Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Matrix and Philosophy
The Matrix and Philosophy
The Matrix and Philosophy
and Philosophy
Welcome to the
Desert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
Scene 1
How Do You Know?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Scene 2
The Desert of the Real
5.
6.
7.
8.
10.
11.
12.
Scene 4
Virtual Themes
13.
14.
15.
16.
Scene 5
De-Construct-Ing The Matrix
17.
18.
DAVID WEBERMAN
The Matrix: Or, The Two Sides of Perversion
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
20.
The Potentials
The Oracles Index
Acknowledgments
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
vi
Which pill would you choose, the red or the blue? Is ign
bliss, or is the truth worth knowing, no matter what? After
ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and
effects, and also besieged by questions. Is it possible that w
selves are prisoners of the Matrix? Is this a Christian
Buddhist film? There is no spoon?
A student of mine at Kings College, Adam Albert, firs
my attention to The Matrix. He immediately saw the conn
between the film and Descartess speculations on the po
of deception by dreams or an evil deceiver. My experien
his were similar to those of philosophy professors and s
around the world. The magazine Philosophy Now even h
essay contest for college students. The topic: Which pill
you choose? Why?
With this book, professors follow the trail blazed by th
dents. Each author asks and answers questions about the
sophical significance of the film. As culture critic Slavo
suggests, The Matrix is a philosophers Rorschach inkbl
Philosophers see their favored philosophy in it: existen
Marxism, feminism, Buddhism, nihilism, postmodernism
your philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matri
the film is not just some randomly generated inkblot bu
definite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates mu
is philosophical. The Wachowski brothers, college d
comic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions,
acknowledge that they have woven many philosophical
and allusions into the fabric of the film. The Matri
Philosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport
vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists resp
for The Matrix. Rather, the book highlights the philosophi
nificance of the film.
To paraphrase Trinity, its the questions that drive u
contributing authors draw on Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, De
Scene
How D
You Know
unlikely Oracle.
Neo, very unsure of himself asks Morpheus, She
what? . . . Everything? Morpheus responds, She would
knows enough. Neo, still skeptical, asks, And shes
wrong? Morpheus with aloof, paradoxical assurance
Try not to think of it in terms of right and wrong. She is a
Neo. She can help you to find the path.
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, after mak
appropriate sacrifices and payments, would ask his (no w
allowed) question of one of the Oracles assistants who
ask it of the priestess. Seated on a tripod, the priestess
inhale the breath of Apollo, the fumes (probably ethylene
nating from a chasm in the earth. Like a midnight to
Woodstock, the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by
ing in tongues. A priest would then interpret the incohere
bling and usually put it in hexameter verse. Like the sage
one gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC, the prophecies
Oracle were usually vague and open to more than one p
interpretation. Socrates, as we know, found puzzlin
Oracles declaration that there was no one wiser th
Knowing the Oracles reputation for cryptic prophecies t
he set out to disprove it, only to discover its ironic m
Less wise was King Croessus, who wanted to know
Oracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to ma
against the Persians. The Oracles response was, If you
battle now a great kingdom will be destroyed. Taking
terrific news the King led his troops to war and to the sla
He had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Orac
simply pointed out that he was mistaken about which ki
she had meant.
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough
the virtual city, she is a grandmotherly black womanno
you expected, much as the Pythia were, for a time, s
from women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens
virtue would be less secure. Unlike her Delphic counterp
inner city Oracle meets face to face with those who se
And despite the fact that, sitting on a tripod, she bl
breathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and
smoke from her cigarette, she does not speak in tongu
(rather th
same phrase was inscribed in Greek,
,
the barbaric Latin, Temet Nosce) in the temple of Apollo
Delphi, and it was surely more important in interpreting
Pythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the Ora
Socrates realized this and lived by the related maxim The un
amined life is not worth living. Cocky King Croessus did
know himself, as we saw, and paid dearly for it. Only in ti
does Neo come to know himself, and thus believe in hims
and thus fulfill the depth of the Oracles prophecywh
includes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lo
with the man who is the One.
Self knowledge is the key, and without it we can unlock
other knowledge worth having. This is a theme important
just to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding ph
sophical films. Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent qu
tion, How much can you know about yourself if youve ne
been in a fight? We see, however, as the plot and the fig
develop, this is not a moronic, testosteronic query. We gain s
knowledge through struggle. Consider also Boys Dont Cry w
Brandons deception of himself and others and the disastr
consequences this brings. Finally, Memento wrestles with
perplexing question: How is it possible for me to lie to mys
Is memory loss part of the answer? Hollywood and Ath
agree, the unexamined life is not worth living.
2
Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insight
Matrix.
you look out your window, or when you turn on your tel
You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church
you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled ov
eyes, to blind you from the truth . . . that you are a slave, N
everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a pri
you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind
1
Ren Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated and ed
by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (Cambri
Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 12.
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure w
What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How
you know the difference between the dream world and
world?
5
This is not to deny the important role played by the doctrine of falli
the advancement of science; that is, by the view that scientific theor
be subject to consistent testing against reality itself. Even evolutiona
gists remain open to the possibility that new evidence could be gat
prove the theory of evolution mistaken; the fervor with which they att
alternative theories as creationism is grounded, however, not in antibigotry, but in the tremendous amount of high-quality evidence that
evolution. See, for instance, Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn,
Think about Weird Things (Mountain View: Mayfield, 1995), pp. 211
lucid discussion of this issue.
6
David Nixon raises a similar point in Chapter 3 of this volume.
Even the great utilitarian John Stuart Mill seems to have been troubled
this sort of objection to hedonism. In responding to his own (and
Benthams) critics, Mill tried to distinguish different kinds of pleasure, som
a higher and some of a lower quality.
12
pp. 4344. Nozick goes on to point out: This clarifies the intensity of
conflict over psychoactive drugs, which some view as mere local experie
machines, and others view as avenues to a deeper reality; what some view
equivalent to surrender to the experience machine, others view as follow
one of the reasons not to surrender!
1
Ren Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by J. Cot
R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres
p. 15.
the Matrix?
(e) Peoples heads dont fly off when they are angry.
Those interested in Holism are directed to the works of W.V. Quine, Don
Davidson, and especially Wilfrid Sellars.
Strictly speaking, to know what a bear looks like isnt really to have a
tain belief about bears. Rather, it is to have certain recognitional abilities.
in Rylean terminology, to have know how instead of know that. (See Gil
Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949.) But these abilities are probably also ne
sary in order to have a concept of a bear.
Seeing, Believing,
Touching, Truth
CAROLYN KORSMEYER
3
Flanagan argues that the problem of determining whether one is aslee
not the symmetrical converse of the problem of determining whether on
awake: We know we are awake when we are. What we dont normally kn
is that we are dreaming while we are dreaming (Ibid., p. 173).
Judging Reality
These are very good questions, but they are raised only brie
and no answer is suggested. It is perhaps unfair to requ
extensive argumentation about the logic of illusion in a mo
There is, however, an important collateral question that
explored somewhat more thoroughly: What is perceptual ex
rience, such that it can be judged not only real but also wor
whileworth living for?
Perhaps the most well-known discussion along these lines is Hilary Putn
Brains in a Vat, in Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambri
University Press, 1981), pp. 121.
