Cartesian and Platonic Philosophical Themes in The Matrix Essay

Like today’s world, in The Matrix technology dominates society. There are two dimensions in the film: the artificial intelligence world and the “real” world. The AI world is painted in all the glories of the world the viewer knows: a world where choices are “made” by the individual and “supposed” freedom exists. Morpheus offers Neo an opportunity to see the world for what it really is and break free from the bondage of technology, “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” The humanistic need to mentally

The Matrix is a film about the enslavement of humankind by artificial intelligence, sentient beings, with mechanical bodies, created by people to service humanity, and the discovery of a person, Neo, that possesses abilities that can defeat the Artificial Intelligence and manumit humanity. The majority of human beings have their consciousness/minds trapped within the Matrix, a computer simulated world in which their minds are born, live in, and die, while their bodies are connected to it via cerebral connection but, remain in a dormant slumber and are never used. While they are connected to the matrix, their bioelectricity is harvested, powering the artificial intelligence. Neo, with the help of Morpheus (the leader in the resistance

After the early 21st century, humans built these machines, which are now held in a nuclear-winter-like setting. Being deprived of sunlight as an energy source, they have enslaved the human race and are farming people as a source of bioelectrical energy. The humans are kept in an unconscious state in podlike containers in a vast holding field, plugged in to a central computer. In the scenario of The Matrix, everything in the world; cars, buildings, cities, and countries are part of a complex computer-generated virtual reality, which within the humans interact. Everything they see, smell and hear is part of this virtual construct and does not really exist. A computer merely stimulates their brains and deceives them into believing that they are all living normal 20th-century lives, eating sleeping, working and interacting together. They are all blinded to the truth about how and why they exist. After a handful of people have escaped from the nightmarish world of the Matrix, they find out the truth and reach out to those still consumed with the falsities of this world. One of these, a man named Morpheus, hacks into the Matrix and contacts Neo, telling him,

In 1999, Larry and Andy Wachowski directed The Matrix, a movie featuring the future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality or cyberspace called "the Matrix”. This fake reality was created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population. To some, this movie represents just another brilliant Hollywood sci-fi action film, but for others, it challenges the understanding of perspective, reality and appearance ("The matrix 101," 2003). The Matrix heavily relies on the concepts of Irish Philosopher George Berkeley who believed reality, or reality as humans perceive it, is fundamentally mental and therefore immaterial which is known as Idealism.

The Matrix is the war between man and machine, and the possibility that reality is a deception. In a sense, the Matrix is a constant struggle of identity and reality. This struggle of identity and reality is based around the character of Thomas Anderson, an ordinary person living a mundane life.

The similarities between The Cave and The Matrix are too uncanny. The description of the cave above, which is discussed in the first paragraph of Plato’s seventh book, can be portrayed similarly in

In “The Matrix” and Plato’s Phaedo and Republic questions of what makes up a whole and fulfilling life are answered. Both The Matrix and Plato provide alternate forms of reality, one that is based on truth and is fulfilling and one that is based on a false reality that offers false forms of fulfillment. The Matrix and Plato show the difference of living a life in a true reality and a “fake” reality where everything inside this reality is fake making the lives inside this reality fake. True education, the ability to recollect, and knowledge of reality gives people the ability to live their lives in truth and give life meaning

The Matrix, Plato’s, The Republic, and Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641 were somewhat similar as the individuals described in these stories, were existing in a world where deception encompassed

Through the course of this paper, I began to wonder if it was even worth finishing. Thoughts rushed through my head on whether this Word document I was typing on even really existed. My reality as I presumed it to be may actually be thoughts in my head, and this philosophy assignment may have just been some weird way my own mind decided to entertain me. Perhaps yet, it may have been the work of a divine mind, taking helm of the way my thoughts flowed. These were all questions that came up as I read through George Berkeley 's, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. For in his manuscript, he addresses skepticism about the physical world, that is the ambiguity humans have in how a physical world outside of our minds is like. Berkeley has a simple solution to this. Through his interpretations of ideas, Berkeley comes to the conclusion that there should not be any skepticism surrounding the physical world because the physical world simply does not exist.

First off, the creation of the Matrix functions as an institution through the ability to give those who reside within the fantasy

This first paragraph that begins the story is perfect in showing The Matrix ideas. Humans live in pods in large fields were they are grown. So like in the story they are prisoners even as children and they are plugged into the matrix or "chained so they cannot move." The fire behind the prisoners is like the matrix program it self, it's there to make illusions and make the prisoners think what they see is "real." Lastly there are the puppeteers who make shadows using the fire and create illusions. The puppeteers can easily be linked to the machines that hold the humans as prisoners and make what happens in the matrix happen. Such as the puppeteers make shadows in the fire to trick the humans, the machines do the same thing in The Matrix, it's just in a more advanced and complicated way. The machines create

Unlike Neo from The Matrix and the aforementioned liberated man from Plato’s excerpt, Rene Descartes voluntarily and readily accepted that there were many deceptions in his life and was eager to uncover the truth. Congruent with the other excerpts, Descartes recognized that his senses and experiences had deceived him in the past, so he resolved to find truth outside of these approaches. Descartes’ semblance to The Matrix and Plato’s analogy is also discernible when he recounts how the misconceptions he formerly held are familiar and comfortable, making him susceptible to regressing back to those

In the film, The Matrix, a world exists where machines rule over the human race, using them as an energy source. The film plays with the idea of a real versus simulated world. In addition to reality, the film portrays certain Christian and non-Christian based themes. These themes are discussed by Gregory Bassham, along with the presence of religious pluralism, in his article “The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of Pluralism.” Bassham’s article is unbalanced and does not follow his thesis statement; however, he employs topic sentences to introduce new ideas and explain how they are relevant to his argument, and secondary evidence to prove his claims.[Thesis statement doesn’t explicitly say whether the rhetoric techniques are good or bad. ]

Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who

The Matrix (1999, Lana and Lilly Wachowski) is an action filled, futuristic view of what the world would be like if artificial intelligence were to take over. The movie covers many of the issues associated with the human experience, such as gender equality, figuring out what is real versus what is an illusion created by society, and finding and then defining one’s faith. Much like every person in the world today the characters in The Matrix struggle with finding their faith, whether it be faith in themselves, a god, or an oracle. With an array of religious references within the film to Buddhism and Christianity, there is no wonder as to why religion and the various roles it plays in the plot is one of the most highly debated subjects of the film. Gregory Bassham’s article “The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of Pluralism” is an analysis of the film through the lens of theological meanings and pluralism. This paper will explore Bassham’s use of secondary evidence and transitions to make his claims of religious meaning and hidden pluralistic views in The Matrix believable and easy to follow, and how the effectiveness of his argument is weakened by its poor structure.