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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.
Here is the link :)
I am a mini oracle & here is my prediction for the future: At some point I bet NYtimes will start testing the referrer and block sites other than google. Then we will counter by copy pasting the link.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
some people take movies too seriously... they are for enjoyment!! Books are for thinking...
Can't a good, fairly well-written action movie just be a good, fairly well-written action movie?
I'm too young to remember, but was there this much philosophy applied to Star Wars when it debuted in '77?
I wonder, is the Matrix replacing Star Wars as our great "moderm" myth? There were many of the same religiously themed comparisons of the Star Wars saga during it's heyday, and we appear to be seeing much more with the Matrix. Could it be that the Matrix taps into the current generations sense of "myth" better than Star Wars did for my generation?
This space for rent.
Remind me again... we evolved from a clam?
Give us 10 bux and we'll bore you with a half hour car chase.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
And soon we'll all be genetic manipulated agents in a brave zion world... Fuck instrumentalism dammit :(
I'm really tired of people equating the Matrix with christianity. I think it's a disservice to the movie to compare it with a thousand pages of confused hallucinogenic gibberish.
M-HM! Don't you try that brainwashing stuff on me you AGENT, I know what's real!
trms
Repeat after me, "The Matrix is a plot device, There is no deep philisophical meaning."
Bullocks.
EVERY great story, from Shakesphere to Comic Books, is great because it says something. The Matrix has as much a "philisophical meaning" as anything else that's ever been written--that is to say, the authors mean it to say something, and they pull it off with a fair bit of success.
Just because you're biased against movies doesn't mean that the Matrix isn't "deep." The fact that professional philosiphers can discuss the Matrix with a straight face should be enough to wipe away any prejudice against movies.
Well, it's an extremely influential, trendsetting movie in terms of costume, style, camera angles, effects and fight choreography. But I agree with you that this obsessing over its philosophical underpinnings is embarassing.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How either of these two films can become the basis for a pseudo-religious metaphor is beyond me. Surely there is more substance in movies like "28 Days Later", or even "City of God". (Like: life sucks, get used to it.)
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Geez, if you're going to adopt a faux-English persona, at least realize that it's "bollocks", not "bullocks".
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.
The Matrix and its philosophical connotations I like to compare to candy or junk food. It tastes good and its fun to eat but its not really filling and too much of it makes you sick.
Real philosophy is boring, arduous, difficult to read and difficult to understand. The Matrix cuts down philosophy in small tasty bites easy to digest and easy to understand. Yet you shouldn't take the Matrix seriously. You have to understand its just a movie and really its there to entertain you. Its not there to show you that reality is an illusion therefore you should quit your job and try to jump off buildings.
There is nothing wrong with suspending yourself from reality and enjoying some good tasty philosophical junk food. But it's dangerous to never come back from that suspension.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Coming from someone (Josh Burek) who has serious theological training and years of analysis of christian theology, it is far more accurate than most of the articles, interviews, books and posts about the movies. Unlike christianity, eastern religions believe in cycles and doesn't take a bipolar perspective. christian religions believe the world and life is linear, which leads to the idea that things are either good or bad, right or wrong. Eastern religions take the perspective the line between everything is slippery. Opposing forces are always pushing back and forth to maintain a balance. Violence is a necessary part of the cycle; therefore there's no problem that Neo loves to fight and shoot guns. In bhuddism, truth is not a constant state, like heaven. Truth or enlightenment is seeing the greater picture. The greater picture doesn't necessarily mean not fighting.
I agree with you... The Matrix is just a plot device, but you can take any movie and use it as a basis for explaining real philosophical points.
I read the Philosophy of Star Trek awhile back and the author didn't make any claims that the writers intended to put deep meaning into the episodes but he did use Kirk's actions in some episode, for example, as a good starting point to delve into the basics of, say, existentialism.
I doubt that the Wachowski's didn't realize that they were throwing in philosophy into the script. I read an article where Hugo Weaving had to ask the brothers what German Philosophers he had to read to understand certain segments of the script , but those slight allusions to real philosophical constructs is a good starting point for professors to base their lessons on.
What better way to get kids into religion than saying "You see, Jesus was the One, much like Neo in the Matrix?"
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Lucas is actively rejecting the mystical nature of the original Star Wars. The last two movies barely talk about the theology and the philosophy of The Force. Why is the light side of the force better than the dark side? Why are anything the people in the story doing right or wrong? Instead he concentrated on wall to wall action.
Instead The Matrix appears to actively looks at issues and still includes a lot of action. What is wrong with having humans in the Matrix? Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?
At this point I'll watch and think about The Matrix movies far more than Star Wars.
OK, so its nice to maybe day dream now and again that maybe the matrix has some real life bearing.. but stop it now, this is a real world not a make believe fairy tail, wake up.
moo
Think about it: In the Matrix Reloaded, GNU/Smith touches anyone else, and they become GNU/Smiths. He is just as viral as the GPL!
And it's not like they only get a GNU/Smith arm in their othervise normal bodies, they turn completely GNU/Smith.
Plenty of geek gadgetry to appeal to the PDA and MP3-player buyers mixed with black leather and latex fashion and a pop rock soundtrack to appeal to teenagers and an annoyingly shallow philosophical statement. These were the kind of deep thoughts I had the first few times I smoked grass.
God bless them for making so much money off of it but it really wasn't that good a movie.
...one who enjoyed the first matrix...I HAVE to say that Matrix Reloaded spoiled itself. There is about 25 minutes of good footage in the movie. Half the dialouges should have been cut, another quarter should have been shortened. The town hall "orgy" session yeally didn't fit AT ALL. Yes, the party at the end, should have been in Zion, but there is still a lot left to do.
They broke the rule, as a friend put it, of accomplishing something in the middle movie of a series. They didn't get anywhere at all until the last 10 minutes of the movie.
As to the links to society, I believe this movie has its best (and only worth while meaning) when viewd as the posts suggest, as an example of our society. Points:
1. Shock and Awe is used as to soften the watcher to cover the lack of thought while storyboarding the flick.
2. While the world is being destroyed and all chances are of human survival are waxing, eveyone gets down and boogies in their own ways, ignoring the impending doom for a little while (perhaps too long). Except for the ONE. (Which is the redeaming and hopful message of the movie.)
3. Internal politics in the administration bifurcate the command structure, introduce strife and almost do in humanity. If it wasn't for that council member, who made the point (and joke) that there was no point...
4. If you drive a Caddy, you ARE invincible. Sorry, if you take off the back of a BMW with that SUT, the front of the truck would be gone as well.
*Ends rant here.*
-=fshalor
"How either of these two films can become the basis for a pseudo-religious metaphor is beyond me."
A-fuckin'-men. I'm frankly sick of all these 15 year old x-box boys telling me; "If you dont like the matrix its because you dont understand the matrix". The truth is that the elementry philosophies presented in the matrix we're just that, elementry.
This isn't a deep film. It's eye candy with a philosophical gimick because the writers didn't have enough of a story to develop a real plot. Sorry PS2 junkies... it just wasnt that good.
Besides, wearing sunglasses at night is pretentious.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
There has to be a point where we stop analysing things... I think even Freud himself admitted that sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar.
Although I might actually agree with the fact that their is no deep philisophical meaning in The Matrix, I have a problem with your post.
:
Specifically, I have a problem with any sentence of the form : There is no X in work Y.
Replace X with { drama, philosophy, beliefs } and Y with any movie, play, opera, book.
Why ? Because how the fuck would you know that there is not ? You can adopt two stances
1- I'm brighter than you, and I clearly see that there is no X. Easy to refute. What if you actually missed it ? Undefendable position.
2- There cannot be because of Z, where Z is your specific ideology. Setting Z to catholicism, you'll get to the current opposition to the movie by extreme-right groups. The problem here is the same, though. Not everyone has the same cultural reference and religious limitation. So, unless you wanna adopt a preaching position you still get to an undefendable position.
You might still be right, but you can't proof it. So please let people who thought they got some philosophy out of it discuss it. Who knows, maybe they actually got some deep philosophical concept...
This says a lot about our modern society. The original Matrix was a very good movie that played the "things are not what they seem" angle beautifully. The second Matrix film was a series of plastic action sequences designed for or taken from the video game, linked by a bizarre and fragmented plot, and populated with characters who acted like cardboard and sounded like cliches of themselves.
You're right--it does say a lot about modern society. Most of us can't see a point unless it's spoon fed to us.
(Hey, you! Yeah, you who hasn't seen the movie yet! Skip this damn post!)
The second movie's plot makes perfect sense, but only if you realize that it's a semi-reversal of the thrust of the first movie. The One questions his role, and finds out that he is a false prophet. The undercurrent is both the same as the first one ("reality is not what you know") and opposite ("you're free of the machines--but only superficially.")
Go back and watch the movie again; hell, just listen to it, and ignore the "plastic action scenes" if you can't get past them.
Ugh. Can't people just admit they like it because it has lots of guns, and people in skin-tight leather? They're making it out like the DVD is popular for purposes of meditation.
Jean Baudrillard, interviewed (some time ago) by the NY Times. He claimed any relation to "Simulacra and Simulation" and "The Matrix" was "born mostly of misunderstanding." Similarly, Matrix 2 is about as dumbed down an argument on free-will as you'll get...
If you want an intelligent discussion of philosophy, read a book you lazy fucks.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Imitation or limitation of imagination? There's an old Star Trek episode where all the people are controlled by some computer and one in a while go berserk. I only remember the people looked like early american pilgrims and some guy shouting "Festival! Festival!" before it all went nuts before the programming reoriented itself and continued. Anyway, it struck me as similar to the cycle described by the architect (whom reminded me of Colonel Sanders and I expected him to produce a bucket of fried chicken parts at any moment), how many times this has happened before, etc.
This reference to a Star Trek episode is by no means any claim that Star Trek writers were the first to experiment with such an idea, simply the idea has already been kicked around. I see Mr. Smith as more of a virus and wonder how he'll be sorted out.
Maybe it's time to rent Tron and watch that again, too. :-)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Mussolini, Hitler and ..... Bush?
Click here, to know what I'm talking about.
It's kinda interesting to think about this, coincidence? Most probably. Or not?
As someone who often said and occassionally still says much of what you just said - that the philosophy of the Matrix is simplistic and overblown - I'll backpedal a bit and say that I was pleasantly surprised by the new film, that its plot twists saved it from being crude allegory and turned it into something a little more compelling. I still think that Tarkovsky and Kieslowski hit greater depths when they aren't even trying than the Matrix films hits at its most labored, and at the end of the day I think that it really is just an action film, but I think it has risen above the level of trite cookie-cutter allegory and started asking some interesting questions.
I do notice that the apologists for the first film who claimed it was Christian allegory have fallen silent, as the Dickian gnosticism and ironic paranoia of the second film have undone the Christian reading entirely.
What? You mean there's no room for any new religions beyond $ientologists and Jedi?
I guess I'd better stop worshipping Terry Pratchett (who has a new book out and is totally God-like in my must humbl
[NO CARRIER]
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This isn't totally related to the Matrix films, but it's interesting anyway... I was thinking the other day, if we were to simulate our real world somehow, and assuming we would like to simulate the real world as closely as possible, we'd need more information (and energy) to create the simulation than is required in the real thing (because the simulation requires a simulation of the rules and requires checks on each rule and "memory" to hold the simulated information, and so on).
Therefore, our simulated world must always be inferior in some way to the real world. In other words, we'd need to "bound" the simulated world somehow since we would not be able to create an accurate simulation (our real world must bound the simulated world). I guess what I'm getting at then is that if we were to simulate the real world, our simulation cannot be both consistent and complete (Godel's theorem). If it is complete (all rules of nature simulated), we'll have to bend some rules to ensure the system remains bounded (else we'll run out of resources in the "real" world to use in the simulation) and if it is consistent, we surely cannot simulate all rules (again, bounding issues).
Further, if we were living in a simulated world, this would mean that eventually we should find laws of nature that are not consistent or complete. (Still, assuming we aren't in the simulated world, can we ever find such laws?)
Anyway, is my logic right? In either case, can someone direct me to useful texts that covers such notions? Excuse me if I've butchered anything.
I had a professor discuss the philosophical ramifications and the themes of violent escalation and truth in fiction presented in Dr. Seuss's "The Butter Battle Book" for an entire session. Yet this is regarded as a children's book!
We really must get over our prejudices of labeling such a great work as children's literature.
Your brain is not a computer.
You may also be interested in Roger Ebert review of Matrix Reloaded where he mentions, in his words, "pseudo-philosophy".
Yeah, but he gets top billing types of pictures and his affiliation with Co$ gets kicked around enough that people using their own tiny little brains figure along these lines: "Well if Tom Cruise is rich, famous and good looking and a $ientologist then I wanna be one too!" Sadly that's how hearts are lost to the most preposterous of beliefs.
Now excuse me, I'm late for services at the Temple of Elvis.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Whoa.. you just reinvented Popperism in some form.. Congrats!
They make you think you live in a virtual system to divert you from real-world slavery and exploitation, caused not by machines, but by your not-elected government. But The Matrix exists. It exits in the minds of people who do not accept the market-driven "who cares about ethics, peoples rights and international law" war-driven philosophy, supporting modern enslavement of milions in third world countries. And you wonder why those Arabs are so angry. Well, they just aren't taking the blue pill in contrast of you.
At the risk of posting yet another redundant post about this - I would like to say that it makes my stomach turn loops that there are people getting paid to write useless religious/metaphysical analysis of movies like the Matrix. Give me a break, its just a movie. And how does this rate as "stuff that matters" ? I guess I should just logoff Slashdot and go do something constructive instead of getting upset about it - sorry for the rant and waste of bandwidth....
.
There has to be a point where we stop analysing things... I think even Freud himself admitted that sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar.
I never said that there wasn't.
However, when the cigar is shaped like a certain anatomical object, used in a way popularized by a certain ex-president, and manufactured by a maker of "adult goods" and sold at merchants of the same--then it's foolish to simply say "it's just a cigar."
i think its odd that with all of the religious tie ins, and the animatrix, that people don't compare the matrix more to japanese animation with live actors. think about ghost in a shell, where does the machine stop and the spirit begin?
