January '10 Reading: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

[Scheherazade]

In January, we will be reading Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

Please post your comments and questions in this thread.

[papayahed]

I'm most of the way done. I've only seen the movie so I never understood the title until now.

[Scheherazade]

My library doesn't keep a copy. :-/

I will see how long it would take to get it from amazon.

[papayahed]

Hey, I just realized this was my nomination!!!:banana:My nominations never win!!! allllll riiiiiggghhhhtt

[Virgil]

Hey, I just realized this was my nomination!!!:banana:My nominations never win!!! allllll riiiiiggghhhhtt

Congratulations! I'm happy for you. It's unfortunate that everyone here always go for the artsy stuff. I'm guilty of that myself. If you ever really really want me to vote for one of your selections, send me a PM. Shh, don't tell anyone that politicing occurs on these polls. :p

I actually found the book at the library. I will start after I finish with The Turn of the Screw. Too much good football on TV yesterday to break to read. :D

[Butosai]

^ Haha. I have to agree on this one. All my favorite writers are the ones that came along in the 60's. Great book btw. I'll have to read it for January just to join in on the fun (if that's alright).

[Virgil]

^ Haha. I have to agree on this one. All my favorite writers are the ones that came along in the 60's. Great book btw. I'll have to read it for January just to join in on the fun (if that's alright).

Please do.:)

[applepie]

I'm happy to find that my library has this. I'm going to try to participate if I can fit in reading time:)

[optimisticnad]

Aww man I love this book. I've got to dig up one of my old uni essays I did quite well in, on sci fi, and this was a key text I used. Loved it. There were so many beautiful quotes in it which escape me now. Annoyed. I thought it was splendid writing - written splendidly? splendidly written? - can you tell i've not slept two days in a row? Anyway, it was brief but got the message across. Without spoiling too much the spider leg bit - that was....urgh, i felt it, i remember putting the book aside after that bit and to me that is splendid writing, to be able to make you FEEL from mere mortal words.

[Sancho]

Splendiferously written? This one looks like fun. I’ve gotta go find a copy.

[TheFifthElement]

I'll probably join next week. I'm part way through Independent People by Halldor Laxness at the moment, but should be finished next week. Hopefully my copy of Androids will have arrived by then.

[sixsmith]

I'll try start at some stage next week. Looking forward to it.

[Jozanny]

I started it, and think I am on the third chapter. Some of the proper noun usage is a tad jarring in the opening, but that is a minor quibble. It seems to be far more nuanced than Blade Runner, however, whether one is ant-cyborg or not, and has set me thinking.

[motherhubbard]

Picked up my copy today. I think I'll get some warm blankets out and snug up in the recliner!

[badtrip]

I've read it long ago but I'd just shuffle through the pages and I hope I'd contribute something of value to the discussion :)

[applepie]

Just picked my copy up, went out in the middle of the "White Death" (if you believe the local weather) just to get it:D Hopefully I'll start on it tonight. I may finish reading "Cujo" first, but I'll confess I'm kind of looking for a reason to put it down.

[Sancho]

Hey, I just picked up my copy. Silly me, I was looking in the fiction section. As an afterthought I wandered over to the sci-fi section. Voila! (or as we say in Georgia, viola!)

[Sancho]

I started this book on an airplane-ride yesterday, but I only read a few pages. In the seat behind me, there were two chatty-cathys who talked non-stop from takeoff to landing. Their conversation centered around a friend of theirs who, as far as I could tell, had a poor sense for fashion. They laughed and laughed. One of them sort of shrieked when she laughed and could hit a natural high-C with frightening regularity.

Anyway, I wound up reaching over my seat-back and in one swift movement I slapped both of them across the eyes with my copy of Electric Sheep. In the melee that ensued, my book was lost. If you ask me, I think one of the flight attendants got it.

Okay, okay, that last part isn’t exactly true. It could be that it was a normal flight, and maybe I was just too distracted to concentrate, and it’s more than likely that I just left my book in the seat-pocket in front of me.

Curses!

[Virgil]

I started this book on an airplane-ride yesterday, but I only read a few pages. In the seat behind me, there were two chatty-cathys who talked non-stop from takeoff to landing. Their conversation centered around a friend of theirs who, as far as I could tell, had a poor sense for fashion. They laughed and laughed. One of them sort of shrieked when she laughed and could hit a natural high-C with frightening regularity.

Anyway, I wound up reaching over my seat-back and in one swift movement I slapped both of them across the eyes with my copy of Electric Sheep. In the melee that ensued, my book was lost. If you ask me, I think one of the flight attendants got it.

Okay, okay, that last part isn’t exactly true. It could be that it was a normal flight, and maybe I was just too distracted to concentrate, and it’s more than likely that I just left my book in the seat-pocket in front of me.

Curses!
:lol: :lol: Oh Sancho. You had me there. Until I got to the "last part wasn't true" my mouth dropped in shock that anyone would do that! :lol:

[Jozanny]

I have not gotten back to it yet because I have had my nose in other things, but in as far along as I am, Dick has managed to catch me off guard, to a degree, and even though this is obviously alternate-world entertainment, he is raising serious philosophical issues about what it is to be human, or even a living thing, for that matter.

