»Was there a One in the Architect's failed versions?«

Hex, while I agree with you that our understanding of the universe seems to be taking the wiggles out of it--on the surface at least--I would argue that our increased understanding of quantum theory shows that the universe is more wiggly than we ever thought it was. By "wiggly" I believe Alan Watts is simply meaning organic, as opposed to mechanical. He goes on to compare the way that humans make things increasingly complex in a mechanical way, while nature is not that way. Quantum theory, where particles pop in and out of existence, and the act of observation can actually affect the outcome, is the ultimate expression of the universe as an organic thing. At its deepest core, it is built of nonsense--at least nothing that makes sense at the moment.

Intell, you're right on with the reference to The Matrix Online and its concept of the emergency auto-jackout mechanism. Now if you die in the Matrix, you are protected from dying in the Real. Your RSI may be deconstructed, and your mind may temporarily suffer a minor "death effect" upon jacking back into the Matrix, but you are most definitely still alive. This is all thanks to the Truce, where this new technology was created. Obviously, this was completely for the sake of gamers not having to re-create a new character from scratch every time they died, but it doesn't seem too far-fetched (at least compared with any other "scientific" truth presented in the mythology). And rather than create it and never talk about it again, the feature has played a prominent part in several of the story threads--most notably the rumor of a weapon that disables the emergency auto-jackout so that you can be killed permanently. Supposedly this is what happened to Morpheus.

The other new feature is that you can jack out of the Matrix no matter where you are. You don't have to be by a phone booth. Phone booths have their benefits, however, since you can use them to access many aspects of your RSI, such as abilities, upgrades and the like. So there are still many advantages to using them. Plus, redpills tend to congregate around them, so they're great for social dynamics as well (which was mentioned in the bluepill newspaper the Sentinel from a confused bystander point of view).

But I liked what you said about the difficulty being that there were no exits. And that's how I picture the failed Matrices. They really are completely closed, and your mind is stuck there with no way to escape--no red pill, no self substantiation--nothing. Just like in Dark City (**SPOILER, in case you've never seen the movie), where when they reach what they believe is Shell Beach, they find nothing but a wall. And even if that wall is broken and you step through, you fly out into space and die.

The splinter in the mind grows and you eventually crash, just like a computer. With the mind dead, the physical body follows suit. This is all theory, however, and I hope to hear more from the Pandora's Boxes, which delve into these early Matrix time periods. If I ever find out anything juicy, I will definitely share it.

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He goes on to compare the way that humans make things increasingly complex in a mechanical way, while nature is not that way.

That's debatable. Nature has one system after another builging on top of each other, and each more complex then that which came before it. Despite the quantom nature of small atomic particles being totally random, everything still evolves in an ever growing and more complex "machine" of cosmic dust. While quantom theory leaves open questions... it still doesn't account for all the not random events going on everywhere around us. How come if the atoms that make us up have random behavior, do they behave in ways that are very predictable? I can't tell you where the electrons are on your carbon atoms, but I can tell you what that carbon atom will bond with in chemical reactions, and the energy needed for those reactions to happen, all of which is repeatible and scientificly verifiable. For me, the problem with quantom is that it is completely random... it doesn't just wiggle, it does everything and anything, including being not wiggly from time to time. To me, neither is particularly empowering to the invdividual... some people like being a cog in a machine because it serves purpose, and to that end it may actually be better then just being completely random. How can you excersice control over your life, or choose, when it's all random? You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.


I see the Shell beach analogy, the problem is that in this case the real world does exist, their is another reality that you can wake up too, potentially.

hexediter wrote:

I see the Shell beach analogy, the problem is that in this case the real world does exist, their is another reality that you can wake up too, potentially.

Actually, there's another reality in both situations, so the analogy is correct. My emphasis was on whether or not the early Matrices had a means by which you could escape from the fake into the real, not whether or not there was a real. But anyway, I think the truth of the matter is that we're both correct. The universe is both wiggly AND straight. And that's all there is to say about that. I believe that one of the quotes from the Wachowski Brothers that Inev posted recently in another thread has some bearing on the conversation at hand.

