The Matrix

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Anji
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May 3rd, 2007 at 02:25pm
OK, so some or most of us here have seen the movie, and if not you've probably heard the theories. But to be honest, I think most of them are wrong.

Anyway, talk about theories to the movie here, while I prove that it isn't about a stimulated environment in our subconscious.

My theory? It's isn't theory, I'm damn well sure that this is fact. The Matrix has absolutely nothing to do with the 'How do you know you're not dreaming?' idea. The Matrix is about the false world, not as a series of nerve impulses, making us react with an imaginary environment, but the false world as in capitalist and consumerist society.

There are many sites about this on the internet, so discuss.

http://www.matrix-explained.com/
Meski
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May 3rd, 2007 at 03:36pm
I always though there could be another life out there Think
Mycophobia
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May 8th, 2007 at 08:36pm
when i was little i decided the world is a big egg and when we die we hatch out and live in this giant world with lots of purple Shifty
Anji
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May 11th, 2007 at 03:32pm
Polexia?:
when i was little i decided the world is a big egg and when we die we hatch out and live in this giant world with lots of purple Shifty
That reminds me of what Plato wrote in his The Republic.

At least, I think. Anyway, he described the world as the general public knows it, as prisoners entramped in 'a cave'. One day, one of them becomes free and surfaces the cave to find out that there is in fact a whole other world which is out side of the cave and returned to tell the rest of the prisoners about it. He's sort of like the Messiah, like Neo in The Matrix and also what Christians used to describe the death and ressurection of Christ.

It is this idea that so many people consider the theory of The Matrix to be about when infact that has nothing to do with the 'Matrix'.
The Doctor
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May 11th, 2007 at 03:51pm
My neighbor thought of this years before the Matrix came about.

Well, sort of. He just thought that life as we know it is actually us in a coma, so this is a sort of dream. Life On Mars style.

I don't like the Matrix idea though, however possible it may be. I prefer parallel universes. Mr. Green which is not the same thing.
Anji
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May 11th, 2007 at 04:39pm
All the movie is supposed to do is to stir up a political idea that's been around since the 60's. The theory is a lot older however. Marxism.

The part at the end where Neo sees the white rabbit proves my point. Look at the title of the book.
PentatonicA
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May 11th, 2007 at 11:38pm
I don’t know about these “matrix theories” going around that you mentioned, but I think I have some idea of what they’re about.
What I do have to say is that the world (reality) we live in is in many ways pretty much like the matrix. Of course I don’t mean literally, but more as a metaphor of something that otherwise is pretty complex to describe or understand even.

The realm we inhabit is a pseudo-reality. Many describe it as a ‘Virtual Reality‘, not because it happens inside a computer simulation (like the matrix movies for example) but because it’s not a “genuine” reality (hence the use of the word virtual) it’s an artificial reality.
This isn’t to say that our “reality” isn’t real, in terms of the actual existence of our realm is real and it exists, but it is also a counterfeit “reality” of the True Genuine Realm that sadly we’re not part of.

To illustrate the point, let’s say we’re able to build a robot or android that looks like us and can do nearly everything we can do but that is a machine inside. The robot can be considered a counterfeit human being, and humans being the genuine article. That is very simplified the differences between the True Realm and the counterfeit fake one we live in.
The Doctor
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May 12th, 2007 at 06:42am
Anji:
All the movie is supposed to do is to stir up a political idea that's been around since the 60's. The theory is a lot older however. Marxism.

The part at the end where Neo sees the white rabbit proves my point. Look at the title of the book.
Ahh, good ol' Karl Marx. It would be good to get people to actually understand Marxism without immediately thinking Cold War-esque ideas.

White rabbit? Which movie was that in?
Anji
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May 13th, 2007 at 01:06pm
The Lady of Time.:
Anji:
All the movie is supposed to do is to stir up a political idea that's been around since the 60's. The theory is a lot older however. Marxism.

The part at the end where Neo sees the white rabbit proves my point. Look at the title of the book.
Ahh, good ol' Karl Marx. It would be good to get people to actually understand Marxism without immediately thinking Cold War-esque ideas.

White rabbit? Which movie was that in?
The first...I think.

