That may be so - but the reasoning was a reach; "We did a good matrix, but you guys couldn't hack it, so we made a shit one for you instead."
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was the matrix really all that inhumane?
- Thread starter Megalosaro
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That may be so - but the reasoning was a reach; "We did a good matrix, but you guys couldn't hack it, so we made a shit one for you instead."
Perhaps they simulate heaven?
wheat?
Stellactic
Member
Oh my. The whole Matrix life is just a sifter to see which humans will be better suited for their "heaven" Matrix that generates energy for the robots for an eternity. And God is probably some colossal 5 million ight years wide computer that you sing and praise to.
Yeah an "Adam and Eve" type robots made in the shape of humans try and give an apple they grew themselves in a sign of respect or something and they get killed. And then humans wage war on them. After they, they basically stopped modeling themselves after humans too. Sentinels and other things were much more efficient shapes.
Deified Data
Banned
Humans started a war with the machines and the machines ended it...by granting us peaceful coexistence the only way they knew how. They were way more merciful than we'd have been in their shoes.
Two questions here. For the first one, Morpheus said it best, "the body cannot live without the mind". In this case, the machine dump the dead body, melts it, then fed it to the other grown humans that are still alive.
For the second part, Agent Smith already provided the answer. The machine tried to make the perfect world where everyone would be happy and enjoy long sustainable life, but it was a disaster as the humans did not accept the programs which caused many human minds' to fold and collapse (death).
angular graphics
Banned
As I said before...
Let me share with you a little story, that perhaps will help. When The Matrix was shot the script had a different ending speech by Neo. American test audiences did not know what the word "chrysalis" meant, so they had to rewrite it to dumb it down but they actually changed the meaning of the ending as well.
The original ending speech follows:
Neo said:
You will find out The Matrix' original ending ^ jells incredibly well with the sequels and particularly the ending of the third film/trilogy.
It's also what the trilogy is all about. Pretty pictures usually help:
"I believe that the Matrix can remain our cage or it can become our chrysalis, that's what you helped me to understand. That to be free, you cannot change your cage."
"You have to change yourself."
"When I used to look out at this world, all I could see was its edges, its boundaries, its rules and controls, its leaders and laws."
"But now, I see another world. A different world where all things are possible. A world of hope. Of peace."
"I can't tell you how to get there, but I know if you can free your mind, you'll find the way."
This is precisely what Lana means when she says "You know, if we were only allowed to make The Matrix, we would’ve been very sad because the movie is an incomplete idea and the other two complete the ideas of that movie, and without them it is kind of a false representation of what we wanted it to be.".
Today (March 31) marks the 15th anniversary of the first movie. I should create a thread.
I really like the explanation, actually, because I used to find the idea of a perfect world quite frightening. I haven't seen The Matrix in a long, long time, and it's interesting to read about all these various things the movie covered. I wonder how it holds up?
Battersea Power Station
Member
Unrelated but if a perfect world is frightening, it wouldn't be perfect
Unrelated but if a perfect world is frightening, it wouldn't be perfect
You couldn't resist jumping down that rabbit hole.
Well, the concepts of the movie are not new or original, it is taken from religious and spiritual ideas. The comparison between The Wachowskis work and Japanese Anime is an apt one because they tend to do the same thing. Akira for instance is pretty steeped in spiritual concepts. In story telling it isn't actually unique to either the Wachowskis or Japanese authors, it is a method of story telling that goes back to ancient times. Ancient stories, myths, legends, tend to be allegorical, conveying a message, whether that be political or religious. Shakespeare is said to have used metaphor and allegory in many of his works. It's a type of story telling that goes on to this day.
In a spiritual context, the idea that reality is an illusion is not a new one. If you look at the Matrix very literally then it seems the dream world is a better place to be in than the real world. I think what is really being conveyed though is that it is actually the same world from two different perspectives. It is seeing the world from the perspective of either ignorance or knowledge. It is not that the real world is any different to the dream one, it is simply being aware that the world is a prison for the mind.
In a spiritual context, the idea that reality is an illusion is not a new one. If you look at the Matrix very literally then it seems the dream world is a better place to be in than the real world. I think what is really being conveyed though is that it is actually the same world from two different perspectives. It is seeing the world from the perspective of either ignorance or knowledge. It is not that the real world is any different to the dream one, it is simply being aware that the world is a prison for the mind.
How is the idea of a perfect world frightening?
Are you picturing a borg like homogenized world where everyone is clad in white?
That's not a perfect world.
Tesseract
Banned
sleep, data.
I fundamentally found the idea of a world drained of its flaws frightening. And in this case, "world" and "people" are inseparable. I would have a difficult time breaking that down right now, but I'll say this: I think the idea of a "perfect world" is far more complicated than your way of casually pointing out what a perfect world is not implies. Perfection is a pretty elusive concept, at least from a qualitative point of view. It's not something that's easy to imagine, or even something that's necessarily consistent with itself. And in the context of The Matrix's explanation that humanity collectively rejected utopia, that should leave plenty of room for the imagination to conceive of plausible scenarios where that could happen.
