This post is a result of my new resolve to write down and analyse my experiences and learning from books or series or any other source. My intention is to force myself to have deeper thinking and forming an opinion on topics - and taking bets on them, rather than just consuming content. So here goes.
Recently finished Watching the series WestWorld and it gave me lots of food for thought. Sharing some points here.
- Backstory
In WestWorld, all 'hosts' were given a 'backstory' which were the memories which give them a sense of conscience. How true are our memories? As Daniel Kahneman and others have shown, the stories we tell ourselves are weaved by the narrative self. It is not an accurate descriptor of our actual experience, but depends a lot on how it ended.
Concept of time - Is time something real or just a mental construct? - Loops in the park stories in WestWorld had many stories running parallely sometimes involving the same characters. Time Arrow
Anchor
Suffering as a key ingredient for rise of consciousness
One of the key insights of the creators of the park was that suffering led to consciousness of the AIs. We also feel more alive when we are suffering, we get a sense of our being alive. Why so? If sadness gives us consciousness, why is the world running chasing happiness?
- Superiority of Consciousness of Human Beings vs AI - When one the AIs got consciousness, they asked Ford, the creator, what is the difference between their consciousness and human's? What are they missing? Ford said nothing, they are not missing anything. Then why do we feel that we have something which others don't? Even in Indian yoga tradition, human life is considered a special life from which there is a chance to get moksha or nirvana. Why?
Is it just because this story is created by us, so by default we are special in our own imagination.
- What will Human Beings do - when(if) day to day struggles of earning and surviving are gone? What will be their prime driving force? - In Westworld, it was mentioned that the outside world had become "soft" and there was nothing which made people feel "alive". That's why they came to the park to do things and feel alive. What happens when people don't need to struggle for survival any more? What would they do?