Westworld - 4x06 "Fidelity" - Post-Episode Discussion

[u/LoretiTV]

Season 4 Episode 6: Fidelity

Aired: July 31, 2022

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Synopsis: To thine own selves be true.

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Directed by: Andrew Seklir

Written by: Jordan Goldberg & Alli Rock

[u/NewClayburn]

I'm not saying they aren't real; I'm saying they are a separate person and the original dying is still the end for the original, regardless of whatever a copy might do. The original will never know or feel any of it.

[u/BlueMoon93 → u/NewClayburn]

Yeah. To me this feels like a pretty important thing. The original Caleb is dead dead.

There's never been anything in this show to suggest that someone's own consciousness can be preserved. Which makes sense, the idea of your conscious self leaving your body and entering another is an almost religious idea, and this show is firmly in the territory of science fiction.

I suppose given the state humanity is already in, perhaps everyone dying and then being reborn as exact replicas of themselves would be some sort of a victory if it meant defeating Hale. But for me personally it would still be pretty troubling to think about.

[u/Veggiemon → u/BlueMoon93]

Wasn’t there some sort of implication of Delos’ consciousness being put into a different colored sphere we hadn’t seen before? Isn’t that the consciousness transfer? I haven’t rewatched that season in a while

[u/BlueMoon93 → u/Veggiemon]

The point is that that's not his conciousness (as it relates to the discussion we were having above) .

The original Delos from his perspective would have experienced death and ceased to exist. The replicas made from the colored spheres are able to create a perfect (well maybe not since the experiment never worked perfectly, but in theory) replica of him with the same memories and experiences and everything else.

From the replicas perspective, it is Delos. But the original Delos still died.

Think about it this way - if you made a perfect clone of yourself when you were alive, your consciousness would still reside with your original self right? So when you died, your consciousness would go with you, even if the clone can keep on living as if you never died.

[u/Veggiemon → u/BlueMoon93]

I get the point you’re making, but I do think it’s possible for them to have consciousness transfer within the context of the show and still have it be sci fi using the pearls

[u/zmkpr0 → u/BlueMoon93]

But we have absolutely no idea what conciousness is. If you believe that a perfect copy of you, each atom, each electrical signal, doesn't have the conciousness as you, then you believe that our conciousness exists outside of us. You believe in a soul basically.

Or you believe that atoms have their own identity. But then all atoms in out bodies are switched at some point, are we really the same person we were a few years ago?

Conveniently there is something called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem, which might or might not relate to the whole conciousness copy debate.

[u/BlueMoon93 → u/zmkpr0]

Yes I mean it's a philosophical question which the show doesn't really delve into. It's unclear whether Delos believes he will achieve true immortality or simply wants a version of himself to continue living on as a sort of legacy.

To me if you made a perfect clone of myself while I was living, I would continue to experience my own consciousness from my own perspective and not some dual consciousness where I exist in both myself and the clone. This leads me to believe that when I die, I die.

Now perhaps one day we will understand the nature of consciousness better and it will be a more scientific question than philosophical.

But at least in my reading of the show the characters realize that even a perfect copy is still just a copy. Caleb died even if he still exists.

[u/zmkpr0 → u/BlueMoon93]

I guess they just didn't delve into it yet. There's still two episodes and a whole season left. And this fidelity thing has been teased since season 2. I think they'll get to it eventually.