»The Truth About Morpheus«

There is a dark side to the Matrix stories. There are truths, unpleasant truths, and outright lies. Perhaps the most glaring of these was voiced by Cypher in the first movie.
Cypher: He lied to us Trinity. He tricked us. If [Morpheus] would have told us the truth we would have told you to shove that red pill...

Ultimately Cypher was right.
And I don't mean just that Cypher was correct that the propehcy of the One was a lie. I mean that Morpheus had tricked them.

Look back at Morpheus's methodology for inducting new recruits. He promises to give them the "truth" but only under certain circumstances. He only gives them the truth AFTER they agree to be disconnected from the Matrix. It is not enough to tell people "This is it. There is no turning back. You take the blue pill--you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe..."
He doesn't tell people that they will not be able to return to the lives they have known. He doesn't tell people that they will be hunted and hounded by agents in the Matrix and machines in the real world. He doesn't tell them they'll have to eat grey goop for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He doesn't tell them they'll have to live in a cave for the rest of their days. He doesn't tell them this because, just like the Architect, he doesn't have a problem with people living their lives just so long as they live it the way he wants. Morpheus valued "the truth" and he wanted everyone else to also. He single-minded obssession with life in the "real world" overided everything else. He wanted man to have freedom, but only on HIS terms.

Indeed the problem IS choice. And there are many players on the field attempting to control everyone else's ability to choose. Of all the deceivers we have found Morpheus is the one who receives the least amount of attention. We all know the Architect created the Matrix to deceive man into doing his bidding. Oracle created the prophecy of The One to deceived EVERYONE into doing her bidding to create a stalemate between man and machine. How many people have considered that Morpheus as well used unscrupulous tactics to deny people the ability to choose in order to get them to do his bidding as well?

It also is brought up quite often that the one thing that really seperates Neo from Jesus or Buddha is that Neo kills lots and lots of people!

And who taught him to do that? Morpheus. Religious zealotry is definitely not a great thing in the Matrix films... Faith on the other hand seems to be fairly well praised (the Kid is possibly what Morpheus could have been if Morph hadn't become obsessed with machination and conflict as tools for enlightenment).

edit: Though Morpheus is still my favorite character!

Very good point Capt.
Morpheus was painted as a "spiritual leader" but that is not really what he was. He was a revolutionary. When you think of Morpheus the way you think of Mao Tae Sung or Fidel Castro then you would immediately become more suspicious of his motives and methods. I got a funny feeling in my gut when he spoke of blue pills in the Matrix and said
"They are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy". The guards, cops and soldiers they shot in the first movie were not Agents. They were just normal people who had no idea the real stakes going on, but Morpheus advocated their deaths just the same. They were obstacles to his ultimate goal and he was determined to destroy them.

In the end Morpheus didn't see himself as a refugee. He saw himself as a soldier. Like Islamo-fascists or other religious zealots Morpheus beliefs were his justification for killing anything associated with the Matrix.

He tricked Cypher. He tricked Trinity. And ultimately he tricked Neo, all to get them to do his bidding once he knew they couldn't go back into the Matrix. They didn't agree to give up the lives they had known. They simply agreed to know more and Morpheus exploited that to trap them into being on his side and to fight the machines on HIS terms and no other.

No wonder he gravitated to Oracle so readily.

Morpheus is not one of my favourite characters. To me, he is an expression of dogma and blind believe.

However, the only promise Morpheus gave to potential red pills was to show them the truth (as far as he could know...). There was no talk about wether or not the truth would be comfortable: Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more....

As Cypher said himself: IGNORANCE is bliss....


Also...

Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself

And still...

Neo: Take this thing off me. Take this thing (...) Don't touch me. Stay away from me. I don't want it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

Would Neo have believed Morpheus without having experienced it?

Once you have touched the truth, there IS no turning back. You may be able to supress the truth for bliss, in agreement with Cypher,... but not to forget it:
Cypher didn't make it back into the Matrix as a bluepill. I'd say that: what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way...

Capt wrote:

It also is brought up quite often that the one thing that really seperates Neo from Jesus or Buddha is that Neo kills lots and lots of people!

