The Matrix, directed by the Wachowski sisters, is a film that discusses free will, artificial intelligence and poses a question: ‘How do we know that our world is real?’ This question is covered in the philosophical branch of epistemology. Epistemology is a component of philosophy that is concerned with the theory of knowledge. The exploration of reality is referenced in the film when Neo discovers he has been living in an artificial world called ‘The Matrix’. He is shocked to learn that the world in which he grew up is a computer program that simulates reality. The questioning of knowledge and its irreversibility provoked by The Matrix invites the audience to wonder whether their own world is an imitation of true reality, thus making it a …show more content…
Once entering reality, he had knowledge of what it was like to experience life both in the Matrix and in the ‘real’ world. When returning to the Matrix with Morpheus after exposure to reality he was able to remember experiences he had from his life within the Matrix such as people he knew and places he dined. This evidence enabled him to understand that the information he was told by Morpheus was true. He had previously been living in the Matrix and he had escaped into reality. Fundamentally, for people living within the Matrix it is impossible to know that they are not living in the ‘real world.’ For Neo to see the computer program that was running the Matrix was pivotal in this thinking. He used logic and reasoning to determine that what he was being told was real – it is true that he was living in a false reality. This was a key source of evidence that suggested to Neo that he was currently in the true …show more content…
As a child, we are raised in an environment where we are taught that our experiences, senses and perceptions tell us that our world is real. Reality for every individual may be different as their experience of life will likely be different to every other person they know. In the perspective of one individual, they might use their senses and beliefs to conclude that the world they are living in is real. This person is living in a world that is real for them, despite the possibility that it is not the only reality that exists. For adults who have gained memories in one world they have known their whole lives, like Neo in The Matrix, it is almost impossible to accept the possibility of another reality. To be able to feel and understand the existence of the things around us through our senses is the closest humans can get to prove the reality of the world in which we live. The human mind is the most powerful thing we know and there is a possibility that it could convince itself of its experiences. When Neo re-enters the Matrix and is able to jump from one building to another, it indicates to him that he was in a false reality. It simply takes the power of Neo’s mind to resist gravity. Neo’s mind told him that he was in the Matrix when in fact his body was in the real world. His brain created an artificial experience. Morpheus mentions to Neo that if somebody dies within the Matrix, they will die in
Let me briefly explain a simplified plot of The Matrix. The story centers around a computer-generated world that has been created to hide the truth from humans. In this world people are kept in slavery without their knowledge. This world is designed to simulate the peak of human civilization which had been destroyed by nuclear war. The majority of the world's population is oblivious to the fact that their world is digital rather than real, and they continue living out their daily lives without questioning their reality. The main character, Neo, is a matrix-bound human who knows that something is not right with the world he lives in, and is eager to learn the truth. He is offered the truth from a character named Morpheus, who proclaims that Neo is “the One” (chosen one) who will eventually destroy the Matrix, thereby setting the humans “free.” For this to happen, Neo must first overcome the Sentient Program agents who can jump into anyone's digital body. They are the Gate Keepers and hold the keys to The Matrix.
In one of Plato’s works called The Allegory of the Cave he goes over what it means to get higher knowledge and the path you have to take to get to this higher knowledge. Plato also goes over how this higher knowledge or enlightenment will affect people and how they act. He ties this all together through what he calls the cave. Plato tells Glaucon a sort of story about how the cave works and what the people within the cave have to do to get to the enlightenment. A while down the road the Wachowski siblings with the help of Warner Brothers Studios made a movie titled The Matrix. This movie follows the came concept that Plato does in the cave. With saying that the world that Neo (the main character) was living in was in fact not real but a made
This student of Philosophy now sees the movie The Matrix in a whole new way after gaining an understanding of some of the underlying philosophical concepts that the writers of the movie used to develop an intriguing and well thought out plot. Some of the philosophical concepts were clear, while others were only hinted at and most likely overlooked by those unfamiliar with those concepts, as was this student when the movie first came out in theaters all those many years ago. In this part of the essay we will take a look at the obvious and not so obvious concepts of: what exactly is the Matrix and how does it related to both Descartes and Plato, can we trust our own senses once we understand what the Matrix is, and how Neo taking the Red Pill is symbolic of the beginning of the journey out of Pl...
“ Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so they cannot move” ( Plato 1). The mind of the individual is being taught the wrong things and they will just sit there and accept the false information. Similarity, Neo is in the world that he has known for his whole life and a man named Morpheus will guide him out of the dark world that he has been use to to finally see the light of things. When Neo is given the decision to either stay in the illusion world or to find out what is actually real. Morpheus says, “ All I 'm offering is the truth” (Matrix). The truth is what Neo wants, he knew from a long time that there was a Matrix, however he didn 't fully understand it. The truth is power to those who obtain the knowledge. Morpheus offers Neo a blue pill which sends him back to the world of illusion and a red pill which will show him what the Matrix is. Neo accepts the red pill and there was a Alice and Wonderland reference that Morpheus says, “Down the rabbit hole.” However there is no going back up the rabbit hole it 's a reverse of the story. Aristotle says, “The roots of education are bitter,but the fruit are sweet.” Neo knew this new information he was about to get will be unpleasant and he still he took the pill, to not step back into the illusion world. He awoke wrapped in wires and plugs connected in him. He was surrounded by a field of
In the movie, The Matrix there are many similarities with the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One similarity is that of the matrices in both works. The movie has a matrix of dreams. According to the movie, humans are dreaming. Dreaming means that the reality humans think of, is not reality. The reality humans think of, is a dream. Confusing, isn t? An easier way of understanding this matrix is to think of human dreams. When humans experience dreams, it is not perceived as a dream until the dream ends. The movie exemplifies humans in the dream state of mind, similar to the dreaming stage. Neo is exposed to his real matrix. The matrix outside of his perceptual reality. He is able to perform with an incredible flexibility and high speed thinking. He is no longer dreaming, or as Neo called it, living. Neo has waken up. The book shares this matrix as well.
2 To be concrete about the difference between the matrix and the "real world," I will refer to one as the matrix and the other as the ideology of the "real." The quotes are necessary as the ideology of the "real" is still a fictional ideology. Furthermore, it must be remembered that Althusser saw ideology as inescapable and a necessary feature of society ("there is no practice except by and in an ideology") (Althusser 93). Therefore, referring to the world outside of the matrix as the real world is insufficient and inaccurate. The ideology of the "real" (as Morpheus says, "welcome to the real") serves to enforce the notion of Neo not as rejecting ideology in favor of reality, but rather moving from the ideology of the machines (the matrix) to that of Morpheus (the ideology of the "real").
In The Cave prisoners are chained, from birth, to face a wall within a dark cave. These prisoners have never had any interactions with the outside world. Their only understanding of the outside world comes from a bridge and a fire at their backs. When people, animals, or objects cross the bridge, the fire projects their shadows upon the cave wall which the prisoners are facing. To these prisoners, the obscure shadows which dance along the walls of the cave are the only “real” thing they know. To their brains, which have never experienced, seen, or came into any contact with anything in the outside world, this is reality. To the prisoners, reality is a jumble of dark shadows which occasionally move from one end of a cave wall to another. This is their perception of reality because it is all they have ever known. While The Matrix does not involve prisoners being chained to a cave wall, the ideas within it are very much the same as in The Cave. Neo, the main character in The Matrix, has unknowingly been living in the matrix his whole life. The matrix world is his reality much like the shadows on the cave wall are the prisoner’s reality. As the world outside of the cave is the true world for the prisoners, the true reality for Neo is the real world which exists outside of the matrix, which is a highly advanced
The Matrix, once being released was a world-famous film that involved a lot of thinking and the ability to interpret complex ideas. However, these two topics of fate and freewill were creatively and smartly submerged in this film. The pill, jujitsu and Oracle scene were three main examples of the effect this all had on The Matrix, however there were a few others scattered throughout the film. It remained to be quite a mysterious concept but gradually as more in-depth thoughts came to mind, it seemed to be quite interesting. By exploring these themes it forces us to think if we are in a Matrix and what are reaction would be like if we were to find out that the world we lived in was a fake, never our true reality.