Many sense metaphors are used for this purpose: I hear you. I grasp
idea, and so on. But vision has played an especially vivid role in episte
language. See Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision
Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
California Press, 1993).
For viewers who recognize the music, this part of the soundtrack
something of a bridge from the movie experience back to reality. Th
is by Rage Against the Machine, a group known for its political messa
since by this point the credits are rolling, the lyrics are both backgr
the movie and admonition to the audience to consider its message.
I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever
want to call it. I cant stand it any longer. Its the smell, if ther
such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and ev
time I do, I fear that Ive somehow been infected by it.
8
Though presently a popular idea, the notion of the virtual body is pro
bly a conceptual muddle, which is especially evident if one considers the
ferent requirements of the senses.
9
On the subject of smell and disease, see Alain Corbin, The Foul and
Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination, translated by M. Koch
R. Porter, and C. Prendergast (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986
body strapped into its chair. He tells her (and she can he
on the other end of a phone line where she awaits to be
ported back to safety) that he once was in love with her,
is tired of war, and tired of eating the same goop everyd
language and gestures are both threatening and caressin
announces that he has decided that the Matrix can be mo
than real life, because the experience it furnishes is mor
plete. You see death in the Matrix, he observes as he pu
plugs from both Apoc and Switch; here you just die. Onc
he echoes an only slightly distorted version of a sen
expressed by Morpheus: What I see is real. Seeing is bel
Truth
The Oracle told me that I would fall in love and that that man,
man that I loved would be the One. So you see, you cant be de
You cant be. Because I love you. You hear me? I love you.
She gently holds his shoulders and kisses him; his heart starts
beat and he draws a breath. She withdraws her hands and co
mands sharply: Now get up!
Neo gets up and saves the world.
Touchings the truth.
10
Scene
The Desert
the Re
The Metaphysics of
The Matrix
JORGE J.E. GRACIA and
JONATHAN J. SANFORD
Life is a dream.
PEDRO CALDERN
DE LA
of The Matrix
The Matrix
Matrix.
Overcoming Illusion
Artificial Minds
Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all t
ders of being human, having a soul, creativity, moral significance and
sibility, and freedom. On the question of human freedom, see Fate, F
and Forenowledge, Chapter 8 in this volume.
like for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat. One of the reasons for reje
ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the ta
of Tasty Wheat really makes no difference. Raw experience
generated by the brain, from input it receives from the world
from the Matrix, but its causally inert, in which case conscio
ness is a weird sort of hanger-on. I think consciousness d
make a difference. Weird hangers-on are, well, weird. They
suspicious. If Id never seen red, I wouldnt be able to imag
what its like to see red. But that doesnt mean experiences
red arent brain states. It only means that Ive never had suc
brain state. Ever see the film Brainstorm? Good movie. Its ab
a machine that records, and allows you to have, other peop
experiences. Pretty cool, huh? If the Matrix-makers wanted
they could well, it seems, make a Brainstorm machine,
rebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the hum
blueprint. With a Brainstorm machine, or by rebuilding their s
tems, they could experience the Matrix, not to mention the r
world, just as humans do. Why not? The Matrix, remember,
machine-made ghost.
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the noti
discussed earlier, that mental states are multiply realizable.
silicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordin
pain, which is realized, not by silicon states, but by a cert
kind of brain state, then pain cant be identified with that br
state. Ah, but I beg to differ. So would Morpheus. Artifi
hearts function like ordinary hearts, and may even feel the sa
to those who have them. For an amputee, a prosthesis functio
in important respects, like the missing limb. Otherwise it wou
nt be a prosthesis. Now some prostheses are better than oth
A perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary lim
if not better, and feel just the same. Likewise for the funct
and feel of the painmaker. Indeed, if the function were p
formed perfectly, it would determine an identical feel. Wh
the point of these analogies? Simply this. Artificial hearts are
hearts and prostheses arent limbs. Theyre synthetic versions
natural things. By analogy, painmaker pain feels just like the r
thing. But its not natural. So its not pain. Its artificial pa
Because its pain, not pain, that the painmaker makes, th
may yet be a single, physical, neural type that pain maps on
In other words, the prospect of artificial mental states, in natu
and brain.
So lets suppose that mental states are brain states. Neo
is produced by the same type of brain state, in his hea
produces Trinitys, in hers. The Matrix-makers conscious
think, for imaginative fodder, of Schwarzeneggers in
heads-up display in The Terminatoris similarly, thoug
cially, made in their silicon brains. Is this a solution to the
body problem? Sort of. We have a good account of w
mind really is, but theres still an important conceptua
How, and why, do those features of the brain that genera
sciousness generate consciousness? Even granting min
identity, how can we make sense of it? How can we exp
How can we make it intelligible?
This is a hard problem. Its the hard problem. We n
bridge the gap between consciousness and the neural go
responsible for it, and to do this we need the right interm
concepts. This will have to be a bit speculative. So indul
Here goes. Material objects look different from different
They occupy points of perspective. For example, from a
perspective I may see only two sides of a building, tho
actually has four sides. Living things occupy perspective t
they also exhibit perspective in that they respond to e
mental stimuli. A conscious being, though, has perspec
itself and the world around it. Theres something its like
conscious subject to be that subject. What distinguishes
perspective is that it has meaning for its subject. For ex
my had perspective of a building may lead me to thin
is my office building where Id rather not go today. Aw
tempts thought, and in this sense has meaning. How do
brain create such meaning? Maybe self-scanning does th
Maybe its something else. But whatever it is, we can now
sense of mind-brain identity. The brain makes a kind
spective to which consciousness reduces.
Whoa. Enough speculation. Were tired already. Okay
do we have? Well, we have materialism.2 Thats good. A
have the all too rough outline of an all too speculative s
to the hard problem. Thats good too. We also have rea
For a different view, see the next essay in this volume, Chapter 7.
Thanks to William Irwin, Daniel Barwick, and Kathi Sell for comments on
earlier draft.
Seem Plausible
Eliminative Materialism:
Why Your Spouse Can Never Complain
that She Has a Headache
me, is true.
But the more powerful objection to eliminative materialism
much simpler. The burden is on the shoulders of the mater
ist, who must convince us that he is not seeing what he is s
ing, that he is not hearing what he is hearing, that all of
perceptions, imaginations, and conceptions are not mer
incorrectly presented to him, but that they are not presented
him at all, and his apparent familiarity with them is not
apparent familiarity; in fact, it is not a familiarity at all. The el
inative materialist must also explain why this universal illus
has occurred in the first place. Mental states seem to be uniq
in that they are mental, and this is why it is so difficult to cre
meaningful analogies to the mind; because the mind is ess
tially unlike the physical.
Can we rule out that the authors of The Matrix have fal
prey to this view? I think so, because it seems that if elimina
materialism were true, there would be no purpose for c
structing the Matrix. The purpose of the Matrix appears to be
provide false experiences which substitute for real ones, a
this purpose seems pointless if there are no experiences at
whether false or genuine. But where does this leave us? Re
the three distinctions I made at the outset of this essay betwe
reductive materialism, eliminative materialism, and dualism.
far, I have shown that the Matrix cannot be possible withi
reductive materialist framework, and to shift the underlying t
ory to eliminative materialism may make the Matrix pointle
Does this mean we are forced into dualism in order to m
sense of the film? Must we admit the existence of a ghost in
machine? No. In fact, The Matrix can work as written, provid
the authors adhere to one additional principle: the intentiona
of consciousness.
