Perceptions of Reality in the Matrix Essay Example for Free

Perceptions of Reality in the ground substance EssayThe heading of world has al itinerarys intrigued people passim the creation. It has been perceived as tangible and exact still at the very(prenominal) date intensely vulnerable. The frailties of kind-hearteds seduce been exposed by the many differing ways in which it fag be perceived. These differences of perception fecal matter be attri yeted to featureors such(prenominal) as age, sex, nationality, religion, and political grabs, either of which interchange the way we process what is represented to us as facts by our senses.It has been reas angiotensin-converting enzymed, that of all in all timey living person, or person that has ever rund must defy a unique sense of creation, a point of perception so tailored to his or her own identity that it could never be sh bed exactly with any sensation else. Having considered this idea, maven may bewilder at a primary solution that there was no such amour as a sh ard humanity. Furtherto a greater extent, the word squ beity should nevertheless be expenditured tentatively and tho blamelessly in likeness to a specific someones view of a subject. However, having arrived at this conclusion one may be come about conscious that allowing individual(a) rattlingities is not a solution, it me avow raises more than questions.The brain is a complex organ relying on naturally produced endorphins and chemicals such as serotonin to maintain a landed estate of perceptive normality, if this chemical balance is altered then the individuals perceptions of world argon also subject to change. How is the populace of the individual alter if they be low-down from depression? Is it the bleak or the hopeful that forms the reality for that individual? How atomic number 18 we to view the differences that occur in the mind when intoxicated through drugs or alcohol? These are complex factors that would select addressing in order to solve the que stion of reality.The release of the Wachowski Brothers blast The ground substance is one of the reasons more and more people began to question what reality really is. This science fiction subscribe presents the idea that the world nigh us is an illusion. What we perceive to be reality is in fact a computer simulation called The hyaloplasm, which is inputted at present into our brains making us believe that we are livingnormal lives when in fact our inert bodies are providing heat to power the machines which, after years of human service became intelligent fair to middling to slang taken over the world.In addition to the canonical questioning of reality within the theme line, The intercellular substance explores the importance of other areas concerned with perceptions of reality such as dreams and fate. Coming as it did at the very end of the 20th century, The Matrix deals with the ultra-modern and an apocalyptic view of the world. At a time when it was perspective by many that the end of an era was approaching, with The Millennium, subconscious fears arose. small-arm advances in technology give way left us less to fear than ever before in terms of injury and di sease, technology itself fills the void.In this case, The Matrix deals with the common fear of an over dependence on machines. At a time when the world at large was concerned about the effects of The Millennium Bug machines giveing on humans was, to some, a valid concern. While not concentrating on the likelihood of machines taking over, the growing assort they play in constructing and maintaining our realities is important to consider. Where do we draw the line amidst what we perceive as reality and a computer generated emblem that may be more real than the authorized?In answering this question one may call down to the work of Aldous Huxley, specifically The Doors of Perception, in order to provide a view into the deduction of enhanced hallucinogenic realities. Building on the ide a of chemically enhanced reality one savet joint examine, using the writings of Jean Baudrillard, the extent to which artworkificially hitd reality, in terms of media presentation, has affected our perceptions of reality. One may also refer to Baudrillards work on simulacra to explore the homeifi foundationce of duplication and reproduction on comm simply held ideas of reality.With this in mind the idea of reality may be explored as cosmos distilled into a Matrix of binary tag and if so, what does that tell us about our supposedly primitive realities? It is these questions, along with numerous others that one hopes to answer when studying the different perceptions of reality in the film The Matrix. about may also examine in situation how the human mind has adapted to the outside world, how reality has been constructed to provide an acceptable platform on which to live, how that reality may be maintained and finally the scratchificance of how it may be undermined.The impo rtance of a solid al-Qaida on which to construct the nonethelessts of every twenty-four hours support is apparent throughout literature. The depression lines of The al-Quran read In the beginning God constituted the heaven and the world. And the earth was without form and void. To have this statement at the very beginning of The Bible illustrates the human need to organize the world into a recognizable reality where the unknown can be explained. In