« Tons of Pictures |
Main Index
| Holiday »
comments | incoming pings | outgoing pings
strtotime ("May 22, 2003 11:02 PM")) { ?>
The Philosophy of The Matrix: Reloaded
Incredibly interesting (and deep) article on the philosophy of The Matrix: Reloaded. Lots of ideas that I hadn't even considered that opened up whole new ways of seeing the movie.
.: Posted May 22, 2003 11:02 PM in Media Consumption, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :."; echo "Trackbacks on this post: ", $count, ""; $pingarray = "SELECT p.tbping_source_url, p.tbping_blog_name, p.tbping_created_on, p.tbping_excerpt, p.tbping_tb_id, t.trackback_id, t.trackback_entry_id FROM mt_tbping p, mt_trackback t WHERE (p.tbping_blog_id = $blogid) and (t.trackback_entry_id = $entry_id) and (t.trackback_id = p.tbping_tb_id)"; $resultping = mysql_query($pingarray) or die (mysql_error()); while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($resultping)) { //set up the variables being used - the date can be configured below $url = ($row['tbping_source_url']); $blog = ($row['tbping_blog_name']); $date = date("F d, Y g:i A", strtotime($row['tbping_created_on'])); $excerpt = ($row['tbping_excerpt']); echo "
", $excerpt, "
Ping this post
http://www.neuroticfishbowl.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1526
"..."
Comments
Ah yes, the corporate mofo analysis. There are many good things in this article.
Namely, the perspective on the Architect, and how he represents a Gnostic/Christian Satan.
I am perplexed at what will happen next though. For my original theory was that the Architect represented God. But as this article brings out, he cannot be God, and therefore, it puts my theory that there is a second Matrix (or Matricie?) in question. For there to be a second Matrix, one that the machines still control, that would mean that the machines caused that bolt to break, that operator to die, those sentinels to destroy the ship, and Trinity to go into the Matrix to save Neo. Ah, it makes perfect sense, it's all a trial, a trial for the machines to figure out the "anomoly" that is love.
I still think that there are some underlying motifs about the theory of love, that the Architect doesn't understand. In the scene, he is clearly intrigued by Neo's reactions. Is it that the Architect is learning more about this emotion to help balance an equation and stop all this Zion nonsense once and for all? After all, it is love that brought Neo back to life in the first saga, and Trinity in this one. And the Architect said himself that it was the human race' greatest strength and weakness.
There is another twist on this whole love theory. What if there is no second matrix? What if this was a test by the representation of good in this trilogy? A God figure, of rightgeousness, and love. What if this was a test by this unseen God charecter rather than the Architect?
As the previous article stated, Neo is the sixth "One", five being before him, a reference to the Old and New Testement. Neo is clearly Jesus, and Jesus was set apart by his capacity for love.
What if a God charecter set this whole thing up? Even the Architect and Smith noticed changes in the way the events worked out. "... that was quicker then the others" , and "Everything is as before -- well not exactly". God breaks the bolt, that sends Trinity in. It's God's test. Since Neo chooses love over the survival of his species, he passes this "God"'s test. My conclusion is that there is not a second Matrix, it is "real". For this to work, and I believe it does, a few things need to be in place. I'll answer some of the main questions, and give a little proof too.
What about how Neo said he could "feel" them, and then he destroyed them in the real world?
This God endowed him with these gifts since he passed the test, and showed love.
Why do you insist that it was God that did this, it could still just be the Architect!?!?
Ah, here's the curveball. Agent Smith. Smith said that he had part of him copied off of Neo. And I can honestly say that what was copied, I do not know. Whatever it was, it changed him. But I think Smith is an Angel of this "God" charecter, whether he knows it or not. It is Smith that goes loner in this flick. He is no longer controled by the machines, he does as he pleases. I do not think that this is something that he does in any of the other Matrix cycles though, just because of that one line: "Everything is exactly as before -- well not exactly". So I think that this God charecter helped change Smith, to set off a chain of events.
What chain of events?
