The main metaphysical theme of The Matrix brings into question, what is real? That appearances can be deceiving and our sense perception is only real because of electrical signals going to our brain telling us so is one of the main themes of the film. It is the very premise of the whole matrix deception. What makes something real or not real? If all that exists is matter and motion, what is a mind? Can a computer like Agent Smith, Neo's nemesis, have a mind? People perceive reality by using their senses; this is proven wrong because the people in the Matrix have been programmed to sense things in a particular way, therefore they cannot trust their senses. If they could trust their senses, the matrix would be real and it is not, it is an illusion. As for epistemology: Can we know what is Real? Morpheus tells Neo, "All I offer is the Truth." But can Morpheus really be sure that he knows the actual truth? Or does the belief of free will of choices make that idea embody what is to be believed? …show more content…
Neo’s path out of the Matrix is much like the prisoner’s exit out of the cave in Plato’s Allegory.
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
abilities. Works Cited The Matrix. Prod. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Warner Brothers, 1999. BluRay. The Matrix Reloaded. Prod. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Warner Brothers, 2003. BluRay. The Matrix Revolutions. Prod. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Warner Brothers, 2003. BluRay. The Matrix 101, by Matt Lawrence, Ph.D., 2003, http://www.thematrix101.com/contrib/mlawrence_wtmtp.php Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, Steven Kreis, 2012, http://historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html The Matrix as Metaphysics, David J. Chalmers, 2003, http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html
This essay will examine the philosophical questions raised in the movie The Matrix. It will step through how the questions from the movie directly relate to both skepticism and the mind-body problem, and further how similarly those problems look to concepts raised by both Descartes’ and Plato’s philosophies. It will attempt to show that many of the questions raised in the movie are metaphor for concepts from each philosopher’s works, and why those concepts are important in relation to how they are presented in the film. In this analysis, we will examine the questions of skepticism and the mind-body problem separately. Part one will examine how the film broached the subject of skepticism, and in doing so how it ties in to Descartes and Plato. Part two will analyze the mind-body problems as raised by the movie and how those problems hold true or not to Descartes’ and Plato’s ideas.
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").
Unlike one of empiricism’s major tenets, Tabula Rasa, or blank slate, Descartes believed that the mind was not a blank slate, but actually came pre-loaded, if you will, with ideas, which are part of our rational nature and that our rational nature allows us to grasp . Descartes begins his journey deep within his own mind by claiming that all truths can be conceived by thinking about them. He calls his method cogito or pure reasoning. His famous words “I think, therefore I am,” describes the way that he thinks the mind is the true reality with the rest of reality being an extension. His example to prove thi...
The Matrix, directed by the Wachowski sisters, is a film that discusses free will, artificial intelligence and poses a question: ‘How do we know that our world is real?’ This question is covered in the philosophical branch of epistemology. Epistemology is a component of philosophy that is concerned with the theory of knowledge. The exploration of reality is referenced in the film when Neo discovers he has been living in an artificial world called ‘The Matrix’. He is shocked to learn that the world in which he grew up is a computer program that simulates reality. The questioning of knowledge and its irreversibility provoked by The Matrix invites the audience to wonder whether their own world is an imitation of true reality, thus making it a
Wartenberg addressed the question: “Can philosophy be screened?” (pg. 272) He then used thought experiment as a way that a film can represent philosophy. So what is “thought experiment”? Thought examinations include nonexistent situations in which the audience are asked to envision what things might be similar to if such-and-such were the situation. The individuals who feel that movies can really do philosophy show that fiction films can work as philosophical thought experiments and consequently qualify as philosophical. Wartenberg argues that it some fiction films as working in ways that thought experiments do, and thus they may be seen as doing philosophy. (pg. 276)
In The Matrix (1999), the world is not quite what it appears to be. Everybody perceives life to be nothing extraordinary, unaware of the devastating truth that lies within their experiences. In the film, Keanu Reeves stars as a computer programmer/hacker named Thomas Anderson, who goes by the alias “Neo”. The plot consists of Neo’s search for the truth behind the computer-generated world, “The Matrix”, or what he used to call ‘reality’. The entire movie revolves around a philosophical question posed by the 17th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes believed that one could not know what is real based solely on sensory experiences. We cannot distinguish what is a real experience from a dream experience.