earlier times the creation of the world was, from a scientific point of view, a mystery.In order to create a mean(a) on which to build their realities, human race devised explanations for the creation of the world. Much as God moulded the unstructured earth into its current form, mankind fashioned a belief system as important to rooms as the world itself. Two thousand years later, the issues of reality are still unresolved and naked as a jaybird questions are being raised. In biblical times, man was unique in his ability to reason and make pass melodic themes and ideas. He was Gods chosen subject and the reason the world and all its realities had been created.In this day and age, machines and computers form such a large part of our lives that mankinds uniqueness is called into question. Computers now dress complex calculations millions of times faster than the human brain and are able to take actions brutishd on those calculations with reaction times far in advance of human physiological attributes. In addition to areas where machines have been do superior to human capabilities, the distinction between man and machine has become blurred What is real? How do you define real?If youre talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can druthers and see, then real is simply electrical signals taken by your brain. Here the connection is made between the world of man and the world of machines. We are as dependent on electronic information as the computers and machines that we have creat ed. More significantly, if external stimuli can be coded into electrical impulses that our brains decipher, can higher thought processes and emotions be similarly synthesised?It is here where we realize the similarities between the physiology and technology that the name The Matrix, ascribed in the film. As it is shown in the film, the virtual reality computer programme which was fed to the humans is extremely significant. The root of the word intercellular substance is the Latin word for mater meaning mother, pluralized to matris signifying at the basest level, a number of wombs or animals kept specifically for the purpose of breeding. Further definitions are listed as 1) A mould in which a thing is hold or phased. 2) An purlieu or substance in which a thing is developed, a womb.3) In math it is a rectangular array of elements in rows and columns that is treated as a virtuoso element 4) In biology is it defined as the substance between cells or in which structures are embedded . 5) Computing a grid like array of interconnected circuit elements. It is interesting to note that the word can refer to both(prenominal) the organic nature of gestation and birth and also the electronic code used by a digital camera recording the process. Additionally, in its first definition, the word is used in relation to manufacture and duplication.The selection of the word matrix for use in the film is therefore carefully chosen, and is accurate in describing the numerous functions that The Matrix performs within the film aside from the main scene of creating a living, real world from electronic code. In suggesting a world that is entirely manufactured from a code, The Matrix questions that which we base our realities upon as well as the significance of the reality that is presented. The consider of ones surroundings being constructed from computer code is difficult to grasp and according to the film, difficult to implement.According to Agent Smith, when the machines firs t enslaved humans, The first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming terminology to describe your perfect world. But I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Interestingly, this fount of The Matrix echoes The Bible in terms of The Garden of Eden.Just as Adam and Eve could not live in paradise, it is suggested that the human brain constructs its reality based upon curiosity, hierarchy and suffering. The human mind is inquisitive and the re ward for winner is advancement among ones peers, the punishment for failure is suffering. In addition, this concept is also a base for the manner in which Buddhism constructs reality, the Four Noble Truths 1) That universe of discour se is suffering. 2) That all suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the greed that is created by ignorance.3) That suffering can be overcome by mentally rejecting ignorance and attachment. 4 That overcoming suffering is achieved by following the eightfold path to enlightenment. The Buddhist view is also present in The Matrix. For modern, beingness is suffering. He is uneasy yet does not know why. Morpheus later tells him You dont know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind. Neo later discovers the true reality, first of the existence of The Matrix, then of his own power to change it and adapt the rules of the code.In the end he rejects what he believed to be the real world, repeating his mantra, There is no spoon in order to reject the real world, to gradation away(predicate) from his senses and concentrate on the code, the life blood of The Matrix. With these truths learnt he is enlightened and becomes The One as Morpheus had predicted. I n the film The Matrix the path to enlightenment is through the code that constructs reality. We must ask ourselves how similar is The Matrix code-based framework to our own organic reality?This is an issue that is