Tim you hit it right on the head. Dick's paper makes assumptions about absolute reality and was written under the guise that science makes a whole lot of assumptions about absolute reality. What Dick fails to understand is that science is not about absolute reality. Science is about studying the reality we experience through our senses. Whether that happens to give us conclusions about the state of 'absolute reality' is a metaphysical issue and science does not overly engage in the issue without some admissions for the possibility of extreme error.

Dick, on the other hand, does not admit any possibility for extreme error when he talks about reality. He chases the notion that simply because he predicted the winner of last week's lottery that somehow he has made some significant achievement. Maybe he has, but without predictions of the lotteries to come, it is a joke in the extreme to pontificate and excommunicate such as what Dick is engaged.