20 ms·

I really enjoyed westworld and found the coverage of ai amazingly not stupid as opposed to most other sci-fi shows. However the biggest idea in the show was th

by chvid 10y ago

I really enjoyed westworld and found the coverage of ai amazingly not stupid as opposed to most other sci-fi shows. However the biggest idea in the show was the relationship between god (Anthony Hopkins), self (the robots) and consciousness as an extension of inner conversation. I had to look up the idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)

codewithcheese 10y ago
I really like this idea. However, i've had lots of conscious experiences with a quiet mind
- toupeira 10y ago
  Read more closely, the hypothesis is that bicameralism was an evolutionary stage in human consciousness that broke down at some point in antiquity. So it would entirely be expected that you don't experience it anymore :)
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    That would imply that everybody on earth "evolved" away from bicameralism at the same time.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Not necessarily. It's conceivable that a cultural or linguistic change swept quickly through the population, but it wouldn't have to happen instantaneously, and might even continue in some way (see my other comment).
      - azakai 10y ago
        Perhaps, but it wouldn't explain isolated human populations, of which we have several in the relevant time frames.
    - azakai 10y ago
      Indeed, and that's one reason why the theory is considered discredited. Still, it lives on. Not many incorrect ideas do. Perhaps it's because it is a more concise and elegant answer to several unresolved questions (why did self-awareness arise? why did religions change at that particular time?) in ways we don't have any other good answers for. It's a brilliant idea, that sadly happens to be wrong.
      - ColanR 10y ago
        > why did religions change at that particular time? Wait, what? Sounds cool and I'd love a source on that.
        azakai 10y ago
        The Wikipedia article summarizes it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#The_Origin_of_Consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#The_... Basically, before 3,000 years or so, it was common for people to hear the gods talk. Somehow, that changed and it became far more rare, with only a few (prophets and such) claiming to actually hear the gods' voices. The bicameral theory is that there are still such people today, schizophrenics, and it is one half of their brain talking to the other - but they perceive it as an external agency. And that somehow this was the common state of humanity in the past, but changed. We became self-aware - we recognized the internal voice as part of ourselves. This does actually fit many historical facts well. Still, it is likely wrong for other reasons.
        ColanR 10y ago
        Thanks. That's fascinating.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Bicameralism, if it was ever real, might still occur under some religious settings. When I was much younger, still religious, and hadn't heard of the bicameral mind, I noticed that in a certain spiritual frame of mind my internal monologue became more of an internal dialogue, where I could pose questions and perceive a subvocalized answer within my thought stream as coming from "elsewhere". I'm not sure how to reproduce the effect, but it wasn't necessarily useful as I couldn't get any information I didn't already know.
    - benevol 10y ago
      > I noticed that in a certain spiritual frame of mind my internal monologue became more of an internal dialogue, where I could pose questions and perceive a subvocalized answer within my thought stream as coming from "elsewhere". That was almost certainly one of your spiritual guides talking to you. Don't give that treasure up, you don't need to be "religious" to continue it. You just need to accept your spiritual dimension (that we all have), which is usually much easier for us when we're kids. Once we grow up, we develop our ego further, which acts like a barrier between ourselves and our spiritual dimension (i.e our guides). Btw, a substance like LSD or psilocybin can break down the ego temporarily and thus open you up further to experience your (natural) "link" to the "other side". And this is the reason why a lot of people report experiences of spiritual nature when they consume such substances (in the correct set and settings). Daily meditation practice is also a very good idea to keep it going.
      - ColanR 10y ago
        > it wasn't necessarily useful as I couldn't get any information I didn't already know Don't forget to read to the end...this isn't a 'spiritual' thing.
- sp332 10y ago
  Yeah I don't think the idea is taken seriously for humans. But it's an interesting way to program a robot.
rubber_duck 10y ago
>coverage of ai amazingly not stupid as opposed to most other sci-fi shows If they were capable of that level of AI they would have reached exponential growth shortly - to suggest someone would use it to build theme parks is downright retarded. Like you said - AI is a plot device in that show, just another form of "magic" that lets them ramble on about consciousness while pretending to be sciency.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I think the best coverage of AI in visual fiction so far is Person of Interest. Interestingly, the show was made by the same team writing Westworld. PoI starts slowly and pretends to be a cop procedural with a little bit of sci-fi sprinkled on top, but quickly evolves into treatise on surveillance state and artificial intelligence. Fun fact: PoI basically predicted Snowden and his revelations - the episode with NSA whistleblower aired before Snowden did his thing.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    I got a bit bored with PoI at first but I've heard enough good things that I really should dive back into it.
    - dagw 10y ago
      PoI really suffered from being on network television with their really long seasons. Had it been done with only 10 episodes a season and all the filler removed it would have been much stronger.
    - psyc 10y ago
      Since it's a TV series, there are a lot of generic filler episodes that are just like Law & Order whodunnits + AI. But the high points, which eventually take center stage in latter seasons, are indeed the best depiction of AI and the issues surrounding it that I've ever seen on a screen.
      - lobster_johnson 10y ago
edoloughlin 10y ago
The You Are Not So Smart podcast touched on this recently: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2016/12/02/yanss-090-questioning-the-nature-of-reality-with-cognitive-scientist-donald-hoffman/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2016/12/02/yanss-090-questionin...
maroonblazer 10y ago
>and consciousness as an extension of inner conversation. To me it seemed like they barely touched on this. I had high hopes for the show in that we'd get some interesting perspectives on what a world with AI might be like, the moral and ethical issues associated with sentient-seeming machines, etc. Some kind of "Humans"/"Äkta människor" meets "Black Mirror". But that never materialized. To make matters worse the slipshod storytelling and lackluster character development became a distraction such that it made it difficult to take the AI aspects all that seriously.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  > and consciousness as an extension of inner conversation. >> To me it seemed like they barely touched on this. You may want to finish all of the first season then. It is the major theme.
  - maroonblazer 10y ago
    > You may want to finish all of the first season then. It is the major theme. I did, and your point nails it. It felt like something they tacked on to the last episode or two as opposed to being woven throughout the entire season.
- JackFr 10y ago
  I think that was one of the successes of the series. There are such good philosophical questions introduced, but the potential to address them in a ham-fisted, facile, middle-school-smart way is so great they made the right choice in raising, but not addressing them.
- uberrr 10y ago
  What aspects of the storytelling did you find slipshod? I felt it was quite compelling and well paced.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  >I had high hopes for the show in that we'd get some interesting perspectives on what a world with AI might be like, the moral and ethical issues associated with sentient-seeming machines Was the eponymous theme park not enough?
drdeadringer 10y ago
Robert Sawyer's WWW trilogy Incorporated bicameralism into the trilogy's AI development.

