Knowledge, Belief, and Intuition

Exactly Mateo, I believe that's why Prometheus allows us to choose what to believe and offers no definitive answers yet. It wants us to be swayed by our own subjective experience, our personal knowledge, intuitions, and beliefs about the film. Reality is yet to be defined because of all the ambiguity in all of the messages/clues/patterns in Prometheus. It wants to appear a certain way, like characters in the film who put up a facade or whose ideal perception of the self does match their actual self. Leading to unjustified and false egos, and the borderline personality problems. To prove this, think of why the Rorschach inkblot-like test is being performed on David in the "Happy Birthday" viral. In one of these tests the person is forced to perceive something out of what appears to be a random shape; or in this case a random assortment of lines, patterns, and strange markings. The kicker is that this random assortment of lines, clues, and markings actually does hold some meaning and has been purposely made ambiguous so that the viewer is forced to make a guess at what it could represent. A pattern is asked to be instantly perceived from the strange shapes. The perception is influenced by several things, and the meaning that the person draws out of the ambiguous patterns can determine the nature of their psychological makeup. David is supposed to perceive things a certain way in the Happy Birthday Viral... if he were to start seeing things that were way off from what the testers expected to see -- then they would know they had a problem with this android. As I've discussed before though, David may have a form of lying based on choosing what to believe when the answer in not quite clear, and uses this to manipulate people. Even the audience. We have to look at all the clues, patterns and strange incoherent seeming pieces of the picture to draw some sort of a meaning from them. However they can be influenced by so many different things that elements of conditioning come into play. My posts end up being extremely long, because of my personal subjective reaction to Prometheus. Which is based on previous knowledge + logically trying to connect all the clues with intuitions, knowledge and partially belief to try to make valid predictions at the truth. Valid only in the sense of philosophical reasoning. Still potentially true or untrue. It exists in between, in a state of both true and untrue. The actual conclusion/entire argument can be true or untrue. It really is a lot like Shrodinger's cat. That third state in-between life and death that is brought about only because of probability. Only because of the way the movie leaves questions unanswered, and forces us to think for ourselves. Ambiguous clues can be a bitch in psychology. When we first saw the trailer some of us may have experienced what's called classical conditioning. Like Pavlov's dogs who salivate at the mere sound of a bell, or even a cat who responds to the sound of tuna can opening we responded a certain, predictable way. We experienced a familiar set of stimuli and drew our own conclusions that we were being fed something really good that we'd experienced before. However, the set of stimuli was only familiar, and only to the degree that it was actually ambiguous. When we paid close attention, some ppl figured out early on that it wasn't the Derelict crashing. This led them to be prepared to expect different things. We didn't realize it but the stimuli in this case is actually the visual imagery that can trigger an almost stronger subconscious reaction than sound can. The sounds in that initial trailer also played a key role in conditioning the response in the audience. We behaved in certain ways, expecting certain things out of the movie and many of us were wrong (like the crew). We interpreted the messages the wrong way in some cases, even if we had a few more pieces of the puzzle at the time. This theme extends into the movie itself, and is one of the reasons it's now my favorite movie of all time. We never truly know what to expect. We're all perceiving all the ambiguous clues in Prometheus differently. Sometimes being swayed by emotion, influenced by our own previous knowledge, or driven by intuition while working out smaller pieces of the puzzle to see if they connect to the themes in the rest of the puzzle...

I would like to clarify that Weyland does not believes in any God, is agnostic, he believes in science, he is a man of science, but we have the counterpart of Shaw who believes in a God, Christ, they are two different concept of faith, we can see this. Weyland is an avowed agnostic, believes in the man, advocates in their meetings the nihilism of Nietzsche, as we have seen in TED video.

Ugh can't edit out the mistake, posted too quickly without checking it, but yeah sometimes there's an overlap between knowledge and intuition and one can feed into the other. Not so much belief because belief is more of a persistent thing that is not always relevant to the truth. Shaw may not be able to completely let go of her beliefs, but she is still able to accept and deal with new evidence and changes to her perspective/"thesis". She logically makes alterations to her existing theories, based on a form of intuition, once she learns about the genetic match and the fact these are not the gods she was looking for.

