Friday, December 29, 2017

Book Review: The Electric Ant


Author:  Philip Kindred Dick
(December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982)
Published Date: Oct 1969
First Published In: Fantasy and Science Fiction



Introduction

“Objective reality is a synthetic construct, dealing with a hypothetical universalization of a multitude of subjective realities.” Garson Poole, The Electric Ant
What is reality? Does everyone share the same sense of reality? If yes, why do we perceive things differently? If no, then what is real? "The Electric Ant" explores reality from the perception of an electric ant (word used for humanoid robots in the story), who after finding out that he could manipulate his perception of reality, believes that he has the power to experience everything - “to be momentarily in contact with all reality. Something that no human can do.” 

Audience Reception

“The Electric Ant” is well received by the science fiction community. Based on the Philip K. Dick Fan Site, the short story appeared in multiple publications, including but is not limited to: The Year's Best Science Fiction #3 (1970), The Best Of Philip K. Dick (1977), Machines That Think (1984) and The Androids Are Coming (2000). In a poll run by For Dickheads Only (FDO) [a magazine that covers every science fiction novel written by Philip Dick], “The Electric Ant” is shown to be a favorite of many fans. Thus, “The Electric Ant” has clearly left a mark on Philip K. Dick’s fans and the science fiction community.

Summary

The story revolves around Garson Poole, an electric ant who found out that he was not a human after a traffic accident. He further discovers that his perception of reality is being fed to him from a roll of punched tape in his chest. Armed with this realization, Poole decided to go where no man has gone before - to change his perception of reality by modifying the tape entering the scanner. He conducted a set of experiments on this tape: by blotting off some holes in the punched tape, he erased certain stimuli from his perception; by pricking new holes, he added things to his reality. Convinced that his entire reality is constrained by the tape, Poole decided to cut the tape going into the scanner, in effect allowing him to experience all stimuli at the same time. However, this proves to be fatal, as Poole burns out from the multi-sensory totality of perceptions that now flood him, wiping him out as well as everything else that existed in his reality tape. 

Analysis and Critique

Although “The Electric Ant” is very well received by Dick’s fans and science fiction community alike, I would like to point out two logical discrepancies in the short story that I struggled with when reading the text:

If Poole and Sarah could both see the black ducks and the man with the park bench, why didn’t Danceman observe changes in his reality when “the skyline of New York City flickered out of existence” for Poole? Even if we take the assumption that Sarah only exists in Poole’s reality tape and Danceman exists in absolute reality, how then did Danceman know of Sarah’s existence? Has Danceman been assuming that Poole is delusional (or as delusional as an electric ant can be) whenever he brings up Sarah in their conversations? Has Danceman been playing the fool all along when he’s been talking to Poole? 

On another note, why didn’t Sarah and everything else in Poole’s reality tape disintegrate the moment Poole burnt out? After all, all the neuro circuits in Poole has jumped “their gaps and short out”. Why the delay?

Conclusion

Logical inconsistencies notwithstanding, “The Electric Ant” does pose significant questions to how would one define reality.  How much of what we call "reality" is actually out there? How much of reality is only happening in our own heads? Is there such a thing as an objective reality? Or is Poole's (Dick's) proposition true - “objective reality is a synthetic construct, dealing with a hypothetical universalization of a multitude of subjective realities”? One can only ponder, what is reality, really?

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