Want to hear something crazy?

(By “normal standards” at least)

I’ve only watched one full season of a TV show in the last 10 years. Actually, I don’t even own a TV, which is another tangent to fill a book.

But I want to talk about the one show I did watch over the last 10 years: Westworld.

Westworld is a show based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crighton (same dude who wrote Jurassic Park).

Here’s the basic description from Wikipedia: “The story takes place in the fictional Westworld, a technologically advanced Wild West-themed amusement park populated by android hosts. Westworld caters to high-paying guests, who may indulge in whatever they wish within the park, without fear of retaliation from the hosts.”

The android hosts are built so that they look and feel exactly like humans. The only difference is that they’re programmed to operate in a certain loop (a predetermined pattern of behavior) and don’t have the ability to choose to act outside of their programmed loop.

This programmed loop behavior is what I want to explore in this article. Because this is how Westworld really gets you thinking about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be human.

And not only that, it ties into a mindblowing theory by a Princeton psychologist.

Voices In My Head

At some point in the series, some of the android hosts begin hearing a voice in their head. And “the voice” seems to be that of the person who created them and co-founded the park. The voice tells them actions to take and reveals prescient, almost prophetic information.

This becomes the catalyst for the hosts to deviate from their respective loops and act out on their own.

We’ll get back to this.

Free Will

Westworld forces you to contemplate the nature of consciousness and free will.

And 2 really big questions arise…

1. At what point do the android hosts become “conscious”?

What is consciousness? When does it arise? And how? These are all open-ended questions that Westworld leaves you to meditate on.

If they can make their own autonomous decisions, are they conscious? But… are any decisions truly autonomous?

And this leads to another big question…

2. Are we humans truly conscious?

Many of us humans are essentially caught up in our own loops.

If you think about it, very few (if any) people actually exercise free will. Most people are a programmed bundle of behaviors, habits and predictable reactions.

This is thanks to all of the control systems in place: Government, education, religion, the media. Even culture itself inherently requires standardized behaviors.

To be truly conscious, and exercise free will, is to be SPONTANEOUS. Spontaneous comes from the words “Sua Sponte” in Latin, which means…
– Of one’s own accord
– Occurring without external stimulus
– Willing, of one’s free will

Spontaneity and free will are inextricably connected. And spontaneity makes for a great barometer of free will.

So ask yourself this… When was the last time you did something purely spontaneous?

If you’re honest, it’s been a while. Maybe even as far back as childhood. This means that most people are in fact operating in programmed loops, and not even exercising free will. So how much different are we than the android hosts of Westworld?

The Bicameral Mind Theory by Julian Jaynes

It’s no coincidence than an episode of Westworld is entitled, “The Bicameral Mind.”

This is an obvious nod to The Bicameral Mind Theory, which is detailed in the 1976 book “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian Jaynes.

I’m actually reading this book right now, which is partly what sparked the idea for this article. And I highly recommend it if you want to fully explore all of this.

Julian Jaynes was a psychologist and a professor at Princeton. And his Bicameral Mind Theory is one of the most mindblowing theories regarding consciousness.

Here’s a great description of The Bicameral Mind as it relates to consciousness. (via Wikipedia)

“Jaynes’ definition of consciousness is synonymous with what philosophers call “meta-consciousness” or “meta-awareness”, i.e., awareness of awareness, thoughts about thinking, desires about desires, beliefs about beliefs. This form of reflection is also distinct from the kinds of “deliberations” seen in other higher animals such as crows insofar as it is dependent on linguistic cognition.

For bicameral humans, when habit did not suffice to handle novel stimuli and stress rose at the moment of decision, neural activity in the “dominant” (left) hemisphere was modulated by auditory verbal hallucinations originating in the so-called “silent” (right) hemisphere (particularly the right temporal cortex), which were heard as the voice of a chieftain or god and immediately obeyed.”

Fascinating, right?

Jaynes also has a phenomenal metaphor for what it would be like to not have our “meta-consciousness.”

He describes the consciousness of pre-conscious people as akin to the unconscious, automatic, reactionary mode of driving a car. While driving we have this unconscious part of us that automatically presses the breaks, turns, steers the wheel…etc. Simultaneously, our meta-consciousness is involved in conversation, listening to music or just thinking about random things. Jaynes postulates that the consciousness of pre-conscious people is like the unconscious part of us while driving, without the meta-conscious though. It’s purely reactionary and automatic.

Now guess what Jaynes hypothesized to cause the breakdown of the bicameral mind…

LANGUAGE

Yes, Jaynes believed that the evolution of language is what created our meta-consciousness.

And, even though I’m not completely sold on this, it does make sense.

Think about it… As humans began to live in larger and larger groups, language became more and more important.

Once you have language, you have words that represent things. This means that people could now think about things that weren’t in their immediate reality.

So if I had a name for a fellow tribe member and he walked away, I could still talk about him even though he wasn’t there! This creates the realm of imagination, and also the concept of time (past and future).

And this gradually lead to the meta-consciousness that we have today.

Is This What’s Happening To Us?

So by now, you may be questioning how “conscious” you really are.

Are we so different from the hosts in Westworld? Honestly, most of humanity isn’t. With most people, you can generally predict their daily lives, as well as their reactions to various situations and stimuli.

And on an even bigger scale, we have the wheel of reincarnation. The wheel of samsara, as Buddhists call it. In this concept, humans live millions of lives entrenched in the same loop of patterns, until they awaken. If this is true, it sounds eerily similar to what the Westworld hosts do, lifetime after lifetime, until they too awaken.

This “awakening” is an awakening to the power of choice. It’s the transcending of the split mind, finding wholeness and God within, then exercising one’s free will.

If you think about it, choice is a superpower. And we have the power of choice in every moment.

We can choose our actions. We can choose our reactions. And, when fully conscious, we become the captains of our fate.

Thank you for reading.

One Love.

– Stevie P!

PS – Break out of your own loops with my free ebook “20 Questions to Reveal Your Life Purpose“