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
This happens because the act of talking a walk itself has symbolic meaning. Even if you didn't take a walk to escape something, relax, find yourself, or whatever else, you might have just taken it because you enjoy a walk. There is still meaning there, and the meaning other people attach to it in the poem would be the same they would attach to it if they saw you walking down the street.
Anything that imitates life has levels of meaning, even someone refusing to write poetry and just handing in a blank piece of paper.
Really. Thus totalitarian regimes clamp down on press, burn books, imprison writers and so on.
Though there are certain films, which did not spring from books, but ideas no less dangerous to states or people. You will rarely find such at the same cinema which carries the like of The Matrix, though. Most likely the local art theater which runs films made by people who actually do it for the love of the thing rather than scads of money.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
my friend used to say "the only people who wear sunglasses at night are speed freaks and assholes"
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.
What better way to get kids into religion than saying "You see, Jesus was the One, much like Neo in the Matrix?"
Fictional, but with really great special effects?
I've had this sig for three days.
'EVERY great story, from Shakesphere to Comic Books, is great because it says something.'
No, that doesn't make it great. An inebriated homeless man screaming on a streetcorner is saying something, but that doesn't it make his words worthwhile in of themselves.
Furthermore, the fact that you used the phrase 'professional philosopher' makes it difficult for me to keep a straight face.
"Just because you're biased against movies doesn't mean that the Matrix isn't "deep.""
Just because someone doesn't think that the matrix is deep doesn't mean they're biased. You're another one of those people who seem to think that only they know what is good and whats not and anyone who likes a different movie/music/book than you somehow lacks something as a human being. That's pretty unfortunate.
"The fact that professional philosiphers can discuss the Matrix with a straight face should be enough to wipe away any prejudice against movies."
Professional philosophers? That's real bright. Beleive me, these people have nothing up on anyone else. The fact that they do this for a living should clue you into something. People who get paid to think of what life might mean... That's pretty rich. And even a used cars salesman are going to tell you that a 1984 Chevy Celebrity will "bring you the ladies" if he's able to make a buck doing it, with a straight face none-the-less.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Folks, this isn't about philosophy, it's about cashing in on the popularity of The Matrix.
The headline could just as well have been:
"Cashing in on The Matrix: How to sell your irrelevant book to an otherwise uninterested public."
-- This sig for rent.
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.
I'm really tired of people, in a flash of teenager-esque omnipotence, dismissing something they don't understand as worthless.
Mod me troll if you want, I'm not christian in any shape or form, but to marginalize a belief system is pretty ignorant. If you think the bible is 'confused' or 'hallucinogenic' (the bible causes hallucinations? wouldn't that make it really powerful and meaningful?), you really should quit your amateur theology now before you stumble upon anything outside western culture.
Oh well there goes my karma...
Maybe someone said this so far, but I haven't seen it.
The first Animatrix movie, the first robot to rebel was "N1663R" or Nigger in Haxor speak.
Neo is an anagram of One
And that NPR can take even the Matrix and make it seem boring.
And just a warning, clicking on any of those links might spoil the movie for you.
This is implying somehow we all haven't seen it three times already. That if anything sounds like a glitch in the Matrix.
Additionally, I have to admit some of the story does make one think. What would you choose at the end [assuming you even have a choice.. etc...]
But sometimes I like to watch Hugo Weaving get his head smashed again, and again, and again, and...
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.
Can we just assume for a minute that George Lucas is correct about the power of myth? There are really a finite number of themes and stories to be told, because really as humans we don't have much beyond the small cache of stories we find compelling to see in a movie theater, and the cache of movies that hollywood churns out is even a smaller subset of that.
So, while people can expulse such gems as From Davey and Goliath to Homer and Ned Humorous(?) Matrix Fan Fiction, it would appear that these people are smart enough to take an idea and run with it, but not to come up with something original.
Also, isn't the overanalization of things like the Matrix a little dangerous? If you give creedence to the spiritual and intellectual properties of this movie and give it value above and beyond it's pure entertainment qualities, doesn't that open the door for the validation of critical analysis and admit that there's more than meets the eye?
The more you try to read into something, the more likely you're going to see what you want to see.
I just like bullet-time kung-fu and things blowing up. I don't feel any violent urges after seeing Reloaded, Neo isn't Christ, and I still have a firm grip on my reality filteres to allow me to know what's spiritually meaningful, and what's 2 hours of entertainment.
http://www.remix.net/
nt
"And you wonder why those Arabs are so angry."
Obviously you know little of what's going on with "those Arabs" to think that they're upset because the western world is built on a pursuit for power and cash... They're upset because they fear any non-Muslim influence in their society. To be caught with any religious materials outside of the works of Mohammad in these totalitarian states is a serious offense, some even resulting in death. Learn a bit about Muslim states before you go making sweeping remarks about them.
For as much as people bitch in the US about living in a "Christian" country they have no idea how bad a truely religious based state can be. We live in times where inconvience is mistaken for repression.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I have to say that, from what I gathered, I found that the Matrix Reloaded fell into the same problem that I find with many major religions, and that is to attribute an extreme human-centric nature to the universe.
;p) have come a long way since then and we now know that Earth is nothing more than an extremely small planet rotating around a sun in a very, and possibly infinitely large universe. To top matters off, how long have humans been around? I don't know the answer to this question, but if we take the ratio of human existence to universal existence, this is so incredibly small (and in the case of a universe that has been around infinitely, 0) that it boggles my mind that we can possibly believe that we are so ridiculously important in the context of things.
I mean, yeah, maybe this made sense when we thought that the Earth was the centre of the universe, but we (well, most of us
I really didn't like the whole "choice" aspect of the Matrix. Maybe I didn't understand thoroughly what they were trying to say, but after the tediousness of being subjected to Neo and Trinity's tenth make-out session (I practically yelled out at the screen: "Get a freaking room already!"), I really lost interest. Cause and effect, while repeatedly observed to be true, is not a basis for an entire philosophy, either.
Personally, I found the movie lacking. Entertaining, but certainly not deep by any stretch of the imagination (which is more-or-less how I found the original as well). And I still can't believe the ending. I won't say anything much here so as not to spoil, but I'll conclude with the following statement: Is Neo really such a pansy ass? My god.
Lotsa Kungfu + Robots + Keanu Reeves + Innovative Camera Work = Deep philosophical treatise on the the nature of reality. Riiight. What's next, singularities in the space-time continuum as elucidated in James Cameron's iconoclast monograph, Terminator 2: Judgement Day?
The movies seem to be moving toward the nihilistic themes of Baudrillard's writings, so we'll see what his final opinion after the third movie.
Matrix Revolutions looks like its going to be about an all-out war and mass slaughter, very much like a 19th century Russian political movement that advocated violent revolution as a legitimate means of political reform.
150 year old and probably older observation being rehashed again as brand spanking new cutting edge insight. The concept of a "false consciousness" has been a mainstay of marxist thought since it's inception and seems to be rehashed frequently as some sort of new discovery.
Can't Keanu be more credible showing that Neo loves Trinity? or its just that he must show that is mostly a machine by now?
Also could be a good climax for the end of the movie: at the end of the first Neo showed it can control the Matrix, at the second, he can control even the real world, but the last one, oh, would be great if Keanu finally shows that he can act.
Okay, yeah, so the philosophical stuff that goes on in the Matrix is fun and all, but what's in there that isn't a retread of Christianity, Buddhism, and solipsism? This isn't new stuff. If it's your first exposure to some of it, it could be interesting, but impacting comtemporary philosophy? Please.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
It's interesting to me that people hold the Matrix up to such high standards. Regardless of whether you find the philosophy within the Matrix intriguing or dull, one has to recognize that it has indeed caused a lot of discussion - something very few action movies can do.
There is no doubt that the movie was influenced heavily by religious and philosohpical ideologies. And whether offerred as merely a plot device or something more, it has led to numerous papers, forum discussions, and newspaper articles - all free advertising for the movie.
So it's either the brilliant mix of theology and philosophy into a cutting-edge action movie or a great marketing ploy.
Or both.
There's an unqualified statement and an opening for a larger discussion, repleat with flamewars and trolls, if ever there was one.
Perhaps define 'Great' first.
Many a popular movie has only said to me, 'People are cattle.'
Having said that, I did watch it Friday, along with about 25 other people. I wonder what the numbers people will have to say, but it looks like the initial novelty is wearing off pretty quick. Those who had to see it, did so.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Did anyone notice when they mention humans being imperfact, on the wall of tv's they show hitler, then bush and rumsfeld?
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.
That has to be the dumbest interpretation of The Matrix I have ever read.
Read Corporate Mofo's take and be corrected.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Is almost inexistent. Sure there is an interesting idea or two, but compared to real philosophy it's laughable. Heck, try to see almost any movie's script on paper. The dialogue is completely dumb. They throw you a nice idea or two that makes people go "hey!", but that's about it.
For a real, nice introduction to philosophy try with Sophie's Word by Jostein Garder. It's an easy and interesting book to read, and IMO an excellent starting point. There's much more philosophy in that book than in 20 Matrix sequels.
There is a current thread of anti-intellectualism these days that has caused many people to reject anything meaningful. "It's just a movie, repeat after me!"
There is also the problem of trendy counterculturalism, and a lot of people just refuse to like any of the Matrix movies because of how popular they are among geeks AND non-geeks alike--yet they'll freely latch onto Star Wars, almost strictly geek territory these days.
"Sufferin' succotash."
One thing worth mentioning is that they were paid. Professional philosophers, many with excellent reputations, have been hired to be a part of the PR aparatus of the movie industry. That's not to say that what they wrote was stupid (and if you read the papers, most mention--delicately--that the movie had some serious coherency problems). But their work is supposed to be the seed of a certain new source of buzz behind the movie.
The idea is that you go into the sequel expecting something really deep to happen. (It doesn't. I saw the sequel on opening night with 4 Ph.D's in philosophy who thought it was the worst movie since Highlander 2.)
It's a clever marketing strategy, because now a "hip" site like this one is presenting all this as buzz, when in reality it's a bit like paying people to clap at a talk to make the speaker look more interesting than he is.
I'm sure that the payouts to the philosophers cost about the same as 60 seconds of pointless chase scene footage, and with everyone biting the hook, it was apparently money well spent.
But don't mistake this for what it isn't: philosophers hate Matrix Reloaded, and giggle about the many conceptual gaffes in M1.
I really didn't like the whole "choice" aspect of the Matrix
You'll find out in the next film that the choice Neo made at the end of Reloaded was the culmination of the machine's plan to wipe out mankind and therefore VERY significant.
The machine's can not choose to destroy their creators, they need a human to make that choice. They tried 5 times before but each time "the one" chose wisely and saved humanity. This time however Neo has "taken responsibility for the death of every human being" according to the architect. 5 times the machines tried and failed, but this time (with the help of the oracle) they suceeded in getting "the one" to make a monumentally bad choice, by using his love for Trinity.
If you don't believe me then ask yourself why the architect told Neo that Trinity was in the matrix and about to die. If the architect wanted Neo to choose the door to the source, there is no reason to tell him about Trinity.
I agree with most in that the Matrix is simply a movie and NOT a meaningful work about philosophy or religion. However, when compared to most action movies of the last decade or so, the Matrix brilliant. I too was put off a bit by how all of the marketing of the movie focused on explosions and fight scenes but in the movie they served to illustrate a point. Neo, Morpheus, and many freed humans believed in this prophecy, given to them by the Oracle. The Oracle tells them to get the keymaker, keymaker tells them to get to the source, and so forth. So the whole movie has Neo and the others fighting the good fight for what they believe will bring them victory, but in all actuality they don't know what they are doing nor why they are doing it (something the Merovingian also tells them). Almost the entire movie is spent on this wild goose chase egged on by blind faith. The blind faith of the humans in the Matrix has many real world parallels from religion to politics, where a group of people fights tooth and nail for a cause they don't understand, just because someone said so. In my mind it was almost a parody. Hopefully the last Matrix will tie everything together in a meaningful manner. Still, its jus a movie, no major new philosophical or religious ideas are presented there.
Tha article is marginally about Matrix Reloaded. Frank Rich's main focus is on media control of American culture and information. He compares the hype of the film to the media coverage of the war. The consolidation of control of our information sources, and the lack of competition between media moguls is his primary concern. The current situation is bad enough, but in a few weeks the FCC will probably remove even more restrictions allowing even greater consolidation.
The most interesting thing about the article (IMHO) was Barry Diller's comment that most execs don't care about the films their studios make. They are distanced from the creative side of the film and only care about the profits and marketing possibilities. I hadn't considered that much, but it's interesting to note how far we've come from the days when David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock battled daily over "Rebecca".
The Matrix Reloaded took in $135 million in four days, and 230 million people voted for the finals of American Idol. That is the state of American culture today....draw your own conclusions.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I agree with you, you should have been instantly modded down. Too bad it didn't happen.
I already see some have replied to your post. So I'll just add one thing. Too many people were turned off from the movie because they simply did not understand it. It began asking many questions and throwing ideas out that one had to really think about. It really disappoints me that people are turned off from thinking once in a while. If all you expected from the movie was action, you got it. Do not complain about those that found a little more meaning to the movie than just some kicks and bullets.
Question everything.
Am I the only one who though Matrix Reloaded was long on car chases and short on story? Don't get me wrong, it blows the doors off junk like Steel Magnolias or such crap - but I would have preferred to see less action (not none, just not 60 mins worth) and more exploration.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
wow. whatever.
:)
there was the uptight starfleet commander
hippies
the mindless NEO worshippers in typical buddhist drag
the pilots wife with "my husband is a cop/fireman/pilot" syndrome and Im worried he'll never come back
EVERYBODY was a cliche. EVERYBODY was a stereotype.
everybody in the audience was a stereotype too
you dont see or hear about or see the truly free thinkers. they will never be, or go, or hangout where you do.
yes Im a stereotypical geek
At least I KNOW Im a stereotypical geek.
