Slashdot Mirror
The Matrix Movie Now in a College Course
koolade writes "It looks like The Matrix meant a lot to some people at the University of Washington in Seattle, since an introductory philosophy class is now being offered based on the movie. You can read about it here."
look before you click, kids
I'm not surprised one bit. When I watched the Matrix for the first time I found all kinds of
philosophical themes. What is reality? Is there
truth? Free-will vs determinism. Ideas on perception. You could also refer to many different
philosophers as well.
Yet, philosophers are an odd bunch. They "discover" ideas that are common to every person and claim it their own. Then they define their ideas in cryptic unintelligible writing. Thus the common person can not understand the idea, which originally was a simple observation on life.
I can see why many people are turned off by philosophy. They see "philosophers" as these super-intelligent people who sit around and think all day. Nothing can be further from the truth. Everyone is a philosopher, and philosophy was created to help people deal with common problems. I suggest you do yourself a favor and pick up "Plato Not Prozac!" by Lou Marinoff. It describes how one can use philosophy to help one live a better life. And remember
"The unexaimed life is not worth living" - Socrates
although "the unlived life is not worth exaiming"
Personally, I thought that The Day The Earth Stood Still was a much better Easter movie than The Matrix. Keanu Reeves is sort of inept as a Christ figure. I guess we'll see how he holds up in Matrix II: Electric Boogaloo.
the phillosophical points. In it the bounderies between the real and digital world are
even less clear. If I have your attention by now It's called
Serial Experiments Lain.
You can find out more by visiting this site
The Wired: Iwakura Experiments
I hope you otaku out there enjoy it.:)
......I have just abandoned my body." Serial Experiments Lain. Eirilly similar to the matrix but without all the gunfire.
lainwire.tripod.com
there is no spoon........
..er....uhm....
FORK!!!!
I loved the Matrix because it blew SH*t up.
It's a freakin movie, hey lets all start a religion based off of the force and send Bill Gates all of our hard earned laundry money. Once we have a strong religion base in the airports of the world we can move to door to door sales of our religion. Rather than open source it we'll retain all right to it, then when the GNU people come along we can use our new Matrix skills to crack their skulls into the pavement. With this being the obvious first step in world domination we must then become a threat to the government by running quarter watt am radio stations preaching our new enlightened ideas while waiting for "the one" to show up. Hell if it doesn't work out there's always the acid.
You're pretty much right, but there are exceptions to the rule... the two that come immediately to mind are Blade and Virtuosity.
(Both are in the same/similar genre as Matrix.)
What's interesting to note is that in both of these, while the hero is black, the lead villain is white...
Just an observation...
Jiu-Jitsu is a piece of s***!
Dont be lazy,go learn good kung-fu...
Two awesome kung-fu homeages...
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/5379/
http://members.xoom.com/PalmaDeBuda/
At college I studied Computer Science and Philosophy. The ideas in the Matrix were nothing new. Various philosophers in the past have done the concept of our reality is just a fabrication. I am probably outside the norm because I was bored with the Matrix. My problems 1) Challenging philosophical concept if you've never conceived of it before. 2) It gave away the whole idea of the alternative reality right at the beginning of the movie (would have been a lot better to keep people trying to figure out how everything was different.) 3) Special effects were cool but over used. 4) The chase scenes lost my interest (See Bullitt if you want to see kick ass chase scenes. Now on a institute of higher education using the Matrix. I think it would be better off left for high school use and discussion.
Considering the VERY BASIC question of "what is reality" is one of the basic tenets of Western Philosophy, you have to be a moron to ake this class. The same goes for all of the boneheads who said "Ooooh. The Matrix is so coool! What a coool idea!". Get a clue, morons. Pick up a book. The idea behind the Matrix is a few thousand years old. And, I bet Socrates and Plato could probably act better than Keaneu, too!
Watch it again. Look at the books you see popping up inconspicuousy throughout the movie. MD even holds one for a moment. Each is a must-read for any modern philosopher.
Today was my first day of classes and not 10 minutes into my Intro to Logic course my prof referenced how the Matrix deals with perception of reality. I hope that he uses this example in more depth as it can be a compelling and very cool example.
Is there anything so silly, that it will not be a college course? When I think of the time I wasted studying multi-variable calculas and differential equations, when I could have got the same credit for "drinking beer and watching TV 101" Ah well. . .
That is because they are running our lives on a Solaris cluster solution with a failure role function. :) The contents of our minds really actually resides in serveral well constructed but very simple tables constructed in on Oracle database.
And you wondered why there was no down time? Well in Universe that our simulation of life is running on, the concept Microsoft Windows is recognized as illogical and does not really exist. I mean how would you enjoy living your life in 2 week to 2 month long spurts. Well this could explain the theory behind alien ubductions. "No, you fool you weren't obtucted, you were rebooted."
Nobody needs to be taught about philosophy. By roughly age 12, just about everybody has already had most if not all the "great thoughts" It seems you've never visited your accounting department.
When do they start showing p0rn for sex-ed?
Btw, we're all part of a giant beowulf cluster!
One thing that seems to have been missed in this discussion so far is the concept of the Matrix as an allegory for hermetic or magickal initiation.
Neo (anagram of 'one', also means 'new') is contacted by the initiates (Morpheus, Trinity) and invited to join their illuminated world. He accepts the invitation and is literally reborn into his new existence. He journeys through the vulgar world to see the Oracle, who shows him a Gnostic slogan (Know Thyself) and gives him a prophecy which mostly plays right into his beliefs (she never actually tells him that he is not 'the one', she lets him arrive at that conclusion himself). It is only when he discards these fears and self-doubts in his effort to save Morpheus that he completes his initiation and fully realizes his potential.
Additional pun: we spend a good portion of the film watching Neo fight (neophyte).
The question this raises is: who are the Agents?
Dark City. Now THAT was a good movie. Much better than the Matrix, which was, I thought, entirely predictable and not too original.
there aren't enough brains among all /. users inclusive to figure this shit out. in fact, most of the philosophizing here is silly. maybe they should rename it: ?.
They're doing it again!
^_^
That's it. Fuck Slashdot, fuck ALL the moderators. I'll be back when the illiterate 12 year olds are replaced, and some reasonably intelligent moderators are hired.
Sure, Morpheus could have tried to explain it to him. And Neo, despite being played by Keanu Reeves, probably would have been able to grasp the concept. BUT - Neo would probably have dismissed ol' Morphy as just another crazy guy.
thanks. all sorts of fun memories of Operating Systems class just came flooding back.... :)
>But then do we care? We could never interact >properly with it... What if we are so lucky that our universe is just an atom, on its way of colliding with another atom in a particle accelerator in a giant universe? You never know...
Some Guesses (heheheh)
stupid inbred cow.
so i capitulated?
step into cement.
somewhat ignorant comment.
stop icing cookies.
sandy islands collapse.
someone incidentally cared.
shallow idiots callowing?
Sounds really weak to me. I'll bet the college is one of the ones where you can get your degree by mail. Why don't we base an ethics course on 90210 too! We can discuss the "serious" issues that get brought up.
You are a Latent Appliance Fetishist,
It appears to me!
Fifty bucks, please.
or even better, how do you know the entire universe isn't one super-advanced computer. what if every action and event, from the rotation of the moon, to the fall of rain was information being processed. what if we're all just part of a giant CPU?
i saw that movie and i got to thinking about how a universe could contain another. you would need a boundry line of the universe, and assuming your computer power is growing, the universe would be expanding :) in addition, the ammount of detail the universe was kept to would be important... now i got to thinking about compression... from what i know about quantum physics (very little) on a very small level things dont exist until you observe them.. almost as if the universe was say uncompressed or approxamated upon demand..kinda like you see today in 3d games where the model has more polys the closer it gets... but in terms of molecular detail.. got me thinking about different types of compression/approx, like fractal, etc...
Well to put my two cents in. Although the questions about reality are quite old. With technology coming at an ever increasing rate. Sooner than later we will face the question of "what is reality?". Are we ready? The "perception is reality" aspect as oppossed to what reality actually is should prove an unanswerable dilemma.
BTW to the poster about our universe being a subatomic particle. Try carrying that to infinity.
A bunch of subatomics (universe within), make up an atom (multi-verses within), make up objects (living and otherwise), and they have the same thought (living of course).
HE would use LINUX.
I found Eva (Neon Genesis Evangelion) to be deeper and more philisophicaly interesting then the matrix.
it is my understanding from students at the college that the course has absolutely nothing to do with the movie and was just named that way as a trick to get people to sign up for it. so the matrix is not the matrix, it is simply a normal philosophy course.
...at my school. We convinced our Philosophy of Mind prof. to go see it with us. We couldn't get much discussion out of him afterwards, though. He thought it was interesting, but he had a problem with the fact that they were so dependent on phones (there must've been some traumatic phone incident in his early years). But it was pretty cool making fun of the pre-movie adverts with my Philosophy prof..
But Linus Torvalds isn't a machine...
the matrix is a modern version of platos
allegory of the cave. why not use it instead of reading and falling asleep over the original old-greek stuff?
I think that using The Matrix in a philosophy class is an excellent choice. I picked up on several philosophical/religous themes. I just have a few questions I'd like to pose..
To me "The Matrix" seems like the ultimate example of what Hindu's call Maya (cosmic illusion). Has anyone else noticed this? Can you think of any other examples of what "The Matrix" might be?
Also the movie explores the topic of Free Will VS Predestination. An example of this is Morpheus' constant analogies of the difference between "knowing the path and walking the path." Do you think that Neo became "the one" as a result of fate, remember The Oracle foretold of his being found and his "hailing the destruction of the machines." Or do you feel that Neo became "the one" only because of his choices? -Lego
I've heard quite a few stupid things on this message board ..the first being "I can't believe that Plato and other great thinkers are being replaced with The Matrix." Hey guys, i'm sure that the entire class is not going to be based on The Matrix, it is probably being using to supplement all the great theories and thinkers that the students are learning about. Can it hurt to have the student analyze a movie that obviously is based on many of the great philosphical debates? Oh and the second stupid thing I've read is ..."The Matrix had crappy effects that have been done before"...actually if you've bought The Matrix DVD or watched the behind the scenes show of The Matrix then you would know that new kinds of special effects were actually invented for The Matrix. And everyone I know agrees even the conventional Special Effects in The Matrix are still some of the coolest ever captured on screen.
To tell you the truth, I support the view that morals are not fundamental myself. But there are a lot of people who disagree with me. Most major religions for a start. They are relevant to philosophy. I know, because I took a course in moral philosophy once. I agree, moral philosophy doesn't really tie in with epistemology much, but it is, nevertheless a branch of philosophy, and it involves more than giving things names, which was my point.
Allow me to rephrase my, admittedly hasty, question. Is it possible to design a reasonable moral system where murder and rape (and incest, if you like) are not immoral? If a cohesive moral system that prevents theft, but permits murder cannot be designed, this tends to indicate that morals against murder are a little more fundamental than the many systems which include them. (While there have been cultures which permitted incest, there have never been any which considered murder within the tribe acceptable, although cannibalism of outsiders and human sacrifice may have been)
Descartes began thinking about how much he could doubt purely as the first step towards seeing how much he could prove, independent of questionable beliefs. Objectivity doesn't really enter this question, since it would rely on perceptions that could be deceitful. Descartes wanted to determine what he could say is absolutely true, without relying on any evidence that he could not believe without a shadow of a doubt.
An infinite universe -can- expand. It's not like a balloon being inflated and expanding into pre existing space around it, the concept is that the structure of space itself is stretching everywhere in all directions, each point in space getting further apart. If you do this to infinity, you still have infinity, just a 'bigger' infinity, in the same way that the set of natural numbers is a bigger infinity than the set of even numbers. The idea of the singularity is the real mind killer. This can represent an infinite amount of spacetime packed at infinite density into zero volume, which does not fit into the human brain however you twist it. In a sense, though, this state of affairs never actually -existed-, because the tighter you pack a universe, the slower time passes, so however fast you were to crank up Mr. Wells' time sofa, you'd never actually reach the beginning.
> How many times have you realized you were dreaming and it didn't make you a bit less scared!
Realising I'm in a nightmare has always calmed me right down, actually. Have you checked out http://www.lucidity.com/ ?
> That wouldn't change a thing, but I see no need for that, and I don't beleive in an universe created in a wasteful manner.
Hmm. Why not? Humanity was created in an incredibly wasteful manner if you believe the evidence of the Burgess shale, but OTOH how do you define wasteful? It depends entirely on the motives and judgement of the hypothetical creator, and that's not something we can make any meaningful guesses at for now.
Being the type who doesn't think of reality in terms of creators, I actually find the idea that every possibility exists all at once much easier to understand. It gets rid of one of the Great Questions. You can still ask 'Why anything?', but 'Why -This-?' becomes somewhat easier.
Shurely, a linear algebra course?
What about if they evolve, and then learn to reprogram themselves on the fly?
Remember: Neurons are no more conscious than transistors. It's the layout that counts.
Uh-huh. You really expect converts from /. ? Of all places? Get a clue. We have functioning minds here, go prey on some helpless pre-teens, vampire. Alternatively, have a read of this:http://www.xenu.net/
I am Manifest and I didn't write that! I wrote an article about how much I liked watching that chick's ass in tight leather as she ran across rooftops.
Beware, your view of reality is not the truth!
David Deutsch's excellent book, The Fabric of Reality, combines physics, evolution, epistemology, into a theory of the nature of the universe. The (extended) Church-Turing thesis and the self-similarity of virtual reality is central to his description.
Can a computer program, if it is aware, believe something that's not true?
sure, just make sure to overload operator== to return bool TRUE for 1==2 etc...
