“. . . I heard the building, this building; I heard the—” She gestured.
“Empty apartments,” Rick said.
Even the chickenhead Isidore has developed his own idiosyncratic take on the Second Law of Thermodynamics to account for it:
Kipple is useless objects. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself. It always gets more and more. No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment. But eventually I’ll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It’s a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kipple-ization.
Dick’s vision of such a future sees us deeply estranged from the world which once was our home. Our constant misuse of technology, both in the past and the present, finds us staring into the face of unthinking, uncaring, but entirely tangible void: “he experienced the silence as visible and, in its own way, alive.” Or as Lord Byron similarly personified it in, “The Darkness,” his 1816 poetic nightmare about cosmic heat-death: “Darkness had no need of aid from them—She was the Universe.” And it is exactly this utterly unsympathetic picture of the universe that Deckard drives out to confront in the lifeless desert after he has finally retired the last of the androids:
Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else’s degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves.
Here Deckard strives to come to terms with the fact that the inescapable, collective fate of all things—past, present and future—is to fall into an unending, silent and cold nothingness. A similar attempt was made by (yet another) German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, in the following parable:
Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history”, but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.3
But whereas Nietzsche wished to shake us from our typically smug view of our place in the universe, in Dick’s narrative, the lived experiences of his characters are delved into in order to actually accentuate this existential angst that we are all susceptible to at times.
Do You Think Androids Have Souls?
In the philosophy of mind, there’s a distinction made between strong and weak artificial intelligence. Strong A.I. would capture absolutely all the phenomena of natural intelligence, including inner being—the ghost in the machine, as it were. Weak A.I., on the other hand, would only mimic all the outwardly observable functions of natural intelligence to the point of being indistinguishable from it. We see this distinction being played with when Rachael outlines the weak A.I. strategy of The Rosen Association (the novel’s version of The Tyrell Corporation) to an incredulous Deckard:
“And when that model gets caught we modify again and eventually the association has a type that can’t be distinguished.”
A topic of world-shaking importance, yet dealt with facetiously; an android trait, possibly, he thought. No emotional awareness, no feeling-sense of the actual meaning of what she said. Only the hollow, formal, intellectual definitions of the separate terms.
Gaita calls this all-important ‘ghost’ a “non-speculative conception” of a soul, and quotes (yet another) German philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, to convey his point:
‘I believe he is suffering’—Do I also believe that he isn’t a robot? It would go against the grain to use the word in both connections. (Or is it like this: I believe that he is suffering, but am certain that he is not a robot? Nonsense!)
My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.4
The point is: when I naturally interact with another human—my wife, my son, a friend, foe, or even a stranger—there’s just no question as to the existence of their inner being, their ‘soul’. There’s not even the possibility of genuinely entertaining such a question except in the most abstract, academic, and vacuous sense. But, of course, the invention of increasingly sophisticated android replicants complicates all of this no end . . . regardless of whether or not one counts ‘them’ as one of ‘us’.
The difficulty, as Gaita would explain, is that human-tohuman interaction is our primary source of oneness with not only others (obviously) but with both the world and ourselves. But, as Heidegger would add, if advances in android technology not only theoretically called into question human souls, but also did so experientially, then the danger would be real and present. Isidore seems to know what they were was getting at:
Now that her initial fear had diminished, something else had begun to emerge from her. Something more strange. And, he thought, deplorable. A coldness. Like, he thought, a breath from the vacuum between inhabited worlds, in fact from nowhere: it was not what she did or said but what she did not do or say.
According to Heidegger, technology can too easily lead us to regard others simply as means rather than ends. The classic example here would be of a factory worker who, were it not for industrialization, may well have been a valued craftsman of the very same product that she now performs only the most menial part in making. Dick’s own unique SF vision is, of course, of androids that we can enslave or retire without guilt or bad conscience—at least in theory. But as Deckard begins to better understand as the novel progresses, theory and practice can all too easily come apart:
“I met another bounty hunter,” Deckard said. “One I never saw before. A predatory one who seemed to like to destroy them. For the first time, after being with him, I looked at them differently. I mean, in my own way I had been viewing them as he did.”
Once you start pulling at a loose thread, the whole tapestry may soon fall apart; and this is precisely what happens to Deckard who becomes painfully aware that in treating others—human or merely humanoid—as means rather than ends, he too has been relegated to a mere means:
“They can use androids. Much better if andys do it. I can’t any more; I’ve had enough. She was a wonderful singer. The planet could have used her. This is insane.”
