»The matrix just doesn't make sense...«

I can make some sense of the story but I’ve always thought too many things about the Matrix movies just don’t make any sense.

For example (I’m guessing others have brought this up), why use humans as a power producer/battery? Why not use a something similar to what is used to provide power on Zion? Heat from the core, chemical, nuclear... anything would do.
The damn Matrix, as well as all the sentinels required to keep the humans in check, must consume a LOT of power. What a waste...

One of the plausible things I could think of was that the machines WANT to use humans, they want to enslave them... you know, for payback. But this wouldn’t explain why they would create a Utopia for them in the first version of the Matrix. This also rules out the possibility of the machines wanting to have “fun” at the human’s expense.
Maybe the machines need humans? I can think of many creative scenarios as to how that might be but I doubt that’s the case since the movie doesn’t point to any of them, so the W. Brothers probably didn’t see it that way.

So why use humans?

Efficiency? Definitely not. We’re much too inefficient at converting matter into energy, no warm-blooded life form is. Plants (they don’t all need sunlight) are much better at this. Or even primitive life forms that live in the depth of ocean, that convert heat into chemical energy or vice versa, would be a better choice. Very simple life form would be easier to manage and harvest. Hell, use enzymes... anything!


Abundance? I thought most humans were wiped out. Still, primitive life forms are easy to harvest, re-produce and they’re certainly more abundant.


Another question is, what is the purpose of the machines? Survival? Then, wouldn’t it make sense for the machines to attempt to master space travel... you know to colonize other worlds... hedge their bets, just in case the Earth goes KABOOM. Wouldn’t it make sense for the machines to find a more efficient source of energy?
At this point, these aren’t really machines anymore, they’re a mechanical life form. What’s their ambition? Drive? Purpose? Do they need one? Why do they do what they do?
Why not terra form the Earth to make it more hospitable, at least for them, if not for new life forms they could harvest... if not to bring back a clean atmosphere... if not to bring sunlight back.

Anyway... many things just don’t add up.

A lot of that is because of Hollywood... many aspects of the story don’t make sense because they don’t have to. They’re there for entertainment purposes or because they look “cool” or to appease the target demographic.

Some things don’t make sense because they’re inserted into the story just to make references to the bible, mythology, urban myths & legends, mathematics, human history, etc. They attempt to explain things in our world (e.g. belief in werewolves, big brother, fear of technology) using elements of the story. If done well (and unfortunately, it wasn’t done THAT well in the Matrix movies), they can thicken the plot and add some depth to the story. If done poorly (i.e. many inconsistencies) it will just confuse or frustrate people because they’re looking to make sense of something that doesn’t.

I don’t think the creators of the movies thought out everything that well... they focussed on some details, but not on others, and certainly not enough on the big picture. Chances are that we’ve stumbled upon a number of aspects that the creators just didn’t/couldn’t consider.

I think that you have to accept the premises of the first movie. They had to think of a motive for the machines putting people in the matrix. It had to fit in with the idea of them putting us to some kind of use and have some kind of irony to it.

The movies are not meant to stand up to scientific scrutiny. For goodness sake, did you start analysing the science behind dragons and how they breathe fire when you were read fairytales as a child?

Rightly said Pie, you have to realise it's a movie not the gospel truth. If they used little guinea pigs or plants for the matrix, then;
1) the movie would be boring
2) the dicpiction of the horrendous facts would not have been as dramatic

that's just a few things, I can't be bothered to list everything

Rock on fatpie42 and Book56,

You hit the nail on the head. If the machines didnt use humans for the Matrix it would make for a pretty boring movie. I mean after all who would want to watch a bunch of chimps trying to make sense of the matrix?

The machines had found an ultimate and readily available power supply. humans were an endlessly multiplying and infanately renewable energy source. This is the reason they choose to use humans as power over anything else. They decided it was the most logical choice. End of story.
(this is from Animatrix)

Seriously, The movie is not about why the machines chose human kind over other types of energy sources. Its about cutting edge Sci Fi that explores just about every aspect of philosophy and religion.