So you're riling against the idea of having something imposing its will on you to make you perfect in its conception?
Such a thing you describe isn't perfect at all... a utopia should cater towards the wide range of human differences and proclivities, not seek to eliminate them.
A perfect world to me is one that frees us of unwanted labour, allows us, encourages us to be the very best of what we want to be. That includes to be the best damn slacker ever if that's what you desire to be.
Putting aside that in some ways this world sounds hellish and internally inconsistent, I think the next key step in this train of thought is to ask...why? Why should a utopia cater toward the wide range of human differences, as opposed to eliminating them?
I'll give you the last word on this, by the way, if you'd like to answer (and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't). This particular point is probably only so significant to the subject of the thread.
Because using VR, it would allow us to experience a wide range of experiential outcomes at a high sensory quality, indepedent of physical and material limitations, and without harm to other beings (you can populate a VR environment with AI actors who need not actually be harmed, but just react convincingly).
And it doesn't sound hellish - you just seem to come with baggage that you can't seem to articulate properly.
I'm looking for you to articulate them so I can consider if you actually have a point of interest to make.
They did in The Second Renaissance.
"Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you."
Your VR scenario is interesting to contemplate (as a dystopia, mainly), but that "why" was directed to the very premise that utopia should cater to our differences, as opposed to extending from a reduction of our differences. Again, why is that?
It's actually easier to imagine the opposite: that utopia should be based on eliminating individuality. It's probably much easier to arrive at "utopia" through reduction than it is to arrive at utopia through an attempt at crafting an internally consistent scenario where every single individual is catered to. In your VR example specifically, I find it surprising you're so confident in a utopia where people are freed from hurting one another, from consequence, to lose themselves in a fake reality without preset boundaries and detached from the external structure that was once such a big part of who we were. I wonder how long it would take for the "us" you're building this utopia for to become completely different versions of ourselves, and not necessarily for the better? And it seems to me that to arrive at this utopia, this perfect world, you actually have to eliminate differences between people as a prerequisite, as I'm very sure it would not a world for everyone otherwise.
Anyway, since you didn't quote my "last word" thing, I figured it doesn't count.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I hated that ending; it was such bullshit. The machines made a deal with Neo that if he was able to destroy Smith and preserve this version of the Matrix that they would allow the humans to leave of their own free will, but Neo died so why uphold their end of the bargain? It was completely illogical. Why not destroy Zion (which they were literally minutes away from accomplishing), eliminate the last of the resistance and continue with their human batteries forcibly plugged into the Matrix?
Yeah, humans were at least as responsible for the state of the world as the machines were.
But does it really count as 'slavery' if the people are unknowing, leading lives of 'free will' and are giving nothing as part of their captivity aside from a little of their body's energy? Especially as the real world is a godawful shitty place.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
More humane than the way we humans treat lifestock.
And we were fucktards to reject utopia when it was offered to us.
And we were fucktards to reject utopia when it was offered to us.
yep
Because you get real freedoms, and you get a cornucopia of novelty to interact with - see the novelty of other points of views. Because this caters to the deepest part of human nature - a base building block of how the mind works - a thirst to connect new with old, to come to understand more about the world, to make new and novel ideas, and to build upon them.
In the matrix, you'd have to content yourself with a metaverse of VR; a network of interconnected VR realms that have their own variety of rules that you can inhabit without restrictions - because their world above is scorched and uninhabitabal.
For us though - VR is only there to augment our capabilities and functions. We needn't be restricted or shackled to VR. But we do live in a necessarily restricted world; we will not be able to achieve a post-scarcity environment with only sensory interactions arising from the physical material world. I don't believe most human desires or behaviours will be of the wanton and gratuitious and harmful sort - but I do believe that all people have the proclivities to imagine such - if there is no harm, why not allow them to experience it? It is simply part and parcel of the human experience.
A utopia should allow for a difference of opinions - but education should be a life long experience - and a high quality education will automatically inculcate critical thinking, empathy and understanding of the limitations and strengths of individuals, societies and humanity as a whole.
The idea of squeezing all the shapes into square holes and watching cubes emerge out the other end is a straw man conception of a utopia - a design to show how sterile and boring a 'perfect' world would be. But what perfect world would do such a thing to its people?
If you're interested in what a good conception of what a non-strawman version of utopia looks like... check out The Culture series by Iain M Banks - a post-scarcity culture that has evolved to incorporate advance technologies into its fold and allow its citizens any reasonable freedoms that it can grant.
And a free man in the desert is fucked.
Seriously though, if your cage is big enough... is it even a cage anymore?
If your cage's boundaries and possibilities extend beyond what even the wealthiest man of this era can access... are you a slave?
