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is here that Philip Dick clouds what it is to act human according to the proponents of the Turning Test. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip has Deckard test for androids by using an empathy box which "measures capillary dilation in the facial area ... a primary autonomic response, the so-called "shame" or "blushing" reaction to a morally shocking stimulus" (page 40). The human presumably reacts without conscious or intellectual reflection. The android has to consider if it should be embarrassed or not and, in the time that it takes to decide, the machine detects the indecision. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick has characters that are "chickenheads" who possess low I.Q's. These citizens are often able to be more empathetically human than the androids or the other 'real' humans. The operational word here is empathy. This is one aspect of humanity that Philip K. Dick was working towards in his stories "Human is", We Can Build You, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The ability to be empathetic is one important element that separates the humans from the non-humans. |
Philip Dick's account of what it is to be human is very close to Kant's vision of the autonomy of the will as found in Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1969). Kant writes, "The will is concerned as a power of determining ourself to action in accordance with the idea of certain laws. And as such a power can be found only in rational beings ... Now I say that man, and in general any rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means" (page 95). The problem is that computers are, on the whole, more rational than humans. They are rigid logic machines which have as their foundations the performing of algorithms, logic, and mathematical computations. As such, they can be said to be more rational than most, if not all, human beings. However, earlier in The Groundwork... Kant states, "It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world ... which can be taken as good without qualification, except a goodwill. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and any other talents of the mind we may care to name ... can be extremely bad and harmful when the will is not good" (page |
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