by chvid 10y ago

codewithcheese 10y ago

I really like this idea. However, i've had lots of conscious experiences with a quiet mind

toupeira 10y ago
Read more closely, the hypothesis is that bicameralism was an evolutionary stage in human consciousness that broke down at some point in antiquity. So it would entirely be expected that you don't experience it anymore :)
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  That would imply that everybody on earth "evolved" away from bicameralism at the same time.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Not necessarily. It's conceivable that a cultural or linguistic change swept quickly through the population, but it wouldn't have to happen instantaneously, and might even continue in some way (see my other comment).
    - azakai 10y ago
      Perhaps, but it wouldn't explain isolated human populations, of which we have several in the relevant time frames.
  - azakai 10y ago
    Indeed, and that's one reason why the theory is considered discredited. Still, it lives on. Not many incorrect ideas do. Perhaps it's because it is a more concise and elegant answer to several unresolved questions (why did self-awareness arise? why did religions change at that particular time?) in ways we don't have any other good answers for. It's a brilliant idea, that sadly happens to be wrong.
    - ColanR 10y ago
      > why did religions change at that particular time? Wait, what? Sounds cool and I'd love a source on that.
      - azakai 10y ago
        The Wikipedia article summarizes it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#The_Origin_of_Consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)#The_... Basically, before 3,000 years or so, it was common for people to hear the gods talk. Somehow, that changed and it became far more rare, with only a few (prophets and such) claiming to actually hear the gods' voices. The bicameral theory is that there are still such people today, schizophrenics, and it is one half of their brain talking to the other - but they perceive it as an external agency. And that somehow this was the common state of humanity in the past, but changed. We became self-aware - we recognized the internal voice as part of ourselves. This does actually fit many historical facts well. Still, it is likely wrong for other reasons.
        ColanR 10y ago
        Thanks. That's fascinating.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Bicameralism, if it was ever real, might still occur under some religious settings. When I was much younger, still religious, and hadn't heard of the bicameral mind, I noticed that in a certain spiritual frame of mind my internal monologue became more of an internal dialogue, where I could pose questions and perceive a subvocalized answer within my thought stream as coming from "elsewhere". I'm not sure how to reproduce the effect, but it wasn't necessarily useful as I couldn't get any information I didn't already know.
  - benevol 10y ago
    > I noticed that in a certain spiritual frame of mind my internal monologue became more of an internal dialogue, where I could pose questions and perceive a subvocalized answer within my thought stream as coming from "elsewhere". That was almost certainly one of your spiritual guides talking to you. Don't give that treasure up, you don't need to be "religious" to continue it. You just need to accept your spiritual dimension (that we all have), which is usually much easier for us when we're kids. Once we grow up, we develop our ego further, which acts like a barrier between ourselves and our spiritual dimension (i.e our guides). Btw, a substance like LSD or psilocybin can break down the ego temporarily and thus open you up further to experience your (natural) "link" to the "other side". And this is the reason why a lot of people report experiences of spiritual nature when they consume such substances (in the correct set and settings). Daily meditation practice is also a very good idea to keep it going.
    - ColanR 10y ago
      > it wasn't necessarily useful as I couldn't get any information I didn't already know Don't forget to read to the end...this isn't a 'spiritual' thing.
sp332 10y ago
Yeah I don't think the idea is taken seriously for humans. But it's an interesting way to program a robot.

