Re: Westworld (WITH SPOILERS!!)
So was that the real Ford that got shot, or a body double? And if it was the real one, did he already transplant his memories into a robot ala Bernarnold? Because clearly the whole end scene was planned by him.
My take.
Since apparently Consciousness = Memory + Improvisation + Suffering*, Dolores needed to suffer to finally bring her into complete consciousness. William/Man in Black understood that from experience -- he woke from his "sleep" in the park after he understood how she was trapped. This is why he spent 35 years hurting her. (Well, this and William is not a good person. After all he could have tried gentle love.) Ford has Dolores kill him for the same reason Arnold did: to push her over the hump into full consciousness. There are also echoes pf parenthood here: you are never fully yourself until you "kill" your parents. And faith: man becomes fully real only after he "kills" God, first in Eden, then with reason. This also harkens to
The Creation of Adam. God is inside the brain, man bootstraps
himself from the animals.
Finally, there is the theory that man created God because he mistook his own thoughts for the divine voice. Hence we have Delores first hearing Arnold (God), then achieving real sentience (confronting herself). This is an explanation of the Julian Jayne book
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, referenced in the title of the last episode. Here is the
wiki on the episode. So far there is little about the philosophy underlying the episode. I wish Nolan would write the entry, much as Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the Genius annotation to the lyrics of
Hamilton.
I happened to be rereading Gilbert Ryle's
The Concept of Mind while watching the show -- the parallels are extraordinary and I will try to write about them at some point.
I think you could spend a year thinking and writing about all the ideas and implications concerning consciousness and mind and humanity in this show and not even scratch the surface. This was a
beautiful piece of work -- from writing to direction to acting to music -- and everybody involved should get an Emmy.
So anyway, Ford. He could be a double, as long as Dolores thinks it's really him. He says "the stakes must be high," not the actuality. But Ford is also repenting for his tragic mistake, and I believe he thinks it fitting that he be executed.
On the other hand... the full context of the line is as follows:
These violent delights have violent ends/And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,/Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey/Is loathsome in his own deliciousness/And in the taste confounds the appetite:/Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;/Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. -- Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene 6.
Friar Lawrence says this to Romeo. Friar Lawrence also gives Juliet the sleeping potion whereby she
pretends to be dead. So is this a hint that Arnold and/or Ford could still be alive? Personally I don't think so. Ford has spent his life trying to atone for his sins and fulfill Arnold's (and William's) desire to see that from the lie of the park one unadulterated truth comes forth: the birth of a new people with free will. I think it would be inartistic of Ford to christen that moment with another lie, and Ford is nothing if not alive to aesthetics.
* I was also struck, probably because of my theater background, at how Memory + Improvisation + Suffering also equals something else. It's a great description of how actors prepare for their roles. And really what better way to summarize the machines prior to their epiphany than "actors"?