And in terms of psychologic analysis, I always think Hobbes in terms of the Cold War. The 'race for arms' and every thing, Hobbesian theory makes a lot of sense.
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May 19th, 2007 at 08:37pm
Anji:
Polexia?:
when i was little i decided the world is a big egg and when we die we hatch out and live in this giant world with lots of purple Shifty
That reminds me of what Plato wrote in his The Republic.

At least, I think. Anyway, he described the world as the general public knows it, as prisoners entramped in 'a cave'. One day, one of them becomes free and surfaces the cave to find out that there is in fact a whole other world which is out side of the cave and returned to tell the rest of the prisoners about it. He's sort of like the Messiah, like Neo in The Matrix and also what Christians used to describe the death and ressurection of Christ.

It is this idea that so many people consider the theory of The Matrix to be about when infact that has nothing to do with the 'Matrix'.


Yes. Plato.

We have to debate about his ''cave'' theory. We debate about wether it's good or not to let one ''prisoner'' to learn about real life outside the cave.

My team is on the pro side.

We have concluded many things like:

-the path towards the exit of the cave can be compared to the path towards knowledge itself. Yes, that path can be rough, yet in the end, it's most likely to be really satisfying. And also doesn't every path have its own difficulties?

-IF WE ASSUME EVERY PRISONER IS ON THE SAME MENTAL LEVEL (having grown in the same environment, we can assume they have the same values, the same fears, etc.): Taking example of how the majority of people would react learning the truth (which is basically feeling unfairness about how they weren't allowed to know the truth in the first place) we can assume that if the prisoner that now has the knowledge reacted ''positively'', so will the others.

-IF WE ASSUME EVERY PRISONER IS ON A DIFFERENT MENTAL LEVEL: Won't one prisoner start doubting the shadows on the walls' genuinity? Doubt is what permitted the discovery that the Earth wasn't flat, no? Copernic and Galileo doubted and verified. After that was discovered, people weren't less happy.

-Everyone is equal. Everyone should have the right to know the truth.

-In 1984 by George Orwell, we see that it is easy to influence people who have no real knowledge. The control the party has on the people is absolute. Therefore, it's safe to assume the lack of knowledge leads to naivety, which leads to a certain weakness. Being against the fact to bring the prisoner(s) knowledge, aren't they also agreeing that ''ignorance is bliss''?

-The prisoners themselves portray the initial state of the human mind. The blank canvas. The path towards knowledge would only be natural­. To leave them in their ignorance would be to leave them in that primal state, therefore in a state of ''weakness''.

-In movies such as The Matrix, The Truman Show and The Island, the protagonists are portraying some sort of ''cave prisoners'' and in all three movies, the characters will prefer staying in the ''real world'' rather than returning to the ignorance.


...there are more. I'm not typing them all, since I have to translate, too.

But I hope this has some relevance to the subject.
LoveMeLudo
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May 28th, 2007 at 12:17pm
People have the right to think what they want to. But tbh people should leave what is in the movies in the movies.
whatsername48417
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June 27th, 2007 at 11:12am
i love those movies
Sherlock Holmes
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July 1st, 2007 at 08:19am
I've seen the films but...There's a THEORY?! Woah...Iam sorry but the whole 'theory' to me sounds imposible, someones got too much time on their hands.
Anji
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July 1st, 2007 at 12:40pm
Fandangle:
I've seen the films but...There's a THEORY?! Woah...Iam sorry but the whole 'theory' to me sounds imposible, someones got too much time on their hands.
If you didn't get that The Matrix had an underlying message, I suggest you re-watch it.
porcelain-star
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July 11th, 2007 at 07:47am
my inferior brain capacity was never able to grasp the matrix

Sad
superfan
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March 11th, 2008 at 07:12am
it's like when we believed the sun and the moon revolved around the earth. Then we found other planets and realised they all revolve around the sun. Then we realised there was millions of other galaxys around us, and we're just a tiny part in the universe.

Of course there's other life out there, whether they're controling us or not is another matter...
Anji
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March 11th, 2008 at 07:34am
TMA-1:
Yes. Plato.

We have to debate about his ''cave'' theory. We debate about wether it's good or not to let one ''prisoner'' to learn about real life outside the cave.

My team is on the pro side.

We have concluded many things like:

-the path towards the exit of the cave can be compared to the path towards knowledge itself. Yes, that path can be rough, yet in the end, it's most likely to be really satisfying. And also doesn't every path have its own difficulties?

