Torturous Refinement
One of the more compelling scenes in the WestWorld series when one robot/human clone was relieving the same days over and over again to whittle out issues of data “fidelity”. It’s a common trope from Sisyphus, reliving the same challenges over and over again. Ground Hog Day, The Edge of Tomorrow, and other films have played on this.
Often, we feel like we’re in some type of punishment as along with the knowledge of repeating the activities or observing the same chain of events, we carry the expectation of some of pain. None of the iterations of a situation are ever the same if we are conscious that we are repeating a task. Likewise, if we add occasional randomness to how we perform something, we have the potential to evolve.
I’ve loaded and unloaded the dishwasher nearly daily for some time. While most days, I’ve done it normally, sometimes, I’ll add a variation. One time, it could be to through a detergent pod in the back of the basin, or reduce the time for the wash, or change the rack position.
What if Sisyphus’ boulder was a chance to iterate and find the most effective path upwards? Maybe he could have spiralled the boulder around the hill, or launched it with explosives, or put it in a wheelbarrow. Maybe it wasn’t a punishment at all but the task to uncover optimization?
