ate the flies and rat and about the French castaway which
I haven’t resolved. The one curious aspect of the real story, though still
fictional, is the name of the sinking vessel which conveniently reflects a
Kabbalist concept. 

This is disturbing as a fan theory:
https://michaelthorn.net/2015/06/06/maternal-cannibalism-in-the-novel-and-film-life-of-pi/

I’m not buying it quite yet. But it would make the brute facts story no
less plausible.

Yet the brute facts story is still fiction rendered through the levels of
Martel, “the author”, and unreliable narrator Pi.

Not to totally diss The Matrix, but the sequels made an interesting first
movie more ridiculous with each go. Plus I prefer the pleasing visuals of
the Pi movie over the greenish punk noir of The Matrix with all the cheesy
kung fu movie call backs.