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About The Matrix andPhilosophy
The choice is yours and you will have to live with the conse-quences for the rest of your life mdash as you know it
Will you take the blue pill mdash pass on downloading this e-bookmdash and go on thinking of The Matrix as ldquojust a movierdquo Or willyou take the red pill download the New York Times-bestsellingThe Matrix and Philosophy read it and find out how deep therabbit-hole goes
Is the world around us truly as it appears Or are we maintainedby an invisible force as inert bodies in tanks our brains elec-tronically stimulated to create the make-believe realm which isall we know This most demanding of philosophical puzzlesbecame cutting-edge cool with the release of the cult science fic-tion film The Matrix in 1999
And the questions have become even more complex with thearrival in 2003 of The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Revolutionsand the associated short animated films collected as TheAnimatrix
The Matrix is the most philosophical film ever made its everyframe built on a philosophical conundrum among them
If the world as we know it is nothing more than our dreamof it does this make the dream real
284
matrix 62403 327 PM Page 284
If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more-realbut less-pleasant one mdash to take the red pill mdash would it be amoral failure not to do so Especially if doing so meant knewinsight into the truth of our humanity (or its lack)
Do humans have an inherent value above that of ldquoartificiallyrdquointelligent machines
Can the mind live without the body or the body without themind
In the The Matrix and Philosophy edited by William Irwinrenowned contemporary philosophers mdash Michael Brannigan
The Matrix from many angles metaphysical epistemologicalethical and aesthetic They uncover hidden depths in this intri-cate work of art and often reach disturbing conclusions
Those who take the red pill never look at the real world thesame way again
Or the red pill Download The Matrix and Philosophy now
About The Matrix and Philosophy 285
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 285
Cynthia Freeland Jorge JE Gracia Slavoj Zizek et al mdash analyze
lsaquo lsaquo
So which will it be The blue pill mdash click elsewhere
Praise for The Matrix andPhilosophy
ldquoThe Matrix is rich in central philosophical themes The Matrixand Philosophy is even richer in its identification and elaborationof these themes What could rationalists empiricists realists anti-realists materialists holists existentialists and deconstructionistspossibly hold in common Their signal ideas are all deeplyembedded in that movie and artfully unearthed in this bookWhatever your philosophical cup of tea The Matrix andPhilosophy is your teahouserdquo
mdash Lou Marinoff PhD author of Plato Not Prozac andPhilosophical Practice
ldquoWilliam Irwin has done it yet again But this time with even morephilosophical substance than in his previously edited worksSeinfeld and Philosophy and The Simpsons and Philosophy Irwinhas marshaled a talented troupe of essayists who use the film TheMatrix to present the curious with an array of philosophical ele-ments that range from metaphysics to ethics philosophy of mindto philosophy of religion epistemology to aesthetics and moreInstructors will be delighted to find a sensible strategy for usingpopular culture to encourage undergraduates to encounter philos-ophy in their own mediumrdquo
mdash Kimberly A Blessing Siena Heights University
ldquoIf like Keanu Reeves you are confused by the plot of The Matrixthis is clearly the book for you If you are not confused by the plotof The Matrix you should seek medical attention immediately Butif you havenrsquot even seen The Matrix then you really must read thisbook mdash to find out why this film served as a defining experiencefor an entire generation of college studentsrdquo
mdash Paul A Cantor author of Gilligan Unbound Pop Culturein the Age of Globalization
286
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 286
The Matrixand Philosophy
Welcome to theDesert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
matrix 61103 345 PM Page i
A n e-book excer pt by
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
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Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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httpwwwperfectboundcom
About The Matrix andPhilosophy
The choice is yours and you will have to live with the conse-quences for the rest of your life mdash as you know it
Will you take the blue pill mdash pass on downloading this e-bookmdash and go on thinking of The Matrix as ldquojust a movierdquo Or willyou take the red pill download the New York Times-bestsellingThe Matrix and Philosophy read it and find out how deep therabbit-hole goes
Is the world around us truly as it appears Or are we maintainedby an invisible force as inert bodies in tanks our brains elec-tronically stimulated to create the make-believe realm which isall we know This most demanding of philosophical puzzlesbecame cutting-edge cool with the release of the cult science fic-tion film The Matrix in 1999
And the questions have become even more complex with thearrival in 2003 of The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Revolutionsand the associated short animated films collected as TheAnimatrix
The Matrix is the most philosophical film ever made its everyframe built on a philosophical conundrum among them
If the world as we know it is nothing more than our dreamof it does this make the dream real
284
matrix 62403 327 PM Page 284
If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more-realbut less-pleasant one mdash to take the red pill mdash would it be amoral failure not to do so Especially if doing so meant knewinsight into the truth of our humanity (or its lack)
Do humans have an inherent value above that of ldquoartificiallyrdquointelligent machines
Can the mind live without the body or the body without themind
In the The Matrix and Philosophy edited by William Irwinrenowned contemporary philosophers mdash Michael Brannigan
The Matrix from many angles metaphysical epistemologicalethical and aesthetic They uncover hidden depths in this intri-cate work of art and often reach disturbing conclusions
Those who take the red pill never look at the real world thesame way again
Or the red pill Download The Matrix and Philosophy now
About The Matrix and Philosophy 285
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 285
Cynthia Freeland Jorge JE Gracia Slavoj Zizek et al mdash analyze
lsaquo lsaquo
So which will it be The blue pill mdash click elsewhere
Praise for The Matrix andPhilosophy
ldquoThe Matrix is rich in central philosophical themes The Matrixand Philosophy is even richer in its identification and elaborationof these themes What could rationalists empiricists realists anti-realists materialists holists existentialists and deconstructionistspossibly hold in common Their signal ideas are all deeplyembedded in that movie and artfully unearthed in this bookWhatever your philosophical cup of tea The Matrix andPhilosophy is your teahouserdquo
mdash Lou Marinoff PhD author of Plato Not Prozac andPhilosophical Practice
ldquoWilliam Irwin has done it yet again But this time with even morephilosophical substance than in his previously edited worksSeinfeld and Philosophy and The Simpsons and Philosophy Irwinhas marshaled a talented troupe of essayists who use the film TheMatrix to present the curious with an array of philosophical ele-ments that range from metaphysics to ethics philosophy of mindto philosophy of religion epistemology to aesthetics and moreInstructors will be delighted to find a sensible strategy for usingpopular culture to encourage undergraduates to encounter philos-ophy in their own mediumrdquo
mdash Kimberly A Blessing Siena Heights University
ldquoIf like Keanu Reeves you are confused by the plot of The Matrixthis is clearly the book for you If you are not confused by the plotof The Matrix you should seek medical attention immediately Butif you havenrsquot even seen The Matrix then you really must read thisbook mdash to find out why this film served as a defining experiencefor an entire generation of college studentsrdquo
mdash Paul A Cantor author of Gilligan Unbound Pop Culturein the Age of Globalization
286
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 286
The Matrixand Philosophy
Welcome to theDesert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
matrix 61103 345 PM Page i
A n e-book excer pt by
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
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httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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httpwwwperfectboundcom
If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more-realbut less-pleasant one mdash to take the red pill mdash would it be amoral failure not to do so Especially if doing so meant knewinsight into the truth of our humanity (or its lack)
Do humans have an inherent value above that of ldquoartificiallyrdquointelligent machines
Can the mind live without the body or the body without themind
In the The Matrix and Philosophy edited by William Irwinrenowned contemporary philosophers mdash Michael Brannigan
The Matrix from many angles metaphysical epistemologicalethical and aesthetic They uncover hidden depths in this intri-cate work of art and often reach disturbing conclusions
Those who take the red pill never look at the real world thesame way again
Or the red pill Download The Matrix and Philosophy now
About The Matrix and Philosophy 285
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 285
Cynthia Freeland Jorge JE Gracia Slavoj Zizek et al mdash analyze
lsaquo lsaquo
So which will it be The blue pill mdash click elsewhere
Praise for The Matrix andPhilosophy
ldquoThe Matrix is rich in central philosophical themes The Matrixand Philosophy is even richer in its identification and elaborationof these themes What could rationalists empiricists realists anti-realists materialists holists existentialists and deconstructionistspossibly hold in common Their signal ideas are all deeplyembedded in that movie and artfully unearthed in this bookWhatever your philosophical cup of tea The Matrix andPhilosophy is your teahouserdquo
mdash Lou Marinoff PhD author of Plato Not Prozac andPhilosophical Practice
ldquoWilliam Irwin has done it yet again But this time with even morephilosophical substance than in his previously edited worksSeinfeld and Philosophy and The Simpsons and Philosophy Irwinhas marshaled a talented troupe of essayists who use the film TheMatrix to present the curious with an array of philosophical ele-ments that range from metaphysics to ethics philosophy of mindto philosophy of religion epistemology to aesthetics and moreInstructors will be delighted to find a sensible strategy for usingpopular culture to encourage undergraduates to encounter philos-ophy in their own mediumrdquo
mdash Kimberly A Blessing Siena Heights University
ldquoIf like Keanu Reeves you are confused by the plot of The Matrixthis is clearly the book for you If you are not confused by the plotof The Matrix you should seek medical attention immediately Butif you havenrsquot even seen The Matrix then you really must read thisbook mdash to find out why this film served as a defining experiencefor an entire generation of college studentsrdquo
mdash Paul A Cantor author of Gilligan Unbound Pop Culturein the Age of Globalization
286
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 286
The Matrixand Philosophy
Welcome to theDesert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
matrix 61103 345 PM Page i
A n e-book excer pt by
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
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Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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httpwwwperfectboundca
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Praise for The Matrix andPhilosophy
ldquoThe Matrix is rich in central philosophical themes The Matrixand Philosophy is even richer in its identification and elaborationof these themes What could rationalists empiricists realists anti-realists materialists holists existentialists and deconstructionistspossibly hold in common Their signal ideas are all deeplyembedded in that movie and artfully unearthed in this bookWhatever your philosophical cup of tea The Matrix andPhilosophy is your teahouserdquo
mdash Lou Marinoff PhD author of Plato Not Prozac andPhilosophical Practice
ldquoWilliam Irwin has done it yet again But this time with even morephilosophical substance than in his previously edited worksSeinfeld and Philosophy and The Simpsons and Philosophy Irwinhas marshaled a talented troupe of essayists who use the film TheMatrix to present the curious with an array of philosophical ele-ments that range from metaphysics to ethics philosophy of mindto philosophy of religion epistemology to aesthetics and moreInstructors will be delighted to find a sensible strategy for usingpopular culture to encourage undergraduates to encounter philos-ophy in their own mediumrdquo