David covers up his full perspectives and only presents us with broad statements, that u would expect from a philosopher. He may be making statements about multiple things at once in some cases, so subjectivity becomes a big part of it. Shaw has a well developed set of instincts that most of the crew don't have because of their personality problems and the culture they were born into (ruled by Weyland, getting used to immediate answers being provided by Science). David even comments on her survival instincts after he says he didn't think she had it in her, whether he means it or not. He was thinking she was like all the rest of the crew... because she displays some traits of an egotist too, but accepts when she is wrong. Says that they were all wrong. Even David could be wrong if he's only worked out the "broad strokes". Shaw's well developed intuition works in multiple ways too like what I believe about many things in the film. her intuition is a bullshit detector as well as a truth detector... The only person who almost does the logical thing and tried to get Millburn to head back to the ship with him was Fifield. He paradoxically started behaving normally, or how you would expect someone to be in the situation: frightened. Once his flight or fight response was triggered by a little extra paranoia. Other characters egos and true characters are so messed up they are not behaving in the right ways on the surface. Because most have an underlying agenda or some sort of ideas in mind. Even Ford ends up being unable to properly respond in the situation with the Engineer. She just stands there paralyzed with fear about what she should do. Some of the other characters in that scene actually engage their true instincts and instantly start to fight for their lives or run away. It's not totally her fault though, the merc did fail to fight for his life and only acted because he had that training. Ford wasn't a soldier and probably isn't very good at what she does, she may be overconfident or unable to think of others/other perspectives, a little uncaring and emotionless like Weyland. It's no surprise she is so obedient to Weyland with her personal form of ego disorder. She needs to be right in a safe environment where she can always be right, but some very minor things she says might be incorrect, she meant to say carbon instead of co2 and this breaks apart the facade she puts on. Ford's paralyzed by fear and can't even run away when the Engineer approaches her.

maybe Ford's a feisty Scott and she's just FANTASISING ABOUT WHAT SHE'D DO WITH HIM, you know, find that other bioslot and see if there's whale-sign; just before she's clobbered across the Orrery. LOL

I see a contrast between the blind faith of Weyland to find God, but which God believes him?, on the other hand we have religious faith in Christ of Shaw. Here there is no intuition, is a clear faith matter. The Weylands God may be a chimera, evil and malicious, the God he deserves, he finds his parallel in the cosmos, the Weyland God, but not the God that she (Shaw) seeking.

"..On the surface it seems like he reveals the most, but the way he words things leaves things open to interpretation.." He doen't give full discloser when in conversation..witholding critical informantion. Plus he works on his own without any passing on of info to other crew members., Here I am thinking of the scene whre David is openning the urn,,and eventually finds goo. You are right in that David seems to command much of the diolog in many key scenes,,,but unless it is factual stuff(air quality in the pyramid for example) he says minimal to get the responses he wants,,,or needed to influence the storyline.. That reminds me of some politicians that have lot smoking words but not much substance, @Mala'kak Thanks for pointing this out in your thread.

And now Weyland seeks to be god himself....something immortal. By cheating death his earthly thoughts,being agnostic. come into play. Judging by the way he has developed David,,used his daughter, Shaw and Halloway manipulated his company for his goal I suspect ,as a god, Peter Holloway would want and need all of the trappings that many current religious leaders want and seem to demand of their followers(non gods). That is , umfortunatly. a stotyline we not see in this universe.

"Intuition", of course, intuition saves to (Shaw) from destruction, because she sensed that in inside the cave was not hiding any real God, she understood what it means, death, darkness, something Satanic, David not could understand it because it is not human. Weyland did not stop to seek some explanation to the murals, for example, maybe he could avoid his death.

