Rich Conversations: 024. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Rich Hebron shares his thoughts on the latest philosophical book he read: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

This week’s book is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. It was published in 1968 and was adapted into the movie, Blade Runner. I’ve never seen Blade Runner—I haven’t seen a whole lot of movies actually. This book was fresh to me.

I used to not read much fiction, but I dig “philosophical fiction.” Six months ago, I reached out to Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art. It’s one of my favorite and most influential books I’ve read. I asked him what one of his favorite books was. He replied, “The Moviegoer.”

So I read it. And then I looked up the genre and found more and read some of those: Notes from the Underground, The Stranger, Waiting for Godot. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was on the Wikipedia list too. I liked this one the most so far.

This book takes place in the future after a global war pollutes Earth and the UN encourages the colonization of other planets with the incentive of getting a free personal android. But some of these androids rebel and come to Earth to live. The androids are exactly like humans except they don’t have empathy. Only humans have empathy. The main character, Rick, is a bounty hunter. His job is to hunt down and “retire” these escaped androids. They call ‘em andys.

On Earth, it’s a status symbol to have a real animal. Other people look down on you if you have an electric, fake one, so they fantasize about someday owning a real animal.

Throughout the book, Rick interacts with androids. And then he questions his job of retiring them. They seem so real—so human like. He empathizes with them, which proves he’s human, which is the whole point of retiring the androids.

The beginning of the book has a scene where the characters discuss which number to turn their “mood organs” to. These machines control the emotions they feel. When I read that, I thought of phones today—they’re our own personal mood organs. Whatever emotion you want to feel, there’s an app that can deliver that. For instance, if you want to feel anger and frustration, you can read the news. But that news is curated for your own particular values and ideas. So you can feel bad, but also that there are numerous people just like you who feel the same way. It’s crazy.

What does it mean to be human?

Maybe it is our ability to empathize with others. Some might say our superior intellect compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. So then what does it mean when our own personal “mood organs” can tell us how to feel. When we can use phones to numb our thinking. Does that then just make us another animal? If we only see and listen to ideas that confirm our beliefs, are we really empathetic?

I recently posted a photo on Instagram of everybody on the train look down at their phones. I captioned it “How to be social in 2020.” It got quite a bit of interaction. Several people showed me an old photo taken on a train where everyone is reading a newspaper in front of them. People back then weren’t very social on public transportation either.

I get that. But that’s not what I meant.

What I really meant was that everyone staring at their phone WAS being social in the photo. And that scene is what it looks like to be social in 2020. It doesn’t matter what happens around you—it’s what happens online that counts.

I listened to a podcast interview with Chuck Klosterman recently. Love Chuck. His book, But What if We’re Wrong?, is one of my favorites. He mentioned that he had always thought the pictures and things that people posted on social media were fake representations of themselves and their lives. But now he’s not so sure. In fact, he’s starting to believe that what people post online is actually their true selves. WHOA…. And I think I agree with him.

There’s nothing holding anyone back. You can do or say whatever you feel. It’s not like that in person. Society has written and unwritten rules about how to behave and communicate in a physical world.

Think about Twitter trolls. They talk trash to people they don’t even know. They can be really mean and harsh. They probably don’t do say those things in a physical public. Now which do you think is a more accurate assessment of the kind of person they really are? It makes you think.

In our world, the line between what’s real and what’s fake is so blurred.

Let’s take my social media for example. On my Instagram, I post about learning, books, coffee, art, Chicago, and Wisconsin. I want to share that with others because it’s a part of me. It’s who I am.  I care about all those things. On a daily basis, I interact with those things the most. Someone else might look at it and feel I’m only posting highlights of the things I do, which they’re not wrong. And they might interpret it as fake. It’s really interesting. It’s fascinating to me.

So what does it mean to be human? What is real and what is fake? Something to ponder.