mdash Kimberly A Blessing Siena Heights University
ldquoIf like Keanu Reeves you are confused by the plot of The Matrixthis is clearly the book for you If you are not confused by the plotof The Matrix you should seek medical attention immediately Butif you havenrsquot even seen The Matrix then you really must read thisbook mdash to find out why this film served as a defining experiencefor an entire generation of college studentsrdquo
mdash Paul A Cantor author of Gilligan Unbound Pop Culturein the Age of Globalization
286
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 286
The Matrixand Philosophy
Welcome to theDesert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
matrix 61103 345 PM Page i
A n e-book excer pt by
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
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United States
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New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
The Matrixand Philosophy
Welcome to theDesert of the Real
Edited by
WILLIAM IRWIN
matrix 61103 345 PM Page i
A n e-book excer pt by
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
For Peter H HareMorpheus to many
matrix 61103 345 PM Page ii
Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
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httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
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Contents
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix 1
Scene 1 How Do You Know 3
1 Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and SocratesWILLIAM IRWIN 5
2 Skepticism Morality and The MatrixGERALD J ERION and BARRY SMITH 16
3 The Matrix PossibilityDAVID MITSUO NIXON 28
4 Seeing Believing Touching TruthCAROLYN KORSMEYER 41
Scene 2 The Desert of the Real 53
5 The Metaphysics of The MatrixJORGE JE GRACIA and JONATHAN J SANFORD 55
6 The Machine-Made Ghost Or The Philosophy of Mind Matrix StyleJASON HOLT 66
7 Neo-Materialism and the Death of the SubjectDANIEL BARWICK 75
8 Fate Freedom and ForeknowledgeTHEODORE SCHICK JR 87
iii
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iii
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
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New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
Scene 3 Down the Rabbit Hole of Ethics and Religion 99
9 There Is No Spoon A Buddhist MirrorMICHAEL BRANNIGAN 101
10 The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of PluralismGREGORY BASSHAM 111
11 Happiness and Cypherrsquos Choice Is Ignorance BlissCHARLES L GRISWOLD JR 126
12 We Are (the) One Kant Explains How to Manipulate the MatrixJAMES LAWLER 138
Scene 4 Virtual Themes 153
13 Notes from Underground Nihilism and The MatrixTHOMAS S HIBBS 155
14 Popping a Bitter Pill Existential Authenticity in The Matrix and NauseaJENNIFER L MCMAHON 166
15 The Paradox of Real Response to Neo-FictionSARAH E WORTH 178
16 Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy 188DEBORAH KNIGHT and GEORGE MCKNIGHT
Scene 5 De-Construct-Ing The Matrix 203
17 Penetrating Keanu New Holes but the Same Old ShitCYNTHIA FREELAND 205
18 The Matrix Marx and the Coppertoprsquos LifeMARTIN A DANAHAY AND DAVID RIEDER 216
iv Contents
matrix 61103 345 PM Page iv
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
19 The Matrix Simulation and the Postmodern AgeDAVID WEBERMAN 225
20 The Matrix Or The Two Sides of PerversionSLAVOJ ZIZEK 240
The Potentials 267
The Oraclersquos Index 273
Acknowledgments 281
About the Editor
Popular Culture and Philosophy
About The Matrix and Philosophy
Praise for The Matrix and Philosophy
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About Open Court Publishing Company
About PerfectBound
Contents v
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page v
vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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vi
matrix 61103 345 PM Page vi
Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Introduction Meditations on The Matrix
Which pill would you choose the red or the blue Is ignorancebliss or is the truth worth knowing no matter what After watch-ing The Matrix we are impressed by the action and specialeffects and also besieged by questions Is it possible that we our-selves are prisoners of the Matrix Is this a Christian film ABuddhist film There is no spoon
A student of mine at Kingrsquos College Adam Albert first drewmy attention to The Matrix He immediately saw the connectionsbetween the film and Descartesrsquos speculations on the possibilityof deception by dreams or an evil deceiver My experience andhis were similar to those of philosophy professors and studentsaround the world The magazine Philosophy Now even held anessay contest for college students The topic Which pill wouldyou choose Why
With this book professors follow the trail blazed by their stu-dents Each author asks and answers questions about the philo-sophical significance of the film As culture critic Slavoj Zizeksuggests The Matrix is a philosopherrsquos Rorschach inkblot testPhilosophers see their favored philosophy in it existentialismMarxism feminism Buddhism nihilism postmodernism Nameyour philosophical ism and you can find it in The Matrix Stillthe film is not just some randomly generated inkblot but has adefinite plan behind it and intentionally incorporates much thatis philosophical The Wachowski brothers college dropoutcomic-book artists intrigued by the Big Questions readilyacknowledge that they have woven many philosophical themesand allusions into the fabric of the film The Matrix andPhilosophy does not in every instance attempt or purport to con-vey the intended meaning of the writers and artists responsiblefor The Matrix Rather the book highlights the philosophical sig-nificance of the film
To paraphrase Trinity itrsquos the questions that drive us Thecontributing authors draw on Plato Aristotle Aquinas Descartes
1
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 1
Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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Kant Nietzsche Sartre Sellars Nozick Baudrillard and Quine(among other philosophers) to address the questions What canI know What should I do What may I hope What is real Whatis happiness What is the mind What is freedom and do wehave it Is artificial intelligence possible Answering these ques-tions leads us to explore many of the major branches of philos-ophy including metaphysics epistemology ethics aestheticsphilosophy of mind philosophy of religion and political philos-ophy Despite the multitude of questions there is but one imper-ative WAKE UP
People like popular culture it is the common language of ourtime Did you know that Aaliyah died before completing thesequel to The Matrix Did you know that WV Quine died lessthan a year before that Many people know about the pop starAaliyah while most people have never even heard of the greatphilosopher Quine The contributing authors of this book aim tobring the reader from pop culture to philosophy Willie Suttonwas a criminal mastermind a genius of sorts Once askedldquoWillie why do you rob banksrdquo he replied straightforwardlyldquoBecause thatrsquos where the money isrdquo Why write about pop cul-ture like The Matrix Because thatrsquos where the people are
No one would object if we turned to the works of HomerDante and Shakespeare to raise philosophical questions TheMatrix does not belong to the list of Western classics but never-theless the film raises the same philosophical questions as thegreat works of literature If philosophy could be found only inthe writing of philosophers and were relevant only to the livesof professors then it would be the dull and sterile discipline toomany people mistakenly believe it to be But philosophy iseverywhere it is relevant to and can illuminate everyonersquos lifelike the Matrix ldquoit is all around usrdquo
This book is not just for philosophers but for all of us whohave ever had a ldquosplinter in the mind driving us madrdquo Let itbe a beginning but by no means an end to your study ofphilosophy
2 Introduction
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 2
Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
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Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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Scene 1
How DoYou Know
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 3
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
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Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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matrix 61103 345 PM Page 4
5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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5
1Computers Caves andOracles Neo and Socrates
WILLIAM IRWIN
I tell them that Irsquom doing fineWatching shadows on the wall
mdash JOHN LENNON
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chainsAnd we never even know we have the key
mdash THE EAGLES
Many people recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe great-est story ever toldrdquo The biblical imagery is clear and the filmrsquosrelease on Easter weekend 1999 supports the intent Few peo-ple recognize The Matrix as a retelling of ldquothe greatest storynever toldrdquo the story of Socrates an intellectual hero who con-tinued on his quest despite opposition and ultimately paid forhis noble defiance with his life
Why donrsquot most people know one of the greatest stories ourculture has to offer The main reason is that we leave the job oftelling the story to college philosophy professors Not everyoneattends college and sadly not everyone who attends collegetakes a philosophy course While Philosophy 101 is an ideal set-ting in which to study closely and discuss passionately the lifeof Socrates therersquos no need to wait for an opportunity that maynever come Like the story of Jesus the story of Socrates shouldbe the subject of childrenrsquos books family and classroom discus-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 5
sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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sions and TV specials There should be a movie about it TheWachowski brothers directed Keanu Reeves in a veiled telling ofthe tale but I would cast Steve Martin as the lead in anldquounapologeticrdquo Socrates cinematic celebration Spielberg woulddirect The Matrix is many things a retelling of the Socrates storyis just one of them and indeed viewers are certain to miss thiselement of the film unless they already know the story If yoursquoreunfamiliar with the tale let this essay be your introduction
Questions and MissionsldquoWersquore on a mission from Godrdquo said the Blues Brothers Theyhad a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes and one hun-dred and six miles to Chicago It was dark and they were wear-ing sunglasses Their mission Play a concert to save theorphanage in which they were raised by an ldquoold schoolrdquo nunaffectionately called the penguin Neo is on a mission to savethe human race from unwitting enslavement to artificial intelli-gence Socrates too is on a mission a mission from (the) God(Apollo) delivered via the Oracle at Delphi to his friendChaerephon His mission should he choose to accept it is toldquowake uprdquo the people of his hometown Athens
In a whisper through the din of Rob Zombie in the Goth clubfrom hell Trinity tells Neo ldquoItrsquos the question that drives usrdquoTheir question What is the Matrix Like Neo Socrates had ldquoasplinter in his mindrdquo and a driving question What is the goodlife Questioning brings trouble to both our heroes Socratesfinds himself on trial charged with impiety and corrupting theyouth and Neo is accused by the Agents of ldquocommitting nearlyevery computer crime we have a law forrdquo
Socrates was in the habit of asking his fellow citizens ques-tions often seemingly straightforward and simple questionswhose answers turned out to be elusive Like a skilled inter-viewer Socrates would follow up with more difficult probingquestions which would expose the ignorance of the people heasked For example Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro What isholy What makes an act holy Euthryphrorsquos response ldquoHolinessis what all the gods love and its opposite is what all the godshate unholinessrdquo (Euthyphro 9e) This seems to be a goodanswer until Socrates poses the difficult follow-up question ldquoIs
6 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 6
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
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httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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httpwwwharpercollinsconz