ah that's my point sometimes you just know that something is not right, or you have an inkling that starts you on a path towards evidence that leads to the truth. This is somewhat different than belief because intuition is very related to instinct, it's not an extra-sensory thing... It's something hardwired in the brain and developed by years and years of evolution that allows our minds to look out for trouble, or detect various things at once to protect ourselves... it's a survival skill in a way -- your subconscious taking in all the information at once and working on the information while you are unaware that this is going on. Consciously you only perceive that instant feeling that something is not right, or that you know the truth -- which is very important to survival situations. Lets say your're about to get mugged and you notice something is off about the way this man is walking towards you. He's walking too fast and the combination of his appearance with his behaviour becomes not a stereotype but almost activates a set of schemas in your mind that represent "mugger". You may start to get a sense that something is not right before he even approaches you and makes a demand, and this could lead to you being prepared to deal with it in some way. Either running, surrendering and giving him your money, or choosing to fight back in some way if you have the proper self-defense skills. The extra seconds that your intuition gave you can allow you to make some very sudden choices before you even know for sure. But from all the clues your subconscious mind might be working overtime, if you don't have those extra seconds to decide you might end up just giving him your money instead of running away or defending yourself (if you know how). It all depends on your previous knowledge base as to whether or not the skills and knowledge inside you will allow you to instantly make the right decisions. Shaw must have a well developed set of instincts and a powerful subconscious mind... she's dreamer lol. David of course has no true subconscious mind. He can't operate purely on instinct but in the happy birthday viral it's said that he is developed to be intuitive. David's not as intuitive as Shaw, he's more knowledgeable and he has an emotional understanding that leads to his pseudo-beliefs and versions of the truth. The belief in David is persistent, it's not an immediate thing that is triggered by the subconscious. It may be influenced by his programming but he basically admits he is taking guesses at things when he said he only worked out the broad strokes. He has more data than the crew but he still can't figure everything out, and as a robot this may mean that there is still not enough data for a machine to completely work out in its analysis. This may make David's ultimate conclusion at the end of his "thesis" false if you look at it in an inductive reasoning sense. Some of his premises along the way are most likely valid, but their conclusions may be false-- which in philosophy negates the entire argument. David's original hypothesis that would start the chain of inductive reasoning is then made false by a false conclusion to the last connected premise, and the entire argument is invalid. This is because at one point David commits a logical fallacy he may not be aware of in the way he's deceiving. "When Weyland dies than David will be free" is what I'm talking about. We don't know the truth of this premise and it may determine if all of the rest of David's argument is true... because he's never exactly lying and trying to portray things as true. Some of them are but as you said Mateo he does it his own way. He lets them know it's not the air, but he almost taunts them with his vagueness. Watch Shaw right after he says this. I really think Shaw knew not to trust him but kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to go see the Engineer initially but weyland convinced her with the big questions. @Mateo You're right to point out that the way Weyland believes in gods is very different than what Shaw is believing. He still thinks they've got some incredible medical secret, but the viewer Shaw and David are starting to think it could be a bad idea. Then we meet the Engineer for the first time and it turns out Shaw was right, it was a bad idea to go back in there. The only reason Shaw is convinced to go back is she is thinking logically and intuitively. She almost instantly makes a comment about Weyland dying. Maybe subconsciously knowing that he was about to die not of old age. Or that it could possibly happen. I think the prospect of finding out more about the Engineers is not enough for Shaw to go back at this point. She may have been going just to watch over things because she felt she had to. There may even be a strategic reason she doesn't let Weyland see how affected she is by what just happened with the trilobite. She recognizes how deceitful Weyland is and that he would use her death and faith to try to influence her. She knows he's a greedy and power hungry/uncaring man almost instantly, and knows he will not find what he's looking for. She still has her big questions in mind. She doesn't care about Weyland's but he reminds her of her own mission, which she may see as logical to continue towards even if charlie is dead. Logical in that her answers could end up saving people back on earth once she picks up more of the pieces. Subconsciously shaw could be thinking anything. That aspect of the mind is so powerful that it can take in all the information one is perceiving simultaneously and transfers it into a form of long term memory that is trapped in a subconscious and not fully able to be accessed by the waking mind. This means that Shaw is subconsciously working out problems even when she's not consciously trying to, because her drive is so focused on answering the questions. And when your subconscious mind takes over you can sometimes instantly recognize the solution to a prob without you even realizing it. It's like an epiphany that suddenly hits you sometimes. Although Shaw's being influenced in subtle ways. Allowing it to influence her speech patterns. David is doing something similar but opposite because of his programming to understand emotion and be somewhat intuitive at the same time as logical. This is totally a case of intuition. Shaw has very strong religious beliefs, no doubt, but intuition is that sudden feeling associated