Only if you understand the trilogy literally. If, however, you understand the Matrix as a metaphor for the mind, people become aspects of the mind that need to be overcome... As you said yourself: Thought is the problem.
Throughout the trilogy Neo is on his path to gradually understanding this through experience.

Capt wrote:

Religious zealotry is definitely not a great thing in the Matrix films... Faith on the other hand seems to be fairly well praised

Well, we know that: "Poor Morpheus. Without him we're lost" - Oracle, M1.
But we also know that: "I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream has gone from me" - Morpheus, Revs.

Believe is essential to getting one started on the path towards enlightenment. However, eventually, it must be trancended by knowledge through experience.
This is how I understand the Neo-Morpheus relationship.

tozy wrote:

[Neo is killing people] Only if you understand the trilogy literally. If, however, you understand the Matrix as a metaphor for the mind, people become aspects of the mind that need to be overcome... As you said yourself: Thought is the problem.

But if we are all eminations of the mind of Brahma (or aspects of the mind of Neo), then wouldn't this become true of killing people in any world? Even taken non-literally Neo's actions are not those of an enlightened being.

When we wage war on our sins, we only risk becoming them. "Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster...” Fredrich Nietzsche.

For a better understanding:

tozy wrote:

If, however, you understand the Matrix as a metaphor for the mind...

...as in:

"Morpheus is crazy"; "No doubt"

Gina Rink wrote:

"Morpheus is crazy"; "No doubt"

Ha ha ha ha! LOL

My point about Morpheus is one of duplicity about his literal as well as metaphorical actions. In the end he used subterfuge. He tantalized people. He played on their desire to learn "the truth". In the end it is not about whether or not you accept that there is more to the world around you than meets the eye. That much was never in question. That, after all, was the reason people sought him out. They already knew there was more to the world around them. He very easily could have told them "Once your mind is freed from the Matrix you will not be able to return. Everything that you know about your life will be gone and all of that will be replaced with constant hunger, constant cold and constant fear."
---But of course he would never say that because that violates the number one rule of salesmanship which is to convince your prospect that what you are selling will make their lives so much better.

Morpheus then, at that time, could have given them the choice between the red pill and blue pill. But the reality is his victims did not understand the choice they were making. They thought they were making a choice to simply "know more". They didn't know they were literally abandoning their lives as they had known them. Neo asked Morpheus a very straight-forward question after Morpheus showed him the "desert of the real".
"I can't go back, can I?"

That is not an indirect question. Neo is letting him know that he is not enamored with this "reality" and he wants to know if he has the option to leave it. We also have since come to realize that people can have their memories wiped and can be reinserted into the Matrix, contrary to Morpheus's main sticking point for why you MUST stay the course with him. This is blackmail. To essentially tell someone "Well, you have nowhere else to go so you might as well come with us."

Morpheus answers Neo"s question by saying, "No, but even if you could, would you want to?

This shows you Morpheus's mindset. He rejects the Matrix because it is not his idea of "real" but who gave him the right to impose his idea of what really matters on others? If Morpheus had the choice to make all over again he would do the exact same thing and reject the Matrix so even if he could return he would not want to. But that doesn't mean every one else would not want to return. This is another example of someone within the Matrix trying to decide for others what is best for them.

Kinda reminds me of Morpheus's spiritual mother, Oracle. She uses the exact same unscrupulous tactics in coaxing Morpheus and everyone else into accomplishing her goal of creating a stalemate. If she had told the people of Zion, "Hey guys, you know I'm not here to help you destroy the Matrix. As a matter of fact I'm here to guarantee it's continued existence so I can eat candy and bake cookies", I'm sure their response would have been far different. She had several chances after she had decided to "help" Neo and friends and at no time did she let them know that even though she told them she was there to help them bring an end to the Matrix she was actually there to maintain the status quo. But in the end she decided that her idea of "what matters most" was more important than giving others an informed choice.

This is life inside the Matrix.

Cypher: You call this "free"? All I do is what [Morpheus] tells me to do. If I had to choose between that and the Matrix, I choose the Matrix.

Evolusionary wrote:

My point about Morpheus is one of duplicity about his literal as well as metaphorical actions.

