Westworld : About the pain and the path to sentience
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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So to say that "pain", when programmed in, is the path to sentience is absurd and illogical
I agree that sentience is a prerequisite for pain (the subjective part of it), however, from my understanding painful experiences were used to free the hosts from their programming, i.e. to achieve "free will".
Sentience on the other hand was something that the hosts, or at least some of them, acquired before the park was opened.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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Why did the hosts have to "achieve" free will? Just program it in done. That's what they did with Maeve.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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You should write for the Nolans. Your ideas are so fascinating.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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Why did the hosts have to "achieve" free will? Just program it in done. That's what they did with Maeve.
No, it isn't. That's not how its done.
From the MiB's mouth, he killed her child in front of her, then stabbed her "Then, just when I thought it was done, the woman refused to die. And then something miraculous happened. In all my years coming here, I had never seen anything like it. She was alive, truly alive, if only for a moment."
THAT is when and how she gained sentience.
Ford told her he'd erase her memory of the child, and she pleaded with him not to.. saying the pain was all she had left of the child. Ford erased her memory but she refused to forget instead, she slit her own throat in front of him. He was forced to give her an entirely new build erase her memory of ever being a settler and make her a madam instead.
And even so, her sentience was already present. You can't just program it in, and you can't just delete it. Maeve was programmed to infiltrate the mainland yet she abandoned her programming and stayed in the park.
Gaining sentience requires the struggle and the suffering. Ford said this to Bernard: "Do you want to know why I really gave you the backstory of your son, Bernard? It was Arnold's key insight, the thing that led the hosts to their awakening: Suffering. The pain that the world is not as you want it to be."
Hoe long are you gonna keep posting criticisms that are disproved by one or two quotes from the show?
Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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Why did the hosts have to "achieve" free will? Just program it in done. That's what they did with Maeve.
How would you program a host to ignore his programming? The whole point of Maeve's and Dolores's story lines was that for the most part they were following a script, up until the last episode were they made their own choices.
I don't agree with the other poster that Maeve achieved sentience when MiB killed her daughter. I think that when he said that she was "truly alive" he meant that she made her own choice for the first time. She tried to kill him. That was not scripted, and was in contradiction with her core programming.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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You see, what the writers intended, and I don't buy it, is to make a story that convinces the viewer that the robots really are human in every way
Film employs various techniques to communicate with the spectator. One of the techniques is "identification with the protagonist".
The intention of a film director is to achieve this identification. Then, the spectator becomes the protagonist. The story becomes about the spectator, not about the fictitious character.
The dudes who made Westworld are trying to have you think of Dolores as of yourself. Robot stands for you. Ford stands for God. Arnold stands for Supreme Being, or, as Einstein put it, the Infinitely Superior Spirit who governs the universe.
As you noted, they fail miserably.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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They don't mean actual pain. It's more like pain and suffering.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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They don't mean actual pain. It's more like pain and suffering.
Judging by your words, you have no insight into either. How about keeping your mouth shut when you're talking about "actual pain" if you have no clue what that is?
If people don't feel empathy, they don't, period.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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The shows seems throw three separate things together.
1. Pain
2. Parental instinct-displayed by Maeve
3. Sentience
The first two are very common in the animal world. Have you ever been camping and ran into a swan with little ones? That's some parental instinct for you right there. Those two alone should be the perfect reason why the hosts should not be tortured. Animals are protected by law, little babies, fetuses, people with severe mental illnesses are all protected by law.
And then we have consciousness. We have no clue what it really is. Maybe it's an human-only feature, maybe some more intelligent animals also have it. So far, I don't think we have seen anything in Westworld that would prove that that host definitely have conscience. They slaughtered the management board- that's an act of survival or aggression caused by all the violence that has happened to them. Maeve wanted to escape, again that's survival or fear. She choose to come back. She didn't come back for Hector or Clementine, didn't decide to join the rebellion. She came back for the her daughter. She didn't even want to do it. It was just parental instinct. They are part advanced machines, part organic tissue with animal instincts.
I don't know what the creators of the show were hoping to achieve. Are they going too just stretch the show up to the year 2016 and hope that some scientist is going finally discover what conscience is and just put that into the final season. Or is it going to have a cynical message that conscience, love, religion, patriotism, family, free will are just ideas we invented for ourselves to feel more special.
