review of Westworld 1.9 

Westworld tonight - 1.9 - just breathtaking in its philosophical insight and daring. The series, brilliant from the outset, just keeps getting better.

The agenda is set tonight with what Maeve, now in control of her android programmer, tells Bernard: truth is "like a good fuck - half is worse than none at all".

We\'ve known less than half the truth about Bernard, until last week, when we found that he was a host aka android.   Tonight we learn that that was not the half of it.

Because, in another standout conversation between him and Ford, in which Bernard pushes Ford to tell him the truth about Bernard, and Ford presumably obliges, we find that Bernard is not just any host. Not even just any host put in charge by Ford to program and oversee the other hosts.  No, Bernard is a host programmed by Ford in Arnold\'s image.

Well, not just his image, but, presumably, something, maybe even a lot, of Arnold\'s mind.   Further, according to Ford, Arnold and Ford had two different ideas about how to build the minds of hosts - two different approaches, both of which co-exist, to some degree in each of the hosts we now encounter.   This is one iteration of Jaynes\' bicameral mind,

The other iteration is that Arnold\'s idea of consciousness is that one voice within the mind talks to the other, and consciousness emerges as the two are in some way blended or brought into synch.  So, if this represents Arnold\'s idea of a host\'s consciousness, and it co-exists in the hosts\' minds along with Ford\'s, we have a bicameral mind within a bicameral mind.   All that assuming, of course, that Ford was telling Bernard and us the truth - not a thoroughly reliable proposition, since Ford plays with Bernard and tells him half-truths and other-sized fragments in every conversation they have.

Hey, I told you the philosophical insight was daring.  And I\'m not even 100% clear what we saw tonight means.  But I\'m pretty sure that in this penultimate episode of the first season, we\'ve received at least half the truth of what\'s going on.  Or maybe not, but let\'s go with that assumption.  It was certainly, to get back to Maeve\'s declaration, a movable feast for the intellect.

And the other half?  Well, I doubt we\'ll get all or even most of it next week, since, after all, this is only the first season.  But I\'m looking forward to whatever little shred more we\'ll get.

See also Westworld 1.1: Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick Served Up by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J. J. Abrams ... Westworld 1.2: Who Is the Man in Black? ... Westworld 1.3: Julian Jaynes and Arnold ... Westworld 1.4: Vacation, Connie Francis, and Kurt Vonnegut ... Westworld 1.5: The Voice Inside Dolores ... Westworld 1.6: Programmed Unprogramming ... Westworld 1.7: The Story of the Story ... Westworld 1.8: Memories

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Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.  His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003),  Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).  His short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.  Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"  “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),  “Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

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