Philip K. Dick : The Author
machines.
One example of this is the character of Phil
Resch, who did not transfer to the film. Resch
is capable of having sex with his female android
quarry before he kills them, showing no
emotional empathy or feelings of subsequent
remorse for them. The character Resch also has
an identity complex; he becomes confused about
whether he is an android or human, after Deckard
convinces him that he has been working in a
police department - the Mission Street Hall of
Justice - where the majority of the police
squads are androids.

In the article "The Android and the Human",
Philip K. Dick suggests that we can look to
ourselves to learn more about how machines and
computers operate. This contrasts with the
Functionalist2 thesis of the analogy between
hardware and software in the human, but Philip
Dick still trades on this distinction. In this
essay, Philip Dick makes two very important
claims that are central to his writings. The
first claim is focused on androids: "to assign
motive or purpose to them would be to enter the

realm of paranoia" (p. 186). He also states
that "paranoia is an atavistic sense. It's a
lingering sense, that we had long ago, when we
were - our ancestors were - very vulnerable to
predators, and this sense tells them they're
being watched. And they're being watched by
something that's going to get them" (p. 1).
This paranoia permeates almost all of his
stories. Philip K. Dick is famous for the sense
of paranoia that his novels and stories convey.
In Maze of Death (1994), when Seth and the
others find the building, Seth felt fear,
"Enormous instinctive fear" (p. 106).

Philip K. Dick goes on to extrapolate on a
second important claim that is central to his
idea of what it is to be a human. He tells us
of his distrust of the government, society, or
anyone whose desire it is to make obedient
persons. Philip Dick says that biological
humans can become equivalent to androids or
autonoma by "allowing oneself to become a means,
or to be pounded down, manipulated, made into a
means without one's knowledge or consent" (p.
191). He goes on to say, "Androidization

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