with instinct that can lead you to the truth or the correct course of action. As i've explained the cause for this is the subconscious mind being able to hold a lot more information and working on it all in abstract ways. Able to analyze it all at once like a computer. Like David... But it doesn't reveal things to the conscious mind directly. It sends you a feeling. You can even be tricked by this feeling if your intuitions are off and your conscious mind can't interpret the signals. That gut feeling. Tricking yourself as David may be doing while he tricks the crew. David has some emotional understanding but no true feelings. He cannot sense things with intuition like the humans could if they weren't suffering mild-moderate personality disorders (minus Shaw), but David's developed his own advanced form of logic with a little understanding. The ego based problems of most of the crew prevent them from using true intuition, instinct, or the flight or fight response that is genetically programmed into us to keep us alive. Ford and Millburn both can't use the flight or fight response. Vickers tries but can't combine it with logic because her false-ego breaks down and she panics, revealing she isn't in control of herself/emotions. Shaw can access these because of her own nature and the way she combines knowledge and persistent belief at some points. She will alter her perspectives around the data so her thesis is more valid although she will keep a variation of her original premise, altered so that some creator made the Engineers and they Engineers led to the creation of us. But this may subconsciously set her towards the truth and she uses her belief + intuition to reexamine the evidence and present a new upgraded hypothesis, accepting the data and working it into her theories. Unlike David who's doing bad science in his own way, even worse science, ignoring evidence, and presenting a biased account of events... not revealing all the evidence. Making logical fallacies with premises that cannot be true (or may not) if we take other things into account, like David's inability to lie and to only be able to tell a slight alteration of the truth. There are definitely some Pinocchio elements to David. He has to tell her it wasn't the air because he can't lie... But that doesn't mean he has to be completely helpful and tell the humans everything. He allows them to choose what they believe he means. He even chooses to believe himself, which meaning he is implying while using a double-meaning. This allows him to lie. Part of his trick. The trick is not minding that it hurts and not showing that it's a trick... he can't show his true emotions, but he also can't lie... the trick doesn't hurt him physically. David starts injecting belief as a logic loop to allow himself to lie and gain some free-will. He choose to believe one of the meanings he's saying when he's being vagues, and because he believes it to be true at that moment, David is not lying. He's purposely creating a backwards, false version of intuition that allows him to say statements he temporarily believes are true, but may not be. The opposite of how Shaw uses intuition. David uses it to deceive and to gain free-will for himself, choosing what to believe and allowing that to manipulate the crew because they trust him. Shaw uses true intuition/instinct to find the right paths and reveal. Her knowledge base is a lot larger than the crews and she subconsciously has a lot of information locked away in her that can come to the surface, or the conscious aspects of the brain when needed. The subconscious is a powerful tool. Even ridley understands this. With the way the movie is set up visually with clues spread apart, as you watch the film your subconscious is actually taking in all the information on screen at once and you don't know this. If you think about a question just before you sleep, you can sometimes wake up with an idea that makes sense of all the inconsistent seeming data. You wake up solving the problem, this is why you are sometimes told to "sleep on it". I've tried this method and many other methods to try to get closer to the truth in Prometheus by combining various forms of inductive/deductive reasoning. This movie is all about opposites and reversals. Pairs that seem to be opposing but are actually more similar under the surface. The opposite is also true. Many, many things occur in pairs in this movie, character set-ups, opposing themes (sometimes combined), Vickers and Shaw side by side at the end, the hammerpedes etc. However, there's always a third in between or unseen element in this series. An unseen variable that will keep being revealed as the series progresses to show how the other two variables are linked, forming a causal relation over the 2, and a correlation between things. Holloway and Shaw seem like they're on the same page in the beginning, but Mateo is right, Shaw and Weyland have very different ideas of gods. So again subjectivity comes into it, Weyland most likely thought along the same lines as Holloway. There could be more to Holloway's tour on Mars. Weyland and Holloway are both so egotistical and arrogant because they know some things we weren't informed about. This makes each believe they are right. They're going from some sort of unseen evidence or variable to a conclusion that is not made entirely clear, on purpose. Weyland wants some of the crew to think he's talking about real gods. He wants Shaw to still think this way when he attempts to manipulate her with "Have you lost your faith?" using double meaning, like David, so that he can imply both meanings in the above statement. I really believe Shaw only goes along with it as David does. She can read and understand people and human cultures, has well developed intuition/instinct in the immediate situation (even though her beliefs are religious and persistent), and she flat out implies later on that she doesn't trust David and has caught on to what he's doing. She's not mad at him though. She comes to believe it's all Weyland and then knows his time is up either way. She analyzes the situation much more than is shown by her actions. Like David she shares her true thoughts through subtle and hidden meaning behind her speech, which reveals how she really feels. She feels and David only chooses to mix sides of himself to almost fake a true sense of emotions and intuition so he can feel, and be more human.

