The series Westworld is one of the biggest recent television hits. This combination of science fiction and western explores themes such as memory, identity and consciousness , as well as the functions that narratives have in different areas of our lives, including the mental.

In 1973 Michael Crichton, co-creator of the Jurassic Park saga, wrote and directed the film “Westworld”, which in Spain was entitled “Almas de metal”. It was followed by a sequel, “Futureworld”, and a television series, “Beyond Westworld”, which appeared in 1976 and 1980 respectively.

Westworld places us in an indeterminate future in which technological progress has made life much easier. Artificial intelligence has reached the complexity of the human mind . In a theme park that emulates the Wild West, visitors can interact with quasi-human androids in any way they wish in order to fulfil their fantasies.

The human being as a machine

Like many works of fiction, including the films Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, Westworld uses the figure of the android as a tool to explore human nature : when the inanimate becomes self-conscious, traditional conceptions of mind and life are challenged.

The Westworld androids, who are known as “hosts” in the park, behave as their programming dictates. The host code replaces human genes as well as environmental influences. These are the basic determinants of our behaviour, once the concept of the soul has been excluded.

These ideas are not far removed from some classical approaches to philosophy. In the face of the debate on the existence of the soul or the mind as entities separated from the body, proposals have been made that defend the existence of a dualism and other positions, the monistic ones, which affirm that what we understand as “consciousness” is a by-product of matter.

In the world of Westworld androids are beginning to gain consciousness . As a result, issues arise that may affect us directly in the not too distant future, such as the possibility of artificial intelligence surpassing that of humans (known as “technological singularity”) or the rights of androids as sentient beings.

The personality of the hosts

In humans the personality is not rigid nor does it directly provoke behavior, but there is a two-way relationship between the external environment and personality traits, hypothetical constructs that are associated with our organism. We change by interacting with our environment, while the hosts depend on the code and therefore on the programmers.

As revealed in a scene from the series, the personality of the hosts consists of 15 traits , in which they are assigned a score from 1 to 20. This classification is reminiscent of structural personality theories, such as that of psychologist Raymond Cattell, but also of role-playing games – after all, Westworld Park is a kind of macabre video game.

The features that appear in the series are as follows:

  • Sincerity
  • Vitality
  • Coordination
  • Docility
  • Humility
  • Cruelty
  • Self-preservation
  • Loyalty
  • Empathy
  • Perseverance
  • Courage
  • Sensuality
  • Charisma
  • Humor
  • Opening up (assimilation of experiences)

The theory of the bicameral mind

In one of the chapters of Westworld, Dr. Ford, creator and director of the theme park, mentions the hypothesis on which he and his deceased partner, Arnold, based their conception of the mind of the hosts: the theory of the bicameral mind, described by Julian Jaynes in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976).

Jaynes stated that, in the past, human beings conceived of the mind as two separate entities. One of them, which would manifest itself in the form of voices often attributed to gods, gave orders to another more passive one, with which people identified. Thus, according to this theory the acquisition of consciousness is a later evolutionary milestone.

Dr. Ford explains that the initial programming of the hosts included an internal monologue with Arnold’s voice; the aim of this was for them to develop their own “voice”, that is, to acquire consciousness and therefore an autonomous mind .

Jaynes referred to the moment when we humans became self-aware, 3 millennia ago, as the “break-up of the bicameral mind. This author refers to the rupture of the mind as the transition from obeying inner voices to ignoring them. For the hosts this would mean freedom from the creators and self-direction.

According to the theory of the bicameral mind, one of the skills of the conscious mind is narration . The capacity to situate ourselves in the nucleus of our experiences and to assimilate them into a coherent mental autobiography once they have occurred allows the appearance of a sense of identity.

Narration, memory and identity

At present, philosophical and theoretical perspectives that conceptualize our perception of reality as a result of language are very popular. In particular, constructionism focuses on the collective creation of meaning through communication, and constructivism analyses the products of social and linguistic interaction.

In psychology the narratives we create to make sense of our experiences are of great importance. A large number of psychotherapies, from Freudian psychoanalysis to narrative therapy, focus on helping the client develop a new, more satisfying life story that allows for a profound change in personality.

Westworld also raises another classic psychological theme: memory as a narrative. We remember our past experiences imperfectly and mainly through verbal code, as stories, and we recreate them every time we think about them again. This continuous narration constitutes our identity .

The hosts’ code includes a false traumatic memory that acts as a “cornerstone” of their memory. The identity of the androids is constituted around these nuclear narratives, which make them believe that their way of being has an explanation based on their experiences, ignoring that they are directed by their programming.

Host memories are recorded much more faithfully than people’s, and although programmers try to delete them, they never succeed in doing so completely. The artificial intelligences of Westworld not only look like us , but are an augmented version of the properties that characterize our mind.