Freedom
First we want to do certain things, and not just have the experie
of doing them . . . A second reason for not plugging in is that
want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person. Some
floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob. There is no answe
the question of what a person is like who has been in the tank
he courageous, kind, intelligent, witty, loving? Its not merely
its difficult to tell; theres no way he is . . . Thirdly, plugging
an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality, to a wo
no deeper or more important than that which people can constr
There is no actual contact with any deeper reality, though
experience of it can be simulated.
Fate
3
4
view to hold.
Omniscience
Determinism
B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (New York: Bantam, 1972).
11
Sir Arthur Eddington, New Pathways in Science (New York: M
1935), p. 82.
12
For more on books of life see Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Huma
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970), pp. 186ff.
Scene
Down th
Rabbit Ho
of Ethic
and Religio
There Is No Spoon:
A Buddhist Mirror
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN
James Ford insightfully points out that this is the conclusion of the Y
school of Mahayana Buddhism in his Buddhism, Christianity, and The
Journal of Religion and Film 4:2 (October 2000).
Kalupahana, Ibid.
you think of meeting that sword just as it is, your mind will sto
the sword in just that position, your own movements will
undone, and you will be cut down by your opponent. This is w
stopping means.4
Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sw
Master, translated by William Scott Wilson (Tokyo: Kodansha Internatio
1986), p. 19.
2
See, for example, Catechism of the Catholic Church (Mahwah: Paul
1994), p. 258.
3
TriStar Pictures, 1987.
4
Zion, The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1990, vol. 12, p. 922.
5
Corliss and Ressner, Popular Metaphysics, p. 76. The
Nebuchadnezzars dream is found in Daniel 2:149.
See, for example, John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (San Francisco
and Row, 1976), pp. 296396.
10
Hebrews 9:27: It is appointed for men to die once. See also Luke 1
Matthew 25:46.
11
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, second revised edition (Boston: Sh
1983), pp. 161187.
12
14
Ive borrowed the term extreme pluralism from Keith Ward. See h
and the Diversity of Religions, Religious Studies 26 (March 1990); rep
Philip Quinn and Kevin Meeker, eds., The Philosophical Challenge of
Diversity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 110.
15
Cited in Michael Shermer, How We Believe: The Search for God in a
Science (New York: Freeman, 2000), p. 140.
beliefs are true, but that the essential teachings of all major r
gions are true. The idea here is that while the great religi
may differ on relatively minor points (such as the permissibi
of eating pork or the existence of a purgatory), they agree on
truly important matters, such as the existence of a Supre
Being, the importance of religious piety and virtuous living, a
the existence of an afterlife in which good conduct will
rewarded and bad conduct punished. It is these essential or c
teachings that fundamental teachings pluralism claims
equally valid and true.
The central problem with this version of religious plural
is that on any plausible definition of what counts as fun
mental in religious belief, the great religions clearly do differ
fundamentals. Muslims, for example, believe in the absol
oneness and unity of a personal God, and would insist stron
(and surely rightly) that this doctrine is fundamental to Isla
This doctrine, however, conflicts with the core Therav
Buddhist belief that no personal God exists, as well as with
core Christian belief that God is triune. This denial of a perso
god may be part of the religion of The Matrix, which has a d
inite emphasis on the spiritual yet no reference to the divine
Another popular form of religious pluralism is cafeteria p
ralism, the view that religious truth can be found by picking a
choosing beliefs from many different religious traditions. T
religion of The Matrix is a good example of cafeteria plurali
Lets call this particular brand of cafeteria pluralism Neo-plu
ism. It is the religion of the new-age seeker, often attractive
those who thirst for the spiritual yet who are uncomfortable w
the religion of their upbringing. Despite its appeal to the see
and the fact that it adds nicely to The Matrix, there are t
major difficulties with cafeteria pluralism, and hence with N
pluralism.
First, its hard to achieve a coherent mix of beliefs wh
picking and choosing religious beliefs cafeteria-style. Many r
gious doctrines transplant poorly outside the native religi
framework in which they have evolved. Reincarnation,
example, fits well with Hinduism, with its doctrines of mi
body dualism, a substantial spiritual self, and the eternity of
temporal world. It fits less well with Buddhism, with its reject
of the notion of an enduring, substantial self. And as we h
16
More precisely, Hick claims that only purely formal and negative prope
apply to the Real. Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, p. 239.
19
Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, p. 246.
20
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford Unive
Press, 1999), p. 56. My critique of Hick draws heavily from this work, as
as from Plantingas Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism, in Tho
D. Senor, ed, The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith (Ithaca: Cor
University Press, 1995); reprinted in Quinn and Meeker, eds.,
Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, pp. 7292.
Pluralist Objections
to Religious Exclusivism
22
This definition is adapted from Philip Quinn and Kevin Mee
Introduction, in Quinn and Meeker, eds., The Philosophical Challeng
Religious Diversity, p. 3.
23
The following discussion draws freely on Timothy OConnor, Relig
Pluralism, in Michael J. Murray, ed., Reason for the Hope Within (Gr
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 167175.
24
See, for example, John Hick, Religious Pluralism and Salvation, Faith
Philosophy 5 (October 1988); reprinted in Quinn and Meeker, eds.,
Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, pp. 5658.
25
This assumes, of course, that the one religion the exclusivist claims to
true doesnt include as one of its essential doctrines that salvation an
authentic experience of the Divine is possible only within that religion. S
conservative Christians would claim that Christianity does clearly include
doctrine (often quoting Acts 4:12: There is salvation in no one else, for th
is no other name under heaven given among men by which we mus
saved), but this view is no longer widely held.
26
For representative statements of this objection, see Joseph Runzo, G
Commitment, and Other Faiths: Pluralism vs. Relativism, Faith and Philoso
For any belief of yours, once you become aware that oth
agree with it and that you have no argument on its behal
likely to convince all reasonable, good-intentioned peop
disagree with you, then it would be arrogant of you to c
holding that belief and you should abandon it.27
29
32
1
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by P.H. Nidd
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), II.xxi.59 (p. 273).
126
MORPHEUS: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why youre h
Youre here because you know something. What you know you cant exp
But you feel it. Youve felt it your entire life. That theres something wr
with the world. You dont know what it is but its there, like a splinter in y
mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do
know what Im talking about?
NEO: The Matrix?
MORPHEUS: Do you want to know what IT IS? The Matrix is everywhere.
all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look
your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when
go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the w
that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the tr
NEO: What truth?
MORPHEUS: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born
bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A pr
for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You h
to see it for yourself.
theme of the movie that in order to awake one must first dre
that one is awake, that is, have the prophetic intimation t
there is a difference between dreaming and awaking.