While I understand your point about the dublicity of his literal actions, could you explain a bit about the duplicity of his metaphorical actions?

Evolusionary wrote:

In the end he used subterfuge. He tantalized people (...) Morpheus then, at that time, could have given them the choice between the red pill and blue pill. But the reality is his victims did not understand the choice they were making (...) Kinda reminds me of Morpheus's spiritual mother, Oracle....

Both, the Oracle's and Morpheus' (in M1) actions boil down to:

You have already made the choice, now you have to understand it

...because...

No one can see beyond a choice they don't understand, and I mean no one

The Oracle tells Neo:
Being the one is just like being in love. No one can tell you your in love, you just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones.

Same goes for the truth that the Matrix is a virtual world. It must be... experienced ...in order to be understood.

Neo would never have become the One, hadn't the Oracle told him that either he or Morpheus would have to die,... hadn't Morpheus sacrificed himself for Neo,... hadn't Neo been ready to sacrifice his life to save Morpheus, etc. etc....
What you call "subterfuge" started Neo on the path of experience.

From delusion lead me to truth -> know thyself,.... not tell me about the truth...

And, considering his first reaction upon experiencing the "truth" about the Matrix and the Real world,... how was Neo (or any other redpill) supposed to understand it just by being told?

You have already made the choice, now you have to understand it.

And if you are not ready to understand it, it doesn't make the choice unmade: whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com...

...like a splinter in your mind driving you mad


Neo: Then why didn't you tell me about the Architect? Why didn't you tell me about Zion, the Ones before me - why didn't you tell me the truth?
Oracle: Because it wasn't time for you to know.
Neo: Who decided it wasn't time?
Oracle: You know who. *She points at the Temet Nosce sign above the door*
Neo: I did.

Evolusionary wrote:

She had several chances after she had decided to "help" Neo and friends and at no time did she let them know that even though she told them she was there to help them bring an end to the Matrix she was actually there to maintain the status quo.

Hm.... after the status quo definitely had been changed:

Seraph: Did you always know?
Oracle: Oh no. No, I didn't. But I believed. I believed.

Yes, but Neo is originally put on a flawed path. He is put on a path that has him fighting against his opponents. This war with his "obstacles to enlightenment" only produces the rise of Smith. In fighting them, Neo only gives power to that which stands in his way.

Ultimately, as Larry Wachowski says, Neo must choose a new path... the path of peace. He has to come to terms with his dark side, instead of trying to kill it, he has to embrace and move past it.

If you wrestle with the obstacles on your path to enlightenment, you only become entangled in them

you do not truly know someone until you fight them....

It was inevitable that Smith grow to power for the final confrontation between the two of them to happen, climaxing in Neo's Satori moment:

In his confusion he (Smith) looks to Neo who now understands - Revs. shooting script

Also, Neo had to meet and confront Merv, the Architect etc. etc., to understand and... transcend them.
It was all part of the experience to be made in order to gradually get to... know thyself.

tozy wrote:

In his confusion he (Smith) looks to Neo who now understands - Revs. shooting script

You've already highlighted the keyword I wanted. Neo now understands (meaning, to me, that he did not understand before when he walked the path of war).

Quote:

We also have since come to realize that people can have their memories wiped and can be reinserted into the Matrix, contrary to Morpheus's main sticking point for why you MUST stay the course with him. This is blackmail. To essentially tell someone "Well, you have nowhere else to go so you might as well come with us."

Only the machines would have the power to reinsert you and of course they would want something for the privilege. Ye olde deal with the Devil.

When I was hired by IBM I had to go to 3 interviews first. After they said yes one of the managers told me, "You know you will have to shave off your beard." They hadn't said anything about that during the interviews. But I said, "Money is more important than hair." The manager seemed relieved by that. Then they gave me a contract to sign which said if I came up with any ideas they belonged to IBM. They were not hiring me as a designer they were hiring me as a repair man. They didn't tell me about that either. I considered walking out but since I only intended to be with them for 5 years I let it go.

