»Dancing with the Truth – Civilization and The Matrix«

{Morpheus} wrote:

Reality is Reality. "i think there for i am" some famous dead guy said that.

Being Captain PostModernism I gotta point out that Descartes said that (Well, he said "Cogito ergo sum," which in English is usually translated "I think, therefore I am.")

You should read up on Descartes. Cartesian dualism is an important factor in Neo's Satori experience (according to Larry Wachowski). en.wikipedia.org...

Thought I'd also point out that in berk's case he doesn't think, therefore he might not be.

psikeyhackr wrote:

Do you think anyone gives a sh!t why you left? Do you think anyone thought about you while you were gone? Why don't you leave again and hold your breath 'til we miss you? psikeyhackr

was this directed at me?

thx 4 the insight i did not remember the name. but now i know.

Let's remember what organisms such Berk represent - decay.

If you give into your urges to retaliate in an abusive manner, you just feed his 'PURPOSE' We're all here what we're ALL here to do. It is the road to the dark side my firend, the road that leads to the torn up, second hand seat in front of the Tube with the show that wisks you away from the pessimists reality you'll have sunk into - it's not worth it - rise above it. Past the stage of intentions, is deafening silence. The one true invincible weapon against that which needs attention to live.
Now didn't descarte speak of a dertiminate reality? I suscribe to Buadrillard's hyper reality or 'scaled to interpretation' reality where the 'map made only represents what was seen by recorder at that very moment in time - thus there could be great Differences between the map/area you see now and what was recorder back when'.

....?

Loctavious wrote:

I suscribe to Buadrillard's hyper reality or 'scaled to interpretation' reality where the 'map made only represents what was seen by recorder at that very moment in time - thus there could be great Differences between the map/area you see now and what was recorder back when'.

Eventually the map becomes what it is created to represent and vice versa.

The sole purpose of BI's existence is to be a target of derision. He hasn't uttered a single useful or interesting thing since he has come here but he continuously states or implies everyone is stupid but him. I really don't regard what I am doing as retaliation since he hasn't mounted a competent assault. He is merely comic relief.

No {Morpheus} I wasn't aiming at you. I was aiming at a much lower target.

psikey

man if i were ur target i would leave and never return. ur words r harsh to the ear and like a knife to the heart.

EntropyFails, I think we might be about ready to discuss the Sophia Stewart part of the topic of the thread. Do you think so?

{Morpheus} wrote:

man if i were ur target i would leave and never return. ur words r harsh to the ear and like a knife to the heart.

Thank You!

It's a Mars in Scorpio thing.


psikeyhackr

ps - read my signature.

intell wrote:

EntropyFails, I think we might be about ready to discuss the Sophia Stewart part of the topic of the thread. Do you think so?

Please do so!

I haven’t figured that part of the game out yet. I don’t know what she represents, nor if she truly believes what she claims. I’d buy her book if she charged less than 100 bucks… *sigh*

It seems peculiar to me that if she truly wrote the foundations of the Matrix that she would use the Matrix’s legal system to reclaim her rights. The Watchowski Brother’s silence on this and most other Matrix issues also seems odd. Gloria Foster’s death seems odd. Something doesn’t add up with the whole story. But I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.

She could be just another aspect of the Matrix trying to regain control over the "rogue signal." Or the Matrix movie itself could be a corrupted messaged, but we’d have to say the corruption would be subliminal because on the outside it contradicts the main premises of civilized life (namely that civilization believes that it has a perfect way to live and all others must live this way). And all of the hypotheses I have presented in this post and thought up myself have serious problems with credibility. Do you have any insights to offer?

None at all. But I find it more than coincidental that the things you mentioned are on my mind as well.

When it comes to the message of the movies and whether it might be part of the system of control in itself. I just think of the Oracle's words about the fact that there's almost no real way to tell if we are being helped or not. Just going to have to make up our own minds.

