In The World Of 'Electric Ant' By Phillip K. Dick

Within any community, it is safe to say that the goal of maintaining a society that prospers on for many years is common. Establishing order is key to developing a prosperous society. Order, whether it be defined as assigning roles in society, or establishing a set of rules to maintain control, can be done through various approaches. The pondering question however lies in what is the best approach to establish order. This common question has been prominent throughout time, and has been debated in government and society. The debate in how society should establish order regularly results in contrasting opinions. In the essay "The Myth of the Ant Queen," by Steven Johnson, and in the excerpt “The Code of Hammurabi” from Society and Law in Ancient Babylonia, two distinct approaches to establishing order in society are discussed. I believe that through strict reinforcements, order in society can be established. In the essay “Man’s Nature is Evil” by Hsun Tzu, the human nature in society helps explain why strict reinforcements is the most efficient way to establish order. In Steven Johnson’s essay “The Myth of the Ant Queen,” he describes an interesting way in how the establishment of order arises. He argues that society can build itself up and maintain order without the need of a ruler or a set of laws. Through the observation of ants and how they behave in their environment, he explains how ants are able to establish an intricate yet simple

“The Electric Ant” is a science fiction short story written by Philip K. Dick and published in 1969. In this setting, the story takes place in a distant alternative universe. Mankind’s identity and freedom are being questioned in this futuristic society. Indeed, the plot explores the identity of a protagonist who has been disconnected from reality after an accident, by being transformed into an organic robot. A being that is no longer human despite having the skin, the flesh and the physical body of a man. The story focuses on the shift of reality perceived by an organic robot. Nevertheless, it brings us a closer look at how the perspective of reality is approached from the point of view of a sub-social class. As the story goes on, the protagonist becomes more and more obsessed with his individuality and true freedom. The plot emphasis on the development of the main character’s identity throughout the story.

Establishing nonhierarchical roles within a system is often debated as an efficient method for internal innovation and stability. In Steve Johnson’s essay “Myth of the Ant Queen,” Johnson describes a phenomena known as emergent behavior, “large patterns of uncoordinated local actions” which is prevalent in systems with nonhierarchial roles (199). The concept of emergent behavior is a useful, however inaccurate, means of categorizing a system’s structure; a self-organizing system must have some origin or initial degree of coordination or organization in order to properly function. Furthermore, Cathy Davidson’s essay “Project Classroom Makeover,” challenges the current educational paradigm with an administrative and societal call-to-action through the iPod experiment.

A feedback loop takes the power of something and changes it into something that would be considered better and brighter. It is adjusted until the desired object is the output of the system. For example, like Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In “The Myth of the Ant Queen” by Steven Johnson, he explains the level of intelligence behind certain and different types of systems, and deciphers the systems to understand and comprehend what makes them work or survive. Comparing it to Johnson, in “Biographies of Hegemony” by Karen Ho, is the breakdown of how the companies of Wall Street are invading the space of Ivy League institutions and how the students are being groomed to work in certain areas of these

Dalai Lama accurately describes what a healthy relationship between man and nature is when she stated that “It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live.” Unlike Lama’s beliefs about the environment, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep portrays the consequences and chaos revolving around an unhealthy relationship humanity has with the Earth. At first, one might assume that the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick describes the correlation between humanity and the power of empathy. Indeed, this view may be supported by the interactions between Rick Deckard, the protagonist, and the androids he encounters, and how his beliefs about humanity

In the article called “Another Earth” by Alice Savage and David Wiece started with the sharing of the theory that life outside of Earth could exist. The author’s son thinks that it’s possible for other living being to exist and live on other planets, but the author had this theory as just a theory until the moment when scientist found a lot of planets that can potentially have live life on them. After that, he starts to share his memories about what people thought about life outside of Earth back in the 70’s. He shares this idea that to find a planet we have to look at stars. He talks about two methods of how we can find a planet looking at a star. Planets have their gravitational pull and when they are moving around a star we can see them

