SOURCE: Warrick, Patricia S. “The Labyrinthian Process of the Artificial: Philip K. Dick's Androids and Mechanical Constructs.” In Philip K. Dick, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander, pp. 189-214. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1983.

In the following essay, Warrick investigates “what is truly human and what only masquerades as human,” as suggested by the work of Dick.

What is the authentically human? What is the nature of the alien elements that are threatening and vitiating living, intelligent human beings? These questions are deeply rooted in Philip K. Dick's work, and to them he has provided a bizarre variety of answers, answers that are constantly being pushed aside and replaced by new possibilities. Finding an answer to the question of what is truly human and what only masquerades as human is, for Dick, the most important difficulty facing us. Some of Dick's richest metaphors stem from...