Ryan's Lit Class Discussion
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David Z
Posts : 1
Join date : 2018-03-27

Androids have the same essence and existance as humans Empty Androids have the same essence and existance as humans

Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:05 am
"Existing is ahead of the essence".Slimply saying,   a person just born cannot be called a specific person. A concrete person is gradually formed later. So existence exists before nature. Human nature, such as empathy, is the remnant of theism. It does not exist but it is an essence. People use their own actions to create their own essence. Therefore, there are two important characteristics of human existence compared to other animals and objects. One is subjectivity and the other is independence.

According to the description in the story, Android and humans have not been significantly different in physiology. In addition to the analysis of the marrow, only the Voight-Kampff Test is currently known to identify Android.

In fact, the Voight-Kampff Test features a test of human empathy. In the setting of the story common sense, Android has no real empathy, and the response compared to humans is not exactly the same in the measurement.

However, Rachael, the first Android protagonist to test by the Voight-Kampff Test, almost passed the test. Is this because her program is very subtle? However, after learning that her actual memory is all false, her personality has changed significantly in the story. She no longer regards herself as a person, and therefore directly changes her attitude and performance to that with no empathy. Obviously, the empathy that Rachael had before the test was not strictly controlled by a particular program. So, the empathy that Rachael showed at the very beginning of passing the test deserves our deep thinking. Such empathy should be caused by "thinking that I am a human, and human should have empathy."

As a reader, we are in a different world from the characters in the story. We also have empathy, but we do not think that cooking a duck for dinner is an evil thing. This shows that we also have the possibility of being judged as Android. This is ridiculous. This may lead us to think about whether if there is real difference between Androids and us.

The other Androids in the story are also not inferior to human wisdom, like Polovkov, an Android who pretend to be a Soviet police trying to avoid being discovered. When they have personality, they are unwilling to be enslaved unconditionally. They try to protect themselves through their own wisdom and try to integrate into human society, kill the Bounty Hunter who threats them. It can be seen that they possess this subjectivity and independence. According to the logic of existentialism, they have the same spontaneous existence as humans.

The Androids act differently from general humans in testing, but using some absolutely criteria to measure such a vague concept (empathy) is very unreasonable. In the story, with the development of Android, Androids’ emotions are increasingly close to humans and difficult to identify. We can almost anticipate that with the continued development of Android technology, Android can have the same empathy as humans.

On the other hand, human beings were influenced by Mercerism's doctrine and formed a society with high empathy for animals. But as readers, we all know that we have no such "equal" empathy in fact. It can thus be seen that in the context of the story, empathy is one of the essence of mankind, but these essences are created by actions. It can thus be seen that the empathy of humans in this story is not human innate ability, but is shaped by the influence of the environment. It's hard to show that this is not the "Programming" on human beings, which led to the emergence of empathy, but also shows that through better programming, Androids are very likely to gain the same empathy as their essence as human being through actions.

In any case, after Androids successfully acquired their personality, continuing thinks that "Androids don't have empathy and just follow to program action.", and identifies Android by this is very ridiculous. People are just immersed in the convenience brought by enslavement on Androids. So they are reluctant to admit that Android can have the same emotions and essense as human beings, so as to meet their ethical needs.

Android is indeed man-made and unnatural, but the various spontaneity and independence features indicate that they are not objects merely. By Existentialism,they are humans which owns spontaneous existence before essence actually.
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Jake Zhang
Posts : 2
Join date : 2018-03-28

Androids have the same essence and existance as humans Empty By Jason Shen

Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:34 pm
Actually, I don’t quite agree with your point that androids are humans which owns spontaneous existence before essence by existentialism. The changes in androids’ character are only related to their initial programs. As soon as they are born, they know how to serve people, how to deal with problems. For those who escaped from the Mars, they managed to hide themselves for a long time. But as long as they meet problems relating to empathy, they have completely no idea what to do. For example, Rachael Rosen is used as a sales device for prospective emigrants. But after she noticed that herself an android instead of human being, she lost her aim of living. She even offered help to Rick to retire other androids so that herself would be saved. This is just related to her desire of living and is just a program. You may argue that with the continued development of technology, androids can have the same empathy as humans. But I have to say empathy is among the most complicated emotions which no program can fully express.
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