But, I am paying attention to the story development of MxO to see if any answers come forth.

intell wrote:

None at all. But I find it more than coincidental that the things you mentioned are on my mind as well. When it comes to the message of the movies and whether it might be part of the system of control in itself. I just think of the Oracle's words about the fact that there's almost no real way to tell if we are being helped or not. Just going to have to make up our own minds. But, I am paying attention to the story development of MxO to see if any answers come forth.

I played MxO for a bit. Their “hacker” class path really didn’t go far enough for me as it didn’t allow fully programmable world objects. I’ve moved on to Second Life for my virtual world experience, as it allows for fully programmable objects.

I did like the cut scenes from the game. Hopefully they are archived somewhere. Have you played Path of Neo yet? I’m going to pick up that game the next chance I get.

As for the Oracle insight, I agree. It all comes down to us understanding the “why” of our decisions. Rogue signals, rogue agents, or anything else that we observe can never give us that basic insight. We have to walk the way ourselves.

No I haven't played Path of Neo as yet.

What faction were you affiliated with in MxO?

Quote:

Rogue signals, rogue agents, or anything else that we observe can never give us that basic insight. We have to walk the way ourselves.

Powerful statement. If the Wachowski's are rogues or not, they sure might wake up many people. I can't wait to see what V for Vendetta brings out.

Money is always short sighted, it doesn't care what message is being broadcast, it only cares how if it can make a profit. The bottem line.

True, money does currupt, but money alone is not sufficient enough in my opinion to discount the W's. From the info I have, Sophia seems like a total sham. I have read the few pages that are public, and her story was weird and seemed nothing like the matrix besides havning a few character names in commen, however the plot seemed entirely different with only one thing you could point too as possibly being simuliar. They both (her story more so then the matrix) were reflections of the Bible, so really they both should be taken to court by dead bible writers for stealing their ideas, which they stole from others before them. As for Gloria's death, she was an older woman... it doesn't seem so out of place to me, just tragic.

Honestly speaking, I think the goal here was to both create a film that was different, and to try to reach a large audience... in today's world you have to use the system to do this. And on a side note, both Dr. West and Ken Wilber are people I feel safe in believing (or trusting) that they are true progressives. I have read some of their books, and have attended a speech by Dr. West before. If both of these individuals know the W's personally, and have faith in them and the film and it's message, personally I need evidence that the W's are frauds to really even consider it seriously, and their is nothing that exists in the public domain that achieves this. For me personally, their is no way you can miss the intentions of this film and the messages it contains... Making money is something every artist usually wants to do with their art, but you can usually tell the difference between those who love their craft and those who only work for dollars. This is really true for any person and the job they do, actually.

As for systems of control... they do exist, make no mistake about that. They are not always so visable like say chattle slavory, uneven distribution of wealth, access to education, ect. And even when choices seem obvious, you will be suprised that often the people that stand to benifit the most from some ideas will not take them up because they are so indoctrinated and have so much belief in the system and the hope that they will be one of the "have's" one day.

My state, Texas for example, has one of the most regresive tax systems in the entire U.S. Their is no income tax, no estate tax (death tax is what the repulicans call it), and income comes soley from sales tax, lottery, and property taxes. The poor pay about 17% of their income in taxes, while the wealthy contribute about 4% of theirs. The estate tax of course only kicks in when you have more then a certain amount of money, like 100,000, or 200,000 or more. anyone who doesn't have an estate that large, they would pay no tax. In the 80's a democratic goviner nominee was trying to promote an estate tax, and he had two women up in arms yelling at him saying things like, "you mean to tell me that if I make more then 100,000, I can't leave all of that to my children?" And both of these women were on welfare and food stamps. In another example a candidate was trying to promote an income tax in a poor black neiborhood, and the residents did not like the idea even though almost all of them would pay little to nothing in income tax. Someone actually said "we just won't buy anything, and we won't have to pay any taxes". Wake up? The problem goes so deep, that those who are most oppressed don't want to change the system that is set up to help keep them at the bottem.