I remember a decent consumer article in Slate about robo pets for those who didn't see the beauty in being a pet parent, and the best of these things, the baby dino, which ran about 300 +, intrigued me, and of course would not defecate out of the litter box on a bad day, but even if I had to give up my cats, I would feel silly about trying to show affection for a walking computer, but if it gets better, and really simulates affectionate animal behavior?

It makes my head hurt :) All animals have innate templates, to a degree. Any housecat will bury food, dig in the litter, carry its prey in its jaws, and yet these are living responses, somehow personalized, because all of my cats have loved me differently.

[Sancho]

Thanks Virgil. By the way, I loved your book; that Aeneas - what a card. Also, I’ve been meaning to ask you, is there any truth to the rumor that it wasn’t really you with Dante down there in the inferno?

I picked another copy of this book today, this time at the library. I read a few chapters before checking it out and I’m looking forward to diving into it this evening. It would be really cool if a fellow lit-netter found the book I left in the seat-pocket of a Delta jet, but I'd be happy if another reader found it. I do like to set books free in airports and train stations and such, but usually I read them first.

[papayahed]

I do like to set books free in airports and train stations and such, but usually I read them first.

Are you on here (http://www.bookcrossing.com/)?

[Sancho]

Hiya Papaya, and thanks for the link. Somebody else on here told me about book-crossing a while back and I’ve been trying to remember what it was all about. Anyway I’m not a member but I should be. Mine has been an unofficial read-and-release program.

[dfloyd]

and started reading it today. No, that's not true, but I did reserve a copy at the library via my lap top and picked it up yesterday. I've read the first three chapters or so, and I have to say I'm enjoying it immensly.

About the title, how many believe the title is from the adage that counting sheep, usually sheep jumping in single file over a fence, acts as a somniferous aid. When a child, watching the cartoon at the movies, the counting of sheep jumping a fence by bugs bunny or porky pig or some other character trying to get to sleep was omniscient. But then, since the protaginist, Rick, has an electric sheep for a pet, so we know they exist, does the title have another meaning? The author, Dick, being born in 1928, would have been familiar with the counting of sheep in trying to get to sleep from the many cartoons he probably saw. But then why isn't the book named Do Androids Count Electric Sheep?

You have to be alert to catch the allusions in the novel. When Rick is calling the pet shop to inquire about the ostrich they have in their window, he gives his name to the pet shop salesman as Frank Merriwell. If you don't understand this allusion, be sure to look it up on Wikipedia. Frank Merriwell of Yale was aired on Saturday morning in the forties. Dick would have been exposed to Merriwell through the radio, newspaper cartoons, and the Frank Merriwell Big Little Books. How many of you know what a Big Little Book was? There's a picture of one on Wikipedia. Be alert as you read.

[Scheherazade]

I'm still waiting for my copy to be delivered.

[papayahed]

Hiya Papaya, and thanks for the link. Somebody else on here told me about book-crossing a while back and I’ve been trying to remember what it was all about. Anyway I’m not a member but I should be. Mine has been an unofficial read-and-release program.

I forgot about the site myself until your "set it free" line. :p

[Sancho]

How-d-do dfloyd?

If the book turns out to be an allegory about what it is to be human, the title may be (as you said) a modified version of counting sheep. Whereas any android could count sheep, only a human has the ability to dream.

I liked this description of Isidore early on in the book:


He had been special now for over a year, and not merely in regard to the distorted genes which he carried. Worse still, he had failed to pass the minimum mental faculties test, which made him in popular parlance a chickenhead. Upon him the contempt of three planets descended.

By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

[billl]

I bought it used a few days ago and started it tonight, stopping after Chapter 4. The issues with empathy test are much more explicitly explored in the book, than in the movie--and I don't recall the religion being part of the movie at all, but it's been a while since I've seen it. I'm also wondering if there'll be more mentions of the "void."

[applepie]

By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

I'm not certain that I could pass the empathy test that they're administering:D

I guess I'm maybe 1/3 to 1/2 way through the book now. I'll admit that I'm loving it. It brings to light some interesting questions. I'll post more when I finish, hopefully this week if I can find the time to read.

[dfloyd]

had a false pet. It was a stuffed terrier which looked realistic. She called it Nonesuch, but I don't think it ever came to her when she called it. The moral of this story? Don't date any girls who are weirder than you are.

[Virgil]

I started last night in bed, but I must have been so tired that I can't recall a single thing from the five pages I read. ;)

[kitkat203]

Just picked up my copy from the library. I couldn't wait to start reading so grabbed a quick coffee in the library cafe....4 pages and I'm already hooked. I have previously read The Man in the High Castle which was tough going but satisfying. I'm hoping for an equally challenging read with Androids. Blade Runner was part of the school curriculum when I was younger and I remember feeling an uneasy sympathy with the replicants. As always I'm sure the book will deliver an even more intense experience.

[optimisticnad]

How-d-do dfloyd?

If the book turns out to be an allegory about what it is to be human, the title may be (as you said) a modified version of counting sheep. Whereas any android could count sheep, only a human has the ability to dream.

I liked this description of Isidore early on in the book:



By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

:D

They need to do the test!


