tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/philip-k-dick-29649/articlesPhilip K Dick – The Conversation2019-12-11T11:44:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1285762019-12-11T11:44:08Z2019-12-11T11:44:08ZIt could be time to start thinking about a cybernetic Bill of Rights<p>Like it or loathe it, the robot revolution is now well underway and the futures described by writers such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-75-years-isaac-asimovs-three-laws-of-robotics-need-updating-74501">Isaac Asimov</a>, <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/lessons-from-science-fiction(1e390544-0d12-4282-9996-5ef8131d0217).html">Frederik Pohl</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/philip-k-dick-you-may-not-have-read-his-books-but-youve-almost-certainly-seen-the-movies-85128">Philip K. Dick</a> are fast turning <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-we-build-a-blade-runner-style-replicant-84743">from science fiction into science fact</a>. But should robots have rights? And will humanity ever reach a point where human and machine are treated the same?</p>
<p>At the heart of the debate is that most fundamental question: what does it mean to be human? Intuitively, we all think we know what this means – it almost goes without saying. And yet, as a society, we regularly dehumanise others, and cast them as animal or less than human – what philosopher <a href="https://egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben">Giorgio Agamben</a> describes as “bare life”.</p>
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<p>Take the homeless for example. People who the authorities treat much like animals, or less than animals (like pests) who need to be guarded against with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homeless-spikes-manchester-homelessness-rough-sleeping-a7551136.html">anti-homeless spikes</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47468203">benches designed to prevent sleep</a>. A similar process takes places within a military setting, where enemies are cast as less than human <a href="https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-war-social-science-perspectives/i5961.xml">to make them easier to fight and easier to kill</a>.</p>
<p>Humans also do this to other “outsiders” such as immigrants and refugees.
While many people may find this process disturbing, these artificial distinctions between insider and outsider reveal a key element in the operation of power. This is because our very identities are fundamentally built on assumptions about who we are and what it means to be included in the category of “human”. Without these wholly arbitrary distinctions, we risk exposing the fact that we’re all a lot more like animals than we like to admit. </p>
<h2>Being human</h2>
<p>Of course, things get a whole lot more complicated when you add robots into the mix. Part of the problem is that we find it hard to decide what we mean by “thought” and “consciousness” and even what we mean by “life” itself. As it stands, the human race doesn’t have a strict scientific definition on when life begins and ends. </p>
<p>Similarly, we don’t have a clear definition on what we mean by intelligent thought and how and why people think and behave in different ways. If intelligent thought is such an important part of being human (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/human-intelligence-psychology">as some would believe</a>), then what about other intelligent creatures such as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/ravens-problem-solving-smart-birds/">ravens</a> and dolphins? What about biological humans with below average intelligence? </p>
<p>These questions cut to the heart of the rights debate and reveal just how precarious our understanding of the human really is. Up until now, these debates have solely been the preserve of science fiction, with the likes of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36576608-flowers-for-algernon">Flowers for Algernon</a> and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? exposing just how easy it is to <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/microfascism-and-the-double-exclusion-in-daniel-keyes-flowers-for-algernon(438a2d42-22da-4cf5-9e83-3c732e9ee8b6).html">blur the line between the human and non-human other</a>. But with the rise of robot intelligence these questions become more pertinent than ever, as now we must also consider the thinking machine.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/blade-runner-2049-how-philip-k-dicks-classic-novel-has-stood-the-test-of-time-74940">Blade Runner 2049: how Philip K Dick's classic novel has stood the test of time</a>
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<h2>Machines and the rule of law</h2>
<p>But even assuming that robots were one day to be considered “alive” and sufficiently intelligent to be thought of in the same way as human beings, then the next question is how might we incorporate them into society and how we might hold them to account when things go wrong?</p>
<p>Traditionally, we tend to think about rights alongside responsibilities. This comes as part of something known as social contract theory, which is often associated with political philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes">Thomas Hobbes</a>. In a modern context, rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand with a system of justice that allows us to uphold these rights and enforce the rule of law. But these principles simply cannot be applied to a machine. This is because our human system of justice is based on a concept of what it means to be human and what it means to be alive.</p>