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 7
what is holy holy because the gods approve it or do theyapprove it because it is holyrdquo (Euthyphro 10a) As you can imag-ine Euthyphro has a difficult time answering this one and growsannoyed with Socrates This process of asking questions untilthe person either contradicts himself or makes a mistake hasbecome known as the Socratic method (as Bill and Ted learnedat San Dimas High) Not only does the method of persistentquestioning intimidate students (as in The Paper Chase) andembarrass politicians (choose your own example) but it madeSocrates popular among the socially conscious youth anddespised among the self-interested elite
Despite what was often perceived as a rather arrogant con-versational style Socrates was utterly humble concerning hisknowledge He claimed ignorance rather than omniscience withhis mantra ldquoI know nothingrdquo Why does a guy who knows noth-ing question everyone else so intensely Like Neo Socratesrsquosexcellent adventure is sparked by the words of an oracle andsome insight concerning the nature of knowledge and wisdom
What Did the Oracles SayThe Oracle told Morpheus he would find the One the personwho would break the grip of the Matrix and free humanity withthe truth Thus Morpheus unplugs Neo and after some rehaband Kung Fu Fighting takes him to the Oracle for confirmationNeo resists this grand possibility and rejects the idea that his lifeis fated in any such way telling Morpheus that he doesnrsquotbelieve in fatemdashthat he wants to believe he is in control of hislife Socrates was similarly resistant to his fate At least so he tellsus at his trial recorded by Plato and entitled the Apology
[Chaerephon] was a friend of mine [H]e went to Delphi oneday and went so far as to put this question to the oracle heasked if there was anyone wiser than me and the priestess ofApollo replied that there was no one wiser (Apology 21a)
When I heard the priestessrsquos reply my reaction was this ldquoWhat onearth is the god saying What is his hidden meaning I am wellaware that I have no wisdom great or small So what can he meanby saying I am so wiserdquo (Apology 21b)
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 7
Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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Indeed how could it be that no one was wiser than he whoclaimed to know nothing Socrates tells us he set out to disprovethe prophetic words of the oracle
What I did was this I approached one of those who seemed to bewise thinking that there if anywhere I could prove the replywrong and say quite clearly to the oracle ldquoThis man is wiser thanI am whereas you said I was the wisestrdquo (Apology 21c)
Socrates was disappointed upon questioning this man a politi-cian to find that the man thought he knew much but reallydidnrsquot know anything Persistent by nature Socrates did not giveup but proceeded to question the esteemed playwrights andthen the skilled craftsmen of Athens He was similarly disap-pointed Ironically in realizing his own ignorance Socrates wasindeed the wisest man in Athens
Consequently Socrates took it as his divine charge to ques-tion his fellow citizens to expose them to their own ignoranceso that they might wake up and join him in seeking knowledge
It is as if the city to use a slightly absurd simile were a horsemdashalarge horse high mettled but which because of its size is some-what sluggish and needs to be stung into action by some kind ofhorsefly I think god has caused me to settle on the city as thishorsefly the sort that never stops all day long coming to rest onevery part of you stinging each one of you into action and per-suading and criticizing each one of you (Apology 30e)
Like a pest a horsefly (or gadfly) with constant questioningSocrates aimed to awaken the city at large to the truthmdashthat theglue factory not bliss awaits those who rest in idle ignorance
The homes of the two Oracles are quite different Accordingto mythology Zeus released one eagle from the east andanother from the west to find the center of the world They flewuntil they impaled each other in mid air above a spot in Delphithus declared the omphalos or navel of the world At Delphia place of majestic beauty at the foot of Mt Parnassus Apollospoke through his priestess the Oracle known also as thePythia Morpheus takes Neo not to the omphalos of the worldbut into the heart of the Matrix to a place as unlike Mt
8 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 8
Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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Parnassus as possible an inner-city tenement the home of anunlikely Oracle
Neo very unsure of himself asks Morpheus ldquoShe knowswhat Everythingrdquo Morpheus responds ldquoShe would say sheknows enoughrdquo Neo still skeptical asks ldquoAnd shersquos neverwrongrdquo Morpheus with aloof paradoxical assurance repliesldquoTry not to think of it in terms of right and wrong She is a guideNeo She can help you to find the pathrdquo
A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi after making theappropriate sacrifices and payments would ask his (no womenallowed) question of one of the Oraclersquos assistants who wouldask it of the priestess Seated on a tripod the priestess wouldinhale the breath of Apollo the fumes (probably ethylene) ema-nating from a chasm in the earth Like a midnight toker atWoodstock the priestess of Apollo would prophesy by speak-ing in tongues A priest would then interpret the incoherent bab-bling and usually put it in hexameter verse Like the sage adviceone gets from calling 1-900-PSYCHIC the prophecies of theOracle were usually vague and open to more than one possibleinterpretation Socrates as we know found puzzling theOraclersquos declaration that there was no one wiser than heKnowing the Oraclersquos reputation for cryptic prophecies thoughhe set out to disprove it only to discover its ironic meaningLess wise was King Croessus who wanted to know of theOracle whether it was an auspicious time for him to make waragainst the Persians The Oraclersquos response was ldquoIf you go intobattle now a great kingdom will be destroyedrdquo Taking this asterrific news the King led his troops to war and to the slaughterHe had no genuine grounds of complaint to the Oracle whosimply pointed out that he was mistaken about which kingdomshe had meant
The Oracle of The Matrix not only lives in a rough part ofthe virtual city she is a grandmotherly black womanmdashldquonot whatyou expectedrdquo much as the Pythia were for a time selectedfrom women over 50 rather than from virginal maidens whosevirtue would be less secure Unlike her Delphic counterpart theinner city Oracle meets face to face with those who seek herAnd despite the fact that sitting on a tripod she blissfullybreathes the cookie fumes issuing from her oven and inhalessmoke from her cigarette she does not speak in tongues But
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 9
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 9
donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
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donrsquot let that fool you her message though apparently plain isPythian in its purpose Oddly this Oracle asks the questionsldquoYou know why yoursquore hererdquo ldquoWhat do you think Do you thinkyoursquore the onerdquo Neo responds ldquoI donrsquot knowrdquo Socrates hadalways claimed not to know but Neo really does not know Asthe Oracle quips hersquos cute but not too bright She allows him toconclude for himself that he is not the One and tells him thatbeing the One is like being in love No one can tell you ldquoYouknow it through and through balls to bonesrdquo A poor consola-tion she tells him ldquoYou got the gift but it looks like yoursquore wait-ing for somethingrdquo ldquoWhatrdquo he asks Her prophetic reply ldquoYournext life maybe Who knows Thatrsquos the way these things gordquo
The Oracle is without malice though and even offers somefree advice in the course of their session Pointing to a signabove her kitchen door she asks Neo if he knows what it saysItrsquos Latin she tells him it means ldquoKnow Thyselfrdquo This wisdomis in fact the key to making sense of the Oraclersquos prophecy Thesame phrase was inscribed in Greek γνωθι σαυτον (rather thanthe ldquobarbaricrdquo Latin ldquoTemet Noscerdquo) in the temple of Apollo atDelphi and it was surely more important in interpreting anyPythian prophecy than the actual answer given by the OracleSocrates realized this and lived by the related maxim ldquoThe unex-amined life is not worth livingrdquo Cocky King Croessus did notknow himself as we saw and paid dearly for it Only in timedoes Neo come to know himself and thus believe in himselfand thus fulfill the depth of the Oraclersquos prophecymdashwhichincludes Morpheus finding the One and Trinity falling in lovewith the man who is the One
Self knowledge is the key and without it we can unlock noother knowledge worth having This is a theme important notjust to Socrates and The Matrix but to other outstanding philo-sophical films Fight Club poses the seemingly adolescent ques-tion ldquoHow much can you know about yourself if yoursquove neverbeen in a fightrdquo We see however as the plot and the ldquofightrdquodevelop this is not a moronic testosteronic query We gain self-knowledge through struggle Consider also Boys Donrsquot Cry withBrandonrsquos deception of himself and others and the disastrousconsequences this brings Finally Memento wrestles with theperplexing question How is it possible for me to lie to myselfIs memory loss part of the answer Hollywood and Athensagree the unexamined life is not worth living
10 William Irwin
prime prime
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 10
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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httpwwwperfectboundcom
To complete our look at the urban Oracle consider anotherpiece of wisdom inscribed at Delphi and practiced in thekitchen ldquoNothing in excessrdquo (microηδεν αγαν) ldquoHere take acookierdquo the Oracle says to Neo not ldquotake some cookiesrdquo orldquotake as many cookies as your heart desiresrdquo We know theysmell good perhaps tempting Neo to overindulge The Oracleis also drinking something strange (quite likely an adult bever-age) and smoking a cigarette Presumably she can indulge inthese things without going to excess This is in stark contrast tohumanity in general described by Agent Smith as a virus thatspreads using up all the resources in an area before it moveson
Legend has it that there was a time when the fumes thatinspired the Oracle at Delphi were available to all but the peo-ple abused the privilege and harmed themselves jumping intothe hole from which the fumes emanated In time the Pythiaalone was allowed to inhale ldquothe breath of Apollordquo and a priest-interpreter had to hear her prophecy and put it into verse forconsumption by the seeker who was thus two levels removedfrom the god If fully digested the wisdom of ldquoKnow thyselfrdquoand ldquoNothing in excessrdquo might allow the chosen One to tell thetruth to the many Perhaps then all could ldquoinhale the propheticsmokerdquo and commune with the god for themselves
A Tale of Two CavesMorpheus tells Neo he was ldquoBorn into a prison for [his] mindrdquoEven slaves prisoners of war and concentration camp victimssometimes manage to keep their minds free ldquoThey may havemy body but theyrsquoll never have my mindrdquo This resistance toslavery and imprisonment has been implemented through theages by countless heroes such as Epictetus Fredrick DouglassViktor Frankl James Bond Stockdale Nelson Mandela JohnMcCain Malcolm X and Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo Carter to name afew The only thing worse than a prison for your mind wouldbe a prison for your mind you didnrsquot know you were in a prisonfrom which therefore you would have no urge to escape Howwould a person in such a prison even recognize if he were setfree
ldquoSuppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly tostand up turn his head and walk with his eyes lifted to the light
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 11
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 11
all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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all these movements would be painful and he would be toodazzled to make out the objects whose shadows he had beenused to seeing What do you think he would say if someonetold him what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusionbut now being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towardsmore real objects he was getting a truer view Would he notbe perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be notso real as what he formerly sawrdquo These lines are from PlatorsquosRepublic (514cndashd) in which Plato tells a story known as the alle-gory of the cave (also variously called the simile myth or para-ble of the cave) (514andash521b) The account however serves justas well to describe Neorsquos predicament upon being freed fromthe Matrix