Just picked up my copy from the library. I couldn't wait to start reading so grabbed a quick coffee in the library cafe....4 pages and I'm already hooked. I have previously read The Man in the High Castle which was tough going but satisfying. I'm hoping for an equally challenging read with Androids. Blade Runner was part of the school curriculum when I was younger and I remember feeling an uneasy sympathy with the replicants. As always I'm sure the book will deliver an even more intense experience.

Yep, same, part of the curriculum and the movie wanted you to feel sympathy with the androids - and how could not??? I mean come on, the ending, hanging of a roof, all wet, dying slowly, dove - they really went all out!

However, I think in the book you sympathise less? Or at least I did, I felt 'bad' for them I guess but not as much as I did in the movie, wonder what Dick was trying to achieve there, turn it back on us? But in the book aren't the androids....rather 'flat'? In the movie they have life.


I started last night in bed, but I must have been so tired that I can't recall a single thing from the five pages I read. ;)

How do you know you started it then? COuld have dreamt it alll.....

[Virgil]

How do you know you started it then? COuld have dreamt it alll.....

:lol: I'm not brain dead. I remember picking up the book and going through the motions of reading. I remember stopping at page five and saying to myself, at least I read five pages. Now what was in those five pages, I couldn't tell you. ;)

[Sancho]

Page 126:


The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored, clacked off across the lobby on their several errands. They paid no attention to Rick or Phil Resch.

That one cracked me up. I’m planning on using “disemelevatored” in a sentence at work tomorrow.

[Scheherazade]

Ack... I just finished Blankets and started My Antonia so hoping to start on this this weekend...

Sancho> I wouldn't even know how to pronounce that!

[dfloyd]

my next door neighbor in my apartment building stopped over. He said he wanted to give me the Boneli test to see if I was an android. If I was one, he said, he didn't want to live next to me. I told him we had equal housing laws now. We talked some more, then he gave me the Boneli test; we talked some more. He said he was glad I passed the test; he was relieved about not having an android as a neighbor. We talked some more, then he turned to go. He wasn't aware that I had given him the empathy test, and he was the android. As he went out my door, I fired at his head with my laser tube. His head split in two as he slumped to the floor of the hallway. I closed the door and went to bed. When I went out my door in the morning, apartment dwellers were steping over the corpse of the retired android. I went over to his apartment. The door was unlocked so I went in. I wanted to get his pet: an alligator. Lucky for me it was a false pet.

[Sancho]

Ha! Keep hanging onto those handles, dfloyd.

Ta-da. Finished.

That book had more twists and turns than a Springer Spaniel’s gastrointestinal tract. And, speaking of which, I’ve got one of those in my house right now (a real one) who needs to go outside of my house right now and take care of his gastrointestinal tract.

That, quite possibly, falls into the too-much-information category. Sorry.

[applepie]

That book had more twists and turns than a Springer Spaniel’s gastrointestinal tract. And, speaking of which, I’ve got one of those in my house right now (a real one) who needs to go outside of my house right now and take care of his gastrointestinal tract.


:lol::lol::lol: For more than one reason.

I'm nearly finished, and I was hard pressed to put it down last night. I finally stopped at midnight knowing that I had work today, and I'll need all my brain power for that. I've enjoyed all of the twists and turns, and I am constantly surprised by the characters that I'm feeling sympathy for. Oh well, I don't want to post any spoilers yet, so I suppose it is back to work:)

[papayahed]

That one cracked me up. I’m planning on using “disemelevatored” in a sentence at work tomorrow.

I know, right? It's one of my new favorite words.

[Scheherazade]

I should stop the reading the posts in this thread until I start reading the book.

I am reading My Antonia at the moment and last night I dreamt I was in the Prairies... with some androids for company!

:rolleyes:

[Virgil]

I should stop the reading the posts in this thread until I start reading the book.

I am reading My Antonia at the moment and last night I dreamt I was in the Prairies... with some androids for company!

:rolleyes:

Well, you can dream of real sheep on the praries and not these battery operated kind. :p

[Jazz_]

Just started - enjoying it so much I can't stop ;)

[dfloyd]

to prove I wasn't an android. The guy who gave me the test; however, was an android and I had to retire him. Tonight it's even worse. I found out I was a Special and my girlfriend moved out. She said she wasn't living with no Chickenhead!

[applepie]

I finished this last night:) I loved the intensity of the book. It was fast paced and kept my emotions sort of rolling throughout the tale right up to the end. Anyhow, I'll post more detailed thoughts later maybe after more people have finished. I would prefer not to ruin it for anyone else.

[Sancho]

I liked the way the animal dealer used the language and the tactics of a used-car salesman when Rick went in intending to buy an animal outright:

Sir, if you have the down payment of three thou, I can make you the owner of something a lot better than a pair of rabbits. What about a goat?
Never-ever tell a used-car dealer, in your opening line, how much you can spend. “Yes sir-eee-bob, you look like a Coup de Ville man to me. Umm hmm.”

I also liked the way the author used the same arguments to rationalize android ownership that the NRA uses to rationalize gun ownership.

By the way, in case anyone was wondering, everything turned out okay for El Cid the other night; that’s El Cid, the ornery cantankerous old-man Spaniel dog. (I may have stacked a few too many adjectives there, but what the hey.)

