Comparing The Matrix With Readings From Plato And Descartes

Millions of people flock to the movie theater year after year on a quest to be entertained. Even a mediocre movie has the ability to take the audience to another place, escaping the realities of their own life, if only for a mere two hours. Some movies are simply pure entertainment. And then, there are those movies that provoke conversation long after the film has been viewed. Dystopian themes are not new, and have historically provided a template to gage the course of human existence. The Matrix portrays a society where humans exist without freedom. The film is not only entertaining, but also thought provoking. It paints a world with two different dimensions, one with the mind numbing

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

Watching the film ‘The Matrix,’ it is natural to question whether the world we live in is real or not. Neo, the hero, comes to know that the world he lives in is not real thanks to Morpheus. In the future world, the computer rules humans, who are, in turn, born to grow in an incubator. Further, human cerebral nerves are connected to a computer networks, which implies men cannot help living in another incubator till death although they cannot recognize they live in the incubator. Plato’s allegory of the cave is analogous to the story line found in ‘The Matrix.’ People live in a cave, looking at their shadows reflected on the cave wall. They never realize they are in a cave. Plato’s allegory of the cave assumes key words leading the story

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

This essay will examine the philosophical questions raised in the movie The Matrix. It will step through how the questions from the movie directly relate to both skepticism and the mind-body problem, and further how similarly those problems look to concepts raised by both Descartes’ and Plato’s philosophies. It will attempt to show that many of the questions raised in the movie are metaphor for concepts from each philosopher’s works, and why those concepts are important in relation to how they are presented in the film. In this analysis, we will examine the questions of skepticism and the mind-body problem separately. Part one will examine how the film broached the subject of skepticism, and in doing so how it ties in to

The 1999 film ‘The Matrix’, directed by the Wachowski Brothers, tells the story of a computer-generated world in which humans are used as batteries to power the matrix’ systems. The film focuses on a small team of humans who are fighting against the matrix. There are several themes in this film and many of which are suggested through the ‘material body’. The material body is made up of four key elements- cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing and soundtrack. These elements are crucial to the audience’s understanding of the narrative and the director’s intended meaning. The ‘Two pills” scene is a good example of how the material body can be used to analyse the presentation of characters and the narrative.

Plato's Allegory of the cave is classic from ancient Greece that will never go out of style and will always be able to relate to the present. The Wachowski brother’s movie The Matrix is a modern day with breathtaking visual and heart pulsing fighting scenes that will be enjoyed by future generations to come. Plato's classical short story and the Wachowski brothers’ box office hit share many similarities in the plot and the meanings behind the story itself. What makes their works of art so enjoyable is that they can connect to the real world.

Man undergoes stages and travels in a fairy tale like dream unknowingly of the living life (Wachowski, A, & Wachowski, L, 1999). Plato and Descartes paint a picture of perception of the Earth that rises questions of what is real. The Matrix is much different than the other stories, because it shows humans are controlled by an unknown artificial intelligent figure. The figure deceives individuals to believe that they are actually living a productive normal life in the world (Wachowski, A, & Wachowski, L, 1999). Furthermore, the story of Descartes is different than the other stories because it describes God and the creation of mankind. This story, shows God having control over the people, and their minds (Descartes, R., 1641). Overall, this story shows mankind not having control over the predestined of the early part of birth of life to the ending of death of life.

In comparing the movie The Matrix to Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, both have a theme of trying to find the truth. In the Matrix, Neo is confronted with a difficult choice. Either he can choose the blue pill and forget that Morpheus ever confronted him with such news of the Matrix or he can take the red pill and find out the truth, which is that he has been living in a simulated fantasy world. The Allegory of the Cave is similar in that Plato attempts to explain reality. There are some epistemology questions that occur in both situations such as, what is truth, how do we find it, and how reliable are our perceptions? The people that are prisoners in the cave cannot see the world beyond the cave except for glimmers of light reflecting off the wall and therefore believe that the cave is the real world when in fact if they could escape to the outer world they would realize that outside the cave, in the light, is actually the real world. Another example of comparison is Plato’s two world belief, a world of being and a world of becoming.

Hilary Putman’s brain in a vat thought-experiment has caused many to question their sense and the concept of what is considered real. In the experiment we are asked to imagine a possibility, that we are all a brain hooked up by wires to a really advanced computer system built to simulate our experience of the outside world. The brain vat argument simply states that if you cannot prove that the brain vat does not exist, then you cannot rule out the possibility that all your beliefs could be false. The movie The Matrix directed by The Wachowskis, in 1999 was based on Putman’s brain vat experiment. In this short essay I will be comparing and contrasting the synopsis of The Matrix against Plato’s The Republic, and Descartes Meditation.

Imagine your whole life you have been a slave, born into bondage. In a prison, that you were unaware existed in your present ideal of reality. A prison for your mind, bonded by illusions to control you from the truth. The truth of the matter being the reality, in which you believe to live in, does not exist. Just as the prisoners of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality in the same way the human population in the movie “The Matrix” written by the Wachowski brothers.

While reading Plato and his allegory of the cave the similarities between that and The Matrix are undeniable. In the allegory of the cave people are believing only what they have been shown. All their experiences, beliefs, and knowledge comes from what a “higher being”

The question of what is real in the world has been an enduring debate throughout history. Modern movies like The Matrix provides insight into what a modern philosopher, Hilary Putnam, believes of the natural world. However, Putnam was not the only philosopher to suggest there is a problem with how the world perceives reality. Pluto and Rene Descartes are two philosophers in history that have presented the ideas that there may or may not be unexpected knowledge of the world than previously predicted. Through comparing and contrasting The Matrix with the writings The Republic and Meditations of First Philosophy an argument against reality can made.

The Matrix, a symbol of Blockbusters - New Hollywood Digital cinema, is characterized by advanced digital technology such as visual effects CGI, and special effects to create environments which look realistic, or something impossible to capture in the film. It is directed by Lana Wachowski and Lily Wachowski and released in year 1999 in the U.S. The film shows multiple themes: freedom, illusion and reality. The film conveys a issue of freedom that it is impossible or not; however, the film is the vanishment of freedom at the beginning. For example, Oracle’s job is to liberate human, but she in fact does not believe in freedom.

Skepticism is something which the early philosophers such as Rene Descartes and George Berkeley addressed, and still, the issue of reality has remained debated for centuries by philosophers (Schmerheim, 2015). This paper discusses the topic of whether the Matrix film is more like Descartes’ evil deceiver or otherwise like the Berkeley’s God by analyzing the philosophy with regards to the Matrix film. The Matrix is a 1999 film that is significantly founded on the question of what is reality and Berkeley and Descartes, on the other hand, perceived the world as having two different versions of the truth. This paper will thus discuss the philosophy of Descartes and Berkeley concerning the concept of reality and then provide supporting evidence how the Matrix film is a reflection of their ideas.