It is obvious the creators of the movie used myth and religion, that shouldn't be questioned. All of the people are named after mythic figures, such as Persephone and Niobe. All of the ships are named after places, such as the Nebukadnezar. The creators didn't name these things by pure coincedence. Only two questions come from this: 1. Did the writers do this to raise a philosophical question in today's modern age? 2. If so, did it work?
Of course you can take the world in The Matrix and apply it to the real world. Of course it would then be that the heroes (Neo et al) are more akin to Al-Qaeda than anything else. A quick synopsis:
A group find that the world is under repression from a foreign/alien force that has 99% of the world under its sway. Taking religious prophecy as mandate they stage a guerilla war against the agents of oppression. They also specifically state that although they are fighting for all of humanity, killing civilians is perfectly acceptable in the name of their goal (as agents can take them over, so better to kill them all anyway). Oh and the rebels have almost no plan for what would happen if they won (and the 9 billion batteries are freed).
I guess I spoke to quickly. I think Morpheus is more of an archtype for Osama Bin Laden: the hands-off spiritual center of the organization. I guess Neo would then be more like Mohammad Atta or Amyan Al-Zawahiri (who's the CEO of the Al-Qaeda org). Then you can finish it off with Trinity as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed... Cypher as Jose Padilla... Agent Smith as Dick Cheney... fun for all!
What is music when you despise all sound?
Here is it for those of you who want to read the other papers on the site. Philosophy & The Matrix
If kung fu, blank acting and lame sex constitute a religious leader, then lets have...
The Gospel According to Shinji
The Gospel According to Solid Snake
The Gospel According to Makoto Kusanagi
The Gospel According to Tetsuo
The Gospel According to Fei Fong Wong
"They're upset because they fear any non-Muslim influence in their society."
Of course they are upset, but not about religions, but of the people behind the religions. What makes you think that a religion-based state is a bad thing. The people have a right tho choose whatever government they like, don't they. Why then did America overthow democratical-elected representatives with totaliarans in some coutries?
Muslim religion: #include #include #include
There is another reason: They see Apache helicopters killing Palestinians in Gaza, which can only defend themselves by throwing stones back at them, and then you are wondering why some choose suicide missions and hate Americans. There is a thing called the "Arab pride and dignity".
About 4% of Iraq's population are Christian and they were able to
You're just being silly.
Karma: NaN
Its funny, with all the discussion of religion/etc surrounding the matrix, I've been realizing I'm sort of a "neo-Gnostic" ... I've felt this way all along, and although many of the gnostic "tenets" aren't in line with what I feel to be true, its the closest approximation of my internal ideas.
meh
... who is dumb when one third of people of the most-advanced nation can't locate thier country on the world map?
...will be disappointed.
Rather than a high-level and deep Science Fiction story, this series is going to be proven in the end to be a collection of cool concepts all rolled into a great package. That should *not*, however, be confused with deep Science Fiction.
Let me tell you what would be cool. We find out at the end that the entire movie was nothing but a simulation run by humans (or computers perhaps) designed to find/create/improve AI. That would be cool. But what this ending would do is alienate the large majority of viewers, and frankly, I think it's too high-level for the brothers to do. It would fill all the holes and make it rock (to me and other geeks), but it would make the whole thing suck for those who aren't into Sci-Fi heavily.
What they *are* going to do is go along the line of Smith being the Devil (makes a choice, falls from above, tries to take over), and Neo being the Christ and God figures to varying degrees, and they will battle it out. They are *not* in a second Matrix. Neo stopped the sentinels because he is part machine now - he simply gave them commands somehow. He is going to become one with the machine I think, and he is going to be working to unite man and machine again, while Smith tries to tear it all down.
So, what we are left with (if it goes the way I have described) is a series of major plot holes - problems that serious Science Fiction people cannot ignore:
-The human/battery/enerty thing (humans can live for years with a mostly dead brain in real life and support a body just fine - why the elaborate Matrix just to keep the mind going when it is unecessary?) Answer: You can't have the movie otherwise.
-Their take on future prediction (what are they asking us to believe - that there are supernatural powers as well? Is this Fantasy or Sci-Fi?)
-Notice that only the proper amount of force is ever applied in a situation. In the freeway scene, were they trying to kill anyone? How can an agent be stationary relative to Trinity and empty a clip and not hit her once? Why not make everyone in the vicinity into agents and ram the shit out of them? Why not take over an F-14 and rock them with some Hellfire missiles? Answer: Either the whole conflict was fake on purpose, or the whole thing was fake on accident. Either way though, there wasn't really any effort to kill anyone on the freeway otherwise they would have been dead. So the question is just whether that is a planned part of the movie or a stellar fuckup. I think b. You can't generally have good action without these perfect balances of good-guys vs. bad-guys, but in Science Fiction, *SCIENCE* should dictate some things. If a computer was trying to kill them folks on the freeway, and they had the resources that they have demonstrated all through the first and second movies (or *should* have given the situation), they would dead mofos. There wouldn't be these little applications of force here and there when it is convenient - it would be an overwhelming and deadly ammount of "fuck you up" applied with extreme predjudice. That is what a comptuer would do. (ever played SC on the high level AI? Computers know how to add and combine force to kill stuff - the fact that they don't do so in the Matrix requires some explanation)
-Another thing, the speech by the Architech - they have GOT to be kidding. The entire conversation could have taken place in around a fourth of the time. Why use all the big words and draw it out? Answer: To make it seem very deep - hiding from the average viewer the fact that the whole story is full of contradictions. The duped walk away saying, "That was deep." The geeks walk away saying, "What a load of shit."
So, all that being said, the Matrix is still awesome no matter how it turns out. Ideally I'd be completely wrong and the brothers would suprise me and bust out with something totally cool that makes sense. Unfortunately, that isn't likely, but either way, I'll be in Atlanta at an IMAX theater at the first showing.
In short, make no mistake, the Matrix is an AWESOME movie series - just don't make it into something it isn't.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
You're just in love with the flashy effects.
If you really were into philosophy, then you would've read up on it, or watched a movie that's not just an action flick masquerading as something else.
Problem with the young generation of today, is that they lack concentration and got zero attention span. Everything nowadays are abridged, dumbed down and laced with sugar (as in flashy action). People need to wind down and understand that some things are more complex and deserve more attention than the latest Britney Spears hit, or the latest episode of Friends.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
How do 'freed' people (like Trinity and Neo, et al.) who have mental disorders like, umh, body dismorphic disorders or anorexia see themselves in the Matrix? Surely some of these people must exist in a city of 250,000.
Do anorexic women appear as fat in the Matrix, because that's how they envision themselves in real time in contrast to how they really look?
How about doing hallucinagens and then getting the Matrix? Are there four-armed purple mushrooms tripping around in the streets?
Enquiring minds...
In case they don't know their asses from a hole in the ground (and the odds are good), let me explain my issue with this war on terror allegory.
Fact of the matter is, The Brothers had this entire trilogy mapped out well ahead of 9/11. Matter of fact, they had it mapped out before the first movie came out. They have had it more or less mapped since they originally sat down to write the first one.
It's just another way to tie anything and everything you can to the "war on terror". Which is quickly becoming a self-perpetuating war on the ground that nobody "in charge" wants to let go. For the media guys it is the easy out for the slow news days, requires the most scant journalistic skills to "cover", the gov. loves it because it's a universal reason for damn near anything, even if it makes no sense, they just append that "helps the war on terror" label to the end and viola, suddenly your burning flags and killing babies if you disagree.
And for the record I didn't oppose the war in Iraq, I think peace protesters are retarded, and I think both GW and Gore are about the worst possible choices for president. I'm not left or right or green or indy on this topic. I don't like stupidity, I don't trust the gov. (with very good reason).
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Thank you for this important contribution. Many of us would have previously been unaware that all Arab states were totalitarian, or indeed that Arab states and Muslim states were synonymous. And regarding the universal intolerance of other religions, one dreads to think what might have happened if it had become known that Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister was actually a Christian!
Heaven forbid that we should descend to the level of making sweeping remarks about cultures we know little about! And is it too much to ask that Slashdot not limit the plaudits we can confer on such incisive comments to merely 'insightful'? Surely a new category of 'revelatory' is justified, nay, demanded, for postings such as these?
If you're an American whose well off, secure and happy with themselves and their life you're more likely to see it as a plot device.
On the other hand, if you're struggling to raise a kid on two minimum wage jobs and lost 30 pounds making your own "single cell protein complex" in your kitchen 'cause you can't afford junk food then you have a damn near 100% chance of seeing yourself as one of The Man's 120V Duracells.
Error:
biblical history(or for you athiests...mythology) and events through more contemporary history.
the first matrix was a paradise, but humans could not live there due to their nature(garden of eden)
"profits" come and go (bibilical profits)
and neo would be analogus to the return of Christ.
given this and that the merovingin was born in the origional pardise matrix to a person who had rejected the "reality"(Cain from the bible) and the probability of an anomoly occuring in a given year(1/1000) it woudl suggest that you are due for an anomoly every 1000 years. given this I say that the matrix is 5000-7000 years old(it also follows the classical reasoning of how old the world is based on biblical texts)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The Matrix is some mishmash of mostly biblical myths, mostly Old Testament. For example, the city is called "Zion" and looks like a Middle Eastern bazaar and the ship is called the "Nebukadnezar". And the humans are faced with and enslaved by a powerful enemy. I suggest reading up on your Bible.
It could be that they just pilfered the Bible for ideas, with no goal in mind other than a lot of eye candy and stories people can relate to (the Bible is a great source of stories). Or, maybe they are using science fiction for "recruiting" people to some form of Judeo-Christian belief system. Or maybe they actually have a philosophical point somewhere.
Taken on their own, I am somewhat underwhelmed by the philosophical underpinnings of the first two episodes. Despite the punditry, to me, it doesn't live up to anything more than a flashy scifi story. I think the whole story probably have done better without the biblical allusions and pretenses. But perhaps the Wachowski brothers have something interesting to say when things get resolved in the third episode.
The patronizing attitude you have towards myself and my contemporaries (i.e. academic philosophers) shows just how much you should have taken a few of the classes when you were in college.
If you're not old enough to have taken college classes, then frankly you shouldn't talk about things beyond your kin.
Philosophy serves to do a few things, at the bare minimum: 1, encourage people to critically analyze everything in their life, in the pursuit of enlightenment (be it purely intellectual or possibly mystical), 2, enable people to better apply critical reasoning to every-day problems including everything from law to science to programming.
To overly simplify philosophy as the glib "people who get paid to think of what life might mean" grossly fails to appreciate the depth of the field. The majority of philosophy today deals with epistemology (the study of knowledge, both in terms of its form and its function), ethics (the study of moral systems) and meta-ethics (the study of the origins and basis of moral systems).
"Stumble before you crawl"
The first time i saw Matrix I thought it drew out a lot from other existing philosophies (religions).
For example one saviour thinking is not new - its been there in Christianity and Islam. Hinduism itself is based on the philosophy of reincarnation - which states that what you see around you (materialistic self) is not what is real (sounds familiar ?). Your soul (mind in matrix) is the real you - which can be passed on from one body to another (yes you could be born a dog in your next life). Realization of this truth (again a Matrix import)is considered to be a part of the learning the path of spirituality.
Fatalism described in Matrix is also not new to the field of religion. Its common in budhism &
there is also a belief in Hinduism that all of us are merely puppets & god (here machines) is the who controls the course of our lives while we merely experience it.
No wonder there is a lot of discussion w.r.t to philosophy & Matrix. There seems to have been a lot of it that went into creation of this Matrix story.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Did anyone else notice the parent post was modded +5 insightful around 2:45PM EST, then down to +2 insightful 15 minutes later without any of it being shown in the moderation summary box?
I can't tell if he's biased against movies, but I agree that the Matrix isn't particularly deep--it's a good excuse to put Anime action on the screen, wear cool clothes and whip out Philosophy 101 phrases.
Professors are discussing it because it is popular, not because it has brought any new insights to anyone--the same folks discuss the meaning of Star Wars and The Force when that broke big.
Movies are a tremendous medium, and I very much enjoyed the first Matrix movie, but at the end of the day I think it is much more a well-executed plot device and setting than anything that shines real light on our reality.
That's fine with me...so far as I'm concerned, i wish RELOADED had stayed further away from bad, stagey speeches and stuck with action and mystery.
People love this Tolkien quote. Problem is, I think he's full of it...one of the main reasons his work caught fire with the public was because of the resonances with the coming of technology, the rise of fascism, etc. If Tolkien was resolutely bone-headed enough to deny that the "real world" has impact on his book, that's fine--but even though he wrote it, it doesn't mean he understood what sources drove the writing.
I read it...and its pompous attitude and loose, half-baked references don't add up to much. It's the worst kind of theological scholarship--you take the number of times Zion has been restarted (5), find something that occurs in that pattern (5 books of Moses) and start building.
I'm sure some of it is on the money, but that doesn't obviate the larger problems--we don't care about the people in a real way, the writing is super clunky, the acting is pretty poor...
Well, I understand it...and it's still only a movie with some beautful action scenes and terrible lows, much inferior to the original. Cloaking its flaws in an aura of mysteriousness is a sham.
Ughh... please don't say the Matrix was influential in terms of fight choreography. That's like saying Vanilla Ice was an influential force in Hip-Hop.
Could you list some of the questions that 'The Matrix' posed you? I'd sincerely be interested to read them.
Trinity was driving a caddy. There were some oldsmobiles in it, though. GM "donated" some 800ish cars to the movie.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
OR very much like a big action movie, and nothing like a Russian political movement at all.
Sounded to me a lot like B1663R or Bigger
German philosophy has killed more Russians than the German military!
heheh ... thats the silliest thing I've ever read. "Biased against movies"? I even said the matrix was "good" but not "great". I liked it, thought it was entertaining ... but its definatley not "deep" like you said.
The Matrix is the answer to the question, "What plot device can we use to make the most awesome action sequences ever?"