Hey, don't you recall in the ending of MiB? we're just the plaything of a superior (computer generated) race. I just hope whoever kid has our galaxy as their marble is a good player, cuz I'd hate to be on the loosing team (and then traded).
...would a mainstream generic sci-fi film (is it real or is it artificial! gee, sounds like total recall, brazil, about 1000 other films) be studied like it means something. Can you say `dumb down`?
Wasn't the USA #13 on the educational system quality list (this is behind a LOT of 1st world countries)?
When are they teaching "Dumb and Dumber" as a course?
Yeah - but what I can't work out is WHO is the oracle. Is she from outside the Matrix in another ship or in the human's main city? If so, how come she will get one of her kids to fix the vase - maybe it's a figure of speech, and she's outside the matrix but has kids inside the matrix or she has kids outside the matrix who will come into the matrix... Also, if she's outside the matrix, why bother going into the matrix to meet, why not just send a message to their ship or whatever...? If she's a person within the matrix, then how come the agents haven't killed her yet and how come she can predict things OUTSIDE The matrix, since her reality is limited to the matrix... Cos if she is in the matrix, she can be 'taken over' by the agents too..... and I think I remember Morpheus saying that Neo was going to meet her in person or something... Just My Rambled Murmurs Of Incoherent "Sentences"
Thanks for the link to strangerstill. Enjoyed the good read.
The most interesting thing about matrix, is that it represents the Internet in a very striking way. The Internet could be seen as an organism that is growing extremely fast, while draining the human race from all of it's knowledge and information. And there is nothing we can do to stop it from becoming the platform for human civilization. And there is no way for anyone to control it. But, at the same time, any individual who learns how to use the Internet, has the power to do virtually anything and gets a feeling that the system is totally at his mercy. Free will, but only inside your little box of reality. It is a very interesting combination.
No no no.
Neo is a dead geek guy.
The truth is we HAVE been born into bondage.
This IS a prison for our minds.
This IS the world that has been pulled over our
eyes to keep us from seeing the truth. We are Slaves unto this world. The time is at hand... You look like a man that accepts what you see
because any moment now you are expecting to Wake Up!!!
Now if you really want to achieve any of your goals, stop reading /. -- for now -- and return to work.
TheDullBlade? LameSword?
Admiral Yamamoto
P.S. The article's top blurb states:
"Keanu's spectacular blockbuster is now being taught..."
Of course we all know Keanu Reeves was just lucky enough to have the superb support of Fishburne. Neo could have been played by any number of actors without any detraction; Fishburne is Morpheus, and gave the film every ounce of soul it enjoys today.
I think it was in Gibsons Mona Lisa Overdrive where they spoke about the matrix. This film could have been Neuromancer part four... Definitely one of the most important films of the century...
> Come on. Humans as biological batteries? Please.
Yeah, I cringed when I hear the explanation that "along with a [...] form of fusion".... kept thinking "suspension of disbelief... look at the cool special effects and don't think too much about this sceene... hey, you paid $12 for this, enjoy it...
Why the fsck would you want to used humans for energy (probably the least efficent batteries in the world) if you had fusion technology?
I suppose the machines where just keeping their quaint creators alive as a philosophical explanation for their existance.
Does anyone else have a problem with Hollywood's movie FUD/confusion marketing efforts where films for similar genras are released at the same time by competing studios? It bugs the hell out of me.
[...] perhaps they'll build churches in which to worship us [...] - Tom Ray, a long time ago
For some reason I have a doubt that an entire class is taught around the Matrix. Maybe a Film & Video class but not Philosophy. When I took intro to philosophy 2 years ago, we learned more than could be introduced focusing on one movie. I have a feeling that it is most likely that the professor has a viewing of the movie along with a part of the class. For example, when we studied religious philosophy, we watched Cool Hand Luke. I image this specific professor picked the Matrix. I don't think any professor or university would allow a phil. class to be based on a single film.
Not really, you can't make a movie quite that quickly. Besides, the Thirteenth Floor was based off of a book that was written several years ago. I went to the theatre and about 15 minutes into the movie I realized that I remembered the ending, and alot of what would happen. Of course, it wasn't a totally accurate map over from book to movie, but there were more than enough similarities.
RJ
>fillum (sic)
:-) I had a physics teacher that said film like that too. Man, was that annoying!
Wow! Finally, a proper use of (sic)...
Actually I think the matrix is a story of a buddhist. Neo lives in a world that is an illusion (the matrix) in Hindu this is maya, it is called something else in buddhism I can't recall what. At the end of the movie he becomes "enlightened" much as a bodhisatva (some one who has become enlightened but chooses to remain in our illusory reality so that he/she may teach others) does. There were more comparisons I was able to make while actually watching the movie which I can't recall right now. -TG
or its always possible that your friend supported his results better despite any grammatical errors.
...was the worst remake (yet) of an OLD overused concept (last time it was done, IIRC was Dark City. That was like a whole few months before this movie..., not to mention Total Recall, etc...) I've ever seen. Looked new because of the computer graphics (which also were used improperly, IMHO). It's the stuff of badly written books, where the subject begins in what they think is reality, and then the subject learns it isn't reality. Cheeeeeeesy.
:-)
I remember watching this flick and thinking one main thing - when are the actors going to stop acting and actually look like they are enjoying their parts?
This doesn't even count the other multitudes of problems, such as:
- Poor directing
- Using Special Effects to cover up missing plot
- Needing more story (just taking ONE concept and running with it is OK for 1 hour, maybe. NOT a feature length film - where is the subplot?)
- Thinking that the "Boy Meets Girl" idea makes a subplot.
- Using Special Effects to cover up shoddy acting, and really poor action.
This movie was quite bad. Not the worst by any measure, but bad. And I just watched Laserblast and Cybernator. And I still remember 13th floor as a waste of my money. And it is the worst kind of bad: Not bad enough to laugh at (Laserblast), not bad enough to make you physically sick (Cybernator), just bad enough to suck.
The Matrix was so much better than this cheap B-Flick, even making the comparison is an insult to it.
And to add to it, the computers beeped without good reason. Any computer used in the situations presented in this movie wouldn't make noise (other than fan noise). I suppose they could, but WHY?
Oh, and this movie got the same Maltin rating as laserblast - 2.5 stars. You just can't trust that guy anymore.
And if I EVER see ANOTHER crappy hollywood B-Movie ending where everyone is happy again, and everything is perfect, I think I'll chuck up. Even Cyborg has a better ending. And that says a LOT!
Sorry, but after renting this Titanic/Dark City/Total Recall/Jhonny Mnemonic/Virtuosity Combo I wanted my money back. Really. And I saw the DVD version. Anyone sitting through this on VHS would have had to have rewond the movie before viewing - the poeple using it before would have been so disgusted at the end they wouldn't have bothered.
Therefore, according to the Matrix, those bullets would have hit him, whereas according to his point of view, they would have missed him. The bullets missing him are all in his mind. This results in a disparity between the mind and "reality"/Matrix. Also, anything Neo would be able to do would affect only his perceptions, not that of other people. Therefore, unless Neo is actually affecting the computer, and hence other people's perceptions (not just his own), he will not be able to do anything he is supposed to do/have done.
RJ
Now I can learn jujitsu!
"Whoah"
It just got back to school and started new classes and found out that I have to watch the matrix for my violent/non-violent lit class.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
Not to be overly religious or philosophical I think the Matrix does make us think about some real issues. I mean is our mortal existence really the bottom line. Maybe when we die we find that we are in the real world and that mortality was just another dimension to our existence. I think the reason that the Matrix strikes such a chord with its viewers is that it makes us confront this issue. I mean how real is our existence in this world we live in. Granted it is a very temporary existence when you consider that we nominally only live about 80 years and then we're gone. Obviously, there are different layers to our existence, wether its spiritual or in some other dimension. I guess what I am trying to say is that like the Matrix the people actually living within it were unable to see beyond it and actually see reality. In a sense that parallels with our mortal existence here on earth. To us all we see, feel, hear etc... is our tangible bodies and surroundings and are unable to see the big picture or beyond our physical 3-dimensional surroundings. We are trapped within our bodies and our world or physical universe. We cannot fathom or grasp anything beyond what are senses tell us exactly as the human beings living within the matrix. It appears real but is it really? Just my little two sense.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
"Get your domain name for only $45"
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Maybe he is one of them and thats why his operating system is getting so much hype!
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Wow and this is what I missed out on! . . .
Upon my first view of 'The Matrix' I thought it nothing more than a science fiction translation of 'The Allegory of the Cave' with a little 'Akira' style action thrown in. The lines about Neo's eyes not having adjusted to the light was a dead give away.
.).
But at further inspection, I find remarkable similarities between the dualities of the two realities and that of Eastern legends of ~Maya and the Astral Plane (especially with the chord attached to the back of the head . . a.k.a. the Astral Umbilical chord; death in one plane resulting to the other, the predestined masters . .
And most interesting, in my opinion, was the emphasis on Free Will versus Predestination. Neo, of course wanting to decide his own fate, but not understanding that he will decide but in effect has, as things will happen as they should. Thus, thier solution to the debate is that both are true. If you don't understand what I am having a hard time saying, just refer to the scene where Neo breaks the vase.
Well, that was my philosophic take. I hope you enjoyed my amateur opinion.
Odd that some of the greatest thinkers of all time are displaced by a (not great) movie. Theory of knowledge has no need for special effects or film.
I guess enrollment is down in the department.
PS: Dark City was better.
Actually, WVO Quine was of the opinion that most of us had asked all the important questions by the age of three:
What is that? (metaphysics)
Is that really true? (epistemology)
Why should I? (ethics)
>Right now I'm taking an ethics course - not because I want to be an ethicist (I'm a CS major) and it's not even required for my degree...
Humm... I went to a school where ethics WAS required for a CS degree (perhaps that says something entirely in and of itself).
Want to know what I discovered?
I learned that unless you wrote your papers to agree with the professor's opinions you got bad marks.
That taught me way more than I ever could have ever learned about ethics from that, or any other, professor.
(...and, yes, I had actual quantitative evidence that this was the case. You see, we had go out and interview three people in non-computer related jobs who had recently been exposed to some sort of computer automation. I actually inverview people who had fairly nice things to say about how computers had enhanced their job.
A friend of mine waited until about 8 hours before the term paper was due and made the entire thing up out of his imagination with the opposite conclusion to his "interviews".
He got an A; I got a C.
...and it wasn't a question of mechanics either. My paper was spell checked and peer reviewed a full week ahead of time and I believe he even went as far as to TYPE his paper, resulting in all sorts of gramatical, puncutation and spelling problems (much like this post) that writing a term paper in less than 8 hours on a typewriter causes.)
...I'm not bitter, really...
...but if I could find a way to code embedded elevator controllers to recognize philosophers, they would be the first to get managled by an evil computer and it's non-ethical (just applying what I was taught with maximum efficency) programmer.
If anyone here hasn't seen Lain yet, then shame on you. The entire series is out on VHS and DVD. Get it. Now.
Anyone ordering VHS should get the subbed version. There's so much that can be lost with a dub. But remember, the DVD has both languages and some neat extras. (:
That was a pretty dumb ending.. I thought it would've been better if the screen just went to black and the credits rolled when he hung up the phone.
Disclaimer: I didn't moderate this down
I *CAN* see why it was moderated down though.
It may be true that America is turning out plenty of illiterate people. However, the tone of the post was sneering, and cast America as the sole province of illiteracy. That's flame.
Plenty of other countries have illiteracy problems similar to those in America. This is offtopic, though.
While I admit that there is a unique philosophical perspective to The Matrix (e.g., how can we tell what is real?), I don't necessarily see that it is a good idea to start basing non-entertainment-related courses on entertainment. (Of course, I also fail to see how anything with Madonna in it can be useful, unless as an example of what *NOT* to do).
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
Now, if I wanted to change a scene to improve the movie, I'd keep the superman ending and have Neo stay dead in the real-world and be a living, free-agent in the Matrix.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Why, oh why, did Morpheus say:
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
All I had to say to sum up the film for someone who hadn't seen it was this:
"Basically, the plot revolved around the world as we see it being a simulation. The main character somehow gets out of the simulation and starts kicking ass. Good flick, you gotta see it."
Anyone who's screwed with computers enough could easily grasp the scenario without visual aids. Neo obviously has screwed with computers for a long time, and could have been given a better choice than "red pill or blue pill?"
Other than that, great film. For more of the same, see The Thirteenth Floor (sorry, no "bullet-time" sequences).
ObTopic: An even better philosophical question is raised during the scenes when Neo's brain is being filled with knowledge. If complex skills become downloadable, our society will collapse. I'll leave "why?" as an excersise for the reader, but here's a clue: A meritocracy's currency is knowledge.
One fault in the article - the films was Keanu's, as they say. Keanu happened to star in it, but it was the Wachowski Brothers film.
Minor detail, not worth quibbling about really.
T.
Y'know, we had a sign above the roll of toilet paper in the dorm back at college: "liberal arts degrees... please take one". I pity the poor students who've paid their dollars to take this course, but that choice would indicate they probably weren't bright enough for a real education anyway.
http://www.thedaily.washington.edu/archives/00W/1. 5.00/home.nclk
That one is closer, but still a bit skewed.
I know the head of the University's Curriculum Office, and so I asked him about it. He had
this to say:
PHIL 200 is 'topics in philosophy', which is (obviously) an undergraduate course that meets tone of the 'general education' requirements. The University has *not* approved a course on the Matrix. All they've done is approved a course in 'topics', which is then left up to the dept to decide how best to use that course.
Topics courses, however, tend not to be able to be used for specific degree requirements -- always general ed electives or degree program electives.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
That's pretty close to Morpheus's: `Do you believe that's air you are breathing now?' during Neo's training session.