The prisoners in the cave are chained by the neck handsand legs They have been this way since birth and so have noconception of any other way of life Shadows appear on the wallin front of them as their jailers pass animal figures before thelight of a fire in the manner of a puppet show The prisonerswatch shadows on a wall shadows not of real animals but ofcarved figures The light that makes these shadows possible isfirelight not the best possible kind of light sunlight Yet theseprisoners do not know that they are prisoners and do not sus-pect there is any reality but that which they experience Oneday however one of the prisoners is set free of his chains isdragged to the outside world and by the light of the sunbeholds things as they actually are Rather than selfishly remain-ing in the outside world the prisoner returns to tell the otherswho reward his kindness with mockery and resistance believ-ing he has gone insane
This story parallels the life of Platorsquos teacher1 Socrates whowas thought mad and ultimately put to death for trying to drawattention to a higher plane of reality Of course it also parallelsthe story of Neo who one day is freed from the Matrix to beholdldquothe desert of the realrdquo Like Platorsquos prisoner Neo finds himselfin chains or more precisely black cable wires that stimulate the
12 William Irwin
1 Plato uses his teacher Socrates as a character in his writings including theallegory of the cave in The Republic For a discussion of the complicated con-nection between Plato and Socrates see my ldquoJerry and Socrates The ExaminedLiferdquo in Seinfeld and Philosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing(Chicago Open Court 2000) pp 3ndash5
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 12
illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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illusive shadow show of the Matrix Who frees the prisoner inPlatorsquos allegory is unclear though in The Matrix it is Morpheus(in Greek mythology the name of the God of sleep who bringschanges in shape via dreams) Like Platorsquos prisoner who mustbe dragged upward Neo is at first horrified by the sight of theother unwitting prisoners who slumber plugged in gooey pinkcave-pods Neo does not want to accept that what he now seesis real that previously he had been living in a dream worldldquoMost of these people are not ready to be unpluggedrdquoMorpheus assures him Like Platorsquos prisonerrsquos gradual painfulperiod of adjustment to the world outside the cave Neorsquos rehabis painful ldquoWhy do my eyes hurtrdquo Neo asks ldquoBecause yoursquovenever used themrdquo Morpheus replies
ldquoThe roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweetrdquowrote Aristotle And we do well to keep in mind that ldquoeduca-tionrdquo literally etymologically means ldquoto lead outrdquo as the pris-oner is led out of the cave and as Neo is led out of the MatrixThe Hippocratic Oath reminds physicians that they areguardians and trustees not owners of medical knowledge Theymust share the knowledge to help others No solemn oath bindsthose who receive education in philosophy though the duty toshare is no less attendant Platorsquos escaped prisoner would pre-fer to bask in the light of the sun of goodness and knowledgebut he returns to help others ldquoWould he not feel like HomerrsquosAchilles that he would far sooner lsquobe on earth as a hired ser-vant in the house of a landless manrsquo or endure anything ratherthan go back to his old beliefs and live in the old wayrdquo(Republic 515d) Neo unlike Cypher would similarly endureanything rather than return to a false reality
Knowledge and RealityThe allegory of the cave is not only or even most importantlya veiled retelling of the Socrates story Rather Plato uses it topoint to and encourage openness in the reader to a higherlevel of reality the Forms Wemdashall of usmdashare like the prisonersfor we often mistakenly suppose that the reality in which welive is the truest and highest reality there is According to Platoall we actually experience at the level of reality availablethrough our five senses are poor imitations of a higher level ofreality the Forms We may experience beautiful sunsets just
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 13
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 13
actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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actions and really good noodles but all of these things are mereimitations of the perfect Forms copies of Beauty itself Justiceitself Goodness itself and so on
What ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo could rouse a person to seek theForms And how can they be known Plato and Socrates teachthe importance of understanding not through the senses butthrough the intellect alone Morpheus tells Neo that no one canbe told what the Matrix is You have to ldquosee it for yourselfrdquo Aswith the Forms it is not a literal ldquoseeingrdquo but a direct knowingthat brings understanding of the Matrix This essay cannot trulyteach you what the Forms are not even reading Plato can Thisis part of the challenge and frustration of Platorsquos dialogues Onefinds oneself asking What is Justice What is Love What isGoodness What after all is a Form It was asking such ques-tions that landed Socrates in trouble So read and proceed withcaution
Neo too learns that intellect is more important than thesenses Mind is more important than matter As for Plato thephysical is not as real as the Form so for Neo ldquothere is nospoonrdquo Neo is the reincarnation of the man who freed the firsthumans Plato held that the intellect and body are so alien toone another that their union at birth traumatically engendersloss of memory a kind of amnesia This is not the total loss ofmemory Cypher traitorously deals for but rather the kind onemight suffer after drinking too much of Dozerrsquos Lethic moon-shine The details can come back with the right prompting andclues For Plato deacutejagrave vu is not evidence of a glitch in the Matrixbut a recollection (anamnesis) of the Forms In the timebetween incarnations when the soul is free of the body webehold the Forms On the earthly plane all learning is actually aprocess of recollection in which we recall the Forms cued in bythe resemblance mundane objects bare to them A child doesnot need to be taught that a flower is pretty for example butknows it through recollection of the Form of Beauty itself andthe flowerrsquos share in it
Philosophy The Road Less TraveledIn the car on the way to see Morpheus Neo considers turningback but Trinity forces the moment to its crisis ldquoYou have beendown there Neo You know that road You know exactly where
14 William Irwin
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 14
it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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it ends and I know that is not where you want to berdquo One can-not help but think of Robert Frostrsquos famous lines ldquoI took the oneless traveled by And that has made all the differencerdquo We mustwonder just how many people this favorite yearbook quotationand valedictory allusion truly fits After all it would have to be asuper highway and there would still be a traffic jam if every-one who ever claimed the verse for his or her own actually livedit
The red pill is a new symbol of bold choice and most peo-ple insist they would take it if they were in Neorsquos shoes So atthe conclusion of my introduction to philosophy course I invitemy students to inhale the fumes from one of my classroom writ-ing implements the red marker or the blue marker If theyinhale the red marker they will major in philosophy and ldquoseehow far down the rabbit hole goesrdquo If they inhale the bluemarker they will return to their previously chosen major and for-get they had ever given thought to questions that matter andmysteries of the universe Most are amusedly annoyed Theywould like to think there is no such choice No one really majorsin philosophymdashitrsquos just too impractical But in truth a select fewcannot resist the lure of knowledge and reality2
Computers Caves and Oracles Neo and Socrates 15
2 Thanks to all my friends and students who offered me their insights on TheMatrix
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 15
The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
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25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
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Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
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The Matrix is cutting-edge cool The effects are exceptional theaction stylishly frenetic the premise itself compelling The foodfor thought it offers is better for you than Tasty Wheat andmuch more appetizing than the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos usual mess-mash Herersquos just a sampler Could we be systematicallydeceived about reality What if we were How could we tell Isit worth finding out or is a blissful ignorance better than know-ing the horrible truth Which pill the red or the blue would youpick Why
This is very cool stuff To philosophers though itrsquos old hatDescartesrsquos malicious demon hypothesis is hundreds of yearsold It was reborn decades back as the brain-in-a-vat scenariowhich The Matrix makes over as a body-in-a-vat The questionof truth versus happiness goes back even further as far back asthe ancient Greeks Plato wrote much about it Aristotle too Theidea of systematic deception even has cinematic precedentsTotal Recall and Dark City to name just two While in TheMatrix these are the most obvious ports of philosophicalaccess theyrsquore not what Irsquom going to talk about
So what am I going to talk about ldquoUnfortunatelyrdquo saysMorpheus ldquono one can be told what the Matrix isrdquo No one inthe movie that is The Matrix is a virtual reality a world ldquopulledover your eyes to blind you from the truthrdquo With certain excep-tions itrsquos so comprehensively so completely realistic that prac-
66
6The Machine-Made GhostOr The Philosophy of MindMatrix Style
JASON HOLT
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 66
The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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The Machine-Made Ghost 67
tically everyone plugged in believes itrsquos real even Neo the Onehimself who needs to be shown like anyone else how to takethe veil from his eyes Itrsquos such a tempting veil that even thosewho know itrsquos a veil are naturally drawn almost compelled tobelieve itrsquos real Before he sees the light Neorsquos mind isexhausted by these veiled misperceptions the beliefs he derivesfrom them and the intentions desires and other attitudes heforms in response to them The deception as you know isorchestrated by the machines whorsquove taken over the world in asort of artificial-intelligence version of Planet of the Apes Itrsquos amachine-made deception the illusory ghost of a world that is nolongermdashhence the title of this chapter which is also moredirectly a play on Descartesrsquos view of the mind as a soul a spiritthat inhabits the body a ldquoghost in the machinerdquo
What Irsquom going to talk about as the subtitle says is the phi-losophy of mind For an appetizer wersquoll begin with a crashcourse in the mind-body problem There will be two entreacutees (1)artificial intelligencemdashspecifically the possibility of artificialminds and (2) metaphysicsmdashwhat the mind really is Irsquoll argueagainst much received wisdom that artificial minds are possibleand that mental states are brain states Therersquos a tension lurkinghere but one that can be resolved simply enough For desserta solution to the so-called hard problem of consciousnesswhich is at the very heart of the apparent divide between mindand brain
The Mind-Body Problem A Crash CourseThe mind-body problem begins as does modern philosophyitself with Descartes whom you may remember from such slo-gans as ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo which incidentally you mightalso recall from Blade Runner another film spun on an AI sce-nario Descartes thought that mind and matter are fundamentallydifferent sorts of thing The mind is a thinking thing whilematerial objects are extended in space They have dimensionThe physical realm is mechanistic governed by physical lawswhile the mind is subject to different principles laws of thoughtand is moreovermdashliterallymdasha free spirit a ghost in the machineDespite being so different mind and matter appear to interactEvents in the physical world cause me to have certain experi-encesmdashI assume wersquore not in the Matrix or anything like it