[billl]

I just want to point out that Google's nexus-one Android phone is being advertised all over the place these days (e.g. my youtube start page).

http://www.android.com/

http://androidandme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/seidonexusone_540big.png

[TheFifthElement]

Yeay! I've finally finished reading Independent People (which is amazing by the way) and am starting Androids today. Hope everyone's up for a good debate :D

[Sancho]

Daaa-umm Billl, that android phone woman is good-looking.

:mad::rage::cold:SPOILER ALERT:cold::rage::mad:

As the man from the 14th century said:

:eek:Abandon hope all ye who enter here:eek:

Okay, that should’ve done it.

What did you guys think about that whole business of Rachel shoving the goat off the roof?
My initial thought was that purpose of the scene was to demonstrate the inhumanity of an android after we (and Rick) had been suckered into feeling empathy towards her. But then what purpose does the murder of the goat serve other that vengeance? And isn’t revenge a purely human emotion just like empathy?

I don’t know. What am I missing?

[kitkat203]

:mad::mad::mad::mad:Spoiler!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad:

I too was quite shocked by the goat incident. It seems to me that in the same way Rick took an android 'life' that she found important, she took a 'life' that meant something to him. An eye for an eye. I agree that this seems a human response, however, the androids experience a range of human like emotions - even compassion in the case of Irmgard and Isidore. Their human responses only seem to fail when they are threatened and it becomes survival of the fittest.

The androids are sometimes shown to be more cultured and perhaps 'better' versions of the humans around them. Pris corrects Isidore when he quotes Donne, Luba Luft chooses a life in the arts and Rick perceives himself as sub specie aeternitatis. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[papayahed]

:mad::mad::mad::mad:Spoiler!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad:

I too was quite shocked by the goat incident. It seems to me that in the same way Rick took an android 'life' that she found important, she took a 'life' that meant something to him. An eye for an eye. I agree that this seems a human response, however, the androids experience a range of human like emotions - even compassion in the case of Irmgard and Isidore. Their human responses only seem to fail when they are threatened and it becomes survival of the fittest.

The androids are sometimes shown to be more cultured and perhaps 'better' versions of the humans around them. Pris corrects Isidore when he quotes Donne, Luba Luft chooses a life in the arts and Rick perceives himself as sub specie aeternitatis. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Yes, but what about the spider incident? Isidore was horrified at what was being done to the spider while the androids never gave it a second thought.

The goat thing surprised me, but can't something like revenge be programmed into an android? If the point is to make it as human as possible? Rachel knew the goat was important to Rick from their initial conversation.

[dfloyd]

is that the goat represented to the android a life which would have a much longer life expectation than that of Rachel, which would only be about two more years. I am reminded of a scene in Paths of Glory directed (I think) by Kubrick. French soldiers were picked by lot to be executed for a mass exodus by French soldiers from a field of battle. One of the soldiers says, "Look at that bug crawling there. He has more of a chance for life than I do." A second soldier squashes the bug and says, "The odds are now even." Rachel wanted ti even out the odds for her short life expectancy.

[Sancho]

Ah-hah!

I suppose some of the more basic human emotions have evolved that way for survival purposes; fear, anger, lust, stuff like that. Even desire for revenge could go into the calculus of survival in a tit-for-tat or an if-then-else environment. But with empathy, we stand to gain absolutely nothing. Sympathy – maybe. Empathy-nope.

Thanks KitKat, et al.

[TheFifthElement]

I'm up to chapter 4 and so far very impressed. One of the themes which stands out for me so far is that of alteration or perhaps variance from what we would call the norm, or natural; and also artificiality or synthetic vs natural. Human beings are almost unrecognisable, and even the Earth is changed:

Perhaps, deformed though it was, Earth remained familiar, to be clung to.

I get the feeling, even this early on, that Dick is setting us up to consider the question of where the dividing line is between 'human' and 'android'. So far the following points have stood out to me:

- the 'Penfield artificial brain stimulator': Deckard and his wife set their mood by machine. So their emotions are artificial. Is this any different to an android?

- the 'Empathy machine': as used by J.R Isidore. Given that the response to empathy appears to be the indicator of human or android, I find it interesting that in humans, empathy is stimulated by means of an artificial device. It made me wonder, would a human pass the test if their empathy button hadn't been pushed by the empathy machine?

- the 'specials': classed as 'biologically unacceptable' and 'a menace to the pristine heridity of the race'. In a sense, are the 'specials' any different to the androids, in terms of the way they are treated? Although Dick mentions that a 'special' may opt for voluntary sterilisation, no mention is made of the alternative. Are 'specials' also 'retired' if they don't agree to cut themselves out of the human race voluntarily?

I was also curious why Deckard told his neighbour that the sheep was electric, when this would seem to be a social stigma. But then I found myself questioning if any of Deckard's actions were 'real' or did they all arise as a result of the Penfield machine? What is 'real' and what isn't? How do you define it?

I was also interested in this comment in the passing TV interview with Mrs Klugman when she explains what it is that going off-world has done for her:

It's a hard thing to explain. Having a servant you can depend on in these troubled times...I find it reassuring.
It made me wonder, is Dick implying that what differentiates the humans is the need to have something they perceive as subordinate to them? Do humans need to be the 'masters'. Whereas this role used to be fulfilled by animals, once the animals began to die out they, in a sense, became superior. They certainly seem to be valued more.

And I haven't encountered an android yet! It's all very interesting, and bears the hallmark of really good sci-fi. Looking forward to reading more!