Wachowski Brothers wrote:

We think the most important sort of fiction attempts to answer some of the big questions. One of the things that we had talked about when we first had the idea of The Matrix was an idea that I believe philosophy and religion and mathematics all try to answer. Which is, a reconciling between a natural world and another world that is perceived by our intellect.

'Nuff said.

Now its my turn to say that there's not to much to add at this point. But I like where this is going.

The wiggliness and randomness, like the Architect, might be in our own perspective and inability to predict certain things that are predictable and regular.

The disk called, "Roots of the Matrix" delves into such things.

I'm confused. I thought it was quite simple.

The architect made a perfect world, but nobody believed it was real and woke up, killing entire crops.

They made a world much more like ours with suffering and pain, a world that should have worked, but failed too.

The Oracle program was created to find out why, and discovered that you cant force a mind to accept something, it must accept it on its own, at least at a subconscious level (something she demonstrates to Neo over and over again by getting him to make choices to do what she wants)

A choice to accept the program or not was made, and while nearly everyone accepted it, there would be some who take option B) to not believe the matrix. It became apparent to the architect that the only way to make a perfect matrix, a truly perfect matrix, was to have a flawed matrix. He says "nearly 99%", so there may be hundreds of thousands of people who refuse to accept the system (red pills living in Zion), but there is only one true anomaly which is strong enough to make it to the source, handing himself in on a silver platter sealing his own fate. If none of them are and they all die (or escape to Zion where they are killed later), problem solved.

"You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision.”

There have been 5 previous anomalies, which are taken to the source and used to reset the Matrix. The architect even talks about how the 5 predecessors made the right choice and chose the correct door. It may have taken 2 weeks for the first One to appear, 5000 years for the second, and 40 years for the next.

“Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication”

The fact that he is talking about five previous anomalies I thought was pretty clear there were 5 previous ones (and 8 versions of the matrix), as they were the only one strong enough from the thousands who wake up to actually do any serious damage.

Either I'm missing something or it seems pretty easy to me.

Feral Boy wrote:

My understanding of how the One comes about is that he is engineered by the Machines. He is a human (as the movies point out repeatedly), but he is given a connection to the Source that enables him to do the unique things that he can do. Under my theory, the One is not some sort of phenomenon that pops up unexpectedly. The One is not the result of an anomaly reaching a certain point. Instead, I believe that the Architect knows precisely when the One appears, because he MAKES him appear. However, if you believe that the One is a result of the anomaly (people rejecting the Matrix), then there would have been a One in EVERY version of the Matrix--including the Architect's failed versions. Why? Because when people reject the Matrix, they are in essence creating the systemic anomaly. And eventually that anomaly will grow in size to the point where a One appears. Granted, in the failed versions, the One probably wouldn't have been around very long since by the time the entire population began rejecting the simulation it wouldn't have lasted much longer after that. But there would have been a One nonetheless. Now I don't see anything in any of the references to these early versions that says that there WEREN'T any Ones, but I haven't seen anyone bring this up before. Any thoughts?

oh my frickin' god. Anyone else here thinking that most people on this forum are pondering the possibilities of the matrix WAY WAY too much! Like probably more than larry and andy pondered their own screenplay?

The admin's explanations are SO (incredibly, but also, insanely) detailed! First off, Neo and trinity are not programs. The merivingian is some matrix version of the devil (perespone follows through with that greek myth, daughter of zeus) and possibly is a previous "the one". Zion could be in a matrix, but, while incredibly amusing the article on Matrix v33 was insanely ridiculous -- not because it wasn't cool, that's a VERY cool and interesting theory -- but because it's so doubtful that they'd make a movie with that much "hidden" complexity (complexity that you you had to sort out. On the other hand, your ability to exhaust every possible possibility with bullet points is a good lesson on thought processes.