The Matrix Research Paper
The Matrix and Philosophy
Have you ever felt like the life you are living right now is not real? You do not know what is real and what is not real? You doubt your very existence. These were main problems for Neo, the main character of the movie “The Matrix”. Neo thought he was living a normal life, but he felt like something was wrong, he did not know what it was, could not explain it, but something was wrong. Later on
Neo learns the truth from a man named Morpheus; he found out that what he thought was real was actually not real at all, it was all a computer program. The life he lived was all a lie because of his perception blocking out reality. “The
Matrix” can be compared to ontology, the study of being or what is, “The …show more content…
The body is an extension of the mind, it is divisible matter and it is destructible. Descartes came up with a very famous saying, “Cogito Ergo Sum” Latin for “I think therefore I am.” This saying mean that “I cannot be mistaken about my own about the existence of my own consciousness, or I cannot be mistaken about my own existence because it is my essence to be conscious thinking being, a mind”, doubt is the first step to certainty. Then comes the “Evil Genius”, it tries to trick you about your existence, but it cannot deceive you about yourself. The mind is the tool that allows you to doubt the “Evil Genius.” In the movie “The Matrix” Morpheus asks Neo “what is real?” and then says “how do you define real? If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste, and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” “Each will interpret particular experiences, as well as the whole of reality, differently simply due to the divergent belief systems that each possess. Of course, our belief systems can be wrong, and thus reality is not as we think it is. This was Neo’s discovery when he ate the …show more content…
Thus Neo’s awakening is symbolic of the general philosophical experience of questioning one’s belief about the world, and the attempt to discover what exists behind our illusions. We can be deceived by evil machines, a Cartesian demon, or by the traditions of our society; and if we are, then reality is not as we believe it is.”-thematrix101 The brain in a vat is basically your brain being placed in a jar and connected to a computer controlled by a scientist, your mind can make you think that you are walking outside in the sun in Miami, so you believe that you are, but actually you are just a brain in a jar. “The Matrix” is extremely similar to this, but instead of just your brain being in a jar, it’s your whole body connected with wires in a metal container. “The Matrix presents a version of an old philosophical fable: the brain in a vat. A disembodied brain is floating in a vat, inside a scientist’s laboratory. The scientist has arranged that the brain will be stimulated with the same sort of in puts that a normal embodied brain receives. To do this, the brain is connected to a giant computer simulation of a world.”-David J. Chalmers.
Have you ever felt like the life you are living right now is not real? You do not know what is real and what is not real? You doubt your very existence. These were main problems for Neo, the main character of the movie “The Matrix”. Neo thought he was living a normal life, but he felt like something was wrong, he did not know what it was, could not explain it, but something was wrong. Later on
Neo learns the truth from a man named Morpheus; he found out that what he thought was real was actually not real at all, it was all a computer program. The life he lived was all a lie because of his perception blocking out reality. “The
Matrix” can be compared to ontology, the study of being or what is, “The …show more content…
The body is an extension of the mind, it is divisible matter and it is destructible. Descartes came up with a very famous saying, “Cogito Ergo Sum” Latin for “I think therefore I am.” This saying mean that “I cannot be mistaken about my own about the existence of my own consciousness, or I cannot be mistaken about my own existence because it is my essence to be conscious thinking being, a mind”, doubt is the first step to certainty. Then comes the “Evil Genius”, it tries to trick you about your existence, but it cannot deceive you about yourself. The mind is the tool that allows you to doubt the “Evil Genius.” In the movie “The Matrix” Morpheus asks Neo “what is real?” and then says “how do you define real? If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste, and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” “Each will interpret particular experiences, as well as the whole of reality, differently simply due to the divergent belief systems that each possess. Of course, our belief systems can be wrong, and thus reality is not as we think it is. This was Neo’s discovery when he ate the …show more content…
Thus Neo’s awakening is symbolic of the general philosophical experience of questioning one’s belief about the world, and the attempt to discover what exists behind our illusions. We can be deceived by evil machines, a Cartesian demon, or by the traditions of our society; and if we are, then reality is not as we believe it is.”-thematrix101 The brain in a vat is basically your brain being placed in a jar and connected to a computer controlled by a scientist, your mind can make you think that you are walking outside in the sun in Miami, so you believe that you are, but actually you are just a brain in a jar. “The Matrix” is extremely similar to this, but instead of just your brain being in a jar, it’s your whole body connected with wires in a metal container. “The Matrix presents a version of an old philosophical fable: the brain in a vat. A disembodied brain is floating in a vat, inside a scientist’s laboratory. The scientist has arranged that the brain will be stimulated with the same sort of in puts that a normal embodied brain receives. To do this, the brain is connected to a giant computer simulation of a world.”-David J. Chalmers.