can someone summarize this for me. i dont understand philosophy and i havent seen the matrix so yeah..?

Question

this comes from the matrix website, its part of an article called "reflections on the first matrix"

Cypher chooses the Matrix, and just maybe, he’s not so crazy. If real life prospects are dim, then even an apparently sub-optimal alternative like the Matrix might in fact be better, all things considered.1 But what is the best sort of existence for individuals like you and me? Philosophy and religion both have attempted to answer this question, and I think The Matrix gives us an interesting way to frame it. Is some possible "real" existence better than any possible Matrix? Or is some possible Matrix better than any possible reality? With Mark Twain’s help, I shall present an argument that one important notion of the best existence, the Christian one, Heaven is after all a Matrix. The point of my polemical approach is not so much to criticize Christianity, but rather to bring the issue of the nature of ultimate value into sharper focus.

What is the Matrix? Morpheus tells Neo it’s a "computer-generated dreamworld," and a "neural, interactive simulation"; it is, in other words, a virtual environment.2 Agent Smith assures Cypher that he won’t know he’s in the Matrix when he returns permanently, and it will simplify exposition to suppose that this is a necessary feature of a Matrix, while being computer-generated is not. The Matrix depicted is a mixed case, since the cognoscenti can enter it without being deceived into thinking it is real. Let us stipulate that in a pure Matrix, everyone is benighted, believing it is the "real deal." In most of what follows, I’ll be concentrating on pure Matrices (and in the case of the Matrix depicted, on the condition of the benighted). Since we’ll be discussing different kinds of Matrix, we need a name for the one depicted in The Matrix; Agent Smith refers to a First Matrix, so let’s call the one we see the Second Matrix.

A Matrix, then, is an interactive virtual environment involving systematic global deception. Still, there are two levels of "interactivity" in a virtual environment. Virtual interactivity is the extent to which the environment allows, and responds to, your input. Current virtual environments are not very interactive in this sense, but the Second Matrix is. That’s what makes it seem so real, at least to the benighted. (For the cognoscenti the Second Matrix it is too virtually interactive, too controllable, to seem real—at least compared with the more law-like external world.) Real interactivity is the potential for interaction with others also engaged in virtual interaction, and real interaction is the extent to which this potential is realized. Compare two kinds of possible Matrix: the Second Matrix is communal, featuring real interaction between human beings—call this human interaction; a solitary Matrix lacks human interaction altogether.

Communal Matrices differ in degree of human interaction. In the Second Matrix, billions of humans share the environment, and if we ignore Agents, it is fully communal—every virtual human in the Matrix is an avatar, a virtual persona of a real human being. In the Matrix training program created by Mouse, on the other hand, virtual humans like the woman in the red dress are simulacra, not avatars, and human interaction during the sequence we see is limited to that between Neo and Morpheus.3 On yet another hand, the fully communal Construct (loading program), where Morpheus and Neo watch TV, has no other virtual humans in it to interact with—and unlike the training program, it’s not "big" enough to be very world-like. Call a fully communal Matrix that is big enough to be world-like, and has many human participants, so that human interaction is nearly inevitable, a teeming Matrix. (The Second Matrix is all but teeming. If we removed the cognoscenti, there would be no need for Agents, and it would be teeming.)

Now we can compare three possibilities (obviously not exhaustive) for human existence, assuming that it involves physical embodiment. One is the real deal, populated by other human beings: for instance, if you subjectively experience having sexual intercourse with another human being, another individual human being shares that intercourse, from another subjective point of view, because you really have physical, sexual intercourse with them. The same goes for non-sexual intercourse. If I were to meet Mark Twain (through the time travel he wrote about, perhaps), then Twain and I both would have an experience of meeting, and we really would meet, physically and psychologically. Two is a teeming Matrix: if you experience having (intraspecies!) sexual intercourse, another Matrix-bound human shares that intercourse, from another subjective point of view. There’s no physical intercourse, of course, but there is psychological intercourse. If I have the experience of meeting Twain, then he (or some other human being) has the experience of meeting me-meeting-Twain, and there is at least a meeting of minds. Three is

Answer 1

The Matrix is essentially this world used to pacify humans. People like Neo overcome the Matrix and live in a "real" existence. The point is whether or not people want the Matrix, the dream world or the "real" world. It's almost like posing the question like, would you want to know if you were dying of an incurable disease?



Neo chooses the real world which is arguably harder than the Matrix. He chooses the world that he has to fight to keep.



Personally, I would take the Matrix any day.



But also, many philosophers have wondered if we are real or not. If we are in a dream world. The only thing you can effectively prove is your own existence and thus this poses the question of whether or not everyone else are just pawns of your mind.

Answer 2

The machines took over the world and absorbed their power through solar energy The humans fought back by blocking out the sun but that had detriment effects inasmuch as virtually killing all plant life so the machines adapted by using the miniscule energy that humans have in their bodies and placing them into pods so the machines could survive. The head computer boss wanted the humans to survive and be well so it created a Matrix lifestyle so the humans thought that all was well and life was as normal. Well, some woke up in their pods to realise that their life wasn't so rosy. They escaped and built a city in the caverns. They made craft so they could traverse the caverns. They eventually found a way to "log on" to the matrix and go find other people who wanted to escape their fake lives. They found Neo who could "see" outside the box, so to speak, and he was able to convince the "maker" (head computer boss) that the cavern people just wanted to live in peace and that the Matrix people should have a choice between the two existences. Neo was more like a criminal where Smith was a protector of the matrix system but really, Neo disrupted the matrix in a way that forced Smith to become corrupted and try to force his will against offenders by taking the forms of humans in the Matrix (who actually died in their pods as well) thus also causing disruption to the power flow for the machines. Neo had to go see the big boss computer based at ground zero to convince it that humans and machines can live together, in peace. I think that the outside was also part of a secondary Matrix as Neo could do his magic there as well. I suppose much like being inside the motherboard rather than in the hard drive (Matrix), and the CPU would have been the Boss.

Answer 3

What is the connection between philosophy and the matrix? That's like asking What is the connection between Christianity and Passion of the christ.



Watch the movie, and think about it for yourself.

Answer 4

nice try, no-homework-doer