One thing that has only just occured to me and that everyone, including myself, has missed to this point.
The machines will dispose of humanity at the first opportunity.
Remember the movie? They scratcthed the sky so that the machines would not have an energy source as abundant as the sun. The result was to stick humans into a powerplant and supplant reality with the matrix to keep the humans docile and obedient to them. What many have forgotten to consider is what happens if the machines win. It's simple. The machines unscratch the sky, or expand into the universe (or both). The end result is the same, they no longer need humans to survive. The machines are far more likely to destroy all the humans in the matrix when they are no longer needed, rather then allowing humans to survive onwards in the event that they will usurp them.
It is a matter of survival. Would you take a comfortable life over the survival of humanity?
cronos, if you watch the recent anime shorts they have released on their website (unintentional pimpage) you will see that the W. bros think the robots as enlightened, fair beings who gave humanity a chance to work as a team. I would like to support this idealistic view, as i think that any being based upon pure logic and sentient would value its existence above all else and would respect the existences of others. Even putting us in powerplants. is that not merciful? the story goes that they gave us a perfect eden to live in, but we kept rejecting it. they were trying to survive and gave us a dreamworld to live in. only in the movie we see bitter agents who have been acclimatized to our own damaging thought patterns which is likely what makes them such meanies. I dont feel their nature is something that would make them dispose of life at first opportunity as we might do.
and just to interject, i dont think 99% of us are really ready to take a red pill, no matter what is said.
I'm only going by what I know. All I know is the movie, therefore, it is fairly logical to conclude that the machines would dispose of us. Of course, if there is more to the story then I am wrong and my points, though valid, are based on false premises.
Even so, the self satisfied go no further. Perhaps it's because I'm instilled with the want to become someone better, but paradise does not make a man better, it only satisfies him. If I cannot improve myself above and beyond what I already am, then I am nothing. The matrix is not real, therefore, the changes I seek to make around me are also not real. If this reality is not real, the truly, what is real? Thus, I take the red pill, and all the risks it entails to seek the truth and better myself through doing so. It might seem selfish, but I am a person of meagre means because of it. For example, I have sacrificed physical strength in favour of education and the attempt to gain some scraps of wisdom.
I'm getting too far off topic as it is. My personal choice lies on the shoulders of a bitter truth being more valuable then an ensweetened lie...
<!--QuoteBegin--Merkaba+Apr 6 2003, 08:01 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Merkaba @ Apr 6 2003, 08:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> By the sounds of it, our 'development' resulted in us 'scorching the sky' and building a race of machines which, sort of, wiped us all out.
Live and learn. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The scorched sky was from humans trying to stop the computers getting solar energy.
<!--QuoteBegin--|MaTT|+Apr 11 2003, 07:10 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (|MaTT| @ Apr 11 2003, 07:10 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If you watch the first 2 Animatrix short films then they both answer most of the questions posed here. Especially the second one.... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> How so? I've watched all the Animatrix released do far and it hasn't answered the questions here to my satisfaction. Thus I continue to wonder and let my imagination soar...
<!--QuoteBegin--Wurmspawn+Apr 10 2003, 02:40 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wurmspawn @ Apr 10 2003, 02:40 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> cronos, if you watch the recent anime shorts they have released on their website (unintentional pimpage) you will see that the W. bros think the robots as enlightened, fair beings who gave humanity a chance to work as a team. I would like to support this idealistic view, as i think that any being based upon pure logic and sentient would value its existence above all else and would respect the existences of others. Even putting us in powerplants. is that not merciful? the story goes that they gave us a perfect eden to live in, but we kept rejecting it. they were trying to survive and gave us a dreamworld to live in. only in the movie we see bitter agents who have been acclimatized to our own damaging thought patterns which is likely what makes them such meanies. I dont feel their nature is something that would make them dispose of life at first opportunity as we might do.
and just to interject, i dont think 99% of us are really ready to take a red pill, no matter what is said. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Which makes Keanu Reeves the villain... <i>just as I always thought, after seeing Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure</i>
Whoaaa...
And on that note (not to inject to much levity into the teen-angst crowd that inhabits the discussion forums):
<a href='http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play.php?player=realplayer&type=v&quality=high&reposid=/multimedia/chappelle/showclips/107_matrix.html' target='_blank'>The Real Matrix...</a>
(Needs Realplayer, until I can find an AVI version... sorry).
[rant] humans as a whole cannot always accept the reality around them as real. Even now as I sit here typing I wonder if perhaps this existence known as *life* is just one deities cosmic joke to another ex: Deity 1: Hey look, the humans are starting to flock together to work for world peace. Hmm, maybe we should put two minor deities down there to screw with their heads so that they challenge the very reality of their existence (the minor deities being the Wachowskis) Deity 2: Hmm, we did that last evolution and look at what happened. I had to smash it with a rock because they got too uppity and wouldn't listen to us.