<p>So, if you break the law, you potentially forfeit some part of your life through incarceration or (in some nations) even death. However, machines cannot know mortal existence in the same way humans do. They don’t even experience time in the same way as humans. As such, it doesn’t matter how long a prison sentence is, as a machine could simply switch itself off and remain essentially unchanged. </p>
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<p>For now at least, there’s certainly no sign of robots gaining the same rights as human beings and we’re certainly a long way off from machines thinking in a way that might be described as “conscious thought”. Given that we still haven’t quite come to terms with the rights of intelligent creatures such as ravens, dolphins and chimpanzees, the prospect of robot rights would seem a very long way off.</p>
<p>The question then really, is not so much whether robots should have rights, but whether we should distinguish human rights from other forms of life such as animal and machine. It may be that we start to think about a cybernetic Bill of Rights that embraces all thinking beings and recognises the blurred boundaries between human, animal and machine. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, we certainly need to move away from the distinctly problematic notion that we humans are in some way superior to every other form of life on this planet. Such insular thinking has already contributed to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/climate-change-27">global climate crisis</a> and continues to create tension between different social, religious and ethnic groups. Until we come to terms with what it means to be human, and our place in this world, then the problems will persist. And all the while, the machines will continue to gain intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Ryder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the heart of the debate is that most fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?Mike Ryder, Associate Lecturer in Literature & Philosophy / Marketing, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920852018-04-10T09:03:09Z2018-04-10T09:03:09ZHow Philip K. Dick redefined what it means to be (in)human<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213819/original/file-20180409-114105-c6it7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I think, therefore I am human?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-rendering-android-robot-thinking-office-644724364?src=lf_CL1HcHY4gTz4WjEbANA-1-4">Phonlamai Photo/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, Philip K. Dick’s novel <em>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</em> questioned what it means to be human in ways that have an immense lasting influence. </p>
<p>The action of the novel – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-and-fiction-behind-blade-runner-46459">the Blade Runner films</a> based on it – largely revolves around the central tension and struggle between biological humans and artificially constructed androids. Arguably, however, the story’s greatest continuing relevance is in the way it challenges a particular image of the human that has come to dominate in modern Western culture. This image portrays certain qualities – whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, rationalism, professional success and physical prowess – as the ideal symbols of humanity’s success.</p>
<p>The novel revolves around the efforts of bounty hunter Rick Deckard, in his quest to identify, track, and destroy androids posing as biological humans. Unsurprisingly, he repeatedly meets violent resistance. Both his livelihood and his life depend on his ability to tell the difference between humans and androids. Ultimately, however, Deckard is forced to face the possibility that there may not be any fundamental difference. This causes him to undergo a deep existential crisis, finding both his sense of identity, and his literal survival, severely threatened. </p>
<p>Deckard’s primary means of distinguishing between humans and androids is <a href="http://nautil.us/blog/the-science-behind-blade-runners-voight_kampff-test">the Voight-Kampff test</a>. Combining psychological analysis with a measurement of physiological reactions, the test seeks to determine whether a subject is capable of empathy. If the subject adequately demonstrates concern for the lives of others, they are deemed human, and allowed to live. If not, they are deemed non-human, and must be destroyed. Deckard’s transformation begins when he realises that some newer androids are capable of passing the test, and so passing for human.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/philip-k-dicks-androids-looked-like-humans-but-real-world-robots-may-soon-feel-empathy-too-92084">Philip K Dick's androids looked like humans – but real world robots may soon feel empathy, too</a>
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<p>A likely response to this dilemma would be to regard the test as fundamentally flawed. A better test would be needed, one based on identifying another trait as the essential feature to distinguish androids from humans. However, Deckard, and the reader with him, is ultimately led to a far more radical conclusion – that the test is accurate after all. That is, the capacity for empathy is the only value that should ever be used to determine the worth of another being. </p>
