Let me say that I considered Matrix a great film,
first of all for the "fabula", which is in my humble opinion
one of the most original in this genre in the last 20 years,
and the question which it supposes, i.e. claims about different levels
of reality: it is an hard question. It seems to me that such a question
involves also the same physics, and it is maybe time I think we stop
just for a while re-opening a wide discussion about
"the concept of reality" and the counterassumptions emerged with
evidence in several fields of humanities, about the existence of
a multiple realism, of a set of different realities.
This should not be the case to invalidate the work of science, but
has to be seen as a possible point of departure of a new thinking
concerning with human beings and their cultures and products.
Yes a great movie, I think
Paolo
________________
> Matt claims that the "Alice" and "Wizard of Oz" references in the
Matrix make no sense -- and only have the effect of producing a feeling
of disorientation -- b/c in fact Neo is going out of the fantasy world
into the "real" world.
>
> I wonder about Matt's claim that the "Alice" and "Wizard of Oz"
references in the Matrix make no sense (and are there only to produce a
feeling of "cool" disorientation). It is true that both of the
allusions refer to a move away from the "real" world into a "fantasy"
world; but in both cases that move reveals something about the "real"
world. The point of the move into fantasy, in other words, is to
effect a shift in perception regarding what was up to that point
considered reality.
>
> The Matrix does seem superficially to invert this, but as I take it
the point is supposed to be the same. The "fantasy" world (the world
of paradox) that Neo enters is not the dark and dreary world of the
future, but the matrix world after having seen that it is an illusion.
The move out of Kansas and the real world is a "double move": out and
back in. Kansas "goes by by," in other words, only after Neo goes back
into the Matrix and realizes that what he held to be self-evident there
is illusory.
>
> Insofar as the Matrix is supposed to be commenting on reality (i.e.
doing philosophy), it is commenting on "our" reality, a reality in
which we think ourselves to be free but are really automatons, enslaved
to "the machine." If that is true, then the key to a philosophical
critique of the Matrix is to ask: what is this "double shift" (out of
the Matrix and then back in) supposed to tell us about "our reality"?
I think that there are two basic messages, and the first is a fairly
standard philosophical point (both metaphysical and social/political)
that is worth repeating; the second (ethical) thesis, as others have
pointed out on the list, is deeply problematic.
>
>
> (Good) Matrix thesis #1: what we take to be real and ultimate is a
> product of institutions and technologies, and we need to be wary
and
> critical of appeals to self evidence, b/c they may lead to or be
> predicated upon unjust practices; we should strive to challenge
> unjust practices wherever we find them in the pursuit of a genuine
> and not merely spurious freedom
>
> (Problematic) Matrix thesis #2 (illustrated most directly by "lady
> in red" and building shoot out scene): once we know this, we need
to
> be deeply suspicious of others who don't, because even though they
> may not have explicit designs against the cause of "freedom," they
> CAN unwittingly be pawns in the hands of the adversary (the
> "system"); to the extent that they are duped by the system, and
are
> unable or unwilling to be converted, they are expendable in the
> pursuit of freedom.
>
> Nate
>
>
> --
> Nathan Andersen
> Assistant Professor of Philosophy
> Collegium of Letters
> Eckerd College
> 4200 54th Ave. S. Phone: (727) 864-7551
> St. Petersburg, FL 33712 Fax: (727) 864-8354
> U.S.A. E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
--
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