according to a plan
Maybe someone can help me with this, but I don’t understand the scene where Flynn tells Tron about what it is like to be a user. If my memory serves me correctly (and it should because I have seen Tron on the order of about 500 times) Tron says to Flynn, “If you’re a user, then everything you do is according to a plan” after which Flynn says something like “well you know how it is, you just keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” and then Tron says “well, that’s the way it is for programs” and Flynn says “sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the way it is for users too”.
This recently struck me as strange. Why is it that what-it’s-like-to-be a program is to “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”? And why does Tron assume that users do everything according to a plan? Are these even different? “Doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” seems to imply a kind of acquiescence, yet an element of freewill. “According to a plan” would seem to be much more deterministic. Initially it seemed kinda backwards, as if the programs should be the ones that do things according to a plan. I can’t say for sure what the image of the users would be from the perspective of such a program who “does things according to a plan”, so I can’t assume that they would necessarily see the users as “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”.
On the other side, I suppose we tend to imagine that God (that sonuvabitch) does things according to a plan. And, speaking for myself, that I do things that it seems like I’m supposed to be doing. So, in this way I can see why it is that this scene is scripted as it is. Regardless, it is still curious that what-it’s-like-to-be-a-program is to have the experience of “doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”. There are some philosophical implications here that I haven’t really thought out yet.
Granted that a program does do things according to a plan (a program), yet it is claimed in the movie that programs have the experience of “doing what it seems like they’re supposed to be doing”. And as I said above, this seems to imply a bit more autonomy than doing things “according to a plan”. This seems to be getting at two sides of the same coin: that the program can be completely determined (by it’s program), and yet still seem to have this autonomy of just rolling with the punches or what have you. I guess just ‘going through the motions’ might have the subjective experience of just “doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” even though your behavior is completely determined. The thing about freewill is that it certainly feels like I could’ve done something different (even though I didn’t). You get the point, “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” seems to imply a bit more autonomy than “according to a program”.
The other thing I was thinking is that the Bible (never touched the thing) is said to say something like that we were created in the image of God, so it might make sense to think that God is something like us. In that case, the fact that Tron “does what it seems like he is supposed to be doing” might make sense.
Anyways, there seems like some little nugget of something there.