Matrix: Yes or No

Exactly like the movie? No

Something similar, something 'artificial', something that twists our perception of 'reality'? Possibly.

If I start to dwell on this, I begin to see possibilities. Things that aren't easily explained by the 'normal' laws of physics.....like deja vu. ( The scene in the movie that 'explained' that deja vu was a glitch in a program, made my skin crawl....that would soooo fit a weird experience I once had!!).....Or things that are , some what explained, or suggested by new things we learn every day......

Like the information contained in DNA.....coded in at the cellular level. What iff the 'Matrix' were put into place looonnng ago??

Maybe God is the mainframe??

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Coming from a philosophical background, I think a correct answer would be yes -- in any case. You just need to frame the discussion correctly:

Case 1: Minds in a virtual world (the movie) -- it trivially gives us the yes answer..

Case 2: Minds in a "real" world (the skeptic). This in itself is trivial, if you have read Socrates' dialogues, but let's move on.
Let's assume the empirical world -- the world science recognizes. We gather all knowledge about our environment via our senses, which in turn uses forms of matter and/or energy (interchangable in some forms) that our brians process as stimuli. That is, our brian or mind (some like to make the distinction) are not themselves getting the sources of information -- it is being fed to it. Ergo, the reality we are conscious of is simply what is being given to our brain! Does this sound like the plot of a certain movie?

Let's continue -- by abstraction, we can also see that "we know that the reality we are conscious of is simply what is being fed to our brain" is known by the exact same process. It's more or less an infinite loop of knowledge, but the basic principle should be known: The reality we experience is simply what is fed to us through the senses. This is not intrinstically different than the idea of the movie -- just a different set of wires that give us information.

Case 3: Mind in a God produced world. aka Berkley's idealism. Again, we exchange the mechanical wires that the previous two included and put in the supernatural wires: God feeds our mind with information.

There is only one way out of the Matrix, I believe, and that is to be a rationalist. i.e. Understand the world may or maynot be as you experience, and as a result knowledge should be only gained with the mind. Thereby you disconnect the wires, and rely merely on yourself.

chissler says:

Sure its far fetched, but at the same time, is it really?

Absolutely.

If the matrix was real, or at least some form of matrix like existence, there would be no glitches, no "exits", no war against the machines.

Even more deep is the thought that perhaps we are actually from a super-advanced society, and our whole lives "here" could simply be a game, or an experience we go though.

You know, like we (think we) go on holiday to china, or go on a field trip when we are young, in the future maybe we experience another life, or experience what life was like 100's of years ago. The whole process could take only minutes, go down to the "alternate life centre/arcade/clinic" and experience any life of your choice. There could be thousands of centres all over whatever the world is like. It's an unnerving yet very cool thought.

[edit on 10-11-2005 by Shadow88]

At their base, the subatomic do not exist as "physical". Electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and the many other quantum particles exist as an idea. We observe them blinking in and out of perception all the time. They even move foreward and backwards through time. This sounds like a program to me. A very sophisticated program. So no matter what we think is real, when we try to define it, our own definitions get us stuck in a paradox. Is this is real because I can feel it? No because you feel it's repulsive negative energy agoinst your own.

Its as simple as the explanation in the film. Something along the lines of

"What is real? How do you define real? If you define real as what you can see smell taste and touch then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain"

So it comes down to the fact that IF the program is sophisticated enough and IF it is well enough linked into our brain then there is no way to tell between the reality and the fake, only by the fact that at the end of the day we know one from the other.

Or do we? If we developed a virtual reality so real, that we can experience all the simulated senses to a 99.9% accuracy, wouldnt you have doubts about the world you come back to when you switch off the virtual world? Spooky.....

yes, i do believe what we are living every day is a lie,do i believe that we are inside little red eggs on life support giving power to almightly machines becasue the main power source the sun is gone? not entirely. but i do believe people are and can be freed.the speech by agent smith says alot

"Why mister anderson? why? why? why do you do it? why get up? Why keep fighting? do you believe your fighting for something for more than your survival? can you tell me what it is do you even know? could it be for freedom or truth? pehaps peace could it be for love? illusions mister anderson vagaries of perception temporary constructs of the feeble human intellect trying desperatley to justufy and exsistance that without meaning or puprpose."

what i think this speach is trying to say is that humans are creatung problems for themselvs all this talk about UFO's Ghosts Bigfoot and Sea Creatures are all illusions created by the mind yes we may interact with these beings and they may seem real to all of us humans but yet there not

But hey just my 2 cents

lol the matrix is a made up movie. it was invented by a science fiction dude. its a cool thought, but that is all it is.
jeff

Noo..Thats all i got to say.

I go the the same high school that the Wachowski Bros. went to, and I'm pretty sure I've had at least one of the same teachers as them. Its so awesome.

I actually think it's very possible that our "reality" to be simulated like in the Matrix. There's so much unknown in our universe, and the actual reality of it is one no one can figure out.