[applepie]

Ah-hah!

I suppose some of the more basic human emotions have evolved that way for survival purposes; fear, anger, lust, stuff like that. Even desire for revenge could go into the calculus of survival in a tit-for-tat or an if-then-else environment. But with empathy, we stand to gain absolutely nothing. Sympathy – maybe. Empathy-nope.

Thanks KitKat, et al.

I think this is why so much is centered on the empathy testing. Like you've mentioned, one gains from all other emotions. Even jealousy and rage have their gains to us personally and can therefore be quantified in a machine. Empathy gains us nothing and costs very much. There would be no possible way to logically force something to feel empathy.

As for the goat incident, I suppose there are a couple of reasons. The first being plain jealousy. First there is this living thing that is loved and cared for in a way that Rachel had no hope of having. Jealousy would be a powerful motivation, and it would further the purpose of destroying Rick. The other is simply from a writer's standpoint. The incident brings us entirely full circle from hating the androids to being empathetic of their cause, and right back around to the realization that they really are different. This book was a bit like a roller coaster for me in that sense. By midway I was so sympathetic for the androids' plight, but after all that Rachel did... well any pity was long gone.

[TheFifthElement]

Anyone have any thoughts on Mercerism and it's resemblance to:

- the myth of sisyphus
- Christianity?

[applepie]

Anyone have any thoughts on Mercerism and it's resemblance to:

- the myth of sisyphus
- Christianity?

Mercer actually brought to mind Prometheus for me. He gave humanity a gift, if you can look at it as such, in the ability for them to "meld" consciousness with one another. The price is this never-ending loop of torment. He climbs the hill, gets ricks and such thrown at him along the way, and then (if I got it right) he dies. Then he does it all over again. Prometheus paid a similar price for giving gifts to humanity. He had his liver removed, and when he was healed and his liver regenerated it happened again.

[applepie]

One of the more intriguing characters that I found in this book was that of Rachael Rosen. When she is first presented she seems to be nothing more than a strong, intelligent woman in a high profile job for one of the largest companies that manufactures androids. She is cunning and a bit cold seeming, and she certainly seems willing to do whatever it takes to keep her company at the top.

Upon discovering that she herself was an android, we're introduced, however briefly, to a Rachael Rosen that has moved into the same complex as Isidore. She quickly changes her name to Pris, but I couldn't help but feel the pang of sadness that she had been reduced to that. I'll admit for the rest of the book I wondered which was the original Rachael that we were introduced to. Is Pris another Rachael that has been discarded? Is she the original that has been crushed by her discovery? It also poses the question of which Rachael it was that Rick met at the end of the book. Who really tried to ruin him with a night of sex and killing his new animal?

Anyway, as the story moved we're slowly introduced into the lesson of Pris (I don't have a better thing to call it:)). Pris is at times oddly helpless seeming and very alone. At other times she is quite cruel to the people and things around her.

"You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn't need all those legs."...

It probably won' be able to run as fast, but there's nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It'll die anyway."...

"Don't mutilate it," he said wheezingly. Imploringly.
With the scissors, Pris smipped off one of the spider's legs...

Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling."

This entire scene, it went on for some time, really made me begin to view the androids as really inhuman. I went from feeling such overwhelming sympathy for their plight and treatment at the hands of humans to almost having a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. They really were not like people. Not if they could do something so cruel and smile about it.

The I really got to thinking about it. Is it really so different than a child pulling the wings off a fly or pouring salt on a slug. Sure, in the novel, animals are at a premium being nearly extinct, but who didn't do at least one thing so senselessly cruel at one point in their life?

We're finally introduced to Rachael again at the end of the novel. This is not the same pathetic seeming one that was left in the beginning having just discovered that she was an android. This Rachael is bent on systematically destroying Rick's moral/motivations. By having sex with him and then treating him cruelly, she hoped to ruin him.

"You're not going to be able to hunt androids any longer," she said calmly. "So don't look sad. Please."...

"I understand now why Phil Resch said what he said. He wasn't being cynical; he had just learned too much. Going through this--I can't blame him. It warped him."

"But the wrong way."

She had quite intentionally tried to mold him into a being incapable of killing androids any longer. She proved that there was nothing of humanity within her. There wasn't even a desire to live that is so common in man kind. So my final question is, did she succeed? With her treatment of Rick, killing his animal and trying to crush his spirit, did she really manage to warp him in the manner that was intended? Or, will Rick become like Phil? Will he become a human capable of absolutely no remorse when it comes to his treatment of androids or will he retain some of that same emotion that allowed him to feel for androids like Luba?

[Jozanny]

I am just poking my head in to say I sort of left Dick for a time in chapter 3; no particular reason except I have to mind my writing and my reading schedule which is more relevant to what I am engaged in. I will join you or resurrect the thread when I am ready, as I would like to form my own impressions first.

I will return then.

[Riesa]

I read it last year, the most memorable part of it was the fact that the cashier commented on the fact that 'its not every day one sells a Phillip K. Dick novel along with Narn-i-a. a suggestion: Hothouse by Brian Aldiss: freaking blows PKD outta the water) next time of course I'm not helping much. :p

[Jazz_]

Just finished today - really enjoyed reading it :D

I also found the goat killing surprising - there was no real indication that Rachel had planned this, but I suppose the suddenness helps to emphasize her 'inhuman' nature.

