Blog 3: Reality?

"What is real?" is what Morpheus asks when he starts explaining the Matrix to Neo. "real" is thrown around in the movie a lot. The word "real" like Cypher says is just another 4 letter word. It's a word used to describe what we believe we see as reality. And that comes to our problem with another word "believe". When we believe what we think is real, we do not exactly know it's real. Which is a big problem because, how will we know what is and what isn't reality?

What if we are in the Matrix? Real?

The book "The Matrix And Philosophy" says that anything real as well as valuable can only be real if it isn't in the matrix. And another argument suggests that what is real is anything that gives a very pleasurable experience. The first argument is really hard to find out what exactly is real unless we know there is an actual "Matrix" but the second one we can identify with quite easily. But in my opinion the second one does not make sense. Although the experience can be in fact pleasurable, such as eating some delicious cake. You can say you know the cakes tastes good but that's because you know what a fake simulated cake tastes like in a fake reality that you know you believe is real. Basically the cake is a lie. The first argument is much more agreeable because of the fact that if you get disconnected from the Matrix then it's got to be all real.

The allegory of the cave suggests that "real" is what we come to believe as "real" like the people trapped in the cave. Like us they were raised only knowing the environment around them and they have come to believe that this is their reality and all that they will ever know. So if we are like those people ion the cave then the only thing we know is real is what we see hear and feel smell and taste around us. Unless one of us were taken outside of the cave or unplugged then we would see the actual truth for ourselves.

The book and the allegory both say that in order to truly know the real reality, it has to be with our senses. With our eyes and ears and our touch. the book explains the senses while the allegory says; what if we didn't like the real world like Cypher did and would rather go back, but since we know the truth wouldn't it drive us crazy? What if the truth and the actually reality sucked like the matrix? Then the fake reality would seem like a better place to go back to but on the other hand we know its all fake and theirs no point in going back. Unless we could forget it all then it would be an impossible situation.

So to conclude my blog, what if this reality we live in is actually the best one we've got? Would it be really worth it to risk it all and find out the truth(good or bad)? Anything "real" is what we've come to believe as real but once you discover the question "Is it actually real?" then you start to recognize the idea that what you believe to be real doesn't mean it actually is.

When you start saying a certain word it starts to stop making sense. A good example is the use of the word "real" in my blog. Once that happens it just becomes a word, then 4 letters, then symbols and then its just some weird pattern of lines put together. Words can't exactly explain what is and what isn't and explaination sometimes doesn't get you completely convinced. So the best way would be with your eyes and ears. Now someone with a whole lot of philosophy in his head wearing sunglasses has to come to you offering a red or blue pill offering the truth. Since that's pretty much the only way you can find out the actual "real"

Blog 2: The Matrix and How it's Related

The matrix is a dream world or an alternate reality world that we live in, and whose to say that we don't? Everything we breathe, eat, smell, and feel could be some computer program designed to make us feel like its all real.

The movie does a good job in presenting a lot of philisophical ideas, especially those from Socrates. One thing I really like about the movie is how Neo tells Morpheus that he doesn't like the idea of fate and says that he doesn't believe in the idea of not being in control of your life. Later on in the movie The Oracle tells him the bad news that he isn't "The One" Morpheus was expecting. But when he gets shot to death by an agent, he comes back to life and realizes that he is in fact The One proving the Oracle wrong.

On a nother note I think that Neo chose not to die in The Matrix, showing how he took control of his life by coming back to life. He ends with a speech about how everyone else should be free and know the truth.

Spoilers beyond this point!!!!

I can relate this idea to another movie called "Wanted". It's a crazy movie to relate to since people went to watch it for the action, I'm sure. But the movie is about a man by the name of Wesly Gibson who works at a corporate building which he hates. He doesn't know he has this inhumane ability to move incredibly fast and become practically superhuman but that later changes when he meets an Assassin named Fox and other assassins later on who pretty much frees him from his boring old repetitive life.

He becomes a killing machine by the end of the movie, and in the movie there is a lot of ideas of "fate" being tossed around and its what the Fraternity(the big assassin organization) lives by. But Wesley realizes that it's all just a bigger lie and makes the choice to destroy the Fraternity and everyone involved in it. That action sequence is probably my favorite.

In the end of the movie he says a speech about how he has taken his life back and how he has control of it and ends it with a "So what the **** have you done recently?" A kind of messed up way to make people realize the truth he sees.

Another good example is Fight Club, which is about a guy who can be related to Neo. The movie starts off with him and his usual lifestyle which looks boring. But then meets a man named Tyler Durden and from that point on, Tyler changes his life. They start an underground thing called "fight Club" so that people can just fight eachother for the hell of it and the group starts getting bigger and bigger. It eventually turns into and organization where many different people are involved including law enforcing citizens. The organization wants to "free" everyone. But eventually the man"wakes up" and realizes that he himself is Tyler Durden, the man who has created this huge organization and that the other man he's been seeing was a false representation of himself.

Kind of like the matrix when you hack in you see yourself as how you want to see yourself. Tyler was seeing the self that he wanted to see and wanted to be and in the end it turns out he was. He also frees people from their world and they joined the fight club which is like the real world in the matrix and all of them set out to destroy the corporations that these people worked under. Which is like where in the real world the people are freed from the matrix and sent out to fight the machines (like the agents).

Blog 1

If I were to be in Socrates' cave, I think that I would be one of those who are still inside the cave but instead made the choice to turn around, take a look at the fire, take off the chains and turn back around to watch the shadows again.

What I'm trying to say is that I've touched upon the subject of what all the great philosphers think about but I wouldn't really want to walk outside since I'm very comfortable with how I am living. I would have to agree with Cypher when he says "ignorance is bliss". Walking out into the light would be a huge dramatic change and realizing the fact that I've been liveing a lie my whole life and all the experiences and luxuries experienced were just fake would be a really devastating truth.

But why take off the chains? The reason for that would be that I might change my mind someday and actually walk out into the light. And maybe someday the question will bother me like an annoying itch and I would have to just run out of the cave. I've already discovered the fire behind me so it would be a thought in the back of my head, but for now I'm perfectly fine staring at my own shadow on the cave wall.