(BTW, while "researching" this post I found The Matrix script here).
Regards, Ralph.
Does this mean the creative interests get a kickback from the University, or does this fall under "fair use" for academic ends?
PI was rather similar to The Matrix... except that the puppeteer is never revealed. In the end, the "illusion" is preserved and the main character takes the other pill.
Technologically, the movie is absurd, but they didn't bow down to the special effects like many other movies do. I think they really captured what it is to be obsessed with solving a really tough mathematical problem with deep philosophical ramifications.
It's kind of depressing and headachy at the same time. Interesting movie.
The movie /does/ get you to question the nature of reality. How do you /know/ it isn't all being generated by a computer somewhere, and fed into you brain. You don't.
Jordan
My perception of what science fiction should really be like are the books of Stanislaw Lem. In his 1969 book 'Summa Technologiae', for example, he explains the concept of virtual reality. The Futurological Congress also touches upon this topic, but even goes a little further in that it describes a world where there is not one but many levels of nested virtual realities. Also very interesting is the book 'Dialogues', in which he, among other questions, discusses whether machines can be concious. The book was written in the 1960's. By far his best book, imho, is Fiasco. That's a book I'd like to see a film based on!
i think this is the real course of study, meticulously camiflauged...
You do the math...
-- ultra1
The animated TV show "The Critic" did what may have been a spoof of Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing.
In one scene, Jay is walking down the street, bemoaning the vulgarity of Hollywood films. He stops in front of a movie theater and looks up, overjoyed to see The Merchant of Venice on the marquee.
After Jay enters the theater, the camera pans over, showing the rest of the marquee--"Starring Keanu Reeves". We cut to inside the theater:
Reeves [As Shylock]: "If you cut me, do I not, like, get bummed?"
And Lawrence Fishbourne's major (John the Baptist) character was what? I suppose that by the same reasoning, the character of Switch was just there to fill the 'butch' quota. Feh! I don't buy it.
I was initially confused by the Oracle. I expected an old woman, wise and vague... I was treated to a very HUMAN, nurturing, compassionate PERSON. Someone who baked cookies and was the anti-thesis of the machine. Life experience.
Maybe the skin color was intentional, but not to fill a quota. It may be my prejudicial white view, but I've always found black people more expressive emotionally than whites. Maybe this is a cultural archetype that was being utilized. The Oracle for humans beaten down by machines was one which (to me at least) sybolized feeling, expressiveness, and, dare I say it, SOUL.
For the record, I mean no disrespect, and I can't dance to a beat to save my life.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The Matrix UI wasn't there to let it's 'users' control the machine. The whole key to Neo's 'psychic' ability was that he transcended the 'real world' metaphor, which in the context of the metaphor, was shown as super-natural/super-human. The system couldn't accurately represent Neo's level of interaction with the computer, so it improvised.
:)
"Any means of interaction beyond the UI interface metaphor is indistinguishable from magic" - w/apologies to A. C. Clarke.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Matrix is no more than technology show.
If one wanted to go deeper on this subject "13 floor" is much much better ( and also more interesting movie on it's own )
It was only offered once, and I'm really lucky to have been in it. At the University of California, Riverside, it was called something like Film & Visual Culture 173e, and it was mostly about the cultural impact that all the various Star Trek series and movies have had on American culture. My favorite moment in the class was when we were talking about subtle racism in Star Trek and we watched that one In Living Color spoof of TOS where Jim Carrey was Capt. Kirk and Farrakhan came on board. I think it was called the Wrath of Farrakhan...
Anyways, just sharing. Classes that show movies are cool.
The Matrix doesn't contain any of those labels, and really doesn't cover many ideas. Let's face it, it doesn't even make sense. What, was he supposed to have had some sort of psychic power over the computer? He wasn't hacking into the system in any way we'd recognize; the fact that the world was computer simulated in no way explained Neo's ability to break the rules at will.
Actually, The Matrix contained several important ideas, most of them epistemological (for those of you without much exposure to philosophy, epistemology means the theory of knowledge).
1. Descarte's problem. Descarte (a.k.a the "I think therefore I am" guy) went through this entire reductive thought experiment where he reasoned that even if he was in a permanent dream state and an "evil demon" was just feeding him sensory data, he would still have to exist. This problem has been rephrased by more contemporary philosophers as the "brain in a vat" theory.
2. Godel's theorem. Godel was an early 20th century mathematician who theorized that (paraphrasing and simplifying here) within every logical system there exists a problem that cannot be proven by the rules of that system. To prove this problem, you have to (in effect) transcend the system and create more rules. This theory was proved, btw (although you could get into a recursive arguement here, but I'll skip that). Neo was a living embodiment of Godel's theorem. He transcended the rules of the logical set (his universe) and created new rules.
3. The problem of other minds. I know I have a mind, but how do I know that you have a mind?
These are the major topics, IMO. It also touched nicely on some assumptions about causation and answers the age old question, why are we here (To feed the computer, naturally)?
This is as good a point as any to urge everyone to read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", by Julian Jaynes. This book talks explains what oracles really were (along with nearly everything else about human nature you've ever wondered about). Slow motion fight scenes you can get from The Six Million Dollar Man. Movies with great chase scenes and computer graphics are a dime a dozen. Reading this book is a mind-altering experience. (See the reviews at Amazon.)
Spoken like a man who has barely grazed the surface of philosophy. There are many more perplexing questions than "How can I be sure I'm not a brain in a vat?" Questions like "Is morality fundamental to the structure of the universe, or is it something that we have invented ourselves?" lead to a lot more disagreements in philosophical circles than the cogito ergo sum. It is incredibly naive of you to claim that since you can't think of any more "deep thoughts" and in your limited studies have yet to encounter one you haven't yet credited yourself with, there must be no philosophy that a child can't figure out.
I tend to think Descartes felt he had to "prove" the existance of God, or else the church would put him under house arrest, or worse, burn him at the stake. It was common for anyone writing a religiously sensitive paper, such as the meditations, to kow-tow to the church and it's view of reality. He can't honestly have believed he had proven the existance of God in this way.
I agree that the meditations seem to prove the existance of things outside yourself. At the very least, for a demon to be deceiving you, the demon must exist, along with the vat in which he is storing your brain.
What if, however, it were not that some massive deceit is being committed to fool you into seeing a reality which does not exist, but that all that exists in reality is you, filling reality completely, so that there are no gaps in which actual nothing could exist, and in some sort of psychosis brought about by being the only existing entity, you deceive yourself by hallucinating an entire universe of perception? This leaves you with an existing you, and an abstract concept of nothing, which by definition does not exist. In order for this to be valid, you would have to admit to the possibility that you could be an entity entirely different from how you imagine yourself to be. It's not very relevant to The Matrix and it's take on the whole idea.
In any case, I'd ordinarily find it annoying that someone somewhere has deemed it useful to base a philosophy course on a film that spends ten minutes explaining painstakingly what the audience figured out in less than two, but it seems that since www.philosophy.com now sells cosmetics, philosophy has less value in the 3rd millenium than than a blemish free face. Drag.
original. The entire basis of the plot is a variation on Descartes' "Malevolent Demon" idea. They also play with a bunch of other classic philosophic ideas. Seems to me that it would be a good way to present an example of some of those concepts to new students in a way they would find engaging and easy to grasp. You've got to start somewhere.
Trust me, they make more sense than the _average_ comic...a few points to comment on your post, if I may please. Trinity runs fast at the beginning of the movie. And she's running from...an Agent. He keeps up with her, up until she jumps into the window (her second "big jump", by the by) and rolls down the flight of stairs. She uses every trick she has to excape and barely does. And it's laid out well. The reason the Agent doesn't follow her any further? They knew where she was going by that point, and the other Agents simply waited for her. No need for him to waste any more time.
As far as the kung-fu -- yes, it's not up to a full-bore Hong Kong action flick. But, it's still very impressive, to me, esp. from people who trained for only 6 months. I had no problems with the look and feel of that area, esp. if you think that these people likely have never _seen_ Jackie Chan, or any other Martial Art. They are just empty vessles for skills, in that regard.
I think that the real reason ;-)
that the AI's keep the humans alive
is so Hollywood can make a movie about it
But like most religions the matrix also postulate.
Reality is a illusion.
and that highly developed beings
is able to create there own reality.
Physics from Fisher Information : A Unification
by B. Roy Frieden
seams to give a hint in this direction
Knud
Existenz comes to mind, but I guess that movie isn't commercial enough :)
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
This is totally reasonable. When I first saw this film, I was struck by how much it gelled with my own personal philosophy - and I imagine it fits in with the way that some others with a "metaprogramming perspective" view of the world as well.
The movie's basic premise is that we are trapped in an artificial construct called the Matrix, and that there is a level of reality that is more real than the Matrix. No problem: my basic premise is that we are trapped in an artificial construct called the Mind.
What is the mind for? Apart from its useful analysis functions, the mind is really good at believing things. We believe these things even when they are obviously injurious to us. All of the events of our lives are filtered through these beliefs, and these beliefs then determine our reactions.
The Matrix was great in that it showed people escaping from the Matrix, and the dilemma of someone who wanted to return back to this invented reality.
How similar is life?
Can one escape from the boundaries of personal belief? Is the world from this perspective better, or would one long to return to the certainties of belief in particular "truths"?
It all depends on what you believe (which is wonderfully self-referential!). I believe that we choose our beliefs. What other source is there for them? One can argue with someone over their beliefs, but in the end that person will always choose what they believe.
Can we do away with belief entirely, and experience the here and now without the distraction of belief in a certain past and possible futures? Look inside and check it out. Is there any part of you unaffected by the beliefs that you have held over the course of your lifetime? Maybe that bit of you is worthy of further examination...
Hey! Put me back in! I am without an anchor in the sea of consciousness, and nothing is self-evident anymore.
If nobody needs to be taught philosophy, and everyone has figured out all the "great thoughts" by age 12, then how do you explain the fact that people taking their first philosophy class invariably come up with the same bad arguments, which are painfully obvious to all the students who have already gone through the process?
There's more to philosophy than just applying labels. Learning more about logic, for example.
Learning how to break an argument down, verifying the logic by which the conclusion is proved by the assumptions, and evaluating the assumptions.
I do agree that the Matrix, much as I enjoyed it, doesn't seem to have much stuff that an academic would consider "philosophical"...
When I took a theory of knowledge course in philosophy, my professor frequently made analogies and references to the Matrix. It served as a useful common ground to introduce students to Parmenides' "Way of Truth", Plato's cave allegory, and other Greek cosmological ideas. Essentially, those works and the Matrix dealt with how humans perceive reality (how the world "seems") and how it was possible that it differs from the actual "truth". In some ways, the ideas in the Matrix are even more believable than what these Greek guys came up with. (Parmenides constructed an argument that ended with the conclusion that the universe was a single entity that was spherical, finite, and motionless! You'll have to read his stuff to figure out what he was thinking.)
I think this is one of the big philosophical parts of the movie. I took an intro to philosophy course last semester, and found myself thinking about the matrix when we studied some skeptics, like Hume and (kindof) Descartes. Descartes wasn't really a skeptic, but he started one of his books (the one we looked at -- Meditations) by first trying to doubt everything. Well, if you're trying to imagine a scenereo where what you see isn't really real, you can easily imagine a Matrix type scenereo. In the same way Descartes (initially) said we can't tell whether the reality we perceive is real of if it's some sort of dream. :P )
Of course, I was dissappointed when I tried to mention this, and found that most people hadn't ever seen the Matrix. So no real discussion ever came about, but I think it helped me a little bit. (and that's all the really counts, because no one else exists, right?
OTOH, I don't know how you could make a whole course out of the movie...
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Quite.
:P
:)
However, "properly used", poetic licence allows you to the bend rules or conventions of writing for effect.
My point was that the philosophy lecturer in question says "fillum" instead of "film" - he likes to make himself sound... well, archaic. Don't tell him I said that though: My grades don't need the heat!
check out the Thirteenth Floor. Almost zero special effects, very little violence, no music video moments,
Also, no beliveable characters, good acting, or anything resebling a decent plot. It does have an amazing amount of predictablity, though
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Let aside the few mistakes here and there, and Matrix does have those points. Actually, those points have been made much better than, for instance eXistenZ.. whatever, that movie quite didn't make it.
:)
// funky exit sequence // clean up so that people just see a miracle.
:)
In Matrix, you're subject to some fundamental questions of epistemology, so what is it that you might know? That is, what knowledge is available to you and what is real? Anyway, the total immersion through that "neuro-active simulation", actually a total VR, is interesting in its own right. Noting that the term "VR" is not used in the movie, but "AI" actually worded.
Of course, the major hit there is about the philosophy of mind which I see everybody around tries to avoid. Mind is mechanical, folks! I am not an eliminative materialist, but still we're all materialists right? The proposition that a piece of software can attain human-like, or perhaps super-human intelligence, as Agent Smith in the movie is striking to many. Not in the AI community though, in which the word 'agent' having ultimately more technical references, however aimed decidedly at producing stuff as decent as Agent Smith. Some drop the strong AI claim, but you know, strong AI is the real thing.
Well, I sometimes like the idea that our descendents, of metal and fibers, take over the world, but that's not really what I'm working on...
Okay, getting on with the blurb, the dark side of AI concept is a bit fishy in fact. You know, AI creatures would be just rational, thus the principle of charity would operate, and therefore we would come to understand and appreciate each other. In case they are superior, at least some of us would acknowledge, whatever... But sci-fi writers always hope for the worst, so we have some dramatic moments, and have some story right? I recall John McCarthy claiming that fiction is impossible without some mischief.
