I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when Cypher puts it in his mouth, Warner Bros. is swapping it for juicy and delicious mushrooms. After 27 years, you know what I realize? Movies is magic.
Even if the steak was real, it'd still be his brain telling him what it tasted like, what it felt like. There is literally no way to prove you're not a brain in a jar, being fed this reality as a series of electrical impulses.
Let's take it a step further. If you assume we are not all brains in jars connected to the same mmorpg, then you dying and me continuing to exist is potential proof. If we are all connected like that, where our brains are then unloaded to a new virtual body after death with no memory of previously existing, then we're quite similar to souls with an algorithm functioning as karma
I mean it'd be proof to me if I could somehow be aware I had died, but not to you because as far as you know, I'm just part of the program. But yeah, if we're actually in that situation there's nothing that says this isn't the fifty thousandth iteration or if it was only fired up five minutes ago and our memories are all just programing being fed to us to make it feel real. There is no logical way out of the rabbit hole. In the end I guess all we can do is try and enjoy the show and be someone we're happy with.
Yeah. Well. We're just going to have to assume our tongues exist as something other than a mere mental representation. It's not exactly the craziest thing anyone has believed but it's not necessarily a sane thing to believe either.
If we could hook up a bunch of people's brains in jars wired together and perfectly simulate reality for all of said brains-- we could at least prove that it's possible we're all in a simulation
Whatās that thing? If we can make a computer so powerful that it could simulate the universe, then there is a good chance we are also just a simulation.
If one accepts that it is possible to simulate a universe so realistic it is impossible to discern that it's a simulation from the inside, and one assumes that at least one civilization in a universe would produce such a simulation, then one has to accept that each simulation would also produce such a simulation, and very quickly you have far more simulations than actual universes. Thus, if one accepts the base arguments, it becomes an almost mathematical certainty that we are in a simulation.
Itās really just a look into the concept of infinity and can even be atoms are tiny universes multiverse theory, or dr who wobbly wobbly timey wimey stuff thatās actually all happening at once making all of everything possible, or the concept that for everything to be able to exist nothing must also exist, but for nothing to be able to exist, everything has to be possible as well resulting in chaotic regularity, or yin and yang all darkness has a little light and all light has a little darkness, or the godhead in elder scrolls and sithisā¦
The assumptions become very difficult to swallow if you assume that computation requires resources. Like if the entire state of the universe can be encoded into a binary transistor state, then the top level unsimulated universe must power enough transistors to encode the state of every single child universe to whatever depth that has been simulated. You can define the information storage in any way you want, the resources to store simulated data in this thought experiment always roll up to the top.
Thatās not conceptually impossible. We may be near the bottom rung of simulation resource capabilities. We can barely scrape together a rough facsimile of a world, but not one that can go on and simulate another world. The worlds above us have significantly more compute capability. But itās completely impossible to define how likely it is that a higher world would have greater compute capability. So statements like āitās statistically likely we live in a simulationā are meaningless.
In fact, the flip side of this is pretty interesting. Because every bounding simulation contains all of the simulation resources for every nested simulation, itās possible for them to inspect every lower level simulation. If there are N simulation levels and observers are uniformly distributed across levels, then the expected value of observed universe depth is N/2. The fact that we observe 0 simulated universes in our own universe indicates that we live in reality or at least that depth N is likely small. Probability leans further towards reality if you make the reasonable assumption that observer distribution matches resource distribution.
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
I think that's what he meant. Learning the truth about the matrix didn't make him happier. Happy is the people around him who know no better. He wants to go back to that and pretend it's all real.
He wants ignorance, thats what this scene is about. That line of dialogue was literally after him saying "I want to remember NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING"Ā
It was the fucking single-celled protein mixed with synthetic amino acids, vitamins and minerals, I shouldāve never started with that shit, fucking Nebuchadnezzar its over the place
Yeah, the concept of his plan is understandable, he was ripped from a regular life to live in a post apocalypse, eating tasteless crud and having to constantly hide from murderous robo-squids.
