Rene Descarte's Dualism In The Matrix

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 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.

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

Deception is the foundational issue prevalent in The Matrix, Plato’s allegory of the cave, and Rene Descartes meditations. In each of these excerpts the goal of answering the question of what is real and how to uncover the truth is essential. Another question that arises throughout all three excerpts is whether or not the individuals will be able to handle the truth when it is finally learnt. In The Matrix Morpheus reveals to Neo that the life he had previously accepted as an absolute reality is really a virtual reality that is manipulated by a computer which is essentially controlling the mind of every individual as they lie unconscious connected to this

The main variance in The Matrix, Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and Descartes’s Meditation I, is that in the movie, there is a way to get back to the world of reality; Descartes and Plato only suggest that we are either dreaming or have been tricked, and make us speculate if there really is a way back. They propose that the world we know is not real at all, just a mere illusion.

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

Unable to know any better, people’s blindness to the truth about their existence throughout the ages has been relative to the questioning of reality. We search but are unable to the see the truth through the illusion that the world before us has portrayed. One might ask, how do we know what is real and what is simply illusion brought by our subjective view of the world? But when attempting to understand the nature of our existence, about why we are here, the complexities of life often make it difficult to interpret this subject. The film The Matrix centers on this same concept that the known world is an illusion. The movies core theme of reality and illusion is definite to the humans understanding of what the true meaning of life is. Ones

Many ancient philosophers, including Plato, explored metaphysics in relation to reality before Descartes’s in-depth questioning of the subject. However, Descartes’s views on mind/body dualism differ greatly from Plato’s. As Marleen Rozemond (author of Descartes's Dualism) points out, Plato believes that the body is simply a vessel for the soul to use, while Descartes provides proof that the body and soul are interconnected (172). One does not simply use the other; though they are separate, the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Cartesian dualism tells us that "although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been

Descartes works up to his case for universal doubt in Meditation One questioning our ordinary reliance on our sense experience for our knowledge of the world, and he then introduces the “Evil Demon Hypothesis”. This raises the question of, how can we know that the world we live in is real or false? The movie “the Matrix” is a great example of how Descartes considers, and rejects the possibility that using senses could lead to being deceived. For example, in the movie, what people perceive as reality is actually a dream that is created by a super-computer, where humans are sleeping in “pods” and are having the experiences fed directly to their brains. Some events that occur in the Matrix make people believe that everything that they perceive, some even impossible to believe, appear to be as dreams. In relation to the super-computer Descartes takes an extra step to imagine a non-physical intelligence capable of producing the experience of a world of material objects in space, inside the mind of the human, to which he calls an evil demon. This “demon” in the movie is

The Matrix script has a complex symbolic storyline, with apparent philosophical allusions, and is full of elements and clues that could provide the reader with multiple interpretations. However, beneath this complex layered structure, its underlying main theme is about the nature of reality. In this essay, we study three of the most noticeable philosophical references in The Matrix: Plato’s allegory of the cave, Descartes’ mind-body problem, and Baudrillard’s simulation theory. For each of these philosophical ideas; first we draw parallels between the script and the idea, and then we examine to what extent The Matrix accurately reflects the idea and stays loyal to its conclusion.

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, The Allegory of The Cave, and Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt all confidently state that reality is not what it seems. The Matrix is about a computer that runs a simulation of the real world and the whole population is hooked up to this computer stuck in a simulation. The Allegory of the Cave exemplifies humans (representing mankind) in a cave transfixed in one spot. The people in the cave are stuck watching puppets of everything of the Earth and perceive the world from only what they see. Lastly, Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt illustrates the mind-body problem and Descartes goes into his own doubts that he has from opinions that he held true without giving proper

When the film The Matrix debuted in 1999, it was an instant box office success that captivated many viewers. However throughout the featured famed actors, costumes, special effects and fight scenes, many viewers failed to notice the philosophical issues. Plato and Descartes, just like the characters in the movie are faced and driven to extreme measures to understand the world around them. They are compelled to seek knowledge in understanding what is real, evaluating the mind-body problem, and are left wondering if there is any good. These philosophical features of the movie have raised questions and have made it an interesting film to watch. While many viewers can agree that The Matrix is highly action packed, not all can truly appreciate

He proposes to move forward until one finds something certain or absolute, or until one knows for certain that nothing is certain. Also, Descartes made the proposition that anything that can be doubted must not exist. Because he could not doubt his thoughts, he devised the phrase "Cogito ergo sum", or "I think, therefore I am". The thinking person or animal is the mind, soul, reason and intelligence. The thinking person starts to perform an experiment with wax, finding all possible outcomes thriugh experiment and recording the data with and through their senses. Descartes believes that outside influences change the course of an object or even the initial structure of an object. Descartes wonders whether it is the same wax after being heated? He then decides that it is the same wax, since it is the same material that went through the physical changes; However, he did not come up with this conclusion from his senses but through his mind. So knowledge through the mind is the only way to obtain and retain information. (S,

While similarities exist in all three examples such as someone else controlling our reality, enlightening those who are naïve about true reality and reactions to enlightenment that exist between the movie The Matrix, the excerpt from Allegory of the Cave by Plato and Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt by Rene Descartes, there is a subtle difference in regards to being informed by others or seeking answers constantly yourself about what is real.