Hey, my tenth post!
Posts: 10
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yea.. the 666 thing is more likely coincidence than anything else
It's like the movie Pi, in which Max's friend (the old guy who had the stroke) states that you will always find what you're looking for if you look deep enough, but that doesn't make it true.
In an infinite universe (as many believe ours to be), anything is possible... literally anything... therefore an algorithm exists to explain our universe (granted, it probably contains millions of variables, and such a formula will never be found.. and even still, If the universe is infinite, the algorithm would have to apply to everything.. even things that are not yet known)
sorry, I got way off topic there...
anyways, I don't appreciate the holier-than thou attitude which you most excellently display, 555. He who called you pompous was on the right track, though I do not altogether agree with him. You might just be having fun (which, I admit, I enjoy having the philisophical chats, though many may feel more uncomfortable than anything else because conversations of this nature require dedication of thoughts and display one's true wisdom and observational behaviors)
on to the '666 algorithm' now:
"Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea. For the Devil sends The Beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short. Let him that hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast. For it is a human number, and his number is six-hundred and sixty-six"
Revelations Ch. 13. Verses 17-8
The actual words differ from bible to bible, but they all say about the same thing.. I used the version read at the beginning of Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" (which is a great song)
essentially, the Hebrew letters functioned as numbers... So the Beast would have a name, which, when spelled in Hebrew characters, would equal 666 (through addition/multiplication, i know not, though really every basic mathematical function is a form of addition)
So anyways, in regards to your time scale, 555, I do not believe that it will pan out as you suggest... mainly because I do not believe in time (time as in that created by man, but space itself is undeniably true, in my opinion.
And along come the Wachowski's, who repose the metaphysical question:
How do you know that something is real?
[the following paragraph is more of one relating to my personal position amongst my circle of friends, and has little to do with the situation in this thread, so feel free to skip it]
and before I answer that question, I would like to place my thoughts in regards to those who ask the questions (not the Wachowski's, I mean people who ask philosophical questions such as the one posed above). I have friends who act in this manner. They love to question the thoughts of others. I personally find this annoying as hell, being one always seeking to find the truth (though truth is different for everyone, so I guess I am just seeking my own personal truth within the universe). "The prick that asks why" syndromn pisses me off to no end, for it creates an illusion that, for once, he who asks the questions is the smarter, and he who supplies the answers, the lesser. To my own logic, he who creates the answers to the questions deserves more credit. Not just because he wasted his time creating a (hopefully) logical response, but he also proves to the Questioner that indeed his own personal truth holds strong in the face of doubt.
[end personal rant]
What is real? How do you know that something is real?
I can't answer the question directly, but if we are all just brains in a vat, and this world is an illusion, then I applaud the creator... I was fooled for the first 15 years of my life, but things have been different these past couple of years
I think that we must use logic to answer the question at hand. To prove a hypothesis, theory, or law wrong in mathematics and science, I believe (and I may be wrong) that it requires one valid experiment that proves otherwise [Notice that I said "valid". If your lab results prove gravity wrong, but you did your lab wrong, then the law holds true]
Now you (the reader) probably think that I have no clue where I am taking this, and merely rambling (as I am known to do), but I promise that this will be drawn to a conclusion... eventually
I cannot see gravity. I can only see the work of gravity. I can feel the affects of gravity, too. Jump up ... and come back down. There's your gravity lesson. The entire time you are traveling with a uniform acceleration of -9.8 m/s².
If gravity isn't real, how do you return to the Earth? Do you will yourself back to Earth? If so, then try to will yourself away? Why doesn't that work?
Possibly --> Subconsiously, we expect ourselves to return to Earth. If you can "free your mind," maybe you can, in fact, defy gravity. Either way, I am not about to try jumping from building to building... yet.
So I believe gravity to be a real force.
Before me sits an empty cup of orange juice. I cannot see the cup, however. I can only see the light reflecting off of the cup. If I can't see the cup, then how do I know that it's still there? I can touch the cup, and feel it's plastic body in my grasp.
What do I believe to be real in the scenario?
1) The cup is real. It is sitting on my desk
2) The cup that I see, or the image of the cup, is a creation of my mind, and is not real. At first one would dub it "real" because his eyes capture and decode (for lack of a better term) the light reflecting off of the cup
So here I have presented you with two interesting scenarios.
In the first (dealing with gravity), I showed how I believe that something that I cannot see is real
In the second, I showed how I believe that something that I can see is not real. (the image of the cup is not real, the cup I still believe to be real.. to an extent)
So all that I can conclude from my 'scenarios' is that I cannot trust my senses... something that I realized some time ago.
The universal constant, it seems, is light. Nothing known to man can travel faster than the speed of light. We depend on light from the sun to grow crops to feed livestock and ourselves. Ancient tribes worshipped Sun gods, and while we have learned that the sun is just a burning ball of gas, these tribes may not be entirely wrong. American Transcendentalists saw God all around us in Nature. Could it be that God is really omnipresent, and is thus part of the very light which declare's mankind's truths (we draw conclusions from things we see, and we only see things because of the reflection of light, so if God were light, then he keeps us from knowing/seeing the real object)
^ That was a big stretch, and I personally don't believe that, but its possible.
Personally, I believe that Neo see's the life force (or light) in all forms of life, inculding Man's creation (the Machines), who do, in fact, live.
"I think, therefore I am."
The machines are real living beings (or minds, if you prefer), though they are not contained in the same body that man is. They require energy; as does man, and they can reason; as man can.
So yea, Neo may be blind, but he can still "see" the life forms around him. This brings him to the realization that the Machines are not ruthless, as the first films show, but rather, they are living creatures like you or me (this is also displayed in the train station, with Sati and her father)
Now to the Theological aspects, the general interpretation seems to be that the Oracle serves God and the Architect serves Lucifer. To an extent, I agree.
The Oracle relies on being able to see ahead in the pattern (live without time) and then uses the human's faith in her to guide them to the goal that she wants to reach.
The Architect sets up the chess board through creating the Matrix and the rules. He relies on logic and calculations to guide his methods. The system, his system, is nearly flawless. Yes, nearly flawless, but not quite. The Architect, and all of the other machines, are still flawed, for they were created by man, and man, as we know, is flawed (one would have to be ignorant to think otherwise) No matter how hard the machines try, they were still created by an imperfect creature (even though the machines did make better AI, as stated in the Animatrix, but still, how could an imperfect being created by another imperfect being create a perfect being? That seems impossible)
Neo is obviously the martyr who fixes all, so he is no longer important
but Smith, he is the oddball in this group, in my opinion. Smith becomes too human, and becomes filled with a need to cause disorder. The Architect doesn't want him ruining the Matrix, but he can't really do anything about it all. The only solution is to turn to Neo for help. The Machines needed Neo to solve their problem, just as he needed them to take care of his own problem. The symbiotic relationship presented by the head of the council in Reloaded rears its ugly head again, and the viewer realizes that mankind doesn't get to kick the machines' asses like we all hoped for, but it makes one hell of a trilogy, nonetheless.
So... I'm sorry that I made you all suffer through my first post.
There may be loopholes abound, as is subject to happen when I do not spend enough time on one thought.
and I notice that I probably pose questions too often and then I don't give answers often enough, partially because I didn't have the time to talk about it or just forgot about it.
finally, I admit that I need to see Revolutions again, for I have only seen it once, and I need to see it at least once more, this time to focus on the smaller details
@555: I came off kinda hard on you at first, please realize that since then my own perceptions have changed. Rock on, dude.
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