Empathy does have some benefit - the humans were able to bond with one-another, and support those who were depressed. It also gave hope to people like Isidore...

[TheFifthElement]

One of the more intriguing characters that I found in this book was that of Rachael Rosen.
I agree. Rachel is the character which fascinated me the most. I think Rachel is deliberately crafted to make us question what it is to be human, what empathy means, and whether the androids are 'machines' and therefore 'retireble' or whether killing androids is just killing. What does it mean to be alive? And why is it that some machines are cared for, and others are destroyed? In fact the more 'alive' a machine, the more likely to be destroyed it is. Electric toad didn't get retired, after all. There are great similarities between the themes explored in this book and the recent series of Battlestar Galactica which, if you haven't seen it, is an excellent series.


The I really got to thinking about it. Is it really so different than a child pulling the wings off a fly or pouring salt on a slug.
I thought the exact same thing. On the face of it the androids' behaviour prompts a disgust response. However, when you think about it a little more, they behave no differently to human children. So retiring an android is like retiring a child, but I suppose the argument is that androids will never grow up to have empathy. Strange though, I find that a lot of humans don't develop great swathes of empathy either. But is what they do to the spider worse than what Rick does to them? Even with empathy for the androids he still kills them, and clearly the chase is torture to them. In a sense, I think that's worse. When Mercer says to him:

"I am here with you and always will be. Go and do your task, even though you know it's wrong...
You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time every creature who lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.

Perhaps what the androids lack isn't empathy, but it is instead this shared vision of futility offered by Mercerism? Perhaps androids don't 'violate their own identity' and this is the precondition on which they must die when trying to assert it. To free themselves from economic slavery. I found myself questioning, a number of times, whether the androids were displaying evidence of empathy. Like Luba Luft, both in terms of her career which, as a singer, must require empathy for the role she is performing, and in her final appearances in the art gallery (considering that appreciation of art requires a degree of empathy). I was curious why she selected that particular picture, particularly bearing in mind Rick's observations on it.

Then there's this part where Pris calls Isidore a chickenhead and Irmgard responds as follows:

Don't call him that, Pris," Irmgard said; she gave Isidore a look of compassion. "Think what he could call you."
which struck me as empathic. Irmgard considered how Pris might feel in Isidore's shoes and admonished her accordingly. Kind of like my mother used to do for me :D


She had quite intentionally tried to mold him into a being incapable of killing androids any longer. She proved that there was nothing of humanity within her.
But did she? Trying to manipulate someone with sex seems a rather human trait to me. And it raised an interesting point. Why was she trying to save the androids? Are we not told all along how androids don't care about other androids. Is this empathy? There's also the question of Rick's accountability. After all, he got her to help him in the first place by saying he wouldn't retire the androids. Only after she'd got to the hotel did he admit that he was going to anyway. And then she says this:

"You made a good deal when you made that deal,"..."We androids can't control our physical, sensual passions. You probably knew that; in my opinion you took advantage of me."

As regards the goat, I wonder this is just a continuation of Rachel's attempts to dissuade Rick from killing more androids. When they're talking in the car, she says this:

"That goat," Rachel said. "You love the goat more than me. More than you love your wife, probably. First the goat, then your wife, then last of all-" She laughed merrily. "What can you do but laugh?"

and earlier, Rick says to Iran:

"Something went wrong, today; something about retiring them. It wouldn't have been possible for me to go on without getting an animal.
Perhaps Rachel picked up on that, but to do so would require, I think, something approaching empathy. But I think that dividing line is drawn very thin between humans and androids in this book; I'm not convinced that the androids don't display it. Perhaps Rachel hoped that if she took away his 'compensation', the thing which enabled him to continue killing androids, then perhaps he would kill no more?

Or, will Rick...become a human capable of absolutely no remorse when it comes to his treatment of androids or will he retain some of that same emotion that allowed him to feel for androids like Luba?
I think Rick has already shown that he is capable of having no remorse. Despite his empathy for the androids, he still retired them. And in the end he'd elevated himself to a kind of God-like status:

"Mercer," he said, panting; he stopped, stood still. In front of him he distinguished a shadowy figure, motionless. "Wilbur Mercer! Is that you?" My god, he realised; it's my shadow.
then a little later on:

But if I'm Mercer, he thought, I can never die, not in ten thousand years. Mercer is immortal.
and in his visions of Mercer (self-delusions, perhaps?) he is absolved of accountability for what he does. He kills because he must 'violate his own identity'; he is not responsible, it is the nature of the universe.



Empathy does have some benefit - the humans were able to bond with one-another, and support those who were depressed. It also gave hope to people like Isidore...
I agree Jazz. I think empathy is an emotional response which gives us a very great deal. It creates a belief in shared experience, and in so doing a mutual desire, or willingness, to protect. Empathy is the basis for some of our most valued, and yet least followed, maxims: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, and so on. But whilst empathy can create a shared, positive experience it also gives us the tools to cause great pain to others, to take from you what you value the most. Hence, perhaps, Rick and the goat?

[Scheherazade]

Just read 1/4 of the book; I am kind of enjoying it.

