Tag: Provocation

Three Androids and a Human

At the beginning of Chapter 14, Pris talks to her other android friend Roy and Irmgard and informs them about her relationship with John. While they inform her about how Luft is now retired. Roy Blames the retired androids that it is their fault for living public lives like humans.  John a  human has no bias against androids and ask Roy, Irmgard, and Pris to live with him in his apartment.

Would it be safer for the 3 androids to live together with John or would that be putting them in more danger? Is John putting himself in a dangerous place by attempting to house 3 androids?

Is Technology Destroying Our Humanity?

As mentioned in Philip K. Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it was rather difficult to distinguish and keep track of whether a character was an android. The modern world is almost completely dominated by multiple forms of technology. Throughout Dick’s novel, Dick allows the reader to differentiate characters between android and human based solely on the characteristics that they embody. Humans are considered normal since they possess characteristics such as the ability to feel empathy towards others, value animals, and have enough intelligence in order to pass the IQ test as well as their ability to reproduce. It is empathy that decides the life or death of a character based on their response to the Voigt-Kampff test. If you did not react to a question within a certain amount of time, you were considered an android. However, the line between humans and androids drew closer when Rachel Rosen’s reaction to the Voigt-Kampff test hinted that she felt empathy towards other androids. Furthermore, it is realized that androids are able to feel empathy and that empathy could no longer be the deciding factor between humans and androids.

Almost every aspect of our lives is done through it. People constantly text on their phones, use social media through their computers, and talk to voice recordings when trying to fix a problem after calling a company. This generation is so obsessed with technology, that many of us would not know how to act without it. Technology today helps us perform day-to-day tasks in a simpler way and accomplish a lot more in shorter periods of time than just ten years ago. As we become more and more dependent on it, it continues to develop in intricacy. Soon, humans might not be needed to perform the same tasks that they do now due to technology’s demand. Tools that have been installed in factories have replaced human workers as early as 1760, when the Industrial Revolution began because they are deemed stronger, faster, and smarter than the average human. As technological features, as well as medical advances, continue to grow, it may become increasingly more difficult to separate the human features from the technological features. An example would be if a soldier that repeatedly keeps getting injured on the battlefield. He/she loses one arm, the other arm, then both legs only to have each of them replaced by mechanical arms and legs.

If the soldier were to continue replacing his body parts with technological parts, at what point can the soldier be no longer classified as human? There is now a sense of uneasiness when you call a company and talk to whomever you think is a human worker only to find out it was an automated prompt. What if robots and humans become so much alike that we would be unable to distinguish the two races apart?

Is Rick having a change of heart?

In chapter 15 of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Rick Deckard at this point of the story has retired three androids, before he goes home to his wife Iran he stops by and purchases a goat. When Rick arrives home he says to his wife, “Something went wrong today; something about retiring them. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to go on without getting an animal” (Dick 171). There is a possibility that Rick is doing this because he feels guilty for what he has done; is he finally feeling empathy for androids? Is he seeing himself as murderer? Or is he doing this for the sake of Mercerism and balancing that belief system with his job as a bounty hunter?

 

Empathy: A Weakness or Strength?

In chapter 16 and 17 of, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick, Rick’s empathy and compassion for the androids overcome him when he decides to “go to bed” with Rachael Rosen (Dick 191). However, this becomes a bigger mistake when he finds out that Racheal is teamed up with the other androids that he has to retire. Rachael states, “no bounty hunter ever has gone on after being with me,” implying that Rick will not be able to complete his task of killing the androids because he went to bed with her (Dick 198). In response, Rick is furious and wants to kill Rachael, yet never does. He simply lets her go and eventually completes his task of retiring the other androids.

Therefore, how do you think Rick’s empathy for the android species played a role in him going to bed with Rachael? When do you think this empathy for the android species began? Overall, do you think this empathy was his downfall, or did it give him strength? 

Is empathy a moral compass?

Going thought the text we have seen that Rick has been struggling with his duties as a bounty hunter. He realizes he feels empathy now for andys, specially the female ones. After being in bed with Rachael Rosen, she confesses how all along she has been working with the other androids to stop the bounty hunters from killing them. “The association”, Rachael said, “wanted to reach the bounty hunters here and in the Soviet Union” (Dick 199). Even though Rick got upset about knowing that he had been tricked all along, he let Rachael go, instead of killing her.

Was Rick doing the right thing by letting her go? Is empathy a moral compass that will always make us do the right thing, or  will it sometimes makes us do wrong unintentionally? Rachael is indirectly involved in the killing of other humans done by the andys she had been helping. She has been playing bounty hunters so the Rosen Association can continue making androids that humans can no longer identify and stop.