Originally posted by seeuathemovies
lol the matrix is a made up movie. it was invented by a science fiction dude. its a cool thought, but that is all it is.
jeff

That is an opinion, I do not see how this thought of the Matrix being a possibility is any farther out in left field then a John Titor time travel theory. Whether they are real or fake, I don't see the trouble in exploring the thought of it.

This post is alittle off topic but still Matrix related and I was not going to create a new thread for it. In the movie, Agent Smith talks about how human beings are the only real virus that exists. We consume and consume then move on when we have exploited all existing recourses. He says how no other living being acts in this manner, and he is right.

Speaking on behalf of the Matrix; whether this has already happened and the Matrix is what we experience now will not go far with some people. So taking the approach that it has not, does it seem like we are on route to this certain doom? Maybe a version of the Matrix is inevitable, we just have not seen the day come yet. So are we the virus?

So are we the virus?

Everything is a virus and life is an STD.

After reading this post I watched the Matrix reloaded today. I found this quote to be very interesting.

Oh, of course you have. Every time you've heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens, is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing.

It defiantly makes you rethink ghosts and every paranormal thing you've ever heard of.

rasobasi says:

At their base, the subatomic do not exist as "physical". Electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and the many other quantum particles exist as an idea. We observe them blinking in and out of perception all the time.

I wasn't aware that we observed any such thing at all.

They even move foreward and backwards through time.

And I suppose you've observed this, too?

Thus it is remembered: O Sun, bow to you, you who travers 2,202 yojanas in half a minute.

Still waiting for your citation on that, rasobasi.

Originally posted by SpilledBeans

So are we the virus?

Everything is a virus and life is an STD.

i'll make sure to cover up next time i go out

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
rasobasi says:

At their base, the subatomic do not exist as "physical". Electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and the many other quantum particles exist as an idea. We observe them blinking in and out of perception all the time.

I wasn't aware that we observed any such thing at all.

They even move foreward and backwards through time.

And I suppose you've observed this, too?

Thus it is remembered: O Sun, bow to you, you who travers 2,202 yojanas in half a minute.

Still waiting for your citation on that, rasobasi.

The subatomic is a strange world

Particles: Wave/Particle Duality

* All fundamental particles (gauge bosons & quarks) are Dirac Point Particles, which means that they are not extended in space. A very simple physical consideration motivates this: If charged particles were extended, different parts of the particle would exert a repulsive force against each other, which at small distances would approach strengths sufficient to tear apart the particle. Since a geometrical point cannot spin, quantum spin (quanta of angular momentum) cannot be understood as macroscopic spinning. All particles, at the same time, can be understood as waves rather than as localized particles. Waves are extended and can be in two places at once, which often makes it seem that particles are in two places at once. There is no resolving this paradox, so far; the nature of the particles must be understood as one or the other, depending on the context, never as both at once (called Complementarity by Bohr). The context, however, suggests a Kantian metaphysical interpretation: Particles behave as waves when unobserved, i.e. outside of the necessary conditions of experience, but behave as particles when observed, i.e. when appearing under the formal requirements of phenomena. The clearest discussion of this duality is in The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. There is also the question about what a wave is. Quantum mechanics doesn't have to decide, since the square of the wave function gives the probability of finding the particle. The wave nature of matter, however, was taken very seriously by Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), who proposed it. The volume of atoms, and of particles like protons, indeed, is maintained by electrons, or quarks, as three dimensional standing waves (the diameter of atoms is about 10-10 meters, which is then used as a unit of measurement, the Angstrom, ; while the size of nuclei is measured in Fermis, fm (the femtometer) = 10-15).

www.friesian.com...
you should check out this site, it has very interesting points on quantum physics. Essentially, what this piece of the page means is that when a particle is observed, it exists in a specific position, when it isn't observed, it exists as a wave in every position possible.

you might also want to google "quantum tunneling"

i'll make sure to cover up next time i go out

Yea or pull a giant condom over yourself.

Anyway what yall on about tiz confusing

I thought the original matrix theory was that everything was composed or assigned a number, like molecules and atoms area assigned numbers, and then the numbers add up and become a bigger number, so everything is composed of moving numbers, say the head was assigned numbers 1-10. the eyes got ones and the ears twos. The chin 3s and the nose fours. So it would look like this…
5555 ---top of head
55555 ----forehead
2515152---- top of ears and eyes
2554552--- bottom of ears and nose
55555----space in between(where lips go)
333--- chin

so its like a big paint by numbers thingy, and the theory was that if you could get into the code and figure out someone’s numbers then you could alter them by changing their numbers and I think the technology part came in as a way to change the numbers, a way to track and record them then change them. And I think the matrix movies blew the theory completely out of proportion and said that the machines or technology took over and then could control the numbers and thus our lives.all because AI became to big and powerful for us, just like the movie kinda says.