The cage is only in your mind - Virtual Reality is simply a substrate for which congruent sensory stimulation occurs - the only reality that your brain itself cares about.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
More likely there were too many people that rejected the idea for the real world. Humanity thought everything being perfect MUST be fake. The imperfect world lulled humanity into a false sense of security, meaning less rejections and ultimately less maintenance and resistance for the machines.
Captain_Spanky
Member
Only if you want a really short life. Personally 100 days of sweet sweet grass and lady sheep poon sounds good to me over 1 day of RAWR-BANG-DEAD
ComputerMKII
Banned
Some would argue that the Marquis de Sade's prison actually gave him the ultimate form of freedom but that's a rather depressing and twisted point of view.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Yeah, but it's really closer to "Better one day as a starving, mongrel of a lion than a hundred days as a well-fed, healthy sheep."
Good thing we're not talking about Marquis de Sade's and a shitty argument here.
I guess they wanted to reinforce that the Machines were the honest party in the trilogy (and beyond).
Man, I really enjoy your posts about these movies. They are insightful and well written. By all means, please do make the thread if you haven't already!
angular graphics
Banned
Yes. They are the uncorrupted Spirit or God or how you wish to call it.
Red Liquorice
Member
Well if everyone in the Matrix was living in a blissful Nirvana, I would be ok with living in eternal ecstatic ignorance, except it wasn't - it was supposed to be an exact copy of a corrupt, unjust late-90s world.
Let's put it like this: First the human created the machines with enough AI that caused the machines to vouch for themselves and humans to live together as equal, the humans attacked and attempted to exterminate the machines in retaliation, the machines fought back in act of war and was winning, in desperation the humans tried to cut the machine's main power supply which is the sun by scorching the sky with darkness, then the machines captured the humans and used them as an alternative power source instead of killing them, as time passed the machines and humans made a truce that allowed each side to keep to themselves (machine city), the machines then started growing their own humans instead of capturing and harvest natural ones (natural = non-grown) as an alternative power source, in order to sustain longer life (or power) the machines gave the grown humans a virtual life that simulated the peak of human civilization before disruption began and they can do everything and anything that they can do in real-life, the real/natural humans continued their existences with only a select few here and there that likes to risk hacking into the matrix in order to have fun or create disruption as they please (the Merovingian).
So if you think about it, the machines haven't really done anything wrong. The humans in the matrix are enjoying their life providing they do not go and break the matrix itself (hence the purpose of the agents and neo to either keep people in check or dump them into the matrix-recycle-bin that mirror the post-apocalyptic status of real-life, Zion). All is good excluding the grown humans that cannot accept the matrix program or those that were woken up to hell.
In simpler terms, I think Cypher said it best:
"If I have to choose real-life or the Matrix, I choose the Matrix!"
So you too fell for the (obvious) Machine propaganda?
No one knows what happened between the humans and the machines except the machines (or at least, their "sentient" super robot leader). And since history is written by the victor...
I know I am coming to this pretty late, but as was mentioned before a utopia was tried first. Also not every person in the matrix is a, well, person. I can't imagine the machines would waste perfectly good batteries when they could have a program suffer of starvation instead.
That's the central underlying question of the original movie, stretched to oblivion in the sequels. The point of the "Cypher" character is that he has decided he'd rather live a happy, content lie than a brutal truth.
The remaining characters (and, I would argue, the directors) clearly conclude the opposite; that truth and reality are worth fighting for even if that reality is bleak and harsh compared to the comfort and ease of the lie you live in.
It doesn't mean you have to agree; I'm only emphasizing this discussion was the whole point of the movie.
The remaining characters (and, I would argue, the directors) clearly conclude the opposite; that truth and reality are worth fighting for even if that reality is bleak and harsh compared to the comfort and ease of the lie you live in.
It doesn't mean you have to agree; I'm only emphasizing this discussion was the whole point of the movie.
Morpheus was using rhetorical language (alright, so that's a bit of a redundancy) - his point is that reality isn't what is simply interpreted by your brain.
It's explained by Morpheus, in the 'desert of the real' sequence in the first movie, that the dead are liquified into goo and used to nourish the newborns. Or 'newgrowns,' I suppose.
Edit: Personally, I wouldn't pull a Cypher, simply because I wouldn't trust the agents. They'd be just as happy to just shoot me in the face as to actually go to all the effort of reinserting me into the matrix (which we don't even know is possible).
Red pill or blue pill? Red.
Messypandas
Member
The victory of the movie was that now people had a choice. And they admit, given the choice most people would still chose the matrix.
IISANDERII
Member
Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
Unfortunately I think this is often the case.
I don't know if the matrix was inhumane but it was a really useless and useless idea on the part of the robots. The whole thing was a massive energy sink not an energy source. You would think that robot's intelligent enough to cause the singularity would be intelligent enough to understand basic Newtonian physics.
Tesseract
Banned
Messypandas
Member
It was explained away as the humans being conducive to a type of fusion the machines discovered. The body heat is not the primary energy source. They also explained they could subsist just fine without humans as part of the equation, but enjoyed the irony.
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