#philip-k-dick
empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found throughout every phylum and order including the arachnida. for one thing, the empathetic faculty probably required an unimpaired group instinct; a solitary organism, such as a spider, would have no use for it; in fact it would tend to abort a spider's ability to survive. it would make him conscious of the desire to live on the part of his prey. hence all predators, even highly developed mammals such as cats, would starve. #empathy #solitariness
The old man said, 'you will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. it is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. at some time, every creature which lives must do so. it is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. everywhere in the universe.' #identity #suffering #self
a topic of world-shaking importance, yet dealt with facetiously; an android trait, possibly, he thought. no emotional awareness, no feeling-sense of the actual meaning of what she said. only the hollow, formal, intellectual definitions of the separate terms #androids #meaningfulness #language #linguistics #humans-and-machines
for mercer everything is easy, he thought, because mercer accepts everything. nothing is alien to him. but what i've done, he thought; that's become alien to me. in fact everything about me has become unnatural; i've become an unnatural self #nature