The Matrix Research Paper

The Matrix and Philosophy

Have you ever felt like the life you are living right now is not real? You do not know what is real and what is not real? You doubt your very existence. These were main problems for Neo, the main character of the movie “The Matrix”. Neo thought he was living a normal life, but he felt like something was wrong, he did not know what it was, could not explain it, but something was wrong. Later on
Neo learns the truth from a man named Morpheus; he found out that what he thought was real was actually not real at all, it was all a computer program. The life he lived was all a lie because of his perception blocking out reality. “The
Matrix” can be compared to ontology, the study of being or what is, “The
Matrix” relates to both dualism, both body and mind are affected, and finally it relates to the brain in a vat and the “evil genius” ruining his view of life.

Parmenides was a philosopher who believed that all reality is one, it is not a plurality, and reality is being. He came up with “Ontology” or in Greek
“Ontos”, ontology is the study of being or “what is”. Ontology has two parts to it one, what is, is and two, what is not is not, which is not being. The universe consists of one thing, it never changes, it has no parts, and it can never be destroyed, all this being one. Ontology is metaphysics. “Physics is concerned with the microscopic processes that underlie macroscopic reality; metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality. A metaphysical hypothesis might make a claim about the reality that underlies physics itself. Alternatively it might say something about the nature of our minds, or the creation of our world”-John J. Chalmers. But then comes an “evil genius” who comes and tries and confuse you about what is and what is not. Rene Descartes was born in 1596 and died in 1650, he was known as the father of modern philosophy. He believed that nature had two distinct properties, dualism (mind-body). Descartes came up with his own dualism called Cartesian dualism one “The body casually affects the mind” and two “The mind casually affects the body.” The mind is the essence of thinking or our consciousness, our conscious states are continuous, and minds are indivisible.
The body is an extension of the mind, it is divisible matter and it is destructible. Descartes came up with a very famous saying, “Cogito Ergo Sum” Latin for “I think therefore I am.” This saying mean that “I cannot be mistaken about my own about the existence of my own consciousness, or I cannot be mistaken about my own existence because it is my essence to be conscious thinking being, a mind”, doubt is the first step to certainty. Then comes the “Evil Genius”, it tries to trick you about your existence, but it cannot deceive you about yourself. The mind is the tool that allows you to doubt the “Evil Genius.” In the movie “The Matrix” Morpheus asks Neo “what is real?” and then says “how do you define real? If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste, and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” “Each will interpret particular experiences, as well as the whole of reality, differently simply due to the divergent belief systems that each possess. Of course, our belief systems can be wrong, and thus reality is not as we think it is. This was Neo’s discovery when he ate the
red pill and the discovery of philosophers when they began to question their beliefs more than twenty-six hundred years ago.
Thus Neo’s awakening is symbolic of the general philosophical experience of questioning one’s belief about the world, and the attempt to discover what exists behind our illusions. We can be deceived by evil machines, a Cartesian demon, or by the traditions of our society; and if we are, then reality is not as we believe it is.”-thematrix101 The brain in a vat is basically your brain being placed in a jar and connected to a computer controlled by a scientist, your mind can make you think that you are walking outside in the sun in Miami, so you believe that you are, but actually you are just a brain in a jar. “The Matrix” is extremely similar to this, but instead of just your brain being in a jar, it’s your whole body connected with wires in a metal container. “The Matrix presents a version of an old philosophical fable: the brain in a vat. A disembodied brain is floating in a vat, inside a scientist’s laboratory. The scientist has arranged that the brain will be stimulated with the same sort of in puts that a normal embodied brain receives. To do this, the brain is connected to a giant computer simulation of a world.”-David J. Chalmers.
Neo wakes up like any ordinary person does, he works and participates in normal human activities, what he does not know is that none of it is real. “He thinks that he lives in a city, he thinks that he has hair, he thinks it is 1999, and he thinks it is sunny outside. In reality, he is floating in space, he has no hair, the year is around
2199, and the world has been darkened by war.”- John J. Chalmers. There are a couple differences from a brain in a vat situation, Neo’s brain is in his own body, and the computer simulation is controlled by machines and not a scientist, but all in all the details are very similar and therefore Neo is a brain in a vat. “The Matrix” can be compared to ontology, the study of being or what is,
“The Matrix” relates to dualism, both body and mind are affected, and finally it relates to the brain in a vat and the “Evil Genius” ruining his view of life. Ontology is the study of being or “what is”, what is, is and what is not, is not. A dualist is a believer of both body and mind, Descartes’ Cartesian dualism, “The mind casually affects the body” and “The body casually affects the mind.” “The Evil Genius” is something that is trying to trick you about what is real and what is not, it tries to trick you about your very existence, “Cogito Ergo Sum”, “I think therefore I am”.
The brain in a vat, your brain being connected to a computer while floating in a jar. The computer shows your brain images and makes you believe that you are actually there. Neo had to deal with all of this; he did not know what was and what was not. He was a body connected to a computer program making him feel like he was living a normal life. If his body was disconnected from the matrix then his mind in the matrix would die and if his mind died in the matrix then his body in the real world would also die. The movie “The Matrix” contains a lot of philosophy that people do not even notice.