According To Kaczynski's What Makes Us Fundamentally Human?
All three authors not only focus on what makes us fundamentally human, but like Kaczynski, they look at what the greatest danger to humanity is. According to Dick, Eggers, and Kaczynski, the greatest danger to humanity is losing what makes us fundamentally human (via technology). Dick believes that there are a few things which make us fundamentally human, a first of which is empathy. The way in which androids (“andys”) are distinguished from humans is by having them take a “Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test.” This test “measures capillary dilation in the facial area” (known as blushing,) as well as it “records fluctuations of tension within the eye muscles,” both of which are natural human reactions in response to a morally shocking stimulus - physical determinations of the human emotion of empathy. Why was empathy chosen to determine whether or not something was human? Because it seems that empathy “existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found throughout every phylum and order including the arachnids” and including androids and other mechanical beings. Because humans are the only living creature known to have empathy, it is chosen as one of the distinguishing factors between humans and androids in Dick’s novel and therefore is something which makes us fundamentally human - according to Dick.
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A second and very similar belief of Dick is that to be fundamentally human, you must have the desire to take care of other life forms.
Androids do not have the ability “to keep the animal[, for which they are trying to care,] alive. Animals require an environment of warmth to flourish. This “environment of warmth” includes empathy, which only humans are able to give other animals. Yes, other animals are able to care for other animals, but humans are the only species able to care for other animals through empathetic means, which is part of what makes us fundamentally human (according to
Dick).
However, other than empathy, Dick uses one more determining factor to distinguish between humans and androids: bone marrow - because “it can eventually be organically determined whether you’re android or not” through the testing of bone marrow. According to Dick here, something else that is part of being fundamentally human is the biological component of us. If we change or alter our bodies too much through the use of technology, we lose a part of our connection to the animal world (humans being animals too). Through losing this, we are losing part of what makes us fundamentally human, which here means losing part of our humanity. This is the first aspect of what Dick believes to be the greatest danger to the survival of humanity. The second, and larger, part of what Dick believes to be the greatest danger to the survival of humanity is losing what else makes us fundamentally human: our empathy. Throughout the novel, androids are reflective of humans without empathy, mainly because the only way to tell them apart is to use the empathy test. The reason that losing our empathy is so terrible is that we would lose the appreciation of other humans and living creatures. At one point in the novel, one of the main characters (Deckard) is comparing mechanical animals to androids and makes the statement: “like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another” (Dick 20). By losing appreciation of others, we are losing our humanity and becoming only cold, hard, and calculating machines, doing things purely out of curiosity and logic without acknowledging the ethical concerns that follow - like in the case of the androids and the spider. The spider has its legs cut off by the androids, who are curious whether or not it can survive without four of its legs (Dick 95). This curious desire of the androids, without any empathy for the creature, allowed the androids to do something very unethical. By doing unethical actions out of pure curiosity and not caring about others, we are losing part of what makes us fundamentally human. Dave Eggers also uses curiosity and creation as a main theme in his novel The Circle. He uses it in a slightly different - yet still very similar - way to Dick (in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), by making the statement that what makes us fundamentally human is our curiosity and our need or desire to know everything. This can be seen through the laser cut stones surrounding the Circle’s campus spelling out words such as “dream,” innovate,” and “imagine,” all of which are fundamental components of curiosity and creation (Eggers 2). These laser cut stones are to encourage people to continue creating (using curiosity), which is something that Eggers believes to make us fundamentally human (- after all, nothing else that we know of can create/innovate to the same extent which we can and have).
A second and very similar belief of Dick is that to be fundamentally human, you must have the desire to take care of other life forms.
Androids do not have the ability “to keep the animal[, for which they are trying to care,] alive. Animals require an environment of warmth to flourish. This “environment of warmth” includes empathy, which only humans are able to give other animals. Yes, other animals are able to care for other animals, but humans are the only species able to care for other animals through empathetic means, which is part of what makes us fundamentally human (according to
Dick).
However, other than empathy, Dick uses one more determining factor to distinguish between humans and androids: bone marrow - because “it can eventually be organically determined whether you’re android or not” through the testing of bone marrow. According to Dick here, something else that is part of being fundamentally human is the biological component of us. If we change or alter our bodies too much through the use of technology, we lose a part of our connection to the animal world (humans being animals too). Through losing this, we are losing part of what makes us fundamentally human, which here means losing part of our humanity. This is the first aspect of what Dick believes to be the greatest danger to the survival of humanity. The second, and larger, part of what Dick believes to be the greatest danger to the survival of humanity is losing what else makes us fundamentally human: our empathy. Throughout the novel, androids are reflective of humans without empathy, mainly because the only way to tell them apart is to use the empathy test. The reason that losing our empathy is so terrible is that we would lose the appreciation of other humans and living creatures. At one point in the novel, one of the main characters (Deckard) is comparing mechanical animals to androids and makes the statement: “like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another” (Dick 20). By losing appreciation of others, we are losing our humanity and becoming only cold, hard, and calculating machines, doing things purely out of curiosity and logic without acknowledging the ethical concerns that follow - like in the case of the androids and the spider. The spider has its legs cut off by the androids, who are curious whether or not it can survive without four of its legs (Dick 95). This curious desire of the androids, without any empathy for the creature, allowed the androids to do something very unethical. By doing unethical actions out of pure curiosity and not caring about others, we are losing part of what makes us fundamentally human. Dave Eggers also uses curiosity and creation as a main theme in his novel The Circle. He uses it in a slightly different - yet still very similar - way to Dick (in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), by making the statement that what makes us fundamentally human is our curiosity and our need or desire to know everything. This can be seen through the laser cut stones surrounding the Circle’s campus spelling out words such as “dream,” innovate,” and “imagine,” all of which are fundamental components of curiosity and creation (Eggers 2). These laser cut stones are to encourage people to continue creating (using curiosity), which is something that Eggers believes to make us fundamentally human (- after all, nothing else that we know of can create/innovate to the same extent which we can and have).