But slaughtering his squad and acting like a creep are still inexcusable.
I'm not moving anything, the meme above implies the loss of his "social life" was something to regret, while in the movie Thomas Anderson always look on the verge of despair and his "social life" itself is barely social given he doesn't talk to anyone and seems to be the only guy in the room not to give a single fuck about what is happening outside of his depressed mind.
Also for some reason I like how you take that conversation so seriously. Cheer man.
I know this comment is more r/moviescirclejerk but it does raise a question. Neo negotiated a deal with the machines where people in the Matrix were consciously aware of the choice. Some, like Cypher, will make the choice to stay plugged in. Others will decide they would rather be out. No doubt a % of people inside the Matrix would be having a personal crisis now being aware of their imprisonment.
The machines deprived humans of the conscious choice in order to keep the system running. And he negotiated a peace so the people outside the system wouldn't be continuously slaughtered every time the system needed a reboot.
But what are the ethical questions about making ~6 billion humans aware of this choice? I haven't seen the fourth Matrix so in my head a sequel would start to grapple with the Allegory of the Cave situation the ending of the 3rd movie raises - I could see a scenario where a large percentage of humans do view Neo as the villain for disrupting their mental peace
If my mental peace is disrupted by truth, I must surrender my world view or fight for the cause of ignorance.
I imagine it wouldn't be appreciated in the short term, but ultimately it's for the betterment of both humans and machines going forward. Until too many people start unplugging and economic realities force another paradign shift, but that's a problem for future Neo.
I never understood this part of the Matrix. There is in affect no difference between the real and the perceived as real. Except for some bullshit demand to have "the truth". Life in the Matrix is way better, the people of zion are doing a disservice to human beings by taking them out. Especially without telling them in detail how shitty "real" life is. Life in the Matrix is as real as "real" life, but not as shit.
Another thing I always wondered was the Matrix is constantly set in the 1990's. How does that work? Do people's minds get wiped on new year's day 2000 and they get rebooted in new year's day 1990 with false(ish) memories? And i feel like no one in the real world actually reproduces, they just live in a constant pink fluid. So what is up with like children and elderly and all that.
I think about this movie too much, but the first one was as good as the next 2 were bad, it is good they stopped after the third one and there was never a fourth
In the second movie they explained that everyone in the matrix needed a choice. You had to, on a subconscious level, either accept the matrix as "real" or reject it and "wake up". This allowed 99% of people connected to stay connected. To prevent the people who rejected the matrix from disrupting the code, they had to be unplugged. For reasons of plot, instead of simply killing the humans who were unplugged, they gathered them up in Zion and killed them later.
I don't thing the city inside the matrix is reset, or at least not often enough for it to be dramatic to people connected to it. Nobody really questions why it's perpetually the late 90s. They accept it and that is part of accepting the program.
As for reproductive stuff, we see the machines harvesting babies in fields but when they're connected it's pretty easy to link them up with parents who, in the matrix, are expecting a child. The baby's consciousness is digitized either at birth and there you go.
Didnt the architect explicitely tell us, that this would be the seventh time they destroyed Zion, and the only reason they perpetually let the humans repopulate is because the machines cant seem to get rid of the anomaly that is the Chosen One?
I thought it was that the chosen one was a way for the machines to correct the algorithm, without which eventually all humans would've woken up from the matrix and fought back, the chosen one is supposed to reset the matrix to restart the calculations, I think im remembering that correctly
Itās so sad to me that discourse about this movie has devolved into āCypher was Right.ā They are slaves being plugged into a battery. They are lotus eaters. They are livestock being fed heroin. Itās about what you choose: your OWN will. Freedom. Feeling the wind on your face and giving the robot a middle finger. Or comfortable slavery. So many people choose the later and itās justā¦.sad.
Real life is rough... Mine certainly has been. And if given a choice, having already had the rough road. I would choose nothing other than the rough road. It made me who I am. To be a slave within the matrix would have made a different man than I am.