Maybe we should stop analyzing The Matrix for itself but for what it tells us about THE REAL WORLD. Almost all computers are von Neumann Machines. In 4 years at IBM I never saw the term on any IBM documentation and never heard anyone say it. I only learned it after I quit, even though I built a computer at home a few months after I started with the company. It was a von Neumann machine too.

The matrix in the real world is all of the lies and information hidiing and people believing the delusions created by that bullsh!t. You don't hear economists saying accounting should be mandatory for everyone in our schools but we all need jobs. They don't want us making good decisions with our money?

Isn't it funny how Neo made $2000 the night before he is standing in front of his boss being lectured like a little kid?

He needs some legitimate income source to hide his illegitimate income source.

"The Matrix in the real world is all of the lies and information hiding..."
I'm reminded of the video game Metal Gear Solid in which the General tells the hero that it is okay for them to control all information in the world since it is for the good of society. They tell the hero the alternative is to "imagine every lie, truth and half truth lingering for all time. Never dying. Always accessible. We will drown in information." Information is perhaps the most dangerous weapon of all. It is as dangerous for someone to have it as it is to withhold it. Morpheus is a perfect metaphor for that.

Metaphorically speaking, Morpheus'S duplicity speaks to the fact that he is in many ways an abusive father that you cannot afford to hate. He has tricked and abused you to do his bidding but in the end where else do you have to go? The alternative is to return to the Matrix....oh yeah, I forgot you can't return thanks to him.

Tozy raised a good point about they'd already made the choice. This is yet another bit of tongue twisting from Oracle. You cannot see beyond a choice you don't understand but you also can't understand a choice if you don't know you have made it. You can't decide to give up your life if you don't know that that is what you are being asked for. If I came to you right now and told you "Join me in the military. We're going to Iraq. There will be many dangers but there will be many glories as well. Come with me. It was be a blast!".
Well naturally your answer will be "Heck no, I like my head being attached to my neck just fine"

My point is you don't have to "experience" a warzone to fully understand the choice you are making. You don't have to drink sewerage to know it will probably not taste good. And you don't have to leave the Matrix to understand the consequences of leaving. My point is not that they were not ready to understand. They were all carefully measured and weighed as to how to get the desired result and to circumvent their understanding. The thrust of my point is this:

Morpheus is your wise and knowing guide through this perilous world outside the Matrix. If it weren't for him you probably wouldn't have survived the perils outside the Matrix.

I would thank him for this, except that if it weren't for Morpheus they wouldn't need to worry about the perils outside the Matrix.

Perhaps Neo is the success that he was because he didn't let himself stay married to "victory" on Morpheus's terms.

Evolusionary wrote:

Tozy raised a good point about they'd already made the choice. This is yet another bit of tongue twisting from Oracle. You cannot see beyond a choice you don't understand but you also can't understand a choice if you don't know you have made it. You can't decide to give up your life if you don't know that that is what you are being asked for. If I came to you right now and told you "Join me in the military. We're going to Iraq. There will be many dangers but there will be many glories as well. Come with me. It was be a blast!". Well naturally your answer will be "Heck no, I like my head being attached to my neck just fine"

You forget that:

Trinity: I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night you sit at your computer. You're looking for him.

As opposed to your Iraq-example, Morpheus didn't approach Neo out of the blue. Neo had dedicated his life to searching for Morpheus.
Why?
Because he already did reject the Matrix -> he already had given up his "normal" Matrix-life to search for an answer:

Trinity: I know, because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us mad. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question just as I did.
Neo: What is the Matrix.

Neo wants to know what the Matrix is because he hopes to understand why he hates his life so much:

Trinity: you have been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be

No tongue twisting, but the choice already made and the desparate search for the... WHY.

Evolusionary wrote:

My point is you don't have to "experience" a warzone to fully understand the choice you are making.

As I have pointed out above I don't think you can apply this example to the situation of potential redpills.
The choice to join the military is highly influenced by society, family, a particular situation, etc. (and I have heard of quite a few soldiers who have returned from war quite disillusioned and traumatized...).
The choice to reject his Matrix life, however, came from deep within Neo. He didn't reject the Matrix because someone approached and influenced him, because there was a war to be fought or else.
He rejected it because...

she stumbled upon a solution, whereby nearly 99 percent of all test subjects accepted the program

...and 1% just don't.

