Where does this phrase come from?
Once upon a time, it had meaning for me, and was more than a little important. But, now I only remember the phrase and not what it refers to.
I googled the phrase, and only came up with unrelated nonsense.
It’s possible that Philip K. Dick used the phrase for something. Or someone kinda like that, maybe.
Can anyone help me remember why this phrase ever struck me as interesting enough to remember?
As far as I know, I comes from you. What the hell are you talking about?
Wherever it came from,it’s clearly false.
WAG: Phillip K Dick wrote a book called “The Zap Gun” in which the main character finds out that everything he believes isn’t true. Maybe a quote from this book?
Huh?
wait, isn’t that the plot of every PKD book?
“On Beyond Zebra” by Dr Seuss?
This is reminscient of the end of Alfred Bester’s “The Demolished Man” in which phrases like “There’s no such thing as stars” “There’s no such thing as Mars” etc. are made.
There is no spoon.
Sporks, we got.
Perhaps you’re remembering “There is no Dana, only Zuul”?
Is the letter Z literally part of the quote, or is it meant as a placeholder for a word you can’t remember?
In Shaun of the Dead, “Don’t say the zed word,” is a recurring phrase…
Assuming Z means zee, I could see it being said by International English teachers chastising their children who have learned the alphabet song. “There’s no such thing as zee. The letter is called zed.”
I just finished reading The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (about a semi-mythical, El Dorado type place), so that was the first thing I thought of.
It’s literally a part of the quote.
After sleeping on it, I remember a bit more of where the quote comes from.
It’s part of a description of a thought experiment about an entity of some kind, called “Z”. The only evidence of this entity’s existence is the phrase, which it whispers or telepathically sends to individual humans, “There is no such thing as Z.”
I don’t remember the point of the thought experiment, but I do remember thinking that it was pretty cool and trippy.
This reminds me of a Futurama episode. I think it’s when Bender was bitten by the were-car. Bender’s having nightmares and wakes up. He tells Fry there were a lot of zeroes, and ones. “I think I even saw a two!” :eek: To which Fry replies, “Oh, Bender, you know there’s no such thing as 2.”
Might that be it? Bender’s nightmares were kind of trippy.
Futurama rocks, but no, that’s not it. I’m certain it was from the written word, and I’m almost certain that it was presented as a thought experiment (although I may have mussed the details I remember of it).