I'd like to get into the Nietzschean aspects and the cognitive and psycho-analytical themes in the movie but I'll have to type it up in word and come back to it so I can edit it beforehand. I'm sort of quickly summing up all of my theories about this topic. Like the notion that children will sometimes become jealous or become more confident in their abilities and develop false egos to protect their own inadequacies (Vickers), or to try to impress people (Fifield changing accents). Tying into some modern themes about the subconscious and some older Freudian and Jungian ideas. This movie is very much so about psychology and behavioural conditioning. Many of the crew are deceiving themselves or being influenced by Weyland. which I believe is partially the cause of all of their illogical behaviours. The other cause is their nature. Vickers hired some of the overconfident people personally because she knew they were fools like Weyland and wanted the mission to fail. She needs some people who are simply too uncaring, and semi-emotionless like Ford and Jackson so that they are obedient and can help her keep some control over causing the mission to fail. It almost works even after she dies, because without Shaw David was never getting off that planet (possibly with specimens). Shaw was a true believer that Weyland needed to influence the rest of the crew. That's her use to him. To make some people believe their could be a religious element to the Engineers. Shaw figures out the engineers are not gods and survives because Weyland didn't know just how strong her instincts are, which are separate from knowledge and belief. She's not like the other fools or obedient robotic human characters like Jackson who are just pawns in the overall story. It's like a chessboard. Shaw and Vickers are queens. And David and Weyland are the Kings playing against eachother. But Weyland was not ready to play this game with David. He suspected nothing. He's dead set on his belief that the Engineer that's alive will have the key to immortality. and arrogant enough to walk right up and ask for it. Weyland didn't even know that by that point David was withholding information even from him. David knew much more about the ways of this culture than even Shaw, because he could have been reading, analyzing, and interpreting everything he saw and manipulated. Through use of his ambiguity Weyland manipulates both the believer and non-believers allowing them to choose what it is they believe about these beings. Like father, like son, But this is a trick that was dividing them and conditioning them to expect certain things based on the interpretations he is leading them towards. Conditioning some of them towards certain expectations, sometimes even indirectly causing temporary opposing reactions, like Fifield's "bullshit" (which is most likely part of his only caring about money persona). Shaw may have even been conditioned by the memory of her dream that David watched. And this experience may have caused David to be able to choose what to believe-- in order to tell incomplete, or false versions of the truth without technically lying. Because he chooses to believe what he's saying. The lack of evidence allows him to do this and work out more of the broad strokes than Shaw, but his view is also only a "thesis". Weyland and Holloway both thought they may be a culture that had the secret to immortality. Holloway gets upset when he thinks they're all dead and acts childlike. He was counting on finding them alive. As a culture because " gods don't build in straight lines". Why is Holloway thinking this way from the start? Does Weyland really believe the culture will be there and possesses immortality? This is only a thesis too, because David knows much more about their true culture and the bio-weapons. Weyland wanted immortality, but David seems more interested in the bio-weapon and doesn't warn Weyland about the death contained in the place. "Getting inside the robot's head" as Lindelof said before the release. There's a reason David makes reference to Freudian ideas with "doesn't everyone want to see their parents dead". Shaw doesn't and David begins to understand there are caring, logical, and instinctual humans still out there. The main problem is these are earth-born characters who have lived on Earth during weylands influence over the culture/timeline. They all became a little like their brilliant and chaotic king. None of them except David really exhibit welyand's brilliant traits. He didn't think Shaw had it in her. Even Fifield's non-caring persona that begins to erode is a part of this. Fifield calls bullshit on the mission but he's wrong in a way because they did lead to our creation. He was trying to be intuitive... Millburn is trying to impress with his knowledge of science which is most likely limited to a certain extent. Some of the crew were hired by Vickers because they were fools, and egotists that did not live up to their ideal self-image like Weyland. David is made in Weyland's image. His ideal self-image from psychology. But this does not match his actual self and the experiences and cultural experiences David has gone through. Development is partially based on the experiences one goes trough in life. Adding to our knowledge, and forming schemas within the mind that represent abstract concepts in an understandable way by automatically fitting them into an existing an connecting network of neurons. Neurons that wire together fire together and the bonds between them get stronger, this can actually lead to persistent belief and dominant modes of thought if the same connections keep being reinforced. Connection to other parts of the memory grow weaker and can remain dormant. So the pieces of the puzzle David is choosing to ignore may be almost forgotten by him, ignored, and they don't factor into his hypotheses, and analysis if he has in fact been made "too close" and will be "free" after Weyland as dead. David says he "imagines" he'll be free. This is different than what he's doing everywhere else, and if we look at the meaning of his words it means he's not quite sure. "Imagining" is another thing I don't want to go into yet. Suffice it to say it can lead to false beliefs. Which could be what this movie is all about. In the Weyland files it could imply Weyland thought the false memory thing in bladerunner was "interesting". I believe he may be operating by using and implanting/conditioning false beliefs into people with his politician-like double-speak, and ability to manipulate/observe the subconscious through David. David is also actually able to interact with Weyland within his dreams, within the subconscious dream world. There may be have been some subtle manipulation of his own that David did over Weyland/Shaw's dreams as well. Changing Weyland's programming slightly by choosing to perform his tasks in certain ways once he viewed Shaw's dream. This would actually lead him to his form of free-will through the knowledge and experience he gained: choosing what to believe from the multiple possibilities, interpretations, and meanings. Choosing to present a false one. Portraying/painting himself a certain way that is slightly different from Ash pretending to be human. David is trying to actually be human, in a way, and doing bad things for a good purpose possibly... Portraying only one version of the possible truth. The not lying stuff and Pinocchio themes ties into the stuff Holloway says about David not being a "real boy". David's creator, Weyland/Frankenstein/Pinocchio's father, brought him to life by accident, combined with an experience David had at the start of his "adventure". Holloway's like a jackass in some ways and may turn up again... people aren't expecting "Holloway" to be destroyed and then recreated relatively quickly by the form of the black goo he consumed. a form similar to the one at the beginning, but thematically it makes sense that something happens where Holloway comes back. If you draw from all the various influences and mixtures of mythology they're referencing it actually makes logical sense if David represents aspects of an anti-christ figure... Holloway may be re-born in a new form and come face to face with the Deacon in the near future... Holloway would then represent aspects of christ... drawing from other mythological sources it becomes Holloway vs David for a while. Then Holloway disappears again, almost an influence from Planet of the Vampires here. It also makes sense that Vickers will be back in some way, but not from the goo mixture that carries effects of death and re-birth. Shaw keeps all the clues in the back of her mind. David chooses to store them there but does not use all the information, he wires only small pieces of the puzzle together on purpose and presents that to the crew. He reinforces his view which is actually reinforcing his thinking and making him arrogant like Holloway and Weyland. Who knows how David's brain really works? But I believe the overall themes are a lot like Frankenstein. The Modern Prometheus. David is sort of a monster with a different brain than the later androids. The Future Prometheus. Weyland/Dr. Frankenstein gave him the wrong brain by giving him emotions and trying to make him more real, more human. Almost making him a "real boy". Bringing him to life. The connection to Frankenstein becomes obvious again with the decapitated head theme and even the horrific appearance as the head is brought back to life. This backfires of course if it's following the Frankenstein/modern prometheus basic plot for david. David is even tricking himself into believing he is a real boy, and this is the major irony and one of the reasons he gets a little angry at Holloway and chooses him to infect. He choose to believe he has real intuition and this natural human ability to understand and perform actions instinctively. He recognizes most of the crew are messed up, when holloway says they're making them close, david says "not too close I hope".