Both the Platonic simile and The Matrix raise the quest
of happiness with the broader framework of the relat
between our subjective experience or state of mind and real
It is a Platonic thesis that true freedom and happiness depe
on knowledge of what is real; according to that view, one co
have the subjective experience of being free and happy, but
a slave and unhappy. One could be completely mistaken
attributing happiness to oneself, in uttering the phrase I
happy. Happiness is supposed to be similar to the concep
health; one could also be mistaken in uttering the phrase I
healthy even though one may feel, at the moment, extrem
healthy, and be unaware (because of ignorance, or drugs)
the unseen cancer. The thesis is that happiness and reflect
on self and the objective world are inseparable. Similarly, T
Matrix obviously has much to do with the question about
relationship between our subjective sense of self (self as fr
self as happy) and the reality of the experiences we
undergoing.
In the remainder of this chapter, I shall put aside the co
plicated question of the relation between freedom and hap
ness. My focus will be the question of happiness: Wha
happiness? Does true happiness depend on some knowledge
reality, or if we feel ourselves to be happy may we righ
declare ourselves to be happy in fact?
Two Matrices
the first Matrix: The perfect world was a dream that your pr
itive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why
Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. T
implication is that we choose our own illusions, instinctiv
rejecting a certain idea of the perfect world. Even when sub
to the malicious demons and their dream towers, humanity g
what it wants. But why would people want this world of s
fering and misery, rather than the world of happiness of the f
Matrix?
sky. We see the sky as a huge dome enclosing the flat plane
the earth that extends out from our physical bodies to the s
rounding circular horizon. If we reject the ancient cosmology
Aristotle, we must accept the idea that the world as we ac
ally perceive it is an illusion.
The geocentric view of the world is an extension of a m
fundamental feature of perception, which we might call its e
centric nature. We directly see the physical world as if it w
centered on our individual physical bodies. That is the w
things seem or appear to us. The world I actually perceive c
ters on me, on my physical self. It is the same for each of
But a little reflection tells us that the world in itself cannot
like this. When children take body-centered perception to
reality, we call that egocentrism. When adults persist in see
themselves as the center of the universe, we call that egotism
I Am the One
What Is Reality?
he set us free. Cypher replies: Free, you call this free? All I
is what he tells me to do. If I have to choose between that a
the Matrix, I choose the Matrix.
The freedom that Morpheus has in mind is not mere sepa
tion from the Matrix, not mere individual freedom to strive
ones separate individual happiness, but participation in a d
tiny or Fate that has as its ultimate goal the higher liberation
humanity. This goal cannot be merely the replication in real
of our modern so-called worldthe peak of civilization
a different, better world, a world of human perfection that co
bines freedom and happiness.
Trinitys reply here is therefore inadequate, since she mer
distinguishes between the illusion of existence within the
tual reality program of the Matrix, and mere physical existe
with its illusions of egocentric perception: The Matrix i
real! she says. Cyphers answer touches on a deeper truth
disagree, Trinity. I think the Matrix could be more real than
world. All I do is pull the plug here. But there, you have
watch Apoc die.
The contrast between the illusory world of the Matrix and
world of ordinary physical perceptions on board
Nebuchadnezzar is only the starting point for the films exp
ration of the themes of illusion and reality, slavery and freedo
The initial contrast between illusion and reality, so startlin
depicted in the towers of sleeping humanity, is not compl
What is truly exciting, what captivates the audience along w
Neo himself, is not life outside of the Matrix, but life within
once its true nature is understood.
One for all and all for one. That is the slogan of truly free in
viduals. That is the new principle, the alternative Matrix of
Nebuchadnezzar and Zion. It is the third Matrix, which is
incomplete and mysterious, still to be fully realized. In orde
see the new Matrix of the united, sharing mind of human
through to its ultimate implications, the destruction of the
Matrix, it is necessary to believe or postulate not only that fr
dom exists, but that free people have the power to create
Highest Good. A second postulate is therefore necessary:
postulate that free individuals, tuning in to the reality of
moral Oneness, have the power to realize our highest goals
separation can create a world of external power, unity sho
have the power to create a radically different world. In this al
nate world of Zion, the power of united humanity runs throu
each individual who opens up to it.
Kant calls this second postulate the postulate of God. In
traditional religious beliefs connected to the old civilizati
God is regarded as the external distributor of justice. God me
out happiness to the good, and punishments to the evil, if
in this life and on this earth, then in the world of the afterl
This conception implies that the ordinary human individua
powerless to achieve these goals of justice.
The world of the Matrix, modeled on the year 1999
peak of modern civilization at the end of the millennium
based on the sense of powerlessness that each individual fe
before the seemingly external forces of nature and civilizati
The root or Matrix of this sense of powerlessness is the belie
separation. Thus Morpheus tells Neo what Neo already kno
Youve felt it your entire life, that theres something wrong w
the world. You dont know what it is, but its there, like a sp
ter in your mind, driving you mad. . . . The Matrix is eve
where. It is all around us.
In the post-millennial religion of the New World of Zi
however, the potential of natural and human forces is not ali
ated and externalized in economic or political powers, wh
theological counterpart is an external, all-powerful God. Th
external powers of contemporary life are epitomized in T
Matrix by all-powerful intelligent machines. In the coun
world of Zion, however, the underlying, unifying Life Force
basic rule applies to each world. If you believe that you can d
even in the world of illusion, you will really die in the phys
world. The vitality of the physical body depends on the min
belief in the ultimate power of death. This is the basic rule t
regulates the Matrix. Your power, your reality, depends on y
beliefs, and your beliefs are ultimately ruled by fear of death
There remains only one step in the unfolding of Neos F
It is necessary to give up the belief in death. When Neos bo
flatlines, Morpheus says: It cant be. Morpheus cannot beli
in Neos death, although Neo, by all the rules of physical
called reality, is dead. Trinity, however, goes further. Speak
to Neos dead body, she addresses his living spirit: Neo, Im
afraid anymore. The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, a
that that man, the man that I loved, would be the One. So y
see, you cant be dead. You cant be. Because I love you. Y
hear me? I love you. Thanks to Trinitys love and refusal
believe in death, Neo comes back to life. In accordance with
words of the Oracle, Neo returns in his next life as the One
John 14:12; The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Chic
Gideons International, 1961).
Virtu
Theme
4
All references to Notes from Underground are from the superb rece
lation by Pevear and Volokhonsky (New York: Knopf, 1993).
he puts it, I know youre out there. I can feel you now.
that youre afraid. Youre afraid of us. Youre afraid of ch
dont know the future. I didnt come to tell you how this i
to end. I came to tell you how its going to begin . . . Im
to show these people what you dont want them to see
world without you, a world without rules and controls, w
borders or boundaries . . . where anything is possible.
we go from there is a choice I leave to you. Here Neo
all sorts of complications: he underestimates not so mu
continued opposition of the Matrix as the likely resista
complacent, still enslaved humans. The lesson of Cypher
to have been forgotten. One also wonders whether the
complicated account of freedom that the film spends
deal of time developing has here been sacrificed to a s
conception of human freedom as autonomous self-cr
whether the film falls prey to the facile transcendence cr
by Edmundson. In fact, Neos prophecy echoes the situa
humanity, described by Morpheus, at the end of the tw
century, when a united humanity realized its peak mom
creativity and gave birth to artificial intelligence. I
unknowingly promising yet another utopia?
Of course this may be asking too much in the way
sistency and clarity of a Hollywood movie. But this film, p
more than any other in recent memory, aspires to a k
philosophical gravity. It wants us to take its philosophica
ings seriously. And this makes the concluding words esp
disappointing. Rife with platitudes, the statement seems l
for The Matrix than for some other film, perhaps called
Excellent Adventure. Alas, the ending does reflect a con
which Hollywood gives much consideration in its craf
endings: paving the way for a sequel.