<h2>Being human</h2>
<p>This revelation is a kind of update on Descartes’ influential “cogito ergo sum”. In place of “I think, therefore I am,” Dick implicitly suggests, “she loves, therefore she is (human/worthy)”. (It is no coincidence that Rick Deckard’s name somewhat echoes that of René Descartes.) </p>
<p>This “posthuman” gesture abandons any scientific, ontological or material basis for distinguishing between humans and non-humans. Yet it continues to capitalise on the widespread human sense that there is something special and valuable about humans. Such a sense is often referred to as a defining feature of “humanism”. What the novel offers us, then, is a kind of posthuman humanism.</p>
<p>On this basis, there is no being – whether mammal, robot, computer, bird, slug, stone, or star – that is excluded from the category of humanity on the basis of its physical nature. Conversely, each and any being may qualify as human by demonstrating empathy for other beings. Meanwhile, the term “human” has by this point come to mean nothing more than “worthy of existence”.</p>
<p>This is far from a mere philosophical or science-fictional game. To see its radical social and political significance in our world, we need only consider the range of ways people have been dehumanised over the millennia of (so-called) humanity’s existence. Slavery, colonialism, alienation, patriarchy, racial inequality, and virtually any form of systemic social injustice you can think of, involve presenting some beings as “less than human” in order to justify their exploitation.</p>
<p>For this reason, it is crucial that Deckard’s entire outlook and sense of self – rather than simply his understanding of the distinction between humans and machines – is thoroughly challenged. His (hetero)sexuality, his commitment to the values of marriage, family, legal and police justice, the importance of professional, financial and social success, all intact at the novel’s outset, have been radically undermined by its end. Seemingly a broken man, he is, nevertheless, left with an enduring sense of the primary importance of an unrestricted, non-prejudiced care or love for other beings.</p>
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<p>Admittedly, Dick could have pushed this dimension further, as <a href="https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010830.octaviabutleressay.html">Octavia Butler</a>, <a href="http://journal.finfar.org/articles/opposing-forces-and-ethical-judgments-in-samuel-delanys-stars-in-my-pocket-like-grains-of-sand/">Samuel Delany</a> and a host of more recent science fiction authors have done. But at least it is an integral part of the narrative. The recent film, Blade Runner 2049, in contrast, downplays this dimension, while retaining the central concern with the relationship between biological humans and artificial androids. </p>
<p>This may be one possible reason why the latest film has attracted <a href="https://theconversation.com/blade-runner-2049-no-hope-in-this-dystopia-85582">great praise as well as intense critique</a>. While Blade Runner 2049 continues to blur the boundary between human and machine, it seems to uphold the notion that, in the end, the goal of either would equate more-or-less to the supposed values of the average white, Western, heterosexual, bourgeois male. This, ultimately, risks undermining the radical political potential of the posthumanist experiment that drives the original story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on a talk originally given at a Cardiff BookTalk event in December 2017 (<a href="https://cardiffbooktalk.org/">https://cardiffbooktalk.org/</a>). </span></em></p>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is not just a story about realistic robots.James Burton, Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Cultural History, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850502017-10-06T12:11:53Z2017-10-06T12:11:53ZHow Blade Runner 2049 prepares us to welcome robots for real<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189024/original/file-20171005-9753-qpjod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sony Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea of dangerous, inhumane artificial intelligence taking over the world is familiar to many of us, thanks to cautionary tales such as the Matrix and Terminator franchises.</p>
<p>But what about the more sympathetic portrayals of robots? The benevolence of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character in the later movies of the franchise may have been the exception in older portrayals of AI, but human-like machines are often represented more positively in contemporary films. Think of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/ex-machina">Ex Machina</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/chappie-suggests-its-time-to-think-about-the-rights-of-robots-37955">Chappie</a> or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/">A.I. Artificial Intelligence</a>. </p>
<p>This shift is very likely representative of a wider shift in how we think about these technologies in reality. Blade Runner 2049, long-anticipated sequel to the original 1982 Blade Runner film, is a part of this shift.</p>