There are many different types of people within this world. There are those whom we know well of today and others who we don’t know at all, whether they were real or fictional. This includes Ta-Neishi Coates and Fredrick Douglas to Socrates and Neo, the main character from the film The Matrix from such a list of individuals. They are all different individuals compared to each other, and as with different people, they all had different beliefs towards what they know. For Douglas, he was able to gain the knowledge of reading in which led to his bright future, breaking free from the shackles of slavery. For Coates, he knows that the Dream was but an allusion and that we must take charge of our own future path. For Neo, he was able to accept who
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. It tells a story of a future in which reality to most humans is actually a computer program called "the Matrix”. In "the Matrix” humans are really sleep while their bodies are fed on my machines. The movie while directed to entertain audiences but also gave us many insights into philosophy. Many scenes in this movie reflect Descartes, and his many writings explaining them in a visual manner. In this paper I will show various examples of philosophy within the scenes and give commentary explaining each scene.
as being reality and very often there is a person making another believe in the
In “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and the Matrix”, Christopher Grau explains Rene Descartes argument in Meditation. What one may interpret as reality may not be more than a figment of one’s imagination. One argument that Grau points out in Descartes essay is how one knows that what one think is an everyday experience awake is not all a part of a hallucination. He uses the example of dreams to draw a conclusion about is claim based on experiences one would experience with dreaming. He asserts that there are times when one wake up from a dream that seems to be “vivid and realistic” however soon finds that it was not. The experience of reality in the dream was all a part of the mind. If dreams seem to be reality and one would not have any concept that one is dreaming how does one know that one is not dreaming now? Descartes point is that one cannot justify reality in the sense that one could be dreaming right at this moment and not know therefore one cannot trust the brain as an indicator of what is reality.
Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who use the human body as a source of energy. In the movie, Neo, finds and alternate reality and he has to go on a journey to discover himself and what is around him. Much like “The Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners in a dark underground cave, who are chained to the wall, have a view of reality solely based upon this limited view of the cave which is but a poor copy of the real world. Both the prisoners of the cave, and Neo from the Matrix, have to transcend on the path of ‘enlightenment’ to know the truth of their own worlds.
The identity and reality that Neo faces all begins with the famous choice given upon his encounter with Morpheus, “the red pill or the blue pill?” This question poses a very difficult decision for Neo. Should he take the blue pill and live without knowing the truth and who he actually is, or should he take the red pill and discover the truth and figure out what his life is really all about. The film as a whole and especially this particular scene is deeply compelling. On one hand you have everyone you love and everything that you have built your life upon, though being fed with false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer called the Matrix. On the other, you are promised only truth. Is it better to live in a harsh reality or a comfortable fantasy? How could a choice possibly be made? In essence, the choice is one that is between truth and happiness, and Neo hungered for the truth. Neither living as a hacker nor working for a company would suffice. Neo wanted to find his “true” identity, and he does so through...
What is reality? Is it what we all believe? That everything exists independently from us or that everything exists because we make it exist in our minds. An ancient philosopher Rene Descartes thought of as the father of modern philosophy proposed that humans are made up of two different compounds, the body and the mind. He saw the body as an intricate machine but he was sure that the mind was completely different. He tried an experiment. He tried to imagine that he had no physical body and that he was floating around like a ghost, then he tried another experiment, he tried to imagine that he had no mind, however that was impossible because if you have no mind how can you imagine anything at all. He summed up his thoughts in the phrase “I think. Therefore I am.” Our body is like the hardware of a computer and our mind is the software. How do we know that what is there is really there? Take a chair for example, how do you know if the chair is still there if you are not there to see it. For all we know the chair can get up and go out the window and visit any place in the world or even v...