The world can be a strange place; sometimes it doesn’t feel all that absurd to think that might be living in some experimental simulation, a supercomputer’s holographic projection of reality, or that an A.I. species is actually the one pulling all the strings. This doesn’t seem particularly less feasible than the eternally popular belief in God, and might even be the same thing. The now four-part The Matrix series toys with some of these quite lofty and philosophical questions of reality, purpose, fate, free will and technological determinism.
The word “philosophy” has its roots in the Greek language, derived from the phrase “love of wisdom.” It is a pretty broad term, but we will try to nail down a few specifics in its relation to The Matrix, often considered one of the most commercial and mainstream movies to tackle heady philosophy. Starting with the original 1999 movie, The Matrix, through the more recent Matrix 4, The Matrix Resurrections, this article will take you through some of the guiding philosophies that shape The Matrix universe as well parse out their meaning and implications.
Brain in a Vat
Credit to Warner Bros.
The Brain in a Vat thought experiment is related to skepticism and reality. The thought experiment poses a reality in which you are actually just a brain inside a vat that is hooked up to a sophisticated computer program. Everything that you perceive is input from this computer. The concept is very similar to the premise of The Matrix. Since the brain is the locus of all experience and the means by which we experience reality, a brain could technically be fed information without a body and experience reality in the exact same way.
The experiment goes on to extend this skepticism of reality to a skepticism towards everything. Surmising that if you aren’t able to prove that you are not just a brain in a vat, how are you supposed to prove the definitive nature of anything? The taste of chicken, the physics of the world, the people you know and love could all be nothing more than a computer simulation.
The concept of a completely artificial and simulated universe has been long criticized. Many believe it is not useful thinking in any practical sense but rather as a device for epistemological discussion (The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin, and scope of human knowledge). In the beginning of The Matrix, we see Neo’s struggles grasping at the periphery of human knowledge.
He later catapults himself into the unknown after choosing the red pill presented by Laurence Fishburne’s character Morpheus, and awakening himself from the simulation he has known for the entirety of his life, but what real good does that do him or anyone in the simulation? Sure, he has the knowledge, but it really only leads him to more suffering. One character even chooses to return to the simulation and have the knowledge of it wiped clean. What good is knowing?
A.I.
Warner Bros.
Closely related to the epistemological branch of philosophy comes the concept of artificial intelligence. Intelligent life has long been studied, and how and what qualifies as such (consciousness and intelligence) is often the center of discussion. Famous computer scientist Alan Turing hypothesized a way to determine if artificial beings are in fact intelligent.
The test, initially called the imitation game but now referred to as a Turing test, involves two participants and a machine. All three are separated while the machine and one participant communicate. If the third observer is not able to determine that half of the correspondence is from a machine, Turing posits that it would be reasonable to call the artificial being intelligent.
Of course, since the 1950s when this test was developed, there have been many reiterations and others have stipulated additional conditions for intelligent life. In The Matrix series we see A.I. in the form of programs within the matrix. It could be debated whether Agent Smith is an intelligent being in the first movie, but by the time of The Matrix Reloaded it seems as though he has developed a more autonomous sense of self.
Agent Smith, the Oracle, the Key Maker, Merovingian, and the Architect are all rogue programs that would appear to be bona fide artificial intelligence, and yet they are not ‘human;’ what is? The definitive classification is hard to determine and brings to light questions surrounding what exactly the differences are between A.I. and humans, something also explored in the excellent Oscar Isaac movie Ex Machina.
Ethics and morality
When we think of morality, we may think of what being a “good person” means. Or perhaps we think of the age-old trolley thought experiment (and now meme) in which a person is near a switch lever by a fork in the trolley tracks; the trolley would crash and kill everyone in it on its own, or a person could pull the lever and cause the trolley to switch onto a track with an innocent bystander, killing them instead.
The classic philosophical thought experiment would ask if it is morally righteous to switch the tracks in order to kill fewer people. In the case of The Matrix Reloaded, the trolley is headed for the human city Zion, and switching the tracks would kill everybody living within the matrix and the vast majority of Zion citizens. The other option would be to let the current course stay, allow for the matrix to continue, and save just a select few humans to restart building Zion.
This information is presented much to Neo’s horror in The Matrix Reloaded. Neo’s forced to make a choice which we are informed by the architect is one of the systematic fatal flaws of the matrix. Neo does not choose to allow Zion to be destroyed. In the third installment of the series, The Matrix Revolutions, we see the choices Neo makes take effect. The inhabitants of the matrix end up being assimilated by Smith. Neo ends up making a deal with the machines and this decision seems to alter the predetermined plan that the Architect had in mind.
The events that conclude the original trilogy give the context for the newest installment, The Matrix Resurrections, which continue and expand on some philosophical themes of the original trilogy. The Wachowski sisters have continued exploring similar themes in Matrix 4 and their other work, dissecting Baudrillard’s ideas of the simulacrum, Plato’s allegory of the cave, simulation theory, transhumanism, and many more concepts in their fascinating and often divisive work.