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<p>The ability of science fiction to inspire technological innovation is well-known. A lot of science fiction writers are scientists and technologists (Arthur C Clarke and Geoffrey Landis are two examples), and ideas from science fiction have sparked <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/aug/13/science-fiction-reality-predicts-future-technology">more serious scientific research</a> (touch screens and tablet computers are common examples). But science fiction serves other purposes too. It can be a tool for exploring the social and ethical implications of technologies being developed now – a fictional laboratory for testing possible futures. It can also prepare us to deal with certain technologies as they arise in the real world. </p>
<p>Jacques Ellul, a philosopher and critic of technology, was <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/07/07/jacques-ellul-conference/1BVZp8uEiGKoeXAmkDJpeO/story.html">pessimistic</a> in his assessment of science fiction. In 1980, he <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_technological_system.html?id=EDgSAQAAMAAJ">argued</a> that sci-fi shows us the extreme and unacceptable uses that technology might be put to, in order to make us more complacent about the current state of technology. The negative aspects of technology that we live with today are certainly more subtle than those depicted in Orwell’s 1984, though perhaps no less nefarious. Of course, these remarks are most applicable to dystopian fiction. Some technologists have recognised the important role that science fiction plays in shaping public attitudes towards technology and are therefore imploring writers to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/08/stop-writing-dystopian-sci-fiits-making-us-all-fear-technology/">stop producing dystopic fiction</a> – of which there has been a glut in recent years, particularly of the teen variety.</p>
<h2>Blade Runner</h2>
<p>Blade Runner is based on Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/07/review-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-phillip-k-dick">Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</a> It features a depleted Earth in 2019, abandoned by most for a better life in off-world colonies. Synthetic humans (androids) known as “replicants” have been engineered as slave labour in the colonies. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), is a “blade runner” - it is his job to hunt down rogue replicants and “retire” (kill) them. As Deckard gets to know Rachel, a replicant deceived by false implanted memories into believing that she is human, we begin to think of these replicants as not all that different from us.</p>
<p>Part of the lasting intrigue of the original Blade Runner film (for those who’ve seen the <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/which-cut-of-blade-runner-should-i-be-watching.html">director’s or final cut</a> at least), is arguing over whether Deckard is, in fact, a replicant himself. The book and the film represent opposite conclusions when it comes to Deckard’s humanity, and speculation is further fuelled by the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-comic-con-2017-blade-runner-denis-villeneuve-1501062549-htmlstory.html">conflicting testimonies</a> of Harrison Ford and director Ridley Scott.</p>
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<p>But does it really matter to us whether Deckard is a replicant? We’ve already sympathised with Rachel – and felt relief as she and Deckard drive off together toward their very human “happily ever after” in the original version. We are on their side, even against the unquestionably human blade runners that would “retire” them. The “synths” of Channel 4 drama <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/humans">Humans</a> inspire a similar response.</p>
<p>Blade Runner 2049 picks up 30 years later. New restrictions on the design and control of replicants have been put in place to ensure their obedience and to make them easier to tell apart from humans. “K” (Ryan Gosling) is a blade runner and replicant charged with investigating suspicions associated with Deckard and Rachel of the earlier film. He uncovers information of real importance for the future of replicants in their dystopic society – and we empathise as he struggles with his more “human” instincts against the compulsion to obedience.</p>
<p>The more that fiction portrays robots as just like us, experiencing “human” emotions that arouse our sympathy, the more likely we are to accept the existence of such beings in real life. Granted, the Deckard and K we see on screen are not really near-human machines, but very real human actors. Our sympathetic response to the character may have more to do with the real humanity of the actor. Even so, the positive response we have to his human portrayal may just carry over to an artificial counterpart, provided it could appear equally human. Whether such machines could actually approximate human characteristics so closely is another question.</p>
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<span class="caption">K on the hunt.</span>
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<h2>The uncanny valley</h2>
<p>It’s a question that may have enormous bearings on how we would ultimately respond to the existence of human-like machines. Robotics researchers talk about a phenomenon they call the “<a href="http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/future/uncanny-valley-creepy-robots-will-haunt-your-dreams">uncanny valley</a>”, which describes how as robots become more human in appearance, our empathetic responses to them increase. But this only happens up to a point. Once a robot appears almost (but not quite) human, our response quickly shifts to one of revulsion. Only when a robot is indistinguishable from a human being, do we return to a more positive response.</p>
