Who I Am, Where Do I come From: The Otology Behind "Westworld" and the Life of Choice

By Shanle Lin

Introduction

By the 17th century, when Galilei noticed that the earth goes around the sun instead of the opposite around. Many people were in shock. They couldn’t have believed that human wasn’t at the center of the universe. Generally, it is not the various great ideas that subvert the way of people thinking, but our ignorance of yesterday. People are afraid to accept the impact a brought by the solidified-mind revolution, although this is born with human nature. In the movie Westworld (1973), John Michael Crichton bravely used “technophobia” to express what may happen if robots made for hedonism or recreation purpose generate their own mind.

In this essay, I would like to discuss how machines be with consciousness portrayed in films and their consequences. Then, compare human intelligent and artificial intelligence machine learning to find the connection of each. Furthermore, investigate creation and deconstruction relationship to analysis the realistic environment. Finally, focus on the existential implication of ontology cognition to seek the reflection on the possible future that artificial intelligence truly gains human wisdom and find out the choice making in social and architectural environment.

Film Synopsis

Peter (Richard Benjamin) and his friend John (James Brolin) went to Delos’ Westworld theme park to take a special vacation in a huge stage of 1840 to 1860 west land. There is a series of growing failure rate, infected by computer virus, provoke robotic awakening. The humanoid robots are no longer to simply be a fantasies guests but bloodthirsty tools. The gunslinger (Yul Brynner) and other robots truly have their own conscious and decide to against human. in the end tragedy collapses the idea of the Disneyland pleasure, where people come and live in a fragile dream doing things without limit.

Ontology in the film environment

On the surface of the scene, the parks in Westworld served as wish machines to satisfy their soul and desire. The living machine just like the technician director pointed out the extraordinary machines are complicated devices that are almost complex like living organs, which those humanoid simulation has already been able to think and act like a human. But the top brass kept it running for financial purpose. Consequently, the tragedy happened.

It is remarkable that the film begins with an advertising slogan “You get the choice of the vacation you want” and end with the same slogan. This narrative technique is ironical to point out the unrealistic idealism of Disneyland theme parks where people can spend money to play a role that is able to break the law without being persecuted. At the same time, the movie also illuminates many of the problems that capitalist society encountered in last century and analysis the ontological and normative status of “reality,” which may lead us to consider about self-consciously concern issues.

The same world view was used by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy to draw a world contain with true and invalid sense in Westworld (2016) TV series. The TV series is returning to discuss the consciousness of hosts, what androids perfectly replicate humans in the park to fulfill guests’ any desires, generate by a voice from “god.” The main theoretical points behind the screen refer to Julian Jaynes’ main statement, “software archaeology”, which is as recently as at the time of the creation of Homer’s Iliad, human beings did not have consciousness. On the contrary, people’s minds were what Jaynes calls “bicameral”; people act on right hemisphere auditory hallucination, which they interpreted to be the voices from gods and followed the voice though mechanically movement. A good explanation of consciousness is more likely being said by Cobb, a main character in the inception film, “An idea is like a virus. Resilient. Highly contagious. And even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you.” Several choice makings define one to be the one in the moment. Any decision is consensual with the future identity.

The Existing of Consciousness, Does It Exist?

A machine is conscious and passes the Turing Test, which is a method of inquiring in artificial intelligence (AI) for determining whether a computer can think like a human being, can it be treat a human? Thomas Vargish mentions Westworld in “Technology and Impotence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” An essay exploring Shelley’s novel as a tale about how technology invariably usurps and empowers humanity will simultaneously. Vargish argues that, despite the tendency of creators like Victor Frankenstein to deny, technology is simply an extension of the creator's self, despite its flaws. In fact, the trouble with technology is that it is the ones that will bother us anyway. Frankenstein's creature usurped its creator, but it was also the result of the creator's usurpation of nature.

It is a shame that at the beginning of the movie, the replicant of human can behave almost exactly as humans do. The only different thing is that they cannot make their own choice. All the behavior act base on the scientists, regulator and director inside the control room. Similar “scripts” we are not able to decide as well: we cannot choose our parents, culture and upbringing. Certainly, we may wonder whether our choices are any free than those androids.

