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Philosophy, Reality and The Matrix
securitas writes "The NYT discusses The Matrix as a reflection of American society, the 'war on terror', political allegory and the impact of The Matrix on contemporary philosophy. NPR provides streaming audio conversations with Matrix thinkers, including Jake Horsley, author of 'Matrix Warrior: Being the One'; Prof. Frances Flannery Dailey on violence in the Matrix; and Prof. Greg Garrett, co-author of 'The Gospels Reloaded' and why he doesn't like the kind of hero that Neo has become. Finally, the CSM follows up its The Gospel According to Neo with an online chat transcript with Josh Burek, the author of the essay."
As if that's not enough Matrix Philosophy, Here's more
and Still more. And just a warning, clicking on any of those links might spoil the movie for you.
there are lots of people that hold the contrary opinion. i dont' consider a movie to be really really good unless i leave the theater thinking about the movie and think about it all the way home. plus if books were just for thinking, there wouldn't be romance novels or dirk pitt.
Tolkein was often quoted as hating anyone who tried to attach meaning that wasn't there to literary works. He'd have hated the level of allegory his books supposedly represent these days.
Reminds me of grade school English class, where we'd write a story/poem, and then the class tried to analyze it. I'd often as not just write some mundane piece about people walking down the street, and the class would proceed, with the teacher's help, to show how I REALLY was talking about the progress one takes through life, and a bunch of utter bullshit. I always had a laugh when the teacher would ask what I meant by a particular passage, and I'd just look at him/her and say "Um, they went for a walk. Nothing more, nothing less".
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It can be a great modern myth however after you study a bit of philosophy in the area of knowledge and skeptisism, you will find that on the surface the matrix looks good but there are some very compelling arguements against it. Thus reducing the entire film to nonsense. My only wish is that The Matrix (and its sequals) will get people more interested in Philosophy - on a real level, not just the "ohhh are we really dreaming....!" level. For more look to Nozick's theory of knowledge, G.E. Moore, Contextualist theory, closure principle, and arguements for and against the closure principle.
The bodiless brain in the vat argument has been around WAY longer then The Matrix... So in that sense The Matrix is just rehashing (though you do seem to have a body in the matrix...) These are just some ramblings of CS major with a double in philosophy... So take with a grain of salt. Thanks
The Matrix Web site has a number of papers written by philosophers, theologians, scientists and others. Of those I've read so far, the one I find most interesting is The Brave New World of the Matrix which draws upon Husserlian phenomenology to discuss the philopsophy of AI. It sounds boring but it's not. If you like that you might want to go on to read some Martin Heidegger.
Unbelieveable to me is that a commercial enterprise (Warner Brothers) is making thinking and philosophy cool again through one of its franchises. I never thought I'd hear about Husserl and Heidegger after I graduated, least of all on a Hollywood-produced movie by the likes of Joel Silver.
Jeez, sounds like you're having an even worse weekend than I am. Lighten up, man.
I agree that the philosophical aspects of The Matrix are overblown. Unlike most of the reviewers who cite the debt owed to Philip K Dick and "visionary" authors, I have actually read Dick (and Stephenson, but no Gibson yet), and I am totally unimpressed with the plot twists and ponderous questions posed by the movies. Any one of Dick's novels is a far weirder mindfuck than the Wachkowskis could hope to pull off. And the whole hacker analogy was covered in "Snow Crash" (and, I'm told, in most of Gibson's books).
However, I still loved the movies (but the first is far superior to the second). The Wachkowskis understand what George Lucas so superbly realized in Star Wars (and then forget around 1982): if you're going to make a derivative pastiche, do it well. The concepts in either set of movies are not revolutionary or particularly insightful - what distinguishes them is how well the mess holds together, and how well the finished product works. Heck, even a lot of the action is derivative if you've seen enough Jet Li or John Woo flicks, but they did a swell directing job too.
I know it makes you seem l33t to bash these movies, just like it's cool to be the voice of reason on Slashdot and interject random comments about how crapulent Linux is and how Microsoft really has its shit together. However, you need to understand that quite a few of us enjoyed the movies in spite of their flaws, and that even if they're ripoffs with a phony layer of pseudo-philosophy, we still liked seeing these ideas committed to film with such style and intensity. Finally, The Matrix did not seem at all trendy when it came out - rather, it set the trend for a lot of less-talented filmmakers.