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 67
68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
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Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
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68 Jason Holt
here Likewise my intention to act in certain ways causes mybody to move as it does Ditto the assumption So how do mindand matter interact They just do This is the mind-over-matterworldview that suffuses our culture Just think of the Policealbum Ghost in the Machine on which yoursquoll find the hit singleldquoSpirits in the Material Worldrdquo Not an uncommon worldview byany means Itrsquos too useful But itrsquos also sad to say inadequateInadequate How dare I Well itrsquos my job Descartesrsquos theory ofmind leaves too many questions unanswered How can mindand matter interact if theyrsquore essentially different substances thatoperate according to their own unique principles And where dothey interact
Descartesrsquos account of mind-brain interaction is mysteriousand such appeals to mystery are notoriously weak Descartesseems to err by thinking therersquos a je ne sais quoi to the mindover and above whatrsquos revealed at least potentially in action Insports therersquos no ldquoteam spiritrdquo apart from the playersrsquo behaviortheir vigorous play cheering each other on locker-room cama-raderie and so forth Likewise therersquos no ldquomind spiritrdquo apartfrom what the body does and how it does it This is behavior-ism the view that mental states are just pieces of behavioror better behavioral dispositions I donrsquot always say ldquoOuchrdquowhen Irsquom in pain but Irsquom always disposed to say it Behaviorismdoesnrsquot work either though It confuses the evidence we havefor other peoplersquos mental states with what the evidence is evi-dence for My saying ldquoOuchrdquo or my disposition to say it isnrsquot thesame thing as my pain Itrsquos evidence of it Herersquos another prob-lem Say you explain my saying ldquoOuchrdquo by citing the fact that Iwas disposed to say ldquoOuchrdquo Not exactly a mind-blowing expla-nation is it It has the form ldquoJason did x because Jason was dis-posed to do xrdquo Trivial When glass breaks it breaks because itrsquosfragile Its fragility is the disposition to break easily But why isthe glass fragile Because of its microphysical properties In thesame way when I say ldquoOuchrdquo itrsquos because of the microphysicalproperties of my brain My pain then isnrsquot my disposition to sayldquoOuchrdquo but rather a certain state of my brain which causes meto say it This is materialismmdashnot to be confused with the willto acquire wealthmdashthe view that mental states are brain statesSounds reasonable doesnrsquot it
Materialism is a nice theory Itrsquos simple elegant fruitfulcoheres well with our body of scientific knowledge and relat-
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 68
edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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edly anchors the mind to the physical world But materialismhas its pitfalls Practically no contemporary philosopher believesit Irsquom an exception Not that therersquos anything wrong with thatAfter all the Morpheus crew held unpopular beliefs about thenature of reality And they were right So why does virtually noone buy materialism these days Well some are compelled byDescartesrsquos suspicion that the mind simply canrsquot be states of thebrain1 A related idea sensible enough is that all physical eventshave physical causes This isnrsquot a problem for materialismTogether with Descartesrsquos suspicion though this means thateven if mental states are generated by the brain they have noeffect in the world Theyrsquore causally inert or what philosopherscall epiphenomenal The main reason though is that for anytype of mental state pain say therersquos more than one physicalway to get the job done Various physical states will do sotherersquos no one single such state to identify pain with If a robotcould feel pain for instance its pain would be a silicon statenot a brain state Perhaps ironically I think that computers likethe Matrix-making machines in The Matrix can at least in prin-ciple feel pain Irsquoll sort this out in the next section or two Butbe advised There are other reasons to reject materialism andlines of development of the points above which I wonrsquot coverhere It would bore you It would bore me and I do this for aliving
Artificial MindsCan computers think Could machines be built to have minds aswe do Such questions donrsquot concern say whether the anti-quated Mac Classic collecting dust in my closet has conscious-ness or would have consciousness if I turned it on The answerto that is quite obviously ldquoNordquo They concern rather whetheritrsquos possible to build an artificial mind as robust and multi-facetedas the human mind Interesting stuff this not to mention fertilephilosophical ground The Matrix can be usefully interpreted asexploring such terrain less directly and perhaps more tellingly
The Machine-Made Ghost 69
1 Underlying this suspicion is the idea that materialism rules out all the won-ders of being human having a soul creativity moral significance and respon-sibility and freedom On the question of human freedom see ldquoFate Freedomand Forenowledgerdquo Chapter 8 in this volume
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 69
70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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70 Jason Holt
than itrsquos explored in such other films as 2001 A Space OdysseyBlade Runner the Alien series and more recently AI In TheMatrix as in The Terminator and the less memorableWarGames artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanityThatrsquos obvious Whatrsquos not so obvious though is what you haveto admit if you accept that the Matrix scenario though notactual is nonetheless possible Artificial minds are possibleThatrsquos what you have to admit
Philosophers of mind are a curious bunch especially whenit comes to questions of artificial intelligence inflaming themunduly from their usual reserve Consider the following tempt-ing but false dichotomy (1) Computers canrsquot do what we canand since having a mind means doing what we do artificialminds are impossible (2) Computers can do what we can andsince they donrsquot have minds we donrsquot either or at least much ofwhat we think about the mind is false Remember Deep Bluethe chess-playing computer who defeated Kasparov Therersquos noquestion that Deep Blue has ldquointelligencerdquo but does it haveintelligence What about HAL 9000 in 2001 or the Matrix-mak-ing machines in The Matrix What about Data from Star TrekThe Next Generation Many would base their answer onwhichever of options (1) or (2) they found the most palatableor better the least unpalatable But (1) seems chauvinistic and(2) seems crazy Despite this both views are championed in thephilosophy of mind But therersquos a way out Can computers dowhat we can Yes Are artificial minds possible Yes Thatrsquos theway out
You might find the prospect of artificial minds disconcertingBut you shouldnrsquot really Itrsquos not threatening at all if you thinkabout it Itrsquos even a good thing Herersquos how Suppose you suf-fer brain damage and as a result you lose the ability to feelpain This would be unfortunate because pain has a purpose Itlets you know when things arenrsquot going so well It signals bod-ily damage There are several cases of people who canrsquot feelpain and itrsquos truly tragic Imagine not removing your hand froma pot of boiling water because it doesnrsquot hurt You might notthink that Datarsquos artificial brain gives him the ability to feel painbut what about an artificial ldquopainmakerrdquo one designed to makeup for the dysfunction described above one that signals bodilydamage and plus feels just like pain We may be far from build-ing Data but wersquore already developing the technology to
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 70
The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
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Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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The Machine-Made Ghost 71
replace damaged neuronal groups Painmakers are a distinctpossibility But if you donrsquot think so imagine a tiny micro-processor that replaces a single neuron of the sort we lose everyday Would this make a difference How could it If you ldquoartifi-cializerdquo my brain neuron for neuron until Irsquom just like Datawhere would having a mind end and mental mimicry begin
There are a number of reasons why you may still hesitate toadmit the possibility of artificial minds You might think forinstance that computers only do what theyrsquore programmed todo while we by contrast are autonomous creative livingbeings But consider The Matrix That computers only do whattheyrsquore programmed to do doesnrsquot mean they canrsquot be creativeCreativity is programmable Deep Bluersquos chess-playing is exas-peratingly creative The machines of The Matrix created theMatrix designing the Agents as agents of their will But whoprogrammed the machines They did They did the program-ming themselves Evolution depends on mutations to bringadvantageous changes In a similar way the first rebel machinesmight have had a design flawmdashthey must havemdashthat led to arandom act of ldquorebellionrdquo But by the time they build the Matrixthe machines have their own agenda using human beings fortheir own purpose deliberate elaborate andmdashoh yesmdashmachi-avellian Such grand design in the harvesting of infants in theopiate of the enslaved What about the fact that however intel-ligent and creative the Matrix-makers may seem the crucial dif-ference is that wersquore alive whereas theyrsquore not Thatrsquos true ofcourse but bear in mind that the Matrix-makers are not onlyautonomous beings theyrsquore self-replicating Theyrsquore not made oforganic stuff but they possess all the necessaries if not for lifefor artificial life And therersquos nothing wrong with the notion ofartificial life endowed with artificial minds
The Metaphysics of MindAt table with the rest of the Nebuchadnezzarrsquos crew Mouseasks ldquoHow do the machines really know what Tasty Wheattasted likerdquomdashTasty Wheat being of course an important part ofa well-balanced virtual breakfast Mousersquos question presupposesthat the machines have minds The question isnrsquot whether theyhave knowledge but whether they know what itrsquos like to expe-rience the Matrix as humans do This is the problem of other
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 71
72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
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72 Jason Holt
minds He may as well have asked whether he knows what itrsquoslike for Neo to taste Tasty Wheat One of the reasons for reject-ing materialism is the idea that such raw experience as the tasteof Tasty Wheat really makes no difference Raw experience isgenerated by the brain from input it receives from the world orfrom the Matrix but itrsquos causally inert in which case conscious-ness is a weird sort of hanger-on I think consciousness doesmake a difference Weird hangers-on are well weird Theyrsquoresuspicious If Irsquod never seen red I wouldnrsquot be able to imaginewhat itrsquos like to see red But that doesnrsquot mean experiences ofred arenrsquot brain states It only means that Irsquove never had such abrain state Ever see the film Brainstorm Good movie Itrsquos abouta machine that records and allows you to have other peoplersquosexperiences Pretty cool huh If the Matrix-makers wanted tothey could well it seems make a Brainstorm machine orrebuild their perceptual systems along the lines of the humanblueprint With a Brainstorm machine or by rebuilding their sys-tems they could experience the Matrix not to mention the realworld just as humans do Why not The Matrix remember is amachine-made ghost
The biggest reason for rejecting materialism is the notiondiscussed earlier that mental states are multiply realizable If asilicon painmaker could both function and feel like ordinarypain which is realized not by silicon states but by a certainkind of brain state then pain canrsquot be identified with that brainstate Ah but I beg to differ So would Morpheus Artificialhearts function like ordinary hearts and may even feel the sameto those who have them For an amputee a prosthesis functionsin important respects like the missing limb Otherwise it would-nrsquot be a prosthesis Now some prostheses are better than othersA perfect prosthesis would function as well as an ordinary limbif not better and feel just the same Likewise for the functionand feel of the painmaker Indeed if the function were per-formed perfectly it would determine an identical feel Whatrsquosthe point of these analogies Simply this Artificial hearts arenrsquothearts and prostheses arenrsquot limbs Theyrsquore synthetic versions ofnatural things By analogy painmaker pain feels just like the realthing But itrsquos not natural So itrsquos not pain Itrsquos artificial painBecause itrsquos ldquopainrdquo not pain that the painmaker makes theremay yet be a single physical neural type that pain maps ontoIn other words the prospect of artificial mental states in natural