Orbsplateau wrote:

Another question is, what is the purpose of the machines? Survival? Then, wouldn’t it make sense for the machines to attempt to master space travel

Space is a very cold and energy less place. It was impractical for the machines to take to space since they are no closer to light speed than any other creature on the face of the earth. The distance between suns is way to far for any machine to travel to without a power source.

Orbsplateau wrote:

Anyway... many things just don’t add up.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what does not add up. Ill bet there are many here that could explain a lot. Like I said above, the movies are specifically about philosophy and religion as well as science. I dont have all the answers but that is what makes these forums so much fun. Maybe together we can find them.

Starbuck

That's what it's all about. Why are the machines using the humans for power instead of killing them? Well of course there are other ways to generate power, but why not use the infinitely renewable supply of humans? Instead of having to unnessecarily kill off humans, why not make them slaves? It is also possible that the humans are contributing to the processing power of the Matrix as a whole. Though a machine's "brain" is much more efficient and faster, a human's brain is still up for grabs. And using these brains while the humans dont realize it is definitely benificial. But, coming back to my main point, survival is the beginning and end of this story. It all began with the robot that killed its master in order to survive and ended with the machines, the humans, and even the programs in the Matrix surviving. Well done, Neo. Well done. Unfortunately he could not reap the benefits of the harmony, but he was certainly at the base of the whole struggle.

Who's to say he is'nt reaping the benefits? a lot of people here have said that his conscious is probably now part of the machine mainframe. I for one would like to think of Neo watching over the new Matrix he has helped to create. *wipes tear*

As for the power source, i think the machines would never have killed off humans for the simple reason....they want to be like us, understand us, to be more 'human'. We are the creators and therefore to them we are God.

I think you need to go watch The Second Renaissance from the Animatrix DVD. How many chimps/plants/elephants(?) do you think survived all that?

All animal and plantlife died because of the scorched sky so yes, humans are the only viable 'batteries' left.

But what do they feed the humans to keep them alive and growing? Why would you get your energy via humans when you could get it from whatever they are being fed more efficiently?

I think they have a reason for keeping humans alive that is nothing to do with revenge. I think they want to learn from their creators. They are trying to learn the about the advantages of minds less bound by the parameters of perfection, and how to become more human when they have the needs to be (imo).

Okay guy, no offense but you need to watch all the movies about 10 times more. Morpheus tells us in M1 that they liquify the dead and feed it to the living. So it would be stupid to say they could get energy from what humans are eating because the humans are eating humans, thus proving that theory wrong.

As dudetezz said if you watch the second renaissance, you will see they did enough tests to understand humans and their functions, emotions etc. which also proves another theory wrong.

Keep trying

Hmmmm, Book56, do you believe in perpetual motion? Where does the energy in the dead humans come from? If you say it comes from other dead humans then where the hell do they get their energy from?

Humans do not generate energy. Nothing generates energy. If we could generate energy then we would not need food. We simply convert energy from our food into different forms so that we can use it. We convert energy into chemical energy so that we can store it in our bodies and then convert that back to a form we can use when we need to use it (respiration). This is much like a battery stores chemical energy and then converts it to electrical energy when being used.

So, where does our food get their energy from? Well, ultimately, the Sun. Plants photosynthesise by using the Sun's energy and store their energy in chemical form, and carnivores eat the plants and predators eat the carnivores etc. Food chains.

Also, you must take into account that conversion efficiencies are always far less than 100%. We do not get 100% of the energy stored in our food. Also, most of it is dissapated as heat back into the enviroment when used by our food during its life. For example, the total amount of energy in a population of foxes is far less than the total amount in the rabbits which they feed upon. Energy pyramids - up each stage in the food chain the total amount of energy is less, which is why there are never many predators in a food chain, as there just isn't enough energy left to sustain them.

Now, are you still saying that the machines feed us upon ourselves to give us all the energy we need? How is that possible? Sure, maybe some of it can be recycled, but this wouldn't give us an infinite amount of energy to sustain us. If the Sun was to die off right now then we wouldn't be able to survive for very long. We wouldn't just be able to eat ourselves to sustain us forever. There just would not be enough energy left on Earth to allow us to survive.

