ThePhilosophy of Philip K. DickAs I start to sight DoAndroids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is drawnfrom it, Blade Runner, I will start by talk about the author, Philip K. Dick, hisideal of his themes in his works, “ How a Build a Universe That Doesn’t FallApart Two Days Later,” his speech laterpublished as an essay, Dick said the questions of ” what is Reality?” “ What Constitutes anAuthentic Human Begin?” He said theseare the two questions that interest him the most.
In his essay Dick talkedabout his experience with a student of philosophy that asked him to definereality, Dick reply was “ Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Dick said “ That was what he could come up with back then in1972. That he Dick haven’t been able todefine reality clearly.” Dick noted that “ we areliving in a society where fake realities are produced by media, governments, big corporations, religious groups, political groups and also by electronichardware, which delivers pseudo-worlds into the heads, of the person who reads, view and listens.” With this it shows Dick’s interest in human and technology, like uncontrolled works like Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Minority and A Scanner Darkly for example. What’s more, Dick shows that some ofthe frameworks are gotten from Plato’s Timaeus. In Timaeus, the world was founded rather created by God.
The world was in chaos and God putit back to order. This ideal was what Dick stated: What if our world ispersonalized to fit our needs. In addition, Tessa Dick (Dick’s ex-wife) saidDick’s writing was inspired by Plato’sAllegory of the Cave, and Native American Cultures (knight). Tessa Dick alsosaid the films “ Blade Runner and Minority Report shows Phil’s worries aboutwhat makes us human, and what makes us moral creatures.” (Knight) There are twotopics that Dick shows concern about, one the nature of reality and the natureof being human. Dick said in his essay that “ fake realities will create fakehumans. On the other hand counterfeitpeople will make counterfeit substances and pitch at that point to differentpeople, transforming them into fabrications of themselves. We end up with fakehumans producing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans.
” (“ Howto Build a Universe”)Furthermore, Dick also wasconcern about conspiracy and paranoia. In his article “ Theory of Paranoia,” Carl Freedman addresses Dick’s paranoiac ideology. Freeman said conspiracy andparanoia themes are common in Dick’s novels, (Freeman, 18-19); Dick’s novelUbik for instance, where household appliances have the ability to communicatewith people (Freeman, 20). Freeman expressthe concept of fetishism feel on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where artificial beings as ersatz petsare humanoid robot slaves are for sale. Which was also present in the novel, where the main character is not able to differentiate who is human or who isnot human; what is organic or what is not organic? An article by Jill Galvan,” Entering the Posthuman shared in Philip K.
Dick’s Do Androids Dream ofElectric Sheep?” describes the way human and androids in Dick’s novel co-exist.” In effect, the narrative repudiates the idea of a confined human community andenvisions a community of posthuman, inwhich human and machine commiserate and co-materialize, vitally shaping oneanother’s existence” (414). Christopher A. Sims alsopointed out the relationship between humans and technology, saying” companionship is a necessary componentof psychological well-being,” in spite of whether it is with human or androids(73). However, Sims remark on the moral implications of producing androidsservants, in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? “ Uses the invention of the humanoid replica to critique and define theessence of humanity; whatever qualities distinguish humans from androids becomethe essential aspects of humanity” (67). Williams notes in his interview aboutDick’s fascination with the subject of conspiracy and paranoia; “ Things areseldom what they seem,” “ Paranoia is true perception” (45) by Dick. Dick as ahistory of drug abuse (amphetamine) that fueled many of his novels, until up to” A Scanner Darkly,” (Williams, 46).
“ We don’t realize the extent to which weare influenced by our environment. Everybody else was taking some form ofdrugs, and I wouldn’t have known how to behave if I didn’t have something totake” (47), Dick explained to Williams. Dick amphetamine abuse manifesteditself in his novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, in which Can-D drugwas used by consumers, making them hallucinate, to an alternate reality; Chew-Zwas used to replace Can-D drug offering the consumers an eternal reality.
There was another article about The ThreeStigmata of Palmer Eldritch by David Golumbia about Philip Dick andmetaphysical, it observers how Chew-Z provides users access to an “ AbsoluteReality” (93), it sets the Protagonist fusion with Palmer Eldritch “ a form of absolute awareness” (qtd. Golumbia, 95). This is an example of Dick’s amphetamine abuse which fueled his ownwritings, given him his own reality. In general, Dick’s ideologyproposed a fictional world, like in his novels, where artificial realities orpersons are close to reality, that we are led to believe. Creating fake humansmeans we are ever-increasing in technology and humanity is becoming moreartificial, Dick’s statement.
One man’s reality can become another man’sillusion. It is left for the readers to determine if in Palmer Eldritch” Absolute Reality,” whether it is an ultimate reality or it can be speculated, just as in the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As in accordance with Dick’s ideology that androids are nothingbut artificial humans or artificial is more humans than we think.
