Topic > A Projection of the Deception Hypothesis in "The Matrix"

The Matrix, like Meditations on First Philosophy, presents a scenario in which an individual is radically deceived about the nature of the external world. Skeptics sometimes take the position that if it is possible that we are deceived about the nature of the external world, then we do not really know those propositions that we take to be claims of ordinary knowledge. I believe the Matrix, along with the skeptical principle (skepticism), constitutes an argument that your claims of ordinary knowledge are not really knowledge. The Matrix shows a fictional world created and maintained by computers that have taken over the world. With this scenario, The Matrix presents what I call a screening of the deception hypothesis. That is, after seeing The Matrix, a viewer must face the question of whether it might not be the case that his entire perceptual experience could be what it now is without there being a world resembling those perceptions. This raises a number of questions. How does the film raise the skeptical question about the viewer's experience? Does this amount to an actual projection of a philosophical statement? Does the projected version of Descartes' statement have the same conviction as the written one? What does this tell us about the nature of the film? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The protagonist of The Matrix, Neo is clearly bothered by something in his world and tries to get to the bottom of his concerns. Neo is not convinced that the world he believes is real is anything other than that. Only thanks to the intervention of Trinity and her companions does she come to realize that the world she had considered real is in reality only apparent. Neo's revelation occurs after swallowing a pill offered to him by Morpheus, the leader of the rebels. Neo is led into a large room filled with computers and video equipment operated by a number of people. He is placed in a chair and the electrodes are attached to his chest and inserted into his ear. Morpheus explains that the pill Neo took is part of a tracking program that will help him and his associates find Neo's location. Neo will be able to see reality as it is for the first time. Neo sees his own image in a mirror and suddenly the image fractures, lights appear and it seems to move as if it were a liquid. Neo reaches out to touch the mirror and his finger enters it, as if it were a liquid metal, like mercury. When he withdraws his finger, the liquid mirror is dragged along with him, although it eventually returns to its original shape. While this is going on, Morpheus asks Neo if he has ever had a dream that he was sure was real. Once awake, how would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? As the mirror-like substance begins to move up his arm and the rest of his body, Neo begins to fibrillate and goes into cardiac arrest. I argue that the film provides its viewers with a viewing experience analogous to that of Neo, an experience in which the world they consider real. A world of skeptical thought experiments that the film projects begins to exhibit irregularities that suggest that one's perceptual experience is not an accurate guide to the nature of that reality. After all, when looking at the screen, we have assumed that the images we are seeing provide us with accurate information about the fictional world of the film. That is, we have always interpreted the images we see projected on the cinema screen as images of real objects and people in the imaginary world of the film. But when Neo begins to experience disruptions in the regularities of his world, the filmmakers also disrupt our experience of the worldcinematic, providing us viewers with a real experience (albeit of an imaginary world) in which we recognize that our senses have deceived us about the nature of reality. In doing so, the film transforms our awareness of the screen as an opening before us of an imaginary world into an awareness of the screen as a screen that shields that world from us through representations for which there are no corresponding objects in its imaginary world (or only objects the ​​whose nature differs from the way in which they are presented). This realization is an exact parallel to the one Neo has, although his realization has to do with a world that is real to him. The film achieves this by making us aware that it possesses capabilities similar to those it attributes to the giant computers that simulate the Matrix, since the Matrix also presents its viewers with a world that is not real even in an imaginary sense. We are systematically deluded about the nature of reality. A skeptical thought experiment to represent the real situation of humans in his imaginary world. So what most of the inhabitants of the Matrix had considered real – and what we viewers had accepted as the fictional reality of the film – turns out to be nothing more than an appearance generated by an interactive computer program, just as Descartes hypothesized that reality could be nothing. but an apparition generated by an evil demon. Viewers typically do not immediately understand the full meaning of what they have seen, because everything happens very quickly in the film. Subsequent scenes help viewers understand the metaphysics of what they have seen by including shots of the characters existing as they do within the Matrix interspersed with scenes of the reality behind this orchestrated illusion. One example involves a fight between Neo and Morpheus. As Morpheus repeatedly commands Neo to reject his belief that the world of the Matrix is ​​the real world so that he can realize his true power and abilities, the film cuts to the other members of the ship's crew who are watching Neo and Morpheus on the CRT screens. . This juxtaposition of the apparent world of the Matrix with Trinity keeps Neo in the "real world" as she watches him on screen in the Matrix. When Neo realizes that the world he thought was real was just a computer simulation, so do we. That is, we have an experience similar to his, coming to see that the "real world" of the film is only a projection of the computer - the Matrix - and, therefore, merely apparent, and that there is an underlying (fictitious) reality that differs markedly from this apparent. But what we see is that what we had considered the “real” world of the film was simply a projection. What I am suggesting is that The Matrix, through its ability to trick its viewers into seeing the world of the Matrix as (in fiction) real when it is (in fiction) only apparent, puts a new spin on Descartes' deception hypothesis . By substituting a vast network of rogue computers for the evil demon, the film shows itself capable of deceiving its viewers in much the same way that Descartes imagines the evil demon to be capable of in relation to itself. Then viewers come to recognize that the Matrix itself has the power to deceive them about (fictitious) reality. The film has thus done to us what computers do to Neo and the other inhabitants of the Matrix: make us mistake a generated and merely apparent world for the real world. Movies are not unique in their ability to cause readers to draw false inferences about the nature of their fictional worlds. The peculiarity of The Matrix, however, is that it deceives viewers regarding their perceptual beliefs, since, while watching the initial part of the film, they believe they.