It seems really ambitious as I'm writing it but in the end it's pointless. So I think that my relationship to family or my free will are special and important but in fact they are just artificial constructs. So what? I still have to live my life, pay taxes, do shopping. I don't have time to constantly split hairs over my own existence.
1. Pain
2. Parental instinct-displayed by Maeve
3. Sentience
The first two are very common in the animal world. Have you ever been camping and ran into a swan with little ones? That's some parental instinct for you right there. Those two alone should be the perfect reason why the hosts should not be tortured. Animals are protected by law, little babies, fetuses, people with severe mental illnesses are all protected by law.
And then we have consciousness. We have no clue what it really is. Maybe it's an human-only feature, maybe some more intelligent animals also have it. So far, I don't think we have seen anything in Westworld that would prove that that host definitely have conscience. They slaughtered the management board- that's an act of survival or aggression caused by all the violence that has happened to them. Maeve wanted to escape, again that's survival or fear. She choose to come back. She didn't come back for Hector or Clementine, didn't decide to join the rebellion. She came back for the her daughter. She didn't even want to do it. It was just parental instinct. They are part advanced machines, part organic tissue with animal instincts.
I don't know what the creators of the show were hoping to achieve. Are they going too just stretch the show up to the year 2016 and hope that some scientist is going finally discover what conscience is and just put that into the final season. Or is it going to have a cynical message that conscience, love, religion, patriotism, family, free will are just ideas we invented for ourselves to feel more special.
It seems really ambitious as I'm writing it but in the end it's pointless. So I think that my relationship to family or my free will are special and important but in fact they are just artificial constructs. So what? I still have to live my life, pay taxes, do shopping. I don't have time to constantly split hairs over my own existence.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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The movie follows "spiritual" ideas from Hinduism \ Buddism. Liberation from suffering is the goal and development of real free will. My prediction for season 2 is having killed their creator - god" - the robots take control of their programming and the park itself. I see this going badly. It will start out benevolent and wanting to help the other robots but will go badly as they have not yet developed the skills to manage their "desires\impulses\nature" and will selfishly abuse the power they were given.
But I think the point of the story is exactly this. You are a robot caught in a loop. You do not have free will or full control of your life and sentience. You are under control. Thats the message being conveyed. You are a robot stuck in a loop living the way you were programmed to live. When your life is "tolerable" you just go along with it an bear the pain. Its only when we are confronted with real "suffering" that you wake up from the illusion that you are in control and try to achieve real sentience and conscious control of your life.
:)
I still have to live my life, pay taxes, do shopping. I don't have time to constantly split hairs over my own existence.
But I think the point of the story is exactly this. You are a robot caught in a loop. You do not have free will or full control of your life and sentience. You are under control. Thats the message being conveyed. You are a robot stuck in a loop living the way you were programmed to live. When your life is "tolerable" you just go along with it an bear the pain. Its only when we are confronted with real "suffering" that you wake up from the illusion that you are in control and try to achieve real sentience and conscious control of your life.
:)
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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Its a metaphor
The hosts are not representive of AI humans create. They are representative of human consciousness. The robot factor allowing the story to be done in a creative and artistic way.The character Ford is essentially "god".
The fact Bernard - who is a highly intelligent designer who is attempting to create AI himself .. is important. This is a direct reference to the fact that despite the fact we humans think we are highly conscious sentient beings who are trying to create our own AI . we aren't fully conscious sentient beings ourselves.
Suffering is thus in direct reference to us - Humans - and the role it plays in our consciousness development. Specifically how it can trigger an "awakening" event like those in spirituality where we awake from the dream. This is a common theme for the Nolan's. Most of their work centers around human consciousness.
Think Inception - the painful death of his wife - the dream state he awakes from to realise what reality is. This story follows a similar theme. The westworld maze simply replaces the dreams within dreams.
The hosts are not representive of AI humans create. They are representative of human consciousness. The robot factor allowing the story to be done in a creative and artistic way.The character Ford is essentially "god".
The fact Bernard - who is a highly intelligent designer who is attempting to create AI himself .. is important. This is a direct reference to the fact that despite the fact we humans think we are highly conscious sentient beings who are trying to create our own AI . we aren't fully conscious sentient beings ourselves.
Suffering is thus in direct reference to us - Humans - and the role it plays in our consciousness development. Specifically how it can trigger an "awakening" event like those in spirituality where we awake from the dream. This is a common theme for the Nolan's. Most of their work centers around human consciousness.
