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Analysis - P. K. Dick (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

C an we continue to hold onto the Western humanist tradition discussed by Haraway in blog dated 10th December 2011 of the human as a unique being; unique in their apabilities and abilities (Bennett and Royal p. 255). What does it mean to be human and can we differentiate between human and non-human. P. K. Dick attempts to deal with this ontological problem in a fictional post World War Terminus Earth (p. 5). Here the main protagonist, bounty hunter, Deckard administers the ‘Voigt–Kampff Empathy Test’ (p.26) to prove a difference exists between human and android. The test detects authentic emotion by measuring irrepressible ‘eye muscle and capillary reactions’ (p. 41) that an android cannot simulate. Empathy is unique to the human community (p. 26). This binary system that is based on empathy and that distinguishes between the ‘hunter and victim’ (ironically the victim here is the android) (p. 26) is, initially, undeniable to Deckard. This is comparable to Hayles’ definition of the difference between human and intelligent machine through her concept of the
‘embodied being’ with its complete history (refer to blog 2nd January 2012). Deckard’s moral judgement is nevertheless questioned from the outset by his wife who labels him a ‘murderer’ (p. 1). The boundaries between human and non-human become blurred for Deckard when he visits the ‘Rosen Organisation’ (p. 31), makers of the ‘Nexus 6’ humanoid robot (p. 38), to test the accuracy of the empathy test. Here he tests Rachel Rosen who correctly tests positive to being an android (p. 44). Initially Deckard accepts that it is plausible that he had been outwitted by a ‘schizoid girl’ (p. 47); an authentic human who was raised away from Earth. Empathy in this case is not; by the bounty hunters own admittance, a quality that is innate to all humans. The test could read a false positive on undetected ‘schizoid and schizophrenic human patients [who show] diminished empathetic faculty’ (p. 32). Equally the test could be administered to androids that show the ‘primary autonomic response’ (p. 40) of empathy as Luba Luft did when her ‘‘eyes faded and the colour faded from her face’ (p. 114) upon recognising the bounty hunter. The distortion of the ‘hunter’ and the ‘victim’ which drives Deckard’s growing empathy for androids undermines the western humanist tradition of the human in much the same way as Haraway’s
‘origin story’ (Please refer to Blog posted 10th January 2012.) They both express a method of deconstructing a hierarchical binary system which underpins a metanarrative.


Now that it can be seen that can Dick has challenged the view of the human as unique, an appropriate question to ask might be the question that Wheale (1995) has asked.

‘What is the difference between a physically perfect android kitted out with memories and emotions passably like our own, and a person nurtured through the usual channels?’ (p. 102)

In this entwicklungsroman novel of development (Herman, D.,et. al., 2005, p. 42) the difference between the authentic human and the artificial personality who can give ‘a look of compassion’ (p. 138) becomes increasingly confusing for Deckard. This compassionate look can be argued is a result of artificial intelligence and would be expected to be as a result of artificial intelligence. Nevertheless humans too express emotion through a mechanical device resulting in simulated emotions. The fundamental principle of the ‘Penfield artificial brain stimulation’ (p. 5) or ‘mood organ’ (p. 1), as it is colloquially known, is to promote good mental health. A concerned Deckard reminds Iran that her self-imposed depression defeated the ‘whole purpose’ of the ‘mood organ’ (p. 2). In fact it seems to have a setting for every emotion that can be imagined; even a setting that makes the user ‘want to dial’ a setting (p. 4). Humans ‘rely heavily’ on this simulated emotion to function ‘normally’. Comparatively there is no difference between the androids ‘kitted out’ with emotion and a human as they both experience artificially simulated emotion. The same conclusion can be arrived at when comparing the androids expression of their want to be an autonomous self with the human’s expression of autonomy. The androids communicate their survival instinct through killing their masters to gain freedom and independence (p. 142). Similarly, the authentic human emigrates to settlements on other planets to survive the external forces of the fallout (p. 14). Both employ a basic survival technique of fight or flight. Both human and android also express their need for autonomy through the formation of alliances; they live within communities for mutual benefit and protection. The humans ‘take heart in their mutual presence’ (p. 13) for much the same reason as three of the androids group together in the same apartment block because ‘that way [they] can help each other’ (p.136).


The traditional ways of thinking about being human have been challenged; ontological truths are fluid and permeable. There has been an overlap of the organic and the artificial; between the human and the non-human. The difficulty in distinguishing between the ‘humanoid’ (p. 27) robot and a genuine human may be because the android has been created in the image of its maker. Nevertheless the symbiotic relationship that they both share only compounds the distorted
boundaries. They are not human and they realise as much, moreover, they do not want to be human, Luba Luft reflects ‘My life has consisted of imitating the human (p. 116). This statement from Luft makes it clear that the android associates itself as having a life of its own, it is an autonomous self. To have a life implies some level of ontological awareness; they see themselves as different ‘it’s our goddamn superior intelligence’ (p. 144). The androids discuss their own existentialism; they are conscious of being non-human ‘obviously we can’t live among humans’ (p. 144). The big question is what is the future of the human when the artificial body becomes increasingly difficult to tell apart from the ‘embodied being’ (p. 268, Herman, D., et. al., 2005). As discussed in previous blogs Hayles argues that we have become posthuman and similarly Hood demonstrated that the technology to create a ‘posthuman’ is here, we are capable of engineering ourselves. The machine is playing a growing part in our reality; it is deconstructing or maybe it is reconstructing our sense of being, just as it did for Deckard. His position at the beginning of the novel is in stark contrast to his position at the end ‘This planet could have used her this is insane’ (p. 118). The fear of the concept of the posthuman as the ‘other’, derives from the machines autopoietic self; it is capable of self-reproduction ‘a thing that if killed gets replaced by another replacing it’ (p. 138). As Haraway states the cyborg of fiction influences our reality and has become a part of our reality. With statements from a fictional android such as ‘it’s our goddam superior intelligence’ there is no wonder that there is fearful suspicion surrounding the posthuman. It challenges our ontology as an epilogue to the human race.