14
Popping a Bitter Pill:
Existential Authenticity in
The Matrix and Nausea
JENNIFER L. McMAHON
6
Special thanks to those who attended my presentation at the Inte
Conference on Madness and Bliss in Literature and the Visual Arts (2
to Dr. Peter Fosl and the students at Transylvania University. I am gr
these individuals for the commentary they provided on the two lectu
which this chapter is based. Their comments and criticisms were of gr
tance in the preparation of this chapter.
178
Questioning Reality
This claim might seemingly be questioned because of the fact that child
seem to do this with relative ease. Children do not have to train to play ga
of make-believe and they seem to become fully and easily absorbed in
tional and imaginary worlds of their own making. It would seem, howe
that as Walton argues, adults are psychologically engaged in fictional exp
ences in similar ways as children are physically in their games of m
believe. Although children do this quite naturally, training to do this as ad
seems to be something that we have to re-learn.
188
sus genre categories in ways that both draw upon our fami
knowledge of genres such as the horror film and, in the case
The Matrix, confront us with the innovative structuring of
threat posed to Neo, the stylized body movement in slo
motion action sequences, not to mention the final seque
where Neos control over the threat of bodily violence is a fi
confirmation of his true role as Romance hero.
As any review of the film tells you, The Matrix draws upon
conventionalized features, structural elements, and thematics
a range of consensus genres and subgenres. Just how the mix
genre is described changes somewhat from critic to critic.
instance, Splicedonlines Rob Blackwelder (http://www.spl
donline.com/99reviews/matrix.html) calls The Matrix a virt
reality sci-fi thrillerthus distinguishing it from, for example
non-sci-fi virtual reality thriller such as Disclosure (Ba
Levinson, 1994). Andrew OHehir from salon.com draws att
tion to The Matrixs cinematic style which gives a European
cinema inflection to the movies many references, which inclu
the films of John Woo, the Alien series, the Terminator ser
and of course Blade Runner. OHehir adds that The Matrix
all of those films, as well as a video game, a primer on Z
Buddhism, and a parable of the Second Coming. This me
that The Matrix isnt just a mixed-genre film. In addition
employs a broadly mixed set of core thematics drawn from
various narrative sources.
Every genre narrative needs to establish a dynamic betwe
the familiar and the innovative. The Matrix solves this probl
through pastiche, that is, by reassembling features from vari
consensus genres and subgenres into one coherent storyli
This reassembling begins, in fact, at the level of its master gen
and works down through The Matrix to include its constitu
consensus genres as well as the subgenres that inform its sto
3
Linda Williams, Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess, in Barry K
Grant, ed., Film Genre Reader II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995),
140158.
4
Thomas Schatz, Old Hollywood/New Hollywood: Ritual, Art, and Indu
(Ann Arbor: UMI Research, 1983), p. 86.
Genre Film
Scene
De-Construct-In
The Matr
Penetrating Keanu:
New Holes, but the Same
Old Shit
CYNTHIA FREELAND
1
See Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason: Male and Female in Wes
Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) and Su
ing of the movie. After Neo chooses the truth pill offered
Morpheus, he has a horrifying vision of humans as they re
are. He sees countless naked bodies maintained artificially
fetal sacs by ugly bug-like machine nurses. Each person
penetrated by a complex array of tubes that presumably fee
and remove bodily wastes. Their hairless pink bodies look
gusting and vulnerable, penetrated by black coils and plugs.
Neo gapes in horror, a keeper bug prepares to flush him,
ping out the plugs and cords interlacing his body. In a birth p
ody Neo is dumped down a slimy tubepresumably to
liquefied.
Rescued, Neo appears in a kinder, gentler scene of pene
tion. Again we see Keanus nearly naked body displayed as
lies on a table. He is thoroughly penetrated now by gently w
ing acupuncture-style needles. The peacefulness and goodn
of this penetration are emphasized by religious-sounding cho
music on the soundtrack. Morpheus explains that Neo must
rebuilt because his muscles are atrophied from disuse. If o
we could all lie back in gentle sleep with needles toning
muscles!
In this movie, Neo is so special that he can learn thi
instantly, with almost no effort. (Physical things, that isit d
take the dim and naive Neo/Keanu some time to catch onto
insight that he is the One, the savior who will redeem
humanity by freeing them from the Matrix.) Knowledge a
skills are quickly transmitted to the clever, deserving, and go
looking members of Morpheuss little cell of revolutionaries
instant programming or uploading. This requires the insert
of a big plug into the back of a persons neck. So, in the n
scene of penetration there is more violence, and Neo is ob
ously frightened when the connector device is slammed into
hole at the back of his neck. Through simulated physical tra
ing Neo learns skills, with effort transferred to his real bo
leaving him tired or even sore. He learns quickly due to
psychokinetics: we barely see him break a sweat. Althou
obviously freaky, the neck-plugs are never again emphasi
and we see no other scenes of their insertion; rather, the gro
members simply lie back and we assume the plugs easily sl
in with no pain or violence. These are good plugs with go
penetration. They send people back into the Matrix with a n
3
Cronenberg explains that with New Flesh, [Y]ou can actually chan
it means to be a human being in a physical way . . . Human beings cou
[sic] sexual organs, or do without sexual organs . . . for procreation
distinction between male and female would diminish, and perhaps w
become less polarized and more integrated creatures. Chris Rod
Cronenberg on Cronenberg (London: Faber and Faber, revised editio
pp. 8082.
5
Many thanks to Carolyn Korsmeyer and Steven Schneider for comm
an earlier draft.
The Coppertop at Wo r k
Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bo
geois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine
the over-looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois ma
facturer himself.1
Dialectical Reflections
4
See Marxs essay, The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereo
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (New York: Modern Library, 1906
83.
Is The Matrix part of a real capitalist Matrix? TwentiethMarxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno would s
In their essay, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment a
Deception, they argue that the mass media, which in
radio, television, and film, contribute to a new level of
modity fetishism in capitalist societies.5 The extrate
world of Hollywood values and corporate brands is th
dream worldand it has enveloped us in its saccharine
ness; which is why these Marxists want us to wake up
Paradoxically, The Matrix is part of the culture industry
which Horkheimer and Adorno rail. But, how is this p
Clearly, it is a film about exploitation and grassroots res
Or is it?
One of Marxs most powerful insights concerning the
to which capitalism exploits its labor forces is in his th
surplus value. Marx wanted to find out how and where
ists make profit. After careful analyses of all of the
aspects of the capitalist production cycle, he came
5
It Is Ultimately Impossible to
Tell the Diff e rence between the
Real and the Unreal
the real, may also have been inspired by Baudrillard, for whom, pos
America is one big desert where you are delivered from all depth .
liant, mobile, superficial neutrality, a challenge to meaning and prof
challenge to nature and culture, an outer hyperspace, with no origin
erence-points. See his America (London: Verso, 1988), p. 124 and p
6671, 123-126 as well as Baudrillards The Gulf War Did Not Ta
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
how deep the rabbit hole goes and, as we know, soon lea
that the only world he has ever known, seen, and tasted is
illusion, having no reality outside cyberspace. Just before
voyage into the real begins, Morpheus sensing Neos puzz
disbelief asks him: How would you know the differe
between the dream world and the real world? The messag
clear. Neo has no way of knowing for sure whats real and w
isnt.