Well, after the God charecter kills the operator, Trinity must go in. Now keep in mind that the only reason that Trinity is out, is because of Neo's dreams. Dreams in the "real" world, out of machine manipulation. So logically, the Architect would have assumed, she would have been with him regardless, and not because of some bolt breaking. That's shot one. Shot two, requires time. Time is something they don't have. Enter Agent Smith. Trinity needs time to get the door ready for Neo, Morpheus and that lovable asian dude, otherwise they could be sucked out into a blackhole of sorts. Now if Smith isn't controled by the machines, who sets this up? Is it some all knowing God? The answer lay in one word: "Please"
Architect- "... if I am the Father of the Matrix, then she most certainly is the mother."
Neo- "The Oracle"
Architect- "Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the program ...."
Is the mother God? Is the mother the oracle? It would make sense, seeing as we don;t know why the oracle is on the run. But is the oracle still a program under the machine control, or on the human side? And what are the brothers going to do about the fact that the actress who plays the oracle died before the shooting of revolutions.
Only time will tell what happens in the third one. Critisism welcome to my theory. Be kind, I have A.D.D., bad spelling, and no paper structureing skills.
.: Grant Taylor said on May 29, 2003 09:16 PM :: link it :.Smith is a virus and yes there have to be 2 Neo's,but how will this conflict be resolved without the sentiment that Love conquers all?
Do the machines have to become more "human" to win?
Ahhhhh. I have come to many new conclusions since I have posted that. There are many now realized holes in the theory.
I am trying to work out a theory where in the real "One" is a combination of man and machine that solves the anamoly of choice. This is what the oracle is grabbing for, a child of two programs that will change the world forever. The machines need humans, and humans need machines. Wouldn't it be effiecent to have a human machine?
Argh, it's frustrating. But I am formulating something, and I will post it.
Smith is now a loop in my theorum. The oracle is no longer a candidate for God. And I do not see a prominant God figure in the conclusion's future.
Like a good student, I'm going to review the tape. and try to figure it out.
All my theories that are unsubstanciated are going to be washed off the drawing board though.
.: Grant Taylor said on June 2, 2003 09:37 PM :: link it :.How's this: Neo's strong bond with Agent Smith which originates from the ending of the first movie, coupled with the part in the second movie where Agent Smith tries to copy himself onto Neo... these two things have made Neo part machine... which is why he can sense them and control them.
On the other side, Agent Smith was "freed" by Neo in the first movie. He's no longer attached to the matrix, just like he wanted. Maybe his bond with Neo made him a little bit human? That would explain why he can now exit the matrix.
I really have no clue on the whole God idea though...
.: Mat said on June 3, 2003 10:18 PM :: link it :.The Architect doesn't represent God. The Architect is the Masonic version of God.
.: houseofmanywindows said on June 4, 2003 08:21 AM :: link it :.To answer the question fo what they will do about the oracle since the actress died... play Enter the Matrix, it explains it.
.: Guy said on June 6, 2003 01:40 PM :: link it :.Hi there,
I liked the “The Philosophy of The Matrix: Reloaded” post. Definitely the closest theory to my own.
The onion like layers of matrix after matrix used to simply catch any minds that wish to awaken from one reality to another sounds feasible. The One is merely the glimmer of hope given to the people in The Matrix and in Zion. It is used to save that 0.1 present of the harvest and thus increase efficiency.
What I didn’t get was: Why would the machines take a chance or even would bother destroying the whole human race and Zion simply because of a choice Neo makes. The architect states that if the human race is destroyed “There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every human being in this world”
That seems illogical that a machine would be prepared to accept a limited existence due to a human beings choice. Especially considering the condescending nature the machines seem to refer to humans all throughout.
I think there is more to it than that. The machine has discovered an anomaly. Something in mankind that they cannot figure out. They feel that before they destroy humans forever they must understand everything about them. The must have first gleaned every piece of information from them possible. There can be no waste. To destroy humanity without understanding every occurrence of every permutation would be potentially disastrous for them.
And thus they must continue to allow the matrix to exist and wait for it to throw up another “one”, bring it back to the source and collect the data from its life experiences and try and understand how it can about! That’s the thing you see. They can’t figure out how the anomaly is occurring. An anomaly by its very definition is a phenomenon. Some thing occurring in the natural world that is unexplainable. The machines cannot seem to piece together how the sum of Neo’s life experiences seem to add up to more than simply another human being. How is he developing this power over his environment?
