What is the matrix? If it exists, where is it? Are we inside of it? Are there a real and an illusionary world? Are we? Does reality exist?
These or similar questions may occur when you've seen the film "Matrix". But before I go into details I'll just give a short summary of the plot.
Neo (Keanu Reeves), a hacker, someday came upon the underground-organisation of the mysterious Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). He is let into a secret, which exceeds his worst nightmares: The real world lies in ruins, whereas the world in which Neo lives is nothing but an illusion, a program, also known as - The Matrix. This program takes the energy from human bodies, which are stored underground in billions of "eggs". This construct can only be vanquished by a chosen one - by Neo.
The name "Neo" has a higher meaning: It is an anagram of the numeral "one", the one - The Chosen One. The Grecian meaning of the word "neo" is "new", which, concerning the movie, may mention Neo's quest: the salvation of humanity and the guarantee of a new beginning.
But why is there a chosen one? Who has chosen him? Was it the matrix? Was it God?
Like I mentioned before the world is just an illusion. Mankind is living in slavery. There really must be someone who gets the urge to free them from it and perhaps himself as well. And further more I would say that the Oracle, to whom Morpheus often speaks, has given precise clues, that Neo must be the one.
When Neo exits the Matrix into the real world, he is being freed of his "egg". He is - sort of - reincarnated. Whereas I wouldn't truly speak of renascence because Neo "lived" as a virtual being before. Being new- or reborn poses the question what the Matrix is.
In the movie there was a real revolution in computer technologies as they created the A.I. (artificial intelligence) at the end of the 21st century. With it came a completely new kind of machines. But it came to a war between the men and the machines. Thus the sky was darkened and the solar based machines had to search for a new source of energy. Because one man produces much more bioelectricity than a 120 volt battery, the machines created the Matrix. But what is the Matrix? "Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control". Therefore men are only a battery for the machines. To summarise it, the Matrix is a "neural-interactive simulation". |
Besides that it is kind of an uterus. This is because I found out that the german translation of the english substantive "matrix" apart from the mathematical meaning matrix (an ordered set of numbers with predefined algorithms) is also known as uterus or agars. At this one could ask: is it an agars for the illusion or is it maybe the uterus for "the Ones"? It may take long time to think this over.
When you now want to get from the real world to the matrix you must sit down on a special chair. Then an apparatus is inserted in a port at the back of your head (this port has been implanted at your "birth"). At this point you are in the Matrix, meaning that your mind is in the Matrix, which in turn means that the virtual "real" world is faked in front of your intellect. But what are you inside the Matrix? Morpheus, the "teacher" of Neo, gives us the definition that it is the "residual self-image", the "mental projection of your digital self", that means, the brain projects a self into the computer and by doing this it gets digital. Now all perceptions in the Matrix are digital and are converted to electric signals that our brain is able to comprehend.
All you can see, hear, smell, touch or taste are now "simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain". There is one thing which is vague, it is the fact that when you die inside of the Matrix you die in the real world as well and vice versa. It may also be that the computer reports the death in the Matrix to the brain and after that, the brain "says" to the body, it must be dead, but that sounds very weird.
The phenomenon of illusion can also be found in other movies (e.g. The Truman Show: 1998/ Director: Peter Weir) or in philosophy.
In Plato's allegory of the cave it is shown how common men are impelled to watch the distorted visualisation of reality, or rather, what they think it may be.
"The Truman Show" represents something similar. In this film a man is part of a TV-show since his birth without knowing it. He is trapped inside a giant dome and monitored every moment by cameras, which broadcast his life directly to TV.
I think you can now see that such movies come up with many questions. Maybe I debated some of them. However there is a lot kept in the dark.
"Do you believe that's air you are breathing now?"
|