The 'Bigger' Questions of Westworld: Morality and Philosophy in the World of A.I.

[Dobian]

On ‎6‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 12:43 PM, jeansheridan said:

Altered Carbon (the books and the series) does try to answer some of the estate/legal questions. They also have some fun with personality versus body. Because human psychology is totally wrapped up with our bodies. Would Dolores still be Dolores if you put her in a middle-aged body? Would people react to her the same way? Obviously not. But interestingly, Ford and Delos kept the same bodies with mostly the same personalities. Yeah, their roles changed. Frank went from Sheriff to Rancher, but he didn't become a Ghost Nation host. As far as we've seen, only Maeve had a massive role change from frontier mother to Madam. Is it that dissonance what made her ready to be "woke"?

But now we have seen the hosts' brains being removed, the show does become more like Altered Carbon in that you could place that brain into an entirely new body. In short, all the actors playing hosts could be swapped out and you could still have Dolores and Bernard, but played by new actors. 

 

It's like the old Shakespeare quote that all the world's a stage.  In a way, civilization is a gigantic roleplay game.  This gets into the philosophical idea that the self is really just an illusion, which you can read all about in Buddhist and related texts.  I wish Westworld had kept the overarching plot smaller so it could focus more on these themes and less on evil corporations and robots who want world domination.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Dobian

[ottoDbusdriver]

9 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

Hosts die and can be replaced as long as someone has their brain-ball in a pocket or handbag. (Along with the printing machines which conveniently pop up whenever needed.) Humans die and can be replaced by their host counterparts. Hosts depart for the Valley Beyond but maybe...just maybe they were uploaded somewhere that someone can access and bring them back.

Is there a story here? I'm not so sure.

First there was the Cradle, then the Forge, I'm thinking maybe the Crucible would be a good name of the next hidden underground. 
Then again, for a change it might be located offshore of the island and be called 'The Looking Glass' ?  Whoops, wrong show.  </snark>

[Nashville]

One thing I did like about the season finale: it did dabble a bit into the nature of free will.  This is cited as the primary determinant of true independent intelligence, and the significant discriminatory criterion between human and host cognition.  But is it?  How much of human decision-making is the result of true focused discernment and independent choice, and how much is regurgitation of multiple layers of intellectual/environmental/societal “programming”?