Return to the Source: Philosophy and The Matrix

1. The problem with the use of thought experiments

Seeing the Matrix as a thought experiment about reality; the movie is an update of ancient
thought experiments in order to bring them to our world
2. The issue of truth and the interesting problems of philosophy
Truth = whatever is the case; so how are we going to find this out?
o Religion = truth given by revelation
o Science/Philosophy = seeking to find the truth through some method
The problem of reality vs. appearance; freewill vs. determinism; myths as a way to survive;
Gnosticism vs. Orthodoxy (enlightenment by knowing vs. salvation)
3. The social and political aspects of the Matrix
The Marxian theme of our world being the Matrix through social and political rule
Need for questioning authority
4. Socrates
Wisdom = knowing that we do not know; recognizing our limits as the beginning to remedy our
condition of ignorance
Allegory of the Cave seen as the basis for the idea of the Matrix; this gives rise to the questions
of:
o Metaphysics = what is real?
o Epistemology = how do we know what is real?
5. Descartes
Thought experiment = methodical doubt which brings us to our most certain idea the cogito
which gives rise to the problem of the external world
6. Berkeley
Berkeley realized that with Descartes worldview all that we need is mathematics; his solution is
to deny the idea of reality as material, all there is, is thought
7. Kant
Asks how do we know what reality is in and of itself?
The structures of the mind works with the world to give rise to experience
8. Nietzsche
The need to overcome our position in the world as presented by Kant; people in the world are
locked into the ideas which they are born into and they need to break out and reject these
constructs and find their own as artists of their own life
The herd mentality = a collective hallucination
9. Post-modernism
Baudrillard reality is our own model which loses reference to reality
10. Nozick
The experience machine would we jump back into the Matrix because it is more pleasurable
or would we seek the truth
11. Free will vs. Determinism
We need to question how we have choice within a determined world
Hume: questions causality; says that we must question our idea of causality as mere custom
The main way that we believe that we have free choice is through our desire; the problem is that
they matrix gives rise to our desire