-IF WE ASSUME EVERY PRISONER IS ON THE SAME MENTAL LEVEL (having grown in the same environment, we can assume they have the same values, the same fears, etc.): Taking example of how the majority of people would react learning the truth (which is basically feeling unfairness about how they weren't allowed to know the truth in the first place) we can assume that if the prisoner that now has the knowledge reacted ''positively'', so will the others.

-IF WE ASSUME EVERY PRISONER IS ON A DIFFERENT MENTAL LEVEL: Won't one prisoner start doubting the shadows on the walls' genuinity? Doubt is what permitted the discovery that the Earth wasn't flat, no? Copernic and Galileo doubted and verified. After that was discovered, people weren't less happy.

-Everyone is equal. Everyone should have the right to know the truth.

-In 1984 by George Orwell, we see that it is easy to influence people who have no real knowledge. The control the party has on the people is absolute. Therefore, it's safe to assume the lack of knowledge leads to naivety, which leads to a certain weakness. Being against the fact to bring the prisoner(s) knowledge, aren't they also agreeing that ''ignorance is bliss''?

-The prisoners themselves portray the initial state of the human mind. The blank canvas. The path towards knowledge would only be natural­. To leave them in their ignorance would be to leave them in that primal state, therefore in a state of ''weakness''.

-In movies such as The Matrix, The Truman Show and The Island, the protagonists are portraying some sort of ''cave prisoners'' and in all three movies, the characters will prefer staying in the ''real world'' rather than returning to the ignorance.


...there are more. I'm not typing them all, since I have to translate, too.

But I hope this has some relevance to the subject.
Those are some excellent points. I interpret The Cave in a more ontological appraoch than the films do. I think it has less to do with social inequity and ignorance and more to do with inner conflict of beliefs. I'd imagine that Plato was an idealist.
droid.
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March 13th, 2008 at 10:26pm
Although I loveeeee the Matrix to the umpiteth extent, I don't really believe that we have another life, our real life, waiting to be lived in another universe.

But I do agree with one thing that Neo says in the movie.

Morpheus: Do you believe in fate?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
lyrical_mess
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March 14th, 2008 at 02:46am
Anji:
Polexia?:
when i was little i decided the world is a big egg and when we die we hatch out and live in this giant world with lots of purple Shifty
That reminds me of what Plato wrote in his The Republic.

At least, I think. Anyway, he described the world as the general public knows it, as prisoners entramped in 'a cave'. One day, one of them becomes free and surfaces the cave to find out that there is in fact a whole other world which is out side of the cave and returned to tell the rest of the prisoners about it. He's sort of like the Messiah, like Neo in The Matrix and also what Christians used to describe the death and ressurection of Christ.

It is this idea that so many people consider the theory of The Matrix to be about when infact that has nothing to do with the 'Matrix'.


Plato's thing isn't quite that. His "Shadows on the Cave Wall" thing has more to do with truth and reality and we had a big ol' discussion on it in TOK (which I hate, btw, Anji.) Hanywaaay. His thing is that there's people in a cave several feet below the ground. They can't see anything except the wall of the cave. They cannot move their heads or bodies because they are shackled and bound. Above them, there is a giant fire. People bring objects by the fire, shaped like people, vases, whatever. And these fire people talk. Because the people inside the cave cannot see this, they assume the shadows of the objects to be reality and the voices they hear to be the voices of the objects. To them, this is reality.

Suppose on prisoner was freed and taught about the outside world. Suppose he returns to the cave and tells everyone about what he knows and tells them that those shadows aren't real things. All his friends would laugh at him and tell him to stfu.

As far as I understand: Reality is perception. There is a whole other reality we are not aware of. What we see and understand are just shadows on a cave wall. Our knowledge might be true, it might not be true. But what we are seeing is not true reality. Our perception is limited.
Anji
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March 14th, 2008 at 09:00am
Lol. You need a really good teacher in order for TOK to be enjoyable. I was fortunate enough that my EE supervisor was a TOK teacher and he was my English teacher as well, we were on friendly terms so he helped me out with a lot of the TOK material.

'The Cave' can be interpreted in so many ways though, almost ultimately about anything. In my opinion, Plato believed that this person was a messiah type figure in that he was the one that held the truth, while the other could either reject his ideas or have faith in them.

Lamo, love the use of TOK vocabulary by the way. I'm sure you're teacher would be proud.
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