Now, this, of course, is a philosophical problem, m
specifically, an epistemological one. It is also an old one. I
possible that we know nothing because all of our beliefs
false? Is there any way to show that we are not totally delud
about everything? Platos Republic, 2,400 years old, tells of c
dwellers who take the mere shadows on the wall to be the r
things themselves. They do not know what is real, hav
never encountered it, and are oblivious of their ignorance.
Plato this is an allegory for the condition of human beings w
know only the material world and not the ideas or For
which, Plato holds, stand behind them and make them po
ble. Much later, in the seventeenth century, Descartes en
tains the possibility that all our beliefs might be false. In
Meditations, he aims to find a secure foundation for kno
edge and, wanting to start from scratch, undertakes, in the f
meditation, to show that all of our beliefs are susceptible
doubt. He begins with the unreliability of our senses
decides that this doesnt quite do the job. He then consid
the possibility that we may be dreaming everything up. In f
there is no surefire way to show that we are not dreaming.
Descartes reasons that we could not always have been drea
ing since the contents of our dreams could not be genera
from dreams alone and so must come from some other sour
Descartes then considers the possibility that a malicious dem
is systematically deceiving us such that every one of our bel
is false. And with this possibility, and the attendant impo
bility of proving this false, comes radical or global skeptic
(which Descartes thought he could overcome by the me
explained in his later meditations).
So we see that Morpheuss suggestion that we cannot re
know for sure whether the world we experience is real or
Start with the idea that there is only one real world and
is exactly what it is and nothing else besides. Where the
the unreal, the illusory come from? And why are we som
fooled by it? The unreal may arise spontaneously in drea
seems to fool us while we are dreaming. The unreal m
result from sensory or cognitive error, again spontaneous
such as to lead to deception. In either case, the world co
with something else thanks to the powers and frailties
mind. There is another way in which the real world co
co-exist with something else. Human beings can repres
world in signs, language, and images. Consequently, we
a world of things and of representations of
Representations have been around since cave drawings a
beginnings of sign language. But theorists of postmo
According to Debord, there are now not only a lot more rep
sentations and images than before, but they form a netw
(matrix?) constituting a spectacle which is so much closer to
than the non-representational that the non-representational
become an unreconstructible abstraction. To illustrate this, lo
at your immediate surroundings and the extent to which th
reality has been shaped by human fabrication and product
with an eye to their eventual consumption. Or think of the pl
of the television or monitor screen in contemporary life or in
airport lounge.
The next step comes with computer simulation. Not only
we and do we produce and consume human-made represen
tions of the world, we can now simulate the world. Simulat
is a means of representing, in a life-like manner, objec
processes and subjective experiences that may or may not h
existed before, typically with the aid of computers. Thus we
simulate a car crash or the aroma of fried onions or the exp
ence of weightlessness. And people are doing just this right n
in labs in Texas and New Jersey and in IMAX theaters at y
1
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black and Red, 1983
5. Originally La socit du spectacle (Paris: ditions Buchet-Chastel, 1967).
not in the real world, but in the virtual one), the same will to
free, the same knowledge of ju jitsu (this, by contrast, w
uploaded), and so forth. On the other hand, his person a
powers in cyberspace are also a function of his capacity
mental projection. Thus, on the ju jitsu mats with Morpheus,
is told that if he is to win the fight, his mind will do it, not
body. His mind is strong enough (if not always his will or s
confidence) to defy gravity and bend spoons. It is not altoget
clear where this power comes from. It could easily be punch
in at a keyboard, of course, but thats not what happens. N
himself lying inert in a chair is doing the work of manipulat
his body and the physical world in cyberspace. What allows
this?
It would seem, at first, that simulation gives unlimited pow
to the keyboard operator and no power at all to the one (ly
in the chair) to whom the world is being simulated. Or is
right? What if simulation could be more than this? A world
piped into your brain and, furthermore, your brain has
power not only to receive information from that world but to
on it (as in a video game) and because it is the cyberworld,
the real one, your powers are not limited by the familiar sci
tific laws. Maybe The Matrix is right about this, after all: ve
very sophisticated simulation would in fact allow for a cyber
that both projects much of its real attributes and is able to s
pass them as well by means of a strong and disciplined w
According to The Matrix, more powerful than the compute
the mind that engages with it. Well have to wait to find
about this one, but its hard not to be curious. Wake me up i
couple hundred years, or better yet, load me up there ri
now.2
So, not only can reality be simulated, it can be improved
Why simulate it otherwise? This means that simulating realit
not only a matter of replicating its basic structure but mak
2
lies at our feet except that its probably better than our
since the machines have every motivation to create an
tain a world without human misery, accidents, diseas
war so as to increase the available energy supply. Th
world, on the other hand, is a wasteland. The librari
theaters have been destroyed and the skies are alway
In fact, youd have to be out of your mind or at least se
out to lunch to choose the real world (is that why
Reeves seems so well cast in the role?). Were not talkin
hedonism now, were talking about, to use John Stuar
words, the higher faculties and the deep and diverse
of gratification derived from them. Such gratification i
found far more easily in The Matrix than in the desert
real.3
What about truth and freedom, autonomy, and authe
The machines probably dont mind what you do in the
world as long as it stays there. You can paint, you can
music, you can support the government or fight aga
Youre free in every way that youre free now, you just c
one thing: unplug or try to get others to unplug or kill
who are trying to stop people from unplugging. As fo
theres really only one single important truth that elude
that none of this real. Its all only virtual. But it feels real
can get. And theres no reason to suspect that its unreal
Morpheus or his team visits you. So should you care?
matter? Is it in the end really unreal? What makes it unre
to our last proposition.
So while Neo chooses the red pill, I, along with Cypher, would ch
blue pill, albeit not simply for creaturely comforts and pleasures.
however, a third position. In You Wont Know the Difference So Y
Make the Choice, Philosophy Now (December 2000/January 20
3536, Robin Beck argues that there are no rational grounds for ma
decision because [e]pistemologically, the worlds are the same gi
either world seems equally real once either pill has been swallowe
is right to say that either way we take our world to be the real on
theres no difference on that score. But the world so taken is very
depending on which pills been chosen, and the blue pill gives us b
better world.
Comparing the original script (available on the Internet) with the movie it
we can see that the Wachowski brothers were intelligent enough to throw
the clunky pseudo-intellectual references: Look at em. Automatons. D
think about what theyre doing or why. Computer tells em what to do
they do it. The banality of evil. This pretentious reference to Arendt mi
the point: People immersed in the VR of the Matrix are in an entirely di
ent, almost opposite, position compared with the executioners of
Holocaust. Another wise move was to drop the all too obvious reference
Eastern techniques of emptying your mind as the way to escape the contro
the Matrix: You have to learn to let go of that anger. You must let go of ev
thing. You must empty yourself to free your mind.
240
Its also crucial that what enables the hero of The Truman Show to see thro
and exit his manipulated world is the unforeseen intervention of his fa
There are two paternal figures in the film, the actual symbolic-biolog
father and the paranoiac real father, played by Ed Harris, the directo
the TV show who totally manipulates his life and protects him in the clo
environment.
big Other.
