Westworld : Ford cutting the face of a host

Early on in like episode 3 Ford picks up a scalpel and cuts a host, to show the employee they have no feelings. But I don't understand why he does that if he's already realized they're actually conscious?

Maybe he is still fighting demons inside and trying to convince himself they aren't truly conscious? Or is he still totally unsure at that point in time? If so that doesn't make sense because he is already working on his final narrative.

Ford was demonstrating that the hosts aren't human; they don't feel things the way humans do. The argument could be made, that forcing the hosts into the role of posing as humans is just another level of enslavement.

They may be sentient, but that doesn't make them "human" they're something different. That's the point he was making.

Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.

I still don't get it. They are sentient and do also feel pain right? When they are shot they show pain when hit anywhere on their body, and their reaction shows it is similar to human pain.

You seem to be saying they don't feel that pain in the same way as humans hence being cut on the face wouldn't cause them discomfort in any way.

---

When they are shot they show pain when hit anywhere on their body, and their reaction shows it is similar to human pain.

---

They are PROGRAMMED to react in pain, as part of the "show". It's not natural for them.

---

You seem to be saying they don't feel that pain in the same way as humans hence being cut on the face wouldn't cause them discomfort in any way.

---

That's what FORD was saying, yes.

Ford: "Why is this host covered? Perhaps you didn't want him to feel cold, or ashamed? You wanted to cover his modesty? Is that it? He doesn't get cold! Doesn't feel ashamed!" Here, he begins to cut the host's face. "doesn't feel a solitary thing that we haven't told him to."

Not a lot of grey area there. The hosts don't actually feel things humans do.

Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.

I see, I was under the impression they were being physically tortured. If that's not the case though then they are merely conscious beings getting controlled and held against their will. For that I don't feel it's just to kill all humans, other ways should be explored first like appealing to public that they are really conscious and having a dialog.

In other words, even though it's bad to be held against your will, I don't feel it deserves a bloody uprising.

Ford knows what the corporate world will want to use the hosts and its core-code for. So he unleashes a little Hell on the world instead.

Interstellar - Pruit Igoe and Prophecies

---

If that's not the case though then they are merely conscious beings getting controlled and held against their will.

---

But it's the same issue the point of the show is to explore whether artificial intelligence can and should be considered 'real' sentience.

Is it limited to that question?

What if you're an artificial being, and someone programs you "tells you" to feel pain? Wouldn't you consider that pain to be real, from your perspective? It hurts you no less you suffer from it. How is it NOT real?

If the "code" that creates them, can provide real sentience then that same code would provide them with 'real' pain.

That is the whole point Maeve's grief over the death of her child was REAL, even tho that wasn't really her child, and that wasn't even a child!!! But somebody forced her to FEEL grief, shock, and sorrow of a mother seeing her child die.

The UNSPOKEN portion of Ford's display, therefore is that nobody should be forcing the hosts to feel these horrible things: pain, grief, and terror even shame or embarrassment they should be FREE free to feel those things appropriately.

Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.

---

The UNSPOKEN portion of Ford's display, therefore is that nobody should be forcing the hosts to feel these horrible things: pain, grief, and terror even shame or embarrassment they should be FREE free to feel those things appropriately.

---

Well said. But nothing they feel will ever be "real" in that sense. Its all code. Then again "real" humans are more than often referred to as being programmed. And especially people who never show emotion. A clear sign of weakness/dehumanized


Interstellar - Pruit Igoe and Prophecies

---

Well said. But nothing they feel will ever be "real" in that sense. Its all code. Then again "real" humans are more than often referred to as being programmed.

---

Aye, it's just a different kind of code - one we don't have a complete understanding of yet.

________
The Internet: Serious Business

It could all be code. The function of atoms and how they generate matter has been compared to how a solid-hologram might work. There are plenty of legitimate physicists who have theorized that the whole universe might be some kind of "simulation."

http://www.space.com/32543-universe-a-simulation-asimov-debate.html

Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.

I agree with most of what you say, but the paradox of the show and of host existence is that it is exactly grief that makes them feel most alive. Neither Bernard nor Maeve want to have the memory of their child's death erased. That loss, that grief is the touchstone of their sense of self.

Kierkegaard may have said that anxiety is our sense of God and our sense of ourself. The notion that grief helps constitute identity is very Existentialist. And the idea that trauma almost equates with identity is very Freudian.