This is the matrix... it is psychological, it is not just one man in an office holding the keys to power, even removing the entire Bush regime would not cause significant change in the long term... the source lives in the psychy of American thought, and also pervades the West as a whole.

You are born into this system, and you are in some ways a slave too it, and in so much as you are a slave too it, you are usually helping to sustain this system that is controlling you. This is where the metaphor that the matrix films gives works so well. You are subconciously giving your very life energy up to help sustain the prison you live in. And you not only accept this reallity, but in many cases you even fight to ensure it will continue.

It is no conspiracy, it is pervasive... the conspiracy is that their is another way that might be better.

And when considering Zion and it's ability to only support so many humans, perhaps only so many humans are capable of living outside the normal social matrix. Although their is still a sort of "new boss", I feel pretty sure that Zion is not capatalist in nature, nor does it seem overly repressive in order to controll it's citizens.

Sophia seems rather crazy to me as well. The W’s seem very credible and their work has great artistic quality to it. All the people involved said it changed their lives and all of them praise their work. That doesn’t smack of evil to me. But I never believe in anything 100%. I always leave the possibility that I could have gotten it wrong, even without any evidence that I have.

As for forging the chains to their own enslavement, I completely agree with you. We train our children to have a particular set of ideas that includes that we have the “PERFECT WAY TO LIVE” and “EVERYONE WOULD LOVE LIVING THIS WAY” and other nonsense. These ideas enslave us to those who have found a way up the pyramid, by birth or by crook. We all could use a mental reboot.

And as I have mentioned in previous posts, I also feel that the Matrix offers many clues and keys to understanding human nature and life on this planet. The Zionists all seem like good people who simply want freedom. I see no real evil in the series at all.

But I could have it all wrong. *grin*

lol bro.

I don't know about the rest of you, but i get a little .... defensive when others speak in the general about everybody. I know it wasn't meant to be offensive or belittling, but that's the initial feeling i get before i realize it's yet another consciousness coming "ONLINE" and it's not meant to be a description of everyone.
Having been a devout disciple of 'The ministry of the Awakened' for some time now, It is part of my dedication to remind myself of the PATH and the knowledge from the journey to be realized. It doesn't come in truckloads persey, but it does come in revelations.
Part of the 'Awakened's' responsibility is to feed the curiousities of those around us seeking answers. I don't have answers, but rather questions that lead to one's own answers (perhaps the most convincing of all).
The web and depth of illusion is always there for us to test, and society is the perfect supplier of this. the difference between the ideals and realities are where most lose the trail/path.

entropyfails wrote:

The "energy theory" has no physical plausibility, it simply serves as a nice metaphor. The original idea involved having the human mind running the Matrix like a giant computer, but that ended up being to complicated for most people. So we got the lesser metaphor, the battery one.

entropyfails wrote:

...FINGER pointing to the MOON...

Ever heard of "Food for the Moon" ?

glossary.cassiopaea.com...

I just wrote this in a nearby thread. Here's a tentative model. It is a simplification of how I see it but it functions:

The first matrix: The Architect's opinion of "perfection". Yeah maybe no one suffered but not necessarily a Paradise where everyone could live a meaningful, enjoyable life either. Definitely no autonomy present and you wouldn't have much say in how you reacted with the world around you.

The second matrix: Everything the same as above with the major exception being that it is the opposite of the Architect's view of perfection. It is as if you have to go to the other extreme just because you don't fully accept this end of the spectrum. The Architect ignores everything in between. You wonder why it failed <sarcasm>

The third matrix: The peak of HUMAN civilisation*. The setting that corresponds to the world as we know it. No one person's viewpoint is dominant. Everyone appears to have some say in what happens to them or at least the apparent ability to follow the course in line with their own viewpoint. Thanks to one who more understands the human psyche. But Archie has the TV's now to keep him in the loop and to more importantly reconcile the choices of those in the matrix to his own p.o.v.

