Westworld is a park, where visitors can live in a Wild west world. The "hosts"
are robots. The visitors can do with them as they like. A ``maze" is put in as
a riddle. Like a mathematical problem, it can bring purpose to the robots to
have some purpose (find the maze!).
The hosts are quite advanced. One of them manages even to upgrade itself using
social engineering, manipulating the technicians. As a viewer we ask ourselves
``what is intelligence", ``what is life". Which parameters do make up ``intelligence".
``Can an AI figure out, whether it is an AI" or ``Can we figure out, whether we are robots?".
It addresses fundamental questions like where we come from and what is the purpose of life.
The maze could stand for the pursuit of some scientific exploration which can be a purpose.
What does it have to do with math? A lot. The show illustrates that the
basic question for example, whether math is invented or discovered is just silly.
We can never determine whether we are actually just ``hosts" in a ``world" created by
some engineers. If we make a logical conclusion A and B implies (A and B), we must assume
that during the time of making the conclusion, our memory has not been erased. We need
to remember when stating A and B, that both A and B were right. If the fundamental assumption
that we have a faithful memory is lost (which happens in Westworld as the hosts memories are
regularly reset), then we could not draw any reliable conclusions. This also happens in
a computer. When a computer makes a logical step, it must assume that while doing the conclusion,
the state of the memory is not altered. If there should be an alteration, then the logical conclusion
would be wrong. When we use software to compute something, we have to assume that the software is
reliable and has no bugs. The question ``is math invented" or `` is math discovered" is as silly as
question whether the parallel axiom is true or not. It depends on assumptions, on axioms on how
we see our existence. Our common assumption is that we do not live in a simulation, that our memories
are reliable and that we can make sound decisions based on experience, that we can remember rules
and that we can communicate using non-ambiguous language. This can be tricky. One of the surprises
in Westworld is that one of the engineers himself (Bernard, played by Jeffrey Wright) actually turns out
to be robot later in season 1.
