Many pieces of literature have touched upon this idea: Is the personal perceived reality shared amongst all in a population? In other words, is what you see, feel, touch, and believe the same for everyone else, or is it all make believe?
In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the existentialist question regarding the validity of reality arises. After the androids split into separate rooms, and Isidore shows Pris to his room, Pris mentions how “It’s a dream.” She continues by saying, “Our trip was between a mental hospital on the East Coast and here. We’re all schizophrenic, with defective emotional lives…” (Dick 148). During this scene, Pris is insinuating that the fleeing from the government, and by default, her entire life, is merely a construction developed by a mental sickness. Her quote suggests that the events of one’s life can be a construction of the mind and the transgressions that one thinks he or she undertakes could never have actually happened.
The existential question that Phillip K. Dick wants the reader to ponder at this moment is: Can one definitively and empirically prove that the existence he or she considers undeniable reality, actually exists and is not just a figment of the mind?
This is an interesting interpretation of that scene. My interpretation was that she was trying to confuse Isidore. She did not want him to know they were Androids, and attempted to come up with a reason for the conversation he had witnessed. In regards to the existential questioning, is it possible for an Android to make such a complex argument? The world is seen through the electric and chemical signals in the brain. The world is perceived differently by each person. Influence can have an effect on the way a person sees the world from drugs to other people.
This can apply to Capters ten and eleven as well. While reading these chapters, I was thinking the whole time “What if Rick was not living in the reality he thought he was and this was the real reality?” I do not think one could definitively and empirically prove that the existence they define as reality is real. We could all be in pods in a dream simulation right now. Or we could be all schizophrenics. Or we could just be a power source for another world who created us. Will we ever find the answer to this question? I do not think so.
This is something I have always imagined. I would love if we were able to tell. While I was younger I would believe that we are a video game and that someone above is controlling us. Now it will be impossible to prove but, it is interesting to think about.