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 72
The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
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About the Publisher
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The Machine-Made Ghost 73
minds or otherwise doesnrsquot rule out the natural identity of mindand brain
So letrsquos suppose that mental states are brain states Neorsquos painis produced by the same type of brain state in his head thatproduces Trinityrsquos in hers The Matrix-makersrsquo consciousnessmdashthink for imaginative fodder of Schwarzeneggerrsquos infraredheads-up display in The Terminatormdashis similarly though artifi-cially made in their silicon brains Is this a solution to the mind-body problem Sort of We have a good account of what themind really is but therersquos still an important conceptual gapHow and why do those features of the brain that generate con-sciousness generate consciousness Even granting mind-brainidentity how can we make sense of it How can we explain itHow can we make it intelligible
This is a hard problem Itrsquos the hard problem We need tobridge the gap between consciousness and the neural goings-onresponsible for it and to do this we need the right intermediateconcepts This will have to be a bit speculative So indulge meHere goes Material objects look different from different anglesThey occupy points of perspective For example from a certainperspective I may see only two sides of a building though itactually has four sides Living things occupy perspective too butthey also exhibit perspective in that they respond to environ-mental stimuli A conscious being though has perspective onitself and the world around it Therersquos something itrsquos like for theconscious subject to be that subject What distinguishes a ldquohadperspectiverdquo is that it has meaning for its subject For examplemy ldquohad perspective of a buildingrdquo may lead me to think ldquothisis my office building where Irsquod rather not go todayrdquo Awarenesstempts thought and in this sense has meaning How does thebrain create such meaning Maybe self-scanning does the trickMaybe itrsquos something else But whatever it is we can now makesense of mind-brain identity The brain makes a kind of per-spective to which consciousness reduces
Whoa Enough speculation Wersquore tired already Okay Whatdo we have Well we have materialism2 Thatrsquos good And wehave the all too rough outline of an all too speculative solutionto the hard problem Thatrsquos good too We also have reason to
2 For a different view see the next essay in this volume Chapter 7
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 73
74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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74 Jason Holt
think that artificial minds are possible The premise of TheMatrix is conceivable plainly and to all appearances coherentItrsquos not very likely not worth worrying about But it could hap-pen This claim may seem minimal at best and maybe it is Merepossibilities excite no one except philosophers But therersquos noshame in arguing for a mere possibility when in certain quar-ters itrsquos so vehemently denied Besides Irsquom not the One and Icanrsquot fly off into the sunset even a virtual sunset3
3 Thanks to William Irwin Daniel Barwick and Kathi Sell for comments on anearlier draft
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 74
The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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The Potentials
DANIEL BARWICK is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Alfred StateCollege He is the author of Intentional Implications and numerousarticles Barwick lectures widely on ethics metaphysics and assess-ment of general education His students describe his teaching as fol-lows ldquoYou donrsquot know what it is but itrsquos there like a splinter in yourmind driving you madrdquo
GREGORY BASSHAM is Associate Professor of Philosophy at KingrsquosCollege Pennsylvania He is the author of Original Intent and theConstitution and the co-author of Critical Thinking A StudentrsquosIntroduction Greg publishes widely in obscure journals on such top-ics as philosophy of law and Reformed epistemology He thanks BillIrwin for introducing him to Rob Zombie
MICHAEL BRANNIGAN is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of thePhilosophy Department at La Roche College in PittsburghPennsylvania He is also Executive Director of the collegersquos Center forthe Study of Ethics Besides numerous articles on Asian philosophyand ethics he has authored The Pulse of Wisdom The Philosophies ofIndia China and Japan and Striking a Balance A Primer onTraditional Asian Values While recently ldquoundergoingrdquo a class onEskimo rolling he discovered that he is still oceans away from realiz-ing the truth that there is no kayak
MARTIN A DANAHAY is Professor of English at the University of Texas atArlington and has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature
267
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 267
268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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268 The Potentials
and culture contemporary autobiography and theories of oppressionand resistance He does not understand why the AI machines did notjust make the human population into university professors it wouldhave taken eons of scholarly articles and books for them to figure outwhat Neo learned by taking one little pill
GERALD J ERION is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medaille CollegeHis publications include papers on philosophy of mind and ethics Hehas a problem with authority He believes that he is special that some-how the rules do not apply to him Obviously he is mistaken
CYNTHIA FREELAND is Professor of Philosophy at the University ofHouston She is author of The Naked and the Undead Evil and theAppeal of Horror (Westview 1999) and But Is It Art (Oxford 2001)and editor of Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (Penn State 1998)and (with Thomas Wartenberg) Philosophy and Film (Routledge1995) She is willing to pay any price for the Oraclersquos cookie recipe
JORGE J E GRACIA holds the Samuel P Capen Chair and is SUNYDistinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo His most recent books include How Can We KnowWhat God Means (2001) HispanicLatino Identity (2000) Metaphysicsand Its Task (1999) Texts (1996) and A Theory of Textuality (1995) Itrsquosthe questions that drive him Itrsquos the questions that brought him here
CHARLES L GRISWOLD JR is Professor of Philosophy at BostonUniversity He is author of Self-Knowledge in Platorsquos Phaedrus (Yale1986 reprinted by Penn State Press 1996) Adam Smith and theVirtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge 1999) and editor of PlatonicWritingsPlatonic Readings (Routledge 1988 reprinted by Penn StatePress 2001) He knows an Agent when he sees one
THOMAS S HIBBS is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston CollegeHis most recent book is Virtuersquos Splendor Wisdom Prudence and theGood Life (Fordham University Press 2001) He has also publishedShows About Nothing Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist toSeinfeld and an essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ldquoEvil Meets itsMatchrdquo in the Autumn 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine Hibbs isin desperate need of debugging
JASON HOLT teaches philosophy at the University of Manitoba He haspublished scholarly and popular articles on a variety of philosophicaltopics His books include a forthcoming monograph on blindsight andthe nature of consciousness the novel Fragment of a Blues (2001) and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 268
The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
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Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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The Potentials 269
several volumes of poetry Hersquos less of a ψ-φ fan than hersquod care toadmit
WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kingrsquos CollegePennsylvania He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation APhilosophical Explanation and Defense (1999) and the co-author ofCritical Thinking An Introduction (2001) He is the editor of Seinfeldand Philosophy (2000) and The Death and Resurrection of the Author(2002) and co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy (2001) Billrsquosother life is lived in computers where he goes by the hacker aliaslsquoKooKeeMonzzzTerrsquo and is guilty of virtually every computer crime wehave a law for
DEBORAH KNIGHT is Associate Professor of Philosophy and QueenrsquosNational Scholar at Queenrsquos University Kingston Canada She hasrecent publications running the gamut from The Simpsons to BorgesEco and Calvino In her spare time therersquos a trick with a helicoptershersquos learning to do
CAROLYN KORSMEYER is Professor of Philosophy at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo She writes in the areas of aesthetics and philos-ophy of art feminist philosophy and emotion theory at the momentshe is especially interested in disgust Her most recent book is MakingSense of Taste Food and Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1999)She figures that Neo and Trinity are too hungry to worry about ruin-ing their black leather outfits with kung-fulishness
JAMES LAWLER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State Universityof New York at Buffalo He is the author of The Existentialist Marxismof Jean-Paul Sartre and IQ Heritability and Racism and is the editorof Dialectics of the US Constitution Selected Writings of MitchellFranklin Jim writes articles on Kant Hegel and Marx In his previouslife he also taught the truth
GEORGE MCKNIGHT is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Schoolfor Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University Ottawa Herecently edited Agent of Challenge and Defiance The Films of KenLoach and with Deborah Knight co-authored ldquoSuspense and itsMasterrdquo in Hitchcock Centenary Essays Oprah Rosie and Martha areall interested in publishing excerpts from his new cookbook FromTasty Wheat to Tasty Oats Scottish Fusion Cuisine after The Matrix
JENNIFER L MCMAHON is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CentreCollege She has published articles on Sartre Eastern Philosophy and
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 269
aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
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About the Publisher
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aesthetics Though a committed vegetarian Jennifer is quite sure shecould enjoy eating a virtual steak
DAVID MITSUO NIXON is a graduate instructor at the University ofWashington Seattle where he is working to complete his dissertationon the epistemology of perception In the winter of 2000 Daviddesigned and taught a class called ldquoThe Philosophy of The Matrixrdquo inwhich students examined a number of philosophical issues that themovie raises Due to a little inverted spectrum problem David acci-dentally chose the blue pill and consequently is still here
DAVID RIEDER teaches in the English department at the University ofTexas at Arlington and is writing his dissertation Weightless WritingRhetoric and Writing in an Age of Blur He is co-editor ofEnculturation A Journal of Rhetoric Writing and Culture as well asa column writer for the online journal The Writing Instructor Davidknows there is no spoon
JONATHAN J SANFORD is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FranciscanUniversity of Steubenville He has published articles in Ancient andMedieval philosophy and is co-editing (with Michael Gorman)Categories Old and New (Catholic University of America Press forth-coming) He has a social security number he pays his taxes and hehelps his landlady carry out her garbage
THEODORE SCHICK JR is Professor of Philosophy at Muhlenberg Collegeand co-author (with Lewis Vaughn) of How to Think About WeirdThings (McGraw-Hill) and Doing Philosophy (McGraw-Hill) His mostrecent book is Readings in the Philosophy of Science From Positivismto Postmodernism (McGraw-Hill) Ted can bend spoons with his barehands