Evolusionary wrote:

And you don't have to leave the Matrix to understand the consequences of leaving.

But when you, as I've pointed out above, are among the 1% who reject the Matrix, you have to leave it to understand why and - even more important - to move on, because fear of the consequences of your choice doesn't unmake the choice.

Just like in:

Neo: Are you saying I have to choose whether Trinity lives or dies?
Oracle: No. You've already made the choice. Now you have to understand it.
Neo: No. I can't do that. I won't.

Does he turn back?

Evolusionary wrote:

Perhaps Neo is the success that he was because he didn't let himself stay married to "victory" on Morpheus's terms

And he would have been able to come to this insight from 0 staight to 100? Without Morpheus starting him on the path of experience; a path that enabled him to touch on, understand and transcend, the 1,2,3,4,5...99 in between?

Or else,... without Morpheus using subterfuge, he still would be an unhappy bluepill inside an unchanged Matrix.

tozy wrote:

And he would have been able to come to this insight from 0 staight to 100?

That's the very essence of Satori. A bamboo stick hits a rock or a gate slams on your foot, and bam you realize you're enlightened

If it's really from... 0 ... to 100, why then bother being a practicing Buddhist?...

tozy wrote:

If it's really from... 0 ... to 100, why then bother being a practicing Buddhist?...

Exactly!

Once again Tozy has raised an excellent group of counterpoints. The jist of Tozy's argument is that Morpheus didn't play on their fear as much as give them a way to address them. It would be a lie if I didn't say that were the truth. However, you can only "save" someone who is in mortal danger, not someone who is in temporary danger.

Morhpeus told Neo "I apologize. We have a rule. We never free a mind past a certain age. It's dangerous. THE MIND HAS TROUBLE LETTING GO!"

So what he is saying is as the mind gets older the more comfortable it makes ITSELF within the Matrix. The Matrix does not become a more inviting illusion. The mind simply starts to fight it less and less as likes it more and more as time goes on. Cypher is the ultimate example that with enough time even a bluepill can just as easily assimilate back to his life within the Matrix as he can to life in Zion. I guess it really comes down to which is more important to him.

"I thought I wanted to know the truth. But I realize now that the truth doesn't matter. What matters is how we live our lives."

Tozy's point is that they weren't suckered into anything, they were simply given a door to what they already wanted. However, what they wanted is an elephant's tusk. Instead they got the whole elephant. They didn't think they were getting an elephant.

If someone were to come to each of us tonight and say "Your current life is not real. I can show you your real life but you can never leave it once you see it. And I cannot give you any details of whether your 'real' life is better than this one", how many of us would go? Not many.

How many of us would run away?

Shouldn't you have the choice?

Good point about that Capt. When you know, you just know.

One of the keys to understanding the matrix is the Hegelian Dialect, that of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis.

The achitect represents Neo's inner mind, it is about the choice between intution and reason. In every reincartion Neo has put reason before intution and failed. This time he chooses intution, the feminine principle.

Agent Smith and Neo are One and the same, as Neo gets more powerful, so does Agent Smith. In the end Neo finally stops fighting with 'himself'. Once he stops fighting with himself (agent smith) agent smith shows his true colours. Agent Smith says 'Is it over yet?' Agent Smith symbolises Neo's fears, when Neo stops fighting with himself, he stops fear getting the better of him. He becomes enlightened and the war stops.

Mopheus represents God, or the Creator, he is what brings the masculine and the feminine together. The trinty (of which trinity is the feminine figure) is the basic foundation for the universe, the interplay between masculine and feminine forces.

Matrix 1 is the Thesis, Matrix 2 is the Antithesis, Matrix 3 is the Synthesis, hence in matrix 3, Neo blurs the lines between the inner and outside world.

To understand the matrix it is worth looking at the links between astrology and the bible. There are 12 disciples and 12 months, there are 4 gospels and 4 seasons, the bible is about the big bible in the sky, the heavens. Hence the saying, on Earth, as it is in the heavens.

Not bad for a first post, Reconnect. I like where you're going with things

There is no meaning to life, the meaning of life is to give life meaning.