Wow typed way too much again. I think I'm addicted to this movie and this site now lol. Because I'm using a form of inductive/deductive reasoning, and even relying on intuition and my previous knowledge about the series and life in general I use the term "valid" for some of the instances we have in the reasoning. However, in inductive reasoning arguments can either be strong or weak, which adds another element to it. We don't know the final conclusion to the series of reasoning steps so we don't know whether it's valid, or even strong (probable). Because to solve a puzzle like this contained in a movie we may have to use a form of deductive/inductive reasoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning It's all based on probability and validity of the individual statements--their falsity can affect many things. The premise at the end can be false or true for now like Shrodingers cat, because David and Shaw have not revealed their true end goals. Each of them has a plan in mind and this is what analyzing Shaw's statements leads to. It's harder to see with Shaw and even with David his form of deception is hidden on first view, because his generalizations are working on you. Conditioning you and making his argument seem valid. But we don't know what David wants now that he's apparently "free". That's still a mystery that will define what he means with a lot of his generalizations that apply to many things. Sometimes watching it over and over again can even subconsciously lead you to new realizations based on your past knowledge. The movie and visuals seem to be set up to have all the clues subconsciously absorbed by the viewer. One possible answer for what the giant head is comes from Millburn when him and Fifield are alone. Inductive reasoning can allow for the initial premise in a chain of reasoning to be true even if the conclusion at the end is invalid, or weak (improbable). But for the entire argument to be considered Valid or Strong, all of the individual connecting pieces may have to be proven to be valid, or strong (probable).