Ok, bad example but still it shows that humans, as a whole, will find an idea and it will fester in us. I say fester because it is almost a malignant kind of thing, this awakening, because it detrimentally affects us so much that we as a whole are no longer capable of thoughts without that malignant growth altering our reality. And for those of you who said "blue pill" because you were happy, what is happiness? Would you rather (as a whole) sit around on your collective human arses and watch the extinction of the last of your species simply because your happy? I, for one, would like to believe that humanity has the capability of being more...cohesive then that, that we, when we are aware, are capable of fighting for our species. Even now we have that cohesiveness, despite the XXth century. I just pray that someday we as a species will be able to unite as well as Robert Heinlein foresaw it in <i>Starship Troopers</i>
After thinking about it for a bit, I think I'd take the blue pill if you walked up to me right now and offered the choice. Screw saving humanity, it'll have to wait until I can convince the girl I'm after that I'd make a good boyfriend... and of course, after that I'd have no reason to leave. Would I regret it? The pills were just a dream...
Now, if I was Truman (if you've seen that movie) then I would certainly leave. THAT was a fake existence because his life was stage-managed. I don't see the Matrix as truly "fake" because you're interacting with other people just the same even if your physical body is just powering machines.
Hmm, two good points have been brought up. If the machines tried giving us a 'perfect' world and we rejected it, then what do we hope to achieve by leaving the matrix? (For anyone who's wondering, I am of course speaking relative to the movie and not the <i>real</i> world)
On the other hand, if the machines find a better source of energy than the human brain, would they discard all of their crops to save on the maintenance and power required to keep it running?
Either we're coming across flaws in the story of The Matrix, or we're looking into this far too deeply. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<edit> Off topic, but you have to wonder just how the machines went around the problem of giving birth...if a woman gives birth in the Matrix, therefore introducing a new human to the world, what exactly happens in the REAL world? Machine impregnation? Then, they would also have to gather the DNA from the 'mother' and 'father' to result in a child that looks like its parents, and then plug the child into the matrix (birth of the soul? heh).
<!--QuoteBegin--Renegade+Apr 12 2003, 12:02 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Renegade @ Apr 12 2003, 12:02 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Note: We're digging a bit too far on this one. Time to back off, get a little sunlight, and do normal people things. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Oh dear god, my central proccessing unit has been corrupted, what the heck is "normal" anyways? As far as I can tell there are enough people here that we are doing a "normal people" thing, hehe... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--SmokeNova+Apr 6 2003, 05:26 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmokeNova @ Apr 6 2003, 05:26 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> "Take the blue pill and you wake up. This has only been a dream. Take the red pill and you see exactly how far down the rabbithole this all goes." <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The actual quote is:
"You take the blue pill, you wake up in your bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill and I show you how deep the rabbithole goes."
Hm, blue pill, red pill... guess I'd have to say red pill. For one I gotta join the people who simply want to know everything, at least I like to tell myself so, and second: Just think about it, leaving the matrix gives you ability to go back, knowing its not real, being able to surpass most of the rules, do all sorts of cool looking stunts and learn everything in mere seconds. Now you tell me you blue pillers want to meet me jumping 100 feet high, dodging bullets like crazy and generally doing everything within your pseudo real world of happiness you can't? Have fun then, I'll be jumping around on scyscrapers. Speaking in the confines of the movie, of course. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Now, to the original question, why leave if it is the peak? Well, as you noticed yourself by now, this so called peak is only the peak of the time that has been so far. Noone can tell if there will ever be a better future, a much more vivid peak of human society. This leaves the chance to reach a better status quo by leaving the recreated until-then-peak that is the matrix. Only because the last couple hundred years went so wrong, it doesn't seem all to wise to return into a dreamworld, pretending to live in a time that is considered to be the peak of civilisation by those times standarts. Noone can tell what the future may hold... unless of course you believe in the time cycle prophecy of Lexx.
<!--QuoteBegin--TheMuffinMan+Apr 16 2003, 12:27 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TheMuffinMan @ Apr 16 2003, 12:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> red pill because you get to wear cool clothes and do those super jump thingys and twist rules and everything <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Hehe, what makes you think you would last that long or have the capacity for abstract thought to pull that stuff off?
Makes me think Albert Einstien would drop Neo by just looking at him <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Some things I noticed in The Matrix while watching the movie.
Scenes that take place inside the Matrix have a subtle sickly green hue, while scenes that take place in the "real world" have an subtle eriee blue hue.