Speculations About Future Humans

‘Are we the final product of primate evolution, or will there be another branch that will perhaps end up viewing contemporary humans as we now view the chimpanzee?’ (Hood, L., 1992, p. 52)

Just four years before the publication of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Leroy Hood, author of Speculations About Future Humans, obtained his PhD in biochemistry. He went on to research immunology, an area of biomedicine that uses scientific understanding to further aid human existence (Daintith,
J., 2008 p.365). Hood goes on to establish the Human Genome Project in 1985, some seventeen years after the publication of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; an echo of Haraway’s conviction that fiction becomes reality. Through his research he has identified three influences that could potentially be the catalyst for human physiology and behavioural changes (p. 50). The first is medicine. The project identifies genes that are responsible for human qualities such as schizophrenia and heart disease; it recreates somatic cells to substitute ‘good genes’ for ‘bad genes’ with the aim of pruning unwanted human traits (p. 52). Hood discusses how we can ‘exploit’ the untouched potential of the human brain; how we can imprint permanent knowledge, extending life expectancy and improving quality of life. In short we will be able to recreate cells that are an exact replica of human body cells. With this knowledge modern human could potentially alter and manipulate human anatomy and physiology. We could directly impact our own evolution. Here Hood’s theory demonstrates the second influence on human physiology and behaviour; evolution be that natural or engineered. Through a well-reasoned argument Hood posits natural evolution highly unlikely; human beings he reasons inhabit a world in which natural selection is now impossible (p. 52). In this view engineered evolution is the only possible facilitator to advance the human. By altering the complex sex cells Hood predicts that it will be possible to change hereditary genetics; to create a ‘post-human’ (p. 52). The great changes that Hood’s research could impose on medicine and our evolutionary future will certainly have an impact on culture; the third influence on human physiology and behaviour. Although Hood does not explicitly suggest any cultural changes he warns that the scientific community must be transparent with their findings as ‘In the not-too-distant future the genetic engineers will be able to engineer themselves’ (p. 52)

How we became post human

“Post,” with its dual connotations of superseding the human and coming after it, hints that the day of “the human” may be numbered’ (Hayles, N. K., 1999, p. 283)


The title of the book How we Became Posthuman assumes that we have in actual fact already become posthuman – post-Homo-sapien. It comes as no surprise then, that what it means to be posthuman foregrounds this book. Postulating on the relationship between the concept of human and
posthuman, Hayles discusses two possible scenarios of post humanity. The first an apocalyptic position that sees intelligent machines antiquating humans and humans themselves becoming posthuman (p. 283). The human to Hayles, however, is an ‘embodied being’ (p. 283).
Embodiment in terms of evolutionary biology looks at human beings through the lens of its own complete history (Harris, Dr. A., 2011 (n. k.)); it gives innate body memory prominence over the modern mind. The modern mind is therefore naïve in comparison to its body counterpart, thus emphasising the role that the body plays in shaping the mind. Intelligent machines on the other hand do not have an evolutionary history or an ‘origin story’ to borrow Haraway’s phrase (1991, p. 150). Terror may be associated with the relationship between intelligent machines and humans due our close association, they are however, limited in their capacity to emulate the ‘embodied being’ (p. 284). The complete history of the human body impacts on human behaviour at every level and the relatively modern intelligent machine does not have this vast evolutionary history (p. 284). It becomes possible for a philosophical discussion of human existentialism by juxtaposing the human with ‘artificial life forms’ (p. 161). This point brings us to the second manifestation of posthuman; a substitution of one definition of human for another. The posthuman for Hayles does not mean the end of humanity it instead means a new method of conceptualising the human. A way of thinking of the human as something other than an automatous self executing it’s will through individual agency (p. 286).

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.

‘The cyborg is our ontology it gives us our politics’ (Haraway, D., 1991, p. 150)

In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway defines the cyborg as ‘a hybrid of machine and organism’ (p. 149); it is at once organic and engineered, the cyborg of fiction inhabits a world that is also organic and engineered. Haraway clearly argues that humans too inhabit such a world and that humans are equally organic and engineered. Haraway draws examples from science and medicine to persuade that humans have become cyborgs (p. 150). These examples are drawn from the westernised human and not humanity as a whole; in light of this I believe that it cannot be said that all humans have become cyborgs. Nevertheless, the cyborg of fiction, for Haraway, has become a part of our reality; it influences our reality; we take inspiration for our reality from the cyborg. The Cyborg of fiction, she says, maps our reality. The concept of cyborg for Haraway is genderless; ‘the cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world’ (p. 150). The cyborg is non-historical; it does not have a history that is conducive to the western tradition of an ‘origin story’ (p. 151). If we have become cyborgs then the relationship between human and nature in western humanist ontology (the belief that we have ‘unique capabilities and abilities’ (Audi, 1999, cited in Bennett and Royal, 2009, p. 397) becomes problematic; the way that the foundations of this system of dualism can be analysed has evolved or to be more precise it has changed. The boundaries between human and animal and organic and machine have been undermined as has the patriarchy that is the western tradition, which is widely viewed as being responsible for the exploitation of nature and the ‘other’. Within this framework Haraway suggests that the cyborg has brought the human closer to a pre-existing monism or affinity with nature. In deconstructing the cyborg we have the tools to deconstruct our ontology.

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