tackled in modernist writing. With the rise of the importance of industry, many writers discussed the concept of the new, how to decipher the modern world and mans place within it. In well-fixed City by Jonathan Raban, he discusses problems of individuality that occur in the city. He acknowledges the significance of the codes that shape an individuals reality People often have to live by reading the signs and surfaces of their environment and interpreting them in terms of private, near magical codes. Here Raban acknowledges a subconscious method of constructing reality. It is the sign and surface of the environment that is perceived, the sheer quantity of information prohibiting anything more than a cursory examination. This basic image of reality is then encoded and comp ared to those codes that exist within our warehousing. In The Matrix this idea is applied literally. Neo becomes aware that when he is internal The Matrix his perceptions are purely a computer code, as are the objects around him.Through the course of the film he learns that through freeing his mind from the code that interprets reality, reality itself can be altered. This bending of reality takes to an extreme the allegory of changing ones point of view and seeing the world in a different way, a message found in countless works from A Christmas Carol to Macbeth but the quantification of perception has frequently been questioned. Just as the establishment of Greenwich signify Time contributed to the co modification of time, the modern mind, according to Simmel, The modern mind has become more and more a calculating one.The calculating exactness of practical life which has resulted from a money economy corresponds to the high-flown of natural science, namely that of transforming the world into an arithmetical problem and of fixing every one of its parts in a mathematical formula. In a reality constructed around the importance of time and money, every aspect of that reality possesses an economic value. This quantification can also be seen as a code that makes up reality that man may decipher in purely numerical terms.In addition to these created codes of ethics and pick up it is important to consider factual, scientific codes that construct our world. A significant thinker in this field was the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who, in 1714 in his book The Monadology, discussed the existence of countless conscious centres of spiritual force or brawniness which he names monads. Each monad represents a singular microcosm that reflects the universe in varying degrees of nonesuch and developing independently of all other monads.These inter-related microcosms that construct reality are, according to Leibniz the result of a inspi red plan that despite its disparate form makes up a harmonious reality. It is a failing of mankind that we cannot easily perceive factors such as disease and death as part of a widely distributed harmony. Leibniz concludes that if our aversion to these evils can be overcome then harmony with the universe can exist and a reality can occur where Every body responds to all that happens in the universe, so that he who proverbing machine all could read in each one what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened and what go away happen. Here we pick up a further interpretation of reality that relates to The Matrix in terms of a unified system, not unlike a computer program, where all factors are not only comprised of the same code, but are all inter-related in a perfect harmony. However, this is where human reality and the reality of The Matrix diverge. As Leibniz points out, the essential of death is an uncomfortable consideration within human construction of reality, which leads us to be out of involve with the rest of the universe.But it is the nature of death that also provides a key to another area where codes determine our realities, the code of DNA. DNA is the code that influences more than any other the conditions of our reality. It determines everything about us from height to lifespan. We are in a purely organic manner, programmed on how we will live. Of all the factors that DNA contains, it is lifespan that offers one of the most(prenominal) interesting possibilities. While humans can have some idea of their DNA in terms of skin food coloring and IQ, an aspect of the code that remains closed to us is that of our own lifespan.This aspect is explored in The Matrix where The Agents are created knowing that their purpose is to live within what they know to be a false world, eliminating those who threaten it. It becomes for them restrictive, as Agent Smith confesses I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality whatever you exigency to call itI must get out of here. I must get free. In the light of the concept of increasing knowledge and power through the study of the codes that construct reality we are presented with a quandary. Does absolute knowledge of the codes provide a more fulfilling life?Humans held within The Matrix are unaware of their fate. The Agents, although possessing complete knowledge of the code and its capabilities, enabling supreme strength, agility and knowledge, are the only ones aware that they are imprisoned. In this falsely constructed reality, only those with power are aware of the misery of their condition. While The Agents have supreme power over The