Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

[p.s. Cargile]

For those that don't know this was the book that inspired the movie "Blade Runner".

The book and the movie have simularities, but are very different, as if the theme was taken two seperate ways.

In the book Deckard is not called a blade runner, he's just a bounty hunter out to retire not replica's but andys (androids). Hovercars are not called spinners, just hover cars. The action isn't as intense as the movie and both Racheal and Pris are from the same stock model.
There are more neat gadgets such as Penfield organ that an user can dial in different moods to experience, and a empathy box that lets users unite mentally and share the same experience of climbing a rocky hill to be with Wilbur Mercer, a religious figure. The ascending of the hill is a religious symbology.

There has also been a nuclear war and most survivors are colonizing Mars. Most life has been destroyed so the ownership and caring for animals (any animal) is considered a moral duty and obligation.

The andys that return to Earth aren't seeking extended life, but just to have a life, as they are slaves to Mars colonists.

All in all, it is a great read, and deserves its on verbatum illustration.

You know, I just watched Blade Runner the other day...I still hate the movie, but I wonder about something. At first it says the replicants are robots, then it says they were made by genetic engineers...what are they, robots or genemod humans?

[p.s. Cargile]

In the book there are a variety of androids made by several companies made for use on the Mars colonies (you get an android if you colonize). The ones that Deckard terminates in the book and the movie are bilogical constructions. So they would be genetically engineered, but exist as a full adult being. They don't grow up from a child form. But because there exist in the book artificial animals (as pets) that are mechanical and electrical there could exist androids that are mechanical and electrical as well--but there is nothing that says that there is.
Nexus 6, in the book, is a brain type and not a body model.

The terms robot, android, replicant all mean an organic synthetic humanoid.

I hate when authors take words and give them new definitions. Robot and android are not organic

Originally posted by Kakaze
I hate when authors take words and give them new definitions. Robot and android are not organic

You have to remember these words haven't always had the same meaning as they do now. That book was first published in 1968. And if it wasn't for a certain author we wouldn't have the word 'robot' at all.

Now that I think more about it, R. Daniel Olivaw, hope I spelled that right, was a robot that passed as a human for many centuries and I believe had and organic skin. He was created by the author that coined the term 'robot' in the first place. He and the other humanoid robots in Asimov's universe are very much like Dick's replicants.

Asimov invented Robotics, not Robot.

Robot comes from Czech, robotnik, meaning worker or slave.

Daneel is a Humaniform robot, not an android or a replicant. An android is a machine that mimics a human in every possible way, but daneel was still a robot regardless because of the inclusion of the 3 laws.

But he went beyond the 3 laws when he incorporated the zeroth law into his programing and he did mimic humans in every way by posing as a human when he served as a prime minister on Trantor and many of the other positions that he held while guiding humanity and Hari Seldon.
Your definition of android would exclude Data as well since he had an equivalent of the 3 laws and did not mimic humans in every way.
My point is that the definitions of words evolve over time by the usage of those words. The words 'robot, 'android', and 'replicant' were not commonly used by the general public in the late 1960's, they probably weren't even in the dictionary back then.
:colwar:

Giskard incorporated zeroth law as well, yet he was still a robot. And for all Daneel's sophistication, especially later in his life by the time Golan Trevise and co. found him, he was still a robot.

Data on the other hand isn't BOUND by the three laws. He has a general set of morals that he follows, but he can easily choose not to. Remember when he was captures by Kivas Fajo (sp)? Just as they were transporting him back to enterprise the transporter registered that the weapon was discharged.

If Daneel were to even THINK about shooting Kivas he would've started to enter cognitive dissonance, and if he actually shot him, not even Susan Calvin would've been able to bring him back.

Daneel is a robot because he can't go outside of his programming, and technically, because he was able to come up with Zeroth law, that shows that his brain has a defect, since the three laws are hardwired directly into the positronic matrix of an Asimov robot. A normal Asimov robot wouldn't be able to do anything that wasn't bound by the three laws.

Data is an android because he has a set of dos and don'ts but they're not hardwired and can be bypassed at will, just like a human can do.

[p.s. Cargile]

If robotnik means slave and Dick's 'andys' are colonial slaves, then it is appropiate to call them robots.
Regardless 'robot' means a machine created and designed to perform a function, often jobs unappealing or dangerous to humans, plus the research robots that are more andropomorphic.
Since the andys/replicants aren't gestated in the womb, aren't born, and don't grow to adult size, but are created ready to use then they fall under the category of machine even though they have organic properties.

Dick isn't misusing the words 'robot' and 'android', he used them to define the machines that appear human and by using those words the reader should infer, by knowledge of the definitions of those specific terms, what the use and purpose of the artificial humans is.

See, you're expanding the definition of the word just like the author.

Instead of using new words to describe things we use old words and that just kills the language.

The replicants are organic if they're genetically designed, so they can't be robots. If they have organic bodies and computer brains then they're cyborgs. If they're entirely constructed, yet act and look as humans, then they're androids.

an·droid Audio pronunciation of android ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ndroid)
adj.
Possessing human features.

n.
An automaton that is created from biological materials and resembles a human. Also called humanoid.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Given the above definition, Dick's characters can correctly be called androids since they are made from biological materials and resemble humans.

Instead of using new words to describe things we use old words and that just kills the language.

I don't think I understand your sentence. By using and expanding on the meaning of existing words, we help language to evolve with the culture that is using it.

You're not evolving a language when you give a term 50 billion reasons, you're stretching it. If this can be a robot, and that can be a robot, and those things over there can be robots, then you have to use the context of the sentence to determine what kind of robot you're talking about, but context isn't always a very good way of determining what a word is supposed to represent.

Reminds me of the episode of South Park where they went to another planet and the people there only used one word to talk...I think it was "marklar". Everyone was called markar, the planet was marklar, the ground and trees and sky were marklar... Something that would never happen in real life, but still shows what I mean. We don't want to end up one day having conversations like: "robot, robot-robot robot, robot robot robot, robot-robot, robot!"

Marklar, Marklar :laugh:

I understand what you are saying but I think robot is a more encompassing word than android or cyborg. For instance: Cetacean is the word for all whales and whales refers to animals called whales and dolphins. Now all dolphins are whales but not all whales are dolphins and all can be called cetaceans.

'Robot' may not have started out this way but I think the current connotation is that androids are robots but not all robots are androids.

Ahhhh, I feel like I'm taking an IQ test.... All dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins, and some are cetaceans...

bah.

hehe

all are cetaceans


sorry, guess my profession is showing through

:p