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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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ant

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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Phillip D was ahead of his time and perhaps predicted social networking via the internet by his introduction of "The Buster Friendly" network.

Mercerism

Another binary opposition blatantly evident in the novel is the faceoff between Mercerism (empathy towards life and others) and Commercialism (the Buster Friendly Radio Show). In a post apocalyptic world destroyed by a lack of empathy between humans, an old man named Wilbur Mercer responds by creating a religion based on feeling what other people are feeling, whether it be joy or suffering. Near the beginning of the novel, we see that the only advocate for Mercerism is J.R. Isidore, a chickenhead on Earth who doesn't concern himself with useless possessions. We see a constant disapproval of Mercerism by Buster Friendly, a commercialist advocate, who reveals the false origins of Wilbur Mercer and his religion, but it still doesn't stop Rick Deckard from "becoming one with Mercer" at the end of the novel. It is implied that the only hope left for humanity is Mercerism, being able to feel what others feel. In this way, it's similar to aWeb 2.0

Mercerism as a Second Life

The theme of Mercerism is prominent throughout the book. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 1968, preceding the internet, or any forms of web based social networking. His created religion, Mercerism, is similar to the internet and other networking such as Xbox live, such that people from around the world (or in Dick's case, from multiple worlds) can connect instantly, sharing thoughts and emotions. This is much like Xbox, where people connect by speaking into their headsets and playing video games with each other through an internet connection.
http://litinawiredworld.wikia.com/wiki/ ... c_Sheep%3F

The people on earth of this time are so disconnected from feeling that they have to subject themselves to artificial stimuli that chemically and at will allows them to experience emotion.
Last edited by ant on Sat May 02, 2015 6:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Ant :
The movie is my all time favorite sci fi flick.
Its one of mine as well, interestingly in PKD's Exegesis, he describes Androids as his Christ and Blade Runner as a Satan.

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is one of the most complicated books I have ever read. For me it will require research in philosophy, religion, science, all subjects I'm familiar with but not adept at, then a reread of his exegesis to pick up what has gone over my head.

Anyway here's a bit from the exegesis regarding Androids and Blade Runner.

This is from folder #64

[56:19A] The intellect-as opposed to the senses-can know the true nature of the world-not because of some occult power in the intellect- but because the true nature of the world is intelligible in itself (as the Pythagoreans taught: ratio and mathematical truth, not a substance but structure). There is, then, a one-to-one correspondence between the human intellect and the true nature of the world, and this explains the meta-abstraction: why it revealed the true nature of the world to me (and my own nature to myself). The true structure of the universe is cognate to human reasoning, and this is the paradigm of Pythagoras and his insight upon hearing the anvil struck. Thus my exegesis with its emphasis on the reasoning faculty, the meta-abstraction, the overcoming of "cognitive estrangement" is by no means a waste of time or a blind alley but is pure Platonism, the meta-abstraction being noesis acquired through anamnesis. One might even say that the meta-abstraction is not only a revelation of how the universe is construted but that it is an intelligible structure and that the human reason is able to comprehend it- and it is precisely this that over comes "cognitive estrangement" by yielding up cognitive comprehension as the final yield pertaining both to self and world: the part-whole relationship. Thus it is taught by Plato that there is a spark of the divine in the human soul.