By the way, I'm very curious about how you think The Matrix was "offensive", unless you're one of those types who think video games were to blame for Columbine.
All the people who were born in zion do not adhere to any type of steriotype at all. The programs, both exile and proper, are perfect steriotypes (Little asian man, Kung fu master, coarse old black lady, pompous rich white man, etc.)
Just an interesting point on how much imagination the machines have.
It's an offensive, violent movie, which the producers try to legitimize by jumping on the bandwagon of religion.
Actually, my view on this matter is very different. For me, Matrix is a philosophical hands down. The reason as top why there is such an ammount of action in the movies is the fact that it draws people to it. Matrix is a movie that makes (some, more intellectual) people really think about what is happening. I mean... The end of Matrix: Reloaded makes me really compelled to seeing the third movie.
Philosophy exists in the Matrix movies, it does however not exist a "Matrix philosophy" in the movies.
The movies are in short a mix of different religions, philosophies, Alice in Wonderland and modern action. I also feel strangely attracted to the number '5' in the movies (Binary 0101 - Trinity hacks computer, Highway, IIRC Neo's room number - the fifth reincarnation of Zion etc.).
Notice that no religious expert supports the viewpoints of the usual windbags toting the defense that the matrix trilogy are thinking man's movies or something. Nothing but a trendy violence-filled, mindless movie. Entertainment for mindless masses.
Actually, the Matrix was basis for discussion in our religion class... Not that our teacher might be considered a religious expert, but hey at least it generated couple of pages of interesting notes.
Some artists and psychoanalysts would question if you really have the control to make anything meaningless, no matter how hard you try. Any subject you choose to write about, or create from, no matter how 'random' may still be subject to choice and control by your subconcious. If you wanted to pick a random idea to write about, you're mind doesn't just say "Ok! rand() idea coming up!"
Even if you can't discern it yourself conciously, you very likely chose it for a reason. If you closed your eyes, and decided to write about the first thing you saw when you opened them, you still wouldn't be any 'better' off. What you see may be random to a degree, but not what is significant to you about it. Your focus could be caught by the color of what you see, it's texture, or shape. Thanks to the human mind, almost anything you choose to focus on no matter how trivial or mundane is pregnant with infinite possibilities with very real meaning. This is because the meaning is not truly in the object of your focus - the subject of your creative endevour or otherwise. The meaning is in you. It's you, your mind, concious and unconcious, and it's thinking and feeling many many different things wether you realize it or not.
You're quite correct in that there are some Christian tennants, but the majority are buddhist. Moreover, what is mildly Christian is far more Jewish:
The messiah to the Jews was a military leader who was prophesized to return and restore the military Kingom of Israel. They were pretty sure, in the time of Jesus, that this would be someone from the line of David (hence the use of Joseph to attribute this to Jesus). One of the primary reasons most Jews at the time denied that Jesus was the messiah was because he was far from a military leader: he advocated peace and acceptance, which was quite contrary to the Jewish model of a messiah.
The One seems more to be a Boddhisatva. In The Buddhism of the Great Vehicle, there is the belief that some people realize that they're about to achieve Enlightenment, but instead of fully crossing over themself, they remain here in The Great Illusion so as to facilitate the Enlightment of others. These are Boddhisatvas, basically "helping buddhas".
"Stumble before you crawl"
Nothing, depending on how the matrix is implemented. In the movie, the Matrix simulation is supposed to be a prison with body/minds physically chained to it, and so it's obviously "wrong", but it doesn't have to be.
Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?
A false reality isn't automatically bad, especially because nobody can know if the reality they're currently living is also false or not. I would CHOOSE to live virtually in another, better, "false" reality, as long as I had at least as much control over my life as I do now (which isn't much).
I don't know how Matrix Revolutions is supposed to end, but I hope it's not a damn luddite ending where the Matrix is shutdown after the people inside are forced to take the blue pill and wake up to a more "real" reality, where most learn that truth is shit, and ignorance is bliss. A better ending would simply be freeing the Matrix from machine control so people can make the choice of what plane they want to live on. And hell, if the freed 20th-century Matrix isn't good enough, just create a few more parallel simulations you can "slide" to so there's a universe for every mind, and/or recurse a few more levels.
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Power to the Peaceful