Matrix code for most of the film, the crew of The Nebuchadnezzar, existing in the real, non computer generated world also are aware of the lack of comfort offered by their existence.They are able to define their existence through knowledge of The Matrix but also through their memory of life within The Matrix before they were freed. It i s this condition of possessing memory, which forms a significant part of how we perceive reality. In the film, Cypher, the Judas figure that attempts to betray his colleagues asks for his reward to be completely ignorant of reality. He remembers life within The Matrix where frolic was possible, not, being cold, eating the same God-damn goop everyday.He makes a deal with The Agents that he will be re-inserted into The Matrix where he will remember nothing of his past life aside from generated memories implanted in his brain by the machines. He sacrifices his unpleasant memories for a fools paradise. From this we can conclude that constructing reality in the present must involve an examination of the past. This idea is found in Freuds belief that an individuals psychological mechanism could be explained in relation to the individuals past, childhood experiences and repressions leading to certain types of behaviour in adult life.This may help to explain the construction of our realiti es as individuals, but in order to follow the Leibniz model of harmonious reality that encompasses us all it is necessary to examine the writings of Carl Jung. While Freud believed that behaviour was based on the individual, Jung maintained that all humans share a incorporated unconscious, inherited feelings, thoughts and more significantly, memories, share by the whole of mankind. Jung believed that this collective unconscious is made up of universally held images known as archetypes.These images, he believed, relate to experiences such as facing death, finding a lover, confronting a foe and so on. He states that the evidence for these binding archetypes are the common issues found in myths, legends, religions and folklore from around the globe. The realities considered in Leibnizs theory have a decided mathematical and scientific base. He himself is described by McLuhan in the following terms Leibniz, that mathematical spirit, saw in the mystic elegance of the binary system tha t counts only the zero and the one, the very image of creation.The one of the supreme being, operating by binary function in nothingness, would have sufficed to bring out of it all the beings. Comparing this with the theory of archetypes, we realise that the Jungian view of reality construction is based much more in the world of art and literature and how these may be used to communicate ideas of reality. Myths, along with proverbs and fables are the encryption of archetypes. They are touchstones of reality, which can be applied to a multitude of situations, communicating a shared perception of reality. It is this communication of realities that exposes the limitations of a reality code.While the individual may use all manner of codes to decipher his surroundings, it is the communication of his findings and inspirations that cause problems. Communication primarily takes the form of language, but in this form the thought must be converted into a code of language that must then be i nterpreted by the listener. As Huxley says Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic usagethe beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other peoples experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. galore(postnominal) philosophers had various ideas and beliefs on the question of reality, one of the many philosophers who contributed to this question, was Plato. Despite his view that art can never achieve the accuracy of the thought in the artists mind, Plato failed too see the inadequacies of language which led mankind to use art as a method of communicating the individuals perception of reality.John Berger discusses the significance of art in the development of human communication in detail in Ways of Seeing. Berger explains h ow art became a unique form of presentation and initially was used only for religious and spiritual purposes and was inseparable from the place and purpose for which it was created. At this stage, art was as far away from the code of communication as possible. Of course individuals could observe, and impose upon it their own reality defining codes, but art stood alone communicating as accurately as possible the realities of its creator.Later art was taken into the houses of the wealthy, partially to enhance the self image of the owner and also to confirm the role of ownership, owning the image of a thing translating to actual ownership. It is here that art entered the world of the code. It was used by the wealthy as a sign of their wealth part of their self-defined code by which they judged themselves and were perceived by others. Modern reproduction and distribution techniques have removed art from any preserve it once had. As Walter Benjamin, a Marxist philosopher-sociologist beli eved, when art is reproduced it loses its original aura and enters a new role.It has become ubiquitous, part of the code and used with such regularity that we use it to define ourselves or present our ideas. It has been reduced to the level of the proverb in providing a template for our realities. We live our lives