The fourth matrix: MxO. A new peak. The matrix has jettisoned the Architect's ONE TRUE WAY TO LIVE meme/point of view also thanks to the Oracle. Even "human rejection of the simulation" has been allowed for.

*1999, America. The last year before the Bush administration (some might say, the last time and place of true freedom, lmao!)

The third matrix had earlier time periods as revealed in the Pandora's boxes. The emphasis is on the fact that there was more autonomy in the simulation now.

hexediter wrote:

This is the matrix... it is psychological, it is not just one man in an office holding the keys to power, even removing the entire Bush regime would not cause significant change in the long term... the source lives in the psychy of American thought, and also pervades the West as a whole.

I believe that it pervades every culture on the planet. I also believe that we have psychologically ingrained civilization’s meme structure to the point where 99% of people cannot even think outside civilization’s mental framework. Any particular person, as you point out, can easily be replaced with another because civilization ensures that almost the entire population follows the same basic rules, with only minor differences.

hexediter wrote:

You are born into this system, and you are in some ways a slave too it, and in so much as you are a slave too it, you are usually helping to sustain this system that is controlling you. This is where the metaphor that the matrix films gives works so well. You are subconciously giving your very life energy up to help sustain the prison you live in. And you not only accept this reallity, but in many cases you even fight to ensure it will continue.

Exactly. I would say that those mental memitic structures push civilization "forward". Our parents train us from birth to fit into that system. These memes cause individuals to willingly sacrifice themselves and willingly kill others to support the system. They do so because they believe that no other choice is possible.

The Matrix gives hints of a way out. We must, however, properly read the clues and start on our own path.

hexediter wrote:

It is no conspiracy, it is pervasive... the conspiracy is that their is another way that might be better.

I would say that the conspiracies are pervasive themselves and we will never find a "master conspiracy" that controls all the others. As to your second point, I feel that we can find infinitely many other ways to live. The idea of a "One True Way" serves as the bedrock of civilization. It spawns all the evil that we have seen. But it is just a program and programs can be changed.

intell wrote:

The third matrix had earlier time periods as revealed in the Pandora's boxes.

Can you tell us more about that please ? Unfortunetly I don't have much free time to check Mxo often.

entropyfails wrote:

The "energy theory" has no physical plausibility, it simply serves as a nice metaphor. The original idea involved having the human mind running the Matrix like a giant computer, but that ended up being to complicated for most people. So we got the lesser metaphor, the battery one.

Actually, Morhpeus says that the machines use a "new kind of fusion", wich cancel your "no physical plausibility" since it is theorically possible to generate atomic energy with a cold fusion.

This is deeper than you think, and I'm affraid that your lack of knowledge in science (no offense, few people are interested by that field, nothing bad about that) makes you believe that the whole trilogy is a simple metaphor.

Have you thought about what "energy" means for a program that lives in a virtual world made of calculation ? For them, the energy is the capacity of calculation, in other words, how much memory (you can compare it to your RAM) will be allocated to a program.

Several hints have been given to make us understand that the machines are using our brain as data processors, just like we were doing it with the machines, and it looks like they discovered a way to make our brain produce more calculation than a normal computer.

Apocryphe wrote:

entropyfails wrote: The "energy theory" has no physical plausibility, it simply serves as a nice metaphor. The original idea involved having the human mind running the Matrix like a giant computer, but that ended up being to complicated for most people. So we got the lesser metaphor, the battery one. Actually, Morhpeus says that the machines use a "new kind of fusion", wich cancel your "no physical plausibility" since it is theorically possible to generate atomic energy with a cold fusion.

Actually you display a lack of scientific understanding about the laws of thermodynamics. The “human” part of the equation will always be an energy loser. You wouldn’t need the voltage from a human if you had a fusion process. If you hunt around enough, you’ll find interviews in support for the original computation idea that the W bros that they then discarded for the simpler, but less scientific, energy model. You are reading this far too literally.