rubber_duck 10y ago

>coverage of ai amazingly not stupid as opposed to most other sci-fi shows If they were capable of that level of AI they would have reached exponential growth shortly - to suggest someone would use it to build theme parks is downright retarded. Like you said - AI is a plot device in that show, just another form of "magic" that lets them ramble on about consciousness while pretending to be sciency.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
I think the best coverage of AI in visual fiction so far is Person of Interest. Interestingly, the show was made by the same team writing Westworld. PoI starts slowly and pretends to be a cop procedural with a little bit of sci-fi sprinkled on top, but quickly evolves into treatise on surveillance state and artificial intelligence. Fun fact: PoI basically predicted Snowden and his revelations - the episode with NSA whistleblower aired before Snowden did his thing.
- ghaff 10y ago
  I got a bit bored with PoI at first but I've heard enough good things that I really should dive back into it.
  - dagw 10y ago
    PoI really suffered from being on network television with their really long seasons. Had it been done with only 10 episodes a season and all the filler removed it would have been much stronger.
  - psyc 10y ago
    Since it's a TV series, there are a lot of generic filler episodes that are just like Law & Order whodunnits + AI. But the high points, which eventually take center stage in latter seasons, are indeed the best depiction of AI and the issues surrounding it that I've ever seen on a screen.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago

edoloughlin 10y ago

The You Are Not So Smart podcast touched on this recently: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2016/12/02/yanss-090-questioning-the-nature-of-reality-with-cognitive-scientist-donald-hoffman/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2016/12/02/yanss-090-questionin...

maroonblazer 10y ago

>and consciousness as an extension of inner conversation. To me it seemed like they barely touched on this. I had high hopes for the show in that we'd get some interesting perspectives on what a world with AI might be like, the moral and ethical issues associated with sentient-seeming machines, etc. Some kind of "Humans"/"Äkta människor" meets "Black Mirror". But that never materialized. To make matters worse the slipshod storytelling and lackluster character development became a distraction such that it made it difficult to take the AI aspects all that seriously.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
> and consciousness as an extension of inner conversation. >> To me it seemed like they barely touched on this. You may want to finish all of the first season then. It is the major theme.
- maroonblazer 10y ago
  > You may want to finish all of the first season then. It is the major theme. I did, and your point nails it. It felt like something they tacked on to the last episode or two as opposed to being woven throughout the entire season.
JackFr 10y ago
I think that was one of the successes of the series. There are such good philosophical questions introduced, but the potential to address them in a ham-fisted, facile, middle-school-smart way is so great they made the right choice in raising, but not addressing them.
uberrr 10y ago
What aspects of the storytelling did you find slipshod? I felt it was quite compelling and well paced.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
>I had high hopes for the show in that we'd get some interesting perspectives on what a world with AI might be like, the moral and ethical issues associated with sentient-seeming machines Was the eponymous theme park not enough?

drdeadringer 10y ago

Robert Sawyer's WWW trilogy Incorporated bicameralism into the trilogy's AI development.