Reality and the search for the truth have been used as the basis for many stories, movies, articles, events and books throughout history. Between Socrates description of a caveman’s reality in “The Allegory of the Cave” and Neo’s description of an alternate fake reality in “The Matrix,” The Matrix is a more accurate depiction of the illusions of reality, and the process of embracing the truth.
The Matrix, released in 1999, shows Neo, an average man, single, with a crumby life, and a normal paycheck. When one day he discovers that the world he lives in is far from real, and that he is actually living inside a computer simulation generated by advanced Machines and AI in a dystopian Earth. In the “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, men dwell and are held prisoner in a cave, with nothing but shadows to look upon. And it’s until one of them turns around to leave the cave that he discovers what was outside, a better world or at least the world that was hidden from him and his fellow prisoners.
The Matrix brings forth the idea that human brains are very much similar to computers. And that when technology becomes more advanced we could eventually download information and perceive information with just our brains and not require our senses or body in order to function. Even though this may sound far-fetched, the metaphor that the movie stands for is that we can be manipulated into believing what is real to actually be real. This happens, every day, to everyone all at the same time. Let’s say for instance, a little child was taught at an early age that stealing from others is good, and so that when they grew up, they would “know” that stealing is “right.” Despite the common ideology that stealing is not right. Who is to say what is right and wrong? People are fed information from each other to develop ideologies about what is right and wrong, and it’s this illusion of relative reality that The Matrix depicts in great detail, about machines telling humans, what chicken is supposed to taste like, or how a bird call sounds like via an artificial simulation.
Also in The Matrix, when Neo first enters the “real” world he does not accept it, in fact, his brain and body don’t accept it either, and he begins to vomit all over the floor. He refuses to believe that what he once knew wasn’t real. In this instance where he tries to cope with the truth, he doesn’t like it at all, and at one point would rather believe in his fake world, then deal with living in the real one. This embrace of truth happens all over the world with religion, as research is being done to further advance physics, and to disprove the existence of a divine being that governs the universe, people don’t want to believe in it, and protest against it, and continue to believe what they want to believe, and visa-versa.
Even though The Allegory of the Cave is also highly accurate in the sense that there are no machines and nuclear fall outs etc., It’s all relative to that time period. The Matrix is just a present day “Allegory of the Cave,” and is frighteningly close to what could actually be the truth. Perhaps we are living in a Matrix right now and we wouldn’t even know it.
Justice, you need to bring in more examples than just the movie to write a solid argument about why the movie offers a more argument alternative. Otherwise it's a cyclical argument.
ReplyDelete