Getting back to the computational view of the mind, in Matrix, you have a lot of good assessments of "cyberspace". Take the tracking device placed by the agents in the beginning of the movie. One of the best scenes in the movie, but beyond that. The tracking device is a piece of software, autonomous and pertains to a particular interaction with the simulator environment. Indeed, you would think that the agents would be able to track down Neo wherever he went since it's all software, but that's not the case. The complexity of simulation, well I have no idea how it could be achieved since the granularity of simulation would undermine any attempt at doing so, nevertheless decorates the virtual environment with qualities of real life.
Now this may sound strange, but it is the case. The Matrix is not a passive database, it's a software system that's full of processes and interaction among them, like a big multiuser system.In fact the system is so complex that you would need a tracking device to track down someone. The tracking device plugs right into the body simulation process of the host, and signals a daemon over there about the inputs, like a satellite. The transformation of its shape is also very clever in the movie. Think of it as a sort of interface, in cyberspace you'd need to make some kind of "human interface" for your software. Recall that it's just like a Bond gadget that the agents activate. Very familiar interface, a fairly mechanical device, however assuming an organic form once easily activated, has some sort of safety cap and a button I guess.The organic form is appropriate because it probably has the subsystems that will enable it to attach to host "organism"
On the other hand, some of the interpretations in "The Matrix" are not very convincing. In addition to the desperate "battery" thingy, there is the case of dying in the real world when you're killed in the Matrix. Hmm, let's come to think of it. Now it would be certainly persuasive for the corps in fields to really die when they die in the simulation. But for our team of hackers engaged to alleviate the ultimately evil AI, there should be no such thing. Death would be a side effect of the neuro-plug, you could imagine that the body simulation software detects death, and instructs the cell software to kill the corp.
if (dead())
cell.kill();
Whatever. Now a second way is possible as implied in the movie. The brain is so convinced that the Matrix is the real world that when the body in Matrix dies, the brain believes that it is dead, and therefore terminates all life functions. But, that's not persuasive. You could say that the person may die because of the shock caused by death, but that's rather psychological and is not guaranteed to kill the person. The person might have the kind of psychological strength that would hold him back from death in such a case. Anyhow, these guys are hackers, and they would have fixed that bug in the simulator, not all neural signals are overridden by the neuro-plug. You'd not let the device control your breathing, anyway. Some of the physical effects of strain, excitement, could be enforced by the cell, but the hackers don't need it. All they need to do is to sit there silently, and work with their minds. So, your mind wouldn't actually be uploaded to the matrix, that's costly, instead you'd only interface with it. So here's a question of implicit dualism, you see.
Then, surely, our hackers wouldn't need an exit, they can just exit anytime.. just unplug, and you're gone from the matrix, ha, of course you'd have some robust code like
while (plugged())
{
run_simulation_step()
}
clean_up()
void clean_up() {
if (self_image) {
self_image->flash_sequence();
delete self_image;
}
}
You see, that easy. In such a world, hackers are gods anyway. You need a plasma gun, download from www.weapons.resistance.org, no problem! Arm yourself with all kinds of plug-ins. What do you need? Speed? Let the software handle it. Go ahead, and become an X-Men, it's allowed.
That's just the gadgetry though, only the interface between the mind and the world. There's of course more to it. From the movie, it would seem that reality is what you perceive. Morpheus makes it clear in his statement "Do you think it(this?) is the air you breathe?" Then you'd think what is Agent Smith. From our discussions, I think a consensus was reached that Agent Smith is only a process, it has no physical extensions in the real world, it is only an instance of a program. That is, he isn't a robot that plugs into the matrix, he exists in the matrix, or rather their network. Exactly, Agent Smith inherits some of the human characteristics with which it was not designed, from the his dwellings in a world populated by human minds. His despise for humans and his struggle for escape is not by chance. He conceives of himself as absolutely superior to humans. The purity which it was endowed, the mental power he possesses, and his independence from a false set of beliefs make him think that these creatures with dependence on a history of organic filth, are worthless, and the Matrix is what they deserve. He hates them so profoundly, that he wishes that his job is done, and steps outside the Matrix, to some other part of the system which can serve his goals better. Agent Smith, is not a simple goal planning agent that processses straightforward inferences towards a logical goal. He is as decent as a human being, perhaps far better than one, stressed by his excellence in speaking and his acts in perfection. Though, a capable human being, hacker Neo, defeats him by virtue of his mental skills. A friend of mine argued that the following happened when Neo did away with Agent Smith.
neo@matrix$ whoami
root
neo@matrix$ ps aux | grep agent
root 3050 0.0 0.0 2052 0 pts/0 SW 10:39 0:00 agent --image=smith
root 8264 0.0 0.3 2060 420 pts/2 S 10:09 0:00 agen --image==william
root 8449 0.0 0.5 2056 756 pts/3 S 10:18 0:00 agent --image=john
neo@matrix$ kill -9 3050
neo@matrix$ ps aux | grep agent
root 8264 0.0 0.3 2060 420 pts/2 S 10:09 0:00 agen --image==william
root 8449 0.0 0.5 2056 756 pts/3 S 10:18 0:00 agent --image=john
But can a process be intelligent? That is the thing you'd like to ask in philosophy class. Screw free will. You'd want to know the problem of representation, the mind-body problem, intentionality - Brentano's thesis, syntax/semantics - linguistic representation, the theory of computation and how it relates to representation and processing of representations, knowledge representation, logic, and all that
--exa--
Just a small quibble... a 'real world' UI is not the answer, since this brings with it alot of the limitations of the real world, and once you go introducing features to make the interface more useable, you're tampering with the metaphor (or in this case, the non-metaphor, I suppose) of the user interface and essentially introducing 'reality kluges' that interfere with the intuitiveness of the UI.
----
Dave
Purity Of Essence
- Dave
*laughs*
:o)
that was actually kind of funny.
No, the matrix should be used for a linear algebra class. :-)
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
People have mentioned that Gibson already went over some of these questions about reality. If we want to trot out older stories try Philip K. Dick with Ubik or We Can Dream It For You Wholesale (which became Total Recall), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner).
Dick wasn't a techie so he was vague about how he produced the alternate realities. He didn't use computers or use the phrase "Virtual Reality", but he played with whether the existence we live in is real, who we are is real, the people and society around us are real etc. The movies made from his stories don't overemphasize these aspects but the stories do to a much greater extent. The cop in Blade Runner worries if he is just and android with implanted false memories. In Total Recall the spy was a bad guy who had his memories altered so that he would believe he is a good guy and then doesn't want to be the bad guy anymore. Both people are part of a virtual reality type dream that may not even exist.
Ubik was about consumer products that are sold as air fresheners and cleaning supplies and perfume and loads of other things whose use sustains reality. If people stopped using them the reality we know everyday would fade out of existence.
We could go on with other writers. Asimov's robot stories are about identity, free will, and what it means to be human. Heinlen (sp) stories are filled with alternative libertarian political speculations.
Frank Herbert's Dune series is about the conflicts between politics and religion, clashes of cultures, the benefits and drawbacks of a stable (and therefore static and stagnant) and peaceful society (God Emperor of Dune).
Even Star Trek TNG did the alternate reality deal with the episode where Moriarty the character from Sherlock Holmes reporgrams the holodeck to make Picard, Geordy and Data think he has escaped the Holodeck in order to trick them into coming up with a way to actually help him escape. They realize that they are in still in the holodeck and have never left. They create another level of illusion and let Moriarity escape into that.
Plato's Republic (well Timeaus, the Atlantis one) and Moore's Utopia would be classified as Science Fiction if they were written today.
That is part of why I used to enjoy SF so much. I would tell other people that I read that stuff and they would think ray guns and spaceships and laugh. Then when I took my intro philosphy courses I already knew all about issues of free will vs. determinism, solipsism, and the various categories of political systems and the possible benfits and drawbacks of each. Of course SF is not all I ever read but it is a good way to tie lots of different ideas together including Science, Technology, History, Religion, Philosophy, Ethics et al.
A course like this that uses a piece of SF as a jumping off point is a good way to relate the everyday to bigger ideas and deeper knowledge.
Wouldn't you have to then worry about piercing the veil of illusion that confronted Neo and friends after they escaped the Matrix? I mean, I thought the whole point was to get through all of the layers of illusion?
In Putnam's paper, he posits that an evil scientist has removed the brains from our bodies and placed them in a vat of nutrients so that they can survive (the details of the science are a bit weak here, but Putnam is speaking hypothetically). He then hooks up the brain to a complex apparatus that provides it with a sensory experience very like what we see in The Matrix. The hard part then is deciding (a) if such a brain were hooked up in this manner, could it ever realize its true sitation (i.e., being a brain in a vat)? and (b) How can we be sure at this moment that we are not brains in a vat (or victims of some similar scneario)?
Descartes' argument was very similar, but involved an evil demon with magical powers instead of a scientist with a really swank computer. [Oh, and he was trying to beat the argument in order to prove the existence of god. Opinions differ as to whether he suceeded...]
Unfortunately, the film opts out of discussing either of the questions raised above by allowing Neo, Morpheus, et al to somehow "know" that what they were experiencing was not real. Moreover, they are able to somehow warp the rules of the system in which they find themselves simply because they know it is not real. However, this does not necessarily make sense - their realization does not necessarily give them superuser access to the system in which they find themselves, eh?
So, if we are in such a system (and remember, it is bug-free to the extent that millions of us have never noticed a problem with what our senses are telling us), what is it about Neo and co. that allow them to notice the difference? It is hard not to degenerate into mysticism at this point (although perhaps that is not a bad thing).
By the way, although Plato did hold a low opinion of democracy, keep in mind that this was largely affected by the treatment his mentor, Socrates, had received at the hands of the Athenian court system. Also, the reason that what you refer to as a "happy few" were the only ones freed from the cave is that most of the people the philosopher tries to free resist such freedom and condemn the teacher (another reference to Socrates, who was convicted and executed for "corrupting the youth of Athens" by teaching them to question the world around them). [After teaching numerous Intro to Philosophy courses, I have to say that this is still the case - in my experience, most people do not wish to challenge the modes of thought that they have unthinkingly used all their lives. Philosophy is hard, which is why few people do it (and even fewer doit well).] Plato thought, based on what he saw around him in Athens, that the people as a whole simply could not be trusted to run a state, as they could not even be bothered to stir themselves from their complacency to seek truth.
I am, by the way, not defending Plato's position, merely clarifying it. But the interestig thing is that, while Morpheus claims his goal is to free everyone (eventually), he is ostensibly a tyrant in the Platonic sense found in the Republic. He is the keeper of the truth (at least, until Neo comes into his own at the end of the film), and the others do his biddig as a result. Recall, this was one of Cipher's major causes for dissatisfaction.
Right, like you said, not that important, but good fun.
--
Yeah, I always wanted the other two movies to be prequel The Vector and sequel The Tensor.
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
How do you know they don't just reboot reality while you sleep, huh? HUH?!
There's no need. Reality has featured dynamically loaded modules in the kernel for quite a few revisions now!
"And so they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were in all respects real. Then think what would naturally happen to them if they were released from their bonds and cured of their delusions."
The Simile of the cave, Plato
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
There is no Seattle...
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
Basing (or even using) this movie in a philosophy class is a ludicrous idea. If the students need their idea's shrink-wrapped in this manner, they are likely unequipped to consider the ideas themselves. Philosophical ideas are a challenge to consider in and of themselves - changing the metaphor to a more contemporary idea may make them initially more accessable, but without the slog of understanding an ancient passage one is less likely to respect the concept they confront. Discussions in the this course must range from "there is a spoon...no there isn't" to random attacks by people taking a running jump at your midsection.
This is getting a little silly.
i al/syll.html
There are courses based on Star Trek, also. I found a url for one here: http://www.grinnell.edu/individuals/gibsonj/tutor
There is also a course taught by Richard Hanley, I believe. He's the philosophy professor who wrote "The Metaphysics of Star Trek".
I am also going to be teaching two courses based on TV shows. One is based on Underdog, and the other is based on Oprah.
I hope to see you all at my lectures.
Become a FIST.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fists_of_Righteous_
How about "Dark City", I saw that movie the same night I saw "The Matrix" and It deals the same think, but there's no 'puters involved, instead there are extraterrestials who've built a city in which humans live thinking it's a real world. Every night the aliens 'tune' and change each persons personality to someone else.. etc.. Oscar
Your assignment if you choose to accept it is parallels between the Matrix and Buddhist Epistimlolololology(never could spell that right. :) )
Actually I see the movie as a huge rosach(sp? the inkblots) test. I saw it as a very interesting take on some of the Mahayana Buddist explinations of reality....
Myddrin
It's a spelling error joke, people!
Last May, I was taking an introductory philosophy class over Plato's Republic. And instead of having class one day. The prof treated the class to the movie. and of course it matched the class exactly. All of book seven in the Republic parallels the Matrix. This is a great way to introduce those peoples that would not normally take a philosophy class to do so. I my mind the more people who are able to question what makes us human and apply that to society the better.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Well, if you follow Douglas Adams, we're all part of a giant computer program to compute the answer the to meaning of life.
I guess that means we can add the Meaning of Life by Monty Python to this thread, and the entire Hitch-hikers guide to the universe collection as well
Steve
---
GNUSoftware.com - GNU Software for Windows Users.
"ust the same as the author who wrote about some 12 year old girl coming-of-age in 1920. The second one is just plain boring, and doesnt have much more value, then perhaps being written by a famous author."
Then perhaps the teacher wasn't doing it correctly, or you missed the point, of course, I can't give you any detail if I don't have the author or the story name.