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
And fell asleep half-way through. Granted, it was in German and I'm a native English speaker, but nevertheless.
...
The Matrix is tired violent film with 'supposed philosophical' value (as if every violent film wasn't pitched this way).
It is Formula Hollywood at its finest.
French film is better at this sort of thing. They don't have to market French films to White American Christians, like Hollywood does, and if you don't think this affects philsophical bias in film pitch, well then
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Much of literature and art reflect the current thoughts, feelings and questions of their time. Take a look at a novel like Frankenstein. At that time, semi-complex machines were coming into their own, while medicine was starting to understand the different organ systems of the human body. A novel like Frankenstein reflects the questions of that time in history. Given what they then knew about the human body and its various parts, what made a human being? Was it a sum of the individual parts (cogs in a machine) or something more?
The Matrix is a modern piece of art/literature that engages the questions we face from our technology in this era. We will soon be able to create alternate realities, what does this mean? Are they real? Our machines may become smarter than us, is this a good thing? How do we maintain control? How would the machines maintain control? (hence the "hacker programs" in Reloaded.
You could say that this is just a movie, just like Frankenstein was just a book, but they both offer insight into their times and just by dealing with their subject matter, they both make philosophical arguments about the world around them. I think it is a blast to engage those arguments -- they make me think about myself and my world (and in the case of The Matrix I get to see some amazing visuals too).
For the W. brothers in Revolutions to deliver an intentionally lame and anti-climatic ending, such as the entire Matrix existing in an Atari 2600. I can see it now, thousands of trenchcoat- wearing acne faced teens, goatee-wearing philosphy graduate students, and the entire geek community having to be put on suicide watch due to the tremendous let down at the meaning of life having it's root in pong and space invaders.
Will there be objections if gorillas were the source of energy for the Matrix instead of humans? Afterall, all the Matrix wants is energy, raw and pure. Surely a silverback gorilla produces more watts than a human being. There are many organisms, or mammals if you want, that have higher metabolism rates -yet- smaller brains which are more efficient energy sources for the Matrix. The world according to gorillas is probably simpler, and thus the Matrix does not need the extra code to simulate psyche, self-awareness, self-preservation, and ultimately, consciousness and the concept of good and evil, thereby making sure a Saviour will not be born which threatens the survival of the Matrix itself. No wait, only realise that the humans are the Matrix in this real world, for we are doing to animals what the Matrix did to humans. Except we don't want energy from them: we keep pets to entertain us. we build zoos to entertain us. we breed lab mice to test our medicine. we sent monkeys to space first. we use dolphins to disarm sea-mines. snakes are delicacies. tiger penis are great tonics. shark's fins taste great. whales make great cosmetics. you get the idea.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
"Java sucks, Linux sucks, The Matrix Reloaded sucks" - me, myself and I
I'm sure some of it is on the money, but that doesn't obviate the larger problems--we don't care about the people in a real way, the writing is super clunky, the acting is pretty poor... ...but to the guy at Mofo, it's all because the "unenlightened" don't realize the subtle brilliance.
Okay, so your problems aren't the philosophy, but instead the movie's presentation. I thought your argument was about the philosophical underpinnings? Turns out you just don't like the movie period. It all makes sense now.
Like I said, there are people who just hate to like popular films. Some website points out the obvious philosophical references in the movie, and now you mock him for ignoring the "larger problems," of which you never mentioned or seemed to have a problem with in the first place. I love misinformed bias because it is so easy to point out.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I really think you should wait before analyzing the philosophy of the Matrix too deeply. It is clear that there is much more to come in the third film and they really haven't touched their core thoughts yet.
I happen to agree with most of the posters: the core philosophy, even incomplete, is totally self-serving self-involved rubbish. Late night college freshman bullshit sessions. But I don't care. I thought it was hilarious. And beautiful. What more could I want?
Why does everyone ignore the fact that near the end of the movie, Neo's ability to stop the sentinels shows clearly that the 'real world' is really just another layer in the Matrix. Isn't it OBVIOUS? Or am I missing something...
Maybe it has no deep philosophical meaning, but are you sure the you are the one who can judge?
To me the more important thing is that it made a LOT of people think about some aspects in their lifes, it really made them THINK. If those people are having really deep thoughts is another matter, but the started thinking. IMHO this is just great. Name a movie that started more philosophical (no matter how superficial) than Matrix. And if you need a lot of car crashs and flying bullets to reach this, it's just fine with me.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
A number of people I know can't believe that I can love Motzart, have enough musical traning to analize it, and yet still love things like Marylin Manson.
Some people just can't accept that anything popular is any good. Sometimes it goes even further and they can't accept that anything new is any good. I've heard peopel claim that no good or significant music has been made since the 1800s.
There has just been a huge amount of whining from these kind of people with the release of the new Matrix because it is so popular and so good. I think it is a pretty hard movie not to enjoy, unless the action/sci-fi thriller genre is something you just don't like. So the problem is they find themselves enjoying it and liking it. Worse, they may even find themselves considering some of the deeper meaning. Well this disturbs them since, as you say, it is trendy to not be trendy. So they lash out at it and try to discount it as worthless.
Alternatively, your professor was either a kook and had no clue what he was doing, or had a mean streak and wanted to see just how much bullshit his students would absorb. And I bet you all ate it up greedily.
I'd say, for starters, that The Matrix did a fairly large bit of at least number 1. There are plenty of people out there (the majority, I'd say, unfortunately) who stumble through life in a completely unconsidered fashion without something as basic as the Allegory of the Cave ever occuring to them.
I like to think The Matrix got their heads churned up a bit.
+++ATH0
Damn right. I always considered people saying "well isn't that an interesting idea that we actually could be living in a matrix and that all our life is just an imagination" to be really superficial morons. I always tell those people "look around, the matrix is all around you. And it isn't even trying to hide itself." Funny thing is that the movie is part of the Matrix itself.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
This has nothing to do with people who hate popular films on some principle, as that isn't me. Those people are annoying, I agree.
If you'd quote from my first paragraph, you'd see that I addressed how the essay at Mofo was constructed--it's bad theology and bad philosophy washed together, using whatever symbology is at hand cobbled together to fit.
I thought RELOADED was fun enough, but a bad sequel to a great film--it had some wonderful set pieces (particularly the freeway chase) but since it doesn't hang together as a film, it doesn't hang together as ad hoc philosophy.
I thought the mofo article gives the film too much credit for cleverness, which doesn't pay off in any tangible way and does almost nothing to enlighten.
We can discuss its philosophy and whether it is "deep"...but you can do that to anything. I don't think the film really earns the depths some claim for it.
I meant "I can't tell" as "others may claim he is, but I have no idea and don't care" not "I suspect he is a secret movie hater." Sorry for the misinterpretation.
I agree with that review in many ways, however I think that the Matrix will be destroyed and rebuilt again and that the third movie will end with the scene from The Matrix (I), with Neo waking up in front of his computer and seeing the following on the monitor: "Hello, Neo"
You can't handle the truth.
When I first left the theatre, my impression of the movie could be summed up as "Dime store philosophy occasionally interrupted by really cool fight scenes". It wasn't until a few days later that I realized the real value of the film: Figuring it out. The movie differs from a serious work of philosophy on the grounds that it doesn't (and probably can't) show us anything new about our world, the condition of man, the nature of the creator, etc. It's not supposed to. It's a work of fiction.
But it is enjoyable, insofar as it's fun to try to understand the constructs of an imaginary world. It reminds me of late night BS sessions in college when we tried to figure out what David Lynch movies were really about. Sure, largely a masturbatory exercise, but entertaining nonetheless. In the Matrix world, it seems we have a prime example of a new form of entertainment: pop-deconstructionism. A form of interactive entertainment not initially conceived (probably) by its creators where understanding the work outside of the work becomes more fulfilling then the film itself.
But in that context, it's easy to confuse these exercises with real philosophy. By rooting itself (albeit loosely) in various mythologies, religious and philosophical readings of being, many people seem to confuse the Matrix as a new work that is an extension of those initial thought systems because the processes are so similar; both in the real world of religious and philosophical exploration and in this work of fiction, the goal is to figure out the overriding cosmology of the universe. But it's as if some believe that understanding the fictional Matrix will help them understand the world better.
They won't. They are two very different things. The Matrix is a fantasy world that exists in a easily defined universe. It has a known creator (the writers), and will probably have a known conclusion where all is explained. Once all is revealed, we will be no closer to understanding our real world.
I for one will enjoy it. I'll enjoy picking apart clues in the make believe world of the Matrix films to try to understand what's really going on. But in the end, when it's all over and I am proven right or wrong, I won't have any new insights into the nature of man. It's just a movie.
The Internet is generally stupid
More generally, though, I think you're way off the mark to complain that people were finding meaning that you didn't intend. I think this is the ultimate compliment -- they found your work to be applicable to other experiences you hadn't thought of.
-Esme
Ok, then.
Give me an example of a story with depth. Not a psychological text, but a real, honest-go-goodness story.
George Lucas was a keen social sciences student before he discovered film, and he was specifically taken with anthropology, sociology and psychology. I recall seeing an interview years ago where he compared The Force to Jung's collective unconscious, as an all-encompassing, all-permeating energy that connects all people. There was more, which I can't recall, but archetypal stories such as Star Wars, The Matrix and others all draw on philosophy, theology and other social sciences, whether we want to admit it or not. You should read this interview with George Lucas where he says:
Also take a look at this article about the influence of anthropologist Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces on George Lucas and his thinking... all from the same year, all exploring the same consepts of reality.
/klang
The Third Level of Reality will reveal itself fully in the next installment of The Matrix. This "Third Level" has already shown itself with Neo's last act in 'Reloaded'.
The multitude of screens displaying Neo in the Architect's room could be taken as an explanation of future prediction in the movie: the computers can model human reactions well enough to do a Monte Carlo simulation and (based on the number of the simulated people who react in each way) estimate probabilities of certain events happening. Some of those events turn out to be so likely that they can even be called "prophecies".
This only explains the Oracle's future prediction and not Neo's, but "How can Neo predict the future?" is going to have to get in line behind "How can Neo affect machines in what we think is real life" on my list of stuff I want explanations for.
Hey! I happen to have an '87 Chevy Celebrity, and it brings me the .... ah, nevermind.
The reason this and other movies of earlier generations become pseudo-religions is really due to the abdication of responsibility by the media. They're all trying desperately to attract a young audience so they become part of the hype machine (largely paid for by the movie studios) that blankets the world with overweighted coverage of the film. People are then naive enough to think that they're missing something and so go to see the film, start talking about it, discussing it on slashdot and once again we have the newest pseudo-religion.
It's probably all a bit worse than it was twenty years ago but more or less the same. About the only thing that's changed is the full scale abdication of critical responsibility by the media. Now the NYT has jumped in as well. Only the Wall Street Journal treated it as a movie, not a philosophic event, of all the newspapers I know of. Pretty sad.
We are fed with pop-culture, just like we are fed with a junk/fast food. Matrix and Star Wars just two manifest of this surrogate culture, or philosophy, or whatever. We are no longer capable of absorb an authentic philosophy, we need something in a form of action movie. This is fairly trivial. What's new is NYTimes sucking up to pop culture.
One idea in my head is that the architect is part of the machine, so why should neo trust him? For all that BS the old white guy was spewing out, both doors might lead to the exact same outcome. Thus the "illusion" of choice that the system needed. It's like tossing a coin with heads on both sides. No matter what happens, the machine wins.
Why do all of us take the architect's BS on face value? The oracle was just leading Neo on, and I think the whole movie series is just some action scenes, and some cool music, but not especially interesting to think about after my 2 year long (still unsucessful) grappling with Satre's ideas, (a real french guy)
That was just a cop-out on his part. He smoked cigars, which can be seen as phallic symbols.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Philosophy serves to do a few things, at the bare minimum: 1, encourage people to critically analyze everything in their life, in the pursuit of enlightenment (be it purely intellectual or possibly mystical
Bzzt. You are either a. a sorry troll b. a really lousy Philosophy prof.
Pursuit of enlightenment, intellectual or MYSTICAL? Gave yourself away right from the start. I'm sure you don't find anything funny about going to a store like Waldenbooks and finding I Ching and Feng-shui books next to Kant and Betrand Russell in the Phil section.
Derek@philosophyonmyBA.edu
Why is it that this very open-source-friendly collection of individuals here at Slashdot is so afraid of being held responsible for their [irresponsible] moderations?
I think you just answered your own question.
The mods are on crack
What better way to get kids into religion than saying "You see, Jesus was the One, much like Neo in the Matrix?"
RELIGION is the key word here. There is a lot of theology and mythological references in the Matrix, but it's light on real nitty gritty philosophy. But most people think that crap in the "New Age" section at the bookstore is Philosophy. It's not. And other than a healthy dose of Cartesian doubt, these movies are Philosophy free.
Derek
Zion is not another Matrix. It is a real place. The machines round up all the 1% that rejects the Matrix code and systematically kills each one of them. Then the cycle begins again... thus the reason Neo is offered the chance to select some amount of people to rebuild Zion - the machines need it so they can keep the Matrix functioning perfectly.
So how can Neo kill off those machines? Since he now shares this connection with Agent Smith, thus the machines, he can feel the sentinels. Now either it's an EMP blast from the other ship that kills the Sents (and thus sends Neo into a coma as he is part of the machine world too) or Neo is able to somehow stop them but it is too much for his body and he faints. Whatever.
Either way, the guy who wrote that article is an elitist, pompous, pretentious asshole. Oh... oh... you go to the health food store to buy soy milk. Good for you fake ass theological/philosophy scholar loser.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
Right on. It was exactly like watching a David Lynch picture like Twin Peaks, in that you think, maybe at the end of all this Artistic Footage there will emerge an Artistic Vision or even a Plot. Then you sit all the way through to the end, and it ain't there... just two basic scenes repeated, 1) a guy in a bell-bottomed Nehru jacket does karate with a bunch of FBI agent types; intercut with 2) a sci-fi world where they have spaceships, but everybody lives in caves and carries torches 'cause they don't have flashlights.
