Plato, Descartes and The Matrix Essay

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The Matrix and the Search for Truth

In Descartes’ Meditations, he gives license to the idea that doubt can actually be a way of beginning one’s movement towards truth, just as doubt regarding the flickering of images on the cave wall by the inhabitant of Plato’s Cave begins his movement of turning around and seeing the outside sun and beginning the climb upward towards truth. Descartes seemingly encourages his philosopher-reader to do just this—to doubt in order to begin getting the mind working, questioning and interacting with what one can and cannot reasonably know: “Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars—namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth-putting of the hands—are merely illusions” (Descartes, 1641, l. 6). This same idea is put to Neo by Morpheus, who challenges Neo to stop living in the dream world, which he knows is not correct by the intuition in his soul. He senses, as Plato indicates in the Allegory of the Cave, that the truth is written on the soul and that this is why the soul responds to the flickering of light—the truth—when it sees it. For Neo, the light is mixed in with the dream, and he must struggle through the dream to the reality, and one way he does this is by way of Doubt—just as Descartes suggests.

For example, early on in the film, Neo awakens from sleep while sitting before his computer. On the screen is a message sent from Trinity. He does not know her, but Trinity the name is a highly religious reference to the Holy Trinity of Christianity—i.e., God. This scene can therefore be taken as Neo receiving a message from God to his soul—just as Plato describes the reality of truth being seen by the soul to be like in his Allegory.

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Trinity makes a prediction, “Knock knock,” to Neo (Wachowski, 1999)—and sure enough there is a knock at the door. The message from God to the soul corresponds with the reality that Neo is experiencing. However, as the messages continue—first from Trinity and then from Morpheus via cell phone complete with instructions on how to escape the Agents who are searching for him at work, Neo begins to doubt that these messages really come from an external force that sees and knows. His doubts become overpowering when he is on the ledge outside his office window. He is afraid of falling and thus decides to deal instead with the Agents who represent a lesser threat to him (so he thinks). When they show that they are in fact no lesser threat, Neo’s doubt serves as a gateway to greater understanding of the truth, just as Descartes says it will, with the affirmation that “if I desire to discover anything certain, I ought not the less carefully to refrain from assenting to those same opinions than to what might be shown to be manifestly false” (Descartes, 1641, l. 10). In these ways, the film compares very well with the readings from Plato and Descartes.

The film differs in the sense that Neo….....

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