> > 3)Appearance but no reality
> Errrrmmm... isn't that what the film considers. Possibly consider Fight
Club as another tweak on the same riff.
It may do this, but my point was that better examples may exist, take for
instance, Last Year at Marienbad, The Passenger, or Fight Club
*****
> > 4) Appeal to senses but not to mind--when will some stop confusing
images on the wall of the cave with reality
> Isn't this about how you watch rather than about what is watched ?
Can one realistically separate the perceiver from either the act of
perception or the object perceived. Doesn't the accuracy of the perception
depend both on the intelligibility of the perceived and the integrity of the
perceiver.
*****
> > 6) Finding philosophical content within the film may be akin to William
James's blind man in a dark basement seeking a black cat that isn't there.
> Maybe, but if you never feel around blindly, how can you tell ?
Some may think this a sufficient ground to justify dropping bombs in a
sandstorm, but it does seem both ethically and epistemically, a weak
rationalization
******
> > Surely in the history of film, we can find good examples of metaphysical
puzzles and ethical quandaries more deserving of discussion than this
quintessence of technological self-indulgence.
> Yes. We can. But it's relatively recent, and contains a lot of modern
> concerns re. technology etc. that aren't as explicitly causes-for-concern
in
> earlier films (if they are, specific examples would be nice to see...)
Surely, you aren't suggesting that "newness" is a sufficient condition for
either attentiveness or value? The ontology of technology has long been a
concern of philosophers, but can you show how The Matrix _adequately_
addresses such ontological concerns
*************
For a good example of recent film that exhibits metaphysical,
epistemological, ethical and aesthetic depth, and, consequently, more worth
of discussion--Memento
Bob Timko
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