Essentially the Machines have discovered man’s soul. The machines base their existence on the theory of Causality. Cause and effect. Therefore the sum of a persons life experiences should create an individual similar to Neo. This is not the case however. The “one” seems to contain something more. A life force beyond the physical world. Essentially the Machines have discovered man’s soul. They do not know this however as they cannot experience it and would view any blind faith as simply human superstition. Yet the evidence is there that Neo is more than the sum of his life experiences and the machines are simply striving to understand how this anomaly is occurring by allowing him to evolve into all that he can be and then collecting the data to see what they can learn.
This is I think the story within the story. The rest of what happens is in the Matirx 3 is simply open to speculation. Even what has happened so far is open to speculation as you don’t really know what the truth is and what is false.
Neo's choice whether to save Zion or rescue Trinity is a revealing one.
For the romantics who believe love conquers all it is a fitting choice for Neo to go to Trinity because as we find out he loves her "too damn much". This choice he makes supports a line said in the first movie when Trinity and Neo are in the loading program gathering guns to go and save Morpheus. Either Trinity or Neo say something to the effect, no one's ever tried something like this before. For Neo therefore, the choice to do things differently from his predecessors would naturally lead him to this door.
Here is what I've been able to assess so far: When the architect refers to the mother, he is obviously talking about Persephone. He refers to the mother as an intuitive program, which Persephone obviously is. What i haven't been able to figure out is Agent Smith's role in all of this, and why Neo's more specific love for Triniy (as opposed to a general love for all of humanity as exhibited by the 5 previous anomolies) has given him the ability to control machines in the real world. This fact also leads me to deny to "Godly Test" theory mentioned earlier. If it was a test from God, why would loving a single individual over all humanity be the right way to go. This fact also leads me away from the theory that neo is like jesus, because at this point, he is the exact opposite. Anyone who sees something obviously wrong with what I have posted, or can shed some light on what I have mentioned, please let me know.
.: Tim said on October 30, 2003 06:23 PM :: link it :.I would like to add that it seems that many have overlooked the importance of balance in all of this. Not only is it important for their to be an all-powerful messiah; but there also must be his/her counterpart. Therefore in the case of agent Smith (as the oracle states in the Revolutions trailer) that Smith is his opposite. Therefore in this case not only do we have good but we also have evil. Furthermore the conclusion is not known to either which will be victorious because they are so evenly matched. Isn't it interesting however; that the reason for the Matrix to control the human race? While at the same time (as mentioned in Reloaded) that the machines are dependent on man and man on machines? Is this also not balance?
Therefore I must default to what I remember was said by the architect; and it has been a while since I've seen the movie mind you. What is most troubling is that the architect built the Matrix and could not control a systemic anomalie i.e. human will. In this case Neo is the manifestation of pure human will i.e. fully enlightened. In the buddhist faith; ignoring the lessons of the Pure Land sect in Japan of course; when one is enlightened one is not bound by the restrictions of society and the rules of the environment in which they are presented. Rather, they have the capabilities to see the true world and understand that all things in life can be broken; additionally this includes even the laws of gravity itself. So to bring back Critical Theory into all of this; the matrix was constructed by the world of the machines; that Neo broke when he became an enlightened being in the Matrix. Then; when he became an enlightened being by choosing to defy the architect; he could not only bend the rules of the "Matrix," but also that of the "Real World." Therefore now the powers that be in the real world; are not really in control either. To reverty back to Buddhism and a corrollary to Critical Theory (see Habermas theory of the construct and his discontents); the Messiah figure of Neo, can do anything in either world. Therefore there must be a higher world or power in which Neo understands that he is a part of. Thus in enlightenment; you can be enlightened on more than one plane of existence. How you choose to live as an enlightened being however; is up to you.
.: Jeff said on November 2, 2003 12:36 PM :: link it :.You're too early! Come back at May 22, 2003 11:02 PM to see this post.
Post a comment
{HTML ok, IP address logged}
Enter e-mail address to subscribe/unsubscribe to comments on this post without having to post a comment:
Subscribe to post
Unsubscribe to post
E-mail:
(e-mail field must be filled in) -->
* Please note: Comments that are inappropriate
will be deleted - mean, spiteful, rude comments. Don't let that stop
you from posting comments. Just wanted to let you know the rules of
the house.