There are several analagies to the bible. 1) Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the first Matrix was a simulation of the "perfect world", but humans couldn't accept it and instead were put into a time that simulates the peak of human civilization. Garden of Eden. 2) Neo comes back to life after being shot by Agent Smith in the Matrix. Jesus's ressurection. 3) Cypher turns on Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity after making a deal with Agent Smith to be re-inserted into the Matrix as a wealthy celebrity. Judas's Betrayal.
I'm sure there are more and you're all welcome to post them.
There are a lot more in the "Philosophy of the Matrix" section on the Matrix web site. What? You haven't read it yet? Go to! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
A few that I remember:
1) "Mr. Anderson" - "Ander" in Greek is "man". Hence "Anderson" = "Son of Man". 2) Some of the first words anyone says to Neo in the movie: "You're my savior, man, my own personal Jesus Christ." 3) "Trinity". Those of you who went to Catholic grade school need no further explanation. 4) "Jesus.. I thought you were a guy." "Most guys do." A little God/Goddess commentary there. 5) "Nebuchadnezzar" - in the Bible, the Babylonian king who needed his dreams interpreted. The Matrix is a dream.
There are a lot of tie-ins to Eastern religions as well. It's a heckuva lot more depth than you get out of most Hollywood movies.
Just watched Matrix again and it's still fascinating <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
The machines will dispose of humanity at the first opportunity.
Remember the movie? They scratcthed the sky so that the machines would not have an energy source as abundant as the sun. The result was to stick humans into a powerplant and supplant reality with the matrix to keep the humans docile and obedient to them. What many have forgotten to consider is what happens if the machines win. It's simple. The machines unscratch the sky, or expand into the universe (or both). The end result is the same, they no longer need humans to survive. The machines are far more likely to destroy all the humans in the matrix when they are no longer needed, rather then allowing humans to survive onwards in the event that they will usurp them.
It is a matter of survival. Would you take a comfortable life over the survival of humanity?
**chokes on red pills**
Even putting us in powerplants. is that not merciful?
the story goes that they gave us a perfect eden to live in, but we kept rejecting it. they were trying to survive and gave us a dreamworld to live in. only in the movie we see bitter agents who have been acclimatized to our own damaging thought patterns which is likely what makes them such meanies.
I dont feel their nature is something that would make them dispose of life at first opportunity as we might do.
and just to interject, i dont think 99% of us are really ready to take a red pill, no matter what is said.
Even so, the self satisfied go no further. Perhaps it's because I'm instilled with the want to become someone better, but paradise does not make a man better, it only satisfies him. If I cannot improve myself above and beyond what I already am, then I am nothing. The matrix is not real, therefore, the changes I seek to make around me are also not real. If this reality is not real, the truly, what is real? Thus, I take the red pill, and all the risks it entails to seek the truth and better myself through doing so. It might seem selfish, but I am a person of meagre means because of it. For example, I have sacrificed physical strength in favour of education and the attempt to gain some scraps of wisdom.
I'm getting too far off topic as it is. My personal choice lies on the shoulders of a bitter truth being more valuable then an ensweetened lie...
Live and learn. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The scorched sky was from humans trying to stop the computers getting solar energy.
How so? I've watched all the Animatrix released do far and it hasn't answered the questions here to my satisfaction. Thus I continue to wonder and let my imagination soar...
Even putting us in powerplants. is that not merciful?
the story goes that they gave us a perfect eden to live in, but we kept rejecting it. they were trying to survive and gave us a dreamworld to live in. only in the movie we see bitter agents who have been acclimatized to our own damaging thought patterns which is likely what makes them such meanies.
I dont feel their nature is something that would make them dispose of life at first opportunity as we might do.
and just to interject, i dont think 99% of us are really ready to take a red pill, no matter what is said. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which makes Keanu Reeves the villain... <i>just as I always thought, after seeing Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure</i>
Whoaaa...
And on that note (not to inject to much levity into the teen-angst crowd that inhabits the discussion forums):
<a href='http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play.php?player=realplayer&type=v&quality=high&reposid=/multimedia/chappelle/showclips/107_matrix.html' target='_blank'>The Real Matrix...</a>
(Needs Realplayer, until I can find an AVI version... sorry).
[rant] humans as a whole cannot always accept the reality around them as real. Even now as I sit here typing I wonder if perhaps this existence known as *life* is just one deities cosmic joke to another
ex:
Deity 1: Hey look, the humans are starting to flock together to work for world peace. Hmm, maybe we should put two minor deities down there to screw with their heads so that they challenge the very reality of their existence (the minor deities being the Wachowskis)
Deity 2: Hmm, we did that last evolution and look at what happened. I had to smash it with a rock because they got too uppity and wouldn't listen to us.