<p>This “uncanny valley” that exists between machines that appear “almost-human” (and provoke revulsion) and those that appear “fully human” (and therefore do not arouse a negative response) may have evolutionary significance. We are conditioned to associate beings that look almost like us but seem “defective” in some way with the threat of infectious disease, or inheritable genetic disorders. Or it may just be the psychological discomfort of seeing something that appears human move like a robot – humans are good at sorting things in our surroundings into categories, and we can experience a sense of “eeriness” when these categories conflict.</p>
<p>This idea of the uncanny valley only really comes into play when we consider the possibility of the benevolent humanoid robots we are seeing more often in fiction today. We don’t have to deal with emotional dissonance when it comes to malevolent machines – we recoil at their uncanny almost likeness, but we also hate them for trying to control or destroy us. But benevolent “almost-human” robots evoke conflicting affections in us: we have feelings of friendship and camaraderie toward them, yet at the same time we revile them, feeling that they shouldn’t be so like us.</p>
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<span class="caption">Not so uncanny.</span>
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<p>Blade Runner 2049 suggests we might overcome the emotional dissonance of the uncanny valley. The “eeriness” is definitely present: gaping wounds do not normally seal themselves at a light touch – and no one should be that difficult to kill. But K’s obviously non-human qualities do not prevent us from accepting his equally evident humanity, or sympathising with the broader plight of replicants. This is true even in the relentlessly bleak world of Blade Runner.</p>
<p>So if roboticists ever achieve a sufficient approximation of human likeness in their products, they may find a welcoming public. If robots appear and act human enough, and are benevolent, we can accept some of their less human traits. After all, we’ve been cheering on these machines in fiction for years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85050/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Burdett receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation, The Templeton Religion Trust and the Issachar Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Lorrimar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Science fiction prepares us to deal with certain technologies as they arise in the real world.Victoria Lorrimar, PhD candidate in Theology and Science, University of OxfordMichael Burdett, Research Fellow in Religion, Science and Technology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851282017-10-05T14:16:34Z2017-10-05T14:16:34ZPhilip K Dick: you may not have read his books, but you’ve almost certainly seen the movies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188968/original/file-20171005-9802-11c0v5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">philip k dick</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Without conducting extensive research, one can state with some certainty that many more people have encountered Philip K Dick through cinema or television than have read his published novels or short stories. Blade Runner, the critically acclaimed 1982 sci-fi blockbuster directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, was based on Dick’s 1968 novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/07/review-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-phillip-k-dick">Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</a> The highly anticipated sequel, Blade Runner 2049, has <a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171004-film-review-does-blade-runner-2049-top-the-original">just been released</a> to general acclaim. </p>
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<p>Channel 4 is currently broadcasting a ten-part series of standalone dramas, penned by British and American writers, called Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams and based on his short stories. In 2015, Amazon aired the first season of The Man in the High Castle, a loose adaptation of Dick’s Hugo Award-winning novel of 1962 which vividly imagines an alternative history in which the Axis Powers were victorious in World War Two. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188966/original/file-20171005-9753-1g8a7he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Philip K Dick, died in March 1982, aged 53.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The full list of Dick adaptations is too long to reproduce here, but it includes two big-screen versions of Total Recall, based on Dick’s 1966 story: <a href="https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholesale/">We Can Remember It For You Wholesale</a>, Richard Linklater’s 2006 production of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/dec/17/philip-k-dick-a-scanner-darkly">A Scanner Darkly</a>, and the Steven Spielberg-directed Minority Report in 2002.</p>
<p>On the surface, it is easy to understand why filmmakers and television producers are so keen to plunder Dick’s oeuvre. For one thing, there is his <a href="http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ch.cgi?23">sheer prolificacy</a>. Dick published his first short story in 1951 and never stopped writing until his death from a stroke on March 2, 1982, barely four months before the release of Blade Runner. There are 45 novels and more than 120 short stories for potential adaptors to choose from. </p>