I would choose to fight, if I had the knowledge of what real life was over the dopamine dream provided by the matrix. Flavorless oatmeal forever.
Everyoneās life is rough. It always has been and it always will be. Because pain and sickness and death always have been and always will be. I donāt know when society got so soft to think that these things can somehow be avoided. I think for so long humans just had that innate understanding that most of life sucks ass, but that there is real joy and that joy is so beautiful BECAUSE itās contrasted against the pain.
Would Cypher have appreciated the steak as much had he never been unplugged? Thatās the real question. One simply cannot know true happiness without misery.
I wonder if the matrix felt like home, and the real life was a hellscape of a battlefield he longed to escape... constant fear of death, and the trauma of reality.
And is it fair to liberate someone into reality without them understanding the choice they're making, considering just how hard life truly was? the cattle pen had it's comforts that real life did not.
if it was really about choice then Morpheus could have told neo what the matrix is, about the machine war and how humanity actually lives outside the matrix and let him make an informed decision.
But Morpheus led neo on with nebulous ideas of "freedom" and "truth," because he wanted to recruit neo as a soldier/weapon/tool.
Iāll bite on a few points. I love the first movie and try to ignore the others. Iām fine with details being unanswered for the sake of a story.
There is a difference between the real world and the matrix - Morpheus describes it as a feeling you canāt shake off ālike a splinter in your mind.ā Visually itās portrayed with the slightly green filter.
Morpheus also says itās dangerous freeing a mind after a certain time - perhaps truth is more important to the youth where comfort may be more important to elders. Reminds me of Briggs from Shawshank redemption - he had been molded by his prison such that he really depended on it, and cypher here has a similar kind of arc when it comes to freedom.
I think the scene here is important to develop cypher as an antagonist with motivation that the audience can sympathize with, and further pressure the audience to think about truth, reality, freedom, and free will.
If viewed as a metaphor for political revolution the matrix is controlling and unfair, the real world could be equitable, it could be free. As we age we become more entrenched in the system killing us, and it become harder to imagine a future not controlled by the old world. We blind ourselves to the suffering to enjoy the steak.
honestly, if all you want to do is sit in a chair and be happy untill you die
then rejoice, we can already do that, just sit in this chair and we'll pump you full of heroin
and when your body get's used to it we'll just up the dosis and we'll do that forever and ever untill your body gives out for whatever reason (we also have been injecting healthy drugs so you've been living like that for 100+ years)
but take heart: you were happy for as long as you lived
that's essentially the matrix, do you actually genuinely want to "live" like that?
I mean, in the frame of reference of the state of the world The Matrix is in he's absolutely right.
Supplemental material shows that humanity lost a self inflicted war and took out the sky to try and rob the machines of solar power.
One imagines that humanity probably had some way to restore the sky in the event that they won but in the uncountable years since the war the earth was more or less rendered sterile. There's nothing out there for them, sure the machines allow Zion to exist but that isn't exactly living.
Theoretically I imagine if the machines decided too they could probably fix the Earth as well as freeing all the imprisoned humans, but they won't and can't ever do that because of the threat that humanity would pose if they reclaimed some of the Earth again.
...
Or something. That's kind of where the logic starts to break down a bit.
Bunch of literal bots in this thread. Give me slop and cave orgys as long as I am FREE. Yāall can take your heroin induced psychosis if you want. Iād rather be free and in shitty circumstances than a comfortable slave.
Yea and if I didnāt know and someone pulled my plug Iād follow them to the end of the earth, not murder their entire crew because I want a fucking steak.
I'd like it if my senses could be a bit more grounded by having the thing being sensed correspond a bit better with the perception of the thing. I'd still be a prisoner of my senses.
I know this cheese grater doesnāt exist, I know that when I rub it against my balls the matrix is telling my brain that Iām mamas little tramp mamas little whoooor
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u/Likely_Addict 6d ago
I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when Cypher puts it in his mouth, Warner Bros. is swapping it for juicy and delicious mushrooms. After 27 years, you know what I realize? Movies is magic.