Apocryphe wrote:

This is deeper than you think, and I'm affraid that your lack of knowledge in science (no offense, few people are interested by that field, nothing bad about that) makes you believe that the whole trilogy is a simple metaphor.

There is nothing simple about the metaphors in the Matrix trilogy. They cut down to the actual structure of the Matrix that we all carry around in our minds. We have labeled that structure civilization. If you have a computational view of reality, this means that civilization shapes our worldview as the Matrix and blinds us to the Real. The metaphors couldn’t be more complex!

Apocryphe wrote:

Have you thought about what "energy" means for a program that lives in a virtual world made of calculation ? For them, the energy is the capacity of calculation, in other words, how much memory (you can compare it to your RAM) will be allocated to a program.

You have an incomplete view of computation. That’s fine as I don’t think you have deeply studied Computer Science. Energy does have a strong tie in to RAM (or memory in general). We know this because we know it takes energy to delete information. In fact, deletion of information is the only process in a computer that actually requires energy. Properly configured physical systems do not require energy to run computations themselves.

Of course, modern computers are entirely based on the deletion of information but we shouldn’t expect that a far more advanced intelligence would build computers the same way we do. If we push too deeply into direct physical analogies in the Matrix we will miss out on gems that require breaking that analogy to understand.

Apocryphe wrote:

Several hints have been given to make us understand that the machines are using our brain as data processors, just like we were doing it with the machines, and it looks like they discovered a way to make our brain produce more calculation than a normal computer.

This is exactly my point and the W bros point! The energy thing was only to point at this deeper understanding.

1.
Likewise, trying to decide if the “real” exists as a “matrix in a matrix” won’t help either. However, proving this will take more time than I wish to spend on this post. I’ll come back to this.

This actually is just another form of nonsense as you pointed it out earlier. Reality is reality and there is no "cogito ergo sum" about it.

2.
But if you really want to understand the Matrix Trilogy, you’ll have to move beyond the direct analogies and move to the more complicated ones that the movies actually deal with.

This is correct, just lay down the “matrix within the matrix” or the “brains-in-vats” nonsense. The movie is a fiction. Artists use lies to tell the truth as V said.

3.
I want you to understand that the Matrix Trilogy serves as a FINGER pointing to the MOON.

By using this, there could be misconception that the Matrix philosophy is pointing to ideals. This is not correct. However, in this way, human beings have always been obsessed with pointing to ideals and the miss the mark. This system created civilization as you will state the effects later on. Most are not human beings, they are simple poor imitations of their own ideals. That is why the Oracle decided to unbalance the system.

4.
Our society has trained us to constantly identify with our perceptions. But the perceptions and the thing perceived have no connection.

Reminds me of Immanuel Kant’s Noumena (the object-in-itself) and Phenomena (the object as a spectacle).

5.
Why are they stuck?

When a man is stuck in the matrix, it implies that he is stuck to an illusionary reality instead of going to a real one. If matrix is Civilization and we are stuck in it, what is the real reality above civilization?

6.
The world was made for man and man was made to rule it and derive pleasure from it.

Sounds to me that this means freedom, the very essence of man as human and above civilization already. I a man will understand this in its real sense, then he is actually free for the boundaries of civilization (that believe your number 3) have already been destroyed.

7.
Civilization is the TRUE way to live and ALL other people must live this way or be killed.

Exactly the reason why people are stuck. Civilization is made up of matrices of laws and regulations to ensure order and control--systems of control.

8.
But they are obviously absurd. They lead to the death of all life on earth, including human life, because life does not live by eating itself endlessly. We require the ecosystem to survive. Endlessly eating it kills our life support system. This is why the world of the future has no life on it. The sky has been raped, the world hollowed out, and all life dead with only robots running free. But those with eyes see it already in our world today.

But isn’t this the meaning of getting out of the Matrix? To live in a life where the only real problem, as Neo puts it, is choice.

9.
“The matrix is the wool pulled before our eyes.”

To keep you from seeing the truth and the truth is there is something terribly wrong with this world.