and form our realities based upon numerous codes. These may take the form of myths, religions and status symbols. Leibniz believed that the universe itself was an infinite code of interdependent microcosms and that that code, if completely comprehended could predict the future and know the past.The code can be liberating or restricting and how we perceive it goes a long way towards how we construct our realities. John Milton is right The mind can interpret the codes in many ways and form infinite conclusions. The question is how accurate is the code that we give birth? Everyday we are confronted with the real. In the film The Matrix the manner in which we construct our realities and the truths upon which we base the information that we are presented with is shown. The point that is raised in Morpheus saying The Matrix is everywhere.It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your televisionIt is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth is that all that you take to be real may not necessarily be so. Now, more than ever the amount of information that reaches us is so great that while not necessarily in a sinister sense, our lives are directly influenced by stimulating factors outside our control. The world of advertising for example, presents images, and projects thoughts.It convinces us that our lives would be richer if we purchased a certain spot and while we know we are witnessing a sales pitch, we cannot help but be affected by it. Advertisements influence our decisions on what to eat and drink, where to go on holiday and how to live our lives . While it is true that we restrain a choice over what we buy and where we go, but in order for that choice to be made it must have appeared within the initial stimulation. If a product is unknown it is unlikely to be bought. In Ways of Seeing, Berger suggests that advertising and publicity are processes of manufacturing glamour.Publicity creates an intangible element of desire, which is based on the human emotion of envy. The product is presented in a manner that promotes envy in the viewer, and by association will afford the purchaser the envy of others. It is in this way that glamour is sold. We are unconsciously informed of what it is we will envy in others and what it is about ourselves that others will envy. Berger concludes that this method succeeds because publicity does not speak to reality but to the fantasies of the individual.It could be reasoned that fantasies such as these enable mankind to maintain realities. This refers back to the idea in the film where the first M atrix failed because everybody was created happy. Perhaps envy fulfils a vital role that presses us forward, that provides us with the will to live. But to look on envy as the only means of maintaining reality is earlier simplistic. If we take this thought a step further and examine the message that is being projected rather than the emotions it creates it is possible to find a new method of maintaining reality. As JohnJervis writes in Exploring the Modern The pleasure is in a vicarious sense of adventure, linked with a satisfaction gained through decoding, reading, the signs of the city. He suggests we are to embrace the information we are presented with. To examine and appreciate its role in the reality in which we live that ultimately pleasure lies in interpretation rather than direct experience, as Huxley put it The miracle, significance by moment, of naked existence. But how, and to what extent, do naked existence and the information we receive and analyse accommodate to reality?The evidence of reality that exists within our local environment we can interpret ourselves. In constructing our realities we create the codes in which realities communicate. Difficulties arise however, when in attempting to maintain our reality we are confronted with issues that we cannot directly perceive for ourselves. The most basic of images that we are unable to perceive directly is that of ourselves. To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. It is here that we come across the importance of the mirror in maintaining reality.During the 1960s and 1970s Neo-Freudianism was a popular movement in France and with it the philosophies of Jacques Lacan became widely known. Among these was the mirror-stage. Lacan believed that The unified self posited by object relations theory is an illusion. The child begins as come apart drives, precepts and attachments that eventually congeal into an ideational identity at the mirror stage It is at this stage, that the child perceives himself in the mirror and acknowledges himself as a single entity separate from his mother and surroundings.In a more hook sense, this is the process that Neo himself goes through upon suspecting the existence of The Matrix. His suspicions and dissatisfaction with the world as it appears becomes apparent as he receives a reprimand from his employer, Mr Rheinheart You have a problem with authority, Mr Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not get into to you. Obviously you are splayn. This beau monde is one of the top software companies in the world because every single employee understands that they are part of a whole. As a function of The Matrix, Neos software company is attempting to restrict him. To place him in the illusory world of object relations theory discussed by Lacan. At this point