What is a question the author emplys through the novel and what is the answer found in the story?

This is largely a thematic question. I think one of the most important questions or themes in the book has to do with what it means to be a "real" human. Closely tied to the theme of life vs. un-life, the idea of what is real and what is unreal is a blurred distinction in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This dichotomy is best expressed through the world of the empathy box and Mercerism. The reader at first experiences Mercerism as something that one can only experience through entering into a state of fusion with Mercer, mediated through the sights and sounds that one experiences while hooked into an empathy box.