The energy must come from SOMEWHERE in the first place, it cannot just be generated by us. Most likely it comes from the form of nuclear fusion which Morpheous said they use (nuclear fusion is also, by the way, how the Sun itself gets its energy. The machines have no need for the Sun if they can do nuclear fusion, as it would be like they have their own mini suns themselves:

The humans are not dead. The energy comes from the electrical impulses released by our brains. Thus the plugs which retract the energy. They needed to create the Matrix so the humans would live their lives with emotion, thus releasing the energy for the machines. Makes perfect sense.

morpheus says in m1 that the human body generated enough body HEAT to change into engery

Guh - there is no such thing as free energy. I really did not want to say this, as I am sure you have all heard it before, but:

Energy/matter cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed in form. The total amount of energy/matter in the universe is fixed, we cannot just generate it.

To survive we need energy, and we get this from our food. We do not just create our own energy to live off or we would not need food.
Our food gets its energy from its food, and so on down the food chain until you reach plants. Plants get their energy from the Sun. So, we ALL get our energy from the Sun.

If the Sun was to die then life would eventually cease to exist on this planet. There is not enough energy on Earth to survive off for an infinite period of time. If plants cannot get energy from the Sun then they will die off, which means all the carnivores would die off, which means all the predators would die off.

Now, Book is saying that to sustain the humans (life) on Earth without the Sun, they simply feed ourselves to ourselves, forever and ever and ever. This is impossible, for reasons I have just discussed, espeically due to inefficient respiration.

I agree with DivideByZero and this has always been a major problem for me. (The only one I have with Matrix 1).
Yes, we all have to admit this is a movie and not everything will make perfect sense, but this IS a MAJOR plot-hole.
Humans could never, ever be used as batteries.

Well, I'm not saying that humans couldn't be used as batteries. The machines can do nuclear fusion, so they can use us as batteries if they want, I guess, by allowing us to survive off that energy. I am just wondering WHY they would use us as batteries instead of getting their energy directly from the processes of nuclear fusion, as it would be a lot less efficient for the machines to do it like this.

I can only assume that they do not want us to become an extinct race, much like we keep animals from becoming extinct in a zoo. I believe the machines want to learn from us, to become less restricted by their own perfections.

Dividebyzero,

The machines have said there are levels of survival they are prepared to accept if the humans die out. This means that there are energy sources beyond that of the humans. Why dont the machines use them in lue of the humans?

Its simple:

These energy sources combined with humans combined with "a form of fusion" gave the machines an ultimate and readily available power supply. Humans were an endlessly multiplying and infanately renewable energy source. This is the reason they choose to use humans as power over anything else. They decided it was the most logical choice. (from the Animatrix). The machines have obviously created an artificial food chain and that food chain is the most efficient for the machines. If the food chain is broken then there are other level of survival they can resort to.

Comments?

Starbuck.

starbuck wrote:

Humans were an endlessly multiplying and infanately renewable energy source.

I really do not see how. All humans get their energy from the Sun and in this case there is no Sun. Now, the machines must give us energy which they get from nuclear fusion (or other sources, as you say) to sustain us, and then they use our energy to sustain them. Seems to me that it would be more efficient for them to cut us out and to just use the energy they get for themselves, as the top predator in a food chain always gets the least amount of energy.

DivideBy Zero,

I know what you are saying and I agree. But we must consider the fact that we dont exactly know what kind of energy the machines are pulling from the humans. It may be that the energy they need can be most readily pulled from a from of fusion of the bioelectricity from the humans.

We can argue this till the dogs come home and it could very well be a plot hole. But we must assume for the sake of the story that the form of energy the machines need is most efficiently taken in this way. We might also form the conclusion that for some reason the machines dont want the humans exterminated.

I dont think we will ever know.