However, I do have to say that the farther away I am from having seen Reloaded, the more diappointed I become. In the first movie, the philosophy and action were integral to the plot. While there were kick-ass fighting set pieces, they were important to moving the story along. In the new movie, it feels like both the philosophy and the fighting were bolted on to a run-of-the-mill action pic (ex. A: Why is Neo fighting 100s of Smiths if he can just fly away?).
I'm willing to reserve full judgment until I see how it ends, but I'm a little more concerned and less jazzed about the next movie.
CC
The article behind that link is a pretty much outstanding one - very interesting reading.
On a side note, I nearly fell from my chair laughing when I read this very true sentence:
Cause and effect, while repeatedly observed to be true, is not a basis for an entire philosophy, either.
Especially since Hume shot it all to hell oh, 300 years ago.
Derek
One of the questions on an English test I once had was, what does the river in Huckleberry Finn symbolize? We had discussed the "correct answer" in class (although I don't recall what it was). Discussing how it could metaphorically represent something was certainly interesting, and encourages students to think about something they may not otherwise have thought about, but I couldn't help but wonder whether Mark Twain would have gotten the "correct answer".
If Twain had explained that he actually intended that allegorical connection, that would be different, and perhaps he did, but if so that was never mentioned anywhere in class (and I doubt it).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
People also interpret "Stairway to Heaven" as "deep". That doesnt mean it is.
Certainly, the Matrix alludes to many things. But people are going overboard with it. For example, read The Corporate Mofo's Guide to Matrix: Reloaded. Now, some of it makes sense, but then theres things like "Neo's five previous incarnations represent the Five Books of Moses that make up the Old Testament." WHAT??? In places, its hard to tell if the guide is supposed to be satire or not.
But yes, they did put some meaning behind some things. But for the most part, they put a bunch of stuff into a movie, and are letting the fans tell them what it means. Like "Stairway to Heaven"...
and your assumptions excluded any philosophers who beleive there's a spiritual side to enlightenment.
Of course then it would be THEOLOGY, not Philosophy. The "spiritual" isn't conducive to rational, empirical analysis. I don't know where YOU are going to school, but any such talk about "enlightenment" in such breathless terms would warrant a bemused pat on the head. Perhaps you go to Berkeley?
Derek
About the same time The Matrix (the first one) hit the big screen, there was these two other movies that roughly addressed the reality issue: these movies were Existenz from David Cronenberg and The Thirteenth Floor from Josef Rusnak. It is interesting how these three movies looked at the nature of reality.
What The Matrix did that was missing from the other two movies were the spectacular and highly innovative special effects, of course, but beyong this, I would like to add what others above in this discusison thread are dismissing, the phylosophical question about reality.
This subject is far from new. Platon in his famous Allegory of the Cave were already exploring it.
Modern physics is seriously redefining the nature of reality itself with the introduction of probability in Quantum Mechanics (you should read John Gribbin's In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality ).
What the Wachowski brothers did in The Matrix were to re-circulate some of the ideas floating around from ages in a modern action-packed and innovative sci-fi context. And I guess this is why this movie were so popular. The second incarnation of the matrix movie (The Matrix Reloaded) were addressing another issue. The central question were more the meaning of (our individual) existence than the nature of reality. I suspect that the Wachowski brothers will merge these two issues into the same story in Revolutions.
Tigertigr, burning bright
in the forests of the night,
what mortal hand or eye
can frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tigertigr, I agree with you that a simulated world is always inferior to the real thing. This brings the question of whether inhabitants of the matrix should be able to discover imperfections. The matrix creators can't model the real world in all details correctly all the time. Perhaps an astute observer within the matrix can catch the matrix AI in the act of omission, and find a contradiction that shows the matrix world is too imperfect to be real.
The movie hinted at some imperfections, ESP, angels, and ghosts, but people inside the matrix interpreted experiences with ESP, angels, and ghosts within their own belief systems. Lots of New-Agers unthinkingly accept ESP, and many participants in traditional religions accept angels. These kinds of imperfections do not cause people to doubt their own reality. So, let's talk about a deeper imperfection, beyond the realm of what is easily observed by humans in everyday life.
Can any matrix imperfection be objectively and repeatedly observed - or even produced at will? As objective phenomenon, they are less likely to be unthinkingly incorporated into a religion or any other aggregate belief system. Instead, as measurable and testable phenomenon, they are within the realm of science.
But how would these imperfections show up in science? To answer this, we must go to the sciences closest to the limits of what we can know about our world. The sciences closest to the basic building blocks of nature are quantum physics and cosmology. If there are matrix imperfections to be found, they are here.
We may find events beyond are ability to explain - but such events do not mean that the rules for the universe are themselves wrong, inconsistent, or contradictory. After all, the Pythagorean theorem is true, but a chimp could never understand it. Such knowledge is beyond a chimp's mental abilities. - but perhaps not forever. The real rules of universe can produce events always beyond our ability to comprehend even though we are much smarter than chimps. The kind of event we are looking for is not just unusual and hard to understand. Let's call that kind of problem a mere lack of understanding on our part. What we seek is an obvious contradiction or deep inconsistency within physics. Let's call these contradictions a real, but subtle, problem with the universe itself.
We have already found such inconsistencies: quantum physics is incompatible with general relativity. Both theories have been tested and seem consistent and correct on their own. All attempts over several decades to unite these failed. Although they describe very different realms (the very small vs the very large), they provide very different explanations for a basic force: gravity. And not just different, but contradictory. Other contradictions exist within quantum physics - such as the decay of neutral pions violates parity conservation. More problems, such as the 2-slit experiment and the Aspect experiment are hints that the universe is not what it seems.
As humanity looks back into the abyss of time, we learn more about the first moments of the universe. As we do so, we can test ever more rigorously theories about inflation and the overall nature of the cosmos. Will newer observations rule out various models of the universe and constrain others to the point than any remaining models contain contradictions with other models of physics? Will our understanding of the early cosmos show even deeper problems in quantum physics or general relativity? As Sherlock Holmes posited, "Once the obvious has been eliminated, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
In mathematics, the presence of a single contradiction shows that the first premises are inconsistent. If the first premises are he very axioms used to create that mathematical system, then one contradiction shows they are incompatible with each othe
Like I've said before, I refuse to take anything seriously that spouts such nonsense as "Neo's five previous incarnations represent the Five Books of Moses that make up the Old Testament."
Insane... I suppose them calling Neo the "One" means he represents a fictional soft drink, correct?
I guess I'll be spending a little time downtown. -n
http://www.remix.net/
But *why* does it matter if Twain intended that connection, so long as others find it to be present? If you look at marxist and feminist critical theory in particular, the things that authors didn't know or didn't intend their stories to reveal may say more about the tale, the author and society than what they actually meant to imply.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Like I've said before, I refuse to take anything seriously that spouts such nonsense as "Neo's five previous incarnations represent the Five Books of Moses that make up the Old Testament."
Why not? It's interesting you don't give a reason to call it nonsense. Clearly, you have no reasoning behind your argument. You just don't like the movie. To ignore the Gnostic references in the movie is "insane."
Insane... I suppose them calling Neo the "One" means he represents a fictional soft drink, correct?
Wow, that was lame and fell flat.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I think he meant to say that human brains make up stuff. Some more than others.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
An arch is also a way of keeping the ceiling from falling on your head.
-Dave
Excellent review.
:) Although the one in the mountain castle was a tad drawn out.
....." scroll by for 2 minutes solidly? :) )
Personally, I was very taken with the whole ongoing cycles of creation thing. Nice to see some Eastern philosophy understood and incorporated.
To me, the line is becoming more and more blurred between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" as these films go on. Morpheus is turning into some sort of cult leader (and a potentially dangerous one... pure belief is not always the best reason to do things), Neo is getting weirder, and Smith of course played a pivotal role in not getting them killed near the end (by accident, but "everything happens for a reason"). Plus all of the little teasers and odd throw-away lines which tie in with philosophical ideas throughout the ages. I came out of the cinema thinking "wow, finally another movie with intelligence in its core".
And of course, kick-ass fight scenes
(Given the huge, 10-minute credit list at the end, does anyone else think they should have really taken the piss by having "Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving; Hugo Weaving;
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
The philosophical depths of the movie are certainly there, as evidenced by cast interviews (Hugo Weaving had to ask for the books of German philosophers to understand some scenes). There are specific references to certain texts which are undeniable.
Whether or not you like the rest of the movie is understandable (though one must keep in mind that Reloaded is being treated as the first half of one whole movie).
I am simply amused at people who find a few philosophical references and suddenly can't post fast enough to decry them as superficial and "junk food" so they can feed their superiority complex simply because they read some philosophy books in college. Obviously, a two hour movie is not going to go to the same depths of a textbook, and nobody is claiming that it is. However, the movie raises questions and implications that many people enjoy discussing--including experts in the field, which, for some reason, seems to threaten the counterculturalists around here who hate anything that lends credence to the philosophical questions raised by the Matrix (but, strangely enough, love Star Wars).
"Sufferin' succotash."
My point was to show that the parent's statement was bordering on nonsense.
"EVERY great story, from Shakesphere to Comic Books, is great because it says something. The Matrix has as much a "philisophical meaning" as anything else that's ever been written--that is to say, the authors mean it to say something, and they pull it off with a fair bit of success."
Not everything has some deep, philosophical meaning under the surface. The Matrix may or may not, I'm not concerned with that. I simply disagree with the quoted statement, and used a nonsensical anecdote to (attempt to) illustrate my point.
Your brain is not a computer.
Sadly, it is true.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You feel threatened by a popular movie holding such meaning to the masses. It is okay; conformity is not necessarily vulnerabilty.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
People don't ignore it; it's an obvious possibility. However, there are other more likely reasons for Neo's powers in the real world, likely stemming from his connection to Agent Smith.
If Zion were another Matrix, there would be no reason to drill down and destroy it physically; simply killing off those particular crops of humans in the pod rooms would be sufficient. However, there is no way to be sure until seeing the rest of the story in November.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You're right, it isn't DEEP. But it did dabble in various philosophic ideas. Our reaction to this movie is interesting because most movies don't present these themes at all. Plus, I think most are overreacting to these themes. I don't believe these themes are there to derive deeper meaning to the film or life, they are there to give the characters logical motivation. It also gives us, the audiance, a cool game to play as we untangle the motivations and guess the next move.
I don't think that cast interviewes should ever indicate whether a work has depth or meaning--there is a long tradition in Hollywood of actors doing all sorts of deeply unnecessary things to "prepare" for roles, as Hollywood has a love affair with method-type "immersion" crap. (Disclosure: I am an actor.)
So the question, for me, isn't whether there are depths--the question is whether those depths actually lead anywhere, or have been sprinkled throughout to give a disingenuous sense of psedotexture to the whole enterprise.
It may be philosophy--I just question it being depth.
Most definitely not true.
Tolkein was against allegory, not meaning.
He maintained that allegory locked a reader into the author's interpretation of the work, rather than freeing him to explore their own meaning.
Your own example of a story/poem about a walk is roughly what Tolkein deplored: you loaded it with your own meaning, in order to deny others their own meanings.
"Machines took over but kept humans for our value as energy? Wow, so we produce more energy than nuclear reactions?"
The one item everyone tends to forget is that it was Morpheus that said humans were kept for energy. Given that Morpheus was lied to, we can assume that this was a lie as well. In fact, he contradicts himself in the first Matrix when he points to the fact that humans are used along with fusion.
Possible alternatives are that the first people plugged into the Matrix voluntarily, that people are being used as parallel computers, or that it is only a movie.
The matrix' is perhaps Dickian, but Dick isn't a 'straight' gnostic himself. They both propagate more like a mix of gnostism and hermetism. Using science to 'crack open the world' is much more a hermetic practice than it is typical for gnostics. The matrix has even more obvious hereticism in it than most of Dicks novels ('as above, so below' for instance: die in the matrix and you die in the real world).
Then there is the fact that gnosticism isn't unchristian in itself; there have been gnostic christians throughout the history of the religion, lots of them in the early period (before orthodox christians wiped them out) some of them in the medieval period (like the french cathars, also wiped out by fellow christians), some in the enlightment (like William Blake) and there is a growing number of gnostic christians today. Of course most of those christian gnostics form the past where burned at the stake for heracy, but so where lots of protestants.
"I submit that it's not really AMERICAN culture, but pervasive POP-CULTURE."
Then why not say; Lazy Pop Culturites? A bit of tact goes a long way.
"MUCH MUCH less of the people that went went because the movie is the most intelluectually stimulating movie in 10 years."
I certainly hope not. This was far from the most stimulating film (intellectually or otherwise) in the past ten years. Don't get me wrong, the original Matrix was ok for what it was but it wasn't 'deep' and it certainly was not science fiction. Science fiction is a term that gets thrown around WAY too much. You want sci-fi? Go read something by Larry Niven. You're not going to find decent sci-fi at the movies or on TV.
"Some people won't be able to consider what is below the surface of the Matrix....these are the people that you can't really get into intellectual converstations with, and usually lead simpler lives."
Yeah, here we go again. The rantings of 'if you didnt like the matrix its because you didnt understand the matrix'. This is pure crap. The Matrix brings up no more questions about the 'whats real' arguement than did Total Recall and probably countless other films before that. It's not deep, it's more like the first day at any reputable Philosophy 101 class.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I, too, doubt the theories that Zion is another Matrix. It is being brought up due to Neo's apparent real-world powers, which I think stem from an entirely different reason. I don't think an EMP triggered the dropping of the Sentinels. It seemed clear that it was Neo raising his hand and physically stopping them himself. We'll have to wait for the explanation.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Like I've said before, I refuse to take anything seriously that spouts such nonsense as "Neo's five previous incarnations represent the Five Books of Moses that make up the Old Testament."
Why not? It's interesting you don't give a reason to call it nonsense. Clearly, you have no reasoning behind your argument.
Oh, thanks. Now I'm stuck with burden of proof? Corporate Mofo certainly doesnt justify it, why do they get off so easy? I'm sorry, I dont accept something to be true because 2 numbers match up, and a website I've never heard of says its true.
