10 timeless concepts explored in WestWorld

Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright

I was mightily biased against the HBO TV series Westworld, carrying impressions of the silly Hollywood action movie Cowboys Vs Aliens that I did not care to see.  Like the latter, the current HBO series also carries big name stars including Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Jeremy Wright.  I stuck my tongue out in disgust and ignored it along with all the other flotsam and jetsam in today's media and entertainment landscape.

I don't exactly remember why I decided to take a peek.  It was probably because my son, who put me on to the massive TV hit Game of Thrones, or because I saw an interview with its co-writer Jonathan Nolan, or a trusty review in the NY Times.  In any case, I had the opportunity to binge watch the first season and I was hooked.  And then I watched the just concluded second season.

Unfortunately, like with House of Cards and Homeland, I have jumped off this train.  Not because I am dissatisfied, but rather because I am.  "Got it," I said to myself, "don't need more of this."

Jonathan Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy have produced a very ambitious series.  He was the author of that very intriguing movie Memento, that his brother Christopher Nolan directed, that put both on the map.

Plot

Imagine a theme park like Disney World, where the animatrons are very advanced human like robots.  In a violent twist, humans are allowed to do anything imaginable to these robots under the construct that what we cannot do in civil society, they can in this artificial set-up.  Imagine a violent video game, but in a theme park setting.

Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan

There are no spoilers or plot points or character descriptions in the notes below - just the intriguing concepts being explored.  Here are 10 timeless concepts that Jonathan Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy have tackled in the beautifully produced, well acted, epic scale TV series. 

1. Creation of a new species

Yuval Noah Harari in his terrific book, Homo Deus predicts that we will be replaced by a new species.  Ray Kurzweil, actually gives it a date - year 2045.  Homo Sapiens replaced the Neandrathals.  A hybrid human-machine, genetically engineered species could well do the same to humans as we know them.

WestWorld Concept:  In the case of this TV series, which is inspired by a Michael Crichton novel and movie of the same name, the species that aims to replace human beings are robots, whose Artificial Intelligence "wakes up."

2. Artificial Intelligence

Discussion of AI is all the rage in Silicon Valley and the use of Machine Learning in virtually every application we can think of.  Human intelligence is slowly, but surely and increasingly being emulated by AI.

The argument that AI cannot replicate subjective consciousness that we humans experience is irrelevant it seems.  If AI at scale, can supplant human functionality, then whether it is subjectively conscious or not, it will become dominant.

WestWorld Concept: AI controls the behavior of the robots throughout the theme park. And the operational aspects of AI are very well explored and executed in this series.

3. Virtual Reality

I have visited the Virtual Reality Lab at Stanford University.  I have also seen VR in an art exhibition in Boston.  It is such an immersive experience that one's brain refuses to believe the experience is artificial.  After a while, it is easy to lose oneself in this artificial world.

WestWorld Concept:  To understand human behavior, simulations are run in virtual reality.

4. Cloning

Nobel prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro contemplated what it means to be a clone and what cloning implies in his beautifully constructed novel, Never Let Me Go.  Is a clone of oneself, oneself?

Westworld Concept:  In Westworld this cloning is explored both in reality and in virtual reality.  This might be the most breathtaking and artistically creative exploration that the series executes.

5. Immortality

If we can continuously replace our organs, identify the gene that causes aging and manipulate it and use synthetic materials in our bodies to keep us strong - how long can we live?  This regardless of how long we want to live!

Westworld Concept:  If I say much about this, it would be a spoiler.  But it would suffice to say that this desire for immortality is one of the key conceptual underpinnings of the series.

6.  Morality

Are we intrinsically moral or are we moral within constraints provided by organized religion, law enforcement or social sanction?

Westworld Concept:  Given the theme park setting, where humans can do whatever they chose to with very human like robots, the responses are all over the map - but in the main evil.  This might be the authors view of the world, but William Golding in Lord of the Flies reached this conclusion more than 60 years ago.

7.  Myths

Back to Yuval Noah Harari.  In his earlier book, Sapiens, Harari credits human cognition and the ability to tell ourselves stories and build myths as our key competitive advantage that allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet.  And that this might be our undoing at the next turn of evolution.

Westworld concept:  The robots are each given a story, and they repeat endless loops of this story after each reboot of the theme park for a fresh set of guests (or returning guests).  As a viewer, it is devastating to watch these robots stuck in an endless loop, and with each loop we know what is coming  (oy vey!  this was difficult emotionally).

8.  Free Will

The mathematician Raymond Smullyan explores the concept of free will beautifully in his dialogue, Is God a Taoist.  It is a headspinner of a dialogue, as the human has a conversation with God and can never quite tell if he is delusional.

Westworld Concept:  The endless loop that the robots endure are put to the test with humans, in virtual reality - and how they react to a given situation.  The show creators take the bleakest possible view of humans and free will, and base it on the latest scientific research on human cognition.

9.  Memory and time

Jonathan Nolan showcased his genius for playing with memory and time in his debut story Memento.  To this day, after repeated viewings and reading many many "explainers" I still quite cannot crack the puzzle that Memento presents.  But it is endlessly fascinating.

Westworld Concept: To the point of irritating the viewer, the TV series plays with multiple timelines and jumps back and forth.  But the hallucinatory effect on the robots that cannot tell when an event is happening is profoundly revealing about how our minds deal with memory and time.

10.  Identity

Finally and most importantly - who are we?  Who are we as a human species, who are we as individuals and who are we as living beings?  This age old question has been tackled of course by every field of inquiry and artistic endeavor and so does this show.

Westworld Concept:  The show in the most intriguing and propulsive way, explores this question for the robots and the human characters.

Summary

Any one of these concepts is enough to sustain a novel or a movie or a TV series.  But it is credit to Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's searing artistic ambition that they deal with all ten of these above concepts in one story!  Amazing....

The series does weigh down with this ambition and while two seasons got me to appreciate what the show creators are trying to accomplish, I have to regretfully sign-off since the lengths they have to go to keep the modern audience's interest gets in the way of exploring these concepts and telling a good story.

So adios Westworld ..... and thank you!