Android emotions

In Chapter 17 after Rick and Rachael went to bed together, Rachael shared her thoughts with Rick the next morning. She said, “We androids can’t control our physical, sensual passions. You probably knew that; in my opinion you took advantage of me,” (Dick, 197). However, as the chapter will explain Rachael did not seem angry at all. On the contrary, she appeared to be cheerful and it closely resembled the happiness that would emanate from another human. Also, I found Rachael’s statement of how she commented on how sad Rick looked as he thought about how he will stop being a bounty hunter after the Battys.

Both when she shared her opinion of how she was taken advantage of and how she picked up on Rick’s emotions, it closely resembled how a human would react to both situations. My question is that can Rachael’s ability to understand Rick’s expressions and emotions so well be a sign that androids to a certain degree, may empathize with others? Or can Rachel’s understanding simply be labeled as mere intuition or something of that sort and nothing more? 

A shift in Control

We see in chapter 11 that androids have taken over an office building and have started a fake police operation. Even with Rick and Resch knowing Garland is an android, they don’t execute him immediately. Garland is able to get the drop on Rick and but ultimately gets shot in the head. Resch can’t get over that “For three years I’ve been working under the direction of androids” (Dick 137). Really Resch is just overthinking the idea because Rick tells him that “According to Garland, a bunch of them came to earth together and that it’s only been three months” (Dick 137). Later in chapter 13 when Pris is telling Isidore that more androids are coming to earth, it’s telling me that the androids will be able to outsmart the humans by blending in with them. We see that it’s starting to become more difficult for the bounty hunters to do their jobs.

With the androids showing more human like characteristics, do you think we will see Rick move further away from his duties, and if so what will be his next chapter? Also what is the possibility that the androids will come together and plan some sort of extreme plan against the humans?

Android or Human?

In chapter 12 of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Rick Deckard and Fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch are in pursuit of Miss Luft, an android. The two hunters make there way to the Museum where they have been told they would find her in the Munch exhibit. During there search at the museum, Phil asks Rick if he has “ever heard of an andy having a pet of any sort?” Rick informs Phil that he indeed has but it is very rare and generally failed over time because the andy is unable to keep the animal alive for a long period of time. Phil counters Rick claiming he has kept his pet squirrel Buffy alive and well. Phil claims that he “grooms and combs” the squirrel everyday which in a sense makes him empathetic. We know from previous chapters that Phil is just and andy with false memories which could account to his empathy to an animal.

My question for the class is, can Phil actually be a human but with some andy qualities? Or is he an andy with human qualities? And furthermore, we know that the test administered to the andy’s has it flaws so do you think that aided to the determination of Phil being and andy?

Meeting Phil Resch

In Chapter 10 of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, our main protagonist Rick Deckard meets fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch at the Mission Street Hall of Justice. Deckard is being suspected of being a false bounty hunter. Resch enters the scene, and immediately gives his fellow bounty hunter the benefit of the doubt, saying after hearing of Polokov’s retirement, “Potokov struck me as cold. Extremely celebral and calculating; detached.” (Dick 117) On the list of targets Deckard has included Resch’s boss, Garland. Once the results of the bone marrow test came in reveling that Potokov was indeed an android, Garland shuts the woman from the lab down, before she can give a detailed analysis. Deckard and Resch continue on to compare the different android tests.

Once entering the scene, Resch is presented with a great deal of information: there is a man claiming to be a bounty hunter, nobody from the agency knows him or his boss, and this man just killed a seemingly innocent person, using a seemingly unknown test as evidence to claim that the victim was actually an android. On top of this, the man has a list of targets, including his boss. Despite the scenario, Resch remains calm and gives the man, Deckard, the benefit of the doubt, unlike his boss. We know from Chapter 11 that Garland is on the list for good reason (he is an android) and that Deckard suspects Resch of being an android. In this complicated scenario, would android or human qualities have helped Resch justify the situation? Did Resch show empathy for Deckard, or did he show no empathy, and simply use factual reasoning to side with Deckard?

The Scream of an Android

In Chapter 12 of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep, both Resch and Deckard escape the faux police department and search for Luba Luft. While on the hunt, Resch becomes fixated on a familiar oil painting. The painting is described in great detail and Dick makes it a point to take his time and describe every feeling the painting evokes. The “creature” is “contained by its own howl” and “screamed in isolation” (Dick 130). Shortly after examining the painting, Resch says, “I think that this is how and andy must feel” (Dick 130).

Based on previous knowledge and how the novel describes Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, why do you think Dick purposefully took his time to describe every detail about the painting? Is it supposed to represent the feelings of an android like Resch says? Or do you think the metaphor is for Deckard as he was previously thrust into an almost alternate reality while originally trying to retire Luft?

Edvard Munch's The Scream
Edvard Munch’s The Scream