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Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep Chapter
Though many people have not read the novel that served as the creative background for 1982's Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" May actually surpass the film in terms of its vast array of philosophical content and incisive questions attempting to define the essence of what it means to be human, or even to be a living thing for that matter.
The Nexus-6 Replicants, The Voigt-Kampff Test, and Human Empathy
Most of the plot in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Centers on the character of Rick Deckard, a police officer and bounty hunter who specializes in hunting and “retiring” androids – otherwise known as replicants. In order to discern the extremely intelligent and increasingly nuanced replicants from an organic human being, Deckard enlists the specialized use of something known as the Voigt-Kampff test.
The Voigt-Kampff test is essentially an observational interview as portrayed in the film Blade Runner, where the detective asks the suspect several hypothetical questions – all hinging on an observable human response, empathy. Androids, being bereft of the capacity for empathetic thinking, are unable to produce the necessary human response to rather jarring or discordant lines of thinking and imagery. This type of questioning, as Deckard explains to Rachel Rosen, is morally shocking stimulus that produces an autonomic blush response in humans: