4 The Matrix Theres Something Wrong with the

4 The Matrix There’s Something Wrong with the World

Topics • 1) Duty and desire: – duty to the truth • 2) Duty and destiny – Duty to truth takes us on a journey, from illusion to truth • 3) Source of illusions of life – External – Internal 2

Two sides of The Matrix Trilogy • 1) Super powerful figures such as Trinity and the Agents in combat with one another – Technology, science, and warfare: the power of the mind • 2) A love story – The deeper power of the heart, love – Subverts the surface story 3

First moral principles • Trinity: A word of advice: Be honest…. • Morpheus: Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. . . – Neo is a searching for the truth: what is the Matrix? – What is Morpheus not offering? 4

First duty • Neo risks dangers, loss of job, imprisonment, even worse • Truth=1 st duty • =What is the nature of reality? Who am I? 5

“matrix” • 1. something that constitutes the place or point from which something else originates, takes form, or develops: The Greco-Roman world was the matrix for Western civilization. • 3. Biology. a. the intercellular substance of a tissue. b. ground substance. • 11. Mathematics. a rectangular array of numbers, algebraic symbols, or mathematical functions, esp. when such arrays are added and multiplied according to certain rules. • 14. Archaic. the womb. 6

Down the Rabbit Hole • Morpheus: I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole? Hm? • Neo: You could say that. • Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. 7

Dream or reality? • Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? 8

Descartes’ dream • "How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events — that I am here in my dressing gown, sitting by the fire —when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the moment my eyes are certainly wide awake when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my head and it is not asleep; as I stretch out and feel my hand I do so deliberately, and I know what I am doing. 9

• “All this would not happen with such distinctness to someone asleep. Indeed! As if I did not remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, and this very feeling only reinforces the notion that I may be asleep. " (Meditations, 13) 10

“Message” of The Matrix • We, the audience, likewise live in a dream world, in an illusion • We are held captive by illusions about ourselves, about reality • Powerful forces try to keep us in this dream state (external causes of illusion) • But there are even more powerful internal causes • Our duty: find the truth, wake up to reality 11

Fate and freedom Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo? Neo: No. Morpheus: Why not? Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life. • --And yet Neo is clearly not in control of his life • • 12

Why you are here • Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about? • Neo: The Matrix? 13

How know the Matrix? • Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. 14

The truth of slavery • Neo: What truth? • Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. . 15

There is something wrong … • You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. • There’s something wrong with the world. – Work: controlled by employers, the market – Taxes: control by the State – Church: control by powerful belief systems of religions • Are we really slaves? 16

What do we believe about the world? • We believe that the world we live in is – 1) real and objective (existing “out there”), – 2) inevitable, lawful, and comprehensible by science (recall the “scientician” in Lisa’s class film on food), – 3) good, the best of all possible worlds (other possible societies, such as communism, would be worse) • But there is an underlying doubt, operating like a splinter in the mind, making us uncomfortable with these beliefs • How do we know our beliefs are true? 17

Neo’s choice • Morpheus: 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. . . Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. . . 18

Illusion v. truth • Neo must choose between – Truth and illusion – Comfortable lies and a pursuit of truth in which the outcome is unknown • = Higher Duty v. ordinary desires and interests • Doubt begins with a feeling 19

Lisa and Neo? • “I’m wailing out for the homeless man living out of his car, the Iowa farmer whose land has been taken away by unfeeling bureaucrats, the West Virginia coal miner, caught. . . ” • = People are slaves – The Market – The State – The Church (obey these rules, or there will be hell to pay) 20

What is my duty? My Destiny? • Lisa: “I’m just wondering, what’s the point? Would it make any difference at all if I never existed? How can we sleep at night when there’s so much suffering in the world? ” • She feels duty to change this • She, like Neo, feels isolated, alone. • Destiny? Is she/he “a chosen one”? 21

What is our duty? • 1) I want x – comfortable life – fit in, – eat steak/lamb chops • 2) but I must do y: – Be honest—to myself and others – Seek and speak the truth, however uncomfortable to go down the rabbit hole 22

Duty and direction • Our normal desires are random, directionless – But governed by underlying outside causes – “Hidden persuaders” • Duty to truth gives us a direction, but the outcome is unknown – Like Alice going down the rabbit hole 23

What is the source of duty? • It comes from outside our ordinary wishes, desires • We feel constrained by “a higher calling” – Neo feels compelled to search – Neo is called by his computer, on his cell phone • So duty is like fate, destiny – We can refuse it—so it is not deterministic – But when we choose it, we go down the rabbit hole 24

Duty and destiny • Duty presupposes freedom, a choice – The blue or the red pill? • But it also imposes a necessity: laws implicit in the nature of our own actions – Laws implicit in acts of knowing: what is the maxim? What is the maxim of self-deception? – Deliberate choice to pursue truth, rather than be content with unquestioned common opinion • This law we give ourselves may contradict the ordinary laws of the world in which we live 25

Duty to find truth presupposes … • Presupposes that we live in ignorance, in illusion. • Socrates is the wisest man in Athens: because he knows that he is ignorant – He gets messages from his “daimon” • Motto of oracle of Apollo: know yourself • (Also in the kitchen of the Oracle of the Matrix) 26

Two theories of imprisonment in illusion • External – Plato: Allegory of the Cave – Descartes: evil demon • Internal: we are the source of our own illusions – (Buddha) – Kant 27

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Escaping from the cave • One person is dragged off the bench • Finds that reality is far different from the images on the cave wall • Feels a duty to return into the cave to enlighten his former fellow slaves – But they are comfortable sticking with their common opinions • They kill him • (Socrates) 31

Descartes’ evil genius or demon • “suppose therefore that … some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. ” • Parallels his dream argument. • What if it’s all a dream? • What if we are being systematically deceived by an evil demon? • => we need a solid basis of truth 32