Appearance Vs. Reality In The Matrix And Waking Life

Throughout the semester we have spend a great deal of time talking about the theme appearance versus reality. The question of appearance vs. reality is one of the most fundamental in philosophy. What is genuinely "real?" What is mere "appearance," and not real? Assuming that there is a difference between the two, how do we distinguish between them in any reliable way? Generally, what seems to appear real is seen as subjective and internal. That which is "real" is regarded as eternal, external and objective. In Western philosophy, metaphysics has become the study of the fundamental nature of all reality - what is it, why is it, and how are we to understand it. Some only regard metaphysics as the study of "higher" reality or the "invisible" nature behind everything, but that isn't actually true. It is, instead, the study of all of reality, visible and invisible. Throughout the films we have watched in class, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, and Waking Life, all consistently express the theme of appearance versus reality.
The Matrix centers on the concept that the known world is an illusion. It goes along with the story of a character called Neo. Throughout this whole movie, there is an illusion in place and the perception of reality is harder to recognize. In the movie, humans are kept in an unconscious state in pod like containers in a huge area to hold all the pods. All of these pod are hooked up in to a central computer. This computer that they are hooked up to is capable of transmitting a virtual life to the pods. Life as we know it, all the interactions, buildings, cars, streets, and countries are all in this virtual fake world. Everything that these people sense, is not real at all. A computer program stimulates their brains and tricks them into believing that they are all living normal 20th-century lives. They are all blinded to the truth about how and why they