Starbuck

This is why people need to stop reading so far into these movies. They think they see something that can't be and they argue it forever. Then they can't even enjoy the movies because they are so caught up in their 'discovery.' There is no way you can prove humans can't be used as a battery. There is also no way the film makers can prove that they can. But you have to take what is given and realize they know a lot more about the subject than you do. Accept it and enjoy this wonderful trilogy.

starbuck wrote:

I know what you are saying and I agree. But we must consider the fact that we dont exactly know what kind of energy the machines are pulling from the humans.

It doesn't matter what kind of energy they are pulling out, because you must put energy in (food) to get energy out anyway, and you can never get more output than input (nor equal amounts - due to inefficient conversions).

starbuck wrote:

It may be that the energy they need can be most readily pulled from a from of fusion of the bioelectricity from the humans.

Methinks you're just making your own science up here when you say 'fusion of bioelectricity'. You're saying that electricity is a form of energy which the machines use to survive, but if you 'fuse electricity' you can get even more energy out of it than was there in the first place. Now, the machines keep us alive to use our bioelectricity so that they can fuse it to create even more energy to sustain us AND themselves. There is more output here than input and is impossible. Nothing can create new energy. Nothing can power itself forever and ever.

It's like building a slinky-elevator machine, where you set a slinky rolling down an upwards elevator. Now, if you could manage to get the slinky's motion to completley power the elevator's motion, without any other power source, then it could go on infinatley forever and ever. Perpetual motion. Of course, this is impossible to do. You cannot get something for nothing.

Bioelectricity in animals is powered by the food that they eat. Chemical energy. We do not just generate bioelectricity by simply being alive. If we have no food then we have no bioelectricity anymore. You cannot just use the bioelectricity in an animal to power a machine AND keep the animal alive, without feeding the animal anything else. The energy cannot just go around in a cycle like that due to inefficiencies when converting it (and also the fact that the machines will be using most of the energy that they pull from us, so it cannot be recycled).

So why do the machines feed humans energy and then feed off the energy which the humans process? It would be more efficient to get their energy directly from their ULTIMATE power source (and do not say that their ULTIMATE power source is humans, because our ULTIMATE power source is the Sun and obviously there is no Sun in this situation).

Look, it all comes down to this:
The machines use:

Billions of humans (made up number, of course), all producing temperatues of 37°C. Alot of heat. They use all this heat energy to power themselves.

Of course, however, you need to also produce alot of food to keep the humans alive and give them their energy to sustain their body temperatures. Simple? No.

Where does all this food come from? You cannot just produce it without the energy to do so. All the food ultimatley comes down to plants, and plants get their energy from the Sun. To make food you need to put energy into the food. Ultimatley, all the energy that we eat comes from the Sun, and the Sun's energy comes from the fusion of hydrogen atoms at its core. So, we get our energy from nuclear fusion in the Sun's core. Of course, however, the Sun is blocked, so where do you get the energy to put into the food now?

Well, the machines made their own Suns. They can do fusion themselves (probobly using all the hydrogen in water) to make food to feed us with. Then, we can produce the heat which they can then use to power themselves. Seems very inefficient to not just use the energy directly from the fusion, like they would of done if the Sun hadn't been blocked.

Quote:

I think that you have to accept the premises of the first movie

I agree with this sentiment. You must accept the first movie otherwise you will just spin in circles trying to justify everything. The first Matrix explained it all, the next two movies were meant to fill in the details. It seems that Revolutions has raised more questions than it answers.

I can see why some people would be upset at the Matrix Revolutions ending, and perhaps whole movie in general, and for what its worth I felt that as a stand alone movie it was a great success. However as a last movie in a trilogy it didnt really tie up the loose ends, which leads me to believe that it was done on purpose to either a. set the groundwork for more movies or b. set the ground work for games/comics/books etc..

But more matrix sounds good to me either way.


Just thinking outloud.

dividebyzero,

Dude you are way to ate up with this argument. This site is suppose to be about presenting theories and arguments and discussing them with others. All you are doing is presenting a flaw with no solution. It is a pointless argument and I am done with it.

If you cant present a workable theory as to why the machines are using humans as batteries and will not accept anyone elses theories then dont waste my time.

