I still remember going to see The Matrix in the theater, back in 1999. I wasn't there on opening day, or even opening week - I saw it on second run, or near about, by myself, in the little dump of a movie theater in my neighborhood, with its crappy sound, even worse projector, and very sticky floors. But I walked out of the theater with a feeling I couldn't shake: I could almost feel the plug on the back of my skull, and the warm gel of my pod surrounding me. I had goose bumps to the point my goose bumps had goose bumps. Seeing the movie alone, I had felt as though I had been sucked into the world of The Matrix, without an anchor of reality to keep me from loosing perspective. Within my own mind, I started to wonder and doubt the very nature of the reality around me.
In his Meditations, Descartes put forward the idea of the Evil Genius, which it is at least possible that there is an all-powerful evil genius who is deceiving us continually. "I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me...and if this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch-deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be." Is there any better crystallization of the human fear that what we experience, from the input of our senses to the very foundations of our understanding of reality, is somehow false, and that somehow, we are being manipulated or deceived to believe other than what is? Humans have always feared this, from our fear of Dreams to our fear of Death, and even our continual doubt in the nature of the universe. That we even can ask the question "Is what I see what really is?" speaks volumes about the nature of the abstract reasoning ability of the human mind.
There is a “philosophical warning label,” that goes something along the lines of “The reader is advised that he or she may be subject to an illusion generated by an evil genius, and that his or her "sensory fibers" may be falsely manipulated at any time with neither advance warning nor any possible legal remedy.” This is meant, yes, as a joke, a play on the inherent paranoia that comes with exploring the Evil Genius hypothesis. But it has a very serious implication, one that should not be overlooked: nothing should ever be taken at face value, not even data from our own senses. Is something really as we see it, or is it parallax, or gravitational lensing, or our own perceptions distorting what we observe? The Matrix reminds us to do the same, to question the nature of reality – the nature of the system. And, as with any system it has rules, and these rules are, as Morpheus says to Neo, “no different than the rules of a computer system - some of them can be bent...others can be broken.”
I wonder if this lesson will be continued in the second of these movies. The general public has been too well conditioned to take things on face value, to rely on the input of “experts” and “professionals” and I fear for the possible dumbing down of the lesson that the Wachowski brothers tried so hard to convey in the first move for the sake of more box office draw. We shall see on Thursday when I go see it. This time, on opening day.
In his Meditations, Descartes put forward the idea of the Evil Genius, which it is at least possible that there is an all-powerful evil genius who is deceiving us continually. "I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me...and if this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch-deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be." Is there any better crystallization of the human fear that what we experience, from the input of our senses to the very foundations of our understanding of reality, is somehow false, and that somehow, we are being manipulated or deceived to believe other than what is? Humans have always feared this, from our fear of Dreams to our fear of Death, and even our continual doubt in the nature of the universe. That we even can ask the question "Is what I see what really is?" speaks volumes about the nature of the abstract reasoning ability of the human mind.
There is a “philosophical warning label,” that goes something along the lines of “The reader is advised that he or she may be subject to an illusion generated by an evil genius, and that his or her "sensory fibers" may be falsely manipulated at any time with neither advance warning nor any possible legal remedy.” This is meant, yes, as a joke, a play on the inherent paranoia that comes with exploring the Evil Genius hypothesis. But it has a very serious implication, one that should not be overlooked: nothing should ever be taken at face value, not even data from our own senses. Is something really as we see it, or is it parallax, or gravitational lensing, or our own perceptions distorting what we observe? The Matrix reminds us to do the same, to question the nature of reality – the nature of the system. And, as with any system it has rules, and these rules are, as Morpheus says to Neo, “no different than the rules of a computer system - some of them can be bent...others can be broken.”
I wonder if this lesson will be continued in the second of these movies. The general public has been too well conditioned to take things on face value, to rely on the input of “experts” and “professionals” and I fear for the possible dumbing down of the lesson that the Wachowski brothers tried so hard to convey in the first move for the sake of more box office draw. We shall see on Thursday when I go see it. This time, on opening day.
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