Technology has tremendously changed human social behavior, which has provided a convenient way for people to communicate and collaborate with each other. For instance, Cathy Davidson, the author of “Project Classroom Makeover,” points out, there is a need to renew the current education system so that it meets the new expectation of the digital era. She discusses how technology improves social interaction when students work collectively through crowdsourcing. In “The Myth of the Ant Queen,” Steven Johnson provides the example of the complex systems in ant colonies, cities of Manchester and Internet by emphasizing the importance of collective working that intelligence emerges when people work together. On the other side, Sherry Turkle argues that technology has turned human beings become isolated. In her article “Alone Together: Why We Expect A Lot from Technology and Less from Each Other,” she discusses how humanity is transformed into a “robotic’ moment due to technology. Therefore, technology does not only help to form collective learning and social interaction that can provide an adequate platform for sharing social values, but also isolate people from each other if they rely too much on technology.

In The Electric Ant the character, Poole represents Plato’s prisoner archetype to expand Plato’s argument on reality and perception. Like the prisoner, Poole’s originally perceived reality is not the real reality of the universe. When the BBB computer first leads Poole to explore his inner workings, revealing his tape, he instantly understands that it somehow plays a role in his encephalic processes. This is analogous to the shackles of the prisoner being removed. It is the beginning steps of Poole

The short story of Leiningen Versus the Ants is a story in which the human versus nature aspect takes over. Leiningen soon realizes that even though he is a human nature can still overpower. He thinks that just because he is bigger and maybe even smarter, than the ants that that means that the ants could never stop him. When a person is forced into a conflict with nature they will soon realize nature is much more powerful than they think because nature has much more power than almost any human in existence. Throughout the story Leiningen has different opinions on the ants.

them clean. Because, an egg is tiny and is about 1 millimeter long it needs

Every university campus tries to foster a sense of community among its inhabitants. Whether it is through official colors or a mascot label, the hope is to encourage “school pride.” But is there a sense of pride and identity among students? College education is no longer cheap nowadays and students are probably under a lot of stress due to intense work load. Thus, I expect a lot of negativity among university students as a researcher. I regard this research to be very much relevant and important. This is because if a university fails at fostering school pride and loyalty, this may lead to unhappy alumni. Unhappy alumni can be a real problem if my high school is any indication, where almost everyone considers UCR (University of California, Riverside) to be a “joke.” This research paper will deal with “Anteaters,” the inhabitants of University of California, Irvine. The research will consist of four areas of inquiry and they are reasons for choosing to attend UCI, thoughts regarding the campus as a whole, role of parents, and possible existence of school pride. Ultimately, I want to know if Anteaters identify positively with their campus of choice based on those areas of inquiry.

ants have undergone an interesting history as they evolved from their wasp ancestors. Ants control most of the ecosystems they inhabit. Ants were the first to dominate the land and the air we breath now, on this world.

Everyone is familiar with the state of armed conflict that is war, and for as long as there has been civilization there has been war. Upon first glance, Henry David Thoreau’s “The Battle of the Ants” seems like a simple descriptive story of a battle between two different species of ants, one red and one black, but if one were to further inspect the text, they could see that Thoreau uses the ants and their battle as a satirical allegory for human conflict. Thoreau chooses to use ants as a metaphor to make it clear to the reader that war is futile, pointless, and a waste of life.

Near the end of the story, the main protagonist is stimulated by the need to manipulate reality and go back in time by reversing a segment of the tape. His objective is to experience the absolute reality all at once by running his last test on himself. “What I want, he realized, is ultimate and absolute reality, for one microsecond. After that it doesn’t matter, because all will be known; nothing will be left to understand or see.” By doing so, he can finally understand why he was transformed into an electric ant, who is behind the creation of electric ants as well as an infinity of unanswered questions in the universe. Everything will be revealed to him once he changes the pattern of the reality tape. However, things turn sour and

“What if they can talk?” ask the humans. “What if they are smart?” ask the humans. “What if they took over the world?” ask the humans. Well, now’s our chance.