John Isidore's purpose by Richard.C

I deeply believe in Existentialiam. I consider existentialist point of view to be the progression of human perception of thier lives. Indeed, every human beings are not designated for something before they were born. Those who say we do instead, might be over exaggerating the importance of inherent factors in our lives. Yes, I do admit that a child born in a family in which father is a lawyer and mother is an educator tend to be more well-behaved and more probable of living a middle-class-or-above life rather than a child grows up in the most dangerous hood in Chicago. But the power of predestination is limited anyhow. For decades we’ve used social research to prove the fact that efforts are more important than talent. A child would still pursue art and music instead of medicine and law in the previous case if he or she continually being exposed in artistic environment. A gehetto boy would still do good if school teachers privide the right guidance. It is the experience we went through gradaully form who we are and what we are willing to pursue, inherent factors only count as minor part. Hence I see no reason why essence do exist. We are to determine our own fate and pursue.
John Isidore, for example, would be a perfect one to illutstrate. Under post WWT environment, John is a chickenhead that gets mentally and physically worse everyday. He seems to struggle with life but has no power to change it. Because his intellectual disability, he feel into the self-criticizing dilemma. Everyday he woke up, he perceives the world full of abhor, he thought that everybody would laugh at him if he get interacted with the society. He perceves himself as a unsuitable live that lingers on this inhabitable planet. He feels desperately useless and meaningless. But things changed drastically. With the show up of Pris Stratton, Isidore got super elated and his identity of being a social human has been re-evoked. Every smile and approval of his unprecedented neighbor would be like a huge existantial reason for him. Not to mention the appraisement of the convenience that he has brought. His cause for life seems to be satisfying every need of his neighbor now. Another newly emerged existential reason is related to his job. Afer successfully solving an phone call crisis and being appraised by his boss and colleague, he find himself a higher worth. Thus another existential reason is beinga added—that is to paly up to his boss and do his job better. We could conclude that for John Isidore, every approval and praise means tremendous to him because of his self-absed nature. Wouldn't people believe in essence claim that such a chicken head as Isidore could be no use ? They are wrong in some extent. Getting all these positive feedback is his existential reason.
If one has read through the whole novel, one would find that the androids' essence are clearly seen , that is to eliminate humans that pose threat to them and in that way, they could live freely. But so far, it seems that Nexus-6 do not “exist” by defintion because they have not demonstrate an identifiable existential reason as some human characters do such as Rick and Buster Friendly . They are merely being depicted as a highly human-like robotic creature with the programed job of serving human, but they do not possess a deeply structured essence mentality.

Speaking of John Isidore and his setting, I agree with Richard's idea. Apparently, John Isidore is designed as a character who's "lost" both mentally and physically after the world catastrophe, and his position in this whole book is a character who has been evoked by Rachael. Rachael didn't intend to evoke John's hope of his life, instead, she almost did every effort to avoid any contact with John. Ironically, it's actually her indifferent reply which only serves for politeness made John found his only value and self-esteem. Since he was a chickenhead, he's almost treated differently. Whereas, Rachael, or maybe it's more appropriate to call her Pris, treated him like everyone else since she's indifferent about anything. This concept works the same on some disabled people who suffered from the tremendous accident which they hadn't expect. Probably, after they suffered from an accident, they would suddenly lose their hope and motivation. Then, if people just treat them normally instead of regarding them as disabled, them might find self-esteem again since they would think that they're still equal to everyone else. Too much sympathy or avoid for less capable people maybe the actual reason they keep them from recover.
Whereas the question about whether Androids really have the essence is still debatable and maybe it'll get clearer after more chapters.

Hi Richard!
I totally agree with your comments on the essence of John Isidore's life, since a lot of us in reality was also motivated by the acknowledgement of other people around us. I haven't read the whole novel yet, but judging by what I've read so far, I do think that some androids might have an essence----the desire for survival or even the desire to determine their own essence. To some extent, humans are playing God in this novel since we're the android's creator, and we give them the essence as a powerful tool of human beings. Yet some of them escaped Mars in order not to be retired. Such desire marked these andriods' essence----to survive. Perhaps at this moment, survival is the reason or purpose of their existence, and perhaps more of their essence would be revealed later on.