<h2>Dystopian visions</h2>
<p>Many critics have observed that this headlong rush of creativity – driven partly by a naturally feverish imagination and partly by amphetamines – led to works of variable prose quality. And yet each of Dick’s sci-fi texts is replete with surprising and compelling visions of dystopian futures (or presents) and profoundly unsettling explorations of his recurring themes. These include: the nature of reality, subjective consciousness, schizophrenia, alternate universes, authoritarianism, technology and interactions between humans and non-humans. </p>
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<p>The opening paragraph of one of Dick’s less critically-acclaimed novels, <a href="https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/eye-in-the-sky-1957/">Eye in the Sky</a> (1957), suggests the attractions of his work for producers of popular visual media: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The proton beam deflector of the Belmont Bevatron betrayed its inventors at four o’clock in the afternoon of October 2, 1959. What happened next happened instantly. No longer adequately deflected – and therefore no longer under control – the six billion volt beam radiated upward toward the roof of the chamber, incinerating, along its way, an observation platform overlooking the doughnut-shaped magnet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The opening is highly misleading, in fact. If it promises uncompromising action ideal for cinematic special effects, then it highlights a consistent problem with adaptations of Dick’s work, whether or not they are (as is the case with Blade Runner) great movies. The <a href="http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,575667-3,00.html">author himself feared</a> that Ridley Scott would turn his vision into “one titanic lurid collision of androids being blown up, androids killing humans, general confusion and murder, all very exciting”.</p>
<p>Coloured by his wry humour, Dick’s comments nonetheless raise an important issue about his writing which is that it isn’t, in any immediate, descriptive sense, particularly visual. Eye in the Sky, despite the bombastic opening, becomes a deeply paranoid meditation on consciousness, identity and gestalt, in which individuals injured in the deflector beam accident are forced to live in each other’s solipsistic subjective realities, inner worlds constructed and projected through prejudice and ignorance.</p>
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<p>So Dick’s real visual strengths – the ones much less amenable to Hollywood treatment – consist in the conviction with which he visualises irrational, unconscious, inner terrain. When he describes alien landscapes, as he does in <a href="https://medium.com/longform-literary-reviews/martian-time-slip-by-philip-k-dick-b5814b0dccb">Martian Time-Slip</a> (1964), they are inseparable from the psychological landscapes of his profoundly troubled characters.</p>
<h2>Dissident outsider</h2>
<p>For author Jonathan Lethem, who, having edited the <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3-volume-boxed-set">Library of America</a> editions of his novels, has tried harder than anyone else to drag Dick into the mainstream, Dick remains “<a href="https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/486-jonathan-lethem-on-philip-k-dick-i-call-him-science-fictions-lenny-bruce">the ultimate outsider, nonconformist dissident</a>”. This is because of his absolute emotional commitment to the inner lives of his characters. Indeed, he was so close to them that, in Lethem’s words, he “was not utterly in control”. </p>
<p>Like that of his sci-fi contemporaries, such as Robert Heinlein, Dick’s work critiques consumer capitalism and authoritarian institutions, and reflects and predicts technological advances, not all of them benign. Lethem is right, however, to argue that Dick stands apart from other practitioners because of his “personal visionary intensity” and the overwhelming sense of powerlessness his characters experience in the face of their shifting universes. For the same reasons, Lethem suggests, some readers have found Dick’s writing challenging.</p>
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<p>Critics have identified a kind of “<a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/07/philip-k-dick-spiritual-epiphany/">spiritual turn</a>” in Dick’s work after 1974, when he started having powerful, religious hallucinations. In truth, the novels which followed these visions, such as <a href="http://www.conceptualfiction.com/valis.html">Valis</a> and <a href="http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-divine-invasion/">The Divine Invasion</a> (both 1981), have more in common with his early, more obviously political sci-fi stories than many have allowed. Though these later novels evince a sincere interest in gnostic Christianity and divine communications, their obsession with identity, perception and the battle between isolation and connectedness is consistent with previous works.</p>