I love how silence and loneliness are described in the chapter Isidore is introduced: oozing from the walls and furniture.

[Virgil]

Well, I got a problem. I had to return the book to the library and I thought for sure i would be able to take it out again, and as it turned out someone had a hold on it. :( Darn. I may have to drop from this read.

[applepie]

Well, I got a problem. I had to return the book to the library and I thought for sure i would be able to take it out again, and as it turned out someone had a hold on it. :( Darn. I may have to drop from this read.

:( That isn't any fun. I would offer to send you my copy, but wouldn't you know it's a library book too. Maybe they can get a copy from another branch. They can go state wide here.

[Virgil]

:( That isn't any fun. I would offer to send you my copy, but wouldn't you know it's a library book too. Maybe they can get a copy from another branch. They can go state wide here.

It dawned on me just a few moments ago that I should have tried another branch, or even if there was another copy on the shelves. Oh well, perhaps next saturday. I'm going to re-read Henry James' The Turn of the Screw since we have a hot discussion on that thread going.

[Sancho]

Empathy does have some benefit - the humans were able to bond with one-another, and support those who were depressed. It also gave hope to people like Isidore...

Good point, Jazz.

If the book continued on and androids became more and more human-like in their emotions, perhaps the empathy test would eventually need to evolve into an altruism test. An altruistic act, by definition, gains nothing for the actor. So, for example, upon witnessing a child being swept out into a river and starting to go under, very few adults would hesitate to jump in and try to save the drowning child, even if that adult could swim about as well as a brick, and even if the child was a stranger to the adult. An android, by contrast, wouldn’t bother jumping in the water, knowing it would just sink to the bottom anyway.

[applepie]

But did she? Trying to manipulate someone with sex seems a rather human trait to me. And it raised an interesting point. Why was she trying to save the androids? Are we not told all along how androids don't care about other androids. Is this empathy? There's also the question of Rick's accountability. After all, he got her to help him in the first place by saying he wouldn't retire the androids. Only after she'd got to the hotel did he admit that he was going to anyway.

It is a very human thing to do. I still wonder about the motivations for trying to save the androids. Was she really trying to save them. I mean she tried to make a deal to get Rick to let them go, and I would consider the lengths she went to in order to get him to leave them extraordinary measures. The one thing she didn't do was really try to stop him when he was leaving. She tried to break him, but when that didn't work, she seemingly gave in. Then we find that she did retaliate in kind with killing his goat. I don't know if it is empathy, but it is certainly anger or vengeance. He took something dear to her, so she retaliated in kind. I think his animal was the most dear thing at that point since he seemed to have little more than a begrudging tolerance of his wife.

As for the why of trying to save the other, I don't really know. Perhaps it is just one of the mysteries of the story. I suppose part of it has to do with her position in the company. The business doesn't want them destroyed, which makes me wonder at the motivation there, but is it really Rachael that wants them saved? I think with all of the tampering with the androids to make them more and more lifelike, Rosen finally succeeded more than they ever thought. There was very little way to tell the difference between the Nexus 6 and humans. Rick wouldn't have pegged Rachael if it was not for a single question, and I hardly think that failing to be empathetic in a single situation, or having to analyze it first before deciding, is evidence of a lack of humanity.

[Scheherazade]

About the title, how many believe the title is from the adage that counting sheep, usually sheep jumping in single file over a fence, acts as a somniferous aid. When a child, watching the cartoon at the movies, the counting of sheep jumping a fence by bugs bunny or porky pig or some other character trying to get to sleep was omniscient. But then, since the protaginist, Rick, has an electric sheep for a pet, so we know they exist, does the title have another meaning? The author, Dick, being born in 1928, would have been familiar with the counting of sheep in trying to get to sleep from the many cartoons he probably saw. But then why isn't the book named Do Androids Count Electric Sheep?Before starting to read the book, I also thought that it was an allusion to "sheep counting" but after reading the book, I believe the title is asking whether androids wish/long for electric sheep just like humans wish for live ones.

[Jazz_]

Before starting to read the book, I also thought that it was an allusion to "sheep counting" but after reading the book, I believe the title is asking whether androids wish/long for electric sheep just like humans wish for live ones.

I agree - I believe that the title asks "Do androids have dreams/long for things?" - helping to further the question of whether or not they are human-like...

I think the androids attitude towards living animals is pretty obvious - but do they act differently towards electric animals? Does Rachel enjoy having the electric owl in the beginning - or does she simply pretend to admire it for Rick's benefit? Perhaps they feel a connection with them? Though that might imply a sort of empathy...

[applepie]

I think the title also poses the question of just how similar androids are to humans. Do the androids feel and long for the same things as humans, but just a little differently? The newest model was so lifelike that Rick was only able to cause her to trip up on a single question for the empathy testing. That's pretty close in my book, and it could simply be a variance you would find in humanity. The others were "retired" without him having administered the test at all. Perhaps they would have been just as similar in reactions.

So, I find myself wondering, are the reactions real or simulated? If they're simulated, the doesn't it stand to reason that even if the reaction is started by their body a microsecond too late they still feel what it is their body is signaling? In my mind they, theoretically, should be able to feel all of the different reactions they simulate. We see they're capable of love, or at least caring, and they're certainly capable of lust and vengeance. Why would these be any more or less real than empathy?