Furthermore, the virus infected gunslinger (Yul Brynner) to generate a serious of killing code to the execution system spilling blood in Westworld, which gunslinger “decide” to use violence met violence to sentence justice. Much as we humans react to evil when we aware of it, displaying revenge and anger as response to the circumstances. At the end of the movie, gunslinger start to act according to his own will that challenge people and carry out a revenge.

What’s more, when we compare with another film, The Truman Show (1998), it is obvious to find that No matter the Westworld or The Truman Show stage, the main characters, Truman, the gunslinger, are commodity first, living and thinking being second. The free will behind the scenes begins with ignorant – they were set to play the role that “gods” gave them, and people from the outside world make fun with it. After their faith for their own reality crushed, they initiated to suspect about the surroundings. Eventually, they against their creators, and make their first true choice: Truman walk through the door and get free, gunslinger raised his gun to fight back customers.

It’s funny that the creator of the The Truman Show, Christof, and the head of Delos Westworld theme park, Peter, both played by Ed Harris, and both characters show an incredible obsession with man-made realities and strong will to rule the world, and they all prefer the fabricated realities. Yet, it also could state another statement, the most important thing is human emotion. Christof creates the fake gigantic studio because the feeling is missing in the outside world. Peter promises to invest money to build up this giant fantasy with Delos resources because he found more realistic experiences in the theme park where he can play his real self.

Everyone Wants to Be Free: Consciousness and Existential Implications

Turing argued that machines thinking not because they have special power or a surface similar to ours. Rather, machines can think because we are like them. When we think of androids as beings like us, then, we attribute certain qualia to them, which “qualia” is a term to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives.

The replicants are programmed not to do certain things, such as killing or harming human. but at the final part of the movie, gunslinger start doing things he was not programmed to do – fight back again humans. Which behavior is much like the way that computers react to viruses when they “feel attacked.” Human are programmed too: we also react to danger, even when we are not prepared. Image this, you are unarmed in a wild field, where has a sign to identified there are fierce beast haunting around. Suddenly, you hear the wind blew over the grass. How do you act in next moment? Run or freeze are two basic action for us. So, at some point, we can say we share the same abilities of reacting, with machines.

It is that in the ideal noirs, we present not only a form of life due to the fact that historical facts are blinded by a growing, common sense of fatalism and alienation. Yet we see what is works in part of life in such a world, a shared world not bound by the notion of reflective individuals. We cannot see the photos of the victims, we already overwhelmed by social forces which we cannot control and take the consequence. That could be what every individual fear and often be found as truth. As creature in the Earth, we

Conclusion

We live in a heterogeneous condition by the desire and witness thousands of newborn and late springs. But how do we put ourselves in this environment? With a film as a medium, we can be sure that even if we understand that the future is irreversible, the future will still be full of uncertainty. When watching a movie, the images that make up the movie have been identified. Yet we also know that in this formalized system, there are events and knowledge that we have not covered. In addition, encountering these unknown events, these scheduled unveiling and twists and turns have enhanced our movie experience in some way. For example, in the Westworld (1973), when the humanoid robots decide killing people. The gunslinger tracks Peter down to a dungeon, a secret place for scientists supervise guests, with updating infrared sensor iris. As an audience member, I thought Peter would die for sure. However, Peter threw a bottle of sulfuric acid on gunslinger’s face and escape. In the second scene, when the gunslinger found Peter under the torch, he gets confused from the torch heat with Peter's body thermal. Suddenly, Peter gets the chance to fight back by flipping over the torch flame burning the madness robots.

As long as one is dreaming, one still wants to picture a beautiful and sweet dream, then “humanism is dying” would always just be a warning. All the pain will fake as the time went by, all the terrible problem even fatal tragedy would lower their head. Although face the miserable mission ahead of us might be extremely difficult, we, the species never bend their knees, face the difficulties with smiles and pass the future a satisfactory answer. The groups that have been weeded out by human evolution are always complaining; The rest, with their dreams as horses and their blood as wine, run faster as they look at the ruins.

Bibliography

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