For that reason, fantasy and paranoia are inherently
Paranoia is at its most elementary a belief in an Other
Other, into another Other who, hidden behind the Othe
explicit social texture, programs (what appears to us
unforeseen effects of social life and thus guarantees its
tency: Beneath the chaos of the market, the degrada
morals, and so forth, there is the purposeful strategy
Jewish plot . . . This paranoid stance has acquired a
boost with todays digitalization of our daily lives. Wh
entire social existence is progressively externalized-mate
in the big Other of the computer network, its easy to i
an evil programmer erasing our digital identity and thus
ing us of our social existence, turning us into non-perso
Following the same paranoid twist, the thesis of The
is that this big Other is externalized in the really existing
Computer. There isthere has to bea Matrix because
are not right, opportunities are missed, something goes
all the time. In other words, the movies suggestion tha
so because there is the Matrix obfuscates the true reality
behind it all. Consequently, the problem with the film is
is not crazy enough, because it supposes another real
behind our everyday reality sustained by the Matrix.
However, to avoid a fatal misunderstanding, the
notion that all there is is generated by the Matrix, that
no ultimate reality, just the infinite series of virtual realiti
roring themselves in each other, is no less ideological.
sequels to The Matrix, we shall probably learn that th
desert of the real is generated by another matrix. Muc
subversive than this multiplication of virtual universes
have been the multiplication of realities themselvessom
that would reproduce the paradoxical danger that some
cists see in recent high-accelerator experiments.
Scientists are now trying to construct an accelerator c
of smashing together the nuclei of very heavy atoms at
the speed of light. The idea is that such a collision will n
shatter the atoms nuclei into their constituent protons an
trons, but will pulverize the protons and neutrons them
leaving a plasma, a kind of energy soup consisting o
quark and gluon particles, the building blocks of matt
4
Claude Lvi-Strauss, Do Dual Organizations Exist?, in Structural An
ogy (New York: Basic Books, 1963), pp. 131163. The drawings are
13334.
5
See Rastko Mocnik, Das Subjekt, dem unterstellt wird zu glauben
Nation als eine Null-Institution, in H. Boke, ed., Denk-Prozes
Althusser (Hamburg: Argument Verlag, 1994).
see that our everyday reality is not real, but just a codif
tual universe, and who therefore is able to unplug from
manipulate and suspend its rules (fly in the air, stop bulle
so forth). Crucial for the function of this One is his virtua
of reality. Reality is an artificial construct whose rules
suspended or at least rewrittentherein resides the p
paranoid notion that the One can suspend the resista
the Real (I can walk through a thick wall, if I really de
. . .the impossibility for most of us to do this is redu
the failure of the subjects will).
Here again, the film does not go far enough. In the
rable scene in the waiting room of the Oracle who will
if Neo is the One, a child who is seen bending a spoon w
mere thoughts tells the surprised Neo that the way to do i
to convince myself that I can bend the spoon, but to co
myself that there is no spoon . . . However, what about
Shouldnt the movie have taken the further step of accept
Buddhist proposition that I, myself, the subject, do not e
In order to further specify what is false in The Matr
should distinguish simple technological impossibility from
tasmic falsity: Time-travel is (probably) impossible, but p
mic scenarios about it are nonetheless true in the wa
render libidinal deadlocks. Consequently, the problem w
Matrix is not the scientific naivety of its tricks. The idea o
ing from reality to VR through the phone makes sense, s
we need is a gap or hole through which we can escape
Perhaps, an even better solution would have been the
Is not the domain where excrements vanish after we flu
toilet effectively one of the metaphors for the horrifying
lime Beyond of the primordial, pre-ontological Chao
which things disappear? Although we rationally know wh
on with the excrements, the imaginary mystery nonethele
sistsshit remains an excess with does not fit our daily
and Lacan was right in claiming that we pass from anim
humans the moment an animal has problems with wha
with its excrements, the moment they turn into an exce
annoys it. The Real is thus not primarily the horrifyin
gusting stuff re-emerging from the toilet sink, but rather th
itself, the gap which serves as the passage to a differen
logical orderthe topological hole or torsion which curv
MORPHEUS: Its that feeling you have had all your life. That fee
that something was wrong with the world. You dont kn
what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind, driving
mad. . . . The Matrix is everywhere, its all around us, here e
in this room. . . . It is the world that has been pulled over y
eyes to blind you from the truth.
NEO: What truth?
MORPHEUS: That you are a slave, Neo. That you, like everyone e
was born into bondage . . . kept inside a prison that you c
not smell, taste, or touch. A prison of your mind.
Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a per
human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would
happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. En
crops [of the humans serving as batteries] were lost. Some belie
we lacked the programming language to describe your per
world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define t
reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world wa
dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up fr
Which is why the Matrix was re-designed to this: the peak of y
civilization.
Malebranche in Hollywood
And does not, mutatis mutandis, the same hold for todays p
gressive computerization of our everyday lives, in the course
which the subject is also more and more mediatized, imp
ceptibly stripped of his power, under the false guise of
increase? When our body is mediatized (caught in the netw
of electronic media), it is simultaneously exposed to the thr
of a radical proletarization: the subject is potentially redu
to the pure dollar sign, since even my own personal experie
can be stolen, manipulated, regulated by the mechanical Oth
One can see, again, how the prospect of radical virtualizat
bestows on the computer the position which is strictly homo
gous to that of God in Malebrancheian occasionalism. Since
computer co-ordinates the relationship between my mind a
(what I experience as) the movement of my limbs (in the virt
reality), one can easily imagine a computer which runs am
and starts to act liker an Evil God, disturbing the co-ordinat
between my mind and my bodily self-experiencewhen
signal of my mind to raise my hand is suspended or even co
teracted in (the virtual) reality, the most fundamental experie
of the body as mine is undermined. It seems thus that cyb
space effectively realizes the paranoiac fantasy elaborated
Schreber, the German judge whose memoirs were analyzed
Freud.9 The wired universe is psychotic insofar as it seems
materialize Schrebers hallucination of the divine rays throu
which God directly controls the human mind.
In other words, does the externalization of the big Othe
the computer not account for the inherent paranoiac dimens
of the wired universe? Or, to put it in yet another way, the co
monplace is that, in cyberspace, the ability to download c
sciousness into a computer finally frees people from th
bodiesbut it also frees the machines from their people .
10
11
The Potentials
267
admit.