[Scheherazade]

So, I find myself wondering, are the reactions real or simulated? I think they are simulated...

But, then again, what is a real reaction? In a way, human reaction/behaviour is simulated as well since it is all learnt. I think this issue is brought into discussion with those humanbeings who are unable to show the expected reactions/empathy and they worry that some day they might kill someone thinking they are "retiring" an andy. Didn't Rick accept this explanation about Rachel's childhood initially?

What is your take on the toad?

I have no idea about the political inclinations of the author; so, I am also wondering if this has anything to do with the Communist witch hunts...

[applepie]

I think they are simulated...

But, then again, what is a real reaction? In a way, human reaction/behaviour is simulated as well since it is all learnt. I think this issue is brought into discussion with those humanbeings who are unable to show the expected reactions/empathy and they worry that some day they might kill someone thinking they are "retiring" an andy. Didn't Rick accept this explanation about Rachel's childhood initially?



Rick did accept the explanation. I do wonder how they are justifying the testing as conclusive, but I guess they're not really doing that. I can't find the quote, but didn't they explain it away a bit by saying that they were likely humans that would be considered undesirable anyway?


What is your take on the toad?

I was a little surprised by the toad for a multitude of reasons. First, I don't really have any reference to say why a toad. That went entirely over my head. I kind of saw the toad as Rick's salvation in a way, and it just seemed such an odd choice of animals. Keeping with the idea of the toad as salvation, I also thought that is was a bit of a shock to have it be an electric animal. I just thought it oddly poetic in a way that the same thing that saved his sanity or sense of self was not real at all.

[Jazz_]

The toad was supposedly one of Mercer's favourite animals, so since Rick "became" Mercer, the toad seems like a reasonable choice in animal.

I think it also had something to do with the natural behaviour of toads - they bury themselves and survive in hostile environments (like the Earth in the novel) - highlighting the benefit of adaptability and giving Rick some hope for survival in such a cruel place...

[Jozanny]

I am still not that far along in the book, as I guess my internal wheels are spinning, but one thing that occurred to me is that John Isidore, is, to my mind, just as human, and as compromised within that humanity, as Rick is in terms of being our lead character. This is an alternate world where humanity has already been broken down into pieces, and living things are unnatural precisely because they are unnecessary, like the ostrich in that heated cage he is sulking over.

A reader over @ Amazon stated that Dick prefers what makes us really human as opposed to the androids being an illusionary approximation, and maybe this reader is right, but what I see so far is a world in which the robot may not want to kill its parents (which is the analogy today's robotic scientists thrust out to the public optimistically), but is a dead world because of mechanization.

I may read on a little more this evening. I have 500 things!

[Jozanny]

I managed to get into Chapter 4, and noticed the difference in dramatic effect between Rick's *outing* of the Rachael Rosen of the book and her importance to the bounty hunter of the movie.

I still believe, however, that Dick is portraying a humanity which is already too compromised to repair, even if he prefers the natural evolution of the life force.

2/13:

I have plowed on into the middle of chapter 8 (e-text edition) and much like Fifth Element, I am not really sure what Dick is driving at, at least not at this point. I realize the Isidore cat episode is satiric, but I am not really sure to what end; it can be frustrating to be a pet parent, especially if there are psychological issues between litter mates, but if we are to accept that the animal androids cannot evolve, yet, the way living animals can, I still don't see the point of owning them. I still use computing devices as opposed to interact with them as entities in their own right.

We are also asked to accept that the illegal androids have to be terminated, from the opening, without being given a valid reason why they would want to kill, flee presumably a healthier colony environment, and live on an Earth now hostile to life as we know it.

About 4:40pm:

I am more than halfway through, past the role reversal with the opera singer, and back to Isidore and the girl Stratton, whatever her actual identity. I know from reading past reviews that Dick builds up paranoia effectively, and he has done so, at least with the shell game the Nexus are playing, even though I wish the back story had more weight. I will probably finish by next week, since I can't get out.

[Jozanny]

I came back to rate the book, and feel somewhat frustrated that these online ratings don't allow for more nuance, but c'est la vie. I could not go for the four or five asterisk because looking at the text as a writer studying another, Dick had some tactical problems he did not quite manage, though I will swallow my complaint about the back story, as Pris fills it in well enough before the end game. I liked the story as a whole but some things bugged me about the Mercer elements and the android superiority, so called.

I have not seen the movie version in quite some time, but at least Blade Runner focuses on the main issue without getting lost in a metaphysical fog. I think Rachael kills the goat exactly for what she perceives after sleeping with Rick--that almost through instinctive recoil, he hates her and needs the empathetic attachment to the real living animal.

I will read it again someday, assuming my faith in ereader stability holds.

2/18:

In some ways this novel feels as much anti-suburban to me as Richard Yates--and I don't know if they were conscious of each other during their careers, but Yates and Dick certainly were of the same generation. Androids has a stock character Revolutionary Road feel to it, as well as being post-anti-Depression era.

I may be stretching it a bit to find an affinity, or point of comparison--but I cannot shake the feeling of similarity. At least for now, this is all I wished to add.

It was pleasant reading, either way, for a demanding sci-fi fan. ;)

[UserX]

I wonder if Dick felt people were androids? He ended up pretty crazy... or perhaps we are.