You just don't like the movie. To ignore the Gnostic references in the movie is "insane."
Actually, I thought the movie was pretty decent. Now you're defending against arguments I didnt make? Okay, you win.
Insane... I suppose them calling Neo the "One" means he represents a fictional soft drink, correct?
Wow, that was lame and fell flat.
Why? It's interesting you don't give a reason to call it lame. Clearly, you have no reasoning behind your argument.
Duh, all the BATTERIES are on the SURFACE. lol
Sorry, seemed an obvious joke. I had to take the shot.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I agree The second movie's plot took a lot more thinking and close attention to understand. I think it made perfect sense but I had to spell it out for my friends.
Although I do believe that some of it was almost too obscure. I mean one line by Smith changes nearly the whole equation of what will happen in the future
*sigh* misspelled hermeticism twice.
Philosophy and religion is nothing but a load of crap, anyway.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
There are people defending the Matrix as a good movie getting modded up. On slashdot! What the hell happened? Have I woken up in a different matrix or something?!
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
"Many of us would have previously been unaware that all Arab states were totalitarian, or indeed that Arab states and Muslim states were synonymous."
Funny, I never said that either. Examine Kuwait for example...
"And regarding the universal intolerance of other religions, one dreads to think what might have happened if it had become known that Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister was actually a Christian!"
Yeah, I'd like to see some confirmation of this. Maybe it's true but highly unlikely in a state that executed people for praciticing rites that were of a different sect of the Muslim religion. Go ask a shiite.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Just because you're biased against movies doesn't mean that the Matrix isn't "deep."
Amen. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is the meaning. If you can deduce some deep insights from Matrix - then more power to you. Sorry but I will skip on Matrix.
It is not that everyone objects to movies with deep ideas, there are a lot of them ( movies that is ). It's just that characters in Matrix are too cool, they are more like a robots.
I think it is a long term trend of image taking over the substance and this movie exploits its very well. Take Tarkovsky's Solaris, it hardly had any graphics, let along CG, almost pure substance. Or his other movie 'Andrei Rublev', it is intentionally black and white with exception of couple of scenes at the end. I guess you can see that I like Tarkovsky, but that's beside the point that not everyone who does not like Matrix is elitist (of which I was accused here) and not everyone who likes it is a shallow.
Many will consider that a cop-out; however, considering the upcoming Matrix Online game takes place after the events of Revolutions, that is a valid possibility.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You question the motivation of the movie's philosophy because you can't accept that such a pop culture film would be genuine in its attempts. Fair enough, though the Wachowskis are known for what they do. Considering how inaccessible Matrix Reloaded actually is, I'm surprised anyone could be suspicious of its motives.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Last week's New Yorker had a piece by Adam Gopnik tracing the philosophical roots of the Matrix: apparently the phrase 'desert of the real' is from Baudrillard (and he might even be thinking about suing for a screen credit!)--and in the first film the book Neo hides his data discs in is Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation'
[The piece was online last week, but now it's nowhere to be found.]
Oh, thanks. Now I'm stuck with burden of proof?
How are we to have a discussion if you don't give your reasons for disagreeing with the fact that there are philosophical references in the movie that you, for whatever reason, choose to ignore?
Corporate Mofo certainly doesnt justify it, why do they get off so easy? I'm sorry, I dont accept something to be true because 2 numbers match up, and a website I've never heard of says its true.
The Wachowskis are well-known for using these sorts of philosophical and religious sources for the Matrix movies. I assume you were unaware.
Why? It's interesting you don't give a reason to call it lame. Clearly, you have no reasoning behind your argument.
It was lame and flat because, quite frankly, it was a bizarre attempt at some sort of mocking point that didn't address anything. Of course Neo doesn't represent a soda. How odd.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yes, but if you take Marxist or Radical Feminist 'critical theory' (read 'apophenia') seriously, you are either a member of one of these two tribes of 'identity politics' professional victims, or you are a member of the racial-ethnic-religious-gender-income group that they want to feel victimized by, and feel guilty for it, probably because you can't think critically, but possibly because you wan to get into the pants of a member of one of the aforementioned groups.
Over here in America we say "bullocks" as a side swipe at The Worst Actress In the World Who Thinks She's God's Gift To Hollywood, Sandra Bullock. Combining her last name with the etymologically similar British expletive to form "Bullocks" effectively doubles the nastiness of the curse. FYI.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Just because someone doesn't think that the matrix is deep doesn't mean they're biased. You're another one of those people who seem to think that only they know what is good and whats not and anyone who likes a different movie/music/book than you somehow lacks something as a human being. That's pretty unfortunate.
What is unfortunate is people who feel the need to avoid any form of conformity whatsoever to the point that they don't enjoy a popular movie--on all its levels, because they are there and do exist in the film--and feel the need to bash others for it.
Check your superiority complex at the door. Trendy counterculturalism is dying.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
... that's impossible. Instead, try to realize the truth... there is no cup.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
How amusing. Your insecurities forced you to distance yourself from implying any sort of meaning from a simple walk. Perhaps the others are more insightful than you are because they were not afraid to draw meaning from something, even if it was not intended by the orginal creator. There is nothing wrong with teaching people to look beneath the surface of something to find a deeper layer.
Forced elitism through reductionism and mocking of others is simply lame and nothing more, and really reveals your character.
Who is better, the person who sees a walk as a walk, or the person who chooses to see the metaphor of life progression that a walk could represent? I think the answer is clear.
"Sufferin' succotash."
In a nutshell, I'm saying that the plot of the 2nd Matrix film displaced the possibility of a Christian gnostic reading with a Dickian (or maybe even Pynchonian) gnostic reading. As you imply, there are a wide range of gnosticisms.
Similarly, authors can easily be ignorant of the psychological/exisitential dilemmas in their own head. Tolkien is not an exception because he said so.
What makes great authors (like Tolkein) great is that they can infuse their work with intracate layers of meaning, without consciously being aware that they are doing so. Once you start doing it on purpose.....well, then you get modern-day Barnes & Noble fodder. (Incidentally, your cited classwork is a good example of this: you planned to write an empty piece before you even put pen to paper.)
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The game "Enter The Matrix" contains a lot of information about the third movie. (by the way, I just finished playing as Ghost and now playing as Naomi i found than the gameplay has different missions and strategies!. Really good indeed.).
There are a lot of analogies in this movie, i think that creates a lot of speculation and thus makes it more interesting.
I guess when the Animatrix comes out, then more information will be made available (not all episodes are available on the site).
Jose Vicente Nunez Zuleta RHCE, SJCD, SJCP
If you have a close look at the "The Matrix" not only is time in the matrix marked by a green tint everywhere, but the story is told via cliches both verbal and visual. As if within the Matrix the cliche is the medium of communication (and representation) even for those who are free, but outside the Matrix cliche is dispensed with and the conversation is normal.
I found Reloaded even deeper than the Matrix, but I've only seen it once. I was surprised by the amount of overt philosophical monologue in the movie ... when the Merovingian gives his little speech to Neo et al about Free Will, I wondered how long it would take the audience to go glassy eyed.
Bitter and proud of it.
Rather than refer to the Five books of Moses (which are just the first five books of the Bible and Torah), what about the idea that in Islam five prophets preceded Mohammed? There are six prophets: Adam, Moses, Abraham, David, Jesus, and Mohammed being the sixth; all extraordinary men who were to guide men on Earth, but men nonetheless, preceeding the arrival of a final actor who actually is the Messiah (The acolyte? Neo & Trinity's child? Maybe. If nothing else they could squeeze a few more paragraphs out of their review).
Religion's designed for control. Duh. Rather than cite someone who I never heard of, what about Plato and the "Noble Lie" from Republic? It applies quite well to ideology and theology in general, and has a hell of a lot more philosophical background behind it at this point.
Well...spoiler alert to those who haven't seen it...
I enjoyed it...but I more or less agree. Even the corporate sponsorships were TOO obvious. I actually really do like Cadillacs, but it was a little too convienient that a Cadillac Escalade was chasing a Cadillac CTS. Seriously...they didn't even seem to try to be subtle in it.
The Matrix Reloaded was entertaining, but it's whoring for money, and it's succeeding due to the merits of the first one. The original movie was quite alot better IMHO.
Revolutions is looking to basically be Reloaded II.
Beowulf is still the only first-hand glimpse we have of what life--and people--were like at that point in time.
---------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I've read the Illuminatus! Trilogy twice and I'm still not sure what happens... ;)
Nevermind.
I just finished playing as Ghost too ... Nice to see the Matrix Reloaded from another point of view than the movie one. Moreover you have some information about what should happen in Matrix Revolution + video at the end of the game :)
While comparative philosophy, which includes the dialogue between philosophy and Eastern "religion", is strong in the University of Hawaii (among other places), Berkeley itself emphasizes the analytical tradition.
And if you study the relationship between Heidegger and Buddhism, and specifically the writings of NITANO Kenji and the Kyoto school of philosophy, maybe you'll stop being so smug and dismissive.
All the high tech gagedry of the movie makes you realize , heck the world is more complex. Not that the term encryption gets abused :{
The whole programing slant and hints of the movie are sort of like candy to the layman.
In once scene in the movie council man takes Neo down to the so called engineering level to show him how the city Zion operates. Ironicaly Neo didnt even know such thing existed. Basicaly engineering level consisted of bunch of mechanical robots, lots of huge gears and levers and so called complex machines that made the city run.
But it makes say people who are in the techno know how think about how dependent our world is on software, more so then Zion is on buch of mechanical machinery. If no OS boots up next morning, people will start loosing billions of dollards. Your street light would not work , trains would not run, flights would be canceled, electronic commerce would seize, run on the banks woudl happen. Should i also mention the looting? Basicaly caios.
My point is that its true the movie makes a good attempt at an allegory of modern society although it could have been done in much smarter way.
Am I the only one who instantly visualized a 'prequel' with crook wielding pharisees coming after Jesus in bullet time?
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
Yes, except when the deeper meaning really *was* there, like in Joyce's Ulysses or Laird's The Boomer Bible. Argue all you want about whether the movie was shite or not, but make no mistake, the Brothers W meant every bit of 'deepness' that viewers percieve in the film to be there. There are probably minute touches that nobody will ever see that they intentionally put in there.
Good, thank you for asking.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Oh wow! A guy with an MA in History cought more of the assortment of allusions than I did! His evaluation must be more valid!
Whoopty shit. All that means is that the writers didn't have an original idea, so they just borrowed everything they could from all sorts of pretentious sources. I mean, guys, I've got a library card, too. But I went to see your fucking movie, only to get a smokescreen covering up the fact that you're hack writers. Obscure allusions don't automaticall make a film good. Yeah, they make me feel better about my (philosophy/classics/history) degree, but it's just painful to watch a movie stumbling over itself to seem meaningful.
How about all that great dialogue in both films, eh? And that incredible character development?Or the fact that the pacing of Reloaded is rediculously ponderous? Even if you think it has an excellent story, you've got to admit that it wasn't told very well.
I love how everybody thinks they 'figured out' the Matrix by virtue of catching some of the more obscure allusions. "Hey, the Merovingian must be Hades, because his wife's name is Persephone! That really makes me forget the fact that this whole scene is meaningless. Oh look, a CG flight into some woman's vagina!"
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
No. No no no. I don't belong to this role you've cast me in as a person who has issues with pop culture. I question the movie because it isn't very good--and I think that its "inaccesibility" is exactly the way it clouds its mediocrity.
I fail to see how "Professional Philosophers" have anything up on priests. Not that you mentioned religion but they're on a similar vein of things. Not that I really care if you think a priest is a real job or not, but if you don't think philosophers should be paid than you really can't believe in paying priests either, unless you believe that everyone should have the same religion.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
Actually, I'm argueing that the author doesn't always understand the social context from which his work springs, and so doesn't fully understand his own work.
For instance, I've written a book and had people come to me having discovered themes in it that I don't remember intending, but which are clear and make total sense. I'm argueing that I don't actually have God-like authority to tell them differently.
Public Service Announcement: Make certain you check this guy's journal--he's simply a form of advanced troll, trying to game the /. system and make waves. You may think you're argueing with a person, but his only intention is to screw with you.
I don't entirely agree with the displacement yet. Gnosticism is in essence a mystical worldview of greek origin (orpheanism) with various sets of beliefs, there is no real dogma in gnosticism and but very little doctrine.
Gnostics have always exchanged ideas and experiences beyond the boundaries of their creed, the worldview was (and is) more important than its interpretation in various deities, archons, angels, etc. If the archons became agents (machines) and the demiurge became the architect in a particular view, this wouldn't set off a dogmatic fight with gnostic christians.
Whether there is a real redeemer in the matrix remains to be seen. Lack of a redeemer would prove a bit of a problem, I suppose :)
LOL sounds like my paper on the "meaning" of Frankenstein I did for a college lit. class. We were supposed to indicate which of the various interpretations we thought the author had originally meant, instead I wrote a paper about how the interpretations were reflections of the authors, not the authors true intent, and that it was virtaully impossible to understand what Mary Shelley really "meant". Of Course, I am the same person that once turned in an essay on why I wasn't going to write the essay ;)
(I have the sneaking suspicion a Real Philosopher will put me in my place if I mention this without a certain degree of rigor, but what the hell do I care? It's not like navel-gazing here on Slashdot (or anywhere else) actually matters. ^_^ )
Three events---two that occur early in the second movie and one that occurs near its end---have me suspecting that the location of Zion, et al, is still inside of the Matrix. First, Agent Smith replaces Bane in the world of Zion by killing him in the Matrix. In the similarly-themed Thirteenth Floor, Jason Whitney and Jerry Ashton switch places when the "original" dies in the simulation of L.A. circa 1937, and it is only later the audience finds out that the "real world" of L.A. circa 1999 is itself a simulation. Second, as Neo and friends are about to leave Zion on their mission to save the Keymaker, one of the children gives Neo a spoon, saying that Neo would understand. In the first Matrix movie, the spoon symbolizes the chimerical nature of the Matrix, and a child within the Matrix gives Neo a spoon to demonstrate the illusion. Third, after the crew escapes the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo says that he can feel the crew's robotic persuers, and then halts their malefic advance in much the same fashion as he stops bullets within the Matrix: right hand outstretched, a look of concentration, and the missiles---dumb slug and smart monster---stop in their tracks and drop straight to the ground, as witnessed on several occasions in both movies.
