The ethics of creating artificially-intelligent machines is tricky business. Maybe you want to indulge in thoughtful discussion or maybe you just want the answers handed to you on a silver platter. Either way, Jim and A.Ron have you covered with Watching Westworld, the officially unofficial podcast for the Westworld series on HBO.
Are we hosts dreaming that we’re human? Or are we humans dreaming that we’re hosts? Dive into the philosophical origins of the title of this episode. Jim comes around to A.Ron’s ascension theory based on evidence from this episode. We get some answers in this episode, but now we have more questions.
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Join in on our discussion of YOUR questions and theories. Westworld is hitting its stride in a big way. It felt good to finally get some answers to our burning questions, but now that the door has been kicked down, more questions are flooding in. Charlotte Hale is cementing her place as one of the greatest villains. We’ve done the philosophical research for you in this episode of Watching Westworld with philosopher Aaron Rabinowitz.
How is the sublime capable of simulating the entire earth? Can a heaven become a hell? Has the simulation spread to the entire universe? Is it a tuna melt or a pastrami sandwich?? Are the host marbles symbolic wads of dung??? And Michele Boyd, who plays Temperance Armistice, writes to your favorite hosts. Tune in for answers and laughs with Jim and A.Ron in this feedback episode.
Today we’re joined by Aaron Rabinowitz, lecturing philosopher at Rutgers, as well as host of the Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space podcast. He’s going to be talking to us today about the concepts of freewill vs determinism. Are humans on inescapable loops? Are we truly free to make our own decisions? If not, do our choices matter in any meaningful way? How do these philosophies impact social policies, economics, criminal justice, and more? And how does this connect to the themes of Westworld?
What do Apple and Westworld have in common? Forced obsolescence. Dolores presses forward to a new world order with hordes of flies. Fire fights explode. Maeve gives Caleb something to fight for. All the while, hosts and humans are forced ever closer to extinction. Is the future flesh, or is the future flies?
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New York may be a zoo for humans? How is that different from all the cities we have now? Embrace the existential crisis and join us as we discuss an episode that has us all reeling. We cover our observations along with your theories and questions in the Instant Talk. Tune in Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday for more Westworld!
Join us for the Annees Folles feedback podcast to hear our thoughts on the latest theories and whatever else you want to talk about.
Westworld feels like it’s back to doing what it does best; giving us the answers while we try to figure out which questions we should be asking. Join us for the podcast as we get back to Bernard and find out a whole lot more about Temperance.
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Bernard is back and it turns out all that dust that gathered on his head was just Rehoboam spice. Join us for the instant take / talk podcast where we give our first impressions of the episode and then answer listener questions from chat.
Are you spotting smoke and decrypting parallels from previous seasons? Maybe you should work for the FBI. Let’s ponder the question “what makes a person”? What is the show trying to say about the meaning of being sentient and alive? And how many times are we going to go back and forth between deciding if this is real or a simulation? Grab a Methuselah sized bottle of wine and enjoy the wild theories in this episode.