As much as I hate to pull the Sci Fi card in these debates I must on this one.

dividebyzero wrote:

Methinks you're just making your own science up here when you say 'fusion of bioelectricity'

Not my words but the movies. Its a Science Fiction flick man! we can never know the true intent of the machines or the humans or the science behind what they do because it does not really exist. Get over it!

Im out

Starbuck

starbuck wrote:

If you cant present a workable theory as to why the machines are using humans as batteries and will not accept anyone elses theories then dont waste my time.

Maybe you should actully read my posts? I do present a workable theory to an otherwise major plot hole in the story, where as you and others are simply shrugging it off. Your only theory as to why the machines keep the humans alive is:
"Fuck it, it's just a sci fi movie!"

I, however, am not saying there is a hole in this story and therefore the story cannot be enjoyed. If you actually read my posts, I am saying there is no hole in the story (and I have given my reason for this already. If you can't be arsed to read it then don't bother, but don't then tell me that I was even wasting your time to begin with).

starbuck wrote:

Not my words but the movies

Nowhere in the movie does it say that they 'fuse bioelectricity' to get their power. I believe that the Wachowskis only even mention fusioned.gat.com... to stop these sorts of arguments about the machine's primary power source and what they could possibly use to provide us with energy. If only you could see that, then you would understand what I am trying to say.

It seems DivideByZero gets what I’m saying about energy.


Still, there IS a serious hole in the plot of the Matrix trilogy, and I don’t understand why it hasn’t bothered anyone.

Some of you don’t see the hole, but you realize that there would be no story, or no “matrix” for that matter, if the machines found a better (less troublesome) energy source than humans... but that’s just it, there ARE better/other sources of energy out there, even according to the premises of the movie.

Zion has found a way to generate electricity (how? it doesn’t matter, geothermal, fusion, fission, hydro, take your pick)...

No one has brought this up, but let’s say Zion has NOT found a way to generate power. It’s possible (however remotely) that Zion actually steals its power from the machine’s power plants... but that’s another can of worms by itself.
Others will say Zion doesn’t really exist, but that would render the entire Matrix story to a pointless self-referential system... so let’s not go there.

Either way, it doesn’t make a difference. Even if you assume that Zion steals its energy from the machines’ it doesn’t solve the problem.

I’ll try to make this as clear as possible...

(Assuming you don’t understand E = mc^2 or the concept of energy conservation).

It’s irrelevant whether using humans as power generators/batteries is possible, let’s assume that it is. Still, it’s extremely wasteful and somewhat illogical.

It’s the same as plugging a 100 rechargeable batteries into a power outlet, then using the batteries to power a fan, then using the wind produced to turn a wind generator and produce electricity, then use the electricity to run your computer.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just plug the computer into the power outlet? Why bring in the middle man (i.e. batteries, fan, wind, generator)?

Would you consider this a good idea? Again, it’s not impossible, just illogical.

The machines USE energy to provide humans with
- air (ventilation, filtration),
- water (extract, pump, filter),
- sugar, minerals, proteins and vitamins (growing/farming plants or fungi, liquefying the dead, extracting minerals from somewhere)
- mental stimulation (the Matrix)
- reproduction (artificial insemination or some kind of baby growing factory)
- protection/security/defence (using sentinels to protect the crops from theft, waging a pretend “war” against Zion, using agents in the matrix, security systems, protection against parasites, etc.)

Again, let’s pretend the machines can get all this done without difficulty. It’s just A LOT of power used.

Now, in return, the humans metabolise the nutrients and convert it the energy they use to grow/repair/survive + electricity + heat + waste.

So the machines consume an enormous amount of energy for the process, plus they provide humans with nutrients, and in return they get SOME of the energy back (the rest is used by humans for survival). How does that make ANY sense? There’s a lot more energy going in than coming out (which is logical but ineffective).


Conclusion:
In order for the Matrix story to even remotely make sense, the machines MUST use humans for other purposes than power generation. A number of theories are possible or even plausible. Unfortunately there’s NO HINT of them in the movies.... in fact the movies go to great length to fool the audience into believing that using humans to generate power is somehow ingenious. My guess is that the W. Brothers really didn't think this out too well.