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The movie “The Matrix” contains many aspects that are similar to the works of Descartes, especially in his “Meditations on First Philosophy” where he has doubts about knowing if what he is experiencing is real life or if he is really just in a dream. In The Matrix, a computer programmer named Neo meets with a man named Morpheus after receiving anonymous messages from him through his computer. When he meets with Morpheus, he is given the option to either go back to his “normal” life in the matrix, or to find out what the matrix is and what true reality is. Neo chooses to find out more.
He tells Neo, “The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when out look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to
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In certain scenes Neo has doubts about his own perceptions. When he is caught by agents in the matrix, they bring him in to be interrogated. During the interrogation the agents used their powers to seal Neo’s lips together and insert an insect-type robot transmitter into his belly button. Neo wakes up and checks right away to see if everything was normal and that there was no transmitter actually inside him. When he gets into a car with the others they sense that there is actually a transmitter in him and use some sort of apparatus to extract it back out through his belly button. As they were extracting it Neo screams “that thing was really in me?!” He was surprised by this because if everything he experienced was in the matrix, then how was there really a transmitter in him? And if everything was real, then why is nothing wrong with his mouth? This is because impossible events can happen in the matrix, and in order to make people believe or not think much about what they see, things that are hard to believe can be made to be thought of as dreams within the
These men, known as agents, hold Neo down and insert a metal like device into his stomach. He soon awakes at his house and is told by Morpheus that he is “the one.” When he meets with Trinity and Morpheus, Trinity removes the metal device from his stomach which shocks him because he didn’t believe that to be real. Morpheus soon offers to reveal the Matrix to Neo. He is given the option of a red pill or blue pill; the blue in which he will go home and remember nothing, red in which will allow him to see the truth.
The protagonist Thomas Anderson in the series is one of billions of humans connected to the Matrix, he is a quiet programmer for the "respectable software company" Metacortex. Thomas Anderson is the character in the movie whose later alias becomes “Neo”. Which an anagram for “the one” a name that is most profound parallel to the Bible. Coincidence I think not. Neo is the Christ-figure in The Matrix who is sent to liberate men from their fallen and enslaved state Zion that is the last human city on earth, paralleling the Zion of the Bible. Morpheus and other believers herald him as the “One.” Neo or Christ sets humans free from the matrix or sin as agent Smith who in terms is Satan. Neo has a resurrection scene at the end of the first installment of The Matrix. In this scene Smith kills him, and his coming back to life serves as a testament to his power, and sets the stage for Neo’s final sacrifice at the end of the third movie. It is the scene at the end of the trilogy when Neo makes his Christ-like death. After this sacrifice, Neo is lifted into the sky, the same way one might describe Christ’s resurrection. Neo's performance was so good that famous hollywood director Quienten
In one of Plato’s works called The Allegory of the Cave he goes over what it means to get higher knowledge and the path you have to take to get to this higher knowledge. Plato also goes over how this higher knowledge or enlightenment will affect people and how they act. He ties this all together through what he calls the cave. Plato tells Glaucon a sort of story about how the cave works and what the people within the cave have to do to get to the enlightenment. A while down the road the Wachowski siblings with the help of Warner Brothers Studios made a movie titled The Matrix. This movie follows the came concept that Plato does in the cave. With saying that the world that Neo (the main character) was living in was in fact not real but a made
This student of Philosophy now sees the movie The Matrix in a whole new way after gaining an understanding of some of the underlying philosophical concepts that the writers of the movie used to develop an intriguing and well thought out plot. Some of the philosophical concepts were clear, while others were only hinted at and most likely overlooked by those unfamiliar with those concepts, as was this student when the movie first came out in theaters all those many years ago. In this part of the essay we will take a look at the obvious and not so obvious concepts of: what exactly is the Matrix and how does it related to both Descartes and Plato, can we trust our own senses once we understand what the Matrix is, and how Neo taking the Red Pill is symbolic of the beginning of the journey out of Pl...