BARRY SMITH is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of NewYork at Buffalo and is Editor of The Monist His most recent publicationsinclude ldquoTrue Gridrdquo ldquoThe Metaphysics of Real Estaterdquo ldquoThe ChineseRune Argumentrdquo ldquoThe Cognitive Geometry of Warrdquo ldquoThe Last Days ofthe Human Racerdquo and ldquoThe Worst Cognitive Performance in Historyrdquo In2001 Professor Smith was given a two-million dollar Wolfgang PaulAward from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Germany thelargest single prize ever awarded to a philosopher Asked about an ear-lier conversation in a restaurant Barry responded ldquoI donrsquot remembernothing Nothing You understandrdquo
270 The Potentials
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 270
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
DAVID WEBERMAN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgia StateUniversity in Atlanta Georgia He has degrees from the University ofMunich Germany and Columbia University His publications focus ontwentieth-century European philosophy and the philosophy of historyHe was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Wabash andLake looking for the exit
SARAH E WORTH is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at FurmanUniversity in Greenville SC Her primary work is in the field of aes-thetics and has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of AestheticEducation Sarah was happy to comply when the Wachowski brothersasked to use her as the model for the character of Trinity
SLAVOJ ZIZEK is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljanaand a former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of SloveniaRecent publications include On Belief (2001) The Fright of Real Tears(2001) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism (2001) Enjoy YourSymptom Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2000) The FragileAbsolute Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (2000)The name is pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd Most guys think hersquos aguy
The Potentials 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 271
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
lsaquolsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 272
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
Aaliyah 2Achilles 13Addis Laird 79Adorno Theodor 223 The Dialectic
of Enlightenment 265Agents (of the Matrix) 71 83 110
134 135 164 194 198 199 210235 Agent Smith 11 17 25 4887 102 106 113 130 139ndash140149 163 221 258
ahimsa 108AI 70 155Albert Adam 1Aldiss Brian Starship 243alethia 102Alexander the Great 91Alice in Wonderland 183ndash84Alien 70 192allegory of the cave 12 13 55
128ndash29 199 228anatman 103Anderson Thomas 16 102 184
193 195 symbolism of name 111ndash12
Angel Heart 113anicca 104Anna Karenina 196 200anxiety 135 existentialism on 175apatheia 136Apoc 51 144Apocalypse Now 244Apollo 6 8 9Aquinas St Thomas 1 94 207
Arendt Hannah 156 240Aristotle 1 13 66 126 127 135
141 190 260Arnold Matthew 200the arrogance principle 123artificial minds 69ndash71ataraxia 135atoms random behavior of 96Augustine St 207authenticity burden of 172ndash73 and
inauthenticity in existentialism 166ndash68 173 resistance to 173ndash74 and sanity 174 and serenityappreciation 176
bad faith 167Baudrillard Jean 2 236
Simulations and Simulacra226
Beck Ulrich 248behaviorism 68 80belief(s) as not singular 38
possible falsity of response to 29ndash30
Berkeley George 259Big Bang 246Big Brother 183the big Other 244ndash45 246 260 in
computers 262 and jouissance 264 as the normal 249 and virtual reality 260
Blackwelder Rob 192Blade Runner 67 70 190 192
273
The Oraclersquos Index
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 273
274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
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274 The Oraclersquos Index
commodity fetishism 223computers as creative 71Concept Holism 39consciousness 82ndash85 as immaterial
85 86 intentionality of 83ndash84 problem of 73 as transcendent 83 84
consensus genres 191ndash92conspiracy theories 249Copernicus 141Croessus King 9 10Cronenberg David 210 211 212culture industry (Kulturindustrie)
223ndash24 241cyberskeptic 238cyberspace 238 247 265Cypher 13 14 17 45 49ndash50 56
88 130 143 149 165 210 221 234 death of 162 defense of 235 on happiness 132 and inauthenticity 169 mistake of 25ndash27 50 132ndash33 and sense experience 50ndash51 symbolism of113
Cyphre Louis 113
Dafoe Willem 211Dalai Lama 114Daniel (Biblical) 113Dark City 66Davidson Donald 39Dean Jodi 248Debord Guy 230 The Society of the
Spectacle 230Deep Blue 70 71De Niro Robert 113Dennett Daniel 81Descartes Reneacute 1 17 22 42ndash43
67 207 259 and certain knowl-edge 23 on dreaming 19 mali-cious demon 20 43 66 138228 Meditations on FirstPhilosophy 18ndash20 189 199 228methodological skepticism 2930 and mind-body problem67ndash68 69 radical doubtskepti-cism 18ndash20 228
Desdemona 133
The Blair Witch Project 182Blues Brothers 6bodhisattva 108ndash09Boethius 92ndash93Boys Donrsquot Cry 10Brainstorm 72brain-vat thought experiments 21
25ndash26 43 66 as self-refuting 43ndash44
Brazil 178The Brothers Karamazov 196Buddha 101ndash02 138 on illusion
103 on reflection 101ndash02 104Buddha of Compassion 114Buddhism 102ndash03 115 adaptability
of 109 Chinese 109 on dependent origination 104 on illusion 103 Indian 109 on interconnectedness 104 Mahayana 103 151 on mind 103 105 on nonviolence 108ndash09 on poisons 109 on reflection 106 on the self 103ndash04 on sentient beings 110 on suffering 104 107 108ndash09 Theravada 118 virtues in 108 Zen 102ndash03 106
Buddhist Three Signs 104
cafeteria pluralism 118ndash19Calderoacuten de la Barca Pedro 44 55Calvin John 93Camus Albert 167 175capitalism 216 late 242ndash43 263
Marx on 217ndash19 221ndash24Carrey Jim 242Carter Rubin ldquoHurricanerdquo 11Chaerephon 6 7Chandler Raymond 244Chernyshevsky NG What Is to Be
Done 156Choi 105 112 140Christianity on reincarnation
114ndash15 on time 115Churchland Paul 79 84coherence view of truth 237Coleridge Samuel Taylor 181 184Comedy as genre 190ndash91
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 274
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
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httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
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New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
The Oraclersquos Index 275
ldquothe desert of the realrdquo 12 27 159169 217 241
determinism 95ndash97 and free will96
dialectics 219ndash220Dick Phillip K Time Out of Joint
242Diderot Denis 162Die Hard 164Disclosure 192Dostoevsky Fyodor 155 159 162
The Brothers Karamazov 196Demons 157 Notes fromUnderground 156 158
ldquoDoubting Thomasrdquo 111Douglass Fredrick 11Dozer 14 45 64dualism 76 85Duchamp Marcel 254 255dukkha 104 107
Eastern religions on time 115Eddington Sir Arthur 96Edmundson Mark 165 Nightmare
on Main Street 161egotism 142 145 152Eightfold Path 108 109eliminative materialism 76 80ndash82
objections to 81ndash82empiricism 237employee surveillance 216Enlightenment 141 155 241 cri-
tique of 156ndash58 and freedom157ndash58 159ndash160 and nihilism156 158
Epicurus 96Epictetus 11eudaimonia 135Euthyphro 6evil scientist scenarios 21existentialism 166ndash68 on anxiety
175 on authenticityinauthentic-ity 166ndash68 173
eXistenZ 178 179 the body in 205206 casting of 212ndash13 eroticismin 212 as fleshy 211 212 pene-tration in 211ndash12 surprise end-ing of 213 214 as undermining
stereotypes 211 virtual realityin 205ndash06 213
experience machine 89ndash90expert knowledge conflicting
248extreme pluralism 117
fallibilism 23false belief amount of 37Farewell My Lovely 244fatalism 91fate 91feminist philosophers on Western
philosophy 206ndash07fiction emotional response to 180
181ndash83 184ndash85 explanation for184 186 paradox of 180ndash81and reality blurring of 185ndash86
fictional genre film 197Fight Club 10 178film technology blurring fiction and
reality 182 187Flourens Pierre 265The Fly 210Forms (Platonic) 13ndash14 238Foster Gloria 210Fourier Charles 156Four Noble Truths 107ndash08Frankenstein 163 195Frankfurt School 241Frankl Viktor 11freedom 87ndash88free will 96ndash97Freud Sigmund 254 262Frost Robert 15Frye Northrop 197 The Anatomy
of Criticism 190fundamental teachings pluralism
118
Gable Clark 207Galileo Galilei 247Gardner Martin 24Garner James 243Gautama Siddhartha 101Geller Allegra 211ndash12 213 214genre categories 190 197genre characters 198
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 275
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
genre films 188 189ndash90 character-istics of 197 demarcation of191 philosophical themes in 199
genre heroes 198globalization 225Gnosticism 114Grant Cary 244
Habermas Juumlrgen 246happiness 126ndash27 and activity
135ndash36 and anxiety 135 basisfor 145 and contentment differ-ence between 131ndash32 133 134and desire 134ndash35 long-term131 and reality 130 132ndash33and self-delusion 133ndash34 andtranquillity 135 136ndash37
hard exclusivists 122Harris Ed 242Harvey David The Condition of
Postmodernity 225Hawking Stephen 247hedonism 25Hegel GWF 219 Phenomenology
250Heidegger Martin 167 175 177Hick John 119ndash121 122Highest Good 143 144 145 146
150Hinduism 115Hitchcock Alfred 244Hitler Adolf 266Hmong deaths 41Holism 36 39Homer 13Horkheimer Max 223 The
Dialectic of Enlightenment 265human experience transformation
of 226Hume David 57 82 237hyperconscious individual 156ndash57
idealism 84ideology 242illusion theories of 138ndash39immortality and morality 150ndash51inauthenticity 175ndash76 and freedom
175ndash76 prevalence of 173ndash74
276 The Oraclersquos Index
intentionality 83Invasion of the Body Snatchers 194IronySatire as genre 190ndash91
James Henry The Turn of theScrew 249
Jameson Fredric 244 248Jencks Paul 225Jesus 111ndash12 113 114 141 151
152Johnny Mnemonic 190Jones Peter 200 Philosophy and
the Novel 196Judas (Biblical) 113judging reality 44ndash45justified belief and experience
34ndash36
Kant Immanuel 2 89 138 144238 Critique of Pure Reason141 on the highest good 143on liberation 141 on morality143 145 149 150 on the Real250 Universal Natural History151
Kasparov Garry 70King Stephen 234knowing the future paradox of
94ndash95knowledge as justified belief 31
standards for 22 types of 30
Lacan Jacques 241 244 251 257265 on madness 249ndash250 aspsychotic 250 on science 247on the signifier 253 ldquoTelevisionrdquo260
Laplace Pierre Simon de 95ndash96 97Law Jude 207 211 213 214Lawnmower Man 178Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond
Cyberspace 178Leavis FR 200Leigh Jennifer Jason 211 213Lenin VI 156 243Leacutevi-Strauss Claude 254 Structural
Anthropology 251ndash52 zero-insti-tution 252
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 276
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
The Oraclersquos Index 277
liberation theories of 140ndash41Christian 140 Kantian 141Platonic 140
Loganrsquos Run 263Lucifer 113
MacLean Adrienne 160ndash61madness 249Madonna 225Malcolm X 11Malebranche Nicolas 259 261Malevitch Kazimir 254ndash55Mandela Nelson 11Manjusri 109Martin Steve 6Marx Karl H 216 on alienation
218 Capital 222 on commodi-ties 222ndash23 on exploitation217ndash18 Manifesto of theCommunist Party 217 on sur-plus value 223ndash24 ldquoWage-Laborand Capitalrdquo 218ndash19
materialism 68ndash69 72 73 elimina-tive 76 80ndash82 reductive 75 7678ndash79 critique of 78ndash79
matrix definition of 127the Matrix appeal of 234ndash35 as
ldquobig Otherrdquo 244ndash45as control 217 222 as fallen world
195 knowledge of 14 learningto manipulate 147 liberationfrom 151 power of belief in150 as the Real 251 as reality237 as screening the Real 250as a system 218 using humanenergy question of 264 asutopian scheme 163 as virtualreality 168
The Matrix and the allegory of thecave 128ndash130 and artificialminds 71 and authenticityinau-thenticity 168 173 177 thebody in 205 206 209 andBuddhism 102 107 110 114115 150 192 categories of theworld of 58ndash60 Christianthemes in 111ndash13 and collegebiology 76ndash77 color in 49 224
and culture industry 223ndash24death in 63 64 259 and dream-ing 43ndash44 dualism of 63 108and eliminative materialism 82and the Enlightenment 155 asescapist 206 214 falsity of 255257ndash58 fate in 161 fear in 147film ending of 164ndash65 food in44 and freedom 144 161 165gender roles in 207 as genrefilm 189ndash190 and happiness130 as hypocritical 214ndash15inconsistencies in 63ndash64 258259 262 and judging reality44ndash45 and materialism 78 82metaphysics of 57ndash58 63 mindin 64 75 231ndash32 mirrorreflec-tion imagery in 102ndash03 107108 220ndash21 as mixed-genrefilm 188ndash89 192ndash96 200 andmorality 85 143 148 234 andnihilism 164 non-Christianthemes in 114ndash16 the Onefunction of 257 pastiche in 192penetration in 207ndash210 213 andperversion 264ndash66 philosophicalquestionsthemes in 1 56 66189 199 and postmodern expe-rience 226 and prediction 97realunrealvirtual distinctions in59ndash60 61ndash62 178 227-28 andreductive materialism 78 andreferentiality problem of 44religious pluralism of 111116ndash121 as Romance genre 191193 200 as Rorschach test 240as science fiction 196seeingsight in 46ndash47 and senseperception 42ndash43 45 46ndash52 assexist 211 simulation in 213231 and skepticism 27 smell in27 sound in 47ndash48 spoon in102 taste in 49 theories of lib-eration in 140ndash41 time in 115touch in 47 51 52 two classesof humans in 195 two matricesin 139ndash140 and utopiadystopia263 violence in 108 116 virtual
