analyzing a painting

Art is something that all cultures around the world share. and it seems as thought that humans are hot wired to express themselves through it or by other means such as music. art and music are things that are developed over time. coming into existence because people found time in their lives to alleviate their boredom by painting on cave walls or dancing around a fire. but with out the knowledge of previous art revolutions art can not progress nor be translated in a meaningful manner.
art says allot about a group of people, much like the food they eat. it seems that art reflects exactly what is going on at the time. PKD introduces a very interesting character. Luba Luft is one of the androids that Rick Deckard is seeking out to retire for a 1,000 dollar bounty. but this character unlike other androids, is "beneficial" to human society. Luba luft is one of the few who is able to act and sing like a human being. expressing herself through her beautiful voice and well rehearsed lines, she caries on the the very organic and natural occurrence in human history.
art and music are passed on through generations. it is something that is taught and experienced. but Luba luft, who is completely man made and is of the age of a small infant possesses the capability that people spent thousands of years developing, only happening because of events and experiences that inspired people to preform the art opera. Luba luft apparently has been programed to be a great singer, placed within her memory experiences that led her to be an actress and opera singer. a great singer and performer, but no better than a humanoid mp3 player.
in this famous painting a man finds himself alone screaming. most people have seen this painting and have learned about it in school. i know that it is an expressionistic painting, meaning that the artist relied on his emotion to guide his brush. Munch's painting is very important not only because of its popularity but also because of its similarities in meaning with the ideas that PKD presents in this book. 100 years ago it seems that people wanted to fit in, and if one didn't they were out casted, sometimes forced to create wonderful works of art like this one, or like Van Gough's paintings. androids too seem to want to be human. and to them feel and act as though they are human. my prediction is that maybe these extremely intelligent beings will learn to develop empathy, and maybe before that start to develop a culture of their own.

10+11

PKD loves to jump right into story endings, almost like he starts a new topic and quickly gets bored, finding fast ways to end a sub story. i like all the characters that Dick presents us in these two fast moving chapters. it seems as though that in this futuristic society all there are are androids. Dick also brings to the table some insight into how the androids are manufactured and find themselves on earth, away from mars where they are supposed to be.
as i was reading these chapters i began to get very frustrated. i like futuristic films and books, such as Dune and Ender's Gate, but this one seems way to flat and sporadic. something that came from two day break from sleep, making me feel annoyed that ideas are not expanded upon or thought out. i feel as though that some of what PKD presents us is a little contradicting. for instance if every robot is pre-programed and wired to mimic humans,and some robots are made to resemble humans, how is it possible that a human that already exists have a copy being made on mars, with out the creators knowing that these two characters might cross paths. it just all seems mighty confusing.
i do however like how PKD points out the non existing difference between humans and androids. in these chapter he shows us how androids and humans can have very common personality traits. which is interesting because if one is an android and has no capability to produce empathy towards another how can one have a personality. well i guess they were just programed this way. ah its all way to confusing for me, i like that he shows that these dividing lines between humans and androids is very hazy, much like differences in times of war. there is no right or wrong, and no black and white. it seems that both sides have humans that are androids and androids that are humans. some that act as better people in society that actual people, and others who kill humans then pose as them in an attempt to add to a suspenseful plot.

sorry for the rant.... 1. i think that there will be more frustration to come.

chapter 9

Rick Deckard decides to go to the opera house in an attempt at capturing his bounty, Luba Luft. Like in the previous chapter Rick seems to be attracted to an android. as he was sitting in the audiance of the "Magic Flute" he began to scan and judge Luba Luft as she sang on stage. it seemed to me that Rick was acting very peculiar, he seemed almost as if he was forming a liking for this android, with her pretty voice and beutifle apearance he commented on all of it and then fallowed her to her dressing room. there he began a Voigt Komff test on her, rely on questions from a playboy magazine, which when testing Luba Luft she got very irate at the questions he was asking her and called in a police man. when the police man arived, Rick felt relieved to see a fellow badge, but soon enough he found that the police man was an android as well.

chapter 8

I thought that this chapter moved really fast compared to others. It was full of action and suspense as Rick Deckard "retired" one of his cliants. In this chapter the writer really moved into how Rick Deckard thinks and acts towards different instances and or people. Rick like many other people in this post apocalyptic world has an electric animal, that he has as an attempt at bringing himself back to a time of blue skies and rain that doesn't eat through the souls of ones shoes.
Rick is also a bounty hunter so as a living he has to seek and hunt down various illegally active androids, retiring them with his blaster pistol. In this chapter Rick ran into one of his bounty who was incidentally trying to kill him. Before they got into a scuffle that ended in the death of the andy, Rick and the andy were having a conversation. the android was posing as a partner that was sent to work with Deckard in the hunt for these androids. As they were talking the robot seemed to give himself away by admitting to Rick that he was actually one of his bounties, Polokov the robot that killed Dave Holden. It seems that Rick has a great deal of skill when it comes to knowing when one is an android or human, because in the cab before Polokov admitted to his identity, Rick already had the inkling that this man posing as a bounty hunter was Polokov the escaped android from mars, killer of Dave Holden.
P.K.D. looked into Ricks low flying relationship with Iran his wife that seems to be attached to her mood organ via umbilical cord. Rick says that he should have dropped her two years ago when he could have gotten rid of her. obviously he doesn't feel very affectionate for his wife, and even admits that the should be looking on for new mates. Rick also talks about how he has been attracted to female andriods, which he said gives him a very eerie feeling.

re-post on chapter 1

Question 8 held with it the most importance to me, because it is a reacuring theme that Philip K. Dick chooses to work with. In this futuristic society it seems to further perpetuate the same problems that we have in todays society. PKD was writing in the 1960's, and with all its racial problems and classist systems, he forcasts a dust cloud that creates a "sub group of humans" and makes way for electric animals, and identical human replicas. is PKD simply comenting on the norm in human societies?

It seems in this chapter Philip explains the differences between "specials" and "Normal humans". Specials are sub group of people who inhabit earth, and as a result of the post war apocolyptic surroundings have developed differently from their other human counterparts, which has made a devide into two different groups of humans.

chapter 7

I thought this chapter was pretty interesting. It gave a good example of how empathetic John Isidore is to all seemingly living things. I really liked how john is completely blind to androids and electric animals, and really enforces my idea on how androids might as well be considered human, even with themselves not being able to distinguish from their social group of androids and our group of humans. John Isidore is considered a special, so he is looked down upon in his society, so it is interesting to me to see a character that seems to go through much hate turn out to be such a sensitive and caring person.
The chapter started out with John rushing to pick up this sick cat, explaining how john was a "veterinarian" for electric animals. As john was in route to pick up this cat he was tuning into Buster Friendly talk show, who at the time had a foreign guest who appears regularly on the 23 hour broad casted show. Once the cat was tucked away in his hover car, john bean to cringe at the noise the suffering cat was emitting. John was under the assumption that the cat was an electric animal, a Wheelright & Carpenter model. And that when John searched for a way to cease the saddening cry of the cat, he could not find the switch and found it had "ceased functioning."
As I was reading I was wondering why anyone would program a cat to be diseased, just to imitate how a real cat would function in the natural world. But if an animal that is created or berthed in a lab or factory that carries in its mechanized mind or in its counter parts encoded DNA, a disease that it will be destined to contract, wouldn't at that point it be assumed that we have just taken up the reigns that mother nature once held and just simply started playing god.