Unfortunately, such a well-intentioned thought is nonetheless inconsistent, for while Deckard may appreciate the beauty that the operatic android, Luba Luft, had given the world, at this point his only proposed solution is to have other androids do the work that he himself thinks is degrading and immoral. For Deckard to find the salvation that Heidegger suggests technology is also capable of, something more than singing is needed.
The Cardinal Mystery of Creation
The ultimate danger of technology, Heidegger argues, is estrangement and alienation from our own selves. Indeed, the existential crises that Deckard undergoes throughout both Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner perfectly illustrate this threat. But in the end, both works are redemptive, for “where danger is, grows the saving power also.”5 According to Heidegger:
The saving power of technology lets man see and enter into the highest dignity of his essence. This dignity lies in keeping watch over the unconcealment of all coming to presence on this earth.
Huh? Put it this way: when Deckard believes he has discovered a toad in the otherwise soulless desert, he initially asks himself: What happens when you find—if you find—an animal believed extinct? It happened so seldom. Something about a star of honor from the U.N. and a stipend. A reward running into millions of dollars.
That Deckard momentarily tries to understand the significance of discovering a toad in consequential terms of fame and reward shows that he has become deeply alienated from the authentic relationship that we all potentially share with the world, natural or otherwise; he is momentarily unable to comprehend that unexpectedly happening upon a toad—any toad, let alone species presumed extinct—is reward in itself. (I
f you don’t believe me, just imagine you’re a child.)
Eventually Deckard comes to his senses as to the significance of his experience, such that, even when he finally realizes that his is an artificial toad, he remains “devoted” to it nonetheless: “The electric things have their lives, too,” he notes meditatively. Here, we see the saving power of technology shown most profoundly; technology when regarded aright reveals to us the nature and marvel of the world so as to place us in a deep, appreciative relationship with it.
In Blade Runner, also, it is an authentic relationship to Being that is taken to be what essentially ensouls both humans and replicants. Such is the import of Roy Batty’s famous final soliloquy:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”
The poignancy of this speech is given by the manifest wonder Roy feels towards the miracle of existence, the mystery of Being. And in the end it seems that this is essentially what we feel is requisite to being a human being, to having a soul: the existential appreciation of all that is. And it is with this sentiment that Dick brings Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to a homely end: “And, feeling better, she fixed herself at last a cup of black, hot coffee.”
03
Dick Doesn’t Do Heroes
DENNIS M. WEISS AND JUSTIN NICHOLAS
In the fall of 1977 Philip K. Dick sat down for an extensive interview with Uwe Anton and Werner Fuchs. Dick was the guest of honor at a large science-fiction convention in Metz, France, and was one of many scifi luminaries in attendance, including John Brunner, Robert Sheckley, and Harlan Ellison. When, though, in the course of his reflections on writing, Dick singled out an author it wasn’t one of his science-fiction colleagues, but William Faulkner. Dick was drawn to Faulkner’s Nobel Prize speech in which Faulkner noted that he refused to accept the end of man:
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
Dick mentioned Faulkner’s comments in the midst of a discussion of the role of the hero in science fiction. Dick sharply contrasted the typical science-fiction heroes—he cites Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers—and the protagonists of his own stories and novels, which Dick suggested are neither heroes nor anti-heroes. Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers don’t really represent human heroism, Dick argued. Where these prototypical science-fiction heroes are “really marvelous” and “give all the answers,” Dick’s more human characters are your average Joes who find themselves in inexplicable situations where they are overwhelmed by the inscrutable universe. For Dick, human heroism shines a spotlight on our weaknesses and limitations and the manner in which we sometimes rise above our greedy, incompetent, petty selves and in the midst of all hopelessness endure and prevail and sometimes even do the right thing. Dick’s main character tends to be, as he notes in the interview, a “bumbling, coarse, garrulous, low-class person.” In the final analysis, Dick said, people must be people: “In the midst of the rubble, there will be the sound of a man’s voice planning, arguing, and proposing solutions. I think Faulkner caught the essence of what is really great about human beings, and so I don’t write about heroes.”
“I don’t write about heroes.” If one only knows Dick’s work through his cinematic representations, films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, his thoughts on human heroism seem inexplicable and contradictory. Dick’s characters tend to be ordinary people who occasionally do extraordinary things. But Hollywood’s big screen doesn’t take kindly to ordinary people. Hollywood prefers its leads big, extraordinary, and good looking. Hollywood heroes endure, but they endure precisely because they are bigger than life. Dick’s Hollywood heroes are those bigger-than-life figures he refused to sanction in his own writing.
As Dick’s fiction makes the leap to the big screen, Hollywood finds it necessary to make heroes out of Dick’s characters, transforming them from everyday man to action-figure status, and in the process undermining Dick’s ruminations on the trials and tribulations of human beings living in a technological culture. But for those of us who’re interested in scratching the surface and finding out what lies underneath, Hollywood’s refusal to admit Dick’s ordinary characters can help us see all the more clearly what he was trying to do.
You’ve Been Adjusted
Dick wrote about authenticity, not about heroes.
Dick’s protagonists are a rogue’s gallery of losers, misfits and lowly office clerks placed without reason or warning in extraordinary circumstances. It is significant then, that when Dick’s work is taken from page to screen, these protagonists change dramatically. The “bald and fat and old” administrator of “The Minority Report” becomes man-of-action Tom Cruise; the “miserable little salaried employee” of “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” becomes the far-from-little Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Ed, the minor real estate clerk of “Adjustment Team” becomes Matt Damon running for Congress. While such transformations are radical, they are minor in comparison to the real changes filmmakers enact on Dick’s characters.
Consider The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon; the story of two star-crossed lovers whose union is prevented by the Kafkaesque “adjustment group” that controls reality and people’s fate. These men (and they are exclusively men) modify the destinies of certain key people in an effort to avert disasters such as the Holocaust, which they attribute to human failures. One of these people is David Norris (Matt Damon) who, without his knowledge, has been groomed by this group his entire life for the presidency and, according to “the plan,” must rise to power. This “plan” is written by the “Chairman”—a thinly veiled allusion to God. Damon learns all this, and yet he still decides to fight the Adjustment Bureau, and thus God himself, to be with his true love.
Here we have all the ingredients of a great tragic love story, including tortured characters and unstoppable malevolent forces bent on keeping them apart. And yet the story has a happy ending, thanks mostly to our larger-than-life leading man Mr. Damon, who manages to wreak havoc on the whole system while infiltrating Bureau headquarters in an attempt to lodge a complaint with the Chairman. Duly impressed with this brash display of valor, the Chairman allows the love-struck couple to stay together, a rather curious response given that such impetuousness is precisely what the Bureau blames for many of humankind’s greatest tragedies.
Dick’s character, Ed Fletcher, bears no resemblance to David Norris. Like most of Dick’s characters, Ed is a man of exceedingly minor importance, a salaryman for a real estate firm. He is also, in typical Dick style, a married man whose wife is a rather unhelpful nag. Where David Norris is at the center of attention of the Adjustment Bureau, Ed comes to their attention only after accidentally arriving late to work one morning. The victim of a clerical error, Ed simply fails to be where he is supposed to be according to plan. When captured by the Adjustment Bureau, he is taken immediately to meet the Old Man in charge who promptly explains that the adjustment was made to help bring an end to the Cold War and thus further human peace and prosperity. Ed accepts this as a laudable goal, but he grovels before the Old Man in an effort to escape his fate. “Look,” he croaked. “I’ll do anything. Anything at all. Only don’t de-energize me.” The Old Man finally agrees to let Ed go without adjustment but not because he is deeply impressed by his determination, but rather because he’s a minor character in a grander plan whose actions can be contained and neutralized.
We Can Endorse That for You Wholesale
Hollywood directors love technology, as do audiences, but Dick was far from an unquestioning worshiper of the technology he wrote about so prolifically. In his essay “The Android and the Human,” Dick states that “even the most base schemes of human beings are preferable to t
he most exalted tropisms of machines,” an indication that his relationship to technology was more complex than the unwavering faith accorded to it by the films based on his work.
This attitude of unwavering faith can be easily seen in Total Recall, Paul Verhoven’s take on Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.” In the movie we find our protagonist Arnold Schwarzenegger take charge of his surroundings and embark on an action hero’s journey to save the planet Mars. Schwarzenegger’s character, Douglas Quaid, like his short story counterpart, attempts to infuse his listless existence with some excitement by having the memory of a trip to Mars as a secret agent implanted in his brain, then discovering that he has in fact already been to Mars as a secret agent. This is where the overlap between the movie and the story ends. In the movie, Quaid attempts to activate a huge alien machine that will transform Mars from a barren wasteland into a pristine paradise, but he has no idea how the machine works, or whether it will transform the planet into a paradise or cause it to explode. The movie’s antagonist reminds him of this fact in the final scene, as he begs Quaid to reconsider. But with unwavering faith Quaid turns on the device and the planet is transformed from a place of oppression and despair to a land of opportunity, his faith rewarded through the power of benevolent alien technology.
Philip K. Dick and Philosophy Page 4
