Discussion of The Matrix
Topics to Explore:
- What Is Real? (Philosophy: Skepticism)
- Allegory: Plato's Cave/Socrates' Visit to the Oracle of Delphi
- Archetypes: Messiah Figures
- Dystopia
- Predestination/Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
- What Happens After You Take the Red Pill? (The idea of wakening to reality)
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
Watch this VSauce Video:
What is Real?
- Is there any certain knowledge?
- Can I really know anything about the external world?
- Do appearances reflect reality?
If there is any way a belief can be disproved, its grounds are insufficient. Sensory experience is often wrong so it must be doubted.
- Hallucinations: What proof do you have that what you're seeing is not a hallucination?
- Dreams: My senses have deceived me in the past -- I've had dreams so vivid I thought they were reality -- they were indistinguishable from my waking experiences. In some movies, like Paprika and "Amy's Choice" in Season 5 of Dr. Who, dreams are virtually indistinguishable from reality.
- The Demon: Descartes believed in an all-powerful God -- God created him and would not allow him to be deceived. What if, instead of God, there were an omnipotent, evil demon who always led me into error? I can't know for sure this isn't the case, so any of my beliefs, based on reason, can be doubted.
Look at optical illusions.
Do I exist? David Hume (Scottish Philosopher 1711-1776) Not only can we doubt the existence of an external world; we can even doubt the existence of a centralized, continuous self. Can I discern an unchanging thing, myself, in this flux of thoughts and perceptions? I can't even distinguish a genuine from a false memory.
Are we sure our memories are real? Why or why not?
The Solipsism of the Present Moment -- The most radical form of skepticism -- all I can know for certain is my moment by moment perceptions.
A few notes about "Solipsism"
- Solipsism is a philosophical position that nothing outside one's own mind can be known to exist OR the idea that nothing outside one's own mind does exist.
- It is sometimes used to mean simply "extreme egotism."
- Some people are said to have "Solipsism Syndrome" -- the overwhelming feeling that nothing is real; it's all a dream. These people lonely and detached from the world and eventually become completely indifferent. This is said to be a risk for people who live in isolation for a long time, like a researcher in the Arctic or a person living on a space station. Solipsism Syndrome it is not currently recognized as a psychiatric disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, and I don't know whether it exists.
- Incidentally, Solipsism Syndrome is also apparently the name of a song.
- The vividness of the perception
- Its degree of independence from our will
- Its connectedness to past and future perceptions
- The Phenomenal World -- the world of objects revealed by experience
- Noumenal [noo-muh-nl] World -- the world of objects themselves -- we have no access to this.
So why doesn't information in the world around us come perfectly into our minds? According to Kant we have schema hard-wired into our minds. These schema are basically a set of rules and assumptions we use to organize all the information we receive.
Schemata are tools we use for navigating the world. Because of schemata, we can do most things without effort. For example, you have a stairway schema -- you know what a stairway is and how it works, so you can use it to climb staircases you've never seen before.
Schemata can also lead to harmful stereotypes and prejudices and can alter our perceptions. A person might "see" or "remember" something that didn't happen because it fit his schema. For example, if a well-dressed businessman draws a knife on a vagrant, onlookers often "remember" the vagrant pulling the knife.
Long-term memories are not fixed or immutable; they are constantly adjusted as our schemata evolve with experience.
The pioneering child psychologist Jean Piaget used the concept of schema to show how young children learn language and other important concepts. For example, a little girl may develop a schema for a horse -- she knows it's large, has hair, four legs and a tail. When she sees a cow for the first time, she might call it a horse because it fits in with her schema for a horse: it is a large animal with hair, four legs and a tail. When she is told this is a different animal called a cow, she'll change her schema for a horse and create a new schema for a cow. Later she might see a miniature horse for the first time and think it's a dog. Her parents explain to her that the animal is actually a very small type of horse, so the little girl must change her schema for horses again. She now realizes that while some horses are very large animals, others can be very small. Through her new experiences, her existing schemata are modified and new information is learned.
In Monster's Inc. and the little girl, Boo, calls Sully a "kitty." He's obviously a monster to us, but she does not yet have that in her schema, so she uses what she has already--furry, with ears, four legs and a tail means "kitty."
Brewer and Treyens (1981) asked participants to wait in a room identified as an academic's study and were later asked what they saw in the room. Many people having seen books in the study (there weren't any). The participants expected books to be in academics' studies.
None of us has much time or energy to ponder reality versus our own perceptions. So what purpose does skepticism serve? According to Litch, it serves to provide a check on all kinds of dogmatism. The question "But how do you know that?" is often a useful one. She quotes George Bernard Shaw:
The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of deliberate reason.II. The Matrix reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave
Socrates’ Visit to the Oracle of Delphi: Ancient Greeks considered Delphi to be the center of the world and listened to the cryptic prophecies of the Oracle who lived there, in the Temple of Apollo. When Socrates visited the Oracle, he claimed that he knew nothing, and the Oracle replied that he was the wisest man on earth. By claiming to know nothing, Socrates truly was the wisest because everyone else thought he knew more than they actually knew. The phrase “Know Thyself” was inscribed on the walls of the Oracle’s temple, suggesting that true wisdom lies in recognizing one’s own ignorance.
III. Neo is, in a sense, a savior, rescuing people from being imprisoned by a false reality. In the final Matrix, Neo is a messianic figure (or Christ figure) who sacrifices himself for humanity.
In How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster suggests that a Christ figure has some of these characteristics:
- Suffers and/or is crucified
- Self-sacrificing -- usually dying -- for others
- Good with children
- Loaves, fish, water, wine
- Thirty-three years of age when last seen
- Known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred
- Believed to have performed miracles/walked on water
- Often portrayed with arms outstretched
- Known to have had a confrontation with the devil, possibly tempted (in a wilderness--disappears to the wilderness)
- Last seen in the company of thieves
- Creator of many aphorisms and parables
- Buried, but arose on the third day
- Had disciples, twelve at first, although not all equally devoted
- Very forgiving
- Came to redeem an unworthy world (at the least offers hope)
Graphic: Archetypes in Doctor Who
Graphic: Archetypes in Harry Potter
Another Graphic
IV. Dystopia
Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Discuss dystopian literature and films.
V. Predestination/Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase? [Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor]
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry...
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know? Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?
Discuss the idea of predestination and self-fulfilling prophecies.
VI. The Matrix as Social Commentary -- Awakening to Social Realities
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you. |
Near the beginning of The Matrix, Neo hides his illegal software inside a hollowed-out copy of a book by French postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard titled Simulacra and Simulation (1981). It argues that late-twentieth-century consumer culture is a world in which simulations or imitations of reality have become more real than reality itself -- they are "hyper-real.”
For example, walking and running are not nearly as important as they were in pre-modern societies -- now jogging is a hobby. Food is no longer produced locally and natural, but we have "health food."
The world of simulations increasingly takes on a life of its own, and reality erodes to the point that it becomes a desert. Morpheus introduces Neo to the real world by welcoming him to “the desert of the real,” a phrase taken from the first page of Simulacra and Simulation. The Matrix films can be seen as a criticism of the unreal consumer culture we live in, which may be distracting us from the fact that we are being exploited.
Khan Academy: Introduction to the Matrix
The Scientific Angle: Do physicists believe we live in The Matrix?