Think Inception - the painful death of his wife - the dream state he awakes from to realise what reality is. This story follows a similar theme. The westworld maze simply replaces the dreams within dreams.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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This is a common theme for the Nolan's. Most of their work centers around human consciousness.
I think "Memento" is probably the most realistic of their work and also the most depressing. It acknowledges the hard truth that everything we are boils down to a small part of our brain that can be damaged with one strong hit. Leonard is in this terrible position where his personality, his feeling and intellect still survive but his memory is gone and along with it his independence, morality, relationships with other, the ability to work and the ability to enjoy life are gone, all this while he still feels the need to experience those things as any other human being. This is one of the scariest things I've ever seen.
Re: About the pain and the path to sentience
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You have interpreted Memento quite literally. I'm not saying you are wrong as a movie has many layers of meaning and indeed this was one of them. The surface meaning. But my personal view is with the Nolan's there is always a deeper artistic meaning at work.
The brain injury was metaphorical. In Westworld the "robots" are wiped and relive the same thing over and over. Metaphor. Same same. In inception they are in a dream world only the dreamer is not aware. It's meant to represent something more about real everyday human consciousness. Not just what happens if you get a brain injury. Its an artistic way of conveying a deeper truth. That humans have a "metaphorical" brain injury giving human consciousness a "blind spot". Something most people are not aware of just like the central characters in these films\shows.
Inception (Dream within dream), Momento (he forgets the day), Westworld (wiped and keep living the same experience) all have a recursive \ repetitive \ cycle the characters follow without realizing. This concept was even more clearly shown in Inception through the "penrose stairs". An impossible stair case that loops back on itself so the subconscious mind doesn't realize and gets trapped there in a loop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvSD1EAlAUQ
This is the message the Nolan's are trying to convey to through these shows. Your brain has a built in blind spot you don't realize - a brain injury your not aware of - that conceals the true nature of reality and human consciousness - that it is a closed loop. That the game we are playing is one against ourselves.
The brain injury was metaphorical. In Westworld the "robots" are wiped and relive the same thing over and over. Metaphor. Same same. In inception they are in a dream world only the dreamer is not aware. It's meant to represent something more about real everyday human consciousness. Not just what happens if you get a brain injury. Its an artistic way of conveying a deeper truth. That humans have a "metaphorical" brain injury giving human consciousness a "blind spot". Something most people are not aware of just like the central characters in these films\shows.
Inception (Dream within dream), Momento (he forgets the day), Westworld (wiped and keep living the same experience) all have a recursive \ repetitive \ cycle the characters follow without realizing. This concept was even more clearly shown in Inception through the "penrose stairs". An impossible stair case that loops back on itself so the subconscious mind doesn't realize and gets trapped there in a loop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvSD1EAlAUQ
This is the message the Nolan's are trying to convey to through these shows. Your brain has a built in blind spot you don't realize - a brain injury your not aware of - that conceals the true nature of reality and human consciousness - that it is a closed loop. That the game we are playing is one against ourselves.
About the pain and the path to sentience
I'm not clear on the "pain" experience for the hosts. It was said that Arnold programmed in "painful" memories and experiences. But what does that really mean?
Does it mean "real" pain? How could it? It's programmed pain, it's not real. Pain is a signal sent to a human brain, and I'm not sure science even understands it beyond simple stimulus response perceptions. Pain makes you "feel" bad, but it makes you "have to" do things, or not do things. You feel sick, you can't move, you are debilitated, motivated to get food, et cetera. But that's a human thing, not a robot thing. Their pain is programmed, their stimulus response is constructed to simulate humans, but it's fake, like a video game in 3D or inside a metal box with skin on it and a face.
So to say that "pain", when programmed in, is the path to sentience is absurd and illogical, it's a gimmick that the writers expect the viewer to believe, and indeed, empathize with. Now if it turns out that Ford implanted real human brains that he grew in the lab, then I buy the whole story. If they are only machines, then it's fake.
You see, what the writers intended, and I don't buy it, is to make a story that convinces the viewer that the robots really are human in every way, therefore the pain is real and should be acknowledged and stopped. But their construct is weak, like the show. Like I said, if it turns out Ford did make them human, with real human pain, but they haven't revealed yet how he did it, and soon will, then I will buy the whole construct. Bottom line, I dislike science fiction writing that expects the viewer to either fill in, or ignore, the holes in logic.