It is interesting to see the steps we have taken to eliminate the segregation between humans and other humans, but there is still a segregation between things that are different from us. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep there is suppose to be this separation between humans, androids and to some extent animals. Because animals no longer "exist" on the planet there kind of is this separation between them and the humans/androids because they do not have any raw feels toward these creatures. But it is interesting that the humans that do know there are androids out there there is a line that they can not cross between man and android. That because they are not human they do not have the same feelings or emotions that humans do. Case in point, there is a point where Rick has decided that he is going to kill Rachel and she freaks out and starts looking for her gun and can't find it and even goes as far to say, "'Goddamn this purse,' she said with ferocity. 'I never can lay my hands on anything in it. Will you kill me in a way that won't hurt'" (Dick, 200)? I find this scene so remarkable. Throughout the book Dick shows through the character Rick that there is a clear difference between humans and androids, but in this very scene it makes me think of how my girlfriend carries around her purse. She pulls out her purse goes through it for 5 maybe 10 minutes searching for something and then makes an ugh sound and than finally finds it. The android, Rachel, felt and did the same thing even though she doesn't have real feelings, I suppose.
There is a point in the story where Rick has slept with Rachel that he has had feelings for her and he starts feeling weird himself. Questioning whether he is an android or if there was something wrong with him. And I have myself wondering... how is this any different than a kid making friends with an imaginary "being". In all reality to that kid, that "being" is really there and has feelings and emotions and that kid loves this imaginary figure with all its heart. But you could say, "oh well it's a kid he doesn't know anything", but the kid is human, has human feelings so we can't really write off the kid. Case in point, I feel that feelings come from the fact that we have the ability to care for anything if we put our mind to it. And anything can have feelings for anything. Same reasons a dog can take care of a cat even though they are of two separate species. It is possible. Now in the book, Rachel is talking to Rick about how they could live in sin together and be in love though shes not really alive. And Rick says, "Legally you're not. But really you are. Biologically. You're not made out of transistorized circuits like a false animal; you're an organic entity" (Dick, 196). That is exactly the point. She is an organic entity just like Rick is an organic entity. So maybe she is just as human as Rick is because they both have certain feelings even though one was only programed to have them. Though, one could say that we only have feelings based upon our culture, beliefs, ideas, and plain out emotions. Whether we were programmed or "born" with it aren't we kind of similar to being androids in this world we have created for ourselves?
I believe that the Androids could have had feelings for anything if they wanted to. Though I feel as if they didn't have any feelings because they couldn't find any relationship to them. They had a relationship to humans because they were designed to fit in with them and adapt to them and to make sure that there was no way anyone could figure out that there was a difference between them and anyone else. When the androids find out the J. R. Isidore has a spider they are intrigued by it because they had never seen anything like it. They start asking question, like humans do, and start wanting to dissect it and see if it can do the things it usually does, like humans do. "'Eight?' Irmgard Baty said. 'Why couldn't it get by on four? Cut four off and see'" (Dick 206). It's interesting. You could say that the androids have absolutely no remorse or feelings for anything that they are willing to cut this spider apart just to see if it could walk around on 4 legs. As humans we do the same things. We test products on animals to make sure it is not harmful to us.
Jeremy Bentham suggested, "that cruelty to animals was analogous to slavery and claimed that the capacity to feel pain, not the power of reason, entitled a being to moral consideration" (Greg Garrad, 277). The androids didn't feel this way when torturing the spider and neither did Rachel when she pushed Ricks goat off the roof because she was angry with him. Though when Rick told Rachel that he was going to kill her and she tried to find her gun to protect herself and than couldn't and than Rick decided not to do it because she said can you make it not hurt as much as possible. She said she wouldn't fight if he made it not hurt (Dick, 200). I want to believe that Rick decided not to kill her because he let her have a moral consideration even though under law she wasn't really a being. I think Rick let his motions take over and decided to make her real enough not to kill her.
Could we have an emotion towards anything? Could something that we assume doesn't have any emotions have emotions? I believe so. And so did some people. Hippies mostly. I guess drugs were because of that. Maybe we should all be taking drugs. I don't know. Couldn't hurt.
-J