Ok, bad example but still it shows that humans, as a whole, will find an idea and it will fester in us. I say fester because it is almost a malignant kind of thing, this awakening, because it detrimentally affects us so much that we as a whole are no longer capable of thoughts without that malignant growth altering our reality. And for those of you who said "blue pill" because you were happy, what is happiness? Would you rather (as a whole) sit around on your collective human arses and watch the extinction of the last of your species simply because your happy? I, for one, would like to believe that humanity has the capability of being more...cohesive then that, that we, when we are aware, are capable of fighting for our species. Even now we have that cohesiveness, despite the XXth century. I just pray that someday we as a species will be able to unite as well as Robert Heinlein foresaw it in <i>Starship Troopers</i>
Now, if I was Truman (if you've seen that movie) then I would certainly leave. THAT was a fake existence because his life was stage-managed. I don't see the Matrix as truly "fake" because you're interacting with other people just the same even if your physical body is just powering machines.
On the other hand, if the machines find a better source of energy than the human brain, would they discard all of their crops to save on the maintenance and power required to keep it running?
Either we're coming across flaws in the story of The Matrix, or we're looking into this far too deeply. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<edit>
Off topic, but you have to wonder just how the machines went around the problem of giving birth...if a woman gives birth in the Matrix, therefore introducing a new human to the world, what exactly happens in the REAL world? Machine impregnation? Then, they would also have to gather the DNA from the 'mother' and 'father' to result in a child that looks like its parents, and then plug the child into the matrix (birth of the soul? heh).
Note: We're digging a bit too far on this one. Time to back off, get a little sunlight, and do normal people things.
Oh dear god, my central proccessing unit has been corrupted, what the heck is "normal" anyways? As far as I can tell there are enough people here that we are doing a "normal people" thing, hehe... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Take the red pill and you see exactly how far down the rabbithole this all goes."
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The actual quote is:
"You take the blue pill, you wake up in your bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill and I show you how deep the rabbithole goes."
Just think about it, leaving the matrix gives you ability to go back, knowing its not real, being able to surpass most of the rules, do all sorts of cool looking stunts and learn everything in mere seconds. Now you tell me you blue pillers want to meet me jumping 100 feet high, dodging bullets like crazy and generally doing everything within your pseudo real world of happiness you can't? Have fun then, I'll be jumping around on scyscrapers. Speaking in the confines of the movie, of course. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Now, to the original question, why leave if it is the peak? Well, as you noticed yourself by now, this so called peak is only the peak of the time that has been so far. Noone can tell if there will ever be a better future, a much more vivid peak of human society. This leaves the chance to reach a better status quo by leaving the recreated until-then-peak that is the matrix. Only because the last couple hundred years went so wrong, it doesn't seem all to wise to return into a dreamworld, pretending to live in a time that is considered to be the peak of civilisation by those times standarts. Noone can tell what the future may hold... unless of course you believe in the time cycle prophecy of Lexx.
Hm... hope that made any sense...
Hehe, what makes you think you would last that long or have the capacity for abstract thought to pull that stuff off?
Makes me think Albert Einstien would drop Neo by just looking at him <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Scenes that take place inside the Matrix have a subtle sickly green hue, while scenes that take place in the "real world" have an subtle eriee blue hue.
There are several analagies to the bible. 1) Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the first Matrix was a simulation of the "perfect world", but humans couldn't accept it and instead were put into a time that simulates the peak of human civilization. Garden of Eden. 2) Neo comes back to life after being shot by Agent Smith in the Matrix. Jesus's ressurection. 3) Cypher turns on Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity after making a deal with Agent Smith to be re-inserted into the Matrix as a wealthy celebrity. Judas's Betrayal.
I'm sure there are more and you're all welcome to post them.
A few that I remember:
1) "Mr. Anderson" - "Ander" in Greek is "man". Hence "Anderson" = "Son of Man".
2) Some of the first words anyone says to Neo in the movie: "You're my savior, man, my own personal Jesus Christ."
3) "Trinity". Those of you who went to Catholic grade school need no further explanation.
4) "Jesus.. I thought you were a guy." "Most guys do." A little God/Goddess commentary there.
5) "Nebuchadnezzar" - in the Bible, the Babylonian king who needed his dreams interpreted. The Matrix is a dream.
There are a lot of tie-ins to Eastern religions as well. It's a heckuva lot more depth than you get out of most Hollywood movies.
Praise god for the Matrix <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
How can I be expected to wait another 25 days for it? GYEAAAAHHH!!!!!