![]() ![]() This quandary was captured in a 1974 thought experiment by American philosopher, Robert Nozick. Neo’s choice is to embrace either the “really real” (as exemplified by the red pill he is offered by Morpheus) or to return to his more normal “reality” (via the blue one). This dilemma is unfolded in the first film’s increasingly notorious red/blue pill scene, which raises the ethics of belief. But how should that freedom be exercised? Ultimately, the Matrix trilogy proclaims that free individuals can change the future. We only ever experience the world as it is available through the partial spectrum of our senses. In some respects, the film appears to be reaching for a view close to that of the 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who insisted that our senses do not simply copy the world rather, reality conforms to the terms of our perception. We see it now, perhaps even more intensely than 20 years ago, in the dominance of “reality TV” and curated identities of social media. Of course, there is no need for a matrix-like AI conspiracy to achieve this. Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving in The Matrix. So ultimately, then, what is reality? The late 20th century French thinker Jean Baudrillard, whose book appears briefly (with an ironic touch) early in the film, wrote extensively on the ways in which contemporary mass society generates sophisticated imitations of reality that become so realistic they are mistaken for reality itself (like mistaking the map for the landscape, or the portrait for the person). How do you know you're not living in a computer simulation? The latter scenario was updated in philosopher Hilary Putnam’s 1981 “ brain in a vat” thought experiment, which imagines a scientist electrically manipulating a brain to induce sensations of normal life. The Matrix also trades on more recent philosophical questions famously posed by the 17th century Frenchman René Descartes, concerning our inability to be certain about the evidence of our senses, and our capacity to know anything definite about the world as it really is.ĭescartes even noted the difficulty of being certain that human experience is not the result of either a dream or a malevolent systematic deception. The Matrix recalls several philosophical thought experiments. ![]()
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