The Ancient Greeks and Hints To Show’s Secrets

Published May 7, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hello gentlemen,

I think that the Ancient Greek symbolism on the show is pointing us in the direction of Delos’ secrets.

The Argos Initiative

Argos has many meanings.

1) Like Delos, Argos is a Greek island in real life and thought to be home to Alexander the Great and the Greek Mythological Hero Perseus (the guy who killed Medusa). Maybe relevant.

2) More importantly, Argos could also be a reference to Argos Panoptes (sometimes spelled Argus). Quoting from Wikipedia: “Argos is a many-eyed giant in Greek mythology. The figure is known for having spawned the saying ‘the eyes of Argus’, as in to be ‘followed by’, ‘trailed by’, ‘watched by’, et cetera the eyes; the saying is used to describe being subject to strict scrutiny in one’s actions to an invasive, distressing degree.” This sounds a lot like William’s perversion of Westworld from a “birthplace of heroes” to the recording of guest experiences – to an invasive, distressing degree of scrutiny.

3) Argos was also the mythological shipwright who built the legendary ship the Argo, sailed by Jason and the Argonauts. This one is, I believe, the most important but first – a detour:

“Uploading Consciousness” and the Ship of Theseus Paradox

My girlfriend and I were having a debate on the idea of Delos uploading consciousness. I’ve always taken issue with this plot point – whether in Westworld, Altered Carbon, or any other sci-fi media – because it has one huge problem. The “uploaded” version of me isn’t actually me. Forget the philosophical question of whether my uploaded mind with all my memories is me in the sense of personhood. I’m looking at things from a practical level – if I walk into Delos, say “upload my consciousness into an immortal host body” and they do it, I’m still alive here in my normal body. Maybe there’s two “real” Kens now, but if the version of me that first walked into Delos was shot in the face, I’m dead. What do I care if the other uploaded me is a real person, I’m dead!?

So my position ultimately became hinged on a piece-by-piece replacement of the biological brain. If Delos were to take parts of the human mind and replace them with modules of the Internal Mind Devices over the course of time, then maybe you could actually TRANSFER consciousness from a biological brain to a synthetic one. This might take some stages of synthetic-biological hybrid brain For example, maybe they start by replacing the areas of the brain that you don’t control – like the part that makes your heart beat – wait a while, replace another part, etc., The ultimate product would be your actual mind (not some replicant’s) in a modular device that can plug into an immortal host body. There may even be a biological component left, but there might not have to be.

I was thinking of all of this last week and then the preview for the next episode gave us this – a screenshot of what looks like host brains, but with red, wet centers…like a combination of biomaterial and host technology.

This ties into the Ship of Theseus Paradox, which, I believe you guy discussed at some point this season. The Paradox is, in a nutshell, the following: If you replace every part of a ship – the floorboards, sails, etc. – over a long period of time, is it the same ship? If not, at what point does it become something else? That’s exactly what one could ask about these hybrid, modular brains – are they still the minds of the people whose consciousness was transferred? Are they hosts? Humans? What would Dolores think of them? Perhaps that scene of James Delos covered in blood in front of a mirror is of him losing his mind after an early attempt at this process.

Aside from the visual, there’s one more thing that really makes me thing that this is a part of what Delos is up to – the theory ties back to Argos. Like I mentioned, Argos built the ship sailed by Jason and the Argonauts. Who was among the Argonauts? Theseus.

Once again, I am honored to have been included in last week’s telegraph episode. Obviously feel free to cut away if you think any parts of this are worthy of this week’s telegraph or of the Valley Beyond.

Cheers,

Ken L

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