HomemadeTurbo - DIY Turbo Forum - The Matrix - Could It Be? Will it Be? All you could want to know (long post)

Well most of you out there know that I am a fanatic about the Matrix. Alot of people were disgusted with the third movie, except for the extreme special effects during the fight in Zion. But there is alot more _deeper_ meaning to these films that I think alot of people have missed.

So in order to waste space and to keep myself from being bored I am going to write out some of my theories about the philosophy of matrixology.

I just recently wrote my final thesis paper for my english 122 class on how close we actually are to being able to artificially stimulate the neurons of the brain and cause us to see or do things without control.

For instance, at Stanford they have been installing miniature electrodes into rat brains and with the simple push of a button attached to the rats back they can cause them to freak out by thinking that their whiskers are rubbing against something, or make them want to eat, or can even make them fall asleep. Just by sending specific electrical impulses to certain neurons in their brains - how long do you think it will be till they do this on man?

Well they already are... I am sure someone here has heard of synthetic optics. But basically people are having wires strung through the back of their head into a special set of eyes that digitally convert imagery into the brains signal, allowing a blind person to see.

There are also chips being installed on the brains of Parkinson's disease victims which when activated can cause them to stop "twitching" by silencing that part of the brain.

We have already decoded or rather, been able to "digitize" imagery (so our sense of vision is mastered), digitize sound (audial sensory), digitze touch (electro-therapy sensory), and have even figured a way to turn a smell into an electronic signal that can be measured (England is using a robot to replace dogs in order to find contraband on humans). The last thing to "emulate" is the sense of taste, which I am sure we will get to in the next couple of years.

What does this all mean? My hypothesis was that eventually they will be able to implant during infancy they will implant a network of cables to each section of the brain and some sort of device (very similar to what was in the Matrix) that will allow them to either by wire or wirelessly stimulate actions in the brain. While at first this may be done to help cure problems such as blindness, or deafness, or paralysis it will eventually happen as the ultimate form of entertainment as well - the next step is to use it as a system of control.

This may not make sense, so ask questions if you need to to understand better what I said - even my professor said she had a harder time understanding my concepts but I seemed to explain my thesis pretty well (after all I got a 98% on it).

But this stuff gets even better, http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Logically it is entirely possible that we are already being manipulated in this way.

This also brings us to the point of our we even human or could we be simulations (programs) designed to act as humans in some sort of a simulated reality? No one can definitely answer but the arguments given by those professors are extremely strong - and irrefutable.

Now, on to the next point. The movies themselves, I enjoyed all three not so much for the special effects or for Keanu's piss poor acting but for the symbolism and ideaology behind the movies.

Take for instance that idea of balance, this is a truth in our world. For every positive, there is a negative. What the final movie showed us is that when Neo descended from being the positive to being the neutral (when he let Smith convert into himself) he destroyed the balance of the equation and therefore both beings ceased to exist.

Some of the other important aspects are the dealings with metaphysical free will and causality. I fit in a philosphical category known as compatablism. Where I believe that we are in fact determined, but that the complexities of our lives and reality make it impossible to predict our out comes and thus in the sense of only language we are free.

The hard determinist, feels that all things are determined and that there is an unescapable cause and effect chain - that choice is only an illusion (as our dear friend the Merovingian had told us).

And then the libertarians, who believe that all choices are made from the inside.

The reason I feel that we are in an unescapable causality chain is that in order to ever make a choice you have to arrive at a scenario, and every moment previous to that scenario will have ultimately caused your decision. For example, my posting this very message. Had I not just re-watched the entire trilogy I wouldn't have been inspired to write down about it on these boards. In turn this will lead to another event, probably me getting up and taking a shower (damn stinky ass). And in turn another event, so on and so on just as you will be lead into a string of causal events from regarding this jargon.

The aspects of choice in the movie were interesting, in that we had the ability to choose but at an unconcious level. If we understood the choice we made then we could see the future unfold before us (as Neo was able to predict the fall of Trinity). This is very deeply tied into ancient practices of monks who would meditate to attempt to reach a focus in their mind so that they could predict the movements of the future in fighting (they could essentially sense an attack before it happened and counter). Though none of us can probably predict the rest of our lives, I am sure that based upon the majority of choices made in our pasts we can predict our futures. For me for instance, I am always going to struggle with this drug problem - for other people they will be raising children, and working jobs they hate for some people they may delve deeper into living a life they enjoy. Irregardless can you see the point I am making about causality? It is a strange concept and the most bizarre line in all the movies is...
"So you're telling me I have to choose whether Trinity lives or dies?"
"No, you have already made the choice."
"No, I wont let it happen."
"You didn't come here to make the choice. You're here to understand why you made it." (this may be slightly off)

That last line is what gets me... to understand why we do what we do. The merovingian looks at it in an almost utterly opposite view saying that we are a part of this causal chain and that we are unable to control any factor outside of it, in essence we are living in an artificial anarchy of our minds because we have no real idea of whats going on.

Well this is all I can think of right now.

There are alot of confusing things that happen in the movies, but I have done alot of research and reviewing of other peoples thoughts and I would be more then happy to answer any of the questions people have - because there are answers to why things happened the way they do in the movies, and the rabbit hole does go further.