Later
Dan
as a movie, 'the matrix' did actually have some valid points. a modern day recreation of plato's alegory of the cave(republic, book VII i think). as to why plato isnt good enough for kids these days, well, that is simply a reflection of the path that american(read:approaching hedonistic)society has travelled. why read a book when you can listen to it on tape, hell, why listen to the whole book when you can get the abridged version, actually, theres no need to do that, watch the movie. screw that, take the basic story, get the important parts over within say, 45 minutes or an hour, then fill up the rest of the time with gun play so that we can hold onto that amazing american attention span.
slashdot readers in general dont tend to be so american, so i would expect us to realize that, as movies go, 'the matrix' was very good. the combination of an important philosophical storyline with some great action(three cheers to yuen woo ping on the fight coreography)is a real achivement in todays day and age of "blow'd up" 's. but fodder for a philosophy course, plato/socrates did a fine, concise job the first time around, dont dilly dally with a diluted version, save that as an example for the aspiring movie producers, philosophy is just too important.
Quote:
The same thing hold for Starship Troopers (Why didn't Verhoeven choosed to adapt The Forever War instead?)
Because the *book* "Starship Troopers" is a bit of an eye opener for thinking about the basics of democracy. I mean, why is it that someone of a given age is a better voter than someone younger than that age? Wouldn't basing voting rights on some other abritary (changeable!) characteristic be equally good? You're not allowed to vote if you have a ring finger on your right hand. Here's the knife, be a concerned citizen? You're not allowed to vote if you haven't been working in a hospital. Here's the floor mop, be a concerned citizen. You're not allowed to vote unless you've served in the military. Here's a uniform, be a concerned citizen.
As for being books about military service, I see both ST and FW as being fairly good descriptions...
I think the idea of basing a class on the matrix seems a bit weird, but i can see point. I just wish more teachers/schools would find vaule in sci-fi. Im a sphomore at college now, and when i was in high school, out of the 30+ stories we read (short stories to novels), only a handful were of the sci-fi genere. This always disspleased me, as I could pick up some good sci-fi book, and read about life in 1000 years, but at the same time the author is making a point about life in general. Just the same as the author who wrote about some 12 year old girl coming-of-age in 1920. The second one is just plain boring, and doesnt have much more value, then perhaps being written by a famous author. Of course most of the sci-fi i read, well was written by a famous author too :)
... i find philosphy interesting and the matrix amazing...
Well thats my 2 cents. If i was there, i'd take the class
/* Lobster Stick To Magnet!*/
Just in case, the URL is http://students.washington.edu/mitsuo/matrix/
The website does not rock actually, but it might be useful to check it out.
He was the main villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (for all of you who don't catch asian flicks).
He also made an appearance on Jay Leno. The guy is very funny and his English has better pronunciation than Jackie Chan's. (my opinion, of course)
He also comes from a real formidable Martial Arts background (championships in China, etc).
-Vel
What's even more funny is that he did do a Shakespeare movie. Kenneth Brannaugh's Much Ado About Nothing. He was the evil dude :)
Also starred, Denzel Washington and Michael Cain.
I think Reeves was even in another one... but I can't remember which one.
And it's Michael KEATON, not Cain. Keaton and Washington were both awesome.
Ha!
I thought his name was Keaton, but then I thought, "wait isn't that the character played by Michael J. Fox in Family Ties", who was actually Alex P. Keaton now that I think about it. Michael Cain is the old marina guy from cocktail...
OK, never mind.
I am not a big fan of Shakespeare movies, the plays just are more fun. I recently saw an absolutely wonderful rendition of The Comedy of Errors. Damn funny.
there was an article posted in our campus paper that is a little more in-depth than the scifi site.
Hey, I know, let's get together and watch Sphere, Cube, and The Matrix, all in quick succession and then ponder the philosophy of each movie. ;)
Sounds like you are saying the Oracle was the equivalent of "God" in the movie?
We've found an agent here!
This only shows me that marketing is becoming more important than learning on many campuses today.
BTW, I loved the movie.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
Do'h, yep it was... I remember now, good kinda mindless film maybe I'll watch it tonight...
The Matrix is a superb piece of filmmaking to use as an introduction to philosophical problems/situations. A few which could easily be covered in any semester might be:
what is real, knowing thyself, faith, trust, greed, goodness, evil, man vs. machine, etc etc.
Other films could incorporate these ideas... but none as wholly as the Matrix. Dark City is a close second, but while John Murdoch in DC faces many of the same crises as Neo (strange new surroundings, being pursued by enemies, having to trust one that might be an enemy)
Having had many a philosophical discussion myself based on plot points in the Matrix, I see no reason to knock the film as a teaching tool. In this day and age, especially in college teaching methods, the more unorthodox the measures one takes to express a point the better the point is both received and understood by the students.
You will never know how happy I am that someone else in the world "got" what happened with the vase! When I saw the movie with my wife, I laughed out loud when Neo knocked the vase over and the Oracle made her comment. My wife wanted to know right then why I found that to be so hilarious, and I knew there was no way in hell I would be able to explain it to her in even an hour, let alone during the movie.
Since then, I've talked to several people about that scene, but nobody I've talked to is a big enough math/CS nut to get it either.
The connection with Universal Turing Machines is similar to the argument for Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem (which someone mentioned above), of course. It's a sort of "The following statement is true. The preceeding statement is false." type of paradox. If the Oracle hadn't told Neo that he would knock over the vase, maybe he wouldn't have knocked it over in the first place. But then, she wouldn't have had to tell him not to worry about knocking it over! Paradox.
The Matrix was an awesome movie, but basing philosophy course around it is idiotic. Most of the philosophical ideas in "The Matrix" are just a ripoff of Plato anway (in fact "The Matrix" is really just "The Allegory of the Cave" with kick-ass CGI) -- the kiddies should read the original, and rent the Hollywood puffery on their own time.
How would you ever know for sure what my answer was?
Not that I'm implying that I'm ruling the universe, but I think I want to go sing to my cat now.
I think I'm right in thinking they asked me questions.
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
Most cultures make reference to their own cultural artifacts when educating their members. Why is it that our culture is made to feel guilty for doing this so that we feel the need to make reference to another culture 2000 years old when we teach?
-- SIGFPE
Disclaimer: I am not a philosophy major (getting paid matters too much to me).
I think the movie would best serve as illustration in this context. Descarte's theory of the Evil Genius? The evil computer network. Nietzche's Ubermann (who doesn't accept the common beliefs of his time)? Neo. Stretch it a bit and you can even include Plato's cave metaphor in this list. I think the idea of the class is to get modern, end-motivated students interested in philosophy, which can be fascinating and rewarding, if maybe not financially.
Just a thought
bp
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
There were two Slashdot articles about the Matrix sequels a while back. Check here and here.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
I just completed this course... or at least I feel as if I did, after reading all the comments posted here.
I learned about calculus functions, existentialisim, reality and the meaning of life.
Now that I'm so enligthened, I'll go write a thesis on people who overanalyse a situation which definately does not require such close scrutiny.
Bart.
Gerund hastily spoke the following:
"is morality fundamental to the
structure of the universe, or is it something that we have invented ourselves?"
Are you serious?
Would you like to know why morals/ethics are completely irrelevant to philosophy?
Try to prove one moral. Just try it.
You cant. They exist only in your mind; a product of your environment(e.g. culture). The only moral I think that is universal would be the taboo against incest; which obviously would serve pure physical biological purposes. Thus, the realm of morals and ethics mean nothing and lead nowhere in answering The Big Questions(epistemology, ontology, cosmology)- ya know, the stuff that really matters.
As for perplexing, the main paradox of Descartes(and as I read more it seems like all great thinkers have fallen into this same pit) is the opposition between the subject and object.
I think therefore I am.
Therefore when I dont think I am not.
Is this true(objectively, that is)?
Could you prove it to yourself?No-because you would have to think in order to know your not thinking; a clear contradiction in terms.
But when your in a coma, when a mugger knocks you unconscious, when your passed out drunk on the sidewalk in front of your home, your not thinking but obviously YOU EXIST.
If the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, it still falls, its atoms move and interact with other atoms and the chain reaction of atomic causality reverberates throughout the entire universe. But there is no way to know it unless your own atoms interact with the observed atoms(the Copenhagen interpretation anyone?). But it seems absurd to say that nothing exists apart from oneself.
This problem of subjectivity preceding objective-knowledge is a major theme in The Matrix.
If its all in our head-electrical signals interpreted by the mind, then is reality really real and how the hell could one even begin to know anything?
But I have no answer, just questions....
As a rule I never debate morals/ethics(its so irrelevant and conclusive answers are never found) except to say any standard is always wrong.
As for objectivity, I realize I left out my main point(I wrote it from work in a hurry).
Descartes suspended all beliefs, assumed everything was false, and came to the conclusion that the only thing he could not disbelieve was that he himself did not exist or did not think, proving that he was an existing, thinking thing.
My point was that the solipsism found in The Matrix(yes, yes I know its not a new idea-Gibson, PKD, and many greater minds than myself have had this same idea) has to be wrong for the same reason Descartes solipsism is wrong.
This may help explain.
In one of the meditations(its been awhile so please forgive) Descartes tries to prove that God really exists. Although ultimately its flawed logic, he uses as one of his examples this:
By declaring that I exist, I simealtaneously declare the possibility that Not-I exists. For you math geeks this *is* the same thing as the number zero. An existing abstract concept of nothing-it doesnt "really" exist because if it did, it wouldnt really exist.
Unfortunately, Descartes goes into psycho-religous mode, and skips this simple proof in favor of pedantic and sophisticated babbling about non-existent Gods and such...
Basically, people invoke Descartes whenever the doubting of reality is mentioned, yet Descartes main accomplishment was to prove that existence itself prooves the existence of the objective:-)(e.g. if you exist, then other stuff that is external to your mind's electrical/chemical activity also exists).
Or, like, um whatever...
Branagh's been doing some stunt casting in his movies to try and get more people to come see them - IMHO. He cast Charleton Heston in "Hamlet", and managed to do it without him running around with a gun or without his shirt.
And it's Michael KEATON, not Cain. Keaton and Washington were both awesome.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
Maybe all that will all become clear in one of the sequels
First, I don't know what that little "g" is, and I would [sic] it if there weren't already a sic there :) To that I would add, the purpose of the square brackets is to say "this is editorial, inserted by the quoter, not the quotee." There are other uses for the editorial brackets, primarily to indicate that I might have changed your wording but attempted to preserve meaning. All this in answer to your question, "but [for what], exactly does '[sic]' stand...?"
Personally I think they stuck her in for racist reasons. Hollywood seems to like to sprinkle a few black people in many movies in seemingly important roles (either gifted in some positive way (Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost or STNG) or an incredibly down to earth person with a good heart (inumerable gruff police captains who roll their eyes at the stick up his ass craven police chief or mayor)) but they don't get to be the actual lead. In the studio's defense, it's probably better than leaving black people out altogether, or just portraying them as drug dealers, but with market research so far telling studios that their audience wants to see keanu or leonardo, what are they going to do? Still, I find it embarrassing to watch it played out in such a self conscious (epistomological?) way: psychico ergo negro. (sorry if that sounded negative, I was just trying desparately to get back on topic :)
How do you know they don't just reboot reality while you sleep, huh? HUH?!
I guess you just need to *stop* sleeping*!
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
BTW, the book ``The 13th Floor'' was based on is one of the most interesting sci-fi stories I've ever encountered (Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galoyue), highly recommended!
-pf
Make affiliate bucks
It's really a shame that philosophy has to be watered down this way in order to get freshmen to enroll in the classes.
Next we'll have "Barney teaches Intermediate Philosopy" and I'm sure Big Bird will chime in with something as well.
Sheesh, how embarassing.
but what, exactly does [sic] stand for?
The Oracle is actually just a perl script that the super computer couldn't get rid of.
Rensselaer Polytechnic has been offering a course in Philosophy of AI with course materials including Blade Runner, Terminator, and the week the Matrix came out, it was added to the course.
"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." -Sun Tzu
If he's running a processor that big, he'd better have a big heatsink, mabye a fan too. Don't forget the grease!!
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
In my philosophy class, we use the Matrix a LOT for examples to compare to various people's Philosophy... Like Plato's, who thought that what people saw our tasted or heard was merely a reflection (or shadow) of the true object. It's ok to use the Matrix (since we've all seen it) as a source in this case, but I wonder why nobody, especially nobody making a whole course on it, doesn't show things from what it was largely based on, anime? I didn't real the whole article, so I'm not 100% sure, but there a lot of anime films out there with as much, if not more, philosophy... like Serial Experiments:Lain (possible source for the matrix), or maybe Akira? There ar a lot of others. If you have the DVD version, you can clearly hear the two creator bros in one of the "Creation" clips saying something like "We took an anime, and said 'We want to this in real life'". At any rate, it seems to me to be annoying that everyone talks about the Matrix, ignoring the real depth there is throughout anime... (The end ov Evangelion, anyone?) I guess that's becaue it's not a mainstream American thing.
Or maybe Sol's bid was higher than Budweiser ;)
The opinions contained in this document are in no way expressed.
What plot inconsistencies? Ok... so the world has been pretty much ruined, it's a barren desert, with little sunlight and little heat. So Neo and the gang manage to defeat THE MATRIX, where are they (and the millions of other people) going to _live_ in the real world? In some hole in the middle of the world? Sounds like real heaven compared to The Matrix... why would they want to leave? Why would _Neo_ want to leave, he'd be powerless! Better yet, why would the robotic AI create The Matrix in the first place? Human-based energy sources are extremely inefficient for generating electricity, you have to put far more energy into the system than you get out of it, not mentioning the "upkeep" of The Matrix. Why not use nuclear power or something else, since this AI is so intelligent...
As far as philosophy goes, it seems that this "class" is more of a hook to draw students to the university, probably tying in to more conventional philosophy sources under the guise of The Matrix.