There are at least three other hints, as well. The ripple effect---seen every time Neo does "his Superman thing" in the Matrix---is also seen when he stops the robots in the world of Zion. Agent Smith remarks "...we're not free. There is no escaping this system." Also, when describing himself and Neo, Agent Smith calls himself "Apparently free."
Ok, so I'm going to leave it to fellow navel-gazers (or future work-avoidance sessions) to link the events above to the Incompleteness Theorem, because it is late and I'm tired. Hah!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Am I alone in thinking the "philosophical points" raised by the Matrix are rather banal? Most people by the time they are adolescent have entertained the notion that what seems real isn't real etc etc. Philosophy itself pre-empted the issue a long time ago, read Descartes on "demon doubt". I think the whole "matrix as a philosophical film" thing has been overhyped frankly. The only deep contemplation I did was of Trinity's leather-clad butt. What may be more interesting is the way this (ultimately unanswerable, thus fairly pointless) question about the "way things seem vs. the way things might really be" reguarly resurfaces under different guises. For example, in the 1950s we have paranoia about the governemnt and UFOs as part of the mix (Philip K. Dicks early work onwards; e.g., Martian Timeslip). In the 1960s it resurfaces as to do with LSD and Eastern mysticism (--I say this out of respect for Eastern Religions; the 60s Western version was a rather self-serving bastardisation) And now in 1990s/C21, its all to do with technology. A final wild speculation is that this might really be the expression of a widely held fear rather than a philosophical notion per se (in the same way that say gothic horror, like Dracula, is arguably reducable to contemporary concerns about sexuality etc.) ...and as I end this post, speaking out of my rear, I realise I'm just as bad as the people I was flaming as I began. Hohum. Now thats a paradox.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Apparently the backdoor that circumvented registration (replacing the www in the story link with archives) doesn't work anymore, anyone have any other information on that, like how to get around it now?
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
That was a pretty good one, since Freud was the psycologist who, at least popularly, saw a sexual meaning to nearly everything in everyday life. Since even a layperson can associate cigars with some parts of the male anatomy, it seems more likely that Freud was making a joke here. Although I do agree that many things, especially movies, get overanalysed. I've seen people try to attach deep meanings to the window washers in the first movie, and having been in a meeting with my boss, and noticed that the lawn mower was the suddenly much more interesting than the boss, I think they were just there to provide something to distract Neo.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I haven't seen much opposition from right wing groups, other than a surprised reation to the rave/sex scene, they haven't had much bad to say about them. A few have spoken out against the violence, but again the response has been pretty muted. At least in my area, Harry Potter gets quite a bit more response than this did.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
PLEASE mod parent up. This is as good a point as ever gets made on /.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
First and foremost let me say that what you get out of a movie like this is largely what you bring into it. Watching a movie is, or should be, an interactive experience, like listening to music. Have you ever imagined your own music video while listening to a song? That music video may not be what the songwriter imagined, and may even contradict the lyrics in some way. A movie can be much the same.
Much of the criticism I've read appears to be based on either philosophical disagreement (fair enough) or troubleseeking (fairness is irrelevant). By the latter I mean that some people seem to have gone into the movie with the desire to look for flaws rather than actually watch the movie.
In any case, one of the worrying points I've noticed is the tendency to distort memory to favor the argument. In the Times article, for example, Mr. Rothstein "quotes" Morpheus telling Neo to regard "all of the inhabitants of the virtual world as enemies that may be killed; anyway, most people are not ready for the truth."
I think I could fairly characterize that statement as mendacious, and possibly slanderous (as far as it is possible to "slander" a fictional character). While I myself am somewhat dissapointed with the lack of ethical discussion of killing those deceived by or under the control of the machines, Morpheus quite clearly does not teach Neo that anyone still connected to the machine IS an enemy and may be disposed of - he tells Neo that anyone still connected to the machine may be used by the machine, and thus is potentially dangerous.
This is one example of a common event. Misperceptions, misquotes, and misremembered scenes unfortunately have a life of their own, and I feel uncomfortably like a costumed Trekkie sitting here correcting one.
But it does make the point that what you get out of the film (like anything) depends on what you bring to it. That being said, not all films are worth seeing. Some are simply poorly made, or their topics don't interest you, whatever the reason.
I suppose the popularity of the films has something to do with it, but there seems to be more than one reason that we have Christians, Islamists, Buddhists, and Hindus claiming the film as their own (or reviling it). And we have political liberals and conservatives fighting over it as well. And philosophy majors alternately reveling in and resenting it.
What that says to me is that, like the original, this film has succeeded at convincing a lot of people in the audience, of varying faiths, philosophies and club memberships, that it had something important to say to them. To that I say "Job Well Done."
As to Corporate Mofo (great analysis, BTW), I certainly hope cassocks become a fashion trend, they rock! Unfortunately they primarily suit skinny people...
I love that you're responding to all of my posts. Fans make me stronger.
"Sufferin' succotash."
As I guessed, another person who doesn't really have issues with the philosophical references--they just don't like the movie. Your bias is showing. Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
As I guessed, you don't have issues with the philosophical references--you just don't like the movie. Congratulations on letting your bias cloud the discussion.
You have a spelling error.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You're far too blatant to be effective. Be subtle next time, though I appreciate your following my posts. Do you still post in my journals?
"Sufferin' succotash."
"[F]orm of advanced troll." I like that.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I don't know what you mean by "deep meanings" but the soap suds tricking down the windows were just one of many places in the Matrix world where the trickling numbers of the Matrix were mimicked by Matrix-world events. For another, look at the windows of the car where Neo has the bug sucked out of his stomach...the rain trickles down in a similar pattern. You think that's just random? Not in such a tightly shot movie.
Ah, Heidegger...
(Note that they said "take you under the table" when memory says it's obviously "drink"...)I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Don't know about you, but I came from a pink one...
I'll be here all week, folks.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
It seems to me that people make poor bateries, you need to expend resources keeping their minds entertained, keeping their bodies fed, keeping them warm. I think that it's plausible to have another explination.
.. you like power our world .. yeah thats it, your our batteries".
The last one asked the machines "Hey, so why the fuck do you keep us around", and the machines went "Cuz umm..
The impression I got was that the People provide a purpose for the machines. Neo told the Architect that the machines need people (he belives their batteries) and the Architect said "There are some forms of exsistence we're willing to live with".
From this I take it they can survive without people but their lives would have less meaning. They were created in the start to serve man, and maybe they feel inclined to do that even after they wonthe war. Everything we've seen so far has been examples of Machines regulating/controlling/operating the matrix and the ajoining construct "Zion", those that no longer have a purpose are deleted , That means the machines are geared 100% to maintaining the Matrix with a few stray programs that become exiles. They dont' seem to have a large society outside the matrix and they don't seem to have a problem with power. On the other hand, it may well be they have a complex society but since this has never been seen by the people of zion it's not relavant to the movie. Maybe the machines keep the people around because those in power or those that make up the majority are sentimental. Like Humans who enjoy pets, no real use but they were part of our developement so we spend energy supporting them, or like wild life preserves.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Sure is bullshit if they're trying to ascribe their interpretations to you. But just because a work is "meaning-free" to its author doesn't mean that it should be equally meaningless to everyone else. That's just as much bullshit as insisting that the point of analyzing art is to determine precisely what the author meant by a particular work, rather than looking for your own meaning.
Hmmm ... isn't that the problem inherent in the Matrix? The machines want a virtual reality to be spoonfed to humans and for those humans to unquestioningly accept it for what the authors intend it to be, but there's always those who chose to interpret it otherwise....
It didn't literally question anything. It is more like a story put out that causes one to question their own beliefs, how it applies to our current views, or just certain details in the movie that gave some insight into something. For example, when both the oracle and the architect spoke they spoke of everything like it was all computer science. Just thinking about how one day we may be able to model our reality to a degree in a computer environment makes you think. There is also the whole issue about the war. It is clear that the war is not simply man vs machine. Everyone is looking for the truth, but you can never tell what the truth is. Everyone has their own view of what is real and what isn't. Then there is the question of who is telling their side of beliefs and who is simply lying to promote an outcome or maybe some other purpose. It also gets into AI in an indirect way. For example, Agent Smith replicates himself and wants to destroy Neo. Has he taken on a virus like behavior? Is this something software may one day do? Then you get into wondering about the correlation between software and biological life forms. I could go on, but I'm sure you can think of your own questions. There is so much to learn by simply questioning everything we know. Hence my sig.
Question everything.
Although I do believe that some of it was almost too obscure. I mean one line by Smith changes nearly the whole equation of what will happen in the future
Which line, exactly?
"But *why* does it matter if Twain intended that connection, so long as others find it to be present?"
Primarily because students are getting grades for these classes, and teaching people what the "right" answer to something like that is defeats (IMHO) any useful purpose of the class. It doesn't matter that people know Clemens ment a) instead of b) in this part of the book. What DOES matter is whether people are able to think about the work, instead of memorizing for the test. Of course, sometimes it's an effort just to get them to read the darn book at all, but that's another post.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
How'd you do on it? I'm curious about both of the papers actually :)
Hmm... could you please enlighten me about the "other more likely reasons for Neo's powers in the real world"? I'm curious, because, as a physicist, I can't think of any way to explain it in a way that I would accept.
I think that if Zion were another Matrix, then things get much more complicated... for example it does not have to be the 'outer shell' or penultimate matrix... in other words your argument is not necessarily compelling given that perhaps the 'reason to drill' is much more indirect than you are supposing.
Your posting has a dose of anti-conformity with a bit of anti-intellectualism. It's really quite stereotypical, which is interesting because I believe your desire is to shirk away from anything you regard as stereotypical.
If these university people really were so clever, they'd have waited until the whole three films are out before shooting off their mouths about philosophy and making fools of themselves.
Because (did I warn you about spoilers?) now you also found out that the Oracle is one of the bad guys, you learned that the only chance they will have to survive this incarnation is Mr. Smith, who has gone viral, who is in the flesh now (interpret that, Mr. Pop Theology!), and you got more hints that Trinity could be more than she seems (the Architect and the Oracle both gave pretty major hints). Instead of being oh so clever about the religious source of her name, has any of these university types bothered to notice that "Trinity" was also the name of the first atom bomb?
In the end, the most fun thing about Reloaded outside of the film itself is how obvious it becomes after seeing the movie yourself that a lot of the reviewers simply didn't know the first part well enough to understand what just happened, or were taking a piss when the Merovingian and the Architect were talking. Tell me, to journalists really get that may free soft drinks with their private screening?
What I think he means is that Agent Smith and Neo's incarnation in the Matrix got slightly mixed up. As such, Agent Smith is no longer really an Agent and can do new, interesting things he couldn't before.
:P
Neo, on the other hand, may have "left part of himself" in Agent Smith, so he has a 24/7 presence in the Matrix that is perfectly safe. (Safe in that nothing's really going to try and mess with Agent Smith.) The idea is that somehow Neo is connected, through Agent Smith, to the Sentinels, and can shut them off at will.
Either that, or Sentinels have an extremely low tolerance for static electricity.
The world can be wrong today for once.
Many aspects of American life are fantasies hidden in plain sight. We Americans imagine ourselves living in a democracy, while our elected representatives represent the special interests who shovel money into the advertising machine. Election results measure the effectiveness of the advertising, not the will of the people. The very term "will of the people" means nothing anymore, because Americans are predominately ill-informed "consumers" whose opinions and decisions are essentially meaningless.
In everyday life we strive constantly to conform to fictional ideals of what is normal, and are constantly told that we are succeeding, as long as we keep spending more money than we can afford. All sense of perspective about ourselves has been replaced by an advertising-induced fantasy that we are smarter, wealthier and better looking than we really are. Our regulatory agencies, run by the industries they are supposed to regulate, have taught us to ignore the small print and consume products that are mere shadows of real things. Instead of lemonade, we happily drink "lemonade-flavored drink mix" that contains less actual lemon than furniture polish does. Our food industry spends billions figuring out how to make more things out of hydrogenated vegetable oil.
Yet our collective self-image is that we are those people on television -- smart, health-conscious, independent-minded folks who insist on quality. We're involved with our kids and savvy about our investments. We're not in debt up to our eyeballs, we're just leveraging our money. Our health-care system is the finest in the world. People in other countries who hate us are just envious. The list of American fantasies is endless, but at the top of it is the fantasy that collectively we have a life rather than just a lifestyle.
"Don't feed the trolls, don't feed the trolls, don't feed the trolls....argh!"
(I realized OCG was a troll about ten seconds after I posted and noticed that I had the same Corporate Mofo link open in two tabs. Drat, tr0ll0red! But I'm still replying for the "benefit" of those who agree with him.)
As I guessed, another person who doesn't really have issues with the philosophical references--they just don't like the movie. Your bias is showing. Next.
No, it was only thing I didn't like about the movie (at least, that I had any expectations for). I liked the fighting, the explosions, the goofy Zion party scene, the breast exposure, and anyone doing kung-fu while wearing a cassock.
Unfortunately, the writer/directors decided to pour in way too much of the mutt-philosophy that some are so enchanted by -- so much that it degraded the whole film. I watched it, I listened, I comprehended, and in the end, wish I had napped through about half of it. Yeah, I cought quite a few of the references and thought "oh neat", but at some point it just started feeling like they were fucking with me. The allusions don't add to the story, they blur it. They're trying to be James Joyce, and doing a shitty job of it. That hurts to watch.
So is someone going to tell me that obviously the CG flight-into-the-vagina was meant to represent man's eternal desire to return to the womb?