<p>Philip K Dick, who tried to write mainstream literary novels without much success before embarking on his sci-fi career, seems to epitomise the struggle that genre fiction continues to have to gain credibility within the canon. And yet he also seems to be positioned to the side of that debate, somewhere in his own created universe, following his own path. His remarkable destabilising visions will continue to offer rich material to cinema and television – and yet the adaptations will never quite catch the unique spirit of his work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Peacock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Author’s dystopian visions have inspired some of the most popular sci-fi movies of all time.James Peacock, Senior Lecturer in English and American Literatures, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628742016-07-27T18:39:00Z2016-07-27T18:39:00ZUnder the influence of … the cult film ‘Blade Runner’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132196/original/image-20160727-21584-1sdw2xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Blade Runner' poster</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the fifth in a weekly series called “Under the influence”, in which we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art in their field. Here, the University of Johannesburg’s James Sey introduces Ridley Scott’s cult film, “Bladerunner”, released in 1982.</em></p>
<p>OK. Confession time. I’ve seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000631/">Ridley Scott</a>’s “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Blade Runner</a>” at least 50 times. I know the entire screenplay of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blade-Runner-Directors-Harrison-Ford/dp/0790729628">director’s cut</a> off by heart. I have owned three different VHS versions, three different DVD versions (including a very collectable 12" laser disc) and have downloaded the ever-expanding online FAQ. Sad, isn’t it?</p>
<p>My only excuse is that this version of acid-head science-fiction pulp genius Philip K Dick’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/29/do-androids-dream-electric-dick-review">novel</a>, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, is a movie of almost total prescient brilliance. </p>
<p>Cyberpunk guru <a href="http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/">William Gibson</a> went to see it when he was just beginning to write his seminal debut novel, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/28/william-gibson-neuromancer-cyberpunk-books">Neuromancer</a>”. Legend has it that he walked out halfway through, saying later that the movie was too much like the inside of his head. </p>
<p>“Blade Runner” is one of those films that seemed predestined for underground immortality. Generally consigned to the “flawed but fairly interesting” category by most movie critics on its release, it was famously withdrawn from release to be re-cut. It was also given a laughable voice-over narrative to explain it better to the popcorn brigade.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132002/original/image-20160726-7033-1qxnzdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Blade Runner’ director Ridley Scott.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Kelly/Reuters</span></span>
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<p>Since then the film has, like “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Casablanca</a>”, transcended its formula trappings as a sci-fi cum hardboiled noir detective thriller to spawn a dedicated cult following and fill a special niche in pop culture. One of the touchstones for its cult value over the years has been its singularity – it has never spawned any overt remakes or sequels, despite being hugely influential. Until now, that is. The news that Scott himself is involved in bringing a <a href="http://collider.com/blade-runner-2-director-denis-villeneuve-talks-sci-fi-sequel-harrison-ford/">sequel</a> to the screen, scheduled for release in late 2017, is making fans edgy and ambivalent.</p>
<h2>Why is/was it influential?</h2>
<p>“Blade Runner’s” storyline and theme is on one level a well-worn one. It is the Frankenstein theme – science creating life, or technogenesis. But it’s the way in which the film broaches that theme that has remained prescient and influential. It was released long before the advent of the commercial internet, and long before the headline experiments in stem cell research, genetic modification and human genome sequencing. </p>
<p>The film posits that commercially viable superhumans – known as replicants – have been created by science, and now pose a threat to their human creators as a rogue band of them return to earth to seek answers to the mystery of their lives. Police agents, known as blade runners, hunt them down and terminate (or “retire”) them.</p>
<p>The genre combination of savvy sci-fi with hardboiled noir thriller was unique at the time, and has since spawned many cinema imitators – “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Minority Report</a>”, “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">AI</a>”, “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">I, Robot</a>” – but the film’s most marked influence has been visual. Its celebrated “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1213042?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">retrofitted</a>” production design – of a 21st-century Los Angeles megacity gradually imploding, overpopulated, largely Asian, and constantly raining from self-created weather conditions – has inspired numerous copycats, especially in advertising.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132003/original/image-20160726-7045-150td0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Actor Harrison Ford.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fred Prouser/Reuters</span></span>