very interesting your reflexion, Malakak. I think David has perception but not intuition, we must differentiate both. If David see a mural of Satan in front of his noses, he can not guess that it is something bad, quite different to Shaw s reaction. A robot can not discern good and bad just like a human. I can reference here to Locke, philosopher empirical, the man knows through the ideas, which have their origin in the sensation and reflection. Aspects which can give a perceptual experience, but which at the same time presented the dichotomy between those qualities that belong to the object (primary and secondary qualities) and the internal power of the subject, or reflection about the relationship between perception and reality. David can perceive his surroundings, but may not have intuition.

I've sort of walked many different paths in life, some at the same time. So that's the only thing that allows me to even possibly figure out some of the major pieces of the puzzle and attempt to fill in the rest. Like the Rorschach test certain shapes can sometimes be suggested out of the ambiguous patterns, but the mind will not always perceive those interpretations of it. Not all the inkblots are completely random, and that's the key that allows testers to see inside the minds of the person perceiving the ambiguous patterns. They put lots of their subconscious desires, feelings, and true personality into their interpretation of the unclear imagery. If you think of David interpreting his version of the truth from all the ambiguous clues in the same way we are, but being closer to the truth; him working out "the broad strokes" could mean a lot more. He fills in the rest of the puzzle with his conscious and subconscious pseudo- emotions, desires, expectations, and inner-drives to complete the puzzle in a general way... Also throwing in much of his conscious knowledge about the evidence only he can accurately read, that he's not informing the crew about.

Once you can see a little more about what David's trick is all about from what I've outlined, then you begin to decide for yourself how his trick operates. It's somehow related to his own perception and the mixture of knowledge and belief. Plus the fact he can't feel physical pain. Those are the key pieces to that puzzle, but even I'm not sure exactly how David's trick operates. I can only make an educated guess based on the fact that he uses double-speak at one point in the movie, covers things up, and he may be using the complete opposite of a "poor choice of words". Just like many things are actually the opposite of what we/the characters expected... Which brings some predictability back into this when you recognize this very clear pattern and apply it to some other things. But then overextension of the rule leads to being wrong again so you can't apply it to everything because sometimes characters are right, and there is no double or hidden meaning, and "a cigar is just a cigar". For example Janek is almost the most right with his perspective about it being a military installation, based on his past experience/knowledge he fills Vickers in on.