[56:1B] December 12, 1981
Though he seeks to sell his (Satan's) power fantasies (Blade Runner) he unknowingly promulgates the third Kerygma: the ecosphere (animals) is now ensouled: holy. [...]
My god, this movie is the greatest defeat (what was done to the book) and victory (the Tagore kerygma promulgated); the first is ostensible, the latter cryptic. Oddly, the first appears ostensibly to be a victory but is really a defeat; nonetheless a real victory lurks secretly under it, but it is not the victory that people will think the making of a movie from my book is. They will say, "it is a great victory to have your book made into one of the biggest movies of all time" but they will not know why; it doesn't have to do with what is in the movie, etc.; it has to do with what is in the novel. [...]
The beetle I was tormenting back when I was in the third grade- I saw it as holy, as Christ. Later the turtle was Christ. The rat who screamed was Christ, and appears as such in Tears; this is the revelation in Tears by means of the dream: the rat ensouled and now King Felix: Christ. The crippled lamb who lagged behind. Pinky as pink sheep humiliated and killed. Its all in Androids, and finally the Tagore vision explicates what was already in Androids as doctrine, and in Tears as revelatory cypher. The movie is defeat; the novel victory, ostensible vast loss, secret good shinning almost invisibly from beneath this defeat, these fascist power fantasies they've made it into. Evil has served good; evil appears to win but it is good that actually does.[...]
The Tagore vision is a summation of all that has gone before. Looking at Pinky there toward the end and seeing the passion, seeing Christ humiliated and dying- that was not one vision among many; that was not an aspect of a vision: that was the core of it, the beating heart of it all; when that is coupled with the revelation of the Logos in camouflaged form invading reality (the ecosphere) and transubstantiating it- add these two together, and there it all is. This not quite the same as Jesus Patibilis; it is a new revelation of something dynamic: a process of conquest. Ah; last night I saw in my mind the Godhead moving into the animal kingdom, and I saw the vast joy that the Godhead experienced in receiving that fallen, lower kingdom (domain) back; not the joy of and by that kingdom, but the joy of and by the Godhead; the Godhead moved into that lower kingdom and inhaled it, drew it back in by it- the Godhead-advancing into the lower, fallen kingdom long separated from the Godhead; and what beauty! The colors, the love, bliss by itself, by the Godhead, to receive back that domain with all the life in it. This was a vision of what I had seen in 3-74 of Valis (the Logos) invading reality; there I saw it with my outer eye's, externally, but last night it was an inner vision, and I had forgotten it until this moment; I experienced the jopy and love on the part of the Godhead to do this thing, not what was done for the animal kingdom but what the Godhead felt. Colors, as Dante describes the Trinity in Paradiso: the varicolored rings of light; I saw that like rings of Saturn advancing into the animal domain. "The love that moves the Sun and other stars" -it had regained the lost animal kingdom; and this is my vision going back to the beetle I was tormenting in the third grade; it is one vision extended over all my life. And I found it in Act III of Parsifal the good Friday spell.[...] As the EB says, To see in the old dilapidated bum the Christ; that is the Christian Dispensation. But I see in the sick, humiliated, dying animal the Christ, literally saw; and this is the Third Dispensation, the cat crapping and wild, and then all of a sudden tamed and wise, like a saint; It was the Christ and this is a new dispensation, Tagore's. Before it was, Where the man is, there is Christ. Now it is, Where the animal is, there is Christ. To see this and understand this: for this I was fashioned from the beginning; for this I was made. My original satori regarding the beetle was the true one; everything else only amplifies.[...]
A strange an mysterious strategy; to put the new kerygma in a novel published in the late sixties but then disclosed to me only now, toward the end of 1981, but just at the time we get the signed contract with the Blade Runner people to rerelease the novel in conjunction with the film- as if the VALIS trilogy has diverted everyone's attention, my own included, like when the thought came to me that true message was in "Frozen Journey" and not in VALIS! The true message is not in VALIS, but it is, I now think, in Androids and it will have the greatest circulation- probably- of all. Viewed in terms of Gods strategy, Blade Runner has been used as a means to an end, the end being the kerygma in Androids. Thus to have suppressed Androids and either written authorized the novelization based on the screenplay would have been to hand over victory to evil, but this did not happen. The fully executed contract between Blade Runner and me regarding the rerelease of Androids was waiting for me in the post office box on Friday, the day I was up in Venice and learned the truth.
To share-experience-the joy by the Godhead as it invades-expands into-the animal kingdom, lost to it all these many millennia! The repair to the damaged Godhead! Yes it is a self-repair, a re-inhaling, a recovery of part of its lost self. Christ reknitting the decomposing cosmos and restoring it to God. Christ moves lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the decomposing cosmos, down layer by layer, starting with man. Thus the vision of Christ at and in the trash layer(stratum) is a vision of ultimate and final repair.
Why am I so joyful? I am celebrating a victory and can now stop work- finally-and relax. Why? Because I did my job and I know it. What was the job? To get the third Dispensation in print, and I did so in Androids-I need to nothing else in my life. The Tagore vision: the Godhead expanding into the ecosphere (animal kingdom)
Okay: there are other aspects. I didn't sell out to Hollywood: (1) do the novelization or (2) permit the novelization; (3) suppress the original book. And in view of what the film is about it would have destroyed me for two reasons, not one: (A) the Tagore vision in Androids; (B) the Heinlein power fantasies in Blade Runner. These are antithetical and they express the opposing kingdom's Christ (Androids) and Satan (Blade Runner). Look what it would have done to me spiritually and psychologically and politically. My soul is safe, and it was in jeopardy. This is why I see victory despite the vast defeat.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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I recently picked it up at a great finds' store of some sort, filled with stuff from way back. It's a good find, the book is very appealing. I haven't watched the movie version though. Would love to see it.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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DADOES is a pretty good book. A lot of people think it's amazingly awesome. It's not. But it's quite good. In my opinion, Blade Runner was different enough to just consider it a different story.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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I was a fan of the movie since the 80s but didn't read the book until a few years ago. Very different from the movie but so weird in its own way that I loved it. I went and picked up the Philip K. Dick Reader after that which was pretty good too, it has the short stories that were the source material for Total Recall and The Minority Report among others. I tend to be more of a hard science fiction type person, stuff like Asimov and Clarke, but I really got into his stories.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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:welcome:
It's usually interesting when someone reactivates a 5 year old thread. Come to think of it I read Minority Report, but don't think I ever got 'round to the Electric Sheep?
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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LanDroid wrote::welcome:
It's usually interesting when someone reactivates a 5 year old thread. Come to think of it I read Minority Report, but don't think I ever got 'round to the Electric Sheep?
My bad, I didn't even look at the date as it was on the front page. I didn't go digging for it or anything. I guess people only like to come out of the woodwork here to be snarky. By the way thanks for the sarcastic welcome, think I'll find myself a better reading forum.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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No sir! I was being genuine! You brought up a good discussion, one I participated in, please don't take it the wrong way.
Again - welcome - and keep posting.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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LanDroid wrote:No sir! I was being genuine! You brought up a good discussion, one I participated in, please don't take it the wrong way.
Again - welcome - and keep posting.
I'm sorry, my bad. So many boards are so anal (for some reason I can only guess at) about resurrecting old threads and I've had multiple experience where mods gave me serious crap about it. I used to think it would be preferable to starting my own thread about a topic that already exists. This time I saw it on the first page and didn't realize how old it was until you said something so I guess I was caught off guard and jaded by past board experiences. Thank you for the welcome and sorry for getting pissy.

As for Minority Report, I read the short story in the PKD Reader but not long ago I found a copy of a short story collection of the same name in a used bookstore, looked to be British and never even opened so I'm not sure how it got to a Half Priced Books in Texas but I picked it up and while there was some repetition in the stories there were some I hadn't read. I've been meaning to read more of his novels and have several on my Kindle but haven't gotten to them yet. I've also been meaning to read some of those Blade Runner sequels but as I've heard mixed reviews I thought I should probably read more classic PKD before I get off on sequels written by other authors.
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Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Whew! That was a close call, we are trying to add members, not drive anyone away.
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