in the film, the office in which Neo is getting lectured by his b oss is, at the same time, having its mirrored windows cleaned, perhaps echoing famous English poet, William Blakes thought that If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. This infinity described by Blake may be related to the infinite possibilities open to Neo if he rejects the restrictive world that contains him.Interestingly, the theme of mirrors as a symbol of release is common throughout the film. Indeed, Neo is released from The Matrix through a mirror, much like Alice going through the looking glaze a reference alluded to by Morpheus. Also, it seems that whenever Neo meets those who are entering The Matrix specifically to talk to him such as The Agents, Trinity and Morpheus, he is seen frequently as a mirror image, either in the rustle view mirror of the motorcycle that Trinity is riding or in the mirrored sunglasses of Morpheus and The Agents.The mirror is used in this context as it presents an image of the world that appear s accurate but is not. It presents a transposed and possibly distorted view of the world. Significantly in terms of the film, it also presents another world, similar to, but very different from, our own. As children, according to Lacan, we learn to identify ourselves in terms of the mirror. Our self-image, that with which we maintain our reality is based upon what we see there and yet the information we are receiving is inaccurate.Our self-image is in fact a move around copy of the truth and an example of the flawed perceptions with which we maintain our realities. As technology has evolved, so too have our methods of maintaining reality. Television has provided us with intimate knowledge of the world outside our local environment. With television not only comes the persuasiveness of the advertisements shown but also the impact of the news reports upon which we depend for maintaining our realities. Nowadays, live communication in both sound and image is possible across the globe.O ur horizons have been expanded to the maximum possible extent and we rely upon television to maintain those realities that we have never experienced for ourselves and it is here that we run into complex problems concerning reality. We assume that the images we are watching are an intrinsic part of the information being presented. This is not always the case as Jean Baudrillard explains in his book The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. In this book Baudrillard discusses how the media representation of the Gulf War was in no way an accurate description of the reality.In his introduction to the book, George S. Patton, a United States Army officer most famous for his leadership commanding corps and armies as widely distributed in World War II, and for his controversial outspokenness and strong opinions, comments that the first and most basic way in which the media can corrupt reality is in the confusion of past and present. He claims this was achieved unilaterally during the War, the presen t being portrayed as the past with the whole war as a John Wayne film complete with action-movie language.We also saw the past being represented as the present, video footage of a sea bird, covered in oil from the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 where used to illustrate the ecological problems in the Gulf. The problems presented by an image of reality is summed up by Baudrillard The same illusion of progress occurred with the appearance of speech and then colour on screen at each stage of this progress we moved further away from the imaginary intensity of the image. The closer we supposedly approach the real, or the truth, the further we draw away from them both, since neither one nor the other exists.The closer we approach the real time of the event, the more we fall into the illusion of the virtual. Once war or any other event is converted from a directly perceived reality to information, it enters the res publica of communication. It becomes open to interpretation. Our failing li es with the fact that our technology has succeeded in creating information so apparently accurate we mistake it for reality. In The Gulf War Did Not Take Place Baudrillard updates Benjamins theory on reproducibility negotiating the aura of experience.Much of Baudrillards writing has commented on simulacra, a scenario in which reality and a simulation have been combined and become unidentifiable from each other. This third order of reality is referred to as Hyper reality. Through the media, simulacra of the real have been created and we ourselves enter a hyper reality where the boundaries between what is real and what is a representation of the real become blurred. This is an area explored almost constantly in The Matrix. In the film, The Matrix is the ultimate hyper reality.Inside The Matrix, reality is coded into information so effectively that those to whom it is fed cannot even perceive the reality on which their world is based. Neo acts as a disciple of Baudrillard, attempting t o separate the information from the real. In real life, this is harder than it seems. A condition of the hyper reality is that the two contributing realities are so interdependent that a manipulation in one of the realities causes a reaction in the other which will in turn manipulate the first. It is inside a hyper reality that Neo himself resides.