I highly doubt that computers will become intelligent in that respect. Remember, computers are limited by hardware, and the intelligence of the software is limited by the intelligence of the programmer (Windows comes to mind). If we figured out a way of integrating a computer into a human, cyborg style, then we might come close to a computer actually becoming intelligent. But, for all intents and purposes, Computer prescience won't happen.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
It's kind of a neat idea to use the Matrix for a philosophy course, but the philosophical content isn't that deep. As chart says, all there is really is an elaborate way to explain what the evil genius is or could be, which might have some pedagogical value.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/01/14/10725 1&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread& pid=122#142
... that's because they are not *asian* (It is a state of mind, though I am fortunate to be 100% pure Asian :) ).
... man there is Lain
... I had watched the Hong Kong (original) they ripped off of ... lucky me.
There is a thread going on about "good Geek movies" and it is pathetic people bow to the (plagiarizing) gods of tarantino, et. al.
Many complained all geek movies are insulting
Help me/(us is exaggeration, I think there is like 2 of us?) petition to make Geeks MORE like LAIN, less like The Net or some other Hollywood equivalent.
While poor geeks suffer through dregs like "The Net"
Older-wise, there is Ghost in the Shell.
There are good movies, and even TV-series about geeks, computers, on-line cultures, geekdom, that is actually good and thoughtful.
And for all The Matrix fans out there
Jet Li would make a better geek (Jet Li *is* a geek, have you seen him or read his writing?) than Keanu Reeves.
Enough of rant.
P.S. If you are Lain fan, do you know where I can buy that BAO soundtrack. I love the girl intro song (though I didn't like guy singing ending song).
LAIN ROX!!
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
The philosophy courses I took in college were some of the most interesting and useful classes I had and if this helps bring more people into philosophy more power to him. The early parts of the movie do have a pretty strong basis in Descartes' Meditations, especially the first two or three. You can also draw parallels to early Christian (esp. Gnostic) philosophy so I don't think it's off-base at all, especially for the beginning philosophy student who may need more than just a boring little white book to get them interested.
there is no course
Where did your hear that there will be a Matrix 2? That would rock. I bought a DVD player just so I could own the first one, and I would love to see a second.
Now, back on-topic. I agree, the movie is very deep philisophicaly. After I first watched it, I lied in bed for hours thinking about it. What if our perception of reality is false.
Munky_v2
Jay
I think that's kinda cool :)
.. - total confusion probably.
I mean - i guess there _is_ quite a philosophical point being made in the movie, when you think of it...
I can't wait until 'the matrix 2' rolls out in the cinemas..
I heard that in 'the matrix 2' they find out that the 'real world' outside the matrix is actually a matrix too - i wonder what the effect of _that_ fact in a philosophy class will be
I can see the point of having it as part of a course based around interpretations of reality, maybe with Total Recall, Blade Runner, etc. If these were used as a basis for a look at the nature of reality and the way technology can change our perception and therefore alter the actual fabric of reality as experiences by the social actors. But as a course on it's own, I think it will be especially lightweight academically. As media there are more thought provoking/intellectually stimulating films out there. I suspect this is more of a publicity stunt for the college involved due to poor student numbers and therefore funding difficulties. Probably about on a par with the Madonna studies and the most lightweight of all degrees in the UK 'Punk Studies' which had for the dissertation the option on writing a song... Although I am a social science geek...
Working for the (other) man
Title says it all. It's a Hollywood film, and like most Hollywood films it's only designed to maintain the suspension of disbelief for the duration of the film. If afterwards you think "Hang on, that's not right", then it doesn't matter. And even if (as I did) you see the flaw immediately, you're usually prepared to let it go if the film's fun.
The idea's been used much better by The Truman Show, with its take on manipulated reality - class film and no easy holes to pick in it. Or the Rachael character in BladeRunner. Or even the Judge Dredd film. Continue as required.
Plato's cave theory falls down, cos if they're men, they've been outside the cave b4. The subjects would have to be raised in the artificial environment from birth, otherwise they'd spot the flaws. Truman picks up the differences between the world he knows and what he reads or sees on TV or deduces from common sense about the outside world. The Matrix cops out by having a general 'feeling of not belonging, of looking for something else'.
So it's a fun film, with top-notch F/X, good atmosphere and an interesting premise, but let down by a scrappy screenplay and bad choice of lead actor (I mean, who told Keanu Reeves he could act? Come on, get someone like Russell Crowe or Kevin Spacey in! Keanu makes Brad Pitt look like Lawrence Olivier!). In other words, it's a standard Hollywood film.
Graham.
I believe that was actually Men In Black.
'Simulacra and Simulation' by Baudrillard. I strongly suggest reading it; it's both entertaining and potentially insightful. 'The Matrix' functions as a commentary on it on more than one level. From the cameo they gave the book in the movie, I do not think this is entirely accidental.
:^)
Two basic themes: "The map is not the landscape", and the idea of a 'copies without originals'. I can't do justice to the ideas in a short post, but I would suggest reading the book, as well as taking it with a grain of salt. It's only 160 pages, but it's hard going at times.
You just have to realize that the grade doesn't really exist. I hope this isn't an excuse for college students to take red and blue pills.
I'm not going to college. $30k a year to sit around and talk about the matrix? Damn I can do that in the comfort of my own home for free.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Well, you managed to get my attention and a pretty good score form the monderator(s). Having said that, I'd like to say that I disagree. I would like to attempt to invalidate one of your premises,
If this were true, then as you aged you would learn new things less frequently and generally, by the time you were 60 or so, very rarely have a "great thought" at all. I'd argue that people like Einstein, Socrates, Curie, Bohrs, Franklin, Fuller, etc. had fairly new and plentiful "Great Thoughts" well after their puberty.
WRT "Philosophy classes are about labels." Well, in so far as labeling things such as ideas allows for further communication, yes that's very true. However, the communication and debate that happens in Philosophy classes *starts* there. As far as I know it's not the goal of any philosophy instructor (other than perhaps an intro course or a course on "The History of Philosophy" [which should not be confused with "The Philosophy of History"]) to get people to learn stock phrases or the dates that so-and-so said such-and-such.
At this point I feel compelled to admit that I have a Philosophy degree myself, so I do have a bit of information about this. BTW-the translation from greek is Philo=Love, Soph=Wisdom thus, "Love of wisdom."
Having said that, if viewing and discussing the ideas that come out of watching the Matrix get people thinking new lines of thought and puzzling about what chicken really tastes like to other people and the implications of virtual reality on everyday life, then power to them. I find myself using my philosophy degree in everyday life, because it taught me new ways to think about things and how to learn more effectively.
Yes, there are a lot of other books and movies that can be used to discuss and reflect on a lot of the same ideas in The Matrix (Check out My Dinner with Andre). *And* the Matrix is hot right now, so it makes good _marketing_ sense to take advantage of it to draw people into the class.
-jjh o|
Plato populates the inside of the cave with tyrannical sophists who forge a social order on their mastery of the shadows and are hostile to unbelievers. It's important to note however that they are prisoners of the cave themselves, with an implication that they too would reject the shadows if only they could make the journey to the outside.
What I find missing in this vision which plays such an important role in "The Matrix" is the element of conspiracy. The action of the movie is driven by the fact that as soon as Neo gets his "wake-up call", he is hunted and persecuted by the intelligence and force behind the Matrix, in the guise of the Agents.
I think this idea of an active force of ignorance or evil is distinctly "un-platonic" -- Plato (or more definitely, followers like Augustine) argued that evil and ignorance were just the absence of good and knowledge.
The idea of a "conspiracy of unknowing" however certainly has roots in the mystical sect of the gnostics, some of whom drew on elements of Plato's vision and even adopted his term "Demiurge" (from "Timaeus", lit. "craftsman") for the god of creation.
The Demiurge, whom gnostics identify with the god of the Old Testament, is an emanation of the true Supreme Being. Tragically flawed in character, ("I am a jealous God") he created the world of matter to trap the light of creation for himself. Gnostic enlightenment is then the process of escaping the false world of matter, which was envisioned as seven concentric spheres guarded by the "Archons", agents(!) of the Demiurge.
In this I see a closer parallel to "The Matrix": in both cases you have a deliberate fabrication to trap the consciousness of humans. One of the harder to swallow premises of the movie is that the computers are captivating human beings in this way because they need the human bodies as batteries -- as if they produced more energy than they consume! If the need for heat and energy is read as a gnostic metaphor, I think this is more palatable.
Gibson isn't the "father of cyberpunk." He's the pimp of John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider."
But he cops a fine attitude in glossy magazines.
Ehh... Do you realy think that being awake would make a difference if someone reboots your reality!? You'd probably notice as much as if you were asleep...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
I think The Matrix has an Eigenvalue problem.
Personally I thought the movie was a fun one, but really...it didnt really make me question reality, maybe I'm not into this philosophy stuff.
But really why wonder about reality? will it change if you know its not what you think it would be? What difference would it make? And above all, what will you do when you know?
Why worry if you can be happy? =)
"We will give her back her....OLD NOSE!!!" - spaceballs
Some time ago I read a book that is used in first year classes of philosophy at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. It is called "Reason, Truth and History" and is written by Hilary Putnam, (ISBN 0-521-29776-1). It deals with the issue whether it would be possible for humans to just be "Brains in a Vat" ánd be aware of that. Consider the possibility that you are just a Brain in a Vat connected to a computer that projects the images of all that you see/sense as stimulating electronic impulses to your nerves. This of course is completely the idea that was used for the film the Matrix. Although complete explaination goes beyond this post some of you might find it interesting to read why Putman argues we can not possibily detect we're in such a situation. He explains the statement that we're Brains in a Vat is self-refuting and thus can't be true...
What is the education system coming too now a days. Mickey Mouse Degrees are spawning everywhere. Is it really relavent and does it actually have a point? We Used to live in a sociaty where having a degree almost certainly gare rise to a job in the same subject. Now a days however it seems that there a university subject is almost any fields, some I even hate to think of. Although I greatly liked the film and am avidly waiting for the sequal which is out shortly I believe, It still has to be thought that the effects were not knew and nothing about the film really made that much sence. Even the thought of it happening in real life is a mighty bit strange. But even that is so far into the future that There is no point in even worying about it, or even think about it. I think that I should have been left at a Sci-fi Movie that was good and nothing else, and leave the science of it to the person that wrote it, probably for a bit of cash.
The Well Known Fat Bloke
A List of things to NOT to Try: 1) Rebound off, or try to run up walls. 2) Do cartwheels and try to pick up and Fire an M-16 accuratlety, or blindly. 3) Fire a Minigun (10,000 rounds/minute) into a room when trying to save a hostage. It just doesn't work that way!! 4) Enter a secure builiding wearing various models of Uzi's, H&K MP SMG's, and various other firearms. They WILL stop you before you can act. 5) Do Not wear A leather tank top 24x7. It'll squish and begin to rub after 4 hours. How do I know all this? Well, I've fired a minigun, i've fired Uzi's and H&K MP SMG, and many pistols and rifles. If the Matrix did exist, we'd probably have cracked the code by now. Plus I wouldn't leave this earth EVEN IF I knew about life on the 'Outside' (I'd miss my Arbies roastbeef sandwiches)!! Life is a game, it all depends on how you play. Cheaters need not apply, cause you're already going to hell. But I do agree with the philosophy aspect of the Matrix. Actually, when it was just getting started, it sounded a lot like... well... Star Wars, episode 1. But being the computer geek I am and since no one probably will take the time to read my posts, I post whatever comes to my mind which is usually some insanse drivel that just seems natural. Either that, whenever I dream, I log on to the Matrix... Oh shoot, we're going to Send...
My 80286 is like the Bible: I swear by it every night when I try to run something.
Heh. I'm always surprised when someone finds Sinistar. The point of that was to illustrate the fact that you can find patterns everwhere. Humans, by their nature, tend to look at a series of stuff and try to figure out how it all works together. We even do this on a biological level (retinal after-image, for example). Look at conspiracy theories, religion, or the "Paul is Dead" fiasco surrounding the Beatles. When it comes down to it, it's just an inkblot. We see what we want to see. So, if they want to use Matrix to get kids into philosophy, so be it. I one professor who used Star Trek for all his examples, and another who did magic tricks. Incidentally, Brian Moriarty gave an interesting talk last year along the same lines at GDC, focusing on the "Paul is dead" stuff. You can probably get transcripts via http://www.gdconf.com.
Wanted to title this "They should have chosen..." but ran out of space in the subject... Anyway. Matrix was a cute action flick. Better than Total Recal. But didn't go much deeper. I would have suggested lain. It's a similar sort of theme about a year earlier. Your basic 'where does the line between the real and virtual world lie?' and 'just what is reality in relation to what is percieved.' There's not too much stuff on the web for it but here's two URLs with some info if you're willing to dig deep enough: http://members.tripod.com/cyberiacafe/ http://www.otaking.org/~hitomi/lain/ Of course lain lacks all the cool gun scenes. And has no babes in leather or dreamboat boytoys... It stars an 11 year old introverted female hacker. But for philosophical content it's about the deepest thing on the market at present. And the level of technical accuracy is unmatched by anything I've encountered to date.
This being my first post to slashdot I didn't realize it would just throw it all on one line like that if lacking html tags... most of these things disable html (though I like that this one allows it).
Anyway, here's those two URLs in a more usable format:
I'll just hope the rest of my message was readable with effort. Sorry about that.
