Thoughts about Existentialism

Existentialism believes that existence exists before essence. In the novel, androids have bodies similar to humans but their memories are set by the companies who produce them. Therefore existence doesn't mean born with meaning of life. The androids don't have their own identity, or understanding of life and existence. Existentialism believes that human create their own meaning of life during the process of existence. But androids are not the same as humans as their essence isn't created by themselves. This is an important difference between androids and humans besides lacing empathy.
Actually at this point is the difference between intelligence and consciousness. The androids are somewhat smarter than humans as described in the novel. They know how to pretend themselves as humans, like Polokov does. And they could even almost past the empathy test, like Rachael Rosen. But their consciousness of themselves or life is all formed after their plantation of long-term memories. However, as androids' intelligence grows to a certain degree, they would begin to find their own life essence. The separation between intelligence and consciousness is diminished once the intelligence reaches a certain level. The androids start to reject the meaning of life what was designed for them, this may be an important step of them to become a real human. They begin to develop subjective consciousness according to their own feeling and knowledge. This is corresponding to the existentialism because their essence is created after their existence.

It is interesting that Jerry determines how much an android is close to a human in the standard of intelligence and consciousness. It is because of the implanted memory an android can really have the human-like intelligence and consciousness. But the subjective consciousness is not necessarily equal to the essence. Maybe a more precise clarification can be made. - Miles