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
>Professional philosophers? That's real bright. Beleive me, these people have nothing up on anyone else. The fact that they do this for a living should clue you into something. People who get paid to think of what life might mean... That's pretty rich.
philosophers have a lot to show for all their thinking, like math, physics, for example, logic, ethics. What life might mean is a question for teleologists... who are mostly religious. Probably more philosophers think that meaning is assigned than think it's inherent. Philosophers are found at the fringes of understanding, making the most abstract abstraction possible, the philosophy of mathematics, for example, tries to understand the underlying abstractions of mathematics and possibly how they work, why they work... do they really work?
-pyrrho
...great post
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
Yeah, I mean, were talk about art for/by long dead white people, there is no comparison. - Othello
Other have said it before, but I still have to vent. I find it rather frustrating that people are taking the gibberish in the Matrix so serious. Nothing against the movie, but the depth of the philosophy was certainly beyond average for todays movies.
That is interesting and I never thought of that... the question then becomes: could there be a reasonable explanation for exactly how the 'real world' Neo can in any way be physically intertwined with the matrix without hacking into it...
naw...
for most of us, at least one of these isn't.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
(but make sure you do it legibly. :-)
Oh, I never said Neo was a buddha-figure. But one of the main splits between East and West philosphy is that generally, Eastern reckons on everything working in cycles (reincarnation, the I Ching (Book of Changes), etc), whereas Western revolves around everything going in a straight line (for instance, you're born, you try to achieve getting into heaven, the end).
I don't think the multiple philosphies in the Matrix conflict, I think they're carefully woven in: there to be picked up on if you know what you're looking for.
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
and some might say, that the only people complaining about people wearing sunglasses at night are people that have a lot of prejudices in other fields of live, too...
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
Then wait for the third one, where they tell you, what you see is what you don't and that the Matrix is the reality and the other is just a simulation, within a simulation. You will walk out the theater, get a shave since beards make you look bad and you will never ever swallow a pill again, regardless its color. Sweets are bad for your teeth anyways. (Boy, he does take alot from strangers.) The only good think might be the new uses for mercury since it's also beeing used in X-Men II.
The trouble is that the film acts as if the ideas are very deep and original and it all comes across as trying to be more clever than it really is. Way too pretentious. Should have cut out half the speeches and given us another cool action scene instead. Or mroe Agent Smith. About the only interesting character in the film.
Re:This is going to be instantly moded down (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, @09:19PM (#6037954)
So tell me, what trauma occured in your life to give you the "little man" syndrome that you project? Too many ass kickings when you were younger? Not popular with the ladies or the gents? Parents beat you? Late night sneaky uncle?
I have a good paying job, a beautiful wife, and I'm 6 foot 2 and 200 pounds of muscle, with a BA in Anthropology and Philosophy. I'm smart, I'm successful, and I'm happy. Which is probably more than can be said for you, who has such a "little man in the pants" syndrome that you can't even post to me with anything other than Anonymous Pathetic Dickhead. Hope you get out of your parent's basement soon, loser.
Derek
It's a rights issue. Just as i don't feel MSFT should dictate hat I should and should not use my computer for, I don't think authors have vast authority over their work once it leaves their hands.
In the case of the snot-nosed kid I'd say they were wrong, but I think I'd have to say why I thought they were wrong, not just say "because I wrote it and you're wrong."
Don't "congratulate" me, you pompous, pathetic prick. You know exactly what my issues with the film's "philosophy" is at this point--I've been more than clear.
So we should read modern philosophy only.
Wow. Down with Plato now! The pompous prick...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They composed or worte beacuse they had to. They had a message that needed to get out and found an art to do so.
More often than not many artists did not care about entertaining an audience and very often found dishartening how the mob reacted to great masterpieces which where completely undervalued during the lifetime of their authors.
The problem with movies, specially the ones backed by big studios, is that the art is heavily compromised by commercial considerations.
The truly great movies of all times normally are the consequence of an artist with full control and less constraints.
The pressure to deliver commercialy cheapens terribly many artistic endeavours. The Matrix Reloaded is a great action film aiming a bit higer than what it truly can present (the plot is thiner and stupidier than any Hollywood starlette).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, it isn't. People are better if they don't accept the superficiality of things and are able to gleam meaning from something, knowing there is more than meets the eye.
The person who sits in the corner, writing about a walk in the park in order to mock others who found meaning where he couldn't, is the tragedy in this. The people around him are better.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I don't have any explanation. All I can offer is that, in the Revolutions preview at the end, there is a very quick shot at the beginning of Neo waking up on the table--but he has his trenchcoat on.
So perhaps the Zion world really is a Matrix, or Neo has found a way to bring his powers from that world into the real world.
Another posssibility is, of course, that Neo is a machine, or has inherited some part of Agent Smith, who stated repeatedly that there was a connection between them. Neo senses Smith throughout the movie.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Fine, I'll be frank. There is a major spoiler to be revealed in these two sequels. The first half was revealed at the end of Reloaded, in the Architect scene.
The second half will be revealed in Revolutions.
Every bit of dialogue is leading up to this big reveal. Some of it obviously correlates to the ending of Reloaded, and the rest that doesn't make sense...will in time.
You have to keep in mind that this is the first half of a story that is being treated as one big movie. And yes, there was a reason for the Matrix vision come shot.
"Sufferin' succotash."
In short: Excessive action sequences, shitty dialogue ("Some things never change..."), mediocre acting-- but rich with truly amazing and compelling ideas!
;-)
I don't know if this has been covered, but the Matrix is definitely an allegory for the tension between determinism and free will that has been raging since Newton began uncovering the laws of classical physics. (Are we merely automatons in a chaotic but nevertheless deterministic machine, living the illusion of free will? Or is free will genuine?) You have the Matrix, a giant deterministic machine with a singular purpose. And, you have the "free willing" inhabitants of Zion which you initially believe to be anti-thesis: Organic, less tidy and structured in appearance. But you realize that at some level, they are one and the same. Living systems, at the cellular, multicellular and all the way up to the population level, may very well be deterministic machines as well. They are just more slippery and wet, and too complex to predict in a reasonable amount of time. (Recall that giant Zion party that we all wish we could crash: Organic, teeming with life and sexual energy--but nevertheless a kind of machine. A social beast if you like. And remember that french guy's little speech about human machines being driven by one thing..., and how he enjoyed controlling it for his own amusement...
In the end, after Neo was given the horrible truth, we learned that the Matrix had figured out how to ultimately subjugate the human machine for its own purposes. It had learned to control the aspects of the human spirit that we like to think makes us truly distinct and, *ahem* non-deterministic, unlike lesser beasts: Hope.
Truly creepy and bloody brilliant!
Yes, there are elements of religion, philosophy (pop and high brow), politics, as everybody seems to be churning out. I think that those are all just parts synthesized by the Wachowski's into the greater question: What's running the whole show that we're living in? Are we running it? Or are we being run?
Rod
p.s. I that the real "magic" behind Neo is simply that he is the only character that has transcendent and genuine free will, which is why he can "will" himself to contravene the laws of physics that govern the universe simulated inside the Matrix.
One easy explanation for the sentinel-blocking doesn't require Neo to have any magic or cyborg powers: they stopped because they recognized his face, and they'd been ordered not to kill him.
Maybe the Architect or Oracle wanted The One alive to watch the fall of Zion, maybe Smith commanded them because he wants to defeat Neo himself. Maybe Neo left behind sub-concious ghosts of his own personality in the Matrix, and it's hacking the sentinels. Whatever.
(This explanation would require assuming that Neo's subquesent collapse was due to random over-exhaustion, or accidental electrical discharge from a sentinel. Those are reasonable, but are unlikely to be the authors' actual intent)
That's somewhat valid.
A governing political party or a major corporation is actually a kind of machine. It happens to be made up of people, but they're just cogs in a device that's larger than any of them. A party/corporation is mindless, but it's programmed to behave so as to collect the most votes/dollars it can, and will change our lives any way needed to make that happen.
My brother pointed out that this movie's got a definate Fraggle Rock element.
:
Humans / Fraggles
Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Zion Rock.
Machines / Dozers:
Work your cares away,
Dancing's for another day.
Let the Rebels play...
Hacked into the the network of the real world, I mean. Somehow, either through Agent Smith, or the Architect (personally, I'm betting on the latter), Neo has been able to move past the firewall separating the Matrix from the rest of the networked infrastructure that the machines live/operate in. My friend used the term wi-fi and I also saw it used in a couple of the posts here on /. Essentially, Neo, having been raised with the "crap sticking out of his skin", may also have a wireless connection as well.
There is also the possibility that the brain itself could be configured as a wireless device. After all, we really don't know how the AI brains are constructed within the W Brother's world. And before somebody starts up with the, "It must be another Matrix, 'cause Smith reprogrammed a human," pile of shit, humans can very much be programmed. Cults, mobs, suicide bombers, fanatics, etc. We humans do a pretty good job of programming ourselves. An AI could do it as well.
Now we get to Agent Smith. He's different now. I believe that he is the "inevitable" system crash the the Architect refers to. I may be wrong on this, but it was my understanding that when an agent takes over a human's matrix program, the human at the other end dies. Agent Smith is a virus. "It's all about me." And he will do everything in his power to make everyone him, and thereby killing off the entire human race.
The "choice" that the Architect gave to Neo was to select 17 women and 6 men (the 23 founders of Zion, and consequently the breeding stock for the new crop of humans to be inserted into the Matrix 7.0) or let everyone die. I am assuming that if Neo had made the expected choice, those 23 people would have been saved from a grisly death, while Smith crashed the Matrix and the sentinels fragged the Zionites. This is where Trinity and her fate come in.
I don't believe that the Architect expected or even wanted the choice that Neo made. The other five had given the proper choice. This comes down to the fundamental flaw of the machines' thinking. They don't really understand humans. They can model the humans' behavior scrupulously well, but they don't really understand them. There's this "Anomaly" thing: they see it, and they take steps to deal with it, and they believe that with each iteration, they are coming closer to eradicating it. But they're yanking on a lever they don't understand (Of course, as a complete tangent, you could say the same thing about the members of the RIAA and their fucking pop stars, or even the former execs of Enron, but that's neither here, nor there). And what is really happening, is that each One is getting more and more powerful in the true sense of the movie's theme: true power comes from being able to choose, not being manipulated into a choice. This is what the Oracle and Persephone's euro-trash boy-toy is hammering at Morpheus and Neo about. It's not, "pseudo-philisophical horse crap", it's the theme of the whole fucking movie! Neo has not actually made a true choice in the entire movie, up until his choice to attempt to save Trinity. He's been manipulated into thinking that he has made choices and then doing what others want. "Why are you here?" Euro-trash-boy asks them, and they can't answer! It doesn't stop any of our heroes, but then again, humans can be pretty bullheaded at times.
I particularly loved Persephone, partly because of, -begin drool- "OMFG! She's gorgeous!" -end drool-, but also because she's trapped in her own cage of manipulation vs. choice. No matter what choice she makes, the big end result is the same. The One gets the Keymaker. She just makes it easier. However, she gains a few little things by her actions. She gets a big hunka' piece of Neo (and a little of his love), and gets to simultaneously piss off Trinity and Euro-trash-boy. She can't affect the big picture, but she can certainly change the small things. I have a feeling that we'll s
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
So, tell me, what exactly is this all about? Why is it that you (or anyone for that matter) would care enough to go out of your way to bad mouth people you don't even know? Is your life really that shallow and lonely? If this type of behavior is the only way that you can make yourself fell better, I seriously pity you. I hope someday you can find some sort of happiness, perhaps then you won't need to go to such lengths for a chuckle.
BTW. I really don't care what you post. I know the truth about Dan. And I'm smart enough to make my own decision about Vlad. I really don't care at all what any of you think about Dan or I, because your opinions really don't matter. I'm really just curious what (if anything) is driving this crapflooding that you call trolling
You are forgetting that Neo say's "something feels different." Thar's the rub. Also, you can visibly see something happen when Neo puts up his hand to stop the sentinels. I'll have to see the movie again, but some people inform me that the other ship reached them at the same time and it could have simply been the EMP from that other ship.
So, tell [WHINE] me, what exactly is [NAG] this all about [FART]? Why is it that you (or anyone for [MENSTRUATE] that matter) would care enough to go out of [BELCH] your way to bad mouth people you [COCKSUCK] don't even know? Is [FART] your life really that shallow and [COMPLAIN] lonely? If this type of behavior [BITCH] is the only way that you can make yourself fell (sic) [FART] better, I seriously pity you. I hope someday [VOMIT] you can find some sort of happiness, perhaps then [WHINE] you won't need to go to such lengths [CRY] for a chuckle.
BTW. I really [POUT] don't care what you post. I know the [FART] truth about Damn. And [LACTATE] I'm smart enough to make my own decision [VOMIT] about Vlad. [COMPLAIN] I really don't care at all what any of you think about Damn or [FART] I, because your opinions really don't matter [OVULATE]. I'm [PISS] really [NAG] just curious [PMS] what (if anything) is driving this crapflooding [VAGINAL FART] that you call trolling
Cordially,
Mabel [BELCH] Flicknigger
[WHINE] [COMPLAIN] [WEEP]
[SWEAT] [FAAAAAAART] [STRAIN]
[STRAIN] [STRAAAAAAIN]
[SOIL PANTIES]
[CRY]
Funny how your .sig mentions Rorschach tests, yet your post is claiming that people can make a creative choice (whether it's choosing this essay topic over that or choosing that this picture looks like a bicyle rather than a fish) without exposing their psychological nature.
Psychologist: "I want to you to look at a few pictures for me Mr Smith. Just tell me what these pictures remind you of."
Smith: "That one shows a naked woman."
P: "I see."
S: "That one shows a man having sex with a donkey."
P: "Oh..kay."
S: "Wow. That one shows a gangbang. It's all going on there. Can I have a copy?"
P: "I'm sorry Mr Smith, but you're a sexual obsessive."
S: "But you're the one showing me all the dirty pictures!!"
could have simply been the EMP from that other ship.
Couldn't be that. Their ships can't fly within 10 minutes of firing EMP.
I want his recipe. Or his code. Mmmmm... Cake....