This is an interesting movie to be the subject of philosophy. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but philosophy has a way of looking at odd things and applying theories. I am on my fourth philosophy class and have wondered about free will. It is an interesting question. Most philosophy professors believe in determinism, and that every thing is predetermined. For those who don't know, determinism is "cause and effect", meaning there are no random acts. My question is "does this work with humans"? Obviously in nature this can be true, a mountain erupts due to certain conditions (erosion, etc.).... cause and effect. Humans are more complicated, and I don't think one can say we are determined, or act like robots. The problem philosophers and scientists have with free will, is we cannot prove free will. It is true that people tend to act or make decisions based on their environment, but what if one time they decide not to? Pyschologists have found this to be true with people who grew up with child abuse. One person might abuse their own children, but another might choose not to. As to the reasons why, pyschologists are baffled. Unlike nature, we cannot predict human actions. Free will is similar to GOD, HE is something we cannot see.... free will works the same way.
The Matrix is probably one of the worst movie I ever seen. While special effects were very impressive, the underlying ideas of the film were nasty, at least.
I'm a sci-fi fan, majorly interested in conscience/reality (Who have the movie rights on Ubik or The Three Stigmata Of Plamer Eldricht ?). Dark City, Total Recall, PI, Cube, or Existenz are IMHO *much* better than the Matrix.
Why? In the Matrix, the so-called 'good guys' kill a few dozen of innocent people. It is not 'virtual', as people killed in the matrix dies in real life too. It is not by accident, and is glorified by special effects. By comparison, the so-called bad guys don't kill any one (It is not clear if people die when they 'transfer' into their body). I don't mind nasty films (ie: Tesis is one of the best movie I ever seen), but people admiring The Matrix don't seems to have the distanciation to see that Neo probably took the wrong pill. The same thing hold for Starship Troopers (Why didn't Verhoeven choosed to adapt The Forever War instead ?)
Taking this movie as a base for *philosophical* course about preception escapes me.
--fred
PS: And the scenario is quite stupid too. If Neo had more than room temperature IQ, he would questionate the reality of Morpheus too. Total Recall is better in this point of view (ie: At least, the onirism of the ending scenes make me beleive that Douglas Quaid should have took the pill Dr. Edgemar proposed).
Well if its being run from a computer that system has one hell of an uptime as I can't recall a crash from any point in my lifetime. Definantly not a Microsoft Based Reality it seems. So it looks like it was open source robots who took over the real world and plugged us all in as human batteries...
Such certainty, such certainty. One of the things you learn from Philosophy (Western analytical Philosphy, anyway) is that all the cool sci-fi paradoxes and ideas that got you interested in the subject when you were 17 are MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN THEY LOOK.
Do a google search for 'putnam brains in vats' or somesuch and check out some of the papers people have written. One is below:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~dcole/evil90.htm
-----
There is a very in-depth analysis of The Matrix as it relates to Christianity at http://awesomehouse.com/matrix/parable. html. It discusses the symbolism of character names, places, events, etc with direct links to the Scriptures. Of course, some people will claim that this is coincidence by the Wachowski brothers, but some of the Christian parallels were confirmed in an interview with them and also in an interview with Joe Pantoliano (Cypher) at http://www.anothe runiverse.com/movies/features/joepantoliano.html.
This is a question from my PHIL101 final exam back in 1988.
Each TA wrote one question. This one came from mine. I
spent half the final exam period working on the final, and
the other half memorizing this very question. I'm firmly
convinced that at least one of the Wachowski brothers was
in my class, and said, "We should make a movie about that."
I've included footnotes for references that are now dated.
Question 2
----------
part a: Explain ____'s definition of reality as "true knowledge"
part b: Explain whether either of the individuals in the
following situation have true knowledge as directed.
Bill and Ted hop on their interplanetary space Harleys and
head off to the planet Pluto. When they arrive, they see
some lights in the distance, and investigate. Upon closer
inspection, they see what appears to be an exact replica of
the Campus Village shopping center (1). Bill and Ted decide
to pick up a local copy of the National Inquirer, but when
they get into People's (2), they are abducted by a bunch of
Telly Savalas (3) look alikes, who take them to what appears
to be the game show set for Let's Make A Deal (4). Ted has
all of his sensory organs disconnect from his body and put
in a box. Bill is told that they will reconnect them if he
can guess which curtain Ted's sensory organs are hiding
behind. While Bill is thinking about his choice, someone
brushes past curtain #2, revealing what appear to be Ted's
sensory organs in a box. In truth, it's a hologram. The
organs are actually in a smaller box, behind the hologram.
Does Bill have True Knowledge as to the whereabouts of Ted's
sensory organs?
Ted's brain is electrically stimulated to make him believe
that he's on the game show, Let's Make A Deal, and that
his sensory organs will be reconnected if Bill guesses what
curtain they are hiding behind. Does Ted have True Knowledge
as to his whereabouts?
(1) a shopping center just off the UMCP campus.
(2) a drug store chain, now CVS Pharmacy.
(3) Kojak, a bald police detective(?) from a popular '70s show.
(4) Another popular '70s show, "would you like to trade all
that you have now for what's behind curtain #2."
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
in my experience, most people do not wish to challenge the modes of thought that they have unthinkingly used all their lives.
Which is why, in the modern age of accelerating change, they're dinosaurs. I'm not sure if Philosophy is as important as studying Philosophy, because the act of considering alternate viewpoints as legitimate competitors to your own provides the flexibility needed to cope with change. Knowing the people and language of the Philosophy discipline is important if you wish to spread yours or have people understand it, but honestly life is getting so individually-tailored that soon (if not now) it will be futile to try and categorize philosophies.
Of course, discrimination is also important: reflexive flexibility is extremely dangerous, you should definitely develop good filters..
Your Working Boy,
You can't learn philosophy from a movie; to pass the exam you need to be able to quote, dissect and compare the writings of the recognised big names. The Wachowski brothers just don't count in that regard.
However, watching The Matrix *does* provide a concrete example of some epistemiological questions. It would provide a means of grasping the basic concepts and a basis for discussion in future lectures, if nothing else.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
JULIET:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet
NEO:
Woah!
JULIET:
Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
Neo:
Dude!
etc...
The tweak in the Oracle scene for me was the vase sequence. Would Neo have broken it had his attention not been brought to it by the Oracle?
Sort of parallels with Heisenberg as applied to psychology. Once you are made aware of something, you can't help but pay attention to it. It's like someone saying "Don't look at that guys nose"...
There's a whole fate/predeterminism vs free-will discussion in there as well... And it feeds well into the whole issue of Neo becoming The One by choosing to 'walk the path' in addition to being 'destined' to be The One through 'knowing the path'.
Interesting that once Neo decided to give up on his destiny, and sacrifice himself to save Morpheus (reasoning that Morpheus could do more good for mankind than Neo himself), he actually fulfilled his destiny. He chose to go against it and thereby brought it to fruition.
The Oracle scene holds enough meat for a couple of philosophy courses, and probably a psych class while at it.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
actually this kind of a theory has theological merrit, there is a simmilar traditional theory called "Process Theodicy" (i forget who the authors are)
my adaptation of process theodicy is that "god" is simply an innate force in the universe to perpetuate self-organizing systems that oppose entropy, thereby extending the life of "god"/the universe... you see (s)he's just doing what (s)he can to stay alive!
therefore if you accept this theodicy god is in all things, as well as transcending them... very simmilar to the popular christian theodicy of the "holy spirit"...
it's more of a rational moderate approach that I think most people could accept...
there's a lot further that you can go with this sort of a theory... heck if I was going for an MA in phillosophy rather than an MS in CS it would probably be my thesis...
(p.s. follow my URL for other theological ideas surrounding this one)
But then again, you think rain is wet....
Of course we all know Keanu Reeves was just lucky enough to have the superb support of Fishburne. Neo could have been played by any number of actors without any detraction; Fishburne is Morpheus, and gave the film every ounce of soul it enjoys today.
;-)
Good. I'm not the only one who feels this way. =) Reeves was good as Neo, I wouldn't argue that. Calling it his movie is off the mark, IMO. Sure, Neo is the central figure as "the one". I can imagine several different actors who could have played this role, and yes - it would still have been the same movie.
Not the same for Fishburne... I agree completely - wouldn't have been the same movie with anyone else.
P.S. Remember when Fishburne was on Pee Wee Herman's playhouse as one of the characters? What was his name? I want to say "Coyboy Carl" but I'm not sure. God its funny to go back and see other stuff our favorite actors have done when they were small-time.
...since I almost put in a disclaimer about how I don't want to lump logic in with the rest of it. Now I wish I did.
However, aside from logic, philosophy (as it is studied in courses bearing that name) is about nothing but unanswerable questions (unfortunately ones to which people often have to choose arbitrary answers to go on with their lives).
Neo wakes up, goes to work; everything is normal.
(or is that too "Outer Limits"?)
I heard the oracle scene was edited and a lot of it cut out. The edited parts made the cookie and the whole scene more understandable. With the edits, the cookie didn't really mean anything.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Reality is a very interesting and confusing entity. For instance if I ask you "Are you sure what you see is actually what exists", what would you answer be ? "Yes" - Well how can you be sure, when you donno what is reality.
The Matrix brings out that confusing aspect of reality, among other things. Oh ya.. as the article mentioned, the secod half was mundane comapred to the amount of brain work was needed to 'understand' the first half. A small indicator would be the number of times I had to watch the first half and not the second half to make some sense out of the movie!
... "follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind
Pop philosophy is almost as deadly as pop medicine/religion/etc and is always Lame. It's Ironic that in modern philosophy there are few enough heros that it needs to borrow from the cinema. At best, they might want to use the movie to teach mythology, or maybe even modern Jungian archetypes but that would be psycology. To use it to teach philosophy is grasping at straws for whatever will get students in. Desparate. Another indication of modern ed. being more about entertainment than knowledge and that is Sad. Save the movie analysis for the pub try to teach without props.
Good philosophy is essential.
Firstly in my experience most people don't think those thoughts, just the smarter reflective ones.
Secondly the questions aren't the issue. It's the answers, and espesially the methods to find the answers that are important.
Philosophy is not about catergorizing difficult questions, it's about solving them. If you think philosopy is just a mechanism for efficiently expressing supposedly profound thoughts then you have missed the core of philosophy.
Unfortunately meny philosophers have also missed the core of philosophy.
The questions are uncertain. Philosophy is about solving those problems by providing arguments to suggest answers.
Philosophy is reasoning. It should be taught at an early age because people need to reason.
Many people believe that if A then B means disproving A also disproves B. I've come across it many times.
Look at an abortion clinic protest. You get pro choice and pro life people chanting slogans at each other. Most of them seem to have only a slight understanding of the real moral issues. Philosophy would give them the chance to analyze their own and their adversaries' arguments.
If the reasoning tools of philosiphy were taught at an early age (most aren't difficult, how to spot and avoid fallacies would be a good start) then they can use them in their day to day lives.
Just imagine how the average persons live would be different if they could spot fallacies reasonably well. Reading the newspaper would be an entirely different experience for them.
Now, just imagine how _OUR_ lives would be better if the average journalist knew how to spot a fallacy an also knew that their readership could as well.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
As anyone who has used their own brain to any degree and developed a thirst for knowledge could attest, the ideas enumerated in the film are not original and not elaborated upon to do them justice. However, there is a generation of tv-babies that have been spoonfed a manipulated sense of reality to whom this movie might initiate a desire to learn more. Opening their eyes to other possibilities. Books don't neccesarily appeal to those who like their thinking to be done for them. Target these potential students in the course description or a flyer campaign, but don't discredit the name of Philosophy & the great thinkers throughout existence by linking (limiting) it to a hollywood creation (no matter how un-conventional it might have been in that it presupposed a certain amount of intellect to enjoy on a higher level).
There are better ways to manipulate enrollment that don't have such recursive effects on mentality and credibility to actual open-mindedness. What next? A Jerry Springer Social Behavior course? Big Daddy Single Parenting? ER Medical School?
them's my thoughts....
At any rate, Matrix is a very nice movie, but as far as stimulating the intellect? Come on. Humans as biological batteries? Please. "Grow large amounts of algae. Burn it.". I mean, how silly can you get?
They could have come up with dozens of more plausible and more interesting scenarios: for example, the AIs are not strong on creativity, and are maintaining all the charade just for the few human geniuses who contribute new science, new art, etc. - that would make an interesting twist in things, and could serve as a basis for wonderful plot lines.
Or, why just one level of reality? The whole humans-as-batteries is so absurd you just have to believe it is also simulated and that there's a level below. "It is turtles all the way down".
OK, expecting an intelligent script from Hollywood is like expecting generosity from a bank. But a University? If it had some sense, they'd pick on the writings of Phillip K. Dick instead. "Ubik" comes to mind as an excellent example.
What is wrong with me that I get so nauseated
when I see someone explaining exceedingly simple and obvious aspects of philosphy as if their thoughts were profound?
I really enjoyed The Matrix, but I was really annoyed when I overheard everyone talking about how deep it was outside of the theatre.
This is the same feeling I get when I see people using the word 'one'.
When one is using the word one to describe oneself then one perhaps has seen one too many movies?
It's elitism I know, I just can't seem to shake it.
blah.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Is it just me or was that ending when Keanu did the very cheap, Superman-esque launch toward the screen just ruin a pretty good movie. How the hell did that get in there ?
Well it does help explain some concepts I guess...
(It sure helped explain "MAGE: THE ASCENSION" to
a couple of newbie players)
However when I talk to a friend of mine (who
has an university degree in Philosophy) he says
the most the most important aspect of philosophy
is imagination and carefull pondering.
If you need a movie to understand some concepts,
it might be a good idea NOT to study philosophy...
(of course the article says the film is used
as introduction material which is definetlt
a good idea. I wished more teachers would be
so open-minded)
J.