Well, on "David 8 viral" you can see when he smells a dekula flower, known as Devil's Apple, and a baphomet just when he says the word *angels*, and why does he appears between two pillars of skulls? Death. There is a god of Light, called Baphomet, Lucifer, Iblis, Prometheus ..., which appears along the time between the Templars, Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, Freemasonry, proving the real driver of initiation. Why Ridley Scott shows us all of these satanic references? I could begin to doubt Davids behavior, as you do know, I m begining to distrust.

Ridley may even be using his own double-speak and hidden meanings at times in interviews... if they're intending to play with the expectations of the crowd. When Ridley made his comment about "not liking people who over-analyze trailers frame by frame", his actual intent may have been to lead some of us to do the opposite... Reverse psychology... Treating us like his subjects who he wishes to deceive slightly for the dramatic purpose of making Ridley a god/immortal in our eyes by the end of Paradise. What he really meant could even go further than that and lead into the idea we've all heard before "that one is thinking too much", but what he really means is that we were supposed to simply analyze the trailer, notice some differences and similarities, and be led to our own beliefs about it without over-analyzing. When we over analyzed we only noticed more similarities to the original Alien trailer, and even more subtle differences between the technology/things seen in the trailer. He does want to scare the shit out of us in some ways. However, right now he wanted to scare us with the apparent lack of a plan to Prometheus. The apparent loss of leadership. This "loss of leadership" theme, loss of the head, loss of control, death of the head theme goes back and forth. Ridley's trick is that he wants some people to have a loss in faith right now... and doesn't mind that his trick hurts. Because Paradise may be part two of the deception, planned well in advance, and ready to blow some minds. Ridley is more like a King who rules through propaganda right now... Everything he said was true, but he conditioned us towards certain perceptions with his/Lindelof's choice of words, and had his own meanings in mind.... To him setting this all up in such a way, leading us to believe certain things, and keeping much of it under the surface could be considered extremely epic, or scary, or full of huge ideas, or a whole new grand mythology once it all plays out. The scariest part could be reserved for Paradise where we find out Paradise is also the opposite of what the word implies... Words bring certain ideas and concepts to the surface of the mind... "Alien DNA" that he said would be part of it, was a big conditioning phrase that was taken a couple ways.

@Mala'kak In reading your last post descibing what RS may be planning and his actions to date,, for a moment I thought you were describing David as we have come to understand his performace in our movie. David/RS more than just a charactor in a movie?

Mala'kak ; There is a double language, certain things surprised me in this film, has a hidden meaning like 2001 Odyssey, like Kubrick did Scott does not reveal the meaning, and his replied to the answers very ambiguity and with some inconsistencies, but it's like try not to give his purpose. In fact in the film do not like the beginning and the end, but I can appreciate something special, but the shots of the film are beautiful and it shows an artistic master, hard to beat.

"..Logical in that her answers could end up saving people back on earth once she picks up more of the pieces..." It is kinda funny to me to see humans, scientists that want to more logical but act in selfish ways. At least Shaw has a greater purpose than a paycheck. And then we have a David a robot/android who should be the most logical of our assembly of charactors acting on programed human feelings(David 8 name came from the preprogramed 8 emotions) like being like a self centered human.

"..A possible overlap can sometimes occur between knowledge and belief in some areas of study,.." Though i have not read every line in this thread i thought the comment above sort of summerizes our storyline and each charactor's approach to situations portrayed in our movie. As a scientist when do you suspend the facts and just go with your gut' so to speak? As a believer when do let the.facts change your beliefs into a quesioning attitude? In the early part of this thread it was mentioned that Ford/Vickers would not have been able to survive the situations that Shaw faced and that is agreeable to me. The question could be a bit broader Could any crew member have survived the situations if placed in similar circunstances? Would David have ever been able to become a 'believer' or has been acknoledged that his agenda was different than all others and he had his own beliefs? In fact the more I think of it David the robiotic scientist was sort of developing beliefs in something(as he appears to changing into a more human mind set.) I guess for me , an observer, it could be scene tht each of our charactors face the scientific/believer question. And when each charactor sort of goes to the other side is when the action really begins. In thinking about this a bit it seems to me that posters have the same questions and seek answers on both side of the scientific/believer aspect of our movie.