Two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato presented the allegory of the cave, several prisoners who have been chained up in a cave for their whole lives. They were facing a wall, unable to turn their head and never been outside. What they can see is those shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, the sounds of the people talking echo off the shadowed wall, pensioners falsely believe these sounds come from the shadows and mistake appearance for reality. This allegory have inspired lots of film such as The Matrix, Dark City. Putting the aspect of philosophy aside, peoples found that there are such striking similarities between what happened in the allegory and the features of film. The image projected
In The Matrix directed by Lilly Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, existentialism and determinism are explored leading one to question what reality truly is through the use of various thematic techniques. Existentialists is the believe that an individual determines their own development through acts of free will whereas determinists believe that all events are determined by causes external to free will or fate. The main character Neo is presented with these conflicting beliefs when he becomes aware that what he believes is reality is merely an illusion, an alternate reality created by a computer program where laws of nature do not apply. As Neo becomes more aware of the glitches in The Matrix, Morpheus approaches Neo and presents him with a choice
What is real ? How can one define realty ? The Matrix is a movie explaining how’s the technology is taking control over the human race by time. However technology is helping humans to have easier way of life, it’s taking a lot of things from humanity in return. Humans created a monster which is the artificial intelligence. The machines took control of everything and almost everyone. The movie explains that most of the humans are under the machines control and they don’t even know that they are living in the matrix not the real world. The matrix is the modern story of the “ Allegory of The Cave ” where the matrix represents the cave and Neo represents Glaucon. The Matrix parallels “ Allegory of The Cave ” from varies existential perspectives.
The human imagination is a very powerful thing. It sets humanity apart from the rest of the creatures that roam the planet by giving them the ability to make creative choices. The imaginary world is unavoidably intertwined with the real world and there are many ways by which to illustrate this through literature, either realistically or exaggerated. Almost everything people surround themselves with is based on the unreal. Everything from the food we eat to the books we read had to have been thought of by someone and their imagination. The imagination empowers humans.^1 It allows people to speculate or to see into the future. It allows artists to create, inventors to invent, and even scientists and mathematicians to solve problems. J.R. Tolken
It seems as the writers of this story took directly from his writings because three scenes from this movie take these 3 reasons and almost show them verbatim to what Descartes wrote about. The first scene is when Neo is being interrogated by the agents. He doesn’t comply with them when they ask him questions about Morpheus. Agent Smith says” And tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?” The question unnerves Neo and strangely, he begins to feel the muscles in his jaw tighten. The standing agents laugh, watching Neo's confusion grow into panic. Neo feels his lips grow soft and sticky as they slowly seal shut, melding into each other until all trace of his mouth is gone. This scene is a great example of Illusions of our senses. In this scene his senses are playing tricks on him because he can no longer speak because he has no mouth. This scene makes him question if any of this is real. The next day he wakes up only remembering the terror of the night before and not actually going home or falling asleep. He looks around and asks himself was this all just a dream. In recent days Neo keeps fading to sleep them randomly waking up in his bed he doesn’t understand anymore what is real or what is a dream. Then later on Morpheus says “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you
Socrates’s work has laid the foundation for all philosophical thinkers after his time. Although never writing anything down, Plato’s account of Socrates’s fundamental thoughts gives us a direct insight into our own beliefs and helps us question our very core values. Socrates has brought about many theories of existence due to the mere questioning of daily attributes like the existence of learning. In Plato’s dialogue, Meno, Socrates poses a valid argument that we do not learn but seemingly recollect knowledge from a previous life. He uses a vague example of a slave boy “recollecting” a geometric problem. After establishing this, he then postulates that our soul is immortal and recollection is evidence of such. This is yet another mistake in
Socrates recalls from personal experience that when he was younger he has a passion to learn about nature and the sciences but then soon realized that he did not have the right mind to obtain such knowledge. Socrates then discovered Anaxagoras who claimed that the mind and intelligence are the cause for everything. Upon further studying of Anaxagoras, Socrates began to disagree with his teachings as he realized that the mind was not talked about as a cause and that he mainly preached about physical explanations for the universe, therefore could be classed as teleological. Socrates fashions a new method that he believes to be the most convincing and reintroduces the Theory of Forms and using it in accordance of all the causations in the world, offering a more materialistic viewpoint. This can be interpreted to mean that the physical body is an obstacle that we live with in the material world implying that real world is in fact immaterial in which the soul just participates in existing in, concluding that it is in fact
In the film, The Matrix, the human race is forced into a “dream state” by a powerful group that controls their reality. “The Matrix” is a false reality where people live an ordinary life. However, this reality, or illusion, is being forced onto people who readily accept it as truth. This concept is where Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Moral Sense” (1873) begins its argument. Nietzsche begins his argument by explaining that we have a need to form groups or “herds”. To keep these groups together “a uniformly valid and binding designation is given to things” (452). This idea basically boils down to groups create metaphors to further the groups purpose. Nietzsche continues by explaining that “This creator [of metaphors] only designates the relationship of things to man” (453). Ultimately, we can only derive metaphors from a human point of view. As a result of assigning these human designations, the whole identity of the “thing” is lost. Nietzsche wants us to break away from the designation given to “things” by groups because designations will only categorizes things as black and white.