Anyone who's done computer science should recognise what the oracle is. A (Turing) oracle is any computing device that can calculate uncomputable functions. If you remember your CS the first uncomputable function you come across comes from the halting problem and involves feeding a program to itself and making it deliberately `contrary' (I'm not giving the details because it's in many textbooks). The whole oracle scene in the movie should strike you as similar. The relation of `know thyself' to a Turing oracle is obvious but consider also the incident with a vase. Given that the Wachowskis cite "Godel, Escher, Bach" as a major influence and this book discusses computability I'd say that this use of the term oracle is quite deliberate.
-- SIGFPE
Disclaimer: I've seen the Matrix once. I thought it was a comedy. What philosophy there was in it was, IMO, either blatantly misrepresented (the Agent's statements on evolution) or laughably simplistic versions of stuff that has been hashed through a great deal. Which brings me to PKD. While it is arguable that the Matrix pulled much from William Gibson it's whole premise is one that PKD would have recognised from his whole writing career. PKD obsessively wrote about what is real and what is not and the ambiguity therein. Which is probably why the Matrix did little for me. There is very little ambiguity in the movie. Very early on it is clear what the two worlds are and what the characters roles are in them. After that its just a matter of how many shell casings will fall in slow motion until the bad guys bite it. If you want some ambiguity in a VR plotted movie, check out the Thirteenth Floor. Almost zero special effects, very little violence, no music video moments, but a lot of story, character and thought.
I just wanted to say that I found the Matrix totally realistic technologically, and I like to think of myself as highly realism-oriented I walked out of Raiders of the Lost Ark and didn't think putting a deLorean in Back to the Future was funny in any way. Here's how I rationalize The Matrix: IMHO, martial arts are mystical hocus pocus, martial arts in movies are insipid and martial arts video games really really really pointless. However, I also realize that many people disagree with me. So, if all the programmers that like Mortal Kombat were to work on coding the matrix, it would be exactly like that matrix in The Matrix, wouldn't it?
As to the philosophy, cool in the movie because it was presented as someone else's idea of what if, like acting out a scenario "what if I was John Malkovich?", but not much there to take away... how do I know I'm not dreaming that I'm in the movies?
Oh, I forgot, the whole bit about the humans being kept around as little power sources was unscientific.
what the heck have I done... :)
huh? properly used, sic should be in square brackets (italicized because it is a foreign word?), and used when you suspect an error but wish to pass the buck. "fillum" should probably be categorized as dialect and wouldn't be sicced, otherwise Huckleberry Finn would be unreadable. In addition, I personally don't think it should be used as a "nyah-nyah tag" but as a "look, I'm quoting this because it's important, so I don't want to alter the meaning, but it seems a little broken for reasons I don't know."
Here's my interpretation. The big-ass computer controlls what everyone perceives via the direct wire into the brain. Neo, along with some other people in The Oracle's house, has such a strong mind that he is able to override what the computer is inputting into him, thus changing the reality for himself. When Morpheus is explaining The Matrix to Neo, he mentions that "A body cannot exist without a mind. If your mind is killed in the Matrix, your body dies, too" (paraphrasing). The idea being that if you have the power to manipulate the perceptions being fed to you, you can, say, dodge two dozen bullets at supersonic speed. :)
You could start with some of Philip K. Dicks essays on the nature of reality (particularly around his VALIS idea) and talk about the ideas in philosophy and religion to which they connect.
Dick could lead you into science fiction, cyberpunk, and national anxiety about control.
Bring in other films like Existenz and talk about self-reference in video games like Nomad Soul.
Heck, Id take the class.
Because the snark was a...
Shouldn't the Matrix be used for a calculus class instead?
Bill & Ted's Excellent adventure and associated Time Travel Paradoxes to your advanced Physics class.
That piece made sense to me (much was fluffy, for the purposes of entertainment).. It wasn't about psychic power, it was about interfacing with the computer.
/. had a story on a DOOM interface to process management. When you wanted to kill -9 a process, you'd actually gun it down. Sort of intuitive. The Matrix was the perfect UI, completely abstracted to reality, and then flipped around that the machine ran the people - not really, but that's another topic.
:)
Every person was a ksh shell. Instead of a text interface, the API was sensory. (make a leap of faith, it's sci-fi) All running in standard user mode. The machine was in charge and could renice everyone as the automated routines and daemons (agents) saw fit. Neo had the potential to su -root on the system. Well, actually more than that, he had the ability to adjust the hidden/local variables of the OS.
A person can always out think a video game AI. Always. The advantage that video games have is speed, not intelligence. Eventually the human is simply out-gunned, and can't react fast enough.
Well, Neo could, not because he was faster than the machine, but because he could tweak the delay parameters at runtime.
What we saw on the screen was for entertainment purposes, but also (to me at least) presented an interesting concept. The ultimate user interface is one which you are not even aware of. It's totally natural, and totally transparent. It's 'real world', where your actions are ideal metaphors for what you want to do.
You may recall a few weeks ago
I perticularly liked the idea of 'looking at the actual code' rather than it's rendering. It's the best way to debug.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Philosophy classes are not simply about labels, and while many people do grasp some of the basic questions that philosophy is concerned with, very few know how to pick apart those questions in a rigorous way. You'd be right that "no one needs to be taught philosophy" if not for one simple factor: many logically true things are completely counter-intuitive. They defy common sense hunches, but are nevertheless true. That's why its very important to think things through very carefuly, and develop models and such. That's what real philosophy is all about. And maybe the answers wont even be much different- but at least you can expalin how you got there. I don't think much thought went into the philosophy of the Matrix either- my main problem is that it suffers from the "Superman effect." I.E.- people are said to have certain powers, but they forget to use them at convienient plot moments. Like when superman can run almost as fast as the flash, and can dodge bullets, but is then too slow to dodge having a chunk of concrete tossed at him. Likewise, we SEE that Neo, Geo, and Trinity can all move really really really fast, and even jump long distances. But when they're running from the agents- they move at normal speed. Hello? Add that to the fact that all the kunfu was extremely slow (at least by Jackie Chan standards!) and you got characters with super powers that don't make any sense.
I think it makes sense to include "The Matrix" in a philosophy course. It's basic theme is very similar to Descartes "evil genius" concept, which is tied in with the thought argument that conclues with "I think, therefore I am".
The "evil genius" idea, or as I learned about it in a philosophy class as the "brain in a vat" idea, is that it's hard to tell whether what you experience is reality, or whether it is the result of impulses being fed into your brain somehow.
Both Descartes writings and "The Matrix" make you consider philosophical questions like:
-- Can I trust my senses about what reality is?
-- If I can't be sure what reality is, what things can I be sure of? Do I exist? Am I the way I think I am? Are people the way I think they are?
-- How much does it matter? If I knew for sure that I was a brain in a vat dreaming these things, would I live my life differently?
Cara Hart chart@eNOSPAMfurn.com Systems Administrator eFurn.com, LLC. and ARITEK Systems, Inc.
Kinda, but not really. The Matrix creates a reality for everyone. There is no actual reality at all, i.e., there is no one universal Matrix, just the inputs being fed into everyone's head. IF Neo dodges a bunch of bullets due to his abnormal powers, and doesn't die, then the Matrix is forced to accept that he dodged them, because otherwise he would be dead. Thus, by manipulating his own spoon-fed "reality," he is propogating his changes to other members of the reality...kinda like Usenet. :)
Nobody needs to be taught about philosophy. By roughly age 12, just about everybody has already had most if not all the "great thoughts": "I think therefore I am (but how do I really know anything else 'is'?)", "why would it be evil to send people to eternal bliss, but good to send people to eternal damnation?", "does a consciousness exist after death?", "do I really exercise free will, or just experience intention as I experience a sight or a smell?", "if I'm going to die anyway, why bother living even another day?", et cetera, ad nauseum.
Philosophy classes are about labels. They're about communicating meaningfully about these questions which every mind produces. How efficient to just say "solipsism" and express the great uncertainty of whether anything exists outside of your own mind!
The Matrix doesn't contain any of those labels, and really doesn't cover many ideas. Let's face it, it doesn't even make sense. What, was he supposed to have had some sort of psychic power over the computer? He wasn't hacking into the system in any way we'd recognize; the fact that the world was computer simulated in no way explained Neo's ability to break the rules at will. It has about as much philosophical value as Star Wars' mystical babble about the force: the purpose is not to inspire deep thought, but to produce a momentary awe to enhance the entertainment through deeper emotional involvement, and promote the suspension of disbelief in a representation of the eternal struggle of good against evil as primitive hand-to-hand combat (no really, this isn't pro-wrestling! they have strange psychic powers that will determine the fate of the universe!).
Of course, every once in while, exceptional pop culture can provide us with deep philosophical insights. ^_^
In all seriousness, you could cover all this stuff with dozens of different popular movies and such, but just singling one out for the focus of an entire course is silly.
Evidently The Matrix is strongly influenced by the philosophy of Socrates (at least as far as Plato tells us about it). The bit about the Oracle just makes it a tad too obvious: the wise saying ``know yourself'' (``GNOTHI SEAUTON'' in Greek — now I wonder why the makers of the movie decided to translate it in Latin: ``NOSCA TEMET'') was carved in front of the real Oracle, in Delphi, and Socrates adopted it as his motto. (Socrates, it seems, went to see the Oracle in Delphi and thus discovered about his own wisdom: ``the only thing I know is that I know nothing'' (``en oida ho ti ouden oida'').)
The whole film reeks of the parable of the cavern, told by Socrates in Plato's Republic. Recall that it goes something like this: some men are prisoners in a cavern, and are bound so that all they can see is a wall in front of them, and the shadows on that wall made by objects moving behind them. The prisoners think that the shadows are the real objects and give names to them. But one day a prisonner is unchained and goes out of the cavern. At first he is blinded by the sun, but after some time he gets accustomed to Reality. He goes back to the cavern and tries to convince his fellow prisoners that what they see are only shadows of the real objects. And so on. (If you want the full story, read The Republic.)
Now Plato has a very elitist vision of mankind. He was strongly opposed to democracy (two of his uncles were part of the Thirty Tyrants, the antidemocratic regime imposed upon Athens when it lost the Peloponnesian war against Sparta). The whole idea of The Republic, if I dare summarize it in just a few words, is that philosophers (those who can see further than the shadows of the parable's cavern) should be in charge of ruling the (city-)state. I think (I hope) that The Matrix has a more democratic vision of things, that the idea is to free mankind — all of mankind, not just a select happy few.
Another intersting point which is made, albeit briefly, in The Matrix, is when whatshisname discusses about the taste of things, how they might taste in reality, and how they taste in the Matrix: of course, the cavern's shadow-world is a projection of reality, but it is only a projection, and there is nothing to say that the reality is not vastly different from the projection (or vice versa).
I don't think this comparison is all that important, but it certainly fun to think how a science-fiction film of the end of the XXth century could have been greatly influenced by the writings of a philosopher nearly 25 centuries earlier.
(PS: Here in France we have philosophy courses in high school. I think that is a good idea.)
It seems to me that people becoming more and more enraptured by the film, The Matrix, tend to forget or ignore what William Gibson's been writing about for more than twenty odd years. The father of cyberpunk laid out the very concept the Wachowski's use in their movie. Heck if i'm not mistaken, he even called it The Matrix way back in Neuromancer. Admittedly Johnny Mnemonic (another Keanu Reeves flick) was not exactly the best adaptation of his book; The Matrix as a virtual reality environment embedded into the everyday reality of our lives is a concept Gibson's been writing about for ages. (And his writings are included in several college curriculums throughout N.America)
I am glad the Wachowski's created the film and in it's own "kickass" manner did a fair job of it too. Yet it peeves me that nowhere, and nohow did noone mention Gibson, even as a passing reference!
While The Matrix has some interesting philosophical ideas, there are a whole bunch of other novels and movies that examine the same ideas, and more effectively IMHO. I would suspect that a large number of them are on the reading list for the course.
However, I've got to give the lecturer A for initiative - I hope he gets a good student or two out of it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It's really too bad that the Wachowski brothers can't make a fillum (sic) as good as The Matrix, but about Calculus. I could have really used that back in College.
Imagine the same noir scenery. A lone function f(x) is just a mundane polynomial, but if you look in the table of contents, you know it's destined to perform derivatives, integrations (by parts when necessary), and even Fournier analysis.
f(x): When I am ready, will I be able to perform Reimann summation?
g(x): When you are ready, you won't have to...
Wow...
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
He then proceeded to leave the entire lecture theatre of students, mouths wide open, a minute and a half after coming in.
Half of us went striaght over to the cinemas and saw The Matrix!
Disclaimer 2: this stuff may seem obvious to people who have watched The Matrix more than once or twice. Sorry if I'm boring you :)
The scene where Neo is taken to the Oracle is quite interesting. I think it could cover a large portion of philosophy course. After seeing the movie a couple times, this scene really interested me.
Why? Well, as the movie progresses past that scene, it seems at first glance that the Oracle lied to Neo. Yeah everyone says "duh" he's the hero - of course he's The One. Morpheus later tells Neo "she told you exactly what you needed to hear", implying that the Oracle would lie if it lead Neo down the correct path.
But, at least in my interpretation, everything the Oracle told Neo was the truth. Morpheus himself did not completely understand the Oracle - he was in disbelief when he saw Neo die.
The Oracle however, knew this was one path that could happen. She told Neo that he would have to make a choice and that he or Morpheus WOULD die. She also told him that he's not The One. I think that he wasn't The One at that time. Notice how she also says "seems like you're waiting for something - maybe the next life - who knows?". Neo did die (flatlined), and then regained his life. At that point he had become The One. He didn't need to dodge bullets (as Morpheus had mentioned at the end of the agent training simulation).
And of course there are some religious parallels but I won't go there on this forum.
All in all, the Oracle scene was very well done, and linked in beautifully with the rest of the movie IMO.
Best regards,
SEAL