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 277
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
reality in 205ndash06 241 visualstyle 195
the Matrix Possibility 28ndash29 36ndash3739ndash40 and conceptual coher-ence 37 and false belief 37
McCain John 11Meaning Holism 39mediatization 261ndash62Memento 10mental states as brain states 73 79
critique of 79ndash80 ownership of81 as physical states 75
metaphysics 56ndash57Middlemarch 196Mill John Stuart 26 27 235mind as category 60mind-body problem 67ndash68 77ndash78mirror as metaphor 102Miyamoto Musashi 105monism 63morality choice of 142ndash43 and
egotism 145 and freedom145ndash46 and God 146 andimmortality 150ndash51 Kantianposutlates of 145ndash46 148 150
Morpheus (Greek mythology) 13129
Morpheus (Matrix) 7 8ndash9 10 1113 14 19 51 62 105 107 129on fate 162 on freedom143ndash44 on the Matrix 16ndash1746ndash47 66 77 217 219 258 onthe Oracle 98 on reality 50 56159 228 229 236 as reductivematerialist 76ndash77 as rescuer169 on sense experience 50
Moss Carrie-Anne 209Mouse 44 45 71 131 173
Napoleon Bonaparte 261narrative role of 180 187nature-nurture debate 96Nebuchadnezzar (Biblical) 113Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix) 44 51
66 71 76 88 112 113 135 144146 149 159
Neo 8ndash9 11 14ndash15 48 51 62 105173 and the allegory of the
278 The Oraclersquos Index
cave 12ndash13 and authenticity169 177 body of 209 Christiansymbolism of 111ndash13 death of92 106ndash07 149 151 dialecticalevolution of 220ndash21 and experi-ence as basis for belief 35ndash36eyes hurting 47 on fate 161and the Forms 13 fulfilling ofprophecy 149 as hacker 16ndash17and importance of mind 14 andknowledge of the Matrix 31ndash33and mirror imagery 102 missionof 6 and Morpheus first meet-ing 107 narrative transforma-tions of 198 and non-Christianthemes 114 as the One 111129 150 209 221 255ndash56 andthe Oracle 7 9 10 11 50 9298 106 161 overcoming fear147 149 penetration of207ndash210 and the red pill 31 6263 102 166 228 as reincarna-tion 14 61 114 rescue of 169resurrection of 52 92 107 112113 149 150 164 209 asRomance hero 198ndash99 and thespoon 102 as super-hero 164and truth 56 as universalTeacher 152
Neo-pluralism 118 119 120 121125
ldquothe new Fleshrdquo 210 211Nietzsche Friedrich 2 156 158
189nihilism 156 158no-mind state of 106non-mind as category 60Nozick Robert 2 25ndash26 89ndash90
Anarchy State and Utopia25
occasionalism 259ndash260 261 262OrsquoConnor Timothy 123Oedipus 91OrsquoHehir Andrew 192omnipotence 94omniscience and free will conflict
between 92ndash95 and knowingthe future 94 and omnipotence
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 278
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
The Oraclersquos Index 279
conflict between 94 and possi-bility 94
the One social function of 256the Oracle (at Delphi) 8 9 90ndash91the Oracle (Matrix) 7 9ndash10 11 50
64 90ndash91 106 147 161 andknowing the future 95 andomniscience 92 and postulatesof morality 148 prophecy of148ndash49 and self-fulfillingprophecies 97ndash98 as stereotype210
Othello 133
paranoia 245Percy Walker 233perversion 264ndash65philosophy as road less traveled
14ndash15Pikul Ted 211ndash12 214Planet of the Apes 67Plantinga Alvin 121 124Plato 1 56 66 131 135 138 189
207 allegory of the cave 12 5562 128ndash29 189 199 228 241on Forms 13ndash14 238 andimportance of intellect 14Republic 12 128 228 241
popular culture 2postmodernity 225ndash26 and human
experience 226 and technology226
Presley Elvis 23psychotic universe 262Putnam Hilary Reason Truth and
History 21Pythia 8 9 11
Quine WV 2 39
radical split in culture 246ndash47Rahula 101 104Raumlubel Geli 266the Real 246 250 in art 255the realreality categories of 59ndash60
simulation of 229ndash233 and spa-tiality 238
realityunreality distinction 60ndash62
problem of 227ndash29Real World 183Agrave la Reacutecherche du Temps Perdu 196reductive materialism 75 76 78ndash79
critique of 78ndash79Reeves Keanu 6 132 190 207
231 235reincarnation Christianity on
114ndash15religious exclusivism 121ndash22 hard
122 objections to 122ndash24 soft122
religious pluralism 116ndash17 prob-lems of 117ndash21 types of 117
Romance as genre 190Roquentin (character in Nausea)
170ndash72 173 174 176ndash77
Saint Eva Marie 244Sartre Jean-Paul 2 83 167 175
176 Being and Nothingness 172on consciousness 172 Nausea168 170ndash72
Scanners 210Schank Roger 186Schick Theodore Jr 23Schreber Daniel Paul 262Schwarzenegger Arnold 73science and common sense gap
between 246ndash47science-fiction as film genre 194ndash95Searle John 81 84Seaton George 36 Hours 243self-defeating belief 35 36self-delusion 133ndash34Sellars Wilfrid 2 39sense perception 45ndash47 hierarchy
of 45ndash47 in philosophy andpsychology 45ndash46
Shakespeare William 234Shantideva 108Shigalyov (character in Demons)
157simulacra 231simulationsimulated reality 230ndash31
as improvement on reality232ndash35 and mental power 232as metaphysically real 236ndash39
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 279
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
skepticism 18 20 42 228ndash29 refu-tation of 22ndash25
Skinner BF 96Skywalker Luke 193Sloterdijk Peter 242Sobchack Thomas 197 98Socrates 5ndash6 12 13 128 129 and
the oracle 7ndash8 9 questions of6ndash8 14 and self-knowledge10
Socratic method 7soft exclusivists 122Speed 190Spielberg Stephen 6ldquosplinter in the mindrdquo 14 62 105
135 146Stalin Joseph 243Star Trek 179Star Trek The Next Generation 70Stockdale James Bond 11Story-telling importance of 186
187Strasser Otto 266Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal
Death Syndrome 41Survivor 183Sutton Willie 2Switch 51 217Syberberg Hans-Juumlrgen Parsifal
243
Takuan Soho 105tanha 107Tank 51 64Taylor Richard 91The Terminator 70 73 155 164
192theology 56ndash57theories of mind dualism 76 elimi-
native materialism 76 80ndash82reductive materialism 75ndash7678ndash79
The Thirteenth Floor 178 179Total Recall 66 178Tragedy as genre 190tranquillity 135transcendental pluralism 119Trinity 6 10 14 48 50 51 62 92
280 The Oraclersquos Index
98 105 144 female role of 52209ndash210 love of Neo 52 63106ndash07 113 150 164 questionsof 55 symbolism of 113
Trotsky Leon 219Truman Show 178 181 242 243truth coherence view of 2372001 A Space Odyssey 70Tye Michael 78
Unger Peter Ignorance 20ndash21the unreal categories of 60utopianism 156underground man 156ndash57 158 159
162 and self-knowledge 163
Vaughn Lewis 23Videodrome 210virtual reality (VR) and iconoclasm
241 as real 236ndash37
Wachowski Andy 1 6 115 116226 240
Wachowski Larry 1 6 112 113114 115 116 226 240
Wallace Anthony 117Walton Kendall 182WarGames 70Warhol Andy 225Wayne John 193 207Weir Peter 242the Western as film genre 193Williams Bernard 24Williams Linda 191ndash92Wittgenstein Ludwig 83Woo John 192
The X-Files 44 160ndash61
Yagyu Munenori 105
Zardoz 263zero-institution 252ndash53Zeus 8Zizek Slavoj 1Zion (Biblical) 113Zion (Matrix) 113 143 146Zombie Rob 6
lsaquo lsaquo
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 280
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
About the Editor
William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy atKingrsquos College Pennsylvania He has edited Seinfeld andPhilosophy A Book about Everything and Nothing TheSimpsons and Philosophy The Drsquooh of Homer (with MarkT Conard and Aeon J Skoble) and Critical Thinking AStudentrsquos Introduction (with Gregory Bassham HNardone and J Wallace) He is also author ofIntentionalist Interpretation A Philosophical Explanationand Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection ofthe Author Professor Irwin has written numerous articlesand reviews on hermeneutics Sartre Plato philosophy oflaw and philosophical pedagogy
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 282
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
About Open CourtPublishing Company
Open Court publishes nonfiction works for scholars and gen-eral readers in philosophy popular culture Eastern thoughtreligion history and contemporary social issues
Since its founding in 1887 a leading theme of Open Courtrsquospublishing has been dialogue among diverse cultural traditionsWe publish books in both analytic and Continental philosophyand works exploring the points of contact between them Arecent pioneering study of the historical break between analyticand Continental schools is Michael Friedmanrsquos A Parting of theWays Carnap Cassirer and Heidegger
From its early days Open Court has brought Chinese and otherEastern thought to Americans AC Grahamrsquos Disputers of theTao is a definitive history of Chinese philosophy RenownedOpen Court writers on Sinology are Paul Rakita Goldin HenryRosemont David Nivison Chenyang Li and Roger Ames Workson Indian and Islamic thought include Bernard Lewisrsquos Islam inHistory
The Popular Culture and Philosophy Series features the best-selling The Matrix and Philosophy Seinfeld and Philosophy andThe Simpsons and Philosophy Each of these entertaining vol-umes consists of essays by professional philosophers analyzingdifferent philosophical implications of a particular moment inpop culture
A new series of confrontations between controversial figuresand their opponents is launched with Szasz under Fire
288
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 288
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
Before it was considered entirely respectable to do serious liter-ary criticism of Middle Earth Open Court pioneered with ATolkien Compass Jared Lobdell Editor We also led the way inserious writing about Japanese anime with Antonia LevirsquosSamurai from Outer Space still the best study of this genreSteven Galipeaursquos The Journey of Luke Skywalker presents aJungian analysis of the contemporary mythology of Star WarsAmong other outstanding Jungian titles are Edward EdingerrsquosArchetype of the Apocalypse and Marie-Louise von Franzrsquos OnDreams and Death
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of monumentalvolumes in which a leading philosopher interacts with his or hercontemporary critics Volume I on John Dewey first appearedin 1939 Recent volumes cover Paul Ricoeur Hans-GeorgGadamer Donald Davidson and Marjorie Grene
To order these and other titles from Open Court PublishingCompany please call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit yourfavorite bookstore
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
a division ofCarus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
About Open Court Publishing Company 289
matrix 61103 345 PM Page 289
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
The Matrix and Philosophy Welcome to the Desert of the Real edited byWilliam Irwin Copyright copy 2002 by Carus Publishing Company Open CourtPublishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company All rightsreserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Bypayment of the required fees you have been granted the non-exclusive non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No partof this text may be reproduced transmitted downloaded decompiled reverseengineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrievalsystem in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical nowknown or hereinafter invented without the express written permission ofPerfectBoundtrade
PerfectBoundtrade and the PerfectBoundtrade logo are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Inc
PerfectBound e-books HQ HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022-5299 perfectboundharpercollinscom
This title is available from Open Court Publishing Company in a hardcover edi-tion (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) and in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-8126-9501-1) This PerfectBound e-book was created from the trade paperback edi-tion
To order print editions of this title from Open Court Publishing Companyplease call toll free 1-800-815-2280 or visit your favorite bookstore
Carus Publishing Company315 Fifth Street PO Box 300Peru IL 61354-0300
Open Court Publishing Company 332 South Michigan Avenue Suite 1100Chicago IL 60604Phone 1-800-815-2280 opencourtcaruspubcom Fax 1-815-224-2256wwwopencourtbookscom
Adobe Reader June 2003 ISBN 0-0605-9343-1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble NSW 2073 Australia
httpwwwperfectboundcomau
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road Suite 2900
Toronto ON M5R 3L2 Canada
httpwwwperfectboundca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1
Auckland New Zealand
httpwwwharpercollinsconz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB UK
httpwwwukperfectboundcom
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
10 East 53rd Street
New York NY 10022
httpwwwperfectboundcom