Aaliyah, 2
Achilles, 13
Addis, Laird, 79
Adorno, Theodor, 223; The Dialectic
of Enlightenment, 265
Agents (of the Matrix), 71, 83, 110,
134, 135, 164, 194, 198, 199, 210,
235; Agent Smith, 11, 17, 25, 48,
87, 102, 106, 113, 130, 139140,
149, 163, 221, 258
ahimsa, 108
A.I., 70, 155
Albert, Adam, 1
Aldiss, Brian; Starship, 243
alethia, 102
Alexander the Great, 91
Alice in Wonderland, 18384
Alien, 70, 192
allegory of the cave, 12, 13, 55,
12829, 199, 228
anatman, 103
Anderson, Thomas, 16, 102, 184,
193, 195; symbolism of name,
11112
Angel Heart, 113
anicca, 104
Anna Karenina, 196, 200
anxiety, 135; existentialism on, 175
apatheia, 136
Apoc, 51, 144
Apocalypse Now, 244
Apollo, 6, 8, 9
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 1, 94, 207
Blues Brothers, 6
bodhisattva, 10809
Boethius, 9293
Boys Dont Cry, 10
Brainstorm, 72
brain-vat thought experiments, 21,
2526, 43, 66; as self-refuting,
4344
Brazil, 178
The Brothers Karamazov, 196
Buddha, 10102, 138; on illusion,
103; on reflection, 10102, 104
Buddha of Compassion, 114
Buddhism, 10203, 115; adaptability
of, 109; Chinese, 109; on
dependent origination, 104; on
illusion, 103; Indian, 109; on
interconnectedness, 104;
Mahayana, 103, 151; on mind,
103, 105; on nonviolence,
10809; on poisons, 109; on
reflection, 106; on the self,
10304; on sentient beings, 110;
on suffering, 104, 107, 10809;
Theravada, 118; virtues in, 108;
Zen, 10203, 106
Buddhist Three Signs, 104
cafeteria pluralism, 11819
Caldern de la Barca, Pedro, 44, 55
Calvin, John, 93
Camus, Albert, 167, 175
capitalism, 216; late, 24243, 263;
Marx on, 21719, 22124
Carrey, Jim, 242
Carter, Rubin Hurricane, 11
Chaerephon, 6, 7
Chandler, Raymond, 244
Chernyshevsky, N.G.; What Is to Be
Done?, 156
Choi, 105, 112, 140
Christianity: on reincarnation,
11415; on time, 115
Churchland, Paul, 79, 84
coherence view, of truth, 237
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 181, 184
Comedy as genre, 19091
computers, as creative, 71
Concept Holism, 39
consciousness, 8285; as immate
85, 86; intentionality of, 8384
problem of, 73; as transcende
83, 84
consensus genres, 19192
conspiracy theories, 249
Copernicus, 141
Croessus, King, 9, 10
Cronenberg, David, 210, 211, 212
culture industry (Kulturindustrie
22324, 241
cyberskeptic, 238
cyberspace, 238, 247, 265
Cypher, 13, 14, 17, 45, 4950, 56
88, 130, 143, 149, 165, 210, 22
234; death of, 162; defense of
235; on happiness, 132; and
inauthenticity, 169; mistake o
2527, 50, 13233; and sense
experience, 5051; symbolism
113
Cyphre, Louis, 113
fallibilism, 23
false belief, amount of, 37
Farewell, My Lovely, 244
fatalism, 91
fate, 91
feminist philosophers, on W
philosophy, 20607
fiction; emotional response
18183, 18485; explana
184, 186; paradox of, 180
and reality, blurring of, 1
fictional genre film, 197
Fight Club, 10, 178
film technology, blurring fic
reality, 182, 187
Flourens, Pierre, 265
The Fly, 210
Forms (Platonic), 1314, 238
Foster, Gloria, 210
Fourier, Charles, 156
Four Noble Truths, 10708
Frankenstein, 163, 195
Frankfurt School, 241
Frankl, Viktor, 11
freedom, 8788
free will, 9697
Freud, Sigmund, 254, 262
Frost, Robert, 15
Frye, Northrop, 197; The An
of Criticism, 190
fundamental teachings plura
118
style, 195
the Matrix Possibility, 2829, 3637,
3940; and conceptual coherence, 37; and false belief, 37
McCain, John, 11
Meaning Holism, 39
mediatization, 26162
Memento, 10
mental states; as brain states, 73, 79;
critique of, 7980; ownership of,
81; as physical states, 75
metaphysics, 5657
Middlemarch, 196
Mill, John Stuart, 26, 27, 235
mind, as category, 60
mind-body problem, 6768, 7778
mirror, as metaphor, 102
Miyamoto Musashi, 105
monism, 63
morality; choice of, 14243; and
egotism, 145; and freedom,
14546; and God, 146; and
immortality, 15051; Kantian
posutlates of, 14546, 148, 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology), 13,
129
Morpheus (Matrix), 7, 89, 10, 11,
13, 14, 19, 51, 62, 105, 107, 129;
on fate, 162; on freedom,
14344; on the Matrix, 1617,
4647, 66, 77, 217, 219, 258; on
the Oracle, 98; on reality, 50, 56,
159, 228, 229, 236; as reductive
materialist, 7677; as rescuer,
169; on sense experience, 50
Moss, Carrie-Anne, 209
Mouse, 44, 45, 71, 131, 173
Napoleon Bonaparte, 261
narrative, role of, 180, 187
nature-nurture debate, 96
Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical), 113
Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix), 44, 51,
66, 71, 76, 88, 112, 113, 135, 144,
146, 149, 159
Neo, 89, 11, 1415, 48, 51, 62, 105,
173; and the allegory of the
bility, 94
the One, social function of, 256
the Oracle (at Delphi), 8, 9, 9091
the Oracle (Matrix), 7, 910, 11, 50,
64, 9091, 106, 147, 161; and
knowing the future, 95; and
omniscience, 92; and postulates
of morality, 148; prophecy of,
14849; and self-fulfilling
prophecies, 9798; as stereotype,
210
Othello, 133
paranoia, 245
Percy, Walker, 233
perversion, 26465
philosophy, as road less traveled,
1415
Pikul, Ted, 21112, 214
Planet of the Apes, 67
Plantinga, Alvin, 121, 124
Plato, 1, 56, 66, 131, 135, 138, 189,
207; allegory of the cave, 12, 55,
62, 12829, 189, 199, 228, 241;
on Forms, 1314, 238; and
importance of intellect, 14;
Republic, 12, 128, 228, 241
popular culture, 2
postmodernity, 22526; and human
experience, 226; and technology,
226
Presley, Elvis, 23
psychotic universe, 262
Putnam, Hilary; Reason, Truth, and
History, 21
Pythia, 8, 9, 11
Quine, W.V., 2, 39
radical split in culture, 24647
Rahula, 101, 104
Rubel, Geli, 266
the Real, 246, 250; in art, 255
the real/reality; categories of, 5960;
simulation of, 229233; and spatiality, 238
reality/unreality distinction, 6062;
Vaughn, Lewis, 23
Videodrome, 210
virtual reality (VR); and iconocla
241; as real, 23637
Acknowledgments
VOLUME 1
Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing
Edited by William Irwin
VOLUME 2
The Simpsons and Philosophy: The Doh! of Homer (2001)
Edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skoble
VOLUME 3
The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (
Edited by William Irwin
IN PREPARATION:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy (2003)
Edited by James B. South
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy (2003)
Edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
Woody Allen and Philosophy (2004)
Edited by Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble
Philosophy
The choice is yours, and you will have to live with the cons
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you take the red pill: download the New York Times-bestsell
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* Can the mind live without the body or the body with
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Those who take the red pill never look at the real wo
same way again.
So which will it be? The blue pill click elsewhere.
Philosophy
William Irwin has done it yet again. But this time with even m
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Instructors will be delighted to find a sensible strategy for us
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If, like Keanu Reeves, you are confused by the plot of The Mat
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