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<p>The term “retrofitted” was coined to describe the film’s clever design, with its postmodern flourishes and visual in-jokes. One of the best of these is a decrepit building in the city in which the final showdown between blade runner Deckard (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000148/">Harrison Ford</a>) and lead replicant Batty (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000442/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Rutger Hauer</a>) takes place. </p>
<p>An existing architectural landmark in Los Angeles, it’s called the <a href="https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/bradbury-building">Bradbury</a>, a nod to Golden Age sci-fi author <a href="http://www.raybradbury.com/">Ray Bradbury</a>. Another building is called the <a href="http://nofearofthefuture.blogspot.co.za/2007/11/blade-runner-borges-cut.html">Hundertwasser</a>, a nod to the famously quirky Austrian architect. </p>
<p>The film’s main theme is brilliantly realised, even with, and perhaps because of, the lack of sophisticated computer-generated imagery. Drawing on its own visual template – Fritz Lang’s sci-fi cinema classic “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/metropolis-lang-science-fiction">Metropolis</a>” (1927) – for the vision of a technology-saturated early 21st century, it achieves the same level of visual artistry about a city of the future as Stanley Kubrick’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/30/2001-a-space-odyssey-kubrick-sci-fi-epic-back-big-screen">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>” did about outer space. </p>
<p>It also gave two relatively unknown actors major cachet, which they used in different ways. Harrison Ford, who plays world-weary, compassionate, perhaps even a replicant, blade runner Deckard, went on to A-list Hollywood stardom. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132005/original/image-20160726-7051-1kil393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Actor Rutger Hauer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Rutger Hauer, the prodigal son and leader of the rogue replicants, turned in the performance of his life as Batty (cult trainspotters can quote the entire “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe … attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion” etc speech), and then descended into the cult movie underworld, reprising the outlaw cyborg figure in a stream of dire B-movies (the brilliant “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">The Hitcher</a>” perhaps the only notable exception).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A well-loved scene from ‘Blade Runner’.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Why is it still relevant?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the true index of the movie’s cult status is the vociferous debates about its different versions. One of the first contemporary films to have a collectable director’s cut version, which is radically different in feel to the commercial, noir voiceover release (as well as suggesting that the hero is a replicant), it also has the aforementioned laser disc version that, for initiates, contains subtle differences in soundtrack and visual editing. </p>
<p>Its astounding look has not dated at all, testimony to its intelligence and style. It has given the contemporary lexicon at least two new words – replicant and retrofitted – and its compelling urban future vision has been widely imitated. </p>
<p>In the final analysis its influence and relevance, as well as its continuing hold on me as a writer and film fan, are also tied into the age-old theme of <a href="https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/how-we-think-digital-media-and-contemporary-technogenesis/">technogenesis</a>. In an effort to control the replicants better, the genetic engineers install implanted memories and a four-year lifespan.</p>
<p>The replicants constantly refer to their self-knowledge (Batty memorably says to the genetic engineer who makes eyes for the replicant series, “if only you could see what I have seen with your eyes”), and develop their own emotions as time passes. This astonishingly stylish realising of a complicated philosophical theme is the real triumph of the film.</p>
<p>The central concern is an ontological one: what are the psychological consequences for technologically created subjects who cannot reconcile their human-like consciousness to their status as made, not born? </p>
<p>Finally, the tragic fallen angel replicants of the film are denied “truly” human status by their relation to their own deaths. That is, they can have no productive conflict between life-instincts and death-instincts if they are always already aware of the hour of their deaths. It remains one of the most poignant aesthetic representations of the issue. </p>
<p>If ever a film was worthy of its underground reputation and cult influence, “Blade Runner” is it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Sey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ has transcended its sci-fi/hardboiled noir detective thriller formula to spawn a dedicated cult following.James Sey, Research Associate, Research Centre, Faculty of Fine Art, Design and Architecture, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.