Deep within the cave the prisoners are chained by their necks and have a limited view of reality. Around them, by the distant light of the fire, they only see shadows and outlines of people or objects. From their conclusions of what they may think is real, are false. “The Matrix” parallels Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in a number of ways. Similar to the prisoners of the cave the humans trapped in the modern day puppet-handlers (the machines) want them to see. In the movie, Neo is a computer hacker, and on day he suddenly realizes that his world is fake, by finding out the truth after he was released from the pod. Neo discovers that what he has been presented with his entire life is only reflections or merely shadows of the truth. The theme is recognized throughout the movie as we see many objects, as well as Neo, reflected in other objects. The puppet-handlers (the machines) represent what Plato calls the influential and powerful members of society. The objects making the shadows in “The Allegory of the Cave” are also creating a false conclusion for the prisoners. In “The Matrix” the puppet-handle...
In the movie, The Matrix there are many similarities with the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One similarity is that of the matrices in both works. The movie has a matrix of dreams. According to the movie, humans are dreaming. Dreaming means that the reality humans think of, is not reality. The reality humans think of, is a dream. Confusing, isn t? An easier way of understanding this matrix is to think of human dreams. When humans experience dreams, it is not perceived as a dream until the dream ends. The movie exemplifies humans in the dream state of mind, similar to the dreaming stage. Neo is exposed to his real matrix. The matrix outside of his perceptual reality. He is able to perform with an incredible flexibility and high speed thinking. He is no longer dreaming, or as Neo called it, living. Neo has waken up. The book shares this matrix as well.
Let me briefly explain a simplified plot of The Matrix. The story centers around a computer-generated world that has been created to hide the truth from humans. In this world people are kept in slavery without their knowledge. This world is designed to simulate the peak of human civilization which had been destroyed by nuclear war. The majority of the world's population is oblivious to the fact that their world is digital rather than real, and they continue living out their daily lives without questioning their reality. The main character, Neo, is a matrix-bound human who knows that something is not right with the world he lives in, and is eager to learn the truth. He is offered the truth from a character named Morpheus, who proclaims that Neo is “the One” (chosen one) who will eventually destroy the Matrix, thereby setting the humans “free.” For this to happen, Neo must first overcome the Sentient Program agents who can jump into anyone's digital body. They are the Gate Keepers and hold the keys to The Matrix.
2 To be concrete about the difference between the matrix and the "real world," I will refer to one as the matrix and the other as the ideology of the "real." The quotes are necessary as the ideology of the "real" is still a fictional ideology. Furthermore, it must be remembered that Althusser saw ideology as inescapable and a necessary feature of society ("there is no practice except by and in an ideology") (Althusser 93). Therefore, referring to the world outside of the matrix as the real world is insufficient and inaccurate. The ideology of the "real" (as Morpheus says, "welcome to the real") serves to enforce the notion of Neo not as rejecting ideology in favor of reality, but rather moving from the ideology of the machines (the matrix) to that of Morpheus (the ideology of the "real").
Descartes major concern is what we can know to be actually real. This concern starts from a dream he has, in his dream he thinks he is actually awake, so when Descartes does wake up he begins to question reality. On page 75 and 76 he says “ But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds nor bodies; I was not, therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exists? To solve this he tosses out all emotions and reasons to try to figure out what actually exists. He starts himself on this hyperbolic doubt, increasing levels of doubt, meaning he continues to doubt himself until what he is left with is Cogito Ergo Sum. . Cogito Ergo Sum is being aware of disembodied thinking. He uses this as proof of his existence, because having thought, whether wrong or right, is proof that one does exist.
In The Cave prisoners are chained, from birth, to face a wall within a dark cave. These prisoners have never had any interactions with the outside world. Their only understanding of the outside world comes from a bridge and a fire at their backs. When people, animals, or objects cross the bridge, the fire projects their shadows upon the cave wall which the prisoners are facing. To these prisoners, the obscure shadows which dance along the walls of the cave are the only “real” thing they know. To their brains, which have never experienced, seen, or came into any contact with anything in the outside world, this is reality. To the prisoners, reality is a jumble of dark shadows which occasionally move from one end of a cave wall to another. This is their perception of reality because it is all they have ever known. While The Matrix does not involve prisoners being chained to a cave wall, the ideas within it are very much the same as in The Cave. Neo, the main character in The Matrix, has unknowingly been living in the matrix his whole life. The matrix world is his reality much like the shadows on the cave wall are the prisoner’s reality. As the world outside of the cave is the true world for the prisoners, the true reality for Neo is the real world which exists outside of the matrix, which is a highly advanced
The movie "Matrix" is drawn from an image created almost twenty-four hundred years ago by the greek philosopher, Plato in his work, ''Allegory of the Cave''.The Matrix is a 1999 American-Australian film written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. Plato, the creator of the Allegory of the Cave was a famous philosopher who was taught by the father of philosophy Socrates. Plato was explaining the perciption of reality from others views to his disciple Aristotle. The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave share a simmilar relationship where both views the perciption of reality, but the Matrix is a revised modern perciption of the cave. In this comparison essay I am going to explain the similarities and deifferences that the Matrix and The Allegory of the Cave shares.In the Matrix, the main character,Neo,is trapped in a false reality created by AI (artificial intelligence), where as in Plato's Allegory of the Cave a prisoner is able to grasp the reality of the cave and the real life. One can see many similarities and differences in the film and the allegory. The most important similarity was between the film and the Allegory is the perception of reality.Another simmilarity that the movie Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave shares is that both Neo and the Freed man are prisoners to a system. The most important difference was that Neo never actually lived and experienced anything, but the freed man actually lived and experinced life.
The teaching of Descartes has influenced many minds since his writings. Descartes' belief that clear and distinct perceptions come from the intellect and not the senses was critical to his ultimate goal in Meditations on First Philosophy, for now he has successfully created a foundation of true and certain facts on which to base a sold, scientific belief structure. He has proven himself to exist in some form, to think and therefore feel, and explains how he knows objects or concepts to be real.
He talks about the subject using geometry as his example. He talks about how a triangle will never be drawn perfectly by our senses but we still have the idea of a perfect triangle in our head. He says the only way we know of such perfect triangle is reasoning. Descartes wrote that from our natural ideas from childhood we can use reasoning to find knowledge and truth. Descartes argued the only real knowledge that cannot be proved incorrect is that of reasoning. In the matrix the only thing that was known to knowledge by reason was the matrix. The matrix uses numbers that are correct and real inside the matrix or out. Math is learned by reason so in the matrix or in the real world the code that Neo knows still is true. In the end Neo finds out he is the one and in this scene he begins to see the matrix as numbers instead of looking like the real world. These numbers of the matrix are the same as in real life because no matter where you go reason will tell that the math you know is still correct. I do not think that reason can distinguish between reality and dreams because in dreams or reality math is consistent. No matter where you are if you use reasoning it well always be the same long as you using the same principles that you were birth
Many ancient philosophers, including Plato, explored metaphysics in relation to reality before Descartes’s in-depth questioning of the subject. However, Descartes’s views on mind/body dualism differ greatly from Plato’s. As Marleen Rozemond (author of Descartes's Dualism) points out, Plato believes that the body is simply a vessel for the soul to use, while Descartes provides proof that the body and soul are interconnected (172). One does not simply use the other; though they are separate, the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Cartesian dualism tells us that "although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the mind" (414). However, Descartes also states that "nature also teaches me by . . . [sensations] that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit" (412). Descartes shows through his dualism that though the mind and body are separate entities, they are connected and reliant on one another. This is one key idea that separates Descartes from great thinkers like Plato. Add another Rozemond quote.
Neo discovers a reality that is ugly, a world seared by war between humans and machines. Morpheus then says that, "the body cannot live without the mind, the mind makes it real." This relates to Berkeley's theories claiming that the body cannot exist without the mind to perceive it. In correlation to Descartes’s famous quote “Cogito ergo sum,” meaning “I think therefor I am,” would have in my opinion had Descartes as a very valuable ally alongside Neo and Morpheous. Socrates admits his own ignorance after visiting the oracle in Delphi who claimed he was the smartest man on earth very similar to the way the oracle in the matrix maintains her confidence in Neo’s