I liked it. Short, sweet, and nothing like what happened in the movies. It was also kind of disorientating from time to time. Maybe surreal is a better word for it. A very fitting story to read after reading Nausea. Going from “accepting existence and being there” to “what does it mean to exist and how would we differ from something that could perfectly emulate being alive?”

Really enjoyed how the MC, Rick Deckard, wasn’t sure anymore how to feel about the androids after a while. How coming in contact with something so life-like and seemingly human was so far detached from him.

However, I didn’t like how he thought about his wife in some parts of the story. He was suddenly very cold and inhumane just like the androids and even wondered why he hadn’t replaced his wife with an android yet because those wouldn’t be so emotional as his was wife being at that moment.

Shortly after that, he did flip and become more humane again so I guess he had to go through that android-like phase so that in the end he could better understand what it means to be human.

There was even a moment in the book where I started to doubt if he was actually an android. The mood organ that could influence the mood of the person seemed very weird and synthetic. A way for androids to experience emotions. Then later in the book when he was taken into a police station that he has never heard of and where they have also never heard of him or his department. Almost like his memories were planted and he was the android. He even owned an electric sheep so it really was lining up for me. But then not so much later, it was revealed that that entire police station he was taken to was a front for harboring androids. Quite odd even how the caption of that station felt sympathetic towards the bounty hunter in that station when he cracked and told Deckard the truth.

That bounty hunter from the fake police station, Phil Resch, still makes me wonder. Was he an android? or just a guy who was a emotional disorder so that he could come over like an android like they explained in the book. His part really messes me up to be honest. He starts out believing he is just a human bounty hunter working for a normal police station followed by his captain apparently being an android. Then supposedly hearing that he might actually be an android according to his now “decommissioned” captain. Followed by, an android, Luba Luft, recognizing him as a fellow android. In the end Deckard does test him but I am not sure what happened after that. I wasn’t sure if he was an actual robot in the end and it seems to left like that. Was he an android? Who knows I personally don’t think he was.

I cannot even fathom what kind of emotional turmoil that brings to a person. “Oh yea by the way your memories might be fake and you are not actually alive and if that’s the case you are actually just an object who is just imitating the distress a human would feel from learning this kind of news.” Which in itself is a really weird line to say because if it really is just imitating and not feeling the emotion it really is just like trying to talk your toaster out of toasting your bread when you turned on the toaster and put in the bread.

Weird how really good imitations of humans are just objects following a scripted path. It really dehumanizes the already non-human human imitation. But I this book really shows us the question of what does it mean to be a human, feel emotions, and be “alive”. If androids are just husks made to imitate a person and not sentient then they would in some way be on the same level as super realistic photos and drawings. No thoughts or feelings just a representation of a human. But if they are “alive” then would that mean that other representations of humans, like drawings and photos, are alive too?

This made me wonder something about the saying “humans are made in the likeness of god.

Are we to god what androids would be to us?