The hidden philosophy of the Matrix

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From Plato to contemporary philosophy, the Matrix trilogy brings us closer to existential questions of all times.

Have you ever thought that your life is not real and that you live in a dream? What would happen if you discovered that everything you see, hear, feel and experience is an illusion? These two questions are a key theme in The Matrix, a film that shows us that what is real is not as real as we think.

Behind the story that this dystopian film tells us, we find many philosophical references that make us question not only our own existence, but also the bases that underpin our reality. In this article we will learn a little about the hidden philosophy of the Matrix.

Matrix Synopsis

The Matrix tetralogy by the Wachowski sisters was a resounding success in theaters. This movieIn addition to entertaining, it raises a series of very interesting philosophical reflections.

The Matrix belongs to dystopias, a genre created by John Stuart Mill at the end of the 19th century. Thus, the film proposes a future in which, after a harsh war, Almost all human beings have been enslaved by machines and created artificial intelligences.

These machines have people in a kind of suspended incubators and with their minds connected to a virtual reality called “Matrix.”; which simulates the last years of the 20th century.

In this way, connected humans “live” in an artificial reality and are used by machines to obtain energy. However, There are people who are not suspended, or who have been released; which live in the city Zion and whose purpose is to liberate other connected people.

That said, let’s look at the philosophical reflections hidden behind this plot.

“What is generally called reality is considered by philosophy as a corrupt thing, which may appear to be real, but which is not real in and of itself.”

-Friedrich Hegel-

Matrix and the myth of Plato’s cave

The first philosophical nuance that appears in The Matrix is the myth of Plato’s cave (The Republic, Book VII). A prisoner tied at the bottom of a cave and with his face towards the wall sees shadows of statues behind him on the rock, so he considers these reflections real objects (imagination).

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But, If the prisoner frees himself from the bonds and leaves the cave, he will see the statues that produce the shadows (belief). Also He will look at the profiles of the things that are outside the cave and that he cannot distinguish well by the light of the sun. Finally, she will see things clearly, illuminated by the sun and the star itself.

With the myth of the cave, Plato explains to us the existence of two worlds: the sensible world (the one perceived by the senses) and the world of ideas (the true one that can only be reached with reason).

There is a parallel between the Matrix and Plato’s myth of the cave, although in the Matrix what the freed “prisoner” sees is not the sun, but a totally desolate reality.

Descartes, dreams, reality and the Evil Genius

In the Matrix there are two worlds: the realwhere machines control humans and seed them for energy, yel from Matrix, a virtual world where human minds are enslaved and believe they live normally.

The Matrix presents us with an illusory reality in which humans live, believing they are experiencing true reality.

Therefore, The philosophical component of the film is the problem of reality. Descartes analyzed the issue of reality and asked himself: How do we know if at this precise moment we are not dreaming?

For Descartes, man is the union of body and mind, but only from the mind can our security come. Man is a thing that thinks. Even while asleep, in a dream, we doubt that we are asleep, so we have a mental experience that allows us to affirm that we exist.

“I think, therefore I am.”

-Rene Descartes-

This is what happens in the Matrix. In the film, humans do not know if what they are experiencing is real or a dream. Machines have created a simulated reality that is confused with the authentic one.

The protagonist, Neo, lives tormented with the doubt of whether he is dreaming or not.. Therefore, on one occasion she asks Choi: “Have you ever had the feeling of not knowing for sure whether you are dreaming or awake?”

Descartes, once he comes to the conclusion that he has been deceived, thinks that it was not God who carried out the deception, but the Evil Genius. That Evil Genius of Descartes in the movie Matrix is the machineswho have created an evil virtual reality.

The parallelism between Descartes’ philosophy and the film is clear: reality cannot be distinguished from a dream and there is an Evil Genius who is the creator of deception.

Sartre’s existentialism

Throughout the Matrix trilogy the problem of existentialism is raised, since it is stated that nothing that we believed existed, really exists. Everything is a simple hallucination created by machines to obtain benefits from humans.

To analyze this philosophical aspect of the Matrix we can turn to Jean Paul Sartre, representative of existentialism.

“Man is born free, responsible and without excuses”.

-Jean Paul Sartre-

Sartre’s philosophy refers to human freedom and non-belief in destiny. The fundamental idea is that of choice. In the Matrix movie, the protagonist, Neo, has to choose from the beginning: the red pill or the blue pill. Sartre maintains that “If I do not choose, I also choose.”

As an article published in Utopia and Praxis Latinoamericana points out, Sartre’s existentialism highlights the freedom as the starting point of all action. Freedom is, therefore, the foundation of all human acts.

The Brain in the Vat by Jonathan Dancy

The brain in the vat is a thought experiment proposed by the British philosopher, Jonathan Dancy. In the he They address topics around knowledge, reality, truth, mind and meanings.

In the experiment, a scientist is supposed to remove a person’s brain from their body. Then he puts it in a bucket and connects to a supercomputer. The organ would receive electrical impulses identical to those admitted under normal conditions.

According to this theory, the computer would simulate a virtual reality and the person whose brain it belongs to would continue to have normal experiences. Given this scenario, the individual would never realize that he lives in an artificial reality and that his brain is inside a vat.

The parallelism of this experiment with The Matrix is evident. In the film, we see how people’s nervous systems are connected to a virtual reality. Furthermore, all of them are unaware that they live in a fictional world.

Matrix, a movie to think about

Having said all this, we see how, Through a film, we are presented with fundamental aspects of life and philosophy. This allows us to question many parameters of our existence and both social and individual reality.

The Matrix is an open window to think about our lives and what we name as real. That